A Stage For The Soul

ACTs online journal, The Marsh, is now available as a platform for aspiring writers and artists to share their work. You can check it out at TheMarshOnline.com.

Welcome to The Marsh Online. This is your stage to tell your story. In today's modern society, there is an increasing need to get back to Nature, or, as is often said, "live a more simple life like the days of yesteryear." Though, there is nothing simple about living simply, and on the contrary, that frontier kind of lifestyle that so many of us aspire towards is much more physically demanding than the occupations and lifestyle that the majority of folks have adopted in the past four decades or so. And yet, in just that short period of time,  a large percent of the population in first world society has developed a deficiency of the soul. What we have gained from perceived conveniences and a life less physically demanding we have lost in mental clarity and sense of well being. The market economy kind of society that we find ourselves a part of, or more likely trapped in, has created a disconnect between the individual and the Nature with which we depend upon. Those that realize the sacrifice that was made for the lure of material wealth are those starving for a "more simple life." They acknowledge the importance of self and finding peace of the mind. These are the small scale farmers, the artists, the writers, the hermits, the elderly lady at the park transfixed on a garden of flowers, and the stranger over there that wanders another world, gazing at the sky and seemingly always fascinated with a bird that may cross his path. "The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation," Thoreau famously said in Walden. All of us are in search of something more. Many of us are looking for the means to find that kind of Nature that speaks to us. Some of us have already found it, and we're just looking for a place to convey the story to others. Here's your stage. This is your place to dance.

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