Why peregrine? (March 11, 2008)

Once upon a time (a highly unoriginal beginning I know, but hey, one has to start somewhere and all said and done one can’t go wrong calling on the classics) – a long time ago (1993), though it was not “a dark and stormy night” (and there’s two instances of plagiarism in my very first sentence! I can imagine what a field day my students would have a if they saw this) – a very dear classmate characterized me as peregrine. Now a peregrine is a falcon, but Rusten had used the word as an adjective, in keeping with our programme director’s edict to choose single adjectives to describe our classmates. A peregrine Neeraja then, simply meant a Neeraja who moved around. Ever the kindred spirit, Rusten had already recognized this propensity of mine and chose to celebrate it. I was so flattered and charmed by the description that I was determined to make it as part of my identity whenever the right opportunity arose. And now’s my chance. As a tribute to the prophetic Rusten – Eric Rusten Hogness to give him his full name (funny expression that, now that I think of it… as if his name were mine to give) – my blog bears his adjective in its title. Stories about Rusten, the program we graduated from and my peregrine tendencies will appear in other pages of this blog as and when I have the time and inclination but I just thought I’d explain my title. Anyway — this is my blog – the “peregrine chronicles.” Join me for whichever parts of the hell of a ride my life’s been (mostly in any case) thus far. Be warned, the chronicles may be prosy and overlong, but I do hope that those of you who do visit enjoy yourselves.

Neeraja

 

Houses in titles

I just read an NYT essay today about an old favorite of mine, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. The essay was mostly about various retellings of the book in the century plus since it was written, but ended with a comment on a feature of the book that seems to resonate with the author (Catherine Hong) now, in her own self-described middle age, but had made “her eyes glaze over” in her younger days. Hong characterized this feature as “conveying a child’s intense connection to home,” which I thought was a rather kind take on something I feel borders on obsession in LMM’s writing–a love of places and particularly houses, not just homes.

Montgomery’s obsession manifested in the very titles of many of her books, beginning with Green Gables, and in that very series of 6 books–8 including the two about Anne’s offspring–there are 4 specific houses: Green Gables, Windy Poplars, the “House of Dreams”, and Ingleside. In her books about Emily, a trilogy with darker overtones, the heroine’s love for a house overrides her feelings for most people (except for her rather unconvincing romance with Teddy) as it did in the otherwise forgettable Pat of Silver Bush. (I lived and studied in Canada for a time and since the library had many of LMM’s books, I read them). While I didn’t find the descriptions of homes, rooms and gardens quite as eye-glazing as Hong did, LMM’s heroines’ obsession is something I noticed and couldn’t relate to since quite early on (although maybe not in my first readings of the <i>Green Gables</i> series, as a teenager). There is a vital difference between their (and likely LMM’s own) circumstances and my own, of course. They were all orphans and so their sense of belonging seems to have been tied to places as much as, if not more than, people. In stark contrast I’ve had a very loved and secure life, which has allowed me to indulge my nomadic or peregrine propensities. Oh, I loved my house in Eau Claire Wisconsin and thoroughly relished the opportunity to furnish it the way I liked, but giving it up was not too much of a wrench.

Speaking of LMM’s own life, which I knew only the bare bones about, I just bought her autobiography, The Alpine Path originally published as a series of essays in a magazine called Everywoman’s World in 1917. Let me see if my impressions about her bear out. More after that.

 

Not quite a serial (on viral books)

Back in March 2020, when the COVID-19 shutdowns were just beginning to be enforced in the UK (where I was living at the time), I announced the release of a book I had co-authored with two Dutch scholars about the history of virology in the Netherlands. I had also promised a second announcement, later that year, or early the following, about another book. Well the book was released just about a year later-on March 31 2021, by which ironically enough, time I was (and still am) living in the Netherlands. Ironic I say because this second book has nothing to do with the Dutch, except for a reference in chapter 3 to the selfsame Beijerinck of the previous title. I neglected to post the release of my new book here until now. Indeed I have contributed nothing to this site since that previous announcement–although I think I did begin a few notes only to leave them incomplete.

