Walk Around

I am sitting on the floor, at a pine coffee table I bought from IKEA a few months back. Simmering on the stove is a blend of herbs I formulated for the challenges of my current stage of life. In the oven is a piece of salmon caught in a distant ocean. I am typing on a laptop that is essentially a magic rock, made of elements (Aluminum, Copper, Gold, Selenium, Silicon, rare earth metals) from super...

Without honesty, life becomes a pantomime. And yet it’s hard to know what’s true. I’ve found that truth unfolds in concentric rings; like ripples in a still pool of water, or the growth of a tree. And each ring references, yet also takes space from, the previous. And so only in cycles of time, and in seasons, is a kind of long term knowing revealed. It’s easy to forget that there is a kind of glac...

Vic Playlist Apple Music •  Spotify TRANSCRIPT A long time ago, I used to have some friends who liked to go around the country by riding freight trains They'd hitch out of Omaha or Lincoln or usually Kansas City and end up in Pennsylvania or Montana, California, Arizona I never caught a ride with any of them I didn't really ever have the chance But I liked to sit with them on the rails and the bri...

At the checkout counter, the southeast Asian guy whose country affiliation I can’t quite figure out smiles at me and asks how my day is going. We smile back and forth, subtly catching each others eye, like we are in on the same joke that neither of us know. His haircut is high and tight, he’s got a golden wedding band, he’s always here at apna, the Indian cafeteria and grocery store I come to for...

Lake You are a young girl playing on a log with your brother and dog The water in the lake clear and cold and deep, the rocks warm on the bank, little cottonwoods grow on the edge, in the distance: Mountains near enough to cast their shape on the waters surface. The water blue and green some rocks white, moved there in glacial time. One day you will be a woman Living in a city apartment And you wi...

Transcript Hello... I am on the hillside listening to two coveys of quail call back and forth They've been slowly getting closer over the last 15 minutes, and I think they're going to link up I saw one group They had a bunch of fluffy little hatchlings running around I don't know how big the other group is though I'm below a range of mountains with snow and avalanche gullies, forests up the sides,...

There’s finality to certain things in life. One kind has to do with naming something. Another has to do with speaking its name. Listen for some thoughts on quietude in vast spaces.https://walkaround.run/p/owhyee-country Public lands are in the process of being sold. Call your reps!(202) 224-3121 https://www.backcountryhunters.org/take_action#/ Owyhee Canyonlands: Road to 30 Postcards More on North...

Distilled moments of presence in nature More at: https://walkaround.run This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.walkaround.run

Transcript Hey there So I am walking the backside of this little meadow, forested area where my mom lives It's on the edges of old farmland and I'm about to hop over a split rail fence, which is a little awkward, it's a little tall There's some, a lot of native plants around here, and also some volunteers from elsewhere Oregon ash and cottonwood, willow, aspen There's a grove of hawthorn in full f...

DONATIONS I am currently at a residency, in the midst of a self-funded project. Donations on Buy Me A Coffee , PayPal , or Venmo are all seriously appreciated right now—Thank you! In this episode I share a poem I wrote in Idaho last summer, reflections on the residency I'm attending, and some insight about remnants, joy, and grief—life, and death. I also have shared some photos from recent times....

If you think about it, what draws people toward something these days is often about reclaiming our humanity. What's healthful, and thus has gravity, are positive expressions about who we are, resiliency, and beauty, especially amidst hardship and grief. Dance, song, creating—expressions of our hands and bodies, and what we can do as humans. The modern craft movement is reweaving the tapestry of ou...

There's a moment in most of Miyazakis films, when the dialogue and often the music cuts, and a single character (usually the protagonist) is left alone in the raw and open experience of something. It takes mastery to convey a moment such as this, a moment of space and presence. This is the kind of moment I can relate to, when I know that I am who I am, when everything makes sense, when I know righ...

Transcript This morning I downloaded and logged into Instagram Something I haven't done in a month or two I mostly got off of the platform because I don't really think it's doing good things for humanity The problem is so many people use it Their communication and time is used up on it And many people have a picture of their reality from it And so to not participate is somehow to not exist as a cr...

Questioning my assumptions, and an encounter with Amanita, the Fly Agaric mushroom. Be sure to check out the images of the Nehalem and Wilson as well as the dunes at Bayocean Spit on the website This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.walkaround.run

Hello, Welcome to Walk Around. This is Hudson Gardner. It's been a little while. I've been out and about, traveling, hiking, running, doing things that I love, spending time with wonderful people, seeing beautiful things, having really beautiful conversations—learning about myself, learning about others, and by that, learning about this world we all co-create and exist in together I'm back in Port...

Transcript (includes errors) Hello. Welcome to Walk Around. This is Hudson Gardner. I am sitting at the edge of a field where the trees come out a little bit into the grass. And there's a little secret spot surrounded by hawthorn trees, there's an aspen that has a lot of young aspen around it. And down beneath the willow tree is a place that I come and make a little fire and have tea. I want to te...

This poem came to me when I was sitting on the rocks near a wharf off water street in Port Townsend. I had climbed down off the sidewalk and found a spot where kids hang out and tag. It’s a quiet place but some other person came with a notebook and started sketching. She kept looking toward at me, and I wonder if I made it in the drawing. I’ve been out on my bike recently, and the color of the sky...

As spring has gotten into gear around here, I've been noticing the general abundance of plant life, and weather, and birds, and social engagements—and it's got me reflecting on different kinds of abundance, overabundance, scarcity, relationships, community... From that corner of the human experience of consuming and creating the dynamic between those two aspects of our nature, you could say... Lis...

This podcast covers the issue of addiction. If you are in need of help, call the national hotline , 988. Transcript (may contain errors) There's a bell that I've taken around with me wherever I've lived I can't remember where I got it, maybe in Portland at the Japanese Garden And I've often hung it up outside and the sound has become familiar, even as all the places I've lived have changed for so...

A week ago I sent my friend Jen a poem I wrote called Selfheal. They told me that they too have a meaningful connection with the plant, and then sent the above image back. When I saw it, for some reason these words came: "Believe in your next steppingstone." Jim Harrison interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L3STymsjeg&t=932s Listen and read more: https://www.walkaround.run/p/the-most-import...

Recorded near Port Townsend, Washington. A short rumination on movement, landscapes, and people—how they all connect. I read a poem called By Firelight, and discuss a run I took on Christmas Eve. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.walkaround.run

Transcript (Includes typos and run on sentences) Welcome to Walk Around. This is Hudson Gardner. I've always been attracted to edges. And I feel like I've written about it. About edges, I guess, many times, trying to understand Why I'm always kind of going along to edges and right now I'm sitting right at the edge of light in open oak woodland in western Oregon in the Willamette Valley. It's a rea...

This is Hudson Gardner. Welcome to Walk Around. Right now I am sitting in the shade. It's really hot today. So I’m sitting next to a guest house I'm living in, looking out across an unmowed, untended field. It's kind of like a little pasture. This is actually a place I've been coming since I was four or five years old. The first time I came here, I can't even remember. But it's my aunt's house. An...

Globemallow Year after year after year Smooth rocks smoothened By water and even sand in wind and even wind Juniper scrub grew to a tree                split and died Remains as snag             mostly still alive Rodent holes take refuge in sandy soil Beneath the globe mallow crop waiting for the seven year piñon to drop Seeds. Many young even Oaks in little gullies of green grass meadows hidden...

In many ways my experience is as vast or constrained as I allow it to be. I mused on this idea in this week’s show. My conclusion? Walk around, and look around. And maybe be slower to be define how something is, or isn’t. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.walkaround.run