Work and Wonder (vol. 5, no. 3)

Here are a few things I’m sharing this month:

1. Question I’m living with:

• “What about you do you bring to this work?” – Michael Smith 

2. Quote I’m considering:

• “It is very difficult for people of the land to find a vocabulary for the dignity of their work and presence and belonging in the land. So much of modern opinion is fashioned in the urban world and by urban forces. How much of the television we watch refers to the land in a way that would make the people who live on the land feel they are in a noble setting? Very little, I suspect, and yet if we go back in folk consciousness there was a time when that was the most beautiful way to dwell on the earth.” – John O’Donohue in Walking in Wonder

3. Poem I’m pondering:

“To be of use” by Marge Piercy

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

Read the rest of the poem here.

4. Something inspiring:

• Tophouse – The Mountain Song – this is simply foot-stomping smile-widening!

5. I’m on target to publish Rewild School during the first week of May. In preparation, I’m launching a “Rewild School” blog series (one per week throughout the month of April). Here’s the first installment: Our Most Beloved Teachers

• “With words and no words, they told me that it was not too late. I could become anyone. Even though they knew that I would face darkened forests. Even though they knew that life was fanged in loss and failure. Even though they knew that I never felt quite ready for the world, the lesson within their lesson plans, the one they wrote in invisible ink on graded homework and exams was always the same…”

Thanks so much. And, have a great day! – shawn