Ravenwood Manifesto 
By Emily Shumway as end of semester project, Fall 2007

What am I here to learn?
I am here to learn from.

From the humility of the setting and rising sun
Departing further and further south
That giving up lofty goals is okay
When I can give in to the small goals of the moment.

From the potatoes in the cellar
Of the ways my ancestors lived,
The pioneers who walked and walked and walked and sang,
And the Hungarian and Poles who crossed the sea,
Leaving behind hoes and soil for The Big Apple.
I wonder why and
I reclaim what was lost, digging my arms in Earth.

From the boggy woods, getting lost in growing dark.
As the stream flowed backwards, panic set in.
And like a lost sheep I followed the sound of traffic home,
I awoke to the irony:
As I call for change
I also call this industrial society home
A dependence not only physical but psychological.

Then again,
From the rhythmic hammering and dinnertime theorizing
I was cradled and fed and freed from my
Addiction to convenience, satiated with warm bread.

From the beavers and the birds: purpose.
There is no simpler purpose than to live,
To sustain oneself joyfully.

From the work of my two hands,
Not the sweaty death of a miner
Covered in mud,
Carried on the shoulders of other workers
Like another bag of fuel for the machine.
I will not be fed by the misery or death of you
Red earth, Human soul, Feedlot cow tongue
Heartwood of rainforest depleted for hamburger meat.

From Jess’s simple question:
If you know what you want, why don’t you just do it?
Turning me inside-out from fear of the skeptic’s words
“You don’t have objectified scientifical matter proof”
To an exhale of relief
“I do know, in many ways.”

From Sarah’s reassurance:
“You are motivated if you are committed”
And David Orr:
“Commitment motivates intellectual clarity, integrity, and depth.”
Both gifted to me independently on the same day.

From the books of hooks, Abram and Orr,
To value the diversity of experiences in every member
Be they squirrels, gravel pits, whispering trees or humans;
To know that the earth beneath me
Is the first and basic educator.

From Gandhi
That no matter how separate we may seem,
One day of fasting proves that
Earth and death are closely bound,
And we are all tied together
In this struggle for survival.

From Jesus: “Forgive them, they know not what they do”
As they devour the resources and lives of others,
That I am they, I was born into white sterility.

I learn to look at today and tomorrow,
The thousand potential futures.