{"id":1994,"date":"2016-09-19T00:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T04:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=1994"},"modified":"2020-06-15T10:13:59","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T14:13:59","slug":"sept-19-dakota-a-spiritual-geography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2016\/09\/19\/sept-19-dakota-a-spiritual-geography\/","title":{"rendered":"Sept 19 – Dakota: A Spiritual Geography"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday, September 19- \u00a0”\u00a0To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why post Kathleen Norris in almost the same words as last year’s September 16 post? \u00a0 In September, lots of people in university worlds suck air, walk too fast, and try to manage and big and little start-ups. \u00a0 Then too, the first Clinton – Trump debate shows itself just over the horizon. \u00a0Lots of people scramble and walk too fast, not just on campuses. \u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s why Kathleen Norris leads this week. \u00a0 She writes words that open deep into ordinary living. \u00a0 In 1974, after learning her way into New York City\u2019s world of poetry with mentoring from the legendary Betty Kray at the Academy of American Poets (http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1987\/11\/24\/obituaries\/elizabeth-kray-patron-and-friend-of-poets-and-their-art-dies-at-71.html<\/a>) Kathleen and her husband shocked their peers by moving to Lemmon in northwestern South Dakota where Kathleen had inherited the family home of her grandmother. \u00a0They stayed a long time.<\/p>\n

In 1993, her\u00a0Dakota: A Spiritual Geography<\/u>\u00a0took the literary world by storm. \u00a0Took me by storm too. \u00a0If a book of micro essays, some only half a page, ever approaches the taut, lean focus of strong poetry, for me this is the book. \u00a0In those South Dakota years she became friends with vast horizons, and with the Benedictine monks at St. John\u2019s\u00a0Monastery in Minnesota. \u00a0She\u2019s written several memoirs about the intersection of her secularity with the roots of Benedictine prayer and wisdom.<\/p>\n

Think of these short quotes from\u00a0Dakota<\/u>\u00a0as poems. \u00a0 Best to read them out loud, with pauses.<\/p>\n

Have a blest day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post: \u00a0Four texts from\u00a0Dakota<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOnce, when I was describing to a friend from Syracuse, New York, a place on the plains that I love, a ridge above a glacial moraine with a view of almost fifty miles, she asked, “But what is there to see?” The answer, of course, is nothing. Land, sky, and the ever-changing light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe the desert wisdom of the Dakotas can teach us to love anyway, to love what is dying, in the face of death, and not pretend that things are other than they are. The irony and wonder of all of this is that it is the desert’s grimness, its stillness and isolation, that brings us back to love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be an American is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

“For me, walking in a hard Dakota wind can be like staring at the ocean: humbled before its immensity, I also have a sense of being at home on this planet, my blood so like the sea in chemical composition, my every cell partaking of air. I live about as far from the sea as is possible in North America, yet I walk in a turbulent ocean. Maybe that child was right when he told me that the world is upside-down here, and this is where angels drown.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

meadowlark on a fence, \u00a0 Fog Basin, SD \u00a02008<\/p>\n

\"meadowlark\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Norris\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kathleen Norris<\/strong>\u00a0(born in Washington, D.C. on July 27, 1947) is a best-selling poet and essayist. Her parents, John Norris and Lois Totten, took her as a child to\u00a0Hawaii<\/a>, where she graduated from Punahou Preparatory School in 1965. After graduating from\u00a0Bennington College<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Vermont<\/a>\u00a0in 1969, Norris became arts administrator of the\u00a0Academy of American Poets<\/a>, and published her first book of poetry two years later.[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0In 1974 she inherited her grandparents’ farm in\u00a0Lemmon, South Dakota<\/a>, moved there with her husband David Dwyer, joined Spencer Memorial\u00a0Presbyterian<\/a>\u00a0church, and discovered the spirituality of the\u00a0Great Plains<\/a>.[2]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0She entered a new, non-fictional phase in her literary career after becoming a\u00a0Benedictine<\/a>\u00a0oblate<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0Assumption Abbey \u00a0 ND<\/a>\u00a0in 1986, and spending extended periods at\u00a0Saint John’s Abbey<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Collegeville, Minnesota<\/a>.[3]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Since the death of her husband in 2003, Norris has transferred her place of residence to\u00a0Hawaii<\/a>, though continuing to do lecture tours on the mainland.<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday, September 19- \u00a0”\u00a0To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.\u201d Why post Kathleen Norris in almost the same words as last year’s September 16 post? \u00a0 In September, lots of people in university … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1994"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3536,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994\/revisions\/3536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}