But about my new book. It’s a solo effort and called A Tale of Two Viruses & was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The title is not the only thing riffed from Dickens’s famous book–there are some chapter titles, a couple of epigraphs (both its famous opening and closing lines have been lifted and played with) and even one bespoke cartoon. For the rest, it’s a narrative about the parallels that I perceived in the research trajectories of two viruses/virus groups–for details you’ll have to read the book (best case scenario) or at least visit a webpage about it: the publisher’s page (preferably) or in a pinch, Amazon, which has a “look inside” feature that allows you to sample the intro. The cover is pretty–even glossier in the actual than it appears online.

 

Viral books

So.. I’ve been meaning to post this notice for some days now, but have been sending e-mails and so let this slip. Anyhow, as I’ve said in the 200-odd emails that I’ve sent out (in large batches, not singly thank goodness) amid this furor over the coronaviruses, I just got a book about viruses out!

Leeuwenhoek’s Legatees and Beijerinck’s Beneficiaries: A History of Medical Virology in The Netherlands, Gerard van Doornum, Ton van Helvoort, and Neeraja Sankaran (Amsterdam University Press, 2020).

I am not the primary author…it was a project that I got roped into after most of the fundamental work was done, but I was very involved in the writing of it, and I can also take credit for its alliterative title (any surprises there?) though not its beautiful cover. More information via these links.

• The book page: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463720113/leeuwenhoek-s-legatees-and-beijerinck-s-beneficiaries   
• The e-book page: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789048544066/leeuwenhoek-s-legatees-and-beijerinck-s-beneficiaries
• The US book page: http://shop.btpubservices.com/Title/9789463720113
• The Open Access book page(for non academics, this means a link to a FREE copy): https://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=1007186 

If you are associated with any sort of institution, please do consider ordering a copy for your library.

And as if that weren’t news enough…I just got word from my editor at the University of Pittsburgh Press that my solo effort–my first historical monograph–also about viruses but with a much wider geographical scope–is now officially “in production!” The title of that one is not alliterative, but it is allusive to a famous piece of literature, but I’ll save the specifics for when the book is published. Later this year or early next.

 

Critical questions

What do we mean by a ‘wrong’ question? How can a question be wrong? What do we mean by a ‘right’ question?

As before, Shailesh gave us profound questions to ponder over, especially in relation to teaching and schools. In keeping with his sound advice to hold meaningful questions and really allow them to flower through exploration, I am only just beginning to write about this particular set–which surfaced more than once over the course of our week–but I think that I’ll be returning to them for a long time to come. Actually, I shouldn’t say think, for I know for a fact that I will be pondering these questions, although whether I write about them will remain to be seen.

The notion that questions are a good thing was not in itself new–long ago in fashioning my statement of teaching philosophy for job applications I said (and still maintain to be true) that I considered a class a job well done if students emerged from a course with more questions than they had when they first came in, but also the tools with which to try to address (and now I would add explore) those questions.But I got to see this concept really enacted even among younger children (grades 7 & 8) while at Pathashaala last week in at least two different classes. First I saw it in a social studies class, where the EL (educator-learner) began by asking a question to connect the theme for the day–not made explicit immediately–with past lessons and encounters before going to create what was essentially a mind-map about market economies or market-based societies.The class also ended with a round robin (or pow-wow) session in which each LE had to share a take home lesson and a question that the session raised. I’ve used the latter (in written form) at the college level but was impressed to see how well younger children engaged meaningfully with this exercise. They are less conditioned perhaps, and therefore also more uninhibited and questions come more easily.

In the second instance, a biology class, the issue of questions was even more central. Children who were supposed to preparing presentations around the theme of adaptation were first asked by their EL’s to prepare a list of questions on the particular aspect of adaptation that they had decided to present on, and organize the power points–i.e. prepare outlines– around the answers they found. The issue of questions was reinforced the following week when they actually made their presentations to their peers; not only were they asked to talk about the questions that they had originally researched but also share the unanswered questions as well as questions raised during the process. It was a good learning experience for me certainly, and them too, I trust.

