The Love of the Land

All over the pre-Christian world, the love of the land and appreciation for the food it yielded, was cause for celebration and thanksgiving. Perhaps we are not as far removed from this world as we might think---- perhaps it is echoes of these occasions that we sometimes hear, ringing in our ears, causing that vague sense of something being amiss about the way we live today. Perhaps our need to be a part of creation and connected to nature is not as dead as we think.

Like many people with roots in the countryside, I never felt completely tamed by the city and I still feel an outsider in urban environments, despite having spent many years living in both the larger and smaller cities of the world. Perhaps we cannot let go some subconscious tie to the land, still feeling its ancient, magnetic pull, like Yeats, hearing it 'in the deep heart's core', longing for some dream-place cabin with 'nine bean rows' and 'hive for the honey bee', far, far away from the 'pavements grey' of our diminished lives.


The Lake Isle of Inisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Inisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

----W.B. Yeats


Blessings on your table!
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