Mountains and Rivers are Speaking
(Poetry & Lecture Series)
_This lecture series questions the self-importance displayed by human vision and understanding.
It seeks to allow the other-than-human world to be heard while leaving enough space to wonder.
*
According to the original sense of the word, the nomad is in search of pastures, of food for his animals, thus nourishment for himself, his family, his clan.
Birds travel, fish travel, mammals travel, butterflies travel.
Before agriculture, we were traveling as hunters and gatherers.
Accumulation of things or storage of food was nearly not possible, thus you never took more than you needed.
Also the notion of personal possessions (including 'my' wife, husband and children) was quite blurry.
You depended on what the earth provided, and on each other, and you knew it.
If you spend a longer time in nature, this starts to make a whole lot of sense again.
*
Music dance poetry the land
rest work dance cook work
dance music poetry people
solitude nature solitude people poetry the land wilderness company
Wasn’t it all connected once, embedded in human experience?
*
The road is a refuge
for nature lovers
for those without means or land
for those who want to live freely
and according to their own nature
*
Little white flakes fall from the sky
A bit like feathers
You cannot count them
You try to hold them in your fingers and they disappear
They fall and fall
The cat sleeps on the shelf
Breathing quietly
*
A little cricket
It appears here, it appears there
*
Some seeds stay dormant for many, many years, before germinating at most unexpected places
*
Nothing else than a verse or a bird cry
Or a glass that fell over
*
Since years and years
A passerby
Just someone you sit next to on the train
A face you might notice through the window of the bakery
The blackbird turning over the leaves
*
We like the way whales think, the old man said
Also: It does good to man to think of a whale