1 oct 14 golden pond

This lake is very near the highway that I often travel for work meetings.  It's a welcome respite at the end of the day.

I have again come home

through miles of sky

from hours of abstract talk

in the way of modern times

when humans live in their minds

and the world, forgotten, dies

into explanations.

Wendell Berry

an excerpt from 1992

A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997

4 apr 10 practice resurrection

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce 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.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

Wendell Berry
Collected Poems, 1957-1982

12 mar 09 Repossessing Balance

This economic downturn didn't seem so scary to me last fall. With Barack Obama being elected president and a democratic senator emerging in Alaska, the world's future looked so hopeful. We traveled over the New Year and heard more stories of crisis and how tourism was dropping in Asia. We felt fortunate to be there and have jobs to return to, and we went on our merry way.

Even after we returned to Alaska, I wasn't worried. One of my co-workers expressed her fear about what might happen at our non-profit and I was surprised. Then a week later one departure was announced. Another week and two more layoffs. So this situation was going to get personal. People I knew, admired, liked, people who were part of my daily life, were going to be hurt. I wasn't worried about my own job but the future didn't look so bright.

How do you keep the fear and stress from rising? I can rationalize that I shouldn't worry, but then I talk with that friend who's out of work or hear another story on the radio about somebody losing their home or retirement. Short of tuning out, what is there?

One of the things that has brought me hope has been the chance circumstance that a radio interview program called Speaking of Faith airs about the same time we've been driving back from Talkeetna these past few weekends. The guests are religious folk, Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist; authors and poets; scientists and bankers; economists and secular humanists. The discussion eventually gets around to whatever 'faith' is for them. It may be God, natural laws of science, goodness of people.

SoF has a series called Repossessing Virtue where the conversation centers on whether the current economic crisis is also a moral and spiritual crisis. The answers to that question have fascinated me. So much so that I've been visiting the website to listen to more past guests. It almost seems like the show's producers are screening the guests for a combination of optimism and wisdom. Their individual answers vary but there's definitely a common theme -- reexamine what gives your life meaning. For most of us, it's not our bank account or our paycheck. It's our relationship to our family, friends, and community. For many of us, it's also our communion with the natural world (see the Wendell Berry and Anne Frank pieces in the right-hand column.)

If I had named the series, I think it would have been Repossessing Sanity or Repossessing Balance or Repossessing Values.

6 mar 09 snowy perch

After mentioning our outhouse in my last post, I was inundated with requests with requests for photos of it. In my dreams. We did remodel it last year, however, and it's probably better looking than you expected. I painted new walls in colors that I took from a card from Wolf Creek Printery and we replaced the plywood roof with translucent corrugated green plastic. I'm sharing a photo of it that I took this past weekend. The Wendell Berry poem is on the left (if you're looking in), a poster with a Gandhi quote on the back wall ("Be the change you want to see in the world"), and Wolf Creek art on the right. There is no door so when you're sitting, you've got a good view of a lovely birch forest. I've watched moose pass through the woods from this perch.

Talkeetna has an excellent snow base for skiing. The path to the cabin and to the outhouse is like a maze. We had planned to preview this year's Oosik route on Saturday, but a bad head cold has sapped me. We'll still go up tomorrow and ski something shorter. Then tomorrow night we'll be potlucking Asian style with our traveling companions.

22 feb 09 Practice Resurrection

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.

... Practice Resurrection.

Resurrection. Recession. Reset.

That excerpt from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry is framed in our Talkeetna outhouse; it's part of the decor in homage to nature, spirituality, and right living. When I read it this afternoon, I immediately connected it to two conversations we had with our friend Ellen this weekend. This morning she said she'd heard that our economy routinely needs a reset, and that's a less depressing word than depression. Last evening she was debunking the whole capitalist theory of the stock market and making money that you don't work for. She is a radical.

I looked up the entire poem and saw that Ellen and Wendell have thoughts in common.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce 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.

I wonder what would happen if our economy reflected the values that Wendell Berry espouses in this poem: long-term thinking, care for the Earth, care for each other, .... Would the world economy be plummeting now, would my co-workers be losing their jobs, would I worry about whether or not my 401k is going to fund my retirement ... if our society wasn't based on buying, buying, and making money?

If you're ready to become a radical resurrectionist, read Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry in its entirety.