One Year Here

Thank you.

I want to begin by saying thank you to each of the readers who have read, shared, and discussed my poetry and prose over the past year. I joined Substack as a means of expressing a part of me which had nowhere else to live and in the process found a beautiful and inspiring community which has allowed it to flourish. I’m am forever grateful to each of you for these gifts and for the inspiration you help create on this platform.

I have not been on here as much these last few months, as I have thrown myself into the study of the human mind and how best to heal the suffering we often create for ourselves. In my limited free time I’ve continued volunteering with my local animal rescue, as well as advocating for a healthy and stable government and society. So please consider this an apology for my absence. It is not permanent, but it is pertinent.

During my absence, I took one weekend to explore my favorite forest and was lucky enough to come across this beautiful black bear sow and her four-month-old cub. I was especially excited to see her this year because I first met her with a different cub two years ago, and a sow who is lucky enough to raise their cub to fledge will birth every two years. So knowing her previous cub likely survived their first two years on this planet, and that this sow is now back with a new cub, filled my heart with hope for the future.

Black Bear Sow & Cub. Sequoia National Park. May 2024.

One year ago I published my first poem on Substack: One Thousand Years of Tonglen. I was my favorite at the time and I hoped to give it new life in our shared world. That poem was inspired by a walk amongst the coastal redwoods of Northern California, and with themes about life, death, and rebirth it felt like the perfect poem for a poet looking for a new beginning to share. As my readership has grown in a way I had never imagined, I thought it would be nice to return to this poem again today. Most of you have never read it, so I hope you love it as much as I do.

As a final note, I’ve decided to change the name of my Substack. The name In Search of Supreme Beings came from my quest to know and love all the incredible miracles we share this singular planet with. However, I’ve always struggle with the word supreme. I don’t believe anyone or anything is supreme, and although I was using the word in jest I don’t ever want to misconstrue how I believe all life is precious, unique, and miraculous. Each living being on this planet has a story to tell and I wish to help share them. So, if all goes as planned, I will be changing my Substack to That Being Said...

Thank you for supporting my art, and for sharing your lives, works, souls, and passions with me. I’m a better person for knowing each of you more deeply and look forward to seeing where this grand experiment will lead us.

Love Always,

Troy

---