Pathashaala also gave me renewed appreciation for “random walk” conversations that more often than not begin with a question and develop, through back and forths and tangential matters, into something entirely unexpected, and if lucky, wonderful. The best experience perhaps (or at least, the most visibly rewarding within my time there), began with a question that a young L.E. (9th grader) posed to Ramkumar anna, who like the other adults in the school has played and plays various roles. What began with one of those mind-bending physics questions about the speed of light and time standing still, became conversation on understanding the nature of time, meandered over to a discussion of calendars–ways of marking time–and culminated in a suggestion that the three L.E.’who initiated and participated in the discussion anchor an assembly on the topic. The fascinating assembly which they led yesterday was  borne of their effort over almost 2 weeks, of researching and gathering information about different types of calendars–with beautiful examples of ancient understanding of the regularity and periodicity of various astronomical events. Thanks to their talk, I now have a new destination on my list, the Sun temple of Modhera in Gujerat near its border with Rajasthan. Like Abu Simbel, Modhera has a shrine that is illuminated by the sun on specific days at specific times: by the rising sun on the equinoxes and by the noon sun from directly above on the summer solstice. (The original statues no longer exist, but the temple has been home to a dance festival for a good many years now… but I digress).

Shailesh’s questions about the good and the bad when first posed were a game changer for me. Mostly because in the class-room setting I have always thought that there are no such things as wrong (or bad) questions, that the only bad ones in fact, are those that are unasked. I still think that that attitude is the right one in a particular context in a classroom–in a lecture for example. But on staying with the issue some more, I realized that the matter of right vs. wrong questions has also come up in the class-room, specifically in writing classes, where the development of a good paper begins with the ability to ask the good, critical questions. In fact, I think that writing classes, or rather, any classes with a significant writing component, are among the best venues for educators to encourage students to think about both asking and holding good questions, and indeed to hold questions and refine and shape–sharpen–them into really meaningful ones that can then be tackled and unpacked through the paper-writing process.

I think the idea of good questions–meaningful questions–is actually less problematic than that of bad questions, which can be merely trivial or outright dangerous. The danger, it seems to me originates within the asker, who often, if probed, will reveal a motive and conditioning that is likely to be the root cause of aforementioned danger. I suspect that lot of the rather horrific problems today,such as the religious extremism in virtually every part of the globe or the gun violence we keep hearing about in the US in particular, would reveal themselves as stemming from the bad and dangerous questions that Shailesh talked about. And these are just outwardly manifested dangers. Even more serious perhaps are the type of nihilistic, “what’s the point of anything?” questions that virtually anybody but especially younger folk are susceptible to–with devastating results.

I have been fumbling with this question for several days now and feel that I run the risk of incoherence (and thus, adding ugly to the good and bad) and so think I shall stop.But not without a request to any readers who happen across this post–please do ask questions and initiate dialog, I’d love to extend this conversation and keep the basic questions alive.

 

First thoughts (Pathashaala)

I’ve been here at Pathashaala for 4 days already, but still haven’t written anything down about it here. My mind meanwhile is a mass of impressions, which I should probably simply record perhaps in some cases with lessons learned. And if it seems as if I’m beginning with negatives, let me offer a caveat or two: First none (or at least almost none) are meant to be complaints but rather an honest recounting of my own personal hangups etc. Second, I’m trying the Krishnamurti approach of negative thinking that Shailesh introduced to us last week, or rather defining by negation; that is to say answer questions (and define things) by what they are not, whittling away the fluff and extraneous material until you get to really open op the question.

First, heat, which is not entirely unexpected for someone who has visited Chennai (or Madras as it will always be to me) at different times of the year since she was young. But forewarning and even forearming does not make not any easier to deal with. Coupled as it is with humidity, it tends to sap the strength, even within minutes of walking from one spot on the campus to another, reflective scarves or sun-umbrellas not-withstanding. It’s only in the dead of the night that it gets cool (some say chilly, though I haven’t felt so) which makes for comfortable sleeping for me.

