from Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko:
The word he chose to express “fragile” was filled with the intricacies of a continuing process, and with a strength inherent in spider webs woven across paths through sand hills where early in the morning the sun becomes entangled in each filament of web. It took a long time to explain the fragility and intricacy because no word exists alone, and the reason for choosing each word had to be explained with a story about why it must be said this certain way. That was the responsibility that went with being human, old Ku’oosh said, the story behind each word must be told so there could be no mistake in the meaning of what had been said; and this demanded great patience and love.
…
Ceremony
I will tell you something about stories,
[he said]
They aren’t just entertainment.
Don’t be fooled.
They are all we have, you see,
all we have to fight off
illness and death.
You don’t have anything
if you don’t have the stories.
Their evil is mighty
but it can’t stand up to our stories.
So they try to destroy the stories
let the stories be confused or forgotten.
They would like that
They would be happy
Because we would be defenseless then.
He rubbed his belly.
I keep them here
[he said]
Here, put your hand on it
See, it is moving.
There is life here for the people.
And in the belly of this story
the rituals and the ceremony
are still growing.
There’s a famous Chinese saying that “the misery of the state leads to the emergence of great poets” (guojia buxing shijia xing)–or more literally, “when the state is unfortunate, poets are fortunate.” These words come from a poem by the Qing dynasty historian Zhao Yi (1727–1814), observing the phenomenon in which classic works of poetry often appear during times of calamity: war, famine, dynastic downfall, and so on.
Your ancestors will be poor and destitute
if no one burns cars, money, food, houses, clothing, iphones etc.
If enough spirits are neglected, then they may come back from the other realm
and cause calamities like earthquakes, droughts, locusts, civil wars, invasions, etc.
“For reasons not entirely clear, many countries around the world now face the same challenge: fertility rates that have fallen below the replacement rate as they’ve developed into advanced economies. This has occurred across a diverse array of political systems, and shows little sign of moderating. Besides immigration, a wide range of policies have now been tried in attempts to raise birth rates, from increased public funding of childcare services to “pro-natal” tax credits for families with children. None have been consistently successful, sparking anguished debate in some quarters on whether losing the will to survive and reproduce is simply a fundamental factor of modernity.”
A dark man – what could he want
But a never-ending embrace,
Dolphins in the water, a wood of birches
And a hill from which to watch the Aurora Borealis?
What could he want, this dark man,
But a boat floating on warm oceans without course,
The planes of a treasure island, and a house
That looks over the beach of lost days?
What could he want, this dark man
But a little world, three truths,
Some breadcrumbs for the birds,
And a glass of wine that reflects dreams and cities?