A Soft Sweet Sabbath

       Vincent Van Gogh, 'Green Vineyard.' 

Have a soft sweet Sunday. Perceive how the edges of things dissolve. The smallest leaf is infinite today.


Politics will not solve our political problems. That is pretty obvious by now. The solution to a problem is never on the level of the problem, but on the level of the cause, which is an entirely different dimension. The causal dimension of political and economic problems is the personal awareness of the individual citizen.


When a large enough number of Americans choose a simpler life, not out of political ideology, but out of personal delight in the sacrament of the present moment, the wealth of the ordinary, then the political problems of our civilization will dissolve spontaneously, because Americans will no longer need to exploit the world's poor for the burden of unnecessary riches, or devastate the earth to sate our appetite. To occupy the present moment, and delight in the small and the beautiful - the motionless explosion of a rose, the thrush's song, the taste of a homegrown raspberry - is the supreme political movement.


My politics is poetry. The radical act is to be fully present. The revolution is to breathe.

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