Katie’s Ground Podcast

Katie Andraski
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A newsletter about coming to the ground and catching light through words and pictures. katieandraski.substack.com

  1. 7h ago

    Numb or Peace: Does the Jesus Prayer Blunt our Emotions?

    I’ve been told beginner’s mind, not knowing mind, responding to the world with openness, like a child, is a way to follow Christ. But sometimes I wonder if we can be too quiet, suppressing legitimate angers or sadnesses. When I walk, I try to tell God what’s going on or pray for a few friends. Out loud because if I don’t talk, I’ll forget how. I fear I’m forgetting how. But often I fall to silence. When my thoughts wander, I was taught to pull them back to a centering word and so I do. Mine is “Thank you Lord.” My mind needs the break. Those walks feel like lying down for a nap. Aiden has learned to walk by my side companionably. Omalola is an old hand at that. Those walks are peaceful except when the dogs see a deer or a rabbit. I shiver a bit because if the dogs got away from me, I’d lose them. These walks have been like a good wind blowing away the brain fog. But I wonder if centering prayer can suppress thoughts we need to think. Or block things the Lord might want us to know. Occasionally I’ve had to pull out Google Keep to write words I used later for one of these posts because the creative magic was working. Have I numbed myself, am I avoiding anger, grief, or have I truly found the presence of God? Then while scrolling in Substack—I don’t get very far--in The Good Girl Recovery Guide I came across “Eight Subtle Signs You May be Dissociated” by Maria Cassano. She will be releasing her memoir Numb Party of One this February. In order to survive she numbed herself in response to her brother’s bipolar illness and eventual suicide. She defines some characteristics of dissociation: “From mindless scrolling, to getting lost in thought, to multitasking, to numbing out with food, alcohol, or substances, dissociation reflects a natural human tendency to mentally ‘step away’ from the present moment,” said Rebecca Kase, LCSW.1 Well, heck that sounds like me. I found myself in all eight: You are the most productive capable person you know. (Well, that was me when I worked.) You constantly lose track of time. You have a terrible memory. You feel like you’re living in a dream. You intellectualize your emotions rather than feeling them. You have a high tolerance for pain. You struggle to maintain boundaries. You feel like a stranger to yourself. 2 Sara Szal in Are You Dissociated, I Was? writes about how she was dissociated and how she found her way out through extensive therapy. She traced it back to childhood trauma. She lists a quick self check: highway hypnosis: realizing you don’t remember part of a drive, half-heard: missing part of what someone just said; Unreal world: people or surroundings feel far away; watching yourself: feeling like you’re watching yourself act; Not your body: a sense that your body isn’t quite yours; mirror stranger: not recognizing your own face for a moment; Lost time: losing track of how much time has passed; two different people, feeling like two different selves. 3 Yup sounds like me. I stiff upper lipped it when each of my family members died which prompted a long walk through grief. The other day I left the gate open, when it’s routine to shut it and Mrs Horse got out. Fortunately, she followed me back into the barn despite the ruckus Mrs Dog caused when she slipped out the door at the same time. Perhaps my diagnosed mild cognitive impairment is really a case of dissociation. Szal’s description of how she was cured, just makes me tired. Perhaps it’s enough to practice putting the phone away and settling into my senses and paying attention. Also opening the spigot in my mind by hand on paper. At least I hope it’s enough. Isn’t it a cop out to say “Lord Jesus Christ son of the living God have mercy on me a sinner” rather than feeling the anger or grief or even joy? I’ve noticed I can pray for people instead of talking to God about what I’m thinking or feeling. Wouldn’t it be better to let God know me, the God who searches our hearts, the one who made us? But honestly there are days all I have is a quiet thank you. And there are days I wake up afraid—when will some nasty malady or just plain aging call for packing up and walking away from this farm? Or when will the half of this country driven by the politics of envy, grow in their malice and take everything as they did in Mao’s China and Bolshevik Russia, Jacobin France and Revolutionary Iran? As they are doing in France and Spain. I guess I walk out on the road and tell God. The Psalms have been the prayer book of the church for thousands of years. They articulate emotions from “my God, my God why have you forsaken me,” to “this is the day the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 69 screeches, “I am sinking in deep mire…I have grown weary with crying…those who hate me without cause are more than the hairs of my head…” But this definition of dissociation seems so broad that anyone could find themselves ticking off each point saying, “That’s me. Oh that’s me too.” Seems to be we live in the age of the endless scroll and distraction, so we can lose time and memory. Putting dissociation as a label for a good work ethic and staying calm in a crisis also troubles me. People can also overindulge their emotions. I can return from my walk calm and collected, but then Aiden grabs a favorite stuffed toy and rips it, and I screech at him. Somewhere I read that in a monastery the irritating monk is a gift showing us our spiritual weakness. The Dalai Lama has said our enemies are our greatest gifts. Aiden does that well. Above all with him, I need deep breaths and calm or he becomes frantic, circling. Our quiet evening becomes one big circle. But he calms as I quiet. Well, since I don’t have a pastor handy, I asked Charlyne my question: Are we numbing ourselves or truly finding God’s peace. She said if you feel peace, then you feel peace. Don’t question it. It’s from God. Stephen Freeman in his post, talks about being numb. He says. Those who think on the ugliness of the world, or the rumors of terrible things and intentions, are, in fact, sleeping. It is a sleep that lulls us into a despair that will make shipwreck of our faith in ways that we cannot imagine.4 He reminded me of what St. Seraphim of Savoy says, There is a reason that St. Seraphim of Sarov says, “Acquire the Spirit of Peace and thousands around you will be saved.”5 It’s that peace I want because I long for the thousands around me to be saved. As a girl I used to think I could argue people into salvation, but if it worked, that was only by the grace of God, working in that person’s life, that maybe the word that doesn’t return void landed. I remember an impassioned discussion with a high school friend, who I think was an atheist. Some years later I came across his book about Catholic spirituality called A Way in the World written by this very same gentleman. That crazy evangelical arguing might have laid a seed. And I also think of the gritty hymn that tells of the martyrdom of the disciples. 1 They cast their nets in Galilee,Just off the hills of brown;Such happy, simple fisherfolk, Before the Lord came down,Before the Lord came down. 2 Contented, peaceful fishermen, Before they ever knewThe peace of God that filled their heartsBrimful, and broke them too,Brimful, and broke them too. 3 Young John, who trimmed the flapping sail, Homeless in Patmos died.Peter, who hauled the teeming net,Head down was crucified,Head down was crucified. 4 The peace of God, it is no peace, But strife closed in the sod.Yet, let us pray for but one thing:The marv’lous peace of God, The marv’lous peace of God.6 I’ve thought of this often. What kind of joy gave these men, and other martyrs the willingness to go to their deaths, often by torture. Some were hard to kill. Lord knows if it comes to martyrdom, I pray I have the joy or peace of eyes full of Jesus, to by Him, to stand firm. Let me say again, “The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in sod. Yet let us pray for but one thing: The marv’lous peace of God.” This week, the air broke crisp, clean and cold. The corn still stands, walls around the neighborhood. Harvest is coming. But for now, I kinda like seeing those dried rows, with flaccid ears, standing by as I walk towards the sun in the morning. The other day a rainbow showed up north of us, just a bar of colored light. I called Bruce on the phone to come look as it was behind the shed. The sun is coming and going too quickly. But has given us some glory in the late afternoon light cast across the yard and onto the barn. Despite the brisk air, he warms my cheeks when I walk out of the shadows. Works Cited 1 Maria Cassano. Eight Subtle Signs You May Be Dissociated, According to Therapists. Good Girl Recovery Guide. June 29, 2026. 2 Ibid 3 Sara Szal. Are You Dissociated? I Was. The Female Edge. June 14, 2026 4 Stephen Freeman. As The End Draws Near Silence. July 8, 2026 5 Ibid 6 William Alexander Percy. Hymnary.org They Cast Their Nets in Galilee Get full access to Katie’s Ground at katieandraski.substack.com/subscribe

