Hello, Firestorms of Autumn! Launch your lavish leaves one by one from their arboreal summer palaces. Rain colors on the dull and the drab. Plant your leafy rainbows in the soil. Pirouette with your partner The Wind and tease the touch of upturned faces with your garish boas of red-orange-yellow leaves and skeins of rustling corpses coming to life for Halloween!

So exquisite to hike nature’s inner sanctums this time of year. You cannot walk a straight line, because you must stop, turn and look every few paces. But do not think you can catch it all. Golden prairies will race your gaze to the horizon and win every time. You never find the limit when the world is open to you across open spaces that dissolve into scrims of mist. It’s like trying to look past the stars to catch the face of God.

And hey, Bunky, if you’re feeling a little like Alice through the looking glass every time you turn on the TV this election cycle, cheer up! A daily walk in nature will rescue your mind from the zombie partisanship of all clamoring factions. That’s because the freedom you find in nature will free your thoughts. Here’s how I put it in a recent Facebook post:

I don’t want to be dead before I die. I do not understand people who scurry from one reassuring conformity to the next, letting their lives – their very thoughts – be hijacked. Which is probably why I fear for our media-driven society. Surrendering one’s personal sovereignty to the mindless trends of groupthink is how you become dead before you die. “To thine own self be true!” You only have one of every year, every day, every hour – even every moment is a one-off. Best advice I have ever given myself: NEVER LIVE DEAD! 

Some visual evidence of that advice is in this month’s photos below: #1-2 autumn in Crow Hassan; #3-5 friends Lisa and Rachel w/moi; #6 a beautiful dell at a place called Blue Stem; #7 after years of work my lifelong friend Peter Adams finished his Gaia Evolution Walk on his land on a beach in Tasmania (check him out at Windgrove.com); #8 Ami the Queen of Dragonflies and moi; #9 Sully-Bruce-Peter hunting redbelly snakes; #10 good-by green road; #11 from Linda Tyldesley in Alaska; #12-13 autumn palette in Crow Hassan; #14-15 trailmate Mickey Magic and me sitting back-to-back at the Crossroads of the Universe. 

Friends of champion swimmer Rick Skarbo may see (or have seen, depending when you get this Sullygram) Ricky's boat in the October 13th episode of “Rosewood.”

Nitty-gritty writing, lesson #3 is up in my new column at Storytellers Unplugged, titled NAME THE BABY, here:
 http://www.storytellersunplugged.com/2016/10/03/thomas-sullivan-name-the-baby/#respond

I won’t apologize for keeping out of the political fray this election cycle, but I am very conflicted over the many kind people who sincerely ask for my thoughts. As I’ve written elsewhere, the two things I’m most interested in are the world’s religious beliefs and American politics. But my daily sourcing of current events spans both ends of the political spectrum (including foreign sources in translation). And in a polarized body politic, that exhaustive search for full disclosure isolates me from all factions. Quite honestly, unless you actively seek out all the media sources you don’t want to hear along with the ones that preach your sermon, probably half of what I cite would be unfamiliar and at odds with what you believe.

That said, I do not like divisive pandering. Journalism has emerged as the dominant force in our society and the king/queen-maker in elections. It is the chokepoint for daily knowledge. So, for those people I’ve disappointed by not taking a public stand, let me say that the degree to which mainstream media has surrendered what remained of its integrity is shocking to me. Selective coverage hammers our emotions. Reporting has dwindled into nuanced appeals aimed at voting groups in the name of political correctness. Whatever our skin color, our culture tag, our gender, we are being culled from the herd once called “America” and told to be an indignant victim of one kind or another…until the votes are counted. Do you get the feeling you are Charlie Brown being promised by Lucy that THIS time she won’t pull the football away once you trust her?

When you cast your vote, I hope it’s a reasoned choice and not an emotional one. Emotions are reflexive and easily manipulated. Consider the lasting issues. Too often guilt or fear have driven the white vote, anger has driven the black vote, self-righteousness has driven the religious vote, stung pride has driven the cultural vote, defensiveness has driven the male vote, and in my observation women often get what they ask for but seldom get what they want. You are probably in at least three of those categories.

Wishing you treats and not tricks this Halloween and beyond.