tankt

I have been thinking of and wanting to listen to Bjork’s Homogenic collaboration with Mark Bell for quite some time, but I didn’t have it on my Mac; it wasn’t on Abby’s Mac even though she had everything else from Bjork, and it wasn’t on our “Big Love” backup drive either. As luck would have it, I found it last night in one our last remaining stashes of cds (most are boxed up in storage — no room in our 1,000 sq ft apartment for such luxuries). I ripped it, skipped through the tracks, and immediately settled on “Alarm Call.”

As if that weren’t serendipitous enough, I popped into my favorite neighborhood samich shop this afternoon and they were playing Homogenic there too, had I lingered a bit longer I would have heard “Alarm Call” all over again.

This track just vibrates with euphoria, much like today’s events in Washington DC. But beyond the raw emotion, it shares many of the same themes that Barack Obama stressed in his first day in office: the idea that hope can defeat fear; the notion that all of us on earth are one, our differences are few, and our orientation to each other needs to reflect that in our hearts; the belief that what made this all possible is a genuine willingness to listen and learn, to rise above the patterns and practices of old, and to embrace a new way of seeing the world and ourselves with in it.

But what it really comes down to is this: “You can’t say no to hope. Can’t say no to happiness.”

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Here’s a little more of her beautiful lyrics:

I have walked this earth
And watched people

It doesn’t scare me at all

I can be sincere
And say I like them

It doesn’t scare me at all

You can’t say no to hope
Can’t say no to happiness

I want to go on a mountain-top
With a radio and good batteries
And play a joyous tune and
Free the human race
From suffering

It doesn’t scare me at all

I’m no fucking buddhist
But this is enlightenment

It’s a fitting end to such a spectacular day. But as Wendell Berry once said, the real work begins tomorrow.

I clipped this quote nearly two months ago with the sole intent of posting it here. I have kept it close to me ever since, but I am truly only now beginning to internalize it. I cannot remember where I found it, never realized that I only had the first half of the poem, and did not even know who wrote it (Wendell Berry) until I googled it tonight…

If you know me well (or even at all), you will no doubt recognize that the first two lines parallel a line of my thinking that goes back many years. See my first ‘resume‘ for one, or the brilliance of my old neighbor Michael, or my lengthy post on Hermann Hesse, and so many more.

Given that, you can imagine my surprise when I read the last half of this poem for the very first time tonight. I could spend a lifetime with those two simple statements, in fact it often feels as though I already have.

Here it is in its entirety…

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

- Wendell Berry

There is a quiet but potent power in these words. It is not an expression of raw power, nor does it need to be. It is simply an acknowledgment of its existence, and from it flows the patience and persistence to break be free.

Or something like that.

Regardless, it fits me and my life at the moment, and I couldn’t be happier at the thought. Life is really good right now, if a bit uncertain, but more promising than I ever thought possible a year ago. I have so much to learn still, so much to earn too, but I cannot wait to get started.