The Theme for Week 4 is "Ecology: The Earth's Poems"
READING ASSIGNMENT FOR WEEK 4:
Robert Bringhurst: Chapter entitled “The Silence That is not Poetry — and the Silence That Is” (from the book,The Tree of Meaning.")
Go to this link and click on the last chapter: The Silence that is not Poetry... https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Tree_of_Meaning.html?id=9dEJnnvs6kEC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
ACTIVITY/HOMEWORK FOR WEEK 4:
- Watch Robert's film, Antarctica: Inner Journeys in the Outer World on Robert’s site (www.RobertRomanyshyn.com) and then go “wander in wonder” while noticing what and when you are stopped by the world's aesthetic charms.
- Do something to capture some aspect of the experience—maybe a mandala made of nature objects, or a few words of poetry, or a sketch
- Read, contemplate and do what works for you to integrate (in some way you know or have learned in this series) the attached poem from Wendell Berry. We would love to hear from you about your response in our final session if you are willing.
Replies
Thank you Robert, I was both amazed and delighted that your DVD Inner Journeys in the Outer World arrived here in New Zealand in time for me to experience the full power and magnificence of Antarctica before our final gathering.
This series has reawakened my engagement with the poetic voice and the somatic stirrings that arise.
I had this response:
Exquisite pain
Bordered by undulating realms of depth
Bleeding into the soil
the heart weeps
fertilizing again
the space for regrowth
I'm touched by the first line of your response, Glenyse, though not surprised that "pain" might show up here. When we truly slow down and mo
A REFLECTION ON WEEK 4 ASSIGNMENT: Some years ago I had an accident where, in the split second it happened, I knew I wouldn’t survive. It was only when I found my voice and screamed that my husband shut the tractor down at the moment I was bouncing off the steel studded tractor tire and into the path of the mower. (We live on a ranch in a rural area.) Thrown onto the ground in the hayfield, I was bruised and in shock but alive with no major injuries. Days later, I was driving to town when I felt a sense of awe at the feel of my hands wrapped around the steering wheel. Instead of being irritated at waiting for a stop light or a passing train or standing in line at the grocery store I was delighted. It was such a joy just to be alive! I truly felt like I was floating. That feeling lasted for several weeks until the mundane eventually set in, irritation at the little things crept back, and ‘ordinary’ life resumed. But if I pause to think about that accident and the euphoria that followed, I can bookmark it and come back to it, a kind of check and balance for my life.
For me, recognizing those quotidian moments,whether you are tackling a day’s worth of dirty dishes or stuck in a traffic jam or staring at a blank screen wondering when the words will come, can be the same as standing before a majestic mountain or an approaching thunderstorm on the high plains of Montana or coming face to face with a badger or viewing the surreal landscape of Antarctica. I think the landscape, both interior and exterior, depends on the lens in which we view it. Then, it is in that pause, that silence, the moment before the scream, that the focal point is found. Perhaps at that point, a poem is born, a song is heard, a painting is inspired and an activist finds courage.
Karen: I so greatly admire your courage to put your experience into words (writing, even!). Sometimes these profound, numinous, transformative experiences almost seem to break us, creating a kind of "spiritual emergency" where things become quite chaotic in our psyche (and world) before they resettle into new patterns.
I look at those moments of awakening as that moment that soul actually catches up to us--and they happen so rarely in our fast-paced, ecocentric lives. Thanks of sharing that amazing photo of the badger--a true nature spirit--who caught up to you!
Antarctica...stunning words that match the landscape. I just finished reading Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez, a fine paring, the documentary and that book. Do we dream of the land's potential? Or does the land dream us?
The link to the reading assignment " The Silence That is not Poetry" will not let you go past page 114. The chapter for reading is on page 299. It says Pages 115 - 335 are not shown in this preview.
On another note, the film Antarctica: Inner Journeys in the Outer World is incredibly beautiful. Both images and passages. I wanted to write every word down to keep with me. Incredible. The passage: "In the embrace of this landscape it whispers to me "you must change your life" a trembling desire to remember my broken connections with the earth swells within me."
Powerful.
Antarctica: Inner Journeys in the Outer World
Regarding the reading, let me look it and see if I can find us an option to access it.