Eleven years ago while studying with Wendell Berry at Schumacher College, England, in a course entitled “Nature as Teacher”, one of the texts we read was William Shakespeare’s play ‘As You Like It’.
A defining moment for me came when the exiled Duke Senior talks of the advantages of living in a forest paradise (Act II, Scene 1). Where one, he says, “finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything…”
Defining for two reasons.
One, that Shakespeare, four hundred hears ago, had a deep ecological understanding of the earth.
Two, that Shakespeare, in his writings declared that it was possible for stones and trees to literally, as well as metaphorically, teach us something.
My appreciation for Shakespeare deepened and I never again looked at a stone in the same way as before.
Today, Sunday, marks the 100th journal entry for “Life ot the Edge”. To mark this special occasion, I have gone to the beach and placed 100 stones in a grid pattern to symbolise the 100 stories (mini sermons) presented over this past year.
The grid represents the more linear, formal and organizational aspects of thinking that go into the creation of something.
The placement next to the water represents the more non-linear, chaotic elements behind creation.
And, to remind me that no matter how exquisite and “time consuming” my efforts might have been, eventually these stones/these stories will be washed away, covered in sand and soon forgotten.
The object lesson is to enjoy the moment and the behavioral processes of being in the moment of writing or photographing and leave it at that.
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