I find my first love that way tonight, winding through and around the lazy, darkened streets of Asheville. I have always loved this place, and always will, regardless of what the people here may be or do. It's my religion: The Religion of Place. Why does anyone settle in an unknown area, or stay when they could be safer or more successful elsewhere? Even beyond the people we interact with, the Places we inhabit are holy and full of power. If we let the land speak to us, we learn inherent secrets of the Earth. If you know how to combine the magic of the land with the efforts of humans, you can benefit from both camps.
Here I shift seamlessly from wending through woods, to strolling down streets. In Buncombe can I combine the two sides that make up my spiritual genetics: raw Nature, and human gatherings.
My parents gave me biological roots, and fostered my growth, but the mother of my soul is Asheville, and its father is the Appalachians.
My literary forebear wrote, "You Can Never Go Home Again," but it is merely that one cannot return to the home one once knew. Remembering that your home will always change, the moreso the longer your absence, you can return as often as you like!
NB
