Preludes

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173478

... this poem is one of those that always remained in my heart from the moment I first came across it in high school.

Especially the line "His soul stretched tight across the skies".

And the lines just before that:

"You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands."

Anchored by the passage:

"I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing. "

The idea that we are all as much a part of Nature as Nature itself, and that we should reflect on our vulnerability and suffering.

I remember the teacher, a Mr. White, a young passionate sincere soul with a beard, almost hippie like but not quite.

Perhaps Sustainability lies in breaking the mould of how we see ourselves, and that chipping away at the steel that constrains us and limits our creativity and imagination lies in the collective power of a myriad different things.

This was an immediate thought that struck me as I read this article:

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/06/26/first-ladies-are-regal-maternal-and-patriotic-should-they-be-sexy-too/

The modern grace of the First Lady Michelle Obama, one dimension, the proud affirmation of womanhood by the First Lady of Mexico, Angelica Rivera de Pena, another.

Different styles yet both a positive force to change our mindsets, as we evolve towards a more profound understanding of who we are as a species and how do we flow like water into a sustainable future.

Perhaps the meme shattering phenomena of say Madonna or Lady Gaga, the musicians of the Sixties and Seventies when the Great Western Revolution took place, the gentle lyrics of Rodriguez, all of these are part of the evolution?

Somehow we need to keep on moving towards the collaborative compassionate society that is the nature of our collective - with unfortunately a number of defectors as flies in the human ointment.

We need to collectively be ever alert for the Pavlov game players that stand in our way, and check mate their every move.

Perhaps then in a collective humanity, wherein an ethos of fairness prevails, the ethos necessary for the collective to maximise the sum of individual happiness, perhaps then we can find that which our nature makes possible.