THE WISDOM OF A MAD FARMER

Spears Road, Anderson County, South Carolina

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places and desecrated places.

Wendell Berry

I rise early each morning, take a quick shower, feed our dog, grab a large cup of dark roast, and then set out with my binoculars and camera to discover that is unfolding on the rural backroads of upstate South Carolina. While I never know what to expect, experience has taught me that something extraordinary and beautiful will likely come my way, and whatever it is, it will surely be more satisfying that the political news of the day.

As I move from towns to farm roads, I'm often thinking about one of my favorite writers, the poet, essayist, and passionate environmentalist, Wendell Berry.  Through his poems and essays, as well as myriad speeches and interviews, Berry has given me better eyes to see and understand the natural world.  More importantly, perhaps, he has continued to remind me of how much we are threatened by corporate agriculture, a mechanistic economy, and a modern culture that is more concerned with consumption and convenience that it is with protecting the health of the planet.

One of my favorite Berry poems is Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front. Set forth below, it offers some sensible advice on how to live on the earth with a sense of integrity, purpose, and responsibility.  Just one note of caution:  When you read the words "praise ignorance," do not hastily conclude that Berry is opposed to education.  He is simply reminding us that a good education should come with an understanding of man's historic inclination to eventually destroy or corrupt everything he discovers.

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 down in the shade.  Rest your head
                                     in her lap.  Swear allegiance
                                     to what is highest in 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.

THE SOLACE OF FOOD, BEAUTY, NATURE, AND ART

Open Window, Collioure
Henri Matisse

While the title of my blog, The Shape of Light, is primarily a reflection of my interest in photography, I'm also interested in sharing other kinds of light, including the enlightenment to be found in the words and ideas of good literature, particularly good poetry.  Indeed, as you can see from earlier postings, I'm usually inclined to pair one of my photographs with quotes or poems from writers I admire.  For better or worse, I find that words can amplify images, just as images can amplify words.

The image being used today, however, is obviously not one of mine.  It's an image of the Matisse painting, Open Window, Collioure, which was painted in 1905 and currently hangs in  the National Gallery of Art.  I was invited to take a new look at this painting when, this morning, I stumbled upon a wonderful poem by Ellen Bass. Titled "French Chocolates," the poem eschews the bromides that are offered by well-intentioned friends when we are facing difficulties, and reminds us that the simple pleasures of food, beauty, nature, and art will usually provide more solace than hackneyed expressions of sympathy or psychoanalysis. 

French Chocolates

by

Ellen Bass

                                If you have your health, you have everything

                                is something that's said to cheer you up

                                when you come home early and find your lover

                                arched over a stranger in a scarlet thong.

                                Or it could be you lose your job at Happy  Nails

                                because you can't stop smudging the stars

                                on those ten teeny American Flags.

                                I don't begrudge you your extravagant vitality.

                                May it blossom like a cherry tree.  May the petals

                                of your cardiovascular excellence

                                and the accordion polka of your lungs

                                sweeten the mornings of your loneliness.

                                But for the ill, for you with nerves that fire

                                like a rusted-out burner on an old barbecue,

                                with bones brittle as spun sugar,

                                with a migraine hammering like a blacksmith

                                in the flaming forge of your skull,

                                may you be spared from friends who say,

                                God doesn't give you more than you can handle

                                and ask what gifts being sick has brought you.

                                May they just keep their mouths shut

                                and give you French chocolates and daffodils

                                and maybe a small, original Matisse, say
                                Open Window, Collioure, so you can look out
                                at boats floating on dappled pink water.       

"French Chocolates" is from
Like a Beggar, by Ellen Bass

SUNFLOWER-BORDERED ROADS TO FREEDOM

Roadside Sunflowers, Townville, South Carolina

Few things are as mesmerizing in summer as driving down a country road and suddenly discovering a vast landscape of sunflowers.  In field after field of yellow, red, and green, capped by sweeping blue skies and dazzling clouds, one cannot avoid the welcome sense of being completely liberated — if only for a moment — from the burdens and distractions of the spinning world.  As Willa Cather suggested in My Antonia, such experiences always leave us with the gentle assurance that we are on the right road, both literally and metaphorically:

The new country lay open before me: there were no fences in those days, and I could choose my own way over the grass uplands, trusting the pony to get me home again.  Sometimes I followed the sunflower-bordered roads.  Fuchs told me that the sunflowers were introduced into that country by the Mormons; that at the time of the persecution when they left Missouri and struck out into the wilderness to find a place where they could worship God in their own way, the members of the first exploring party, crossing the plains to Utah, scattered sunflower seeds as they went. The next summer, when the long trains of wagons came through with all the women and children, they had a sunflower trail to follow.  I believe that botanists do not confirm Jake's story, but insist that the sunflower was native to those plains.  Nevertheless, that legend has stuck in my mind, and sunflower-bordered roads always seem to me the roads to freedom."

