To The Editor:
So, this starts out as a book review, continues into an admonition to the Harwood community, which is asking for comments about its direction and where it's going. And then it ends up with a dire warning to the wonderful country we live in and the world at large.
The book is "Sun House " by David James Duncan. It's a whopper, 765 pages, 350,000 words. I usually read three books every two weeks, reading late at night before going to sleep. This one took me three weeks. It is not just large, it is dense. "Sun House" is an ecstatic celebration of the life and times of the little blue dot we live on, viewed from the perspective that the living earth is the divine feminine eternal partner of the great glowing magnificence that can burn our skin even though it's 93 million miles from here. Both, in all their incredible beauty, are known as living creatures with hearts and minds.
Woo woo, hmm? Well, listen anyway. Think of it as a metaphor if it sounds too crazy to you. But bear with me. Long sentence coming up. Uncaring capitalism's rapacious disregard for anything but maximizing profit, without caring in any way about what it is merchandising, or the cost to either the people who actually produce it, or the world it dumps its trash in, is choking and poisoning the only planet we have to live on.
So, dear Harwood, why does the flyer that you mailed out shout only, "STEM! STEM! STEM!" What about the arts? What about history? What about music? What about philosophy. And poetry? And ethics? Where does the money we vote for (or don't vote for, doubting your direction) go, year after year? Millions and millions. How soon will it be billions and billions?
Getting back to "Sun House," I'd like to commend Jason Butler at the Joslin Library for purchasing this monster-sized tribute to the heart of humanity. I'd like to see it be required reading for every high school senior in the world. This great big lovely book is a celebration of life that takes place mainly in Montana, pays deep tribute to the cowboy karma that giant corporations are gobbling up and spitting out like so much garbage. It wanders ecstatically in and out of the Upanishads, and the sayings of the Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas and The Secret Book of John, who few people know. And takes on all of our endlessly repeating dramas of life and love — and death — without flinching. It's a phenomenon. I hope Hollywood doesn't make it into a movie, because that would dismember and trivialize a story that speaks in detail to every kind of help we all need to survive the coming challenges of water and fire. And hunger.
Lastly, let me suggest, that everyone who is not taken in by the falseness of the MAGA campaign make sure they have good ID for traveling. The climate in Canada is getting warmer, you know.
Jim Dodds,
Waitsfield
