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How to See a Bird: Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’s Exquisite Illustrated Field Guide to the Wonder of the Winged
“Split the Lark — and You’ll find the Music, ” Emily Dickinson taunted the materialists, “Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?” In the wake of On the Origin of Species, the poet intuited that for all its magnificent revelations, science could tell us nothing about the spirit of a creature — a…
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Poet and Philosopher David Whyte on Anger, Forgiveness, and What Maturity Really Means
“To forgive is to assume a larger identity than the person who was first hurt.” “Our emotional life maps our incompleteness,” philosopher Martha Nussbaum wrote in her luminous letter of advice to the young. “A creature without any needs would never have reasons for fear, or grief, or hope, or anger.” Anger, indeed, is one…
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The Worst Thing
It waits somewhen in the dark infinity of time. Perhaps the past. Perhaps the future. Perhaps now. The worst thing. Whenever something bad happens to me, such as that full quadriceps tendon tear, people helpfully remark “it could have been worse.” After that tendon tear, I wrote an essay on the worst thing focused on…
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