… we cultivate the spaces of contemplation, a garden of plants not necessary for physical survival. The awareness of that fact is what gives the garden its special, powerful place in our lives and our imaginations. The Tree of Knowledge holds the unknown, and therefore dangerous possibilities (JK)
TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE
waz the beginnin uv reality for me
([lady in brown] “de library waz right down from de trolly tracks”, Ntozake Shange)
the search for one’s own space, for respect, for love, for bliss—in short, paradise (TM).
difficult always, […] earn—by practice and careful contemplation—the right to express it and […] learn how to accept it (TM)
… live where words have no leverage—I’ve a pile
of words.
… slipped off into his dream of choice … each detail was a jolt of pleasure
TM
Orwell’s Roses, Rebecca Solnit on Radio Open Source. This show first aired on November 11, 2021.
20:17 … he listens to a bird singing, and loves the fact that the bird is singing for no utilitarian purpose. Inutility is itself a kind of resistance this utilitarianism of an authoritarian state.
21:35 … Orwell is using the metaphor of the rose to make a point. And it’s a remainder that all that time in the natural world gives him and gives any of us metaphors, allegories, frameworks to understand the world around us. I often feel we’re really bereft without that metaphorical richness we get from the physical, spatial, and natural worlds.
By dint of hammer-song he makes his keen,
Raw point, and crowns utility with rose
The Rosehead Nail by A.E. Stallings
“In this place every true thing is okay.” (TM)
“traced the errant paths and the lines of flight” […] “encouraging you to dream” (SH)