There’s a killer on the road His brain is squirmin’ like a toad Into this world we’re thrown Like a dog without a bone An actor out on loan. Riders on the storm –The Doors Riders on the Storm is a haunting Rock paean. Jim Morrison does justice to the dark lyric, singing about…
Achilles, like most people, has many values, which do not all fit together tidily in all circumstances. This would be a flaw, I suppose, if there were a better alternative, or if it were not so obviously the human lot. –excerpt The Anger of Achilles essay by C D C Reeve
Thinking of the challenges that I face in life, these quotes from What Are People For by Wendell Berry seemed timely, much appreciated. The clarification of pain, healing cultivates the scar that is the course of time and nature over damage: the landmark and mindmark that is the notation of a limit. You never…
Wednesday, closing in on the end of March. I understand that the east coast is being ripped by the forth Nor’easter this year, more wet snow and high winds. I am sad for those who live along the coast and in New York. I know that climate change is the consequence of the life…
A Sunday morning warmed by our life-giving sun greeted me on March 18. Yesterday was occupied with a leisurely breakfast with an old friend. By definition old friends are rare. Time and space separate us. An old friend knows the young adult that we were, and the battles that we fought and survived in…
The week ends with news of further firings from the inner circle of palace courtiers. The Secretary of State was fired several days ago. The Deputy FBI Director Anthony McCabe was fired last night, by a twitter post. By way of contrast I offer these words of Wendell Berry, taken from the last essay,…
This is the ruinous contradiction underlying present-day American “conservatism.” For the present economy to thrive or even survive, it is necessary for the great majority of the people to have exorbitant or inordinate wants, to expect to get what they want, and to feel that they have a “right” to get it. But to…
I have few words to say. Today was an early morning, attending to customers needs. So this post waited until the end of the day. The words are important though. They are koan-like, found in a book by Wendell Berry, Standing By Words. Love one another or die, individually and as a species. I…
It is gray and raining today, with perhaps a visitation of wet snow later in the morning. Weather extremes herald the approach of spring. The tilt of the earth provides incremental warming to us in the northern hemisphere–the slide begins to the awaited growing season. Natures rhythm is beneficent, a solace that we depend…
For human life to continue on the hillside (or anywhere else) through successive generations requires good use, good work, all along. For in any agricultural place that will waste and erode–and all will–bad work will not permit “muddling through”; sooner or later it ends human life. For good work to last, to outlast the…
