Growing & Falling

I’m remembering a conversation I had with author Stephen Jenkinson on a drive from Western MA to Lexington – on route to give a talk at LexCE. I’m forgetting the question he asked, but my answer had to do with the equivalency between All and Nothing. Basically saying that nothing much mattered in the final analysis.  “That’s a cop-out.” Stephen replied. We drove on in silence under a canopy of colors and over little winding mountain roads for a while. He was right. Large living has to do with small and specific action and attention as much as it has to do with grand philosophy. Maybe more. Getting lost in the act and art of something specific is a way of being found as a connected and interdependent co-creator of the story of our lives. Hopefully perhaps we will be remembered for the things we loved to do at least as much as for the family members we leave behind. Hopefully somehow we will live on as much in those topics as we will in our descendents.  Q: “What did she love to do?” A: “She loved reading and writing poetry.”  Q: “What did he love to study?” A: “The stars.”  This summer I think I figured out a response to the question of the tree falling in the forest and whether, with no one near, it makes a sound or not. I think it’s the wrong question. I think that the fact that there IS a forest where trees grow and fall is the point and answer. Here we are, beginning again with new autumn class opportunities for sensory, intellectual, and communal experience. Taking a class, learning something new with others, buckling down and asking your brain to go through the pain of learning a new language or instrument…action is an antidote to so much. Registration is open and we look forward to seeing you in the ever changing, growing and falling, colorful, experiential, and specific season of autumn.