a spark of gray

i've been an admirer of Sylvia Linsteadt's blog The Indigo Vat for some time now.  what drew me in initially was her work with wool, but i stayed for her lush descriptions and photos of the wild bay area she loves.  her combination of deep ecology and myth with lyrical writing is just enchanting...  she has also written for the Dark Mountain Project, most recently an essay called Turning Our Fairytales Feral Again.  so when she started a "wild tales by mail project," called the Gray Fox Epistles, i was curious - how odd to have a newly-penned story come via snail mail!  i couldn't resist the analog appeal.

i came back home to the first three epistles all at once.  the presentation is gorgeous, complete with animal tracks and lace lichen, seeds and petals.  it took me a couple of days to devour them.  these are not just stories, they are deep universes of imagination, history, animal knowledge and innovative prose.  so much more than i expected and so nourishing to my wild-deprived soul.  i've been tired of all my usual interests...  but these stories, they are the first thing i've come across that lit a spark for me, made me want to learn and think and move and maybe even write again.  

i have a good friend who said to me once, "there's no wild any more.  there's just captive and captor."  she is a wise woman, and i accepted her pronouncement, depressing as it was.  but Sylvia and the Gray Fox have made me see that there is still plenty of wild, out there and also within, maybe just out of reach, but strong and coursing in, through and around our man-made mountains.