In these Alice in Wonderland times, I have been trying to listen more to those whose life ways are tuned beyond a single news cycle. This has me turning often to the wisdom of Wendell Berry.

Dear friends, may we love someone who does not deserve it. May we plant sequoias. May we hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

 

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

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 easy 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

Photo: Inle Lake, Myanmar, 2014.

When things are heavy, I tend to walk and walk and walk. Eventually, instead of being lost in thought, I am lost in feeling.

On lucky days, I get a little glimmer of knowing. And once in a blue moon, to bring the point home, there’s an added spark, like the two angel wing shells that washed up at my feet last week, one right after the other. 

Friends, there’s a quiet that sits beyond the buzzing.

From there, we can see clearly

and breathe deeply

and act from love over fear.

I was zipping down the road a few days back when the person in front of me came to an inexplicable stop, far from any signs or lights. Once I slowed myself, I saw a whole gaggle of geese crossing the road. They took their sweet time, too – padding backwards and forwards and ‘round in small circles before they all finally reached the other side.

By the time they had crossed, about a dozen cars had lined up, some in each direction.

No one yelled or cussed.

No one swerved around in a rage.

No one honked (not even the geese). 

The next day, I attended an event where a brave soul in the back of the room stood and started singing. Everyone joined in, timid and first and then more and more fully.

We all sang.

We all smiled.

We all gave a little cheer at the end. 

Dear ones,

just when I think the world may have become permanently, universally meaner,

we surprise me.

Friends, it was a windy week, literally and figuratively, and this poem by E.E. Cummings helped me to catch my breath. 

May we dive for dreams.

May we trust our hearts. 

dive for dreams

or a slogan may topple you

(trees are their roots

and wind is wind)

 

trust your heart

if the seas catch fire

(and live by love

though the stars walk backward)

 

honour the past

but welcome the future

(and dance your death

away at this wedding)

 

never mind a world

with its villains or heroes

(for god likes girls

and tomorrow and the earth)

 

     – E.E. Cummings

Music expresses that which cannot be said.    – Victor Hugo

The solution to so many impossible things is music.

Just in these last few days,

I have wept hearing the chorus from a Broadway musical.

I have been comforted by a little kid singing Three Little Birds on the internet.

I have coped by shouting aaa, ka cha, ka cha at the top of my lungs in the car.

I have been transported by the resonance of a marimba.

Dear ones,

when we are lost,

when we are disappointed,

when we are angered,

when we are hopeful,

and when we are joyful,

let us listen.

Music doesn’t lie.    – Jimi Hendrix