To Be In One’s Right Mind
We live
by the economy of gifts,
the only economy that will last.
To be in one’s right mind
is to know the right use of gifts.
To ask for more than is given,
to take more than is given back,
is to have less, and finally
nothing.It follows the law of Nature,
by which our world
in changing lasts,
in dying lives.
adapted from A Small Porch in the Woods
by Wendell Berry
Nature is our supreme teacher. We observe the give and take of 
reciprocity, of the commerce between inanimate elemental constituents of life (photons, nitrogen, water), with vegetative; with reptilian and mammalian levels of being. All of the “higher” more complex levels of life are in fact, communities of micro-organisms doing the house-keeping, unseen but essential. All is a living commerce, taking and giving in due proportion.
All serve as metaphor, a living parable of the possibility for human social construction. That is, if we desire to be in our right mind.
I offer a few additional summer photographs from Kraklauer creek.
2 thoughts on “To Be In One’s Right Mind”
Wonderful Berry Selection
FYI – In order from top to bottom:
Echinacea (Purple Coneflower)
Silphium terebinthinaceum (Prairie Dock)
Asclepias sullivantii (Prairie Milkweed)
Dipsacus fullonum (Teazel) A Tenacious Invasive
Liatris pycnostachya (Prairie Blazingstar)
Thank you for the proper names. I did not know all of them. Perhaps the type of future we will create, will come down to whether we recognize our kinship with Nature or whether we will become more cyborg-like, merged with our devices, and thus less in touch with Nature.