  2. Oct 11

    America Like Broken Pottery. America with Dragons Roaming

    Mwanner/Wikimedia Commons[/caption] Fifty years ago, I was hired to do archeology at two New York State historic sites: Claremont, the home of Robert R Livingston who was one of the five who wrote the Declaration of Independence. I worked at Crown Point, an English fort located off Lake Champlain the same year we celebrated our nation’s two hundredth anniversary. I wrote the following about digging at Claremont: Sometimes I muse glass pieces we find could be chunks of the Hudson River mined and later tossed from the mansion. The frosted glass cools our fingers like summer water. It’s cheap in the ground unless it’s a candlestick base wrapped in with air bubbles, or a stem of a wine glass with a twisted gauze stair. Because they’re broken, the wine glass, the candlestick, the windowpane seem sturdier than when they bore wine and flame and a view.1 It’s hard to write about my love for this country because I have mixed feelings. Like the artifacts I pulled out of the ground, I know how broken we are—slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, genocide, so many millions killed in the womb, endless wars. But the very fact we name these evils, protest them, and work to change them belies our greatness—the sturdiness of self-reflection. But I wish we could stop ruminating on the wrongs and be grateful for the gifts this country offers like freely speaking and worshiping. Yes, I’m a little shy to admit that I love my country. I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective. If you’d like to hear me read this click here. That same summer there was a tiny art fair by the fort at Crown Point. I was taken by the dragons, fierce, fascinating dragons. I wasn’t sure why anyone would bring one to their home. I wasn’t sure why they wouldn’t. Here is a revised version of the poem: Dragons rose from plexiglass Held still by hammered copper, Talons clutched crystals Wrapped in spells Scales like tiny pennies Ran down his neck Along his back. My horror at his beauty, My fear taken form. I thought of these dragons as I continue to think about our country. It seems to me that the dragons are roaming, blowing fire between people, breaking relationships, breaking trust because of a person’s political affiliations, which is odd because presidents change every four years, Congress changes every two, the Senate changes every six years. So why are we clinging like a fundamentalist who shuns dissidents when our government will change? When Trump is gone? Our obsession with politics, how they’ve become a fundamentalist religion is dividing people. In “The False Comfort of No Contact” Noelle Mering writes, It’s often called going “no contact” — discarding family and friends over political or ideological disagreements. Though in some ways those hot button topics have receded or been replaced, many people, like citizens in a war-torn city, are still navigating a lingering obstacle course of rubble long after the bombs stopped dropping. With approximately 68 million Americans estranged from a family member, such ruptures are now quite common and affect friendships and families alike. Estrangement is nothing new, and sometimes, it is entirely warranted. But something has changed in both its justification and its direction — not to mention the frequency at which it now occurs.2 I’ve had this happen. Friends one day, gone the next with no explanation, no willingness to talk it over. A friend of over twenty years slapped the following meme on our friendship, saying she couldn’t shake it out of her head with regards to her conservative friends. “I’m so tired of being told ‘we disagree politically, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends!’ Dude your political opinion is that children shouldn’t be fed, that the poor shouldn’t be housed, that the sick shouldn’t be cared for, that women can’t control their bodies, that Americans can’t marry who they love or that certain people shouldn’t exist, then yes that most definitely means we can’t be friends.” We talked this over and made a sort of peace. But these stereotypes show a misunderstanding and an unwillingness to learn what conservatives think about these issues. There are good reasons, having to do with preserving our republic that resulted in Donald Trump’s double election. But there seems to be little self-reflection from the left as to their part in this. Just obsession with how the media and academia characterizes him. In The Righteous Mind Jonathan Haidt says: “The results were clear and consistent. In all groups, moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who described themselves as ‘very liberal.’ The hardest soul for a liberal to imagine is someone who approves of loyalty, authority, and sanctity.”3 In Liberals or Conservatives: Who’s really Closed Minded Andrew Biggs summarizes Haidt’s findings: But Haidt’s research went one step further, asking self-identified conservatives to answer those questionnaires as if they were liberals and for liberals to do the opposite. What Haidt found is that conservatives understand liberals’ moral values better than liberals understand where conservatives are coming from. Worse yet, liberals don’t know what they don’t know; they don’t understand how limited their knowledge of conservative values is. If anyone is close-minded here, it’s not conservatives.4 68 million people are estranged from each other. Seems to me we are all being manipulated into these estrangements, when perhaps our real enemy is not family and friends who see things differently than we do. Perhaps we’re all being haunted by a dragon that wants to divide us so it can swallow us in a totalitarian state that is much harder than the soft totalitarianism we’re under now. In A Rule for the Rest of Us Jen Michel Pollack makes the point that if we’re not careful our culture can form us spiritually as surely as reading the Bible and praying. She says: There is a concerted conspiracy against the practice of a faithful Christian rule and it demands a forceful, emphatic no to the sources of evil, which Christians have traditionally categorized as the world the flesh and the devil. The trinity of malevolent influence is at work to distract, discourage, deceive, divide, accuse, afflict, tempt. …Both sides, right and left, have swallowed among other lies, the deceptive idea that a political persuasion defines a person’s identity… Either way, when your politics becomes your identity, there remain no ordinary citizens, limited wisdom, and humbly trying to make sense of how we do our civic housekeeping. We have also swallowed the lies that politics can change the world. That we must do something to bring about change and to make that change reflect our political side.5 In How Powerless Are You Willing to Be Stephen Freeman in says: There is a certain freedom (though it be false) found in being able to shift the blame to others and put them forward as scapegoats. We imagine that making the world a better place can be achieved by fixing the goats (or getting rid of them). At its deepest level, such thinking is nothing more than envy, the “evil eye,” and it is the source of every murder, both individually and collectively.6 How does he say we should respond? By the cross, the “weapon of peace.” The Cross is ironically described as the “Weapon of Peace,” in Orthodox hymns. Though it may appear passive to outside observers, it is the most singularly “offensive” action of power available to us. The Cross triumphs even over death. The Cross is our self-emptying union with the Crucified Christ in which we offer ourselves “on behalf of all and for all.” It is both prayer as well as the inner shaping of our outward responses. When cursed, we bless. When struck, we turn the cheek. These are not symbolic actions, but actions of supreme spiritual power that diffuse the poison begotten in the evil actions of others. These are actions that “atone,” in that they cause an “at-one-ment,” a “union,” between a situation and God. Goodness in anything can only come about through union with God, in that He alone is the source of goodness.7 I’ve often wondered what it means to carry the cross, but after reading this I could tell you a story about how I was called a racist in front of my students, my immediate supervisor, the athletic director, how I had to answer to why I was offended and alarmed by black athletes saying “F” this class. I was shattered and found support with counselors at my school. I found the third way, the way of the cross, holding hard, going no further to confront the bullying behind this meeting. I was no victim. I was no fawn. I turned the other cheek and found this power. Well, I’m curious to hear what you think. What are your thoughts? What are the dragons you see roaming? Works Cited 1 Katie Andraski. When the Plow Cuts. Thorntree Press. 1988 2 Noelle Mering. The False Comfort of No Contact. National Review. October 4, 2026 3 Jonathan Haidt. The Righteous Mind. Vintage. 2013 Chapter 12 4 Andrew Biggs. Liberals or Conservatives: Who’s Really Close Minded. American Enterprise Institute. April 12, 2012 5 Jen Pollack Michel. A Rule for the Rest of Us. Waterbrook. 176 – 177. 6 Stephen Freeman. How Powerless Are You Willing to Be? Glory to God for All Things. First published in March 2022. 7 Ibid. Note: I used Google AI to find the quotes from Jonathan Haidt and Andrew Biggs. (I have read part of The Righteous Mind.) Get full access to Katie’s Ground at katieandraski.substack.com/subscribe

