About halfway through the new book Distant Neighbors, which presents a fascinating collections of letters between two of my heros, Gary Snyder (see Gary Snyder at 83) and Wendell Berry. What a lively and thoughtful dialogue - and a lovely friendship. They exchanged nearly 250 letters from 1973 to 2013. A snippet from Snyder's letter to Berry on June 3, 1977:
"The question I ask myself is, what next? My ignorance of the dynamics of economics troubles my sleep. I must keep working on that. Because, (as my study of China is showing more and more) the best intentions in the world will not stop the inertia of a heavy civilization that is rolling on its way. As poets, our politics mostly stand back from that flow of topical events; and the place we do our real work is in the unconscious, or myth-consciousness of the culture; a place where people decide (without knowing it) to change their values."
[NOTE: There is a powerful and subtle logic on display in these letters. I highly recommed this book].