I just finnished rereading one of my all time favorite books.. It is called Northern Farm by Henry Beston. It is a year-long prosaic account of living on and working a farm in Maine back in the 1940s.
It is dear to me as it is basically off my region (Maine, NH and VT can all be lumped together in many regards)--plus I've lived quite a lot in Maine--both along its rocky coastline as well as in the mountainous interior.
In my rereading of this fine work, I came upon a passage that particularly struck me and I'm actually surprised that I didn't remember it from my previous readings--although it has been seven or eight years since I last read it. Anyway, I immediately thought to post this passage here as I reckoned, some of the members would surely appreciate it. I debated whether to post in the Literature forum or Rresurgent Atavism. I think here is fine though.
Anyway, enough BS--here's the passage:
"How wise were the ancients who never lost sight of the religious significance of the earth! They used the land to the full, draining, ploughing and manuring every inch, but their use was not an attack on its nature, nor was the ancient motherhood of earth ever forgotten in the breaking and preparing of the soil.
They knew, as all honest people know in their bones, that in any true sense there is no such thing as ownership of the earth and that the shadow of any man is but for a time cast upon the grass of any field. What remains is the earth, the mother of life as the ancients personified the mystery, the ancient mother in her robes of green or harvest gold and the sickle in her hand. ~ Henry Beston
Music to my ears as I am an agrarian minded Heathen type...
Here's the book:
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/bibli...805030921:6.50
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Originally Posted by Wôðanaz
It is surely fine signature material.
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