I live in the land of small things, a respite and comfort and spiritual place.  I readily admit that I am no good at the big things, whenever I watch the news, I shudder, I understand and identify with so little of what I see.

At some point in my life, I was a big thing myself, and lived among the big things, the big ideas, the big stories, the news. I helped to make it.

Then I answered a different call, I moved to the country in search of a different way of life, and I found myself living in the land of small things, small places, smaller people in some ways. My life became a stream of small things, each wonderful in its own way,  tricking down a hillside, small acts of great kindness, small chores, the simple and small lives of animals.

I was quite surprised to feel things I had never felt before – love, peace, hopefulness, strength, authenticity.

The big things are beyond me, the small things are somehow within my grasp, are natural to me. I had no idea.

Here, in the land of small things, I am learning how to live differently, and feel differently. I see how much my nature was rooted in the need for drama and gratification and sensation.

I am learning to put aside those needs in favor of greater and more meaningful ones.

I am learning to pay attention to all that is small and subtle and hidden, and to guard against instant and overwhelming enthusiasm for all that is obvious, all that is “big,” all that is deemed important in the land of big things, a land of arguments, anger and the loss of empathy.

I’m not there yet, but I sense great rewards ahead of me if I keep on learning. My task is to turn away from the land of big things, to tune into the frequency of small things, of true wisdom, of nature and spiritual growth, to train myself to see and hear those things through the deafening static that has transfixed so much of the world.

In the morning, we feed the donkeys their hay, they eat slowly and thoughtfully as they look out over their small world, and beginning to spend another day leading  quite beautiful – and small and simple –  lives.

This is where I belong, in the land of small things, I would never have thought it.