Knowing by Heart
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These columns were originally published in the Kings County Record between 1984 and 2016.
The illustrations are by Alice, most of the photographs are by Lee

Annie and the hummingbirds

6/6/2016

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PictureThe scholar's view © Alice Whitney, 2005
© R. L. Whitney.  Originally published on June 2, 1998

It would seem that what Robert Browning called “the last of life, for which the first was made,” should have worked out differently, if he was right.  Having survived the raising of the children and gotten to approximately the age RB was talking about, I find myself coping with bloodthirsty hummingbirds and a teen-aged cat.

In India, the Hindus traditionally held that life was divided into four stages, each lasting for twenty years.  The last of the four, coming after the householder stage, allowed one to wander off, free as the birds, to seek enlightenment--or at least travel about with a begging bowl seeking food.

The traditional Hindu teaching does not seem to have transmitted itself to the West in the way that might be hoped.  Enlightenment is hard to come by, and few there be that seek it, no matter what you may have heard.  But, hey, the news isn’t all bad.  The scarcity of enlightenment is the very reason democracy works so well.  Can you imagine the disruption that would be caused if we actually elected someone who knew what was going on?     


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    Words & Images

    We moved to our farm in Sussex, New Brunswick from Toronto in 1977, only moving away in 2014. 

    For over 30 years of our life there, I wrote a weekly column for the Kings County Record in Sussex chronicling the little events that are the heart of ‘daily life’ in a small place in the country.  These blog posts are drawn from those columns.

    The weekly column became, over the years, a series of bench-marks or surveyor’s stakes to record the contours of the place we lived, its dreaming hills and fertile valleys, icy chasms and swift-flowing streams. 

    While I no longer live on the farm, we continue to share the columns from time to time on this blog.  And very soon you will be able to read my book!  To be published in December 2019.  

    ----
    Images on the blog are drawn from my own photography,  and my wife Alice's artwork.  We occasionally resort to other people's images when nothing we have on hand suits the content of the post.  

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  • Home
  • About Us
  • Read the Blog
  • Get the Book
  • The Whitney Journals
  • Remembering Lee
  • Archived Blog Posts