Gravity is the root of lightness;
calm is the master of excitement.
Thereby do exemplary people travel all day
without leaving their equipment.
Though they have a look of prosperity,
their resting place is transcendent.
What can be done about heads of state
who take the world lightly in their own self-interest?
Lack of gravity loses servants of state;
instability loses heads of state.

– Thomas Cleary

 

Heavy is the root of light
still is the master of restless
thus a lord might travel all day
but never far from his supplies
even in a guarded camp
his manner is calm and aloof
why would the lord of ten thousand chariots
treat himself lighter than his kingdom
too light he loses his base
too restless he loses his command

– Red Pine

 

As weight anchors lightness
And calm governs impulse,
The wise leader, all day on the march,
Stays by his stockage train
Within his guarded cordon,
Safely positioned, beyond harm’s reach.
Could the lord of ten thousand wagons of war
Risk his own self for the sake of the world?
Let such lightness lose him his anchoring base?
Such impulse his rule?

– Moss Roberts


Discover more from Tim Miller

Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.

#238 – Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico Human Voices Wake Us

An episode from 8/17/26: Tonight, we look at the years of intense simplicity that the American artist Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) spent in New Mexico. Attached to the area from her first visit to Taos in 1929, over the next fifteen years she continued to travel and paint there. In 1949 she moved to New Mexico permanently and achieved the kind of bare-bones life, seclusion from the wider world, and level of intimacy with the natural world she had long sought. The books I read from are Laurie Lisle's biography, Portrait of an Artist, and Georgia O'Keeffe, a large book of reproductions and commentary by O'Keeffe herself.The paintings of hers that O'Keeffe mentions in the episode are: The Grey Hills (1942) (the painting called Grey Hills 2, which she describes as looking like miles of elephants, is not online); Black Place III (1944), Patio with Black Door (1955), Road Past the View I (1964), and Black Rock with Blue III (1970).The best way to support the podcast is by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify, sharing it with others, or sending me a note on what you think. You can also order any of my books: Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire, Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. I also have a YouTube channel where I share poems and excerpts from these books, mostly as YouTube shorts.Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
  1. #238 – Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico
  2. #237 – Al Pacino remembers his childhood, and Eleanor Roosevelt finds herself
  3. #236 – At home with Bach
  4. #235 – London in 2011, London in the 1660s
  5. #234: The Intensity of Private Moments
  6. #233: Talking Baseball with Tom Hart
  7. #232: Ted Hughes in Alaska
  8. #231: The mythology of the moon
  9. #230 – The mythology of the bear, and Byron gets apocalyptic
  10. #229 : Mother Earth and myths of mining and agriculture

Discover more from Tim Miller

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Discover more from Tim Miller

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading