Replies

George,

I am so glad you enjoyed the poetry readings and beyond. Czeslaw Milosz’s line “The purpose of poetry is to remind us/how difficult it is to remain just one person” (from his poem “Ars Poetica”) is one of my favorites. So true. As you enjoy poets reflecting on their art, the following books might be of interest to you:

Kay Ryan. Synthesizing Gravity (she has a quirky and brilliant mind and is a great poet)
Marvin Bell. A Marving Bell Reader. (includes a great essay on reading and rereading poems)
Tony Hoagland. Real Sofistikashun (here you see his sense of humor)

And there are so many more! Happy reading and mind bending.

Kathleen

Dennis,

I just listened to that podcast on my walk today without having read your post! Your talk got me so interested in him, and I agree, he is amazing and this podcast is worthy of every ear. He also mentioned a new book he wrote, Right Story, Wrong Story which sounds equally fascinating. he has real ways of relating Indigenous practices and views to our wider world in crisis.

I deeply relate to what he is saying about language differences (no word for time in his language, which reveals a totally different conception of it) because “place” is essential to understanding time. He makes us think about reality in a totally different way. Trying to understand it delights and challenges me and teaches me how little I know. I sense that when I am engaged with the natural world, I am also seeing and experiencing but a tiny portion in part because of my culture’s long exile from it.

I am really looking forward to visiting this website. Thank you, Rolla, for directing us to so many great resources that will keep us engaged with the subject. I feel like this course is the beginning of a new journey, and I want to thank Mary Elizabeth for bringing us together in the way you did and with such a fascinating array of speakers and readings.My daughter-in-law who is studying environmental science and public policy at Indiana U is very interested in reading the What is Ecological Civilization? text. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it became part of that program?

Dennis,

I was quite intrigued by your presentation on Sand Talk and have ordered it from my public library.

Kathleen

Yes, I too was horrified by the vile statements of Andrew Jackson. My children learned about The Trail of Tears in 5th grade (NYS curriculum). Parents were told about this ahead of time, in the event they thought their child couldn’t cope with the following activity and would then be released from it: the class was suddenly moved from room to room and the school grounds in a way that didn’t make any sense to them. I can’t remember any more details, but of course afterwards they talked with the children about how they felt about their experience and about the Trail of Tears in an effort to help them imagine in some small way what it would have been like to be a Cherokee child being removed from their homes.

I guess I was fortunate even as a child to have units on the Native Americans and particularly the Seneca who lived on the land where I now live (officialy the Haudensaunee, which includes several tribes). They inspired a life long interest in the people who lived where I live long before.

Thank you for starting this post, Joel on prayer and hope, and your responses Neil and Eric. In my direst hours of thinking about the situation we are in, I have also found in Process Thought and Theology the possibilities of novelty and the lure toward wholeness as experienced in prayer; in fact, I have come to think in new ways about prayer, individually, in community, including all living beings and even what some consider wholly inanimate. I feel this group is holding us all together in community and that is so important when faced with difficult realities, honest reflection, and the work that needs to be done. To be honest, I do not have the courage to face these realities alone.

I felt in reading these poems both a sense of deep satisfaction in the experiencing of being with and in and part of the natural world alongside a sense of the tragic beauty of this world always passing away. I love how the poet anchors the poem in the sensory, which includes the music created by the words:

“Thimbleberries tart on my tongue . . .
Touch yearns for more touch:
Bittersweet,
bitter, bittersweet.”

I am still thinking about the depth and meaning of “The path I travel is not/my own.” Something to ponder . . .

Thanks for sharing, Rolla.

I have long loved this Mary Oliver poem, Rolla, and am so glad you shared it. Her sense of wonder and how she connects the reader with all living beings with that final question continues to stun me.

The following is not a critique of this poem which has been inspiring to and awakened so many of us. The last line echoed through my head one day when I was working with some folks who are severely food deprived and/or homeless. I see homeless folks everyday within a couple blocks of where I live, largely ignored. I think people sometimes people relate more to trees than they do their kin on the street. I understand this; it is not easy to do and one can feel a bit helpless/hopeless, but these folks, too, each have “one wild and precious life”. I have wondered how they would relate to this poem?

When I recently came across this poem by Lucille Clifton I thought how perfectly and with deep respect it described the “one wild and precious life” of one Miss Rosie, who brought to mind many others. Would I want her life? No, but it is hers, equally “wild and precious” to her as mine is to me, and precious to Lucille, too.

