"I of my own knowledge…"

I frequently cite John Michael Greer’s Archdruid weekly columns in my other blog, The Context, which centers more on political and social issues than on the potential of consciousness. But this week’s column spans the gap. The original is at http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2010/06/magical-thinking.html

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2010/06/magical-thinking.html

Magical Thinking

As I write these words, the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico continues unchecked. It seems almost obscene to suggest that anything positive might come out of an oil spill that is already the largest in US history, and of course it’s true that whatever good might be salvaged from the situation will offer little consolation to the ravaged ecosystems and destroyed communities of the Gulf. Still, as teacher and Foxfire founder Eliot Wigginton noted, learning is only made possible by failure, and a failure this gargantuan and many-sided can at least offer us some pointed lessons for the future.

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“My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to commune with the spirit of the universe, to be intoxicated even with the fumes, call it, of that divine nectar, to bear my head through atmospheres and over heights unknown to my feet, is perennial and constant.”

Thoreau, February 1851 (age 34)