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Slow Mover @[email protected] · 2026-08-28 · 14:04 UTC

Casting into Dark Waters

During this time, when I have been troubled by thoughts that lead me down shadowed pathways, when my nights have been filled with dreams that disturb even my waking hours, I have found myself standing again and again on the shores of ponds.

I cast into the dark water.

Then cast again.

And again.

Places that earlier this summer yielded fish after fish have gone strangely silent. I use the same bait. I cast into the same places. I work the shoreline where I remember the splashing, the sudden tug, the frantic reeling as something alive fought beneath the surface.

But now my line keeps returning empty.

And because my mind is already inclined toward such things, I begin to wonder whether the universe is somehow responding to the inner landscape of my disquieted soul.

I know how strange that sounds.

Perhaps the fish simply aren’t biting.

Perhaps the water has changed, the temperature shifted, the season moved almost imperceptibly onward.

And yet there are times when the world outside seems so closely joined to the world within that I cannot keep myself from wondering.

Why now?

Why the silence?

Why do the places that once seemed so abundant suddenly refuse to give anything back?

This morning I followed a friend to a pond I had not fished for many days. Earlier in the summer the surface had become so thick with algae that casting was nearly impossible. I stopped coming.

That pond had spoiled me at the beginning of the season. For a while it seemed as though wherever I cast there was a bite. Fish splashed in the shallows. The line tightened. I reeled frantically, laughing sometimes, trying to bring them safely to shore.

Abundance everywhere.

This morning, when I arrived, the algae was gone.

The water was open again.

Immediately something in me lifted.

Maybe today.

Maybe this place had been waiting.

Maybe the season of silence was ending.

I cast.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

I changed directions, changed distance, worked the shoreline.

Nothing.

The same bait that once brought fish after fish came back untouched.

And once again I found myself standing there staring at the water, wondering why.

But before I reached the pond this morning, something else happened.

Driving down the dirt road, I saw a hawk sitting on a telephone line.

As I approached, it lifted itself into the air and flew away.

I don’t entirely understand what happens inside me when I see these birds. Hawks, eagles, the great winged raptors—I have encountered them at different moments of my life, and somehow they have become signs of hope to me.

Not omens exactly.

I don’t know that the universe sends hawks specifically for me.

But sometimes the heart recognizes a symbol before the mind knows what to do with it.

As that hawk lifted from the wire this morning, emotion rose unexpectedly inside me.

By the time I reached the pond, I was almost in tears.

Then I stood beside the newly cleared water and cast into it.

And caught nothing.

Still nothing.

Yet perhaps that is not the whole story of this morning.

I came looking for fish.

Perhaps what I needed was the hawk.

Perhaps I needed the moment when something resting quietly above an ordinary dirt road suddenly opened its wings and rose into the sky.

Perhaps hope does not always arrive as a tug on the line.

Sometimes the water remains silent.

Sometimes the bait comes back untouched.

Sometimes the thing we were hoping would return does not return, at least not yet.

And still something flies.

I leave the pond without a fish.

My hands smell faintly of bait and pond water. The line is reeled in. The surface closes behind my final cast as though I had never disturbed it.

But somewhere inside me there remains the image of that hawk lifting from the telephone wire.

And with it, fragile as it may be, a thought:

perhaps today is not the day when everything becomes clear.

Perhaps it is only the beginning of calm.

A small clearing of algae.

A little open water.

A winged hope rising into the morning.

A quiet, gentle place where, for a little while, my spirit might rest.

#casting #ContemplativeWriting #darkWaters #Dawn #disquietedSoul #dreams #faithAndDoubt #Fishing #fragileHope #gothicSpirituality #hawkSymbolism #Healing #innerLandscape #mentalLandscape #natureAndSpirit #peaceWithin #poeticProse #pond #signsOfHope #silence #SpiritualReflection #stillness #surrealReflection #Symbolism #wildernessSpirituality

#casting #contemplativewriting #darkwaters #dawn #disquietedsoul #dreams

ᎬᏒᎳᎥᏁᎥsm @[email protected] · 2026-07-06 · 03:20 UTC

✮ Blinker ✮

We spend so much time blinking and looking away,
we blink so much that we don’t realize our fuse is alight.
A turn of the dial,
into another scene,
never rooted in the moment,
as transient as everything mortal.
We blink, to erase the unpleasant,
we blink, to jump forward,
coil our bodies around rest,
wrap paychecks inside our hands,
so, we can blink a little more.
We skip and jump out of the day,
when tomorrow is worse than today,
we blink it away,
as if we have unlimited blinks,
and soon enough we’ll hit a wall
and wish we could have kept our eyes open
more frequently.

Here today; gone tomorrow, never take anything for granted.

When complaining about long walks, someone is dreaming of having such luxury. Walks that people take for granted mean everything to someone else who is bound by a condition that prevents them from doing so. They could be bedridden; they could be hiding in fear in a war zone; they could be impeded by physical conditions that limit them.

You complain about tidying up. It’s because you have a home. You stress out over traffic. It’s because you have a car. You can’t deal with the noise. You have a family. Someone out there wants what you have but can only dream of it.

When frowning in dissatisfaction over a prepared meal, think about that person who took time and poured every ounce of their heart, hoping to bring you happiness. Think.

Be grateful that you are in school; not everyone is afforded such an opportunity. Not as a promise to secure a job, but to learn. Bitterness often comes from discounting what people already have. Contentment, as they say, is the key to happiness. Dream, but be forgiving. If it’s yours, it will come to fruition. If not, steady your heart and live with what you have.

Never neglect people or things that add, give, and bring value to your life. Blessed are those who can’t count how many people they love with their fingers. If you do, you’re already rich. Hurray! You will have someone to turn to.

At the end of the day, when all that you take for granted is gone, what will be left of you?

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