Everlasting Designs

Rockstar Ronan: Waging Wars

2013-05-13T13:35:00.001-04:00

The universe has a special way of helping us break through the walls of grief. It sends us a gentle breeze that turns us in a direction to face the howls. Sitting with the iPad and looking for a particular movies' name, which I still can't remember, brought me to a Taylor Swift song...."Ronan's Song"....which in turn pulled me in, feet first, breech and wailing to RockstarRonan.com

Ronan was a strikingly beautiful boy diagnosed with Stage 4 Neuroblastoma cancer. He passed away on May 9th 2011 in his mothers arms after an 8 month battle. In her poignant blog, his mother recounts his life and his story with as much raw, uncensored candidness that I wish I could have expressed during our fatal fight.

I've spend hours spilling and poring over her site that mirrors every emotion I've had over the past 6 months. Wading knee deep through all the ugly, fucking scarring and anger that cancer can dredge up. The waves that I thought I had rode over, crest again and I'm watching the beautiful man I married get eaten alive while I'm screaming inside and out..."it's not goddamn fair". Her description of the pain sinking and settling into your bones is nothing but laser sharp - it doesn't really go away, it permeates your core through osmosis...setting up camp for good. A permanent unwelcome visitor.

Instead of being strong and brave - crying alone in dark, cloaked parking lots - I wish I could have had just one person I felt safe enough to break down and sob uncontrollably with. But that one person was lying in a bed of morphine induced haze, wasting away while I sat beside helplessly watching and waiting for death to take him. I wish I could have so eloquently expressed the horror, fear and disbelief that consumed even my sleep.

Instead of thin smiles and feigned hope I wish, like Ronan's mom Maya, I had the strength to mount my soapbox, snot and all. I should have taken off the army boots and climbed into bed, curled up spoon-to-spoon waiting for the end with him. But a good soldier never takes off her boots and we were at war. I should have stopped trying to fix everything and conceded defeat. But not trying meant giving up. I should have been softer. But soft would have given way to a dam burst of dreams. Now, there are no "should haves". He's buried and there’s no way to make it softer...fixed...different.

Ronan begged his mother to take him home. Two days before the decision by doctors that hospice was our best and only option, my husband looked at me from his hospital bed and said "at least you get to wake up at home". The words branded wrenching guilt into my soul. I've turned and tumbled them over along with countless possibilities but the truth is the care he needed was 24/7 monitoring of his tumor-driven delirium and pain. The truth is I didn't want our 11 year old to watch his father die. The truth is I still cry over leaving him nightly to wake up at home. The truth is he died without me there, probably alone with a nurse finding him cold and gone at 5:45 in the morning. The fucking truth is I have to live with that.

fuck. cancer.

2013-04-23T16:18:00.001-04:00

For those of you who haven't followed, let me begin by telling you that I lost my husband, 46, to cancer last year after a mercifully short battle with Glioblastoma Multiforme.

It was singly the most brutal time in my life watching the beautiful man I married get eaten alive by this angry, festering disease. We did our best to bring a quality of life to the few functioning days we had but as you may know there is no happy ending with this type of cancer.

We were blindsided by the lightning speed at which our lives were torn apart and now I am left to redefine, reinvent, and reassess.

How do you return to normal when you now have ringside insight into the delicate window and fleeting nature of it all. How do you wake up every day and face a world that no longer includes your list of hopes and dreams for someday?

You fight.

Like you fought the cancer and refused to give up right to the last breath....You fight to make a difference. You fight to bring meaning to the insular everyday of cold coffee and rush hour traffic.

I can't, I won't, I refuse to go to a place of complacency again. If all this has taught me anything....I need to honor that fragility of life and depth of grief that only comes from love.

here is little Effie’s head

2012-10-08T10:04:00.003-04:00

e.e. cummings penned one of my favorite pieces reminding us of all the "coulda, shoulda, woulda's that have gone before us and the road not taken. The six crumbs reflect all the things Effie did not do throughout her life (with regrets?).

Who among us can claim never to have made a mistake, missed a goal, regretted a choice...?

