{"id":17,"date":"2026-07-19T13:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T13:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fieldnotes2126.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=17"},"modified":"2026-07-21T20:24:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T20:24:47","slug":"gladness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/?p=17","title":{"rendered":"Gladness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Nothing here is decorated. The sky doesn’t care where you’ve been or where you are going. There’s a nervous system lesson in that starkness \u2014 the body settles fastest in places that ask nothing of it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
To expect nothing other than what is given\n\nSome rain, some snow -\n\nThe harsher in some ways the better,\n\nBecause here skies are deeper,\n\nClearer in the wonders they unveil.\n\nA star-hung night\n\nWarming the heart in pale glow,\n\nTrees black\n\nas the abyss.\n\nIn this quiet hush -\n\na spare gladness\n\nin the spartan cradle of sky, where the soul spreads wide.\n\nFeelings of freedom and love\n\nUnwinding the habits of mind,\n\nDrowning out the noise,\n\nInviting\n\na richness of vision,\n\nsupreme simplicity,\n\ndeep peace,\n\nBegging\n\nto be remembered, to be believed in\n\nas a real experience in life.\n\nAnd when civilization tries to bridle the spirit -\n\nImagine the rocky Maine coastline,\n\nforests dense with towering redwoods,\n\nblue hues of a snow-capped mountains.\n\nHere life is serene and wholesome,\n\nFundamental and raw,\n\nunder-girded by silent grace\n\nsimple truths\n\nthat [if you let them]\n\nopen the doorway to love.\n\nReflections<\/strong>\n\nI wrote Gladness<\/em> for my children four Valentine's Days ago. It carries the spirit of a Rockwell Kent <\/a>winter landscape \u2014 his sense of adventure, and the specific stillness of his snow-covered coastal headlands and spruce, was the image in my mind as I wrote it. I want them to know nature is a place where they can escape the noise and come back to their inner truth.\n\nStillness is not empty. It is fertile soil for internal growth.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese are the times in life \u2014 when nothing happens \u2014 but in quietness the soul expands.\u201d
<\/a>Rockwell Kent<\/strong> (1882\u20131971)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A poem for my children, and the Rockwell Kent painting that inspired it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[11,13,14,12,15],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-acceptance","tag-freedom","tag-maine","tag-simplicity","tag-wonder"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_3105-1-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_3105-1-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Kristen Holmes","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/?author=1"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_3105-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":183,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldnotesonbeinghuman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}