12/08/2014

"...To be just, however, it is necessary to remember that there has been another tendency: the tendency to stay put, to say, 'No farther. This is the place.' So far, this has been the weaker tendency, less glamorous, certainly less successful. It is also the older of these tendencies, having been the dominant one among the Indians.

"The Indians did, of course, experience movements of population, but in general their relation to place was based upon old usage and association, upon inherited memory, tradition, veneration. The land was their homeland. The first and greatest American revolution, which has never been superseded, was the coming of people who did not look upon the land as a homeland. But there were always those among the newcomers who saw that they had come to a good place and who saw its domestic possibilities. Very early, for instance, there were men who wished to establish agricultural settlements rather than quest for gold or exploit the Indian trade. Later, we know that every advance of the frontier left behind families and communities who intended to remain and prosper where they were."

From The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry (page 4).

This blog has been on hiatus for school, but that's probably okay because there are about three people in the world who look at it. (Hi!) Maybe I can read a real book and take some pictures over break.