Plato's hypothesis revisited

 

the phantom missing

we are born, and we grow up,

often as only halves of wholes

that need something to be added to be complete,

we need to find just who we are

by connecting to anorther,

I think of amputees

who still feel the missing limb,

it's like that,

the sense of something vital missing,

though you never had it before, except in your heart,

part of yourself, some addition that somehow

makes you even more "you"

then you have ever been before,

finding the glue that holds the love and joy within you

with the love and joy within another,

and actually makes you closer to who you ought to be,

I wish for every person to stumble into such a completing relationship,

this early morning, I feared I had lost my better half

when she fell in the night, coming back to bed,

I felt undone,

bereft of she who makes me more complete

than I could have imagined before we met

and then gloriously became a couple,

I am thankful that we are not yet cast asunder,

1 + 1 = 1, just more complete.

by Henry H. Walker

June 15, ‘26

 

invert anthropomorphism

anthropomorphism: to project onto the world human traits,

in terms of nature,

we have imagined that testosterone-driven competition and war

is paralleled in the animal and plant kingdoms,

where all plants and animals see the world as zero-sum

that if one wants something,

it has to come at the expense of the other,

that's how Rome was built,

conversely, recent research opens the possibility

that below our feet mycorrhizal fungi

have built a Wood Wide Web

of cooperation and blissful togetherness,

for that is the truth many of us want

particularly to contrast ourselves with the aggression of self-centeredness,

we need to invert anthropomorphism

so that we manifest the universe in our selves,

and then we can choose which aspects resonate mostly surely

with who we feel ourselves to be,

we an choose how to live a fullness

that the natural world has evolved

over billions of years of trial and error,

while following the imperative to connect and build

and to resist the imperative to break down and destroy,  

we are of the stars, both for good and for ill,

an Indigenous prayer I love asks the Earth to teach us:

to learn lessons hidden in every leaf and rock,

to learn resignation from the leaves that die in the fall,

to learn regeneration from the seed which rises in the spring,

to apprentice ourselves to the natural world,

one we learn some wisdom

then it is safer for us to act.

by Henry H. Walker

June 23, ‘26

The Sun and Us

 

Summer Solstice '26

we humans believe ourselves to be creatures of Light,

our moods can darken,

we can be enlightened,

I consider the Summer Solstice today,

for months the rising and setting Sun

has methodically marched north,

sunrise earlier and earlier,

sunset, later and later,

deciduous plants, both perennial and annual,

have "made hay" while the sun has aggressively powered

the photosynthesis in their leaves,

we stand today at the peak of what the Sun

gives to the northern hemisphere,

tomorrow we will start a slow long decline in yours of daylight,

the heat won't notice for awhile

because there's a lag time

before cosmic changes manifest

as to what we can feel with our skink,

we still have months of the bounty of produce,

as cornk tomato, all manner of vegetables and fruit,

set their selves and command their harvest,

the sweat on my brow matches the saliva in my mouth

where my hunger anticipates

wht the growing season can produce,

the Sun by itself, without timely rains,

will help made the austere beauty of desert,

and that certainly has its glory,

around me, in the piedmont,

the trees have rooted deep enough

to mostly use the abundant ground water,

stored below over the many millennia,

to audaciously continue to throw their canopies into the sky,

in the garden, well water allows me

to keep the tomatoes, beans, squash, cucumber growing,

though the young okra just suffered predation

from a hungry rabbit, who savors the succulence

of watered growth in these dry times,

now is when our hearts hope for us

to return to the mountains, to the Smokies,

where we can well celebrate the turning of the year,

and the glory that the Earth can throw back at the heavens

in appreciation of the cosmic,

manifesting in the abundance 

of growth, of beauty,

maybe of enlightenment.

