LEARNING FROM THE LAND - IN MEMORY OF WENDELL BERRY

The goldenrod is blooming, and the trees are turning, and the birds are singing, and the tractors are ravaging the fields in search of dry blades to bale.

I am thinking of birth and death and all the time in between. I am thinking of what this land has told me about all three.

That skill, that hearing of the land, does not come as naturally to us as it once did. There is other noise competing for our attention and drowning out the call of this part of ourselves which we have called nature. But this hearing can be honed. It can be trained under an old-growth canopy, lying in the tall grass under an open sky, or by reading the words of a soul who has already learned to listen.

Image by Kate Dearman

When I was 20, I returned home from a bustling city to my rural hometown, desperately overwhelmed by a world whose values and structures I could not seem to understand. I felt unformed. Yes, there had been efforts to sculpt me in a way that was suitable to society, but the pressure did not take, and I felt as though that is how I would remain. Some sort of amorphous creation, resisting simplistic categorization.

But then, I met a man, not face to face, but through his words. His name was Wendell Berry. We were introduced through a book club hosted on a farm. I met him in a field, sat on a stump, within the pages of his book, The Unsettling of America. That is how I came to know him.

Image by Guy Mendes

In it, he wrote about industrial agriculture and what it reveals about our culture at large. He lamented how our systems have created an idolization of efficiency and specialization, and podiumed exploitation, materialism, and consumerism. He spoke about our separation from our land, from the gift of God’s creation, and how that delineation, and the destruction that follows it, impacts our souls.

Image by Kate Dearman

As I read his words, I felt as though he fanned some small ember that had been smoldering somewhere within my soul into a flame. By the time I finished the book, it had become a raging fire. I had been molded and set ablaze, and so I finally had a form.

Image by Lisa Romerein

I became passionate about soil and learning how to support our land. I wanted to toil, and grow food, and share it with those around me. I did not want to demand more and more in the name of unfettered growth. I wanted to nurture what I was given. I wanted to learn from the land. To listen to it.

It was through his poetry that I found out how. Essays and nonfiction can stir up your spirit and leave you listless at times. A problem was identified, and now it is your responsibility to find the solution. Run until you’re empty. But poetry settles you, not in a way that takes the wind out of your wings, but in a way that brings peace, filling your tank with a more sustainable fuel.

I read his words and remember that just as I live on the land, the land lives within me. He gave voice to what could not speak. His words are a constant reminder that we do not need to accept the status quo just because it has the loudest hum or the brightest burn.

I will never forget Wendell Berry. I will visit him often in his novels, and essays, and poems. I thank him for having the courage to sit and write. And for giving me the courage to do the same. 

He changed my one, beautiful life.

Image by Guy Mendes

Love,

Leila