Life life with no regrets, not wishing you had done something differently....this is not a dress rehearsal. In the rear view mirror don't look back and wish you had let yourself be happier.

embrace every opportunity you happen upon. be softer with everyone including yourself. put it all out there. now~

here is little Effie’s head
whose brains are made of gingerbread
when the judgment day comes
God will find six crumbs

stooping by the coffinlid
waiting for something to rise
as the other something did -
you imagine His surprise

bellowing through the general noise
Where is Effie who was dead?
- to God in a tiny voice,
I am may the first crumb said

whereupon its fellow five
crumbs chuckled as if they were alive
and number two took up the song,
might i’m called and did no wrong

cried the third crumb, I am should
and this is my little sister could
with our big brother who is would
don’t punish us for we were good;

and the last crumb, with some shame
whispered unto God, my name
is must and with the others i’ve
been Effie who isn’t alive

just imagine it I say
God amid a monstrous din
watch your step and follow me
stooping by Effie’s little, in

(want a match or can you see?)
which the six subjunctive crumbs
twitch like mutilated thumbs:
picture His peering biggest whey

coloured face on which a frown
puzzles, but I know the way -
(nervously Whose eyes approve
the blessed while His ears are
crammed

with the strenuous music of
the innumerable capering damned)
- staring wildly up and down
the here we are now judgment day

cross the threshold have no dread
lift the sheet back in this way.
here is little Effie’s head
whose brains are made of gingerbread.

Shaken by Life

2012-10-01T12:08:00.000-04:00

I love Leo Babuata of Zen Habits. As one on my favorite bloggers, I have followed him around like a puppy waiting for an enlightening morsel to fall to the floor. Leo never fails to elicit a deep sigh and reflection from his thoughtful posts.

His last....It's a simple thoughtful train meant to deliver inspiration and eye-widening.

...And I am struck by the beauty of this world, and the fragile human lives struggling to make their way within it.

And shaken.

The pain and stress and anger and sadness and loneliness and frustration and fear and cravings and irritations that we will experience today … they are made up. We can let them go as easily as they arise. They are unnecessary, if we realize that we’ve created them for no good reason.

Instead, see the beauty in every moment. In every person’s so human actions. In our own frailties and failures...

This post hit me squarely upside the jaw.

Cancer is an evil beast whose sole purpose is to destroy.
Destroy Bodies. Lives. Marriages. Routine. Futures. Hope.

How do we stop and return fire to the "pain and stress and anger and sadness and loneliness and frustration and fear and cravings and irritations that we will experience today" that seek to take no prisoners?

How do we put life back into our lives when we are operating in commando mode? Everlasting Designs was born out of healing, positive energy. A way to express love, successes, ideas that feed the bright lights of the universe.

How do I continue to feed that love machine when the lights on our street have gone dark?

congratulations....it's a tumor

2012-08-28T09:56:00.000-04:00

dear Body, don't you ever get tired of your heart jumping out of your chest? this disease is so mean I can't even believe it's real. surreal moves in slow motion.

this was so not in our life plans.

meet the man of your dreams, fall head over heels. have a beautiful wedding, have children, discover that this is why you love him even more, he is an good father. our protector. our cozy blanket.

The MAN that makes it all right... look ahead to retirement, trips to mexico. he starts to be stressed, confused and we think lyme disease again, doctor says no, tumor, brain tumor. the worst kind.

life blacks out.

slowly the lights come back, but very dim. now instead of daddy tucking in the kids at night, mom is there explaining why daddy is too tired to read a story and can't remember your name.

now we don't know about next summer or next birthday or next christmas. now we have learned how to hold our breath. and when to exhale.

people asking what they can do. how can they help. when all we really need is a little bit of normal.

Story of Stuff Creator Asks: Can Shopping Save the World?

2012-07-18T08:39:00.002-04:00

Annie Leonard, creator of the award-winning online video The

Story of Stuff hears the question every day: "I'm only one person - what can I do to change things?"

Faced with daunting environmental and social problems, many people think the best they can do to influence change is to buy green or fair-trade products. But in her new video, The Story of

Change, Leonard says conscious consumerism is a great place to start, but a terrible place to stop.

"If we really want to create a more sustainable and just future," says Leonard, "we have to move
beyond voting with our dollars and come together as citizens to demand rules that work. It's time to put down the credit cards and pick up a picket sign."

The Story of Change, Leonard's latest collaboration with Free Range Studios, will be released July 17 at storyofchange.org. Her previous seven movies have been viewed a total of more than 20 million times since 2007. (A trailer and preview of The Story of Change are available now at storyofstuff.org.)

