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Mary Oliver
Jan. 25th, 2025 09:18 amFor the weekend, I am taking a break from Buddhist meditation and instead reading Mary Oliver. I tell people Mary Oliver is my favorite poet, since I've never read a poem by her that I didn't love, but I've never read her work in any kind of systematic way. I grabbed a pile of her works from the library, though it turns out that the one that seemed thematically appropriate for today--Winter Hours--is actually essays rather than poems.
In the first chapter she talks about building a house. As one does when the same message occurs from two or three different sources, I wondered if the universe was sending me some sort of message. Of course I know that this is just the peculiar human habit to make patterns of things, but I don't think it hurts to find hope where one can. As I believe I may have mentioned in one of the earlier journal entries on Pema Chodron, lately I've been using some of the idle time I used to spend scrolling social media on youtube watching an Australian man's "Primitive Technology" channel. It's absolutely mesmerizing watching him start with nothing but sticks, stones, trees, dirt and water to construct more and more elaborate huts and eventually shelters made of brick. While he does clearly need the natural resources of the area he's in, which may be threatened by climate change, nevertheless watching him gives me a type of hope that comes from faith in human ingenuity and labor.
I don't think this is exactly a survivalist fantasy (though it could be)--certainly romanticizing the primitive and individual masculine labor plays a role in that sort of narrative, and true survival in the ancient world and today relies on community. But I think the part of me that is drawn to the youtube series is the part of me that feels helpless as an individual to effect the world. Building something literally with one's own hands (since that is the primary tool he uses in the videos) is a really concrete and psychologically satisfying way of affecting the world.
That's what Oliver talks about in her chapter: the small house she built in her backyard mainly of recycled materials, with her own hands. She saw it as a kind of response to/reaction against years of the mental labor of poetry, which was mostly indoors, sitting and writing. She wanted a form of labor with her body, with her hands, and she is proud of the little house even though she never used it for much.
It does make me think that I need some sort of creative hobby, and one that uses my body more. Ideally both. But the obviously ones (e.g. gardening) repel me--I literally hate getting my hands dirty in that way. I watch the Australian man digging in dirt to make clay and forming the brick with his hands and think about how my fingernails crack badly just from doing the dishes if I don't wear gloves. Carrying something wrong makes me ache all day. Given the diabetes, small injuries on my feet make me terribly paranoid, especially since I get everywhere by walking. I thought perhaps bicycling, but my balance issues worry me. I'm sure Pema Chodron would have something to say about these fears, but I think many of them are sensible, considering I have little safety net.
Even Oliver talks about personal aging and the beginning of descent, and how that affects her desires to move the body. Sigh. Maybe pickleball? I shall have to think on it more.
In the first chapter she talks about building a house. As one does when the same message occurs from two or three different sources, I wondered if the universe was sending me some sort of message. Of course I know that this is just the peculiar human habit to make patterns of things, but I don't think it hurts to find hope where one can. As I believe I may have mentioned in one of the earlier journal entries on Pema Chodron, lately I've been using some of the idle time I used to spend scrolling social media on youtube watching an Australian man's "Primitive Technology" channel. It's absolutely mesmerizing watching him start with nothing but sticks, stones, trees, dirt and water to construct more and more elaborate huts and eventually shelters made of brick. While he does clearly need the natural resources of the area he's in, which may be threatened by climate change, nevertheless watching him gives me a type of hope that comes from faith in human ingenuity and labor.
I don't think this is exactly a survivalist fantasy (though it could be)--certainly romanticizing the primitive and individual masculine labor plays a role in that sort of narrative, and true survival in the ancient world and today relies on community. But I think the part of me that is drawn to the youtube series is the part of me that feels helpless as an individual to effect the world. Building something literally with one's own hands (since that is the primary tool he uses in the videos) is a really concrete and psychologically satisfying way of affecting the world.
That's what Oliver talks about in her chapter: the small house she built in her backyard mainly of recycled materials, with her own hands. She saw it as a kind of response to/reaction against years of the mental labor of poetry, which was mostly indoors, sitting and writing. She wanted a form of labor with her body, with her hands, and she is proud of the little house even though she never used it for much.
It does make me think that I need some sort of creative hobby, and one that uses my body more. Ideally both. But the obviously ones (e.g. gardening) repel me--I literally hate getting my hands dirty in that way. I watch the Australian man digging in dirt to make clay and forming the brick with his hands and think about how my fingernails crack badly just from doing the dishes if I don't wear gloves. Carrying something wrong makes me ache all day. Given the diabetes, small injuries on my feet make me terribly paranoid, especially since I get everywhere by walking. I thought perhaps bicycling, but my balance issues worry me. I'm sure Pema Chodron would have something to say about these fears, but I think many of them are sensible, considering I have little safety net.
Even Oliver talks about personal aging and the beginning of descent, and how that affects her desires to move the body. Sigh. Maybe pickleball? I shall have to think on it more.
