Black Oaks

In the last month I have had 2 if not 3 encounters with the world of paid work. And I notice they are getting ever closer. I am struck by how different it feels to toil for no financial gain and to toil for coins. I'm more than happy to contribute, to pitch in, to provide for my needs and fulfil the needs of others. Ecological systems operate in cycles, flows of information and energy, no financial inducement or monetary price necessary. Each component takes what it needs if it's available and gives what it creates if desired by others. Cycles of give and take. It's a relationship thing not a market thing.

In her poem Black Oaks Mary Oliver writes ... "I don't want to sell my life for money. I don't even want to come in from the rain." I couldn't have put it better myself. Money takes away our ecological selves. It commodifies us. All forms of life are so much more than a product to be bought and sold.

Here's the poem in full. Black Oaks by Mary Oliver.

Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary,
or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance
and comfort.

Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays
carp and whistle all day in the branches, without
the push of the wind.

But to tell the truth after a while I'm pale with longing
for their thick bodies ruckled with lichen
and you can't keep me from the woods, from the tonnage
of their shoulders, and their shining green hair.

Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a
little sunshine, a little rain.

Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from
one boot to another -- why don't you get going?

For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.

And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists
of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money,
I don't even want to come in out of the rain.