L.M. Browning's Blog, page 2
January 27, 2023
The Next Evolution
New Mexico. Photo by L.M. Browning (Copyright 2022)Hi Folks, Thanks for stopping by my travelogue here on Substack. Think of this pitstop as a digital all-night diner for the road-lifers, the wayfarers, the outliers, the marginalized, the othered, the orphaned, the radically authentic, the awe-seekers …
Why Substack? Why Now?I’ve been living on the road (and/or off the grid) since June 2022. This platform seems to offer an opportunity to circle everyone together and provide community, connection, and creative kinship. You know, all of us—the artists, the creatives, the poets, the wanderers, the homesteaders, the vagabonds, the spiritual mutts, the queers, the disowned, the awe-seekers . . . the healing generation.
Books or Short Form?I’d planned to come out with my full-length memoir, Wild Silence, which I began a wild-ly long time ago (2012-ish). I workshopped what I considered to be the final draft during my time at Harvard in the autumn of 2019. The manuscript was around two-thirds done when I realized I wasn’t writing a memoir at all. I was writing the cosmology of my childhood—an echoing inner narrative that I had been telling myself for decades—that was about to become fiction. I eventually let the manuscript go and let the energy from the project take a new form: this travelogue.
Taking Space & Time.I’ve decided to take a beat on books and integrate the events and realizations from recent years. This means pushing out full-length projects for a few years and exploring these short-form spaces while I allow my creative expression to evolve with the rest of me.
What I hope to create here on Substack is a digital space to explore the evolution of my voice as a poet, my eye as a photographer, and my journey as an ever-flawed individual reaching for wild awe to balance successive generational trauma.
If you would like to follow along, I invite you to Subscribe & Follow.
I will post every 10 Days (or so) for the paid subscribers and roughly once a month for everyone.
Paid Subscriptions.Money from those folks who opt for paid subscriptions goes toward the monthly expenses I incur. (i.e.: Gas, building supplies for the off-grid farm; health care and food for Kiva (my dog); clothing; food; and other basic items. We are also saving for a Small Teardrop to solve unstable housing issues on the road.
Fellow TravelersDrop me a postcard from the road or from your home town at:
L.M. Browning
PO Box 1601
Northampton, MA 01060
Safe Travels
—Les
Wild Silence Travelogue is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
L.M. Browning (they/them) is a two-spirited bestselling poet whose hybrid of introspective travel writing and visual art focuses on the alchemizing of trauma through active awe-seeking and a re-wilding of one’s life and self.
Over the last fifteen years, Les’ twenty-something intention to help “ensure the mainstream isn’t the only stream,” has taken shape in the form of the enduring indie platforms: Homebound Publications, Wayfarer Books,The Wayfarer Magazine & Navigator Graphics. Their own published works have received five Pushcart Prize nominations, two Foreword Review Book Awards, and the Nautilus Gold Medal for Poetry.
Recently Browning accepted a position on the State of Connecticut’s/NAMI’s Lived Experience Committee and received national certification as a Survivor of Suicide Attempt (SOSA), Group Peer Facilitator through the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services Foundation in Los Angeles. They are a graduate of the University of London and Harvard University.
Les and their coydog, Kiva, divide their time between New Mexico and Wayfarer Farm in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts.
January 19, 2023
The Necessity of Solitude
Who are we without our influencers; without our addictions; without our media-induced hungers? So often the voices we hear echoing in our mind are not our own but that of our influencers. Isolation, while arguably going against human nature, is essential for mental and emotional health. Solitude is detoxification of all that distorts our personality and…
January 1, 2023
Every Journey is a Pilgrimage
Photo by Thomas Ashlock on UnsplashAs readers, we live vicariously through the adventurers of our generation. We read the chronicles of those who left the comforts of home to strike out into the untamed and unknown, and through absorbing their experiences we are emboldened to heed our own yearnings for new landscapes. Society seems to have subconsciously adopted this notion that in leaving behind all that we have ever known, we will find ourselves—that there, at the ends of the earth, each of us can define the edges of ourself. I think this is an unrealistic ideal.
Our imagination is sparked by those travelers who set off with reckless abandon. Yet for so many of us there is a reality gap between the life of those we follow on the page and the life we ourselves must lead. The 9-5 job hardly supports our basic survival let alone the heights of our dreams. We work from the time we rise to the time we go to sleep just to support the basic needs of our body, all the while having to neglect the needs of our soul.
People speak of long pilgrimages as a rite of passage. The path through the Holy Land, the Way of St. James, the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Appalachian Trail and so on. I have never followed a map from one side of a country to another, but I have made my journey. Four pairs of leather boots worn through and 10,000 miles later, I have endured the long path.
For the majority of my life I have been hard-pressed to keep food on the table, leaving the possibility of traveling abroad ever a dream. Not all of us are able to set foot upon the far-off lands that call to us. While the number of destinations I dream of one day going to number into the dozens, my bank statement does not support the breadth of my aspirations. Do not think I am using lack of money as an excuse to stay in my comfort zone; I am not. Rather I am facing a hard truth of circumstance: Not all of us have the means to pick up and travel to different countries while heeding that desire to find ourselves. In these hard financial times, the majority of us must find ourselves while sticking relatively close to home. Leading me to ask: Must we go to the ends of the earth to gather the strands of our identity?