  3. Sep 29

    I Wrestle the Powers of Darkness and Forget About a Rainbow

    I walked out. Even though morning was mostly cloaked in gray clouds, the sun made the fields and distant woods glow. Slowly I watched a rainbow form, barely a whisper, one of those patches of light you’re not sure you’re really seeing. But then it brightened. Not the full bow, but a muscular bar standing. Across the field another whisper of light appeared. There was no obvious sun to make it. Just slate grey clouds. I thought about the rainbow promise not to destroy the earth by flood, not to destroy all the animals. The old story of the righteous man and the animals kept alive in the ark. I used to believe that Christians would be raptured when Jesus returned, but I don’t think so. If we were, I’d want my animals and even the farm to come with. But there’s much to be said about God being our refuge and strength. Psalm 46 talks about how God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. “Therefore, we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea.”1 Mountains I take to mean nations and civilizations. Right now, western civilization is crumbling. The center is not holding. The mountains are falling into the sea--the chaos of populism, the chaos of lies, the chaos of people breaking friendships and families over politics. We still have the power to change this by our vote. We have the power to change this by how we treat the people who see things differently than us. The dragon lurking over the horizon that I have feared is rising. I have not settled enough into these promises. I have not held them in my mind. Instead, I turn to the likes of Donald Trump and Governor Pritzker. Watching, reading Democrat and Republican stuff might be a witness but does no good. The Psalm goes onto say: “He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”2 I walked back to the house. “I saw a rainbow,” I said. Bruce looked tired. “You should go out and look at the barn door.” Morgen was eating her hay. I looked. The steel rivets had been popped off and the frame was broken. This is a big barn door. Hard to replace. Already, earlier she’d rolled it off the rollers and Bruce had to put the ladder up and I had to move the door enough so he could roll them back on the rail. That’s all I want to say but a wad of tears welled up , stopped at my chest. Mrs. Horse doesn’t get enough attention. My guilt sears me. I’d like to place her. But this has been her home since she was a coming yearling. It’s a dangerous time for horses. I watch the Fjord rescue desperately trying to rescue horses from the slaughter pipeline. She is our friend, probably brushing her, cleaning her stall and occasionally driving her into time slowed down is the healthiest part of my life. Those bedroom eyes. That wanting to be in my presence. We decided to move Morgen’s stall to the other side of the barn, so she would not rub her ass or shoulder on the door. We already had mats there, so we straightened them. At night we’d close the east door and leave the other east door open. I was plunged into darkness then, hard to breathe darkness. The kind where tears well at the kindness of a Substack reader whose comments showed he saw me. The kind that bubbles out of you, where you know your energy has become a suck hole. My hairdresser cut my hair—her little comments, good grief, you’re fine…helped. That evening I settled into “The Demonological History of the World” class that Zachary Porcu,3 is teaching sponsored by The Symbolic World4 .Why would I take this class? Because it’s good to how the church has viewed the powers of darkness from the beginning. Because the powers of darkness have shown up in my dreams. I have done battle with them, armed with the Jesus Prayer. Porcu talked about how early church fathers such as Origen and Augustine classified them. I came away knowing the demons fall to the earth away from heaven because they indulge the passions. They are heavy, indulgent and scammers. These creatures are liars. (And we live in a culture that is bathed in lies.) Porcu says that’s why fasting is good. The saints deny themselves. They take up their cross. They die before they die. They are light enough to glow with uncreated light. When I have wondered what the cross means in my life this has been the answer that comes back--You must die before you die. Being self-indulgent is not a good thing. My conscience was pricked. Porcu also said that demons hate the cross. He says he’s Italian, so he has one in every room of his house. Before our house was blessed, there was a resistance here that felt like a horse tensing to buck. It was obvious the house resented the deep changes we made. But even now, sometimes Aiden barks at the space by our spinning wheel, a place where a former owner was laid out for a wake. Sometimes I want to say, “The Lord rebuke you,” but the television is going. Ironically the cleanest room in our house is where our Native American prints and corn husk dolls are hung. Maybe because there was Christ and love behind their making. Our pastor has blessed each room including the barn and the place lightened. When I closed my-before-bed-reading and shut down the lights the tears came. My tears are not clean sorrows. The world hurts so much I visit the roots and dirt and closed box of the grave. I tell Jesus, “Please forgive me. The world hurts too much,” but this little farm is beautiful like paradise, I know it, but the darkness swirls. I weep. Lord have mercy. I like my comforts. I know this is an attack. I’ve had them before. Psalm 116 is as good as any description of this. “The snares of death encompassed me; The pangs of Sheol laid hold on me. I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord; ‘O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!”5 The next morning, I asked if Dr. Porcu could lead our group in prayer. “This class is excellent, but it has stirred up some things.” Benjamin Feehan, the class administrator, replied, “Dr. Zac expressed some discomfort in leading a large group in prayer, as he is not a priest and there are actual clergy in attendance. In the Orthodox tradition, one wouldn’t typically do so in those cases.” “I would of course recommend you take every personal spiritual precaution. Use every piece of spiritual ‘technology’ at your disposal. As Dr. Porcu talks about, cross yourself, wear a cross, put a cross on your wall. We Orthodox call the Cross “a weapon of peace” because demons /hate/ it. If you are Orthodox, get yourself holy water. Drink it and sprinkle your house with it. Heck, if you’re not Orthodox, perhaps your local parish would be willing to give you some. And of course pray. Ask your guardian angel to be with you, ask the Theotokos and your patron saint to pray for you. Say the Jesus Prayer and have a prayer rope handy. We are not alone in this fight. The very fact that someone like Dr. Zac has delved so deeply into these things and is willing to talk about them at all is a sign that we have only God to fear.6 That day, dog class did not go well. I have challenged my teacher because I know a few things about training, but Aiden, my boy Aiden is not an easy dog. We were doing rally, a dog sport that asks the dog to follow commands written on signs. It’s sort of like dancing. During the first run she said, “He doesn’t want to be close because you pull on his leash.” He worked a bit and then skirted off. “He’s feeling your stress.” Oh my yes, I was stressed. Still worn from crying myself to sleep. Still worn from wrestling darkness. It all showed up on my face and demeanor. The next run I put him on the leash. “This is over facing me and him,” I said. My blessed boy worked the course all right. My brain was shut down. That night, yet again, I lay down to tears. I am afraid of aging, of being frail. I am afraid I am losing my memory. My legs are stiffening. It’s hard to climb our stairs. It doesn’t need to be national trauma to blast apart my life. Being a body that will age and die is enough blast. Then I remembered Benjamin’s suggestion to make the sign of the cross. And so I did. Clumsily. And the darkness left. Just like that. And I went down to sleep. Psalm 116 again. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears my feet from stumbling. I will walk with the Lord in the land of the living.”7 I told Bruce the next morning we needed to get a cross, maybe several for the house. “Didn’t we have one? Where is it?” I asked. Later he brought out a brass cross that he’d received for confirmation. And for now, we laid it across a bureau in the bedroom. I shopped for them on Etsy and have begun nudging Bruce to make one. I put on the small silver cross my aunt gave me one Christmas. All this feels like superstition, but is not because the world is more marvelous than our materialist, post modern, scientific worldview would lead us to believe. Maybe the sun isn’t just a ball of exploding gas, maybe it is also a god, created to create heat and light for this world. Maybe the moon isn’t just ball of rock, but a goddess, throwing light our way at night, and pulling water this way and that. But not to be worshipped. Maybe the ancients worshipped gods that had power but were demons pretending to be higher powers and scamming people that they were something, when they are not. Often when I walk, I think about how God put everything under Jesus’ feet, all principalities and powers, under his feet. So my steps, the gravel crunching r