Leonard was inspired to make the film by thousands of interactions with audience members, who frequently ask what they can do to change the take-make-waste system that's threatening the planet and its people.

"When I asked what they thought they could do, far too often I was met with individualistic, consumer-centric ideas," she says. "I can buy organic. I can take a resuable bag to the store. I can ride my bike. Those are good things to do, but they ignore the real source of our power: coming together as engaged citizens."

The 6-minute film includes an inspiring exploration of what effective changemaking has looked like throug history-from Gandhi to the Civil Rights Movement to the victories of the early environmental movement. It spotlights the elements found whenever and wherever people unite to make change: a Big Idea, a commitment to working together, and the ability to turn that idea and commitment into action.

Leonard also shows how it takes all kinds of people to make change and profiles a range of changemaker identities. The Story of Change ends with a question for viewers: "Which kind of changemaker are you?"

At a companion website, storyofchange.org, viewers can take an interactive quiz to help them identify their changemaker persona - and chart a path for their own citizen engagement. The Story of Change is the last of the The Story of Stuff Project's Season Two movies, which tell the stories behind The Story of Stuff-what makes our economic system tick, who pays, who benefits and how can we turn it around. The season's previous movies-The Story of Broke

(November 2011) and The Story of Citizens United v. FEC (March 2011 )-have been viewed more than 750,000 times.

Inspiration of the Day: Patience

2012-07-13T11:38:00.001-04:00

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”

― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/s3ntry93/4735044574/

Aging: not 'lost youth' but a new stage of opportunity and strength

2012-04-27T15:10:00.000-04:00

People often say to themselves in life that they should avoid a variety of occupation, and, more particularly, be the less willing to enter upon new work the older they grow. But it is easy to talk, easy to give advice to oneself and others. To grow old is itself to enter upon a new business; all the circumstances change, and a man must either cease acting altogether, or willingly and consciously take over the new rôle.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

Love Lost: Love Found

2012-03-13T10:46:00.000-04:00

She is the reason you exist. Youth in her face belies her wisdom yet her Childlike innocence hides a secret no one should ever understand.

Quick-silvered Time passes as she grows to know your every move, your breath, your face. Nothing about you is hidden; nothing is sacred but everything is a miracle.

She is at once entwined and enveloped while you are separate yet inseparable. Breathing the same rhythms and beating the same life.

The moment comes to give you notice and declare every delight under the stars. The heavens sing. The choirs exalt. The earth turns to bring you closer.

Caressing your newness, embracing your familiarity, she gazes at the wonder of you and offers a wrenching sacrifice; handing you over to strangers to give you a life and a future and walks away charred.

The love of one mother to another.

Inspiration of the Day: Mr Happy Man

2012-02-29T10:31:00.000-05:00

For the last few decades, Bermuda’s most beloved resident, 88-year-old Johnny Barnes, has dedicated his life to making the world a happier place in his own unique way. Standing on the street corner in his town in Bermuda for six hours every day and wishing commuters a good day. For 28 years, he has been announcing "I love you!" to anyone who passes by. He is Mr. Happy Man.

Matt Morris is an award-winning filmmaker living in Winter Park, FL. In 2008, he produced and directed PICKIN' & TRIMMIN', a documentary short that was an official selection of over 2 dozen international film festivals, including Clermont-Ferrand and Aspen Shortsfest. The film has won 7 awards, including Best Documentary Short at the Woodstock and Florida film festivals. His new short, WATERMELON MAN premiered Florida Film Festival 2010 and has screened at the Nashville Film Festival and Palm Springs Shortsfest.

Previously, Matt co-edited and contributed to the book SUPERHEROES AND PHILOSOPHY for Open Court Press. He attended Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Inspiration of the Day: Failure

2012-02-28T10:48:00.000-05:00

All of old.

Nothing else ever.

Ever tried.

Ever failed.

No matter.

Try again.

Fail again.

Fail better.

S. Beckett

Inspiration of the Day: Dream Big

2012-02-24T11:57:00.000-05:00

Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be.

Inspiration of the Day: Comfort

2012-02-23T10:51:00.000-05:00

We find comfort among those who agree with us; growth among those who don't.

Change For A Dollar

2011-12-21T06:49:00.000-05:00

Is he asking for Change, or is he asking for CHANGE?

