What is Field Mowing Day
In the Kingdom of Leisure, “Field Mowing Day” isn’t a literal event — it’s a metaphor or ritualized idea that fits within the Kingdom’s surreal, reflective mythology.
It represents a day of maintenance, clearing, and renewal — when the overgrowth of time, thought, and memory is trimmed back so that new ideas can breathe. In other words:
“Field Mowing Day” is when the artist or thinker cuts away the noise to rediscover the shape of the land beneath.
It’s a ceremonial act of simplification, both practical and poetic — the balancing counterpart to “Attic Day” (which deals with collecting, remembering, and sorting the past)
In the Kingdom of Leisure, Field Mowing Day dawns quietly. The light is gold and a little sleepy, as if the sun itself is reluctant to disturb the dew still clinging to the long grass.
“There’s no announcement, no schedule — people just know it’s time. You hear the low hum of old engines being coaxed awake: push mowers, trimmers, maybe even a scythe swishing through the green. The air smells like chlorophyll, sun-warmed oil, and distant coffee.
It’s a day of gentle industry — not about perfection, but care. You mow because the field deserves to breathe again. You stop often, looking at clouds, feeling the hum in your hands, the rhythm of maintenance merging with meditation.
By midday, the cut grass lies in patterns — stripes, swirls, odd unplanned shapes. The kingdom feels open again, its thoughts freshly aired. You might see someone pausing at the edge of the field, gazing at the horizon, wondering what will grow next.
By evening, there’s lemonade or beer, slow music, and the quiet pride of having done just enough. The day ends with long shadows and the sense that something invisible has been tidied up inside you, too.”
But what is Field Mowing Day
- It’s an annual observance for Kingdom of Leisure/Middlespace, marked in September or Octobe
- Descriptions refer to it with poetic/reflective art, sometimes labeled “Field Mowing”
- It is both personal and collective: a time for introspection, reckonings, letting go of things, reassessments
- Field Mowing Day is directly related to the Slide and Attic Day in the Kingdom of Leisure
Elements/Themes of the Ritual
Here are the implicit “ritual”-like components:
- Reflection : People reflect on the past year (or past months), reviewing what’s changed, what’s held on, and what needs “mowing” away metaphorically
- Reassessing Thresholds & Boundaries : The writings around Field Mowing Day tend to deal with boundaries — what to keep, what to remove. There’s language like “corners and edges,” “explorations and reconciliations”
- Symbolic Letting Go/Clearing: The idea of mowing suggests cutting back excess — what’s no longer needed — so that what’s essential or new can grow. It might be emotional, creative, relational
- Marking Time/Change of Season : As a yearly event, it seems to punctuate a seasonal shift, perhaps tied to the decline of the year, the darkness increasing
- Connection : Even though much of the writing is introspective, there seems to be a shared sense among the “Middlespace Cadets” (the community) that they are participating together in this shift, this ritual
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