#towardThePolylith
The March installment of Polylith arrives as the last drifts of snow melt. We consider a new sculpture, and a process that loops without ever repeating.

#towardThePolylith #pigment #birch #sculpture
Polylith 080: Birch black
Last month we considered late winter's SETTLED WORK, a technology patterned by the human body. It calls for full attention at the fingertips, for a gesture f...
cscottmills.com
April 1, 2026 at 11:13 AM
Here at the cusp of winter appears the November installment of Polylith, in which we consider the principle of "thereness".

#towardThePolylith
Polylith 069: Thereness
The hearth, so to speak, will appear to each imagination differently. It is the conviviality of friends and neighbors, the workaday rhythm of a village.
cscottmills.com
November 30, 2024 at 4:04 PM
To accompany the music, a fresh installment of my monthly letter as well — in which we delve into the process of making the album. Aleatory, imaginal lines, wandering, play.

#towardThePolylith #aleatoricMusic #ambientMusic #generativeMusic #poetry
Polylith 073: Slow transits
The tail of winter hasn't slipped out of sight just yet here on the peninsula, but signs of spring flourish everywhere beside it.
cscottmills.com
April 4, 2025 at 3:36 PM
On this clear St Brigid's day — at the outset of this Year of the Wood Snake — the January installment of Polylith arrives.

Consider the number seven as a mythological entity.

#towardThePolylith #lunarNewYear #calypso #newMoon #imbolc #stBrigid
Polylith 071: Figure of seven
At shore, ice is piled into miniature escarpments continually battered and built by waves. They barrel in from deep water but use most of their energy liftin...
cscottmills.com
February 1, 2025 at 8:48 PM
The February installment of Polylith arrives with the lunar eclipse. We consider late winter's SETTLED WORK, technology scaled by the human body, and Richard Long's COSMIC VARIETY.

#towardThePolylith #aPatternLanguage #sculpture #holzhausen #slöjd #weaving #art #numerology #appropriateTechnology
Polylith 079: Settled work
Right near the middle of A Pattern Language, we come to pattern 156, SETTLED WORK. It describes the need in a person's life, especially as she moves in the s...
cscottmills.com
March 3, 2026 at 8:25 PM
The February installment of Polylith arrives on a big south wind.

This letter is a particularly personal one, about my work and the US federal hiring freeze, about morale and resistance, healing work and creativity amid collapse.

cscottmills.com/polylith/072/

#towardThePolylith
Polylith 072: Small graces
Winter has turned here on the peninsula. As I write, snowmelt drips from the eaves under a blue sky and the impressive drifts that line paths and driveways s...
cscottmills.com
February 28, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Cycle eight of Polylith has begun! In this month's letter we consider anger and peace meeting in the figure of eight.

#towardThePolylith #iceOut
Polylith 078: Figure of eight
Tip it over and you have the mathematical glyph for the endless. Lob it overhead and see the analemma, that diachronic noontime path our sun traces around th...
cscottmills.com
January 31, 2026 at 1:51 PM
The November installment of Polylith arrives covered in fresh snow. This month we consider balance in winter's hermitage.

#towardThePolylith
Polylith 076: Monastic trio
Sweep the snow off a few splits of sugar maple and bring them inside with you, we'll stoke the fire and put on the kettle. Welcome to winter's hermitage.
cscottmills.com
December 2, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Polylith is back from hiatus! This end-of-October thinnest-of-times installment arrives bearing an invitation — I hope a few of you will take me up on it.

#towardThePolylith
Polylith 075: A chapel turning
It is an elemental privilege to write and be read. The same to speak and be heard, to listen as another speaks.
cscottmills.com
October 31, 2025 at 2:01 PM
The solstice passes and another installment of Polylith arrives. Pull a seat up to the hearth and pour a cup of tea.

This month we consider a resonant corollary to last month's 'thereness'.

#towardThePolylith #odysseus #athena #poetry
Polylith 070: Resonance
When Odysseus, after twenty years away at war and at sea, finally returned to Ithaca, he did not immediately recognize his home. Athena had cloaked the islan...
cscottmills.com
December 23, 2024 at 5:17 PM
In this July installment of Polylith, I extend an invitation to join for an experiment in pilgrimage.

#towardThePolylith #pilgrimage #walking #holism
Polylith 083: Turquoise wash
A monthly letter by C.S. Mills toward a poetics of land, myth and the imagination
cscottmills.com
August 5, 2026 at 10:16 AM
Here is the December installment of Polylith, a brief letter on giving attention to things that slip away when they pass.

#towardThePolylith
Polylith 077: Seventh solstice
A monthly letter by C.S. Mills toward a poetics of land, myth and the imagination
cscottmills.com
December 31, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Happy summer solstice! In this June installment of Polylith, I share some notes from long days of work along the shores of the Great Lakes.

#towardThePolylith #greatLakes #solstice #animism
Polylith 082: Cerulean grammar
I've spent the days of April, May and June largely on the shore of Lake Michigan, walking the waveline, working. That is what this season brings, and what I ...
cscottmills.com
June 21, 2026 at 4:24 PM
In the April installment of Polylith, I share a new poem published in 'Dark Mountain 29'.

#towardThePolylith #darkMountain #darkMountainProject
Polylith 081: Animate edge
This month I'll share a new poem that appears in Dark Mountain 29, just published. The book is devoted entirely to animals, to an imaginative step beyond an ...
cscottmills.com
May 2, 2026 at 5:21 PM