From My Antonia

by

Willa Cather 

  

Willa Cather

1873 - 1947

THE BUTTERFLY DREAM

Monarch

Once upon a time,
I dreamt I was a butterfly,
fluttering hither and thither,
to all intents and purposes a butterfly.
I was conscious only of my happiness
as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. 

Soon I awaked, and there I was, 
veritably myself again. Now I do not know
whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly,
or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

Chuang Tzu
Chinese philosopher of 4th century BC
(also known a Zhuang Zhou and Zhuangzi)

THE QUESTION

Carolina Wren

                                        The question before me, now that I

                                        am old, is not how to be dead,

                                        which I know from enough practice,

                                        but how to be alive, as these worn

                                        hills still tell, and some paintings 

                                        of Paul Cezanne, and this mere 

                                        singing wren, who thinks he's alive

                                        forever, this instant, and may be.

 Wendell Berry

Sabbath Poems 2001, VIII

SWALLOWS: REVELRIES OF INDECISION

Barn Swallows

Swallows are the aerial acrobats of the avian world. They soar, dive, twist, roll, bank, glide, and engage in almost every other kind of flight movement imaginable, with the possible exception of flying directly backwards. The second-to-second directional changes are so quick and unpredictable that I am inclined to agree with something poet Leonora Speyer alluded to in the poem at the end of this posting: Swallows are masters of indecision.

My favorite swallow is the barn swallow, known for its deeply forked tail, its steely blue back, its bright blue crown and face, and its cinnamon-colored forehead and throat. Whenever I have a chance to observe these magnificent birds in their daily revelries, it's always a pleasure, and that's precisely what happened yesterday morning.

While driving slowly down a country lane in northwest Anderson County, I came across a young barn swallow perched on a fence post at the edge of a pasture . . .

After watching the swallow for a few minutes, I realized that it was anxiously searching the sky for something, and I presumed it was for one of his parents to return with a tasty breakfast.

My presumption turned out to be correct; the young swallow soon spread its wings and opened its mouth widely, suggesting that the parent swallow was quickly approaching.

Bam! The adult suddenly appeared in my viewfinder and hit its target, the gaping mouth of its offspring.

After hovering for not more than a second, the adult vanished and continued to forage for insects in the skies above the pasture.

The now-fed young swallow turned and began waiting impatiently on the next morsel to be delivered by its parent. Immediately, however, it was joined by a sibling which had obviously figured out that it needed to share the fence post feeding station if it wanted to share the food deliveries.  As you can see, the first young swallow was not enthusiastic about sharing either its spot or its food with the intruding sibling.

The first young young swallow then placed one of the wings over the newcomer, and appeared to be fending off any competition as the parent swallow was returning with another round of food. Frustrated, the newcomer left the perch for a moment . . .

. . . but returned aggressively as soon as the parent returned with food.

All hell broke loose for a second, but the first young swallow ultimately prevailed and got the reward once again.  As you can see, however, its sibling remained frustrated and visibly perturbed.  Such is life, I suppose.  It seems to happen among all species. 

So much for my morning with barn swallows. I'll close with the lovely poem I referenced at the outset. Written by Leonora Speyer (1872 - 1956), the poem captures beautifully the energy and spirit of most swallows 

Swallows

by Leonora Speyer

They dip their wings in the sunset

They dash against the air

As if to break themselves upon its stillness:

In every moment, too swift to count,

Is a revelry of indecision,

A furtive delight in trees they do not desire

And in grasses that shall not know their weight.

They hover and lean toward the meadow

With little edged cries;

And then,

As if frightened at the earth's nearness,

They seek the high austerity of evening sky

And swirl into its depth.

