The Silence

The Silence -- Wendell Berry 

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence l
ike a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.

To My Children, Fearing for Them

To My Children, Fearing for Them
Wendell Berry

Terrors are to come.  The earth
is poisoned with narrow lives.
I think of you.  What you will

live through, or perish by, eats
at my heart.  What have I done?  I
need better answers than these are

to the pain of coming to see
what was done in blindness,
loving what I cannot save.  Nor

your eyes turning toward me,
can I wish your lives unmade
though the pain of them is on me.

"The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter’s goal is money, profit; the nurturer’s goal is health – his land’s health, his own, his family’s, his community’s, his country’s…The exploiter wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, certainly, to have a decent living from his work, but his characteristic wish is to work as well as possible. The competence of the exploiter is in organization; that of the nurturer is in order – a human order, that is, that accommodates itself both to order and to mystery. The exploiter typically serves an institution or organization; the nurturer serves land, household, community, place. The exploiter thinks in terms of numbers, quantities, “hard facts”; the nurturer in terms of character, condition, quality, kind."  ~Wendell Berry

What I want to be when I "grow up"

"I wish to be
an inspector of volcanoes.
I want to study cloud formations
and memorize the wind
and learn by heart the habits of
the ponderosa pine."
~Edward Abbey

Nothing

The Farmer with 84 Problems

(Excerpted from the book Wabi Sabi Simple: Create Beauty, Value Imperfection, Live Deeply By Richard R. )

Once, a farmer went to tell the Buddha about his problems. He
described his difficulties farming - how either droughts or monsoons
complicated his work. He told the Buddha about his wife - how even
though he loved her, there were certain things about her he wanted to
change. Likewise with his children - yes, he loved them, but they
weren't turning out quite the way he wanted. When he was finished, he
asked how the Buddha could help him with his troubles.

The Buddha said, "I'm sorry, but I can't help you."

"What do you mean?" railed the farmer. "You're supposed to be a great teacher!"

The Buddha replied, "Sir, it's like this. All human beings have
eighty-three problems. It's a fact of life. Sure, a few problems may
go away now and then, but soon enough others will arise. So we'll
always have eighty-three problems."

The farmer responded indignantly, "Then what's the good of all your teaching?"

The Buddha replied, "My teaching can't help with the eighty-three
problems, but perhaps it can help with the eighty-fourth problem."

"What's that?" asked the farmer.

"The eighty-fourth problem is that we don't want to have any problems."

"To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day."

~Lao Tzu, from chapter 48 of the Tao Te Ching

Those who know do not talk.
Those who talk do not know.

Keep your mouth closed.
Guard your senses.
Temper your sharpness.
Simplify your problems.
Mask your brightness.
Be at one with the dust of the earth.
This is primal union.

He who has achieved this state
Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
With good and harm, with honor and disgrace.
This therefore is the highest state of man.

Chapter 56, Tao Te Ching (Feng and English translation)

We are not unique

"Strangely enough, even as a population mass operating under unified corporate management machinery, most Americans believe they are unique individuals, significantly different from every other person around them. More than any other people I have met, Americans fear loss of uniqueness. Yet you and I are not unique in the least. Despite the American yada yada about individualism, you are not special. Nor am I. Just because we come from the manufacturer equipped with individual consciousness, does not make us the center of any unique world, private or public, material, intellectual or spiritual. The fact is, you will seldom if ever make any significant material or lifestyle choices of your own in your entire life. If you don't buy that house, someone else will. If you don't marry him, someone else will. If you don't become a psychologist, lawyer or a clergyman or a telemarketer, someone else will. We are all replaceable parts in the machinery of a capitalist economy. "Oh but we have unique feelings and emotions that are important," we say. Psychologists specialize in this notion. Yet I venture to say that none of us will ever feel an emotion that someone long dead has not felt, or some as yet unborn person will not feel. We are swimmers in an ancient rushing river of humanity. You, me, the people in my Central American village, the child in Bangladesh, and the millionaire frat boys who run our financial and governmental institutions with such adolescent carelessness. All of our lives will eventually be absorbed without leaving a trace."

~Joe Bageant, from "Escape from the Zombie Food Court"