those awake

Adorned in Gold

awakening : by Shaun O.

 

 

dark liquid continents slowly converge on the mouth of the great Mississippi river

like 15th century conquerors finding the coasts of the Americas, 

exploitation and greed drifting ashore.

-

but 1492 was columbus, and oceans blue

2010 is black gold adorning life (in disguise) of the sea

-

and we've dressed them, 

our brothers and sisters.

we've dressed them for the family portrait.

Wendell Berry and "Last Words"

awake & linking : "Last Words" | posted by Shaun O

Interesting (and rare) look at a live Q & A with Wendell Berry. Those familiar will enjoy, otherwise, skip around to parts that you might like. The responses I refer to begin at 17:30 in the video.

Linked from Orion Magazine on Friday:  

Here's are two Berry quotes that are sticking with me today:

"What are the conditions within which human beings can make sense? Within what limits are our minds effective?"

Hmm. Whoa. I tend to want to believe in the complete, unrestricted potential of human ability and technology, and can't imagine a good reason not to believe as such. That is, until Wendell Berry offers thoughtful statements like this, which he is prone to.

Then, in a response to a request, "if you were to offer a last/most important word to someone, what would it be?" Hey, not a bad question in my mind. I'll admit I'd be interested to memorize what Wendell would offer as a Last Word. Well, he doesn't offer that, but I find the response is just as important!

"To hell with the 'last words.' Let's try to make one sentence that's rightly positioned within a manageable context so that we can utter it to somebody else and they'll understand it."

Do you have a response?

Will Change Come without a Fight?

awake & reading : Orion | by Shaun O.

 
I was somewhat surprised to read Derrick Jensen's quite confrontational piece in the latest Orion Magazine: Resistance Resisters.

The basic premise concerns current environmentalist issues, movements against corporate (and governmental?) greed and trampling of forms of life, mostly those that cannot fight for themselves; and Jensen is asking me if riding my bike to work is doing all that much, or if I'm really fighting the good fight at all... 

Nicely played. 

Just as I've grown more fond of peaceful rhetoric to guide my values - especially in any religious setting - Jensen's violent environmental rhetoric might be appropriate in this context. And, I've recently witnessed Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry, among others, take strong "stand-up" action against mountain top removal mining at protests and sit-ins - see ilovemountains.

So I'm pondering my passive resistance stance. There's more going on than bicycles and poetry. 

I'll leave it to you to read his short piece linked above and let's discuss.

 

They Tell the Crazy Truth

awakening: by Shaun O.

I haven't seen Crazy Heart, but hope to soon. Tonight, I sit and listen to songs of crazy truth from the latest Laura Veirs album, July Flame. I nod my head to the beat - the kick and bass, and also the beats and beats of truth to which I cannot help but agree with movement. Sitting here in the dark, I began to think: what is going on here with Laura V.? What am I connecting to?

Well, I'm really also in a waiting pattern for the approaching Joanna Newsom album (couple weeks). Her music moves me in a similar way - Laura and Joanna are throwing sticks and rocks and swinging on swings at the same playground in my mind. Thus, I've broadened my test-group. What do I connect to both in JN and LV?

Crazy Truth.

Or, what would you call it? What's another name for colorful fiction that grips a truth in you that you barely knew was there?

Throw words around with me. We should be out on a playground too.

"What Day Is It?" - explained

awakening: by Shaun O'Reilly

As we put together the zine based on "Winter," we discussed a sort of subject/title that could continue in the event we had any inklings of future publishings, seasonal or otherwise.

The question: What Day Is It? came to mind. It's a gut-shot phrase, but is also deeply connected to much that we've chronicled at this blog before.  And, it should be no surprise that some of those connections could be described using a couple of phrases from Henry Thoreau's Walden as a base:

• He writes in Walden, "Morning is when I am awake and there is dawn in me."  The question we asked friends to write for in the Zine was something like: Will you give us a winter story? Or: right now, what wakes you up about winter?  And so the question, "What Day Is It?" relates to the bringing of the day, the dawning, that we sense and describe in our stories.  These stories introduce the dawn, introduce us to the "day."
• • As a follow up here, I think the stories we came away with describe winter "days" of wonder, cold, loneliness, and connection.

• The other H.D. quote of mention is from "The Village" chapter of Walden, where he writes of the need to "find ourselves and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations." Asking What Day Is It? is akin to asking the writers to locate themselves and us in their stories.  These winter stories help us realize "where" we are (or what day it is) and they are stories about the extent of our relations.
• • As a follow up here, I think the stories in this Zine describe relations to our modern, "safe" lifestyles, relations to where we live and to the cold, and relations to each other over distances.

Here's to hoping this makes sense!  The truth is that the stories inside are really the marrow of the project.  But I think it's safe to say that we'll continue writing and creating, all in the hopes to convey points of light, periods of awakening, experiences and thoughts that locate us in mind, body, and soul. 

We are glad to share. 

an open zine

From a reading/sharing of stories, poems and songs on Dec. 23rd, 2009

 

photo by Michael Witt 2009