As I age in the world it will rise and spread, and be for this place horizon and orison, the voice of its winds. I have made myself a dream to dream of its rising, that has gentled my nights. Let me desire and wish well the life these trees may live when I no longer rise in the mornings to be pleased with the green of them shining, and their shadows on the ground, and the sound of the wind in them.
Interpretation
As I grow older, I cherish the beauty of nature and hope for its continued existence after I'm gone.
In this quote, Wendell Berry expresses a profound connection to nature through his reflections on aging. He highlights the importance of trees and the natural environment, indicating that his dreams and desires are tied to the vitality of nature. As he contemplates his mortality, he wishes for the trees to thrive long after he has departed, illustrating a deep appreciation for the beauty and serenity that nature brings to life, alongside a sense of responsibility to preserve it for future generations.
In practice
A speaker at an environmental conference could use this quote to emphasize the importance of conservation.
We weren't allowing our hopes to become expectations. Expectations are tempting, pleasant, maybe necessary. They are scary too, once you have had some experience. They are not necessarily and not always a bucket of smoke, but they can be and are even likely to be.
The uplands of my home country in north central Kentucky are sloping and easily eroded, dependent for safekeeping upon year-round cover of perennial plants.
A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance.
WE ARE DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY - I mean our country itself, our land. This is a terrible thing to know, but it is not a reason for despair unless we decide to continue the destruction. If we decide to continue the destruction, that will not be because we have no other choice. This destruction is not necessary. It is not inevitable, except that by our submissiveness we make it so.
Much of our waste problem is to be accounted for by the intentional flimsiness and unrepairability of the labor-savers and gadgets that we have become addicted to.
We had entered an era of limitlessness, or the illusion thereof, and this in itself is a sort of wonder. My grandfather lived a life of limits, both suffered and strictly observed, in a world of limits. I learned much of that world from him and others, and then I changed; I entered the world of labor-saving machines and of limitless cheap fossil fuel. It would take me years of reading, thought, and experience to learn again that in this world limits are not only inescapable but indispensable.
A baby nursing at a mother's breast... is an undeniable affirmation of our rootedness in nature.
And let them pass, as they will too soon, _x000D_ _x000D_ With the bean-flowers' boon, _x000D_ _x000D_ And the blackbird's tune, _x000D_ _x000D_ And May, and June!
Every cent we earn from Crocodile Hunter goes straight back into conservation. Every single cent.
First, there is the power of the Wind, constantly exerted over the globe... Here is an almost incalculable power at our disposal, yet how trifling the use we make of it.
To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe -- to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it -- is a wonder beyond words.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August Over the grass in the West garden; They hurt me. I grow older.
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