Tag Archives: Wendell Berry

“I” [“No, no, there is no going back”]

Posted on April 6, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

I purchased Wendell Berry’s latest book, Our Only World, on Sunday at Auntie’s, a small, independent book store since 1978. If you live in or near or visit Spokane, it is a nice location with restaurants near by.

After my purchases, I realized I had not used one of his poems in some time. I chose this one. I think it might be easy to say this is a bleak poem, talking about death. In a literal way, that makes sense. I take it figuratively.

Jacques Derrida contended that in becoming who we are the previous “who” repeatedly dies, but leaves memories and traces to be recalled. I read this poem, similarly. Who I am is metaphorically a grave of memories and traces that belong to me, but I share in various ways with others and the world. The tree is me standing guard over those memories. Guard might be too protective. Instead, similar to a tree’s rings signifying its age and even various years’ conditions, the tree represents the memories and stories about my living.

The tree allows me to recount my story, but not as it happened. My stories contain gaps, uncertainties, and ambiguity. I repeatedly edit them, filling in blanks, recalling events, and forgetting other things. As I recount my stories, they form a fictional account of who I am, where I’ve been, when I thrived, and when I struggled, similar to the rings on that poetic tree.

No, no, there is no going back.

Less and less you are

that possibility you were.

More and more you have become

those lives and deaths

that have belonged to you.

You have become a sort of grave

containing much that was

and is no more in time, beloved

then, now, and always.

And so you have become a sort of tree

standing over the grave.

Now more than ever you can be

generous toward each day

that comes, young, to disappear

forever, and yet remain

unaging in the mind.

Every day you have less reason

not to give yourself away.

12 Comments

Posted in Community, Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged Auntie's Bookstore, community, conversational journey, creativity, Jacques Derrida, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, Spokane, teacher as transformer, there is no going back"], Wendell Berry. Bookmark the permalink.

Be Still in Haste

Posted on February 20, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

I find Wendell Berry’s poetry speaks to me about being mindful and attentive in each moment I live. It calls me to be present and explore the mystery in each moment, knowing each moment carries me like a river flowing without knowing where it is going.

The etymology of anarchy suggests we continuously begin anew in each moment. It is not a free-for-all with no rules. Instead, the universe provides us with the rules of what it means to live in that moment. In being present, I come to understand each moment is a re-beginning that is forever unfolding.

Taking the time to be present, allows me to be still even when the world and others are in haste.

How quietly I
begin again

from this moment

looking at the
clock, I start over

so much time has
passed, and is equaled
by whatever
split-second is present

from this
moment this moment
is the first

7 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Sabbath and tagged Be Still in Haste, creativity, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Wendell Berry. Bookmark the permalink.

The Peace of Wild Things

Posted on May 3, 2015 by ivonprefontaine

I have many favourite poets that I always return to at various times. Wendell Berry is one of those poets. The words inspire me to pause, soak them in, and not rush on too quickly.

Sometimes just experiencing the primal world before I think about it is wonderful and filled with wonder as miracles show themselves slowly. It leaves me thoughtful and full of thought as I just, ponder, do not tax my life too much with forethought.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

25 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, teacher as transformer, The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry. Bookmark the permalink.

Be Still in Haste

Posted on December 21, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Wendell Berry is one of my favourite poets. He writes with such clarity and practical appreciation for the world. Even in clarity, the world remains ambiguous and fuzzy.

I read the last stanza of this poem as an example of the paradox and tension we try to hold. Perhaps, as much as I would like it to be different, time is always starting over in each moment. Each moments holds the eternity of time to paraphrase Alfred North Whitehead, yet I do not sense that unless I pause and notice time is passing me by.

Unless I pause, time passes me by and, yet, I cannot hold time still. It is inevitable it will start afresh in the next moment. In these pauses, I encounter the world and living as creative processes which I experience more fully when I am awake.

How quietly I
begin again

from this moment
looking at the
clock, I start over

so much time has
passed, and is equaled
by whatever
split-second is present

from this
moment this moment
is the first.

6 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged Alfred North Whitehead, Be Still in Haste, creativity, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, teacher as transformer, Wendell Berry. Bookmark the permalink.

1996 X (Some Sunday Afternoon, It May Be)

Posted on September 20, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Thich Nhat Hanh suggested our ancestors are always with us. They join us in places and moments that hold special meaning to us. Place is particular. Wendell Berry who wrote this poem suggested we have lost our sense of place.

When we sit quietly and sense the world, just soak it in, it is an opportunity to re-discover place and its essence. We become grounded in the world and not sitting outside and observing. The ordinary reveals itself as extraordinary.

Some Sunday afternoon, it may be,

you are sitting under your porch roof,

looking down through the trees

to the river, down to the river. The circles

made by raindrops’ striking

expand, intersect, dissolve,

and suddenly (for you are getting on

now and much of your life is memory)

the hands of the dead, who have been here

with you, rest upon you tenderly

as the rain rests shining

upon the leaves. And you think then

(for thought will come) of the strangeness

of the thought of heaven, for now

you have imagined yourself there,

remembering with longing this

happiness, this rain. Sometimes here

we are there, and there is no death.

