Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front (excerpt) By Wendell Berry
Denounce the government and embrace
You need to make a commitment, and once you make it, then life will give you some answers.
Les Brown
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/answers.htmlDenounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns....
... Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts....
I have no answers, but this, one of my most favorite poems by my favorite Kentucky writer Wendell Berry, makes me feel there may yet be reason to hope...
A nation that destroys
its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying
the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/land.html
A nation that destroys
its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying
the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/land.html
Whether we or our
politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and
decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense
of justice than we do.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/wendell_berry.html
“So, friends, every day do something that
won't compute ... Give your approval to all you cannot understand ...
Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of
humus that will build under the trees every thousand years ... Laugh. Be
joyful though you have considered all the facts ... Practice
resurrection.”
― The Country of Marriage, Wendell Berry (probably my favorite Wendell Berry quote ever)
"Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all
our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a
sterner sense of justice than we do.”
― Wendell Berry
“It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come
to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The
impeded stream is the one that sings.”
― Wendell Berry
In honor of Earth Day (yesterday), I thought I would post a landscape. Making a collage in a landscape format seems like it would be fairly simple, but for me it was not. I struggled to find a balance of semi-realistic and abstract elements; I wanted it to read as a collage, but with an abstract twist. This is definitely going to take more practice; I modified this piece several times, until I felt it was as close to my vision as I was likely to get. I'm sure more will follow, as I will tackle this subject again in the future.
I will leave you with some of Wendell Berry's lines to inspire you for Earth Day:
“The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
― Wendell Berry, The selected Poems of Wendell Berry
“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after
all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and
to foster its renewal is our only hope.”
― Wendell Berry
I haven't done any pieces for my long-ongoing "Transformations" series in quite a long while, but was recently inspired to add to it.
Transformation 45
My "Transformations" series is strongly rooted in my deep feelings about the magic of nature, and when I look for words about nature, I often look to one of my heroes and favorite writers, Wendell Berry. I leave you here with some of his wisdom.
“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after
all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and
to foster its renewal is our only hope.”
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
“So, friends, every day do something that won't compute...Give your
approval to all you cannot understand...Ask the questions that have no
answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the
trees every thousand years...Laugh. Be joyful though you have
considered all the facts....Practice resurrection.”
Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years.
from "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" by Wendell Berry
In the place that is my own place, whose earth
I am shaped in and must bear, there is an old tree growing,
a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.
Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,
hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightning has burned it.
There is no year it has flourished in
that has not harmed it. There is a hollow in it
that is its death, though its living brims whitely
at the lip of the darkness and flows outward.
Over all its scars has come the seamless white
of the bark. It bears the gnarls of its history
healed over. It has risen to a strange perfection
in the warp and bending of its long growth.
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.
It has become the intention and radiance of its dark fate.
It is a fact, sublime, mystical and unassailable.
In all the country there is no other like it.
I recognize in it a principle, an indwelling
the same as itself, and greater, that I would be ruled by.
I see that it stands in its place and feeds upon it,
and is fed upon, and is native, and maker.
I hope you all had a blessed and joyful holiday, my dear friends, wherever you are.
It is
only when we are aware of the earthand of the earth as poetry
that we truly live. -
Henry Beston, 1935, Herbs and the
Earth (Glacier national Park)
"Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever
knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can
learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they
preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. " -
Hermann Hesse (Lewis County, Kentucky)
The
love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond
reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth
which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know,
the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see ...
No, wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit,
as vital to our lives as water and good bread. -
Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire (Camp Joy, Ohio)
So
will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted
dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower
yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to thee.