  4. Sep 19

    St. Ciaran Draws Animals. My Animals Draw Me

    Sunday, Sept 6, 2026 Walked out this morning with fog beginning to rise, the sun a milk white eye, stunning blue pushing the clouds to the side. Walked out with glistening, delicate spider webs spun in the weeds, weeds that have been particularly beautiful this summer, especially since the redwing blackbirds and killdeer are gone. Could it be the owl living in the neighbor’s barn, and the red tail hawk I see sitting on an electric pole by our neighbor’s pasture that drove them off? While putting up hay, yesterday our neighbor showed us pictures, those wide yellow eyes, those wide pools of darkness. He’d come over to help us put up a wagon load of hay. Bruce doesn’t usually like to ask for help but he saw Terry drive by. I was grateful. Before he got here, I hauled on those bales, tumbled together in the hay wagon. My arms and legs ached like they do and the words, “I’m too old for this” rumbled through my mind. I pulled one out of the pile, and other forty-pound bales tumble down. Any several could knock me off the wagon. Before he arrived, Bruce ran down the ladder to put hay on the conveyor and ran back up again. Terry traded places and tossed the bales off the wagon. I placed them on the conveyor. This was hay we had to buy because the last cutting had been rained on. We’d only had to do this one other time, when we lost 500 bales, as a front moved from Minnesota to Northern Illinois faster than we could bale. Even so my arms and legs and breath whispered this is too much. But on the other side of the fence, Mrs. Horse has to have hay. Mrs. Horse comes by for hay cubes and company, her eyes bedroom eyes. We hitch her and drive around the field, where time blessedly expands, and we are slow looking at the sky, occasional jets, and roadside weeds. Did I tell you this year, the roadside weeds have been particularly beautiful? I walk by the delicate purple of smooth blue aster, the shouting wild perennial sunflowers, shy white frost aster, the common evening primrose and biennial bee blossom. These plants feed pollinators. We’ve been seeing butterflies gathering. And the other day a small swarm of dragonflies darted over the drying corn. Martin Shaw’s Sunday morning story was about St. Ciaran, whose bell, given to him by St. Patrick, rang at the very place he was supposed to set up a monastery. It was dank, swamp ground, not appealing at all. Have you ever smelled a swamp? Earth and rotting water and slurpy creatures. Ciaran had the gift many saints have—being able to communicate with wild animals. Shaw spoke: Such different beasts, such different intelligences, but each made that spark of contact with the vastness of Ciaran and knew this was a place of peace. Some essential, quick connection that they recognized as truth – like flesh, or nuts and berries, or cool clean water is truth. The Dreaming Bell drew animals not humans as the first brothers of Ciaran’s wild monastery. It took Ciaran to dark, dank haunts. You’d need a sparky mind like his to stay dry there. And the animals taught him too, their temperaments’ energies he would learn to negotiate. Later, when humans started to arrive, it was this first apprenticing with his animal brothers that would show him quite how to approach them, strange and holy lad that he was. Sometimes animals were easier, and distinctly less hungry, than men.1 I wondered if that taming made work because animals dependent on humans need feed and water and shelter. Did these animals lose their ability to survive on their own, to let God tend them as scripture says? I wonder if there was a time when humans were saintlike and animals wandered in, choosing their people, offering themselves in service to us. I think about my creatures who call for my attention--Mrs. Horse calling me to come out, Omalola and Aiden each needing my focus, just me. Kalizoo, crawling into my lap when I read Morning Prayer and Smudgie climbing over my bedside table to watch over us from the top of the dog crate. Even Tyger, the feral barn cat pathetically cries, in the way cats do, because he wants us to leave, so he can eat. These animals call me to attention, to my body, when I’m off thinking about trouble. After a bout of loneliness, post Tessie’s death, Mrs Horse and dogs are bringing me to other people, so I don’t forget how to talk--a once-a-month lunch with women my age, tougher than me, working their farms and riding horses out on the trails. They were the ones who brought me to Aiden. The dogs have brought me back to my work as a writer, and classes that allow us to sit with each other and chat in between practicing. I learned how to teach my students, by looking for the things they did right. I learned how to stay with the difficult, the young, the wild, how my perceptions shaped my relationship with Mrs. Horse, and how changing those perceptions changed everything. I learned how to ride through fear, the ground and Tessie’s back holding me. I learned that horses and dogs understand our words. I learned to breathe and my breathing slows and quiets. Aiden has been teaching me about my short temper and reminding me that speaking to what he does right works better than what he does wrong. Omalola watches, wants me to remember she was here before Aiden, that I am her person. And the barn itself is a refuge of old wood and sparrows. Decluttering has become a madness. Sometimes it rises up and I want clear the house of stuff, while I have my wits and my health. I’ve whirled through my house, pulling books, sending them out the door, only to wish I’d kept this one or that one. I took stuff to a recent tack sale and sold a couple Breyer horses and a Mylar bit. I took old eyeglasses to Walmart for re-use. I took the picture I based the cover of my book to Salvation army because I found a picture I like better for that wall. I have a possible buyer for much of my Breyer horse collection. Maybe doing this pulled out the rock that will let the whole project slide serious sending stuff out the door. Maybe not. Someday the jig will be up—our bodies will wear out or die and I feel the urgency to get ahead of it. Even my dreams are full of packing up, trying to fit stuff in a limited space. Several friends have moved. I empathize too closely, thinking this should be us. I even wonder about placing Mrs. Horse in a home where she’ll be worked, where because the guilt of not doing much more than brushing her in the morning and throwing hay can burn like failure. When I think that, I walk out and see a tear running down her eye. She is happy here, but happiest when I give her hay cubes and scratch her back. She is a neighbor that needs tending and time. Those bedroom eyes, when she comes in the barn for currying and hay cubes and company. Bruce said when selling her first came up, because she was too much, years ago, you can’t take her back if you let her go. At that time, he said don’t do it, because it had been a grinding hard school year. And my vet says why not keep her, she’s happy, you can afford to feed her. And I settle into his words. But the farm is inching towards being too much. This week Bruce pulled the big heavy ladder and climbed to the gutters to clear them of leaves. The power went out last night, though thankfully our basement didn’t flood when the sump pump went quiet. This winter Bruce will take out the tractor to push snow back, open to the wind and the snow. Where will we go? We don’t know. Taxes, energy costs would rise. (We have geothermal.) Homeowners associations don’t sell themselves as good neighbors. We have no family to settle nearby. Maybe by then, these questions will be moot. I wonder if Ciaran’s animals missed him when the humans arrived. Did they wander back to the wilderness, or stay curled up outside the monastery walls, hoping for him to glance their way, drop his hands to stroke their backs, scratch their ears. The neighbor’s cows are crying for their babies. We heard their calls coming up from the valley last night . We heard them this morning. I couldn’t help but think about Rachel weeping for her children. It’s likely those calves have gone to be fattened and later slaughtered. The sunlight dances on the soybeans, the leaves like tiny waves catching the light. They are changing color, now mottled with green and yellow. Soon the leaves will fall, leaving beans withered and dried for harvest. Work Cited 1 Martin Shaw. St. Ciaran in the Hotel Lobby. Get full access to Katie’s Ground at katieandraski.substack.com/subscribe