The admittedly dreaded “dry-toilets” (dry-compost toilets) were a good lesson in the oft-repeated lessons of weeks past of the dangers of conditioning and preconceptions. Oh I don’t love them quite yet–the cockroaches (next item on this list) have ensured that. But I do think that with a a more hands-off bidet system and a proper TP dispenser, we should seriously consider implementing this system on a larger scale where the soil and weather are conducive. Even the most finicky person agrees that there is no bad odor! I know we are missing the bi-annual (as is twice in a year) compost harvesting event next week, and I can’t say I’m not slightly relieved, but I”m impressed at the amount of water this system saves. Especially when I think of the buckets I pour down the toilets at the Valley. Saving water AND producing manure for the gardens! It really is win-win.

The bugs..  there are ants of myriad types and roaches, both the hated usual variety and pretty spotted, beetle resembling ones of the type I photographed while in Rishi Valley. Having spotted scores of live ones of the former persuation (the one’s we don’t like) in one of our toilets here the first night, we sprayed them good and proper which had the unfortunate result that we had to open the door to a floor full of half-dead semi-wriggling critters. NOT a pleasant sight at any time, let me assure you, but especially dreadful first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, roaches have proved to be resilient creatures and predate us human on this planet by many millennia and likely to survive us by many more. They do not take kindly to having their spaces taken over and have no compunction invading what they believe was theirs to begin with. So we need to work around them .. learn to co-exist. Right now it means we use the room that they have been avoiding or at least not showing up in regularly or in large numbers.

Actually ants, not roaches have been my biggest entomological adversary here. On Monday I got well and truly bitten by the tiny red critters who had invaded parts of my bedroom and lost no time in crawling and swarming all over my feet and stinging me. These bites don’t just itch they burn.. but the locals are well prepared and have given me ointment which relieves the worst of the burning.

So, armed with the few essentials–bug sprays (of differing dilutions), a sun umbrella or reflective scarf, anti-itch ointment–I think that we, the TEP contingent from the Valley, are ready for all the lessons (paadams in Tamil) that Pathashaala has to offer.

Now for the real stuff… the school itself, its activities and denizens.

 

Holding Gauguin’s questions

Just like that, I’m plunged into our last modular week at the TEP, and it is turning out to be an amazing if intense one on such topics as questioning, inquiry and dialogue. As we learned to expect from our last module with this facilitator, we are given several questions each day to think and maybe write about.

One of the questions posed was concerned with those asked in the title of the following painting by Paul Gauguin, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

The questions are in fact inscribed (in French naturally) in the upper right hand corner of the painting, which is a large–massive actually at 55 × 148 inches–canvas depicting the different stages of human life (specifically of women) in Tahiti, where he lived out the last several years of his life. Shailesh did not ask us to attempt to answer these questions, but rather asked us what we felt about them and their significance.

I am not going to  attempt to answer his questions just yet, but rather borrowing from a statement that struck a particularly resonant chord, am going to “hold” the question/s with me for a while. This is not to say that I am not going to engage with them –I am going to try–but the idea is to explore myself through them, not arrive at the answer. Shailesh said (or at least implied, since I am only paraphrasing him here, not quoting) that the ability to answer questions too quickly renders them somewhat trivial. It was a good thought-provoking insight, but it raised another question for me, what I’ll put out here. How long can one hold on to a question and exploring it or even just letting it lie in the back burner, and still keep it meaningful?  Will not holding it too long also have the same effect as as rushing to answer it?

As a quick aside, I know that some of my research projects have benefited from ideas braising (or should I say marinating?), nearly forgotten, for many, upto even 12, years. Come to think of it, my current book is the outcome of the marination (maturity) of an idea relegated to the realms of a footnote in my dissertation.. but it wasn’t really a question that formed the seed there; it was an observation that benefited  from later experience and well, knowledge accumulation. While this gives me hope that questions too will improve with age, I know of a flip side too. The footnote was one idea that survived to flower into a full-blown book, but I know of other ideas that died from the neglect–they might have proved fruitful once but got lost or buried beyond redemption. Or perhaps their fate is indicative that they too were trivial like the questions that get answered too easily.

