'Be quiet and sit down'

Wisdom from 13th-century Persia 2

Last Friday, Bill Moyers interviewed the poet Robert Bly on PBS. Bly has been translating some of the poetry of the great Persian poets Hafez and Rumi, and he recited the following piece from Rumi:

Just be quiet and sit down. The reason is you're drunk. And this is the edge of the roof.

Bly (and Man with a Muck-Rake) relate this to Bush, but I wonder if the phrase could be also be applied to way humans have been abusing the environment: becoming drunk on fossil fuels and the natural capital of nature, ready to fall off the roof.

Jon Rynn has published articles at SandersResearch.com, and Foreign Policy in Focus, has a chapter on green collar jobs in the new book “Mandate for Change” and is working on a forthcoming book for Praeger Press entitled “Manufacturing Green Prosperity”. He has a Ph.D. in Political Science and lives with his wonderful wife and amazing two boys in New Jersey.

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  1. Billhook Posted 7:36 am
    04 Sep 2007

    Fossil Alchohol VapourAmericans have as a nation been inhaling fossil alcohol vapours

    for more generations than any other nation.
    Technically those alcohols are just a few of the "Volatile Hydrocarbons"

    being pumped into the air by every internal combustion engine.
    Drunk is too kind a word to describe the results.
    The great majority of the population are too far gone

    even to realize something as basic as the fact that their nation

    was founded on genocide, not slavery.
    At least for its probable ending of this intoxication

    that commonly helps debase both rationality and amity,

    the looming impact of Peak Oil is to be welcomed.
    Regards,
    Bill
  2. infp Posted 8:23 am
    04 Sep 2007

    World KeggerUh oh, freshman pledges China and India have joined America on the collective roof and they are drinking deeply.  

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