  5. Sep 5

    You Said What? Take Up My Cross? With Hay Down the Rains Came

    Sunday Last night we woke up at 3:00 am as lightning flashed. Bruce got up, put his pants on. (I heard the rattle of his belt.) I heard the front door close. My eyes stayed closed. I sucked on a Melatonin and tried to go back to sleep. Finally, I got up, the dog following me. “The horse had the door open like she does.” That means the door was bent outward, stuck on a stump. We thought we’d pushed the stump away but it was still too close. Every time she bends the door, we hold our breaths that she hasn’t broken it. So far she hasn’t. When we push the stump out of the way the door clangs shut. That sucker is heavy. (No wonder my back hurts.) Years ago, Mrs. Horse rolled the big door off its rollers. Thankfully a contractor, who specializes in barns, was able set them back on, and “nail” a stop on both ends. There’s a parable somewhere about itchy horse butts and doors forced open. The gospel reading for this week is the hard one: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matt 16: 24 -25). What does it mean to deny yourself? To take up your cross? Everyone who heard those words in person knew what that meant—gruesome, naked, helpless, breath squeezed out, flies. I’m with Peter. I’d pull Jesus out of earshot, “Not you, Lord. Never You.” I imagine Peter thinking, “Geez, I love him. Someone needs to stop him from that suicide mission.” Besides, Peter just said he’s the Christ, the son of God. Our deliverer. He got a new name out of it—Rock. And the job to build his church. And the praise that the Father revealed this truth. How many of us get to have the Father reveal a truth people had been waiting centuries to hear? The prophets said that the Christ would defeat that old chaos monster--Leviathan, Empire would be smashed, Isreal liberated. Why would I want this man, who was better than good, this beloved, to suffer and die? Why does it have to be that way? That God has to die. He said he and His father were one, that he does what his Father says. What mortal does what the Father says? Job may have claimed blameless in one speech, but he plunged into complaint about how none of us could pass God’s muster in another. If I were Peter, I’d pull him aside too. Why does any of us have to die? I’m of the age where my friends’ husbands are dying or have died. The loneliness and disorientation gaps wide. There might be a wiping of tears, but there’s also regret, and anger, and I wish, I wish, I wish. At 70, mine or Bruce death looms large. I wake up afraid. I don’t mean to; I want to be one of the spies that trusted God to conquer the giants in the land. And there are giants looming as my hips stiffen, I am breathless more often than not, my memory washes routine to forgetfulness. There are giants looming in our culture that has made selfishness a virtue. People don’t share families like they did back in the day. If I were Peter, I’d take out my sword and take a swipe at the servant’s ear too. As an American I don’t even know how to deny myself. It’s too easy to swipe left and order what I want, for me, books, and they pile up on tables. Ice cream is easy to order. I’ve loaded the pantry with sweets because they call to me at night. And don’t get me started on my failure to go off Diet Coke. It’s too easy to read the latest on Facebook or Substack while the dishes sit in the sink and the cat’s box stinks. Getting out my address book and sending a sympathy card is too much trouble--what I have left undone. For me the cross is taking my neighbor to her hair appointment every week, but that task is also full of neighborly news that cuts through my personal loneliness. The cross has been going to another neighbor’s morning and evening, day after day to treat their mare’s moon blindness. It’s sitting at my desk, and listening to words that come, and dressing my sloppy sentences, while my hips stiffen, so it’s hard to get up from my chair. And these “good works” start to feel like earning brownie points. Though standing before the judgement seat looms. And I white knuckle the promise that he is able to present us before him blameless with great joy. And I shouldn’t even be telling you these good deeds. You know when a spiritual question is on your mind, like what does it mean to take up the cross, responses start showing up. Our pastor preached on this passage, challenging us with stories of people who loved not their lives unto death in other parts of the world, how for us it might mean we are ostracized or lose opportunities. He urged us to not shun difficult words that might bring trouble. David S. Harvey in Followers Follow Jesus says, “The cross’s threefold combination of suffering, rejection, and it being Christ himself is just too much for us. At some level, Christian history has been the story of how much, or how willing, we are to accept the story that Christ has placed us within. I think it sucks that Jesus had to die, that we have to die. Jesus called Peter Satan, accuser, tempter, not Rock upon which he would build his church. Satan. The same being who met Jesus in the wilderness, offering the world if he skirted suffering. He called Peter that very thing, the Messiah was supposed to obliterate. Harvey puts a hopeful spin on this by saying that Jesus put Peter behind him. That Jesus comes between us and Satan and evil. If “take up your cross” means that you must go and find some suffering and make it your own, then it does sound unusually harsh. But what if taking up our cross is doing what Jesus did to Peter? Getting Christ between us and what is evil, to stop rejecting my “death” in favour of others? In work, community, relationships, society, and even sports(!)? To stop requiring that others’ lose so that I can win? This. This makes sense. This feels like gospel. He spells this out more concretely by referring to Romans 12: 9 - 21: Each of these Christ-shaped values involve “taking up our cross” by refusing to inflict harm upon the other. Echoing Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, Paul invites us to resist dehumanizing one another through loneliness, isolation, ostracism, impoverishment, violence, power, or separation⁠ that are all forms of “death” social and otherwise. Yes ,this feels like gospel. It brings me up short when I want to grump about our hay not being cut during a span of dry days, only to have it dropped after gully washers poured dust into it. Maybe taking up the cross means, we resist the maxim “hurting people hurt people” by not lashing out when we are hurt. But I am still uneasy with the Christian emphasis on suffering with the cross at the center of our faith. I sometimes wonder if we’ve made the cross into an idol. I have felt the same thing as a young friend, who wondered shouldn’t we feel burned out and/or exhausted if we’re truly following Christ? I think we wallow in the suffering and gore. We butt up against: what I want to do I don’t do and what I don’t want to do I do when we try to deny ourselves. I certainly do when I decide yet again and again to give up Diet Coke. But maybe Diet Coke is a good gift. Maybe I should offer thanks for the pleasure it brings. Harvey says we eagerly skip past the cross to get to the resurrection: We want to jump quickly from Christ’s death to his resurrection so that we don’t have to ponder what it all really means. Our fight is to stay young and alive, what would it mean to contemplate that Jesus died? I’m not so sure. I think we don’t meditate enough on what Jesus’ resurrection and ascension mean for our lives. I don’t think we practice the part of “I am crucified with Chirst” that says “nevertheless I live, but not I, Christ lives in me.” This is the Christ who obliterated death. Didn’t Jesus’ resurrection change everything? Didn’t it make difference in the disciples who fled at the crucifixion, were so terrified of being killed they locked themselves in a room, fled to Galilee? Even good days, long stretches of good days that are peaceful, even happy, where it’s easy to be grateful are disorienting. Shouldn’t I be burned out? Ashamed I am so blessed? Afraid that in a twinkling of an eye or gradual slide it will all be taken from me, like it was Job? What does it mean to know the resurrection? To live the new creation? The earth’s fate, the earth groans for the revealing of the sons of God. What does that mean? Do we somehow live into what it says, “Whoever believes in Him have to the right to become sons of God.” Then I think of those lines from Hebrews, “Looking unto Jesus who for the joy set before him despising the shame.” Jesus who knew joy above his fellows. The joy set before him, even on the cross, crying in agony, with enough Presence to say, “Father forgive them.” Eugene Terekhin affirms this in The Soul is Always Dyed with the Color of its Thoughts. The only way to endure a crisis is to do the most counter-intuitive thing — prioritize joy over duty. The only way to survive hell is to keep enough visions of heaven before your eyes. Those who focus on fulfilling their duty will never fulfill their duty. Those who focus on joy cannot help but fulfill it. Jesus, descended to hell, who for the joy set before him, the joy of making “sad things become untrue.” The redemption of creation, including us, the joy set before. “Those who focus on joy cannot help but fulfill it.” My mother used to say, “There were two prisoners, one focused on the bars, the other the stars.” I never liked her saying that because I was a sad kid, but I see now how she had a point. Monday Well, well, well. At 3 am Bruce woke and saw that Mrs. Horse had shoved open the big barn door, wedging it against The Log. (This log used to brace the door shut, but her b