14 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged community, creativity, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, sabbath, teacher as transformer, Thich Nhat Hanh, Wendell Berry. Bookmark the permalink.

There is only one Earth…

Posted on September 20, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

There is only one Earth….

I am re-reading Rethinking Nature an anthology of philosophical writings about seeing humans living inside nature and nature residing inside us. There is a co-inhabiting involved. Despite familiarity and intimacy, we cannot fully encounter and understand nature anymore than we fully encounter and understand our self. It is in mystery, that beauty lies.

The linked poem speaks to the objectifying nature has undergone at the hands of human belief that we are dominant in nature. In objectifying nature, we objectify ourselves. We cannot live in nature and see it as outside our living.

Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, and many other poets write about nature as a place. Place does not equate to ownership. It is about something special that holds our spirit in place and grounds our living. There is an essence and spirit in place that cannot be quantified. It is seen in the early morning dew, the thundering storms, and a moose calmly eating a few feet away.

11 Comments

Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, poetry, teacher as transformer, Wendell Berry. Bookmark the permalink.

affirmations

Posted on September 11, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

affirmations.

When we get up to face the day, it is nice to have a few words which help us move into the day. These affirmations provide different ways to speak into the day quietly regardless of what we face.

The post reminded me of writing by Parker Palmer, Thomas Merton, Wendell Berry, and Mary Oliver amongst many. The quieter we are, the more we still our mind and body, the more able we are to hear the soul speak its words of wisdom. Courage grows from the heart. The word courage shares the same roots as the French word for heart, coeur. When we take heart, courage emerges.

2 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Mary Oliver, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, Parker Palmer, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Thomas Merton, Wendell Berry. Bookmark the permalink.

Enriching the Earth

Posted on September 3, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

I spent a few days with my brother on his farm. He is in a space where satellites and towers seem to miss his place. It was nice to chat, reminisce, and laugh. I was not dressed for the farm, but still helped as best as I could. My brother pointed out several times I was setting a new fashion standard with shorts and sandals. I was careful where I walked.

I introduced Wendell Berry’s writing to my brother. Although he is more high-tech, there are qualities about my brother that remind me of Wendell Berry. They are both relatively low tech and understand the need placed on them when they use technology i.e. a car and airplane to do their work and live their life.

Farmers experience the reality of shipping animals. My brother uses Temple Grandin‘s ideas about humane treatment of animals. Good farmers know they put into and take out of the world. In some ways, we have lost sight of the cycle that we are part of in the world. We are spectators and it is easy to criticize. The cycle of life and death is entangled.

When farmers harvest, they return the parts of the plants, the weeds, and the waste into the ecosystem enriching the Earth. Human treatment of the Earth reflects the character of a person. Humaneness extended to Earth, all sentient beings, and inanimate phenomena is an imperative in enriching the Earth.

To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and of various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind’s service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song.

13 Comments

Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, Enriching the Earth, farming, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, teacher as transformer, Temple Grandin, Wendell Berry. Bookmark the permalink.

Voice of The Inanimate

Posted on August 8, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Voice of The Inanimate.

Last night, I pressed Our Grandmother from Eddie Two Hawks. In my comments, I mentioned Wendell Berry and the way I understand place in his writing. Wendell Berry’s work is used by the deep ecology movement which in many ways is not a movement. It is a way of life. For years, I critiqued the environmental movement as a corporate movement with many of the same characteristics of the business they criticized. Wendell Berry, similar to all good farmers, values the land. He speaks about as if it were living. It is not separate from us, but a part of us. When I think about this, it makes local and community environmental work incredibly important. It decries the corporate pillaging that goes on both sides of the equation.

Wendell Berry speaks of the land as a living and animate thing. This makes sense. The plants we grow happen in the healthy, which comes from the same root as whole, ecosystem. When we see ourselves embedded in this ecosystem and not overloads, it changes our relationship with nature. Alex commented the word nature comes from a word meaning birth. When certain parts of the ecosystem are damaged made, unwhole and unhealthy, the birth itself cannot be healthy.

Each contribution we make adds something to the world we live in. It is when we see ourselves as part of the world and nature that we make the greatest contributions to community. We are stewards, serving the world in loving ways. This is another analogy for the thinking of the world as grandmother. We treat our grandmothers with love.

24 Comments

Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, Deep Ecology, Eddie Two Hawks, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, poetry, spirituality, stewardship, teacher as transformer, The Liberated Way, Wendell Berry. Bookmark the permalink.

Our Grandmother

Posted on August 7, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Our Grandmother.

This is a wonderful quote. When we think of our grandmothers, we think of someone we want to treat with respect, dignity, and integrity for their wisdom. Mother Earth is the same. She possesses so much wisdom that when we are open and see ourselves as being one with the world we receive that wisdom.

Today, Kathy and I talked about place the Wendell Berry speaks about it. When we feel we live in a place, it means something profound to us. We think of those places not as out there, but very much in us and us in that place. We find community in those places because we have much in common with the others who live, animate and inanimate.