Ecosystems are holy. The word "environmental" is a deadly compromise itself. It's a policy word that lives only in the head, and barely there.
David James DuncanMusic is just a word for something we love largely because it consists of things that words can't express. Likewise, the heart is just a word for something in us that music sometimes touches.
David James DuncanI'd trapped myself in a script.... But to be scripted at all is to be prepackaged, programmed, pinned to a page. Only the unwritten can truly live a life. So who I was, what I was, had to be unwritten.
David James DuncanThen in October, Indian Summer, the air turned so soft, the sunlight so fragile, and each day's loveliness so poignantly doomed that even self-ignorance and restlessness felt like profound states of being, and he just wandered the empty beaches and misty headlands in a state of serene confusion and awe.
David James DuncanEverybody gets jolted. You, me, before we die weโll all get nailed, lots of times. But that doesnโt mean weโll get turned into witches. You canโt avoid getting zapped, but you can avoid passing the mean energy on. Thatโs the interesting thing about witches, the challenge of them-- learning not to hit back, or hit somebody else, when they zap you. You can bury the zap, for instance, like the gods buried the Titans in the center of the earth. Or you can be like a river when a forest fire hits it--phshhhhhhhhhhhh! Just drown it, drown all the heat and let it wash away.
David James DuncanWonder is like grace, in that it's not a condition we grasp; it grasps us. Wonder is not an obligatory element in the search for truth. We can seek truth without wonder's assistance. But seek is all we'll do; there will be no finding. Unless wonder descends, unlocks us ... truth is unable to enter. Wonder may be the aura of truth, the halo of it. Or something even closer. Wonder may be the caress of truth, touching our very skin.
David James Duncan