I AM a Softball Named Love by Larry Hobbs
Hello there. I AM a Softball Named Love. Like any other softball, I have a cork center, a leather cover, and 88 raised stitches that help me glide through the air like a determined eagle on a mission whenever I’m smacked by a batter or hurled by a pitcher. But what I love most is being caught in a soft oiled glove, or landing in a heavenly patch of grass while the sun rises. I don’t see why everyone makes such a fuss about me. I just like to ride the wind, go on adventures, and spend time with playful humans.
As for my ancestry, who knows? I might be from the US, Vietnam, China, India, or Costa Rica. What I do know is whose hands have touched me.
They tell me I’m special because Larry Hobbs gave me my name. He scrawled it across my leather with a magic marker in the Channeled Scablands during his farewell ceremonial tour. He and Susan visited the Veteran Rites guide team the day before the ceremonial game began—bringing tears, laughter, big Larry smiles, and, of course, stories. They didn’t linger at the threshold; instead, I found my place on the altar, resting on the same land where Larry had guided hundreds of souls across the finish line of their own field of dreams.
When the ceremony began, I was passed around the circle with care. I could feel the warmth of stories pressing against my stitches, the same warmth Larry radiated when he looked into someone’s eyes and made them feel like the most important player in the game of life.
Since then, I’ve traveled far and wide—touched by players of all kinds and cultures, from the Channeled Scablands to Colockum Ridge, Easton Ridge, the Rainbow Lodge, Vet Centers, American Lake VA. I’ve even rested in ceremonial boxes beside four big rocks, sage, and a half-smoked cigarette hidden by Trebbe Johnson, Sara Harris, and Silvia Talavera.
On Larry and Susan’s land, I was present when he and Trebbe gave the raddest, longest rendition of Jumping Mouse at what became his last ceremony there. Not long after, the guide team caught sight of him cruising on a scooter in downtown Roslyn. Can’t make this up.
At the end of the 2024 season in the Scablands, I was part of a great mirror for a man who, as a child, dreamed of being a professional baseball player. Guides and Initiates took to the Four Bases of Human Nature, and for one shining moment, we all got to feel what it was like to be the Starting Pitcher in the center of our own lives. I don’t know if I’ll ever have a greater game than that.
On the way home from that ceremony, I was brought to Larry at the hospital in Ellensburg. He and Susan held me tight and listened to that story. There were tears, there were smiles. We all knew it was close to his final inning.
Months later, when Larry was called up to the super major leagues in the sky, his loved ones gathered, drummed, and tossed me around while sharing tales of a man who left everything he had on the field—even when his stitches had loosened so much he could no longer fly with the wind. His fields were Family, Science, Ceremony, Sobriety, Stories, Nature, Adventure, Big Questions, and Circles of Humanity. Whatever the field, he tilled it with the soil of the heart.
And here I remain. Another full Veteran Rites season under my belt, more stories etched into my leather. I’ve been battered tender, washed with emotional rain, and lightened by the sun. My name is fading. The first version of me is already dying.
So who am I now?
What is my purpose?
Where do I belong?
Why was I named Love?
I think I’ll take it the land with a prayer and perhaps come back claim (drumroll please)…
I AM a Softball Named… Magic. Or Meredith. Or Doug!
Or whatever. I trust the Ceremony.
First Witness (Trebbe Johnson)
Thank you, Love Softball, for sharing your story with us. Truly, you have witnessed so much. And consider all the hands that have held you: hands trembling with fear, with pain, with so much desire for healing and change. You have been the perfect shape to fit in those hands. You have given the one who held you something to embrace when they needed so badly to be embraced themselves. And embraced by what? Embraced by their own beauty, their courage, their stubborn insistence on surviving when so much seemed to be pulling them in exactly the opposite direction.
You are round as the Earth, a bird’s nest, the iris of our eyes. Larry laid you on the altar and gave you a name, and whoever picks you up takes hold of the lineage and, when they lay you back down, passes it on.
Second Witness (Silvia Talavera)
Blessings to you, Softball stitched tight with stories and infused by the strong soul who has left his legacy to keep us healing forward. Your softness helps with the holding, and your roundness helps with the feeling of eternal wholeness. You are tenacious and resilient; your inner strength withstands the battering traumas of the outer world because you carry the best of who we are.
You are meant for all of us—for every ceremony, every battered warrior, the lepers and the kings. Please keep flying and landing in the center of our hearts, reminding us of who we are.
Third Witness (Silence of the Land)
Editor’s Note
Magic—or Meredith, or Doug, or Whatever—has reenlisted with Veteran Rites under a lifelong contract with Ceremony, “This Shit is Real” edition, for as long as they’ve got cork left. That’s just the deal.