MISS ROSIE

— Lucille Clifton

when i watch you
wrapped up like garbage
sitting, surrounded by the smell
of too old potato peels
or
when i watch you
in your old man’s shoes
with the little toe cut our
sitting, waiting for your mind
like next weeks’s grocery
i say
when i watch you
you wet brown bag of a woman
who used to be the best looking gal in georgia
i stand up
through your destruction
i stand up

If we lose sight of the the flourishing of all life, including our urban and rural poor (whose plight Wendell Berry so eloquently addressed in the Orion conversation with Helena Norberg-Hodge) how can we make possible a truly ecological civilization? How might we see our fellow humans kin with the same wonder we accord a bird or a tree?

Thanks, Rolla. It is deeply hopeful to know there are such working groups. I will explore this myself and pass on to my daughter in law who is working on a dual degree in environmental science and public policy.I found Jeremy’s talk incredibly insightful.

I am a fan of public banking and was very happy to learn that efforts are underway to establish one in the city where I live, Rochester, NY. Here is an article which discusses the project and what needs to happen next with the NYS legislature to make it happen. There is also mention of other cities trying to do the same thing. This is hopeful news.

https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/a-major-new-step-toward-public-banking-in-rochester

Well, Neil, I think this is a wonderful example of “playfulness” on your part, and I delighted in it.

Joel,

I am moved by your compassion for your students and your meditation on balancing despair and hopefulness. That beautiful passage felt like a kind of blooming, the beginning of creating an organic place of openness to new possibilities as they arise, notwithstanding the real difficulties and despair. I find very helpful in this regard the words of French meditation teacher Christophe Andre (from LOOKING AT MINDFULNESS, a book in which he uses paintings to explore the meditation process): “I don’t give up my obsessions and rumination, instead I dilute them in the largest possible container – my infinitely expanded awareness.” Could the intention to hold things in balance and experience equanimity in whatever practice one chooses be considered a positive “habitual response” much as Mary Elizabeth Moore characterized the keeping of Torah by the Orthodox Jewish professor who said that it prepared her for making bigger decisions when they came along?

(For the image Andre uses in this case see https://images.app.goo.gl/eb2HQrW3re6rEagz5

Eric,
Thank you for this is a fascinating read. I knew nothing about the possibilities of using thorium (had not heard of it before) for nuclear power, I assume because that discussion has been pretty much shut down. Your data on urban vs rural use of energy is also illuminating, and it does not surprise me that the very wealthy have huge carbon footprints considering their consumption, multiple houses and private jets in constant use. You have so much to offer this group on this subject of energy production and use, and I look forward to learning more from you. I think we are all hungry for specifics, for going beyond the conceptual, important as that is.

As for your last question, I believe that if, as Whitehead says, there is intrinsic value in everything, we still need to ask the questions “and all to the same degree and does anything have “unmitigated” good?” Love? Then we can argue about what qualifies as love. Andrew Schwartz in his “Tuesday with John Cobb” talk last week and Philip Clayton in his talk with us raised the question of what is it to be a human? We need to better understand and face ourselves. We seem to be a species prone to fear and greed, as if our early survival instincts have only been made worse by our creative capacity to produce more, find more ways to acquire, and produce terrifying weapons. Should we have sober and cautious compassion for such a species, or fear ourselves? Both? On the other hand, we are creators of enormous beauty and good, have extraordinary capacities for caring for one another and for exploring this amazing Cosmos. We need to be ever more cognizant of our great potentials to create good and destroy. Almost everything “good” that we create has the potential to be used otherwise.

Rolla,
I very much agree with you regarding Process ideas being “in the air” and widely in everyday speech. We need to work with that! Here is the dilemma (and it is not news to us): we hold certain beliefs and values regarding nature and our place in it and for the large part unknowingly participate in economic and cultural systems that espouse the opposite. We need to work in that space between the two, to gently steer folks to thinking about the contradictions within which they live, and provide pathways, however small, to closing that gap. No easy task.

I would like to think of this time as potentially The Great Awakening.

I am very intrigued by both The Dawn of Everything and Karatani’s book, especially the latter. This will feed my obsession about the transmission of ideas and culture. A must read. Thank you!

I am fortunate to have such conversations with my son. I have also been talking with my daughter-in-law who is currently in a dual degree program in Environmental Science and Public Policy. More on that another time.

Dear Ryan and Bill,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful responses. I am finding, too, that hearing the different voices in the forums leads me to new ways of thinking, feeling, and connection. Ryan, your honesty touches me. For me, too, the opportunity to hear others and converse has opened doors to new thinking. The beauty of this forum is that we all have different modes of expression that come together.

Bill, I love that translation of Rilke’s Book of Hours! I appreciate your sharing that story about her working with activists, which inspires me to head over to her website.Your last paragraph is so beautiful written and is worthy of being held in mind (and body) as we move along through this and beyond.