Beyond the Fields We Know: By the Trail Into the Woods

Autumn Reading

Not long ago, reading was a chair on the deck under the big red umbrella, a book in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. There are days now and then when that is still possible, but for the most part, Beau and I are indoors with our beakers and bookish exercises.

The reading always includes natural history, mythology, folklore and science. The fondness for magical realism, quirky whodunnits and Belle Époque fantasy lingers, and I enjoy a good mystery, particularly when it is set in a faraway place. Always, there are cookbooks.

As in other seasons, reading choices seem to make themselves, turning up in my local library, book store bargain bins, village thrift shops, yard sales and the little free libraries that have sprung up everywhere.

My thanks to the Muses for the kindred spirits who occasionally turn up at the door, hand me a bag of reading and ask hopefully if there is any tea in the pot. (There usually is).

Wise Words

We live in a sea of light.
Henry Plummer

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oscar Wilde

Whatever we do in our lives, we make a text of our lives. Whether or not our stories belong to the shared patterns of the great, true stories—the myths—they are the texts from which we find out our relation to the divine, to one another and to the self.
Linda Sexson, Ordinarily Sacred

It is in the speech of carters and housewives, in the speech of blacksmiths and old women, that one discovers the magic that sings the claim of the voice in the shadow, or that chants the rhyme of the fish in the well.
John Maruskin

Hugging the shores of life is all very well, but the Great Mystery makes its home further out. Once in a while, we have to paddle out into deeper waters to be with it for a while.
Cate Kerr (me)

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Saturday, November 07, 2026

By the Trail Into the Woods

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