Follow a man as he affects multiple peoples' lives with just one dollar, proving that it doesn't take much to be the change in someone's life

Sugar Plum Fairy by P.Tchaikovsky - Glass Harp

2011-12-20T10:04:00.000-05:00

• ★Merry★* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •

•。★Christmas★ 。* 。

° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚

˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛

˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜田田｜門｜ ˚And a Happy New Year !!

...♥*•♪♫•*¨* ℒℴvℯ ॐ Light *¨*•♪ Joy to all! ♫•*¨* Peace on Earth ♪♫•*¨*

VIDEO: The High Price of Materialism

2011-12-06T12:03:00.000-05:00

In this short animation, psychologist Tim Kasser discusses how America's culture of consumerism undermines our well-being. When people buy into the ever-present marketing messages that "the good life" is "the goods life," they not only use up Earth's limited resources, but they are less happy and less inclined toward helping others.

The animation both lays out the problems of excess materialism and points toward solutions that promise a healthier, more just, and more sustainable life.

The Startling Science of a Starling Murmuration

2011-11-18T09:11:00.000-05:00

Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith were canoeing somewhere in Ireland when they had a chance encounter with one of nature’s greatest and most fleeting phenomena — a murmuration of starlings. The spectacle is a magical case of mathematical chaos in action. And, it’s all driven by the quest for survival.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Annie Leonard : The Story of Broke

2011-11-14T10:18:00.000-05:00

The United States isn't broke; we're the richest country on the planet and a country in which the richest among us are doing exceptionally well. But the truth is, our economy is broken, producing more pollution, greenhouse gasses and garbage than any other country. In these and so many other ways, it just isn't working. But rather than invest in something better, we continue to keep this 'dinosaur economy' on life support with hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money. The Story of Broke calls for a shift in government spending toward investments in clean, green solutions—renewable energy, safer chemicals and materials, zero waste and more—that can deliver jobs AND a healthier environment. It's time to rebuild the American Dream; but this time, let's build it better.

Would you rather have less work or more work you actually enjoy doing?

2011-11-07T10:41:00.000-05:00

Inspiration of the Day: If not now, when?

2011-08-02T10:59:00.000-04:00

“The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.”
W. M Lewis

Found Poetry: Let It Go

2011-07-28T09:25:00.000-04:00

“Let go of the ways you thought life would unfold:

the holding of plans or dreams or expectations – Let it all go.

Save your strength to swim with the tide.

The choice to fight what is here before you now will

only result in struggle, fear, and desperate attempts

to flee from the very energy you long for. Let go.

Let it all go and flow with the grace that washes

through your days whether you received it gently

or with all your quills raised to defend against invaders.

Take this on faith; the mind may never find the

explanations that it seeks, but you will move forward

nonetheless. Let go, and the wave’s crest will carry

you to unknown shores, beyond your wildest dreams

or destinations. Let it all go and find the place of

rest and peace, and certain transformation.”

Donna Faulds: Go In and In, Poems from the Heart of Yoga

Inspiration of the Day

2011-07-27T08:48:00.000-04:00

Everything you are, and everything you have, started as a thought in your mind. Your body is merely there to manifest physically that which the mind tells it to do. Everything starts with you telling the mind what you desire.

— Thomas D. Willhite

On Writing - Why Do We Do It?

2011-07-05T10:49:00.000-04:00

To those days when I wonder why it is that I keep struggling to put pen to paper, fingers to keys in some semblance of literary contortionism...I pout and spew sentences hoping for the wordplay to hit a bullseye.

Why is it that I or you write? What keeps you creating pages of posts when the traffic meter suggests that no one is watching? How do we keep our spirit unbroken knowing that publishers are not going to stumble onto to our messages of wit and witticism?

I write to keep the demons imprisoned on paper instead of raining about. I write to aspire, inspire and justify.

I write to put on a purple cape and tiara and wave my hand queen-like and poised instead of bohemian and borrowed.

I write to visit villages and tribes I'll never see, children I'll never save, wells I'll never build.

I write to cut the distance and fill the trough. I write to unravel strings and millennia of being misunderstood.

I write to tightrope the edge between poetry and prose.

I write about who I am, who I'm not and who I want to be.

I write because I am too young to die and too old to play.

