[Panhala] Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front (excerpt) -- Wendell Berry

 

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

 

(second half)

 

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 ~

Dinner

Don't you just love spring? :)

Fwd: [Panhala] Fluent -- John O'Donohue

Fluent

 

I would love to live

Like a river flows,

Carried by the surprise

Of its own unfolding.

 

~ John O'Donohue~

 

 

(Conamara Blues)

Fwd: [Panhala] Mysteries, Yes -- Mary Oliver

 

 

Mysteries, Yes

 

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

 

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

 

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

 

Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

 

~ Mary Oliver ~

 

(Evidence)

 

 

Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Mysteries_Yes.html

 

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__,_._,___

Flowing along

Had a little time for a walk after work before getting to River's karate class (sweet class with a focus on strength, kindness and service but I know he enjoys a chance to feel strong and fierce for a change).

Found myself feeling so peaceful and happy making my way around the city on such an unexpectedly lovely and sunny afternoon.  Feeling delight in the sweetness of a new sense of ease: not needing to rush and not feeling driven to do any particular thing.

Some pictures along the way:

Swept along with the murmuration of starlings, the call of a hawk and a crow and the flocks of geese making their way steadily to wherever they are called next to be.

Salted caramel hot chocolate for a dollar and change, my little pink and brown bag to hold my coat and a few things and that amazing light calling me out onto the river. Our own hearts our most sacred home on the planet.

Sent from my iPhone