Returning to Gauguin’s questions, what is their significance? The article Shailesh gave us to accompany the image treats them as examples of the most profound questions we humans can ask ourselves: questions that are at the core of what it means to be human, in fact. It followed up with additional questions about them: “Can you think of three more important questions that any soul can ask?” &  “Have you ever considered them yourself?” I’ll leave the second one aside for the moment since it’s a different way of asking the same question Shailesh posed. But the first brings to mind another set of questions, namely the difference between “good” and “bad” or “right” and “wrong” questions. The think the former is a rhetorical question, not a serious one. For what does it matter whether there are more (or less) important questions out there? In this matter as in education, comparison serves no good purpose.

It is true, however, that questions of the sort Gauguin posed invite the same sort of self-exploration and inquiry as the “Who am I?” question raised a couple of weeks ago by Gopalan. And I would venture to say that considering these questions even at a biological level (rather than at a philosophical one) has led to profound and earth-shaking discoveries about the world around us. The questions, at least the first two–D’ Ou’ venons-nous? (where do we come from) & Que sommes-nous? (What are we)–were in fact the starting point for both Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel, arguably the two most influential figures in nineteenth century biology.

Both men began with the same questions, but based on their raw materials and experience came up with very different sorts of answers. Darwin who journeyed around the world and saw all manner of living creatures in diverse environments and held the questions his observations raised for twenty years before detailing his understanding of natural selection as a mechanism for evolution. His questions about where we come from and what we are did not consider just humans or indeed any one organism or species but life in all its diversity. Mendel on the other hand had just his garden of peas. So he took the question in another direction–he answered the first question quickly enough; we (like the peas he studied) come from our parents. His findings were more revelatory about the second and even the third–Where are we going? about which Darwin had not specific predictions just the fact that life changes or evolves. He (Mendel) detected the patterns for traits were passed down the generations from parents to children. Eventually, decades later, there was of course, the grand synthesis, which brought these different strands together into one coherent picture. Knit together by DNA, which at James Watson in one of his brilliant moments–and those must be acknowledged just as his low points are–said, proved Darwin more right than Darwin himself could have dreamed!

At a philosophical level, I think I may veer toward the nihilistic if I stew about in these questions too much. But then I think of the Dawkins’ final comments in his God Delusion documentary and find myself in sympathy with what he said… that one can derive meaning in life from the very act of questing and asking questions about the meaning. Holding on then, to what JK and Yeats have to say the, about observers becoming the observed and dancers the dance,  I’ll sign off for now. But these questions will stay with me for a long time to come. Thank you both, Gauguin & Shailesh.

 

On cooperation

What are some of the insights that you got about ‘working together’ in these four days of the week? What were some notions which you had (of collaboration and cooperation) and got shifted through the week. What do you see as the role of relationship in working together?

The value of cooperation is something of a no-brainer when thinking about school–any aspect of it–especially in the KFI context. And yet, or maybe precisely for that very reason, I have not found it easy to respond to the above questions posed by our facilitator any time during the past week in our module on the topic . And to add still another yet, I also find myself unable to go on and write (or even think) about our very engaging next module (questions and questioning) although it is underway.

Perhaps I should begin by reflecting on what for me was the biggest eye-opener last week, the notion–introduced in one of Krishnamurti’s writings–that cooperation works only when we cooperate with the whole world or universe, and not just other human beings. In his chapter on cooperation and honesty in The Whole Movement of Life is Learning, he wrote:

It is becoming more and more important if we are to survive, that there be a spirit of cooperation with the universe, with all the things of the sea and earth.

It’s one of those statements that seemed blindingly obvious once I read it, and yet I had never articulated it in those terms. It encompasses an idea for which I have deep sympathy (and I think I may have gotten it out of something that J. R. R. Tolkein’s elves or someone similar said) that we as living creatures in the here and now are merely custodians of the lands and waters–earth as a whole–in this time and place. As citizens and custodians, it seems natural that we should act responsibly towards all of earth’s denizens, that we not waste its resources and that we make sure that come time to pass on that custodianship to future generations, there is something to pass. In other words we cooperate with each other, and with the earth.