  6. Aug 24

    I Shout Out My Secrets

    It’s been like a bath here, humidity high, a gentle storm last night. Mrs. Horse took a big drink when I came out and wrapped her legs in fancy boots to keep the flies off. She was glad for her hay cubes and hay. The redwing blackbirds, robins, meadow birds are gone. Though after I said that I saw a King bird settle in the grasses. Seems early for them to fly south. We do have a couple hawks around. And the spray and smoke from a few weeks ago can’t be good. It’s been good to see barn swallows, gold finches, cedar waxwings and doves. The other day I saw a line of barn swallows on an electric wire. They too must be getting ready to head south. Finally, finally I found a structure for my essay collection, Baptisms of a Sorta Former Evangelical. It is very raw, but I got over my very real fear and even shame to even look at the stories because I’m admitting hard things about myself in the spirit of “hidden things shouted from the rooftops” a phrase Jesus used when he was warning the disciples against hypocrisy. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known. 3 What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs. (Luke 12: 2 – 3, NIV). I figure I’d shout out my secrets, though I will need to sit with some things, maybe ask what trusted readers think, because sometimes that kind of raw vulnerability isn’t useful to the reader. As I added poems from other work that filled in stories I wanted, I realized yet again how the writing tells tales on us and the people around us. Maybe because it comes from a different, hidden place that remembers and picks up on the underneath stuff. Sometimes I think poetry is as effective or more effective than therapy for kicking up forgotten things. There are essays I’ve sat on for years. I remember Jonis Agee saying, “Just because you wrote it doesn’t mean you have to publish it” so I left them in the file folder. When “How I Shucked What Others Thought of Me or a Virgin and the Creative Writers Workshop” was in the top thirty of The Masters Review Best Emerging Writers of 2025 contest, I cussed because the essay flies in the face of progressive mores. It’s not easy fighting for your identity, who you know yourself to be, even though your mother, and assorted people think differently. I found the joy of making again. Or perhaps I found the joy of confession. Or both. Reading Glorians by Terry Tempest Williams gave me a structure. She’s organized the book into sections and placed essays that aligned with the theme of that section. For instance under “The Epic Documentation of the Glorians” she organized the essays having to do her work as a professor. She defines Glorians by saying, “A Glorian is an encounter. A Glorian is a meeting with elan vital. A Glorian is a moment of grace” (15). She calls it the holy ordinary. vital. A Glorian is a moment of grace” (15). She calls it the holy ordinary. My book had already started organizing itself into similar sections as I worked on it. At first I was going to use the elements-water, fire, air, earth but found that the essay groupings were shaped into essay titles that followed the theme of that grouping. Here are the section titles: Baptisms of a Sorta Former Evangelical; Could I See God, Did I Want to?; In Search of Unicorns; Bruce’s Gifts; How I Made Peace With My Name and My Ass, The Water Horse. It’s rough and raw but I used Sarabande’s extended deadline and the gracious invitation: “We pick what we like. There will be no judge or agent.” We even had to click a box saying we’re not represented by an agent, which tells me they are serious about reading fresh voices. For the first time working with this material ,I feel that I have a book. I’m popping with ideas how to fix and tighten some sections. The book raises some artistic and spiritual questions I need to address (that wisdom of the inner poet, the Holy Spirit, speaking). This felt anonymous because I have an ice cube’s chance for them to like it. Or maybe not. Sometimes editors are drawn to raw. Do pray that the book will speak to a reader. (God is lavish that way. Perhaps the book has been written for me and that one reader.) I had a page limit of 250 pages so I turned poems from When the Plow Cuts and The Grieving Dreams into prose to fit part of the story I wanted to tell. I worked blindly and with joy, the joy of making something beautiful. There are essays that are more well written than I remembered, and essays that need trimming. And essays that are so vulnerable they need shaping. But I found the play again and hope. The big deal is that I pushed past my fear, and yes my privacy, to put the words down, to see them for myself. When I came across Joan Krumm in Woodmans, she asked about my young dog, Aiden. She said you need a dream again, and has been training me privately to get ready for the show ring, a world I’m familiar with from having finished a few champions in the 90’s. This elder woman, who wears beautiful blouses and lipstick, light up something in me, like the wise women in the old stories, not just for my young dog, though she is giving me good tools to call him into being a good dog, but also my writing work. This frees me up for other work too. I have a collection of poems that might need to be thrown into prose and expanded, which is up next. I sent that to Sarabande at the proper deadline with an essay added at the end. And prequels and sequels to The River Caught Sunlight, books I’m relieved I didn’t publish when I drafted them. I don’t know if I’ll share these essays with you or not. An anonymous editor, like telling your secrets to a stranger on the plane, is less risky. And some essays are long, and my stats show you all don’t go in for long pieces. (I published “How I Met and Married Bruce” here already.) This book may be just for me. Substack has added an AI check that I am turning off. It’s absurd that a machine is checking whether we are using a machine. This being suspicious of whether writers are using it or not, is another pain in the butt coming about as a result of AI, AI that has been pushed on us, in cultlike ways when it suddenly showed up summarizing our emails, in search engines and our word processors. The fact we have to keep draft after draft to prove we made our writing adds clutter and another barrier to already hard work. It’s not good that the reader writer relationship is no longer based on trust. Three of my photos won second place at the county fair. Bruce’s Christmas ornament won first place. I broke through the block to declutter and sold a few things at a local tack sale, but what a pain to put everything back. (I want to disperse most of my Breyer horse collection.) When I started this essay, the air was like a hot shower, but some cold fronts have cooled and cleared the air. When I’ve stepped out of the shade on my morning walks, the sun’s hand on my face has been nice. The locusts are loud. The wildflowers on the road still entrance me. This morning Aiden jumped after a bee on the bee balm. Well, that’s all I know for now. Well, what do you think? References Terry Tempest Williams. Glorians. New York, Grove Press. 2026 Get full access to Katie’s Ground at katieandraski.substack.com/subscribe

  7. Aug 2

    The Redwing Blackbirds Have Left, The Spray Does its Work, I Take a Ride in an MRI

