I read this short essay last night and just had to share. Much too big for my little quotes section, I am posting it here:
Teach the cildren. We don't matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the mocassin-flowers. And the frisky ones - inkberry, lamb's-quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones - rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.
- Mary Oliver
I love this quote. It reminds me that, of all the things Mark & I want to share with our children, a love and appreciation for the natural world may be one of the most important.
What a beautiful essay. It sounds like the life you are giving Silas and Levi. I know they will grow up appreciating their surroundings thanks to you and Mark. What an incredible place in which to raise your children.
Posted by: Nana | October 13, 2007 at 05:48 PM