Only in our doing can we grasp you.
Only with our hands can we illumine you.
The mind is but a visitor:
it thinks us out of our world.
~Rainer Maria Rilke
(trans. Macy and Barrows)

Once every quarter I practice retreat in a Hocking Hills tiny house surrounded by trees. I write, sit by the fire, walk, birdwatch, sketch, read, eat when I’m hungry and sleep when I’m tired. I settle into the rhythm of the day, listen to the rhythms of my body, and with each successive retreat, follow the seasons of the year. In October of 2024, it rained nearly nonstop. In January of 2025, the temperature barely cleared 0 degrees. In April, it “snowed” cottonwood fluff for the entire three days, collecting in clumps around my feet.

When I began this practice two years ago, I knew I needed the silence and the regular time away, but I did not realize how much I needed perspective and the grounding that being intentionally present to the turning of the earth– and my part in it– could offer. I didn’t realize how my mind, especially in this season of instability and global disconnectedness and fear, was “thinking me out of our world.”

To be illumined is not to cognitively understand; it is to open to the Light so that we can see– and be seen– rightly. Gaining knowledge doesn’t necessarily lead to deep knowing; sometimes it just serves to obscure what is most true. So I’ve been asking myself, how do I yield to the Spirit in daily life? What helps me gain perspective and illumine the stirring of God that is happening just beneath the surface of things? How do I truly and authentically live in the world, and not just visit it?

I don’t believe any of us has the answer– I definitely don’t– but being seasonally with the trees and the quiet makes it possible for me to hold the tension of the question with more grace and purpose. To recognize all beings as sacred, to recognize in myself the turning of the world, and do my part in the work of illumination, right where I am.