OTHER EYES THAT DELIGHT IN BEAUTY

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Butterfly Bush

Thanks to fellow blogger John The Barman, who recently called my attention to a quote from Christina Rossetti's beautiful poem, "To What Purpose is this Waste."  It's a lovely passage, especially to lovers of birds and other wild creatures, so I will share it with you here: 

And other eyes than our's

Were made to look on flowers,

Eyes of small birds and insects small:

The deep sun-blushing rose

Round which the prickles close

Opens her bosom to them all.

The tiniest living thing

That soars on feathered wing,

Or crawls among the long grass out of sight,

Has just as good a right

To its appointed portion of delight

As any King.

MOVING THROUGH THE HERON'S DREAM

Great Blue Heron

In the poem below, Vermont poet T. Alan Broughton captures much of what I personally experience when I spend time observing a great blue heron fishing in shallow waters or standing in priestly solitude on the edge of a marsh.  When Broughton speaks of the "bird that stays with me," or the "heron's dream to share his sky and water," or the heron's evening flight "through the dying sun and out again," I know precisely what he means, for I, too, have been enchanted by herons for most of my life.

Great Blue Heron

By T. Alan Broughton

                         I drive past him each day in the swamp where he stands

                         on one leg, hunched as if dreaming of his own form

                         the surface reflects.  Often I nearly forget to turn left,

                         buy fish and wine, be home in time to cook and chill.

                         Today the bird stays with me, as if I am moving through

                         the heron's dream to share his sky or water — places

                         he will rise into on slow flapping wings or where

                         his long bill darts to catch unwary frogs.  I've seen

                         his slate blue feathers lift him as dangling legs

                         fold back, I've seen him fly through the dying sun

                         and out again, entering night, entering my own sleep.

                         I only know this bird by a name we've wrapped him in,

                         and when I stand on my porch, fish in the broiler,

                         wine glass sweating against my palm, glint of sailboats

                         tacking home on dusky water, I try to imagine him

                         slowly descending to his nest, wise as he was 

                         or ever will be, filling each moment with that moment's 

                         act or silence, and the evening folds itself around me.

From T. Alan Broughton's 

book of poetry, "A World Remembered"

A SIMPLE MEASURE OF HEALTH

Eastern Bluebird

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring.  If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature — if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you — know that the morning and spring of your life are past.  Thus may you feel your pulse.

Henry David Thoreau

Journal: February 25, 1859

NATURE'S ASSURANCE

Grasshopper Sparrow

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.  There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for spring.  There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring 

HOW TO SEE DEER (AND PERHAPS OTHER THINGS)

Whitetail Deer

I was reminded once again this morning that one does not need to travel far to be transformed by the beauty of nature.  As I stepped through the back door of my home just after sunrise, I was immediately greeted by a young doe standing on the edge our yard, gorgeously framed by butterfly bushes, bee balm, and one of my treasured birdhouses.

Hardly a day goes by without my seeing five to fifteen deer on our property.  They graze and frolic in the pasture; they sleep on the soft ivy ground cover that borders a small stream; and they take special delight in laying waste to our vegetable garden and fruit trees.  

As I observed the doe this morning, however, I was not simply taking notice of another deer.  I was really trying to see the uniqueness of this particular deer in a very special, transitory moment of my life.  Without belaboring the point, I will just say that I agree with what Philip Booth wrote in his poem, "How to See Deer."  In short, we must learn to wait without waiting, to be careless of nothing, and, above all, to truly see what we think we are "seeing." 

HOW TO SEE DEER

By Philip Booth (1925 - 2007)

                                                Forget roadside crossings.
                                                Go nowhere with guns.
                                                Go elsewhere your own way,

                                                lonely and wanting. Or
                                                stay and be early:
                                                next to deep woods

                                                inhabit old orchards.
                                                All clearings promise.
                                                Sunrise is good,

                                                and fog before sun.
                                                Expect nothing always;
                                                find your luck slowly.

                                                Wait out the windfall.
                                                Take your good time
                                                to learn to read ferns;

                                                make like a turtle:
                                                downhill toward slow water.
                                                Instructed by heron,

                                                drink the pure silence.
                                                Be compassed by wind.
                                                If you quiver like aspen

                                                trust your quick nature:
                                                let your ear teach you
                                                which way to listen.

                                                You've come to assume 
                                                protective color; now 
                                                colors reform to

                                                new shapes in your eye.
                                                You've learned by now
                                                to wait without waiting;

                                                as if it were dusk
                                                look into light falling:
                                                in deep relief

                                                things even out. Be
                                                careless of nothing. See
                                                what you see.