Because no one has written the epic I want to read.

I write to gasp ideas and exhale trilogies, to roll around words like marbles , to flex muscles and preen feathers without drowning in stagefright.

I write because I’ve a vocabulary which can't be caged, defanged or tamed.

I write to infuriate someone, somewhere.

And because it’s the highest form of a ingratiatingly, self-deceptive autobiography.

Why do you write?

A Quieter Life Now by Wendell Berry, Madhu Suri Prakash

2011-06-30T08:43:00.000-04:00

In an exchange of letters with a dear friend, Wendell Berry explains why his writing is only a small part of the movement against greed and waste.

YES! contributing editor Madhu Suri Prakash is a longtime friend of poet, essayist, novelist, activist, and farmer Wendell Berry. Inspired by changing attitudes among her college students, who were reading Berry, Madhu declared the Wendell Berry Era, and wrote to him, proposing that he write an open letter to President Obama calling for funding to establish new small farms. This correspondence ensued.
Dear Wendell,
I have a dream; and, at its center, you stand—tall, humble, simply magnificent.

Despite all my reservations about writing to you, here I am, hours before dawn, doing something I could not even have dared to imagine only last evening.

I awoke with a dream long before the sun is scheduled to shine. In this dream, I join millions reading your open letter to the White House, courteously requesting $5 billion—a tiny pittance compared to the going rate for government bailouts—to regenerate 50 million family farms; $5 billion, in other words, that could support young people who have the gumption and sense of adventure necessary to grow food and sequester carbon in the soil; $5 billion that would allow American women, men, and their families a chance to eat and grow clean, uncontaminated, uncancerous food.

Your moral stature and vision are such that all you would have to do is write such an open letter to the president to more fully awaken millions; to start a groundswell.

My dream declared itself loud and clear as soon as I rolled out of bed—perhaps the time is right. It’s been a long time coming, Wendell. Your half-century-old patience, my dream declares, may finally be paying off. Your time, the Wendell Berry Era, has finally dawned. Hopefully.

If I looked back and saw myself being followed, my only wish would be to escape. I am a mostly solitary man ...People might now be ready to embrace your vision, holding it close to their hearts while abandoning the illusions foisted upon us by recent elections and by corporate admen and those in cahoots with them. My dream declares boldly that not only your grassroots fans in the millions are ready to savor your wisdom, but that others, who may not have heard of you nor studied your writings, are world-weary of hokey hope and industrial illusions, and are ready as well. We find ourselves genuinely scared of the triple crises of climate collapse, resource depletion, and inequality, which we have all colluded in creating, and, at long last, are able to hear your words with an openness to surprise.

Your long patience with all of us during the past half-century reminds me of the 50-year-old patience of Gandhi. Gandhi had a dream of walking unarmed towards Ahimsa freedom, symbolized by taking back from the Empire India’s salt—the original birthright of its people. Gandhi’s tiny coterie of conspirators marching to the ocean to harvest their salt was the most powerful 20th-century gesture of the powerless spurning brute force.

If Hindus in the heyday of the British global economy could exercise the audacity of harvesting salt by the side of their beloved Gandhi, then what stops us from shaking off the shackles with which Monsanto, ADM, Cargill, and their governmental gang bind us? What stops us from harvesting our own food, nourishing our communities, audaciously enjoying the pleasures of eating?

Wendell, it is clearly outrageous of me to ask anything of you over and above the many gifts you have brought into my life. Following in your footsteps, learning lessons given to us by many of your loving fans—including the likes of Ivan Illich, Michael Pollan, and Barbara Kingsolver—I find myself still compelled to write to you from my small world in Happy Valley, Pennsylvania.

The time has come to listen to you and your kindred spirits.

Your era is our era.

We are ready.

Affectionately,
Madhu
P.S. Have I ever properly thanked Tanya and you for all the abundant gifts of hospitality with which you showered Krishna, Gustavo, and me?
Dear Madhu,

Your letter is full of good news. Its only mistake is your overestimation of me and what I’m capable of. As most men would be, I’m delighted to have made an appearance in an attractive woman’s dreams, and so I’m tempted to concur in all the terms of your praise, but in fairness to my own understanding of myself I’m obliged to resist.