~
The purpose of a pilgrimage is about setting aside a long period of time in which the only focus is to be the matters of the soul. Many believe a pilgrimage is about going away but it isn’t; it is about coming home. Those who choose to go on pilgrimage have already ventured away from themselves; they go on pilgrimage as a means to journey back to who they are.
Many a time we believe we must go away from all that is familiar if we are to focus on our inner-wellbeing because we feel it is the only way to escape all that drains and distracts us so that we can turn inward and tend to what ails us. For personal reasons, I could not go to foreign lands when I felt the need to make a pilgrimage unto myself. So instead, I walked the same roads I had since I was a child and arranged my life itself as a period of time in which the only focus is to be the matters of the soul. All that was detrimental that could be left behind, was. I broke ties with everything and everyone that insulted or confined my soul, allowing me to go forward and find my path into a healthier way of being.
If I could pass along one wish to you—heed you to do one thing—it would be: Make your life the pilgrimage—make your life the time of contemplation, of growth, and of returning to that place of authenticity and innocence, wherever it may be.
Unable to go outward, I went inward. The radius of my physical world so limited by circumstance, I spent many years walking the internal landscapes. When at last I was able to “loosen the belt” a bit and stretch the legs of my stiffened dreams, I found myself exploring, not foreign countries, but the rich country of New England, of which I am a native daughter.
No matter where I am situated on this earth I think I will always be a bit of a homebody, and happily so. This is not to say I spend my days cooped up away from the sunlight; rather, that I appreciate my home as a sanctuary that I am able to create and enjoy. I find peace in simple things. Having endured periods of homelessness during my childhood, I have come to appreciate my small apartment along the Connecticut coastline more than anything.
Of course, in spite of my contentment at home, I do indeed have times of restlessness. The wanderlust strikes and I feel the need to enter an inviting new surround. Working within my means, I cannot pick up and backpack through Europe when these feelings strike. For several years I felt denied life-defining experiences by my meager income. But like so many things in this life, it is all a matter of perspective. There is a difference between not being able to go on a fantastical, far-off trip to find one’s self and not needing to do so.
We do not need to go to the edges of the earth to learn who we are, only the edges of ourself. Nature aids us in turning within yet it need not be a foreign landscape.
Travel freshens the senses. A feng shui of the horizon, when we leave behind the familiar our renewed curiosity widens our eyes and we take in all the little details of our new environment. We each seek change but there are times when our life does not allow us to see to our inner-wellbeing.
In these times, when I cannot simply pick up and go, I make do with a walk about my hometown. When in the confines of our local community, we must work a little harder to feel a sense of wonder; for sadly, when we see a thing daily, its beauty fades into the background and become mundane. Nevertheless, rediscovering the beauty of what has become ordinary has its own sweetness. Seeing anew the beauty of what we have gazed upon each day, which has become tired to us—this is a revelation.
After all, what was Walden Pond before Thoreau chose it as the place for his introspection? When he chose to go off on his own into the wild and reflect, he did what was within his means. He lived off a small plot of land owned by Emerson, along the banks of a pond just outside Concord—his hometown.
—An except from Fleeting Moments of Fierce Clarity: Journal of a New England Poet
Fleeting Moment of Fierce Clarity","action":null,"class":null}">Buy > Fleeting Moment of Fierce Clarity
L.M. Browning (they/them) is a two-spirited bestselling poet whose hybrid of introspective travel writing and visual art focuses on the alchemizing of trauma through active awe-seeking and a re-wilding of one’s life and self.
Over the last fifteen years, Les’ twenty-something intention to help “ensure the mainstream isn’t the only stream,” has taken shape in the form of the enduring indie platforms: Homebound Publications, Wayfarer Books, The Wayfarer Magazine & Navigator Graphics. Their own published works have received five Pushcart Prize nominations, two Foreword Review Book Awards, and the Nautilus Gold Medal for Poetry.
Recently Browning accepted a position on the State of Connecticut’s/NAMI’s Lived Experience Committee and received national certification as a Survivor of Suicide Attempt (SOSA), Group Peer Facilitator through the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services Foundation in Los Angeles. They are a graduate of the University of London and Harvard University.
Les and their coydog, Kiva, divide their time between New Mexico and Wayfarer Farm in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts.
Stop by LMbrowning.com
December 21, 2022
Know thy Self
Abiqui, New Mexico. By L.M. Browning (Copyright 2022)There are so many things that distort our character. Fatigue, emptiness, anger, trauma, illness, addiction, the media... So many things are pulling on us—twisting us to become someone we are not. When we achieve balance and are at peace within ourselves, we are not affected by the pulling of the disto…
December 1, 2022
November 30, 2022
The Whole of Life in a Day
Photo by Andres Perez on Unsplashfor V.