    The red wing blackbirds have left. This time last summer they hung out on the wires, old friends that I greeted. They watched me, then flew from wire to wire. I hoped one would land on my shoulder prove I was a saint. No such luck. This year my rowdy dog would chase them. The kildeer don’t even trot ahead of me. I miss these birds. Even the robins are gone. But the barn swallows have stayed for now. One swooped by us as we turned into the driveway after our walk. And the sparrows make good noise. Our hay field became a killing field when we cut and baled our hay. The dogs found the wing from a redwing blackbird and a dried up toad. I pulled them out of their mouths and missed the flock that settled in our trees, riotous and loud, when they first arrived. I miss their chatter in the willows. For a bit I thought the hawks had left, but as soon as I thought this, I saw a red tail hawk sitting on top of our dead pine, a blackbird, next to him. When he dropped down to fly the smaller bird harassed him. Have they left because of the hawk? Bruce said he saw an owl sitting on the ridgeline of our barn. Have they left because of the owl? Has it been too dry for them? Or is it because there are no insects. The lightning bugs still came, their lights settled low along our yard. I tried to video them, but their blinks didn’t show up. It was a wonder seeing them as Bruce and I and the dogs walked in from our sunset walk. (Even here in August remnants of the sunshine glow off the northern horizon at 9:30. Still. Morgen has begun shedding for her winter coat.) Have the birds left because the sun says it’s time to go south? We thought the rain was coming, so I mowed, but all I did was clip the grass down to crackles underfoot. While I was mowing I saw what looked like a leaf that fluttered low to the ground. I stopped. Did I hit it? I got off. (I hate getting off the machine. If it stops, it’s not easy for me to start.) And went and got Bruce who was spinning the weed eater. It took a bit to get his attention. What is it? A moth. A giant moth. You could barely see it. He touched it with twig. It’s wings opened. Wide. With four eyes. Did I hit it? “No” he said. “They only wake up to mate and then die. They have no mouths. A polyphemus moth.” Last fall we saw a giant green caterpillar right near here. We put him by the birch tree. Maybe he came back in this new, beautiful form, though beautiful as a caterpillar. The corn has grown so tall and dense, when I peer between the rows it looks like a deep dark forest, where there is danger of getting lost, where corn gods might rise. If Mr. or Mrs. Dog took off into those corridors it would be easy to lose them. Once on a walk, we saw a deer step out of the willows by a low spot. Both dogs pulled hard. They’d be gone if I let go. I look at those shadows in the corn, the paths between the stalks and remember looking for arrowheads at a neighbor’s farm. He showed us the bags he’d collected. The rumor our land had a burial ground, was more likely his flat several loops of the Normanskill to the north. On the farm where I grew up I only found one. When I walk up to the Peterson’s farm, I can smell the sweet scent of tasseled corn dropping pollen to ears, each red silk touching each pale kernel. I can also smell the chemical. The other day a helicopter swooped and sprayed and rose over top of the neighboring soybeans. Another day, a heavy plane, it’s engine loud roared over our house and barn, aiming for beans the next field over. I admire the skill these pilots use, clearing trees and electric lines, and aiming to release their spray close to the crop but not on neighbors’ houses. Precision flying as the helicopter dropped down next to our neighbor’s house. Barnstormers. Precision flying that demands attention, a stomach strong enough to withstand the roller coaster of ups and downs and banking quickly off to the side. I couldn’t help but think of the drunk barnstormer who finally destroyed the monster alien ships in the movie Independence Day. I couldn’t help but think of their bravery. Our neighbor says they enjoy flying But I don’t know how these pilots or the on the ground applicators can withstand the damage these chemicals do to their bodies. Our neighbor says they are spraying fungicide to get rid of tar spot which prevents photosynthesis, a chemical that lets light get in. We use these beans for animal feed, seed oil, and biofuels. The plants are as high as my hips and a good green. Poison air with smoke. The smoke from Canadian, Minnesotan and western wildfires plunged to the ground so thickly it looked like fake fog. And made beautiful sunsets and eerie moon rises. These days I pay attention to my breath. Lately it doesn’t take much to breathe heavy. And we’re not talking passion. Right now, my interstitial lung disease is stable. My pulmonologist is keeping a close watch, has prescribed an inhaler twice a day for mild asthma. What happens to us if we can’t breathe, breathe the ruah of the Holy Spirit filling our lungs and hearts with himself? What happens if the air we breathe is poisoned? It’s the roadside flowers I’m seeing—flowers that have not been mowed because the state has cut our township’s budget. The chicory, what I call corn flowers, are bright blue. Queen Anne’s lace (wild carrot) dances in the breeze. Morning glories wind around Queen Anne lace. Evening primrose like a tiny lantern in the grass. Quiet wild roses. And pups that sidle up to the very edge of the road to take a dump. When Martin Shaw told the The Underworld of a Fairy Tale: A Telling of an Earth Gnome about a girl who ate an apple and she and her sisters were thrown down a well by a ground god. Apparently, there are earth spirits and water spirits that might be creatures born of the ground that are neither good nor evil but spirits rising out of the earth. The ground around here is so tamed, and I’m so blind, I doubt I’ll ever meet one. I’m not sure I want to, though as a kid, like many children, I wished Aslan would roar out of the woods. Of course, the youngest sister eats the apple. The earth opens her mouth and all three sisters are plunged into the earth, buried. The youngest hunter, accepts the challenge to find them. Each one is combing dragons’ hair. He kills the dragons, throws their tongues into his bag. (Did the sister grieve the wild creatures they tended? Did they clips locks of their hair as keepsakes?) He and his brothers hoist the girls to the top. Of course, his older brothers betray him and he’s plunged into the well. The darkness. When he plays a flute lying on the ground, he finds his way out and marries the oldest daughter. Their grieving father stops hoarding the apples and feeds his kingdom. I couldn’t help but think of the day my brother and I and his wife climbed into the Clarksville Cave. “Come on,” he said, when he beckoned me to climb into a chimney, barely wide enough to fit his hips let alone mine. I shivered as I watched his carbide lamp crawl away. “Come on, the room on the other side is beautiful,” he said. The walls echoing. I felt the weight of the limestone and earth surrounding him, close in. Did he do it to fight the fear of the dark, of the close? I said no. I would not climb into the rock. What if the light went out? What if my hips got stuck? What if the terror got the best of me? I couldn’t help but think of my terror at MRI machines. The MRI machine sounded alive, a predator that circled, and purred like a gaucho swinging his his whip back and forth over the horse’s shoulders. It sounded alive and growling, waiting to devour. Maybe it is. A machine that terrified me, the ceiling not far from my chin, a machine that felt like coffin, that jack hammers a whirr of sound, prying into my innermost parts. Buried alive. The machine peering. I fight the terror to get the test. This time to see if my lower back is failing because my legs ache. I fight the terror and then realize that one day I may have to fight the terror of the cross, the strong bulls of Bashan surrounding me, have you seen bulls? Their power. Their weight. Their tiny members and dropped balls? I may have to fight the miry clay, where there is no footing, and the question: Who do you serve? And the price the painful loss of this rumpy, beloved body. My heart pounding. My breath. Saying the Jesus prayer: Lord Jesus Christ son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner. Several times before I’ve had visions—Driving Mrs. Horse out our driveway when at the time, no way would this happen. Another time I was riding Tessie through a pine forest, the pines strong in my nose. I was sniffing Frankincense. This time, I found a dopey quiet, with no fields or horse coming to mind. Just quiet. And the computer froze. They tried to start it up. But it froze again, so I had rolled off the table to go to another machine and wrecked my lunch date with Bruce. Did the energy spun off from my dopey meditation shut the thing down? I like to think so, though probably not. All that energy, energy I like to think is the same as the northern lights smeared across the sky. poured into my pelvis. That night my valley rose. It rose high as a mountain, straining towards the sky, towards the real lights the sun’s storm flung out to the north, the magentas and purples and sometimes green. The next evening, Bruce came for me, said come look. At the storms to the east and south. I left America’s Got Talent and walked out to the darkness and stood by the corner of the paddock. With him. And watched the moon rise over the lightning flashing in the clouds. I thought of Moses and Sinai and the terror of the children, my own terror because God is so other. My pastor reminds over and over: There is therefore no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. We stood quietly and watched a long time. This morning the moon was bright orange. Like a fire in a

  8. Jul 18

    How a Chance Meeting Gave me Some Tools to Help Mr Wild Dog and Rejuvenated My Dream