This insight was certainly one that felt most profound, but it is an awakening that came late in the week. Earlier discussions and activities I think lead up to this one in different ways. Our group activities, whether it was attempting to discuss the meaning of life (whether or not we wanted to as individuals) or came up with a scheme to dissuade the rats (mice?) from setting up nests in 5-Stones were both instructive and productive. It was also very illuminating to watch the film Twelve Angry Men in the context of the theme, and Gautama’s approach to stop the film at different junctures to have a discussion was very effective.

It was also very meaningful to join forces and collaborate with my colleague Richa on the end-of-the week presentations on the lessons learned from the module. She brought up the need to consider the parental dimension in thinking about various collaborative relationships that need to work when one thinks about running a school and teaching in one. I know that in discussions about liberal arts education we often talked about the need to educate the parents as much (or perhaps even more than) their parents, but now that I think about it, that attitude is almost patronizing. Certainly too, the resistance to treating school like a business the parents as customers is damaging to any notion of collaboration. So I owe my colleague a big thanks for highlighting this issue, and to all the rest of our cohort who rose wonderfully to the occasion in the different collaboration scenarios that we set them.

I’ll end this reflection with a bit of an sudden shift to the last of Gautama’s questions that I listed at the outset, on the role of relationship in working together. Indeed, the role of relationship different aspects of education is something that I have been greatly sensitized to since beginning this programme. It is still another theme that I think I have taken somewhat for granted before, but I hope and trust never again. I have noticed it time and again in each class or student-teacher interaction that I have been particularly impressed by, besides cherishing every relationship that I myself have formed with my colleagues and various children.  And in this week’s module, its importance was reiterated manifold.

 

Landcare diary, Sept 7

The green amaranth is gone now, either harvested or simply drowned in the rain that came down in the week that I was gone. It seems to have been replaced with yam leaves. And there are many many more fields with transplants of paddy. What will go next, I wonder. The sesame seems to have gone also–leaves look holey or wilted, and the flowers droopy–again, I think the excess water too late in the season might have killed. In any event, I’ll put up a slide show of the amaranth from the first day that I observed them, June 22 (a week after they were planted) through till last week–the last picture I got of them was August 26. Other to follow in some days, as photos progress:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Snippets from The Prophet

Rereading Jonathan Livingstone Seagull for Tanuj’s module on competition and comparison (gosh was it really 1.5 months ago already?) brought to mind the books that were read and discussed together when I first read it while in college all those many years ago. There was Illusions by the same author, and then there was The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran. Somehow I never actually read the latter, and when I finally did recently (actually I listened to an audiobook version), I think I know why now; its almost Biblical delivery of simple messages or sermons (updesh we would call it in Sanskrit or Hindi) would have seemed to preachy to my younger self. But the simplicity actually appealed to me now. Here are excerpts that seemed relevant in light of the TEP, not only as a whole but also in the context of this week’s module on cooperation and collaboration, which in true J.K. fashion we connected to some bigger themes such as honesty, love & affection, work and of course attention and listening.

On Love (these lines are a very small snippet, but seemed to me to be very appropos).

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

 

On Work: (Connecting the idea of the classroom, which is what constitutes work for us these day, to love and affection is something we saw a lot of this past week. The last line that I excerpted here says it all, but I included the earlier lines because they were a good set-up)

Always you have been told that work is a curse labour a misfortune,

But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when the dream was born,

And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,

And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

[…]

Work is love made visible.

 

On Teaching: (This one I thought I’d reproduce in full):

Then said a teacher, Speak to us of Teaching.

And he said:

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.

The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.

And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither.

For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man

And even as each one of you stands alone in God’s knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.

 

And finally, “On freedom“:

And an orator said, Speak to us of Freedom.

And he answered:

At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,

Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.

Aye, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

[…]

In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.

 

Landcare diary, Aug 26

For a change I decided to play a slideshow of just today’s pictures… a journey through the plots as it were. Lots of lovely sunflowers in bloom… make the heart glad they do.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.