- Samuel
Taylor Coleridge (Springrove Cemetary and Arboretum, Cincinnati, Ohio)
The moment one
gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes
a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. ---
Henry Miller (Shabo Mekaw, Kinneykonick, Kentucky)
“It is a
constant idea of mine that behind the cotton wool (of daily reality)
is hidden a pattern, that we – I mean all human beings – are
connected with this: that the whole world is a work of art; that we
are parts of the work of art.”-Virginia
Woolf (Lewis County, Kentucky)
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the
least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go
and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and
the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not
tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of
still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their
light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. --Wendell Berry (Shabo Mekaw, Kinniconick, KY)
"So, friends, every day do something that won't compute...Give your
approval to all you cannot understand...Ask the questions that have no
answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the
trees every thousand years...Laugh. Be joyful though you have
considered all the facts....Practice resurrection.”-- Wendell Berry (Shabo Mekaw)
“When it’s over, I want to say: All my life I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms." --Mary Oliver (Taylor Mill, Kentucky)
“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after
all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and
to foster its renewal is our only hope.”-- Wendell Berry (Glacier National Park)
(James River, Richmond, Virginia)
“Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?"
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross
Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?”
-- Mary Oliver
I find myself becoming increasingly more fascinated by water, photographing it over and over again. Constantly changing in endless permutations- visually, it never disappoints. It appears to play some age-old game with light, one that only they understand. It can be a mirror, reflecting the colors and forms around it, while keeping its own secrets hidden beneath. It can stay absolutely still, or become a rushing, raging torrent against which nothing can stand. It can be life-giving relief and sustenance, but just as swiftly take life and wash it away as if were nothing.
It seems a mystery to me- something that's so common, and so necessary for life, but is really quite unique. We take water for granted, most of us wasting it without much thought. Yet we can live only a week or so without it; we can go a month or more without food. Our bodies are 60- 70% water. While approximately 75% of the earth's surface is covered with water, 97% of that is salt water, and 2% is frozen in the polar ice caps, which means about 1% is drinkable. It's the only substance that occurs naturally in all of matter's three forms: solid, liquid, and gas. Somehow, the scientific facts don't begin to capture the truth of it, or what it means to us human beings on this planet.
Since the beginning of recorded history, water has been important symbolically as well as physically. According to Avia Veneficia of What's-Your-Sign.com:
The symbolism of water has a universal undertone of purity and fertility. Symbolically, it is often viewed as the source of life itself as we see evidence in countless creation myths in which life emerges from primordial waters.
Interestingly, we are all made of water, and so we can liken many of these myths and allegories to our own existence (the macrocosm mirroring the microcosm and vice versa). Further, we can incorporate symbolism of circulation, life, cohesion and birth by associating the creative waters of the earth with the fluids found in our own body (i.e., blood).
In Taoist tradition, water is considered an aspect of wisdom. The concept here is that water takes on the form in which it is held and moves in the path of least resistance. Here the symbolic meaning of water speaks of a higher wisdom we may all aspire to mimic.
The ever-observant ancient Greeks understood the power of transition water holds. From liquid, to solid, to vapor - water is the epitomal symbol for metamorphosis and philosophical recycling.
Among the first peoples of North America, water was considered a valuable commodity (particularly in the more arid plains and western regions) and the Native Americans considered water to be a symbol of life (further solidifying the symbol affixed in many creation myths).
So it is also with the ancient Egyptians as we learn their beloved (and heavily relied upon) Nile river is akin to the birth canal of their existence.
A quick list of symbolic meanings for water include (but are not limited to):
And from Pure Inside Out: The holy books of the Hindus explain that all the inhabitants of the earth emerged from the primordial sea. At the beginning of the Judeo-Christian story of creation, the spirit of God is described as "stirring above the waters," and later, God creates "a firmament in the midst of the waters to divide the waters" (Genesis 1:1-6)
Finally, I'll leave you with the words of one of my personal heroes, and a great Kentuckian:
Water by Wendell Berry
I was born in a drouth year. That summer my mother waited in the house, enclosed in the sun and the dry ceaseless wind, for the men to come back in the evenings, bringing water from a distant spring. veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank. And all my life I have dreaded the return of that year, sure that it still is somewhere, like a dead enemys soul. Fear of dust in my mouth is always with me, and I am the faithful husband of the rain, I love the water of wells and springs and the taste of roofs in the water of cisterns. I am a dry man whose thirst is praise of clouds, and whose mind is something of a cup. My sweetness is to wake in the night after days of dry heat, hearing the rain.
