02 February 2011

well read wednesday


While basically living on the floor of our closet last spring, due to renovations incurred as the result of a burst pressure valve in the upstairs bedroom I picked up Derrick Jensen's The Culture of Make Believe from the library. It was 700 pages long. I liked the heft of it. The cover was dark and curious. I started on page one and read at least 10 pages a day, in the closet. It was neither reward nor punishment for living in the closet. I just wanted to see if I could do it. It was finished by June. And I was moved and confused by the contents... not even sure of what the title meant... but certain I wanted more. I gave Chase a copy of Walking on Water and he started into Endgame after completing that. His adviser at U of M said he may need intense counseling if he sinks into Derrick Jensen's words. Well, I've had intense counseling and Derrick Jensen's writing is brutal yet brilliant. When dropping Chase off at Uni last August I perused the shops along Higgins Street in Missoula. I picked up some worsted woolen at Joseph's Coat and A Language Older Than Words at Shakespeare and Co. I liked the heft of it and the image on the cover. And when I read the inside leader that unspoken communication with animals was the genesis of this book I was committed. I thought it might be light. Wrong. This book is terrifying and uplifting. His reasoning is harsh most times, but I came away with renewed compassion... for myself, for my family, for life. From the beginning I read with a highlighter in my hand and I don't think a page was missed. The first phrase underlined, "Try it yourself. Listen to someone, pay attention to where your thoughts take you. It actually feels different to hear than to think." And one night almost simultaneously I was flipping through the channels and stopped on Democracy Now where I caught Amy Goodman interviewing the author calling him "the poet-philosopher of the environmental movement" and reading this passage...
"There is a language older and by far deeper than words. It is the language of the earth, and it is the language of our bodies. It is the language of dreams and of action. It is the language of meaning, and of metaphor... This language of symbol is the umbilical cord that binds us to the beginning to whatever source of who we are, where we come from, and where we return."
I took it as a sign. Sometimes you lose your intuition just trying to survive. That peace and still small voice. You are blinded to your responsibilities even in sorrow and anguish and grief. I am motivated by the deep dark questions and the word. Thanks to a philosopher-poet for the leading me back to both.

Glimpse my yarn being spun at Joseph's Coat. I would enter that store many times when the boys were babies, mouth watering at the many colors, now, knowing how to knit, I finally make a purchase.


Just spied this crazy good find at crazy sexy life... it sort of goes along with the book. What is the "goal" of our civilized society?

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