Heriot Toun in spring

Words for Winter 2014



Grammar and Heather.

 

It's an old tactic, for those who have suffered defeat  
in argument or battle, to go into internal exile.
The cause is furthered by other means,
in the mind, the affections, the imagination.

A separation that has proved impossible
in practical and political terms, is realised 

in a refusal of consent, in independence of thought,
in the excerise of a passionate and capricious freedom.

Enlightenment has been summed up as
the ability to think for yourself 
ie from the evidence according to logic, without
recourse to tradition or custom or received opinion.

The proper size for a state is a land that can be walked
around in a few days. You can pace out the terrain,
learn the resources, discuss the weather,
listen for the currents and undercurrents.

Spiritual Independence can be declared immediately.
It requires no patronage or consensus, seeks no permission.
Its practice will be to elucidate its own notion, to discover
who we are and where we are and what might be done.

Its community will be found among those
who work against the privatisation of simple happiness.

 

 

 

Gertrude Stein


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