“Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin flowers. And the frisky ones–inkberry, lamb’s quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones–rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms. Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
Mary Oliver
I bought a new used book which arrived on Saturday. It’s title is Upstream by Mary Oliver and a series of essays. So far I’m liking it and relate to her spiritual connectedness to nature. So, fair warning you may see a few quotes from the book.
2 Comments
Tom Dills
I looked that book up on our library’s website and it is now on my Wish List. I was especially attracted by this passage: “Throughout this collection, Oliver positions not just herself upstream but us as well as she encourages us all to keep moving, to lose ourselves in the awe of the unknown, and to give power and time to the creative and whimsical urges that live within us.”
Looks like an interesting read and I look forward to your thoughts as you read it.
Monte Stevens
I like her writing and much more her connection with nature. If you do buy it I hope you enjoy it.