divination of any sort; book, song or sky. a practice of deep listening.
23.08.26
It feels right to begin, as I so often have done, with an Emily Dickinson poem.
The Wind took up the Northern Things
And piled them in the south —
Then gave the East unto the West
And opening his mouth
The four Divisions of the Earth
Did make as to devour
While everything to corners slunk
Behind the awful power —
The Wind — unto his Chambers went
And nature ventured out —
Her subjects scattered into place
Her systems ranged about
Again the smoke from Dwellings rose
The Day abroad was heard —
How intimate, a Tempest past
The Transport of the Bird —
Poem 1134 from ‘Emily Dickinson – The Complete Poems’ Edited by Thomas H. Johnson
Today the wind is empire, the wind is greed, the wind is the human desire to conquer, control. Piling northern problems in the global south, pillaging the east to fill the banks and museums of the west, plunging all the world into darkness. When Dickinson writes about nature and self, she cracks the universal secret that we are all reflections of inner and outer. Just as the wind dies down, this system will dissipate. Morning will come and it will be time again to cook your eggs and make your toast and start over.
The Wind took up the Northern Things
And piled them in the south —
Then gave the East unto the West
And opening his mouth
The four Divisions of the Earth
Did make as to devour
While everything to corners slunk
Behind the awful power —
The Wind — unto his Chambers went
And nature ventured out —
Her subjects scattered into place
Her systems ranged about
Again the smoke from Dwellings rose
The Day abroad was heard —
How intimate, a Tempest past
The Transport of the Bird —
Poem 1134 from ‘Emily Dickinson – The Complete Poems’ Edited by Thomas H. Johnson
Today the wind is empire, the wind is greed, the wind is the human desire to conquer, control. Piling northern problems in the global south, pillaging the east to fill the banks and museums of the west, plunging all the world into darkness. When Dickinson writes about nature and self, she cracks the universal secret that we are all reflections of inner and outer. Just as the wind dies down, this system will dissipate. Morning will come and it will be time again to cook your eggs and make your toast and start over.