Black Mountain

Lake Tomahawk July 24, 2024

Friday, March 3, 2023

A link to some poetic nonsense about moss

 I mentioned moss somewhere before. 

I also have admitted to being a fan of Robin Wall Kimmerer. She who wrote Braiding Sweetgrass.

And I love the ever-so-beautifully written posts by Maria Popova called the Marginalian.

So when all three were woven together and came into my inbox a few days ago, I just hummed with having such beauty in words painting pictures I could only imagine...and I wanted to share the experience with you.

It may be a bit far fetched, but it's an experience. Midweek Pick-me-up. Here's the start...

FROM THE ARCHIVE | The Magic of Moss and What It Teaches Us About the Art of Attentiveness to Life at All Scales

“Attention without feeling,” Mary Oliver observed in her magnificent memoir of love and loss, “is only a report.” In Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (public library) — an extraordinary celebration of smallness and the grandeur of life, as humble yet surprisingly magical as its subject — botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer extends an uncommon and infectious invitation to drink in the vibrancy of life at all scales and attend to our world with befitting vibrancy of feeling.

And that's just the first paragraph. Later she says about Kimmerer, "There is a special commonality between her heritage and her scientific training — a profound respect for all life forms, whatever their size — coupled with a special talent for rendering that respect contagious, which places her prose in the same taxon as Mary Oliver and Annie Dillard and Thoreau."

I've not read the book about mosses, just the Sweetgrass one. I agree with all of Popova's comments about Kimmerer and there will be many quotes on this "news-blossom."



3 comments:

  1. ...moss is a magical miniature world.

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    Replies
    1. I do think it was you who said you're going to build a moss terrarium. I'm looking forward to photos of it!

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