As the artist-in-residence at Prairiewoods, I recently had the gift of spending a week in one of the Hermitages. The space itself, a compact one-room cottage, invites us to live more simply, to leave behind what is not essential. To slow down and reconnect with our deeper selves and the living world around us. As soon as I stepped into that tight-knit straw-bale dwelling, I felt welcomed and supported by all those who have stayed in the Hermitage before me.
I needed that support since this was my first visit to Prairiewoods since the derecho. My initial response to the woods was anguish—so many trees lost—and piles of debris everywhere. But after walking and talking with August, the new Land Care and Holistic Ecology Coordinator, and seeing Sister Nancy raking the debris into mounds that will become habitat for wildlife as they decompose, I began to see things in a different light. The life cycle continues.
Being surrounded by the pared down winter woods brings out in me a stripped-down poetry. Here’s a poem I wrote the first night in the hermitage as I acclimated myself to listening more deeply to the song of the universe.
Hermitage Hymn
lower yourself
into evening
like a feather
floating through
time
linger in the
pinkness
of the sky
a watercolor
whose lines
and shades
shift and blur
like water
in a creek
light floating
downstream
may all of us
flow this effortlessly
toward the coming night
—Carol Tyx, Prairiewoods artist in residence