If you wish to steal farm products or coal or timber from a rural region, you will find it much less troubling to do so if you believe that the people are too stupid and violent to deserve the things you wish to steal from them.
– Wendell Berry in The Way of Ignorance: Imagination in Place p.49
[W]hen one passes from any abstract order, whether that of the consumer economy or Ransom’s “Statement of Principles” or a brochure from the Extension Service, to the daily life and work of one’s own farm, one passes from a relatively simplicity into a complexity that is irreducible except by disaster and ultimately is incomprehensible. It is the complexity of the life of a place uncompromisingly itself, which is at the same time the life of the world, of all Creation. One meets not only the weather and the wildness of the world, but also the limitations of one’s knowledge, intelligence, character, and bodily strength. To do this, of course, is to accept the place as an influence.
– Wendell Berry in The Way of Ignorance: Imagination in Place p.48
The video is in honour of Ireland and this fantastic article in honour of Saint Patrick.
If you don’t know, the 6 Nations is going on right now which is the biggest European rugby tournament of the year. It’s between Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland, France, and Italy. Right now, with only one more weekend of matches left, it could go any one of three ways: to Ireland, England, or Wales. If the above video didn’t give it away, I’m rooting hard for Ireland!
How To Be A Poet by Wendell Berry
(to remind myself)
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
//
Big thanks to Bill over at Practicing Resurrection for introducing me to this poem and to Wendell Berry in general.
Jeep, you hit the spot on this one.
Turkey Alwan Travels