I’m not a leader. I am, above all, in no way comparable to Gandhi, who was an ascetic. I love the world’s abundance of ordinary pleasures. And he was a leader. I have neither the character nor the abilities required for leadership. And I want no followers. If I looked back and saw myself being followed, my only wish would be to escape. I am a mostly solitary man, always in need of quiet, who has written some essays inviting, not converts or followers, but honest judgment.

So far as I can see, there is no reason for me to write an open letter to the president. All of my effort as an essayist has been at least to suggest the real complexity of the issues of agriculture, and of all of human culture in its relationships to nature. I would not now reduce that effort to the inevitable oversimplification of an open letter to a politician.

As far as an open letter to everybody, I think that is exactly what I have already written in my essays in which, by now, I have probably said nearly all I’m capable of saying. Now I have my mind mostly on writing of other kinds.

In fact, Madhu, what we both want to happen—a counter movement to greed and waste and the dominance of corporations—is already happening. It is happening simply because a lot of people have seen things needing to be done and are doing them. They are at work without grants, without official instruction or permission, and mostly unnoticed by the politicians and the news industry. Eventually this movement will have political powers which will be in some ways regrettable. I hope it will have the sense and strength to remain locally oriented, and to resist the simplification and corruption that will come with power.

This movement involves a lot of people—as I know—who have never read a word I’ve written, who don’t know my name. And it would be happening now, for the same reasons, if I had never written a word. It would be happening because the justifications of individual and corporate greed are now exhausted, and better ways are available. The better ways will be helped along, as we know, by large historical forces such as rising energy costs, rising ecological and social costs, and the inability of governments, large institutions, and corporations to respond effectively.

And so, rather than becoming more involved, I intend, and I’ve begun, to be involved less. I’ve already, except for one engagement next May, put an end to my career as a “visiting writer.” There’ll be no more trips to schools, libraries, etc. I’ll continue to do what is necessary, even travel, to stand with my old allies against the coal companies, and to work with Wes Jackson, Fred Kirschenmann, and other friends on agricultural issues—such as, right now, the 50-year Farm Bill. (I’ll enclose a copy.)

But I greatly dislike such public life (crowd life) as I have had, and I want less of it. I want to be more at home, more quiet, more employed at the work that still seems my own to do.

So this is my love letter back to you. I would like Krishna and Gustavo to know I wish them well.

Your friend,
Wendell

Dear Wendell,

Today, your beloved friend Wes Jackson discussed the 50-Year Farm Bill that you crafted with him and Fred Kirschenmann. Delightful presentation, quintessential Wes Jackson. Witty and brilliant.

Just as I begged you in my November letter, Wes Jackson urged those gathered at the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) conference to use their power and influence to push this nation/Washington, D.C./civil society towards implementing the bill, from the grassroots and ground up, starting today.

I asked him what type of farm/place/farmer connections he envisions. He reiterated your celebration of diversity in farms and communities, working with the genius of their places. …

Responding to questions about the farmers and communities that would be needed to implement the 50-Year Farm Bill, he estimated 80 million Americans growing good food on 400 million acres of good soil; supported by $50 million.
You continue to be the beloved hero/leader of PASA. Your disinterest in power and politics is what, I sense, draws PASA farmers and members towards your philosophy of farming practices.

So, Wendell, there you have it! Your 50-Year Farm Bill for the nation inevitably has Berry moving the hearts, minds, and spirits of millions—despite all his disavowals of leadership and his perfectly understandable shyness of being followed and pedestalized by followers and devotees.
Life is funny that way, Wendell! Don’t you think so?

With more affection,
Madhu

Dear Madhu,

I’m not disinterested in power and politics. But I don’t think there is much to be gained from answering the oversimplifications of politicians with our own oversimplifications. The World, the given World, is complex and finally mysterious. The truth of it cannot be reduced to campaign slogans or bumper stickers. We must remember this, even under political pressure, and we must keep reminding the politicians.

Your friend,
Wendell

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Madhu Suri Prakash is a contributing editor to YES! Magazine, a national nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. This article originally appeared in Beyond Prisons, the Summer 2011 issue of YES!

The Jazz Funeral

2011-06-23T09:09:00.002-04:00

I don't want a customary Christian burial but if I did this would be my parting party....A traditional jazz funeral with everyone dancing and stomping and swinging and drinking their way through the universe.

A celebration of life and love...now that's my idea of a grand exit.