Really lovely writing, Kathleen, as always. I'm reminded of the line from the movie Witness, a line that has stuck with me all these years: "What you take into your hands you take into your heart." It's spoken in the context of handling a gun, of taking human life, from the Amish perspective, and I have no idea to what extent the line is true to Amish culture. But I mention it here because the idea folds nicely into yours. What we choose to do in relation to the land and our fellow species may seem only like daily life, but it informs (and sometimes deforms) the heart.
Oh what a great association you make here, Jason. Of course, what we take into our hands and into our heart can inform the heart with love or deform it with violence. I'd muse that capitalism has us all confused about what deforms the heart and the land and what doesn't . Story telling (as you do so well) that helps to make clear the danger of those supposedly beautiful things we hold in our hands is our most potent weapon.
What beauty you hold up for us to see, illuminated by the light of your fierce loving heart! This very morning I was thinking of writing about the vows of poverty and stability I once took, but reneged on, unable to honor them because I valued a comfortable life more. And at that time before taking them almost a half century ago, I had come across a passage warning of the danger of taking vows because in doing so one took ones very heart in ones hands and damage to it from breaking those vows was not easily repaired. This is what I was thinking of writing this Sunday morning! My love and need of a comfortable life superceded my noblest aspirations..and isn't that what is happening to us all, to all the saltmarshes?
Oh those vows we all reneged on so lazily. I did too. Moved to Maine after reading Small is Beautiful in early '70's and got as far as making my own rose hip jam before the rush of all those shiny things in the store windows, the comfortable life, took me down! And all the saltmarshes.
We can only try now to make reparations with our fierce writing. Thanks you for yours!!
Exquisite. We must take imagining another step forward as you are doing in so many ways. Thank you. Brought to mind the wild wandering of my childhood in a sleepy town outside Bangor. Love those photos!
As always, thank you Judith for your support and for accompanying me on these wanderings on Sunday mornings! Wild wanderings of your childhood!! Now there are the wild wanderings of our third act!!
Kathleen, thank you for taking me with you, marsh to mountain to fox. I understand again about imagining. I knew how it worked once, that's how my life unfolded after I left my parents home. I dreamed and dared, broke away from the prepared table and made my life. Lately I forgot about imagining. The world was too scary. It scared the imagining away. But by luck, by providence
By luck, by grace, by wise words from a wise friend, I was reminded: the dream comes first, the dream of what we love, what moves us, what sustains us, the glimpse of the fox behind the pine.
Oh Helena, thank you. Thank you for joining me, "marsh to mountain to fox" on Sunday mornings. Your presence beside me is what makes the writing possible, what calls up my language and sustains my own dreams and my own imagination for a world where saltmarshes flourish.
Really lovely writing, Kathleen, as always. I'm reminded of the line from the movie Witness, a line that has stuck with me all these years: "What you take into your hands you take into your heart." It's spoken in the context of handling a gun, of taking human life, from the Amish perspective, and I have no idea to what extent the line is true to Amish culture. But I mention it here because the idea folds nicely into yours. What we choose to do in relation to the land and our fellow species may seem only like daily life, but it informs (and sometimes deforms) the heart.
Oh what a great association you make here, Jason. Of course, what we take into our hands and into our heart can inform the heart with love or deform it with violence. I'd muse that capitalism has us all confused about what deforms the heart and the land and what doesn't . Story telling (as you do so well) that helps to make clear the danger of those supposedly beautiful things we hold in our hands is our most potent weapon.
What beauty you hold up for us to see, illuminated by the light of your fierce loving heart! This very morning I was thinking of writing about the vows of poverty and stability I once took, but reneged on, unable to honor them because I valued a comfortable life more. And at that time before taking them almost a half century ago, I had come across a passage warning of the danger of taking vows because in doing so one took ones very heart in ones hands and damage to it from breaking those vows was not easily repaired. This is what I was thinking of writing this Sunday morning! My love and need of a comfortable life superceded my noblest aspirations..and isn't that what is happening to us all, to all the saltmarshes?
Oh those vows we all reneged on so lazily. I did too. Moved to Maine after reading Small is Beautiful in early '70's and got as far as making my own rose hip jam before the rush of all those shiny things in the store windows, the comfortable life, took me down! And all the saltmarshes.
We can only try now to make reparations with our fierce writing. Thanks you for yours!!
Exquisite. We must take imagining another step forward as you are doing in so many ways. Thank you. Brought to mind the wild wandering of my childhood in a sleepy town outside Bangor. Love those photos!
As always, thank you Judith for your support and for accompanying me on these wanderings on Sunday mornings! Wild wanderings of your childhood!! Now there are the wild wanderings of our third act!!
Kathleen, thank you for taking me with you, marsh to mountain to fox. I understand again about imagining. I knew how it worked once, that's how my life unfolded after I left my parents home. I dreamed and dared, broke away from the prepared table and made my life. Lately I forgot about imagining. The world was too scary. It scared the imagining away. But by luck, by providence
oops--sent before I finished--to continue.
By luck, by grace, by wise words from a wise friend, I was reminded: the dream comes first, the dream of what we love, what moves us, what sustains us, the glimpse of the fox behind the pine.
Oh Helena, thank you. Thank you for joining me, "marsh to mountain to fox" on Sunday mornings. Your presence beside me is what makes the writing possible, what calls up my language and sustains my own dreams and my own imagination for a world where saltmarshes flourish.