the incontrovertible union of contradictory truths

"In the mixture of starlight and cloud-reflected sunlight in which the desert world is now illuminated, each single object stands forth in preternatural though transient brilliance, a final assertion of existence before the coming of night: each rock and shrub and tree, each flower, each stem of grass, diverse and separate, vividly isolate, yet joined each to every other in a unity which generously includes me and my solitude as well.
Or so it seems at the moment, as my fire dies to a twist of smoke and a heap of rubies, and for a moment I think I've almost caught a falling star: there is no mystery; there is only paradox, the incontrovertible union of contradictory truths. A falling star which melts into vapor as I grasp it, which flows through my fingers like water, like smoke."
ed abbey

Another Abbey

“How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.”

Ed Abbey

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”

Sweet Grass

Lying, face down
in the sweet
green grass

Breaths coming
in gasps

she is dying.

she has fled
the confines of
her bed, her prison.

she has shed
the robe
that had bound her
too tightly.

and, now,
here she lies.

naked and bare
exposed to the earth.

voices from
another time
shouting....

"no" "rise"
"keep fighting"
"stay with us"

she raises her
single index
finger...

as if to say
"give me a minute"

knowing that a
minute is all
she has.

she whispers.

"be quiet
and I will describe
death to you"

her eyes dilate.

the intense light
feels dark.

the earth is
humming.

and she hums with it.

in tune
in the moment
she wonders
if she has ever
been this alive
before?

one with the earth
and at peace with
herself.

she dies.

Wendell Berry

“Eating with the fullest pleasure - pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance - is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living in a mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.”

Pollan

“Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.”