    Remember how I told you about those mini communities that we can find in waiting rooms and grocery stores? Well, something magical happened by the grapes at Woodmans but first I need to back up a bit. A few weeks ago, I participated in a Tracking Wonder class about cultivating community through my writing. Tracking Wonder is a business that helps creative people find themselves as entrepreneurs by asking questions that work to get at their core values. Jeffrey Davis points us to wonder. His workshops are affordable and practical, conducted on Zoom. He sent enough personal emails that convinced me to join, even though I’ve lost hope as far as marketing goes. I believe in the goodness of serving a country church (you my readers) and don’t have much ambition for explosive growth. For an early exercise he asked, “Think about your dream.” There I was facing boxes of energetic, hopeful people’s faces. “Think about your dream.” Tears welled up because I don’t have a dream or the drive to untangle my brain and collect essays from Substack or rework drafts that have already been laid down. There are several literary publishers with open reading periods right now. But I have no drive to come up to my office and shape that work. My collection of essays are maybe closer than I think to collect and send out. But I have no drive, and some of the essays, well, I’m not sure I want to make them public or that you might find them too raw. I have no tree to aim for, like a farmer used to aim his tractor to plant straight lines. No tree, no teacher, that’s right, keep your eyes up, adjust the wheel to stay straight. Look back at the planter. Then look ahead. So when Jeffrey Davis asked about my dream, I mumbled, “Write a vision of glory” leaning back on that old call from the big barn in a cold rainstorm in winter, the call to write a vision of glory that sprang out of my longing to do for others what C.S. Lewis did for me. That year I read as much of C.S. Lewis as I could get ahold of for an English term paper and his words sparked a bittersweet longing. I was homesick even though I was home. Deep wrenching tears came. Maybe one day I will share the essays about this. But so much silencing, so much disappointment, so much rejection, made my drive go limp. I fear you’re thinking, what are we chopped liver? I am grateful for Substack giving me the opportunity to find you, but often I feel like I work hard on these essays, send them out, only to be met with silence. Those of you who are supporting this page financially mean the world to me. There are essays I would not have written were it not for you. It’s been wonderful to take a break and to not push for an essay every week. There are several in the works. During class, I was impressed by the energy and creative ideas from the other entrepreneurs. My main takeaway was to ask my readers what you think and to set up guidelines for comments. (Substack has helpfully offered a comment box before the comment section, where I can state my rules for respect.) That evening we were finishing up Last Man Standing on TV when a certain light slanted across the fields making the fields, the barn glow—the setting sun flashing up beneath clouds. I ran out to look. The light was that alive. A vision of glory. I walked toward the barn and toward surprise when I saw a rainbow hanging between the barn and pump house and old well house now home to wild honeybees. What? Where’s the rain winnowing the light into seven colors and a bunch more we don’t see. When John the Baptist said a winnowing is in Jesus’ hand, he’d burn them up with unquenchable fire, I wonder if that fire would be like the winnowed colors made by sunlight and water. Morgen waited for me. She always comes and waits when I step outside. And there was a bright rainbow, farther south than I’ve seen it. I ran to get Bruce. And it just hung there longer than most, like an aroused stallion. The clouds glowing inside pink. You know how I talked about finding community in the grocery store? Even though it was godawful hot, I told Bruce we needed lettuce and I wanted to make sure we’d canceled our Costco membership. “You need grapes,” Bruce said just before he drove off to get gas. As I pulled up to the grapes counter, I recognized Joan Krumm, a dog breeder I’ve known since I started showing my dogs. She sat in a motorized shopping cart, dressed in bright colors, with a bright hat. She knew me. And it was a feat on my part to recognize her. “Where’ve you been?” She asked. I’d gone to conformation class with Mr. Wild dog. (In these classes dogs are trained to stand still, while a judge feels them up. They trot out, so the judge can look what their gait looks like. It’s a wonderful discipline because dogs get treats and learn to be quiet when someone greets and touches them.) “I didn’t want Aiden to knock you over.” In class she looked fragile, said she’d just had hip surgery. A fall would be catastrophic. She’d said, “He needs an obedience class.” So I signed up for an obedience class. Sometimes meetings in the grocery store are providential, good gifts from a God who brings people together and answers a prayer, we might not quite say. “You need a dream,” she said. How’d she know I don’t have a dream that lights me on fire? (Writing seems to be one of those gifts and calling that are irrevocable, but I’ve lost the fire, especially for drafts sitting in notebooks, that weigh on me with guilt and overwhelm.) “I don’t show any more, but I love helping people show their dogs and win,” she said. There she was, frail elderly, needing a motorized shopping cart, not able to do what she loved-show her own dogs-dressed to the nines, for the store, lit up about helping people show their dogs. “Give me a call.” She wrote down her number and handed it to me. A woman nudged between us and picked out some grapes. “I have to be at the dog show and watch my students but I’m available on Sunday. You should bring Aiden to the show. He needs to get out and be socialized.” I felt a little hope. Often I have regretted bringing Aiden home. He’s been too much dog—circling the coffee table in the evenings, his eyes blank. He pushes boundaries so well, pushes boundaries so well, my anger sprouts like thistle. My voice bellows. He has an uncanny talent for chewing things that are the most “beloved”—my mother-in-law’s stuffed Mongolian bear, papers from the doctor’s office. He took out chunks of several chapters of I Corinthians in my little Bible. The more I push him away, the more he pushes back. My treat bag has made a fool of me several times when he jumps for it and succeeds in reinforcing himself by gobbling the treats he has scattered. He’s taught Omalola how to be naughty. Before Aiden she was well trained, able to be loose in the house, and our walks, her eyes looking up at me, companionable. Now she plays hard to get when it’s time to come in. Her gaze is penetrating when Aiden takes my attention. Sometimes the idea of the option to place him rises, which we are committed. I tell Bruce he does better with him because Aiden will lie down when Bruce is watching TV. I tell Bruce Aiden is his dog. I have been too inconsistent. And yet when I leave him in the yard to go in the house, he looks for me, his eyes betraying how we are bonded. But he’s come a long way from the dog who circled or wrestled with Omalola when I walked him. That weekend I took him to a local dog show and was shocked to find how calm he was. Aiden stayed by my side. He laid down. He allowed strangers to go over him. I first learned how rewarding a dog for doing it right with Laager, a Bernese Mountain dog who became more wound up the more I disciplined him. But if I rewarded him for being quiet, he learned how to relax in the chaos of dog shows. A week later I met Joan at a local training facility. She was hopeful and positive we could get Aiden behaving better. She asked me to tie him to the wall and use another leash and collar to correct him. If he moved, I’d tighten my leash and loosen it when he stayed still. It was all very quiet. The pressure on a buckle collar. The release soft and as important as the pressure. I was reminded of traditional horse training that uses pressure, release to unite horse and rider. Sometimes putting an animal in a posture of quiet, they learn to be quiet. I left with some useful tools to calm Aiden. (Not knowing how to respond made me more reactive, which made him more reactive.) I left with energy and hope and joy I hadn’t felt in a long time, maybe because someone poured their know how into me. And Joan is a role model for that dreaded frail elderly stage, that a person can look beautiful and find ways to offer their gifts and love for their sport despite physical limitations. Because I was so hopeful and want to give Mrs. Dog the attention she deserves, I found a rally dog class that will occupy her mind by asking her to kinda dance with me. As an even bigger gift, the class is set up so the dogs are crated and other class members can visit with each other while we wait for our turn. I’ll bring Mr Wild dog along too. Before we finally cut our hay, we chased rainbows. They showed up in odd places at sunset, hauling the light that makes the barn, trees, grass glow. They kept coming. Kept reminding. Storms became a kind of friend, their violence going north or south. Then the weather took a breath and dried enough to drop our hay, bale it and put it up. This is going to sound odd, but it’s been disorienting that life has been so quiet and so good. There have been heart aches and loneliness and griefs, yes, but not like the turmoil of my working life, or the long walk through grief after my parents and brother died within in a six-year period. Maybe just give thanks for these days, for this quiet. Let the thanks banish the guilt th

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A newsletter about coming to the ground and catching light through words and pictures. katieandraski.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Katie Andraski
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    110
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Katie Andraski
  • Show Website
    Katie’s Ground Podcast