I have become Mrs. Dalloway,
throwing parties to cover the silence.
Come with me to the lighthouse.
It is time to settle the unspoken.
I’ll buy the flowers myself.
Scattering the petals along the shore
so I can find my way back from the river.
November 17, 2022
We Need to Do the Work
Do not hold a lazy faith. Miracles are not spontaneous events we must wait for helplessly. Miracles are an achievement—a breakthrough accomplished by those who pushed themselves beyond what was thought possible while holding a belief in a better life. Get up off your knees, and roll up your sleeves.
—L.M. Browning Seasons of Contemplation
October 13, 2022
Blue Mornings on the Concord River
"The Boathouse at the Old Manse" Concord, MA by © L.M. BrowningExcerpt from Fleeting Moments of Fierce Clarity: Journal of a New England Poet
November 2011 Concord, MA
In late autumn, I had the great fortune to be invited on a trip to Concord Massachusetts, arguably the epicenter of contemplative literature in New England. From the moment the trip was planned, I felt as though I was making a literary pilgrimage. It was the birthplace of the Transcendentalist movement, home to Emerson, Alcott, Hawthorne, Fuller, and Thoreau. I felt rightfully overwhelmed.
When arriving in Concord I was struck by the history of the place. It was the little things at first. The old graves, the site of Orchard House, which called to my fond childhood memories of enjoying Little Women with my mother. The road signs point the way to Walden, the Old Manse, and Minute Man National Historical Park, where the opening battle of the Revolution was fought in April of 1775.
Not at all surprising to those who know me, my first stop upon arriving was the public library. I walked down the stone path I knew I was following in the footsteps of those New England minds I most respect. Opening the narrow double doors, I proceeded through the short mud room and into the main room where I was suddenly struck by the ponderings held within that room.
At times when I am hiking through the woods behind my Connecticut home, I will ruminate on the history of the ground beneath my feet. Wondering if perhaps some Mashantucket or Eastern Pequot village might not have resided nearby and if the paths I walk weren’t once crossed by one among the tribe.
I found myself asking the same questions that morning while exploring Concord. As I walked the paths I felt Henry and Louisa brush past me in the crowd. As I grasped the old wrought doorknobs, I shook hands with the past. Using the window of their books, I had ever-been looking in on the lives of these kindred minds, but finally, on that day, I found myself invited in from my musings.
Walking across the slanted floor of her room to sit at her small desk, I found Louisa. Walking the hidden paths behind Orchard House, I found Nathan. Reading in the study of the Old Manse I found Ralph Waldo. Sitting along the Concord River I found Margaret. And there, along the banks of Walden, I found Henry.
Across the yard of the Old Manse following the stone wall down to the boathouse, I come to the edge of the river; Its gray, still waters mirror the marbled sky above. The bare trees are stiff in the cold breeze. Thick, stout bushes are scratched into the scene —etched there by the pallet knife of the Great Painter. Plump geese waddle along the rim, sifting seeds and bugs from the muddy grass roots —passing through their black beaks. Just beyond—across the arc of the wooden bridge there grows the meadow of the Minute Men. Running through the fieldsthe farm boys fired their muskets. Son against son, as blue collided with red, the world changed. In the fields along the Concord River,violence begot a new nation. A century later the passion continued to pulsethrough the place as the minds in the Manse spurred a revolution of intellect. How small am I to stand here along the banks of a river that has seen so much. I who but scribble in the margins of those classics penned on this ground. In the distance the sun is rising above the treeline. The field is smoking as the morning fog rises. The rifles sound... The hearth of the Old Manse smokes... And the river rushes ever-on.Fleeting Moments of Fierce Clarity","action":null,"class":null}">Buy > Fleeting Moments of Fierce Clarity
L.M. Browning (they/them) is a two-spirited bestselling poet whose hybrid of introspective travel writing and visual art focuses on the alchemizing of trauma through active awe-seeking and a re-wilding of one’s life and self.
Over the last fifteen years, Les’ twenty-something intention to help “ensure the mainstream isn’t the only stream,” has taken shape in the form of the enduring indie platforms: Homebound Publications, Wayfarer Books,The Wayfarer Magazine & Navigator Graphics. Their own published works have received five Pushcart Prize nominations, two Foreword Review Book Awards, and the Nautilus Gold Medal for Poetry.
Recently Browning accepted a position on the State of Connecticut’s/NAMI’s Lived Experience Committee and received national certification as a Survivor of Suicide Attempt (SOSA), Group Peer Facilitator through the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services Foundation in Los Angeles. They are a graduate of the University of London and Harvard University.
Les and their coydog, Kiva, divide their time between New Mexico and Wayfarer Farm in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts.
Visit Lmbrowning.com
September 28, 2022
Allow the Infinite to be Infinite
Photo by Manikandan Annamalai on UnsplashLife doesn’t have a singular purpose and yet we try to pigeonhole this infinite gift by searching for a single meaning behind our existence. We hunger for meaning the way a starving man does food—convinced we will waste away without it. As though to experience what it is to be alive weren’t enough to justify draw…