by Henry H. Walker

June 20, ‘26

how much in this moment

 the moment: interior vs exterior

decades ago, I remember getting up here to the Smokies

after a light snow had created its magic in the woods,

I brought with me our need to buy a car

in the midst of excessive natural beauty,

my mind whirled with calculations

of how much we might be able to pay a month

for necessary transportation,

once I led a group of middle schoolers

to a gorgeous cascading waterfall, Ramsey Cascades,

and I asked them to write

what was working on their spirt there

many had an "I-thou" relationship with the glory of where they were,

one girl wrote of the tempest of a friendship,

I am sitting by the creek below our cabin

the most grounding place I know,

and while I am here, I am also two and a half days ago

when my wife fell before me soundlessly in the night,

and I became lost inside, catapulted to a worst case scenario,

of surely losing her,  she who grounds me,

even more than this pastoral pol in the creek,

after doctors and nurses observed and tested her, time after time,

they released her, and allowed her to drive some on the way back up here,

I sit amidst rock and stream,

by a beech who lives its own life 

on a scale, and with a depth, I can barely touch,

I want to be here and laugh with the stream,

endure with the beech,

and still I am now with an anxiety

that is personal

and easily crosses over into despair,

as to what a throw of the dice

might slap me with the hardness of its truth,

for now I savor the moment

and joy that I can still embrace this moment.

by Henry H. Walker

June 21, ‘26

change comes at us

 loss, loss, or gain, gain

there are some rhododendron by the dropping creek

with foliage relatively sparse, as if they are not happy,

near 10 years ago a fire erupted around here

and burned too much of the forest to the ground,

these rhododendron seem to have PTSD,

they hold on, but their heart isn't in it,

the two foot thick beech doesn't seem to have noticed

entropy's assault upon these woods,

neither do many of the neighboring rhododendron,

we had to take out a great double red oak nearby

because of damage from that fire,

now around its magnificent stump,

we have planted glorious wildflowers,

hoping for myriad small gardens in the pace

opened up by the loss of the dominating teee,

death has its sadness

and also provides opportunity

for next chapters to be written,

I am stuck in a quandary:

does passing time say "loss," loss"

or does it also say "gain, gain,"

the revelation of a new chapter

that is just as real and important

as the earlier piece of the grand story,

we both mourn and celebrate,

time passes and it van entice us with turning the page,

the next chapter can also be captivating.

by Henry H. Walker

June 24, ‘26

the mountain, and its moods

 

the adventure continues

today has been of the primal:

in the night life demanded I realize my fears of loss

and my inabilities to fix things,

to take care of others,

though when morning came,

I was still of giving and love,

I helped send off 14 family and friends

to hike up Mt. LeConte, Walisiyi to the Cherokee,

the day dawned with powerful thunderstorms:

lightning, usually 2-3 miles away, 

maybe way up the mountain,

rain beat down upon the world around me,

as the group finished breakfast and packing for the hike up,

the rain paused, mostly, for a few hours,

folks got to trailhead and began

the great effort of hiking hard up the mountain,

often rewarded by beauty of stream and forest, and rising ridge,

as the morning ran out of its time,

more thunderstorms settled on the mountain,

and on the hikers,

and my fears for them climbed

like they were climbing,

down here at the basement of the mountain

water flowed with abandon onto us,

the creek rose and rose, not enough to reset the stones of the stream,

but enough to brown the water

and roar the fall toward the sea,

I hope the storm has cleanses the upper reaches of the mountain

and allowed a sunset tonight to be there for the taking,

it didn't happen,

it's hard for me to realize

that my role in this whole endeavor

is so much less than it was,

how wondrous, though, that I still have a role,

that the next generation picks up the baton,

that I am dispensable,

that the experience of being one 

with the mountain and its moods can continue,

even for the hiking nine year-old,

for the middle school-aged hikers,

for the recent high school graduates,

for our niece, for our sons,

for friends joining the adventure,

there are a lot of circles that we hope will carry forward,

even without us,

and not be unbroken.

by Henry H. Walker

June 28, ‘26