Matthew Battles

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 06:19:54 -0400

Sounds of the one who is sleeping in the corner room. A growl rises from deep in the vine: the whir of a hummingbird. Quiet everything that is restless within me.

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:09:04 -0400

Catbirds are calling from deep in the rhododendrons; the fog is lifting out of the trees. The feast is upon us. Have I kept enough oil for my lamp?

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 06:24:28 -0400

“Keep awake therefore…” I realize that I fundamentally misunderstand the nature of time.

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 21:09:52 -0400

Intrigued by the Malcolm Guite (and Dr. Martin Shaw) show that’s coming to Boston in October.

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 06:48:38 -0400

Her vast artistry was rooted in family, and place, and time, and time vimeopro.com/dollypart…

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 06:11:01 -0400

I’m always renewed by the vast animacy and gentle embrace of the sea. Create in me a clean heart, O Lord.

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 09:34:51 -0400

Opening the conversation of design to the rest of creation, we find our own horizons expanded.

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 09:33:33 -0400

Opening the conversation of design to creation, we find our own horizons expanded. open.substack.com/pub/matth…

Thu, 21 May 2026 11:18:02 -0400

Taking up the music in Thoreau.

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 09:49:06 -0400

Stumbling out of inspired/dismayed encounter with Whitehead this morning into Wendell Berry, a balm.

From Wendell Berry, A Small Porch (XI)

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 09:42:58 -0400

To that light, itself invisible
were it not for the world
that is lighted by it, comes spring,
the circumstance of leaves,
the leaflight changing as the leaves
move, a motional language
of the invisible air, in which
also the colors of the flowers
declare the flowers amid
the crowding of green leaves.
To see that these are wonders
he has only to wonder.
By loving them he sees
in them the signature
of the shaping love inwardly
moving them to bloom, as the air
moves them inwardly.

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:54:45 -0400

Joyous at the rediscovery that any given string of words might stir deep wonder at the gift of having been alive in time and place. A string of words like, “Tracy Chapman Live at Cabaret Metro 1988-05-7,” for instance.

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 09:37:42 -0400

Grateful for @willowbl00 on the beauty of impermanence and the horror of being turned into an LLM. It takes me to Middlemarch: “that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 17:43:00 -0400

Iris Murdoch: “Our ability to act well ‘when the time comes’ depends partly, perhaps largely, upon the quality of our habitual objects of attention.”

Beyond cognitive surrender, I wonder about a kind of moral surrender in turning over to chatbots innumerable tiny, everyday moments of discernment

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 11:03:36 -0400

Lincoln in New Salem, Illinois, WPA mural inside the post office in my hometown of Petersburg, IL (62675), painted in 1938 by John Winters; The Reverend John Eliot Preaching to the Indians, painted by William Abbott Cheever in 1941, in the post office in Chestnut Hill, MA (02467).

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 09:18:52 -0400

Before the Vigil on Saturday, we saw Sirāt, which is brutal and so, so beautiful; last night, I watched Mary Magdalene, with Rooney Mara (excellent) and Joaquin Phoenix (a strange choice, but he won me over in the end). I’m haunted by their strange complementarity. Anyone else seen one or both?

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 17:34:40 -0400

How excellence can be a kind of cruelty.

The Great Hare

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 12:49:44 -0400

Excerpt of another song from Thoreau, this one from his remarkable vision (in the Journals) of new snow as the trace of the “Great Hare, whose track no hunter has seen.” stpeter.im/writings/…

A bit of the song we made from this striking passage in WALDEN

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 12:32:21 -0400

I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 10:53:23 -0400

Are other authors receiving these emails stinking of AI, with breathlesss this-not-that praise for their books, promising to get them more Amazon reviews, booktok mentions, Goodreads recs, etc.?

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 08:14:27 -0400

Looking for a photo, I ran across this early demo of Sonnet 32 from my project setting the sonnets to song. Was playing around with iMovie for iOS, hence the strange crop (I couldn’t get it to do otherwise). I didn’t have the sestet yet. I hear a clarity and crispness that I want to rekindle.

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 15:54:56 -0400

Plus ça change, plus Liriodendron.

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 15:49:57 -0400

Ian McKellen in 1979, workshopping Macbeth’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow soliloquy, is refreshing and inspiring: youtu.be/zGbZCgHQ9…

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 10:17:17 -0400

Oak-leaf hydrangea doing its bit, bearing its measure of light toward the solstice.

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 14:33:25 -0400

Hello, world. This morning’s message, delivered by willow leaflet: water is magnificent.