AG2023_1022632a

AG2023_1022632a

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)

AG2023_2120716c or crowns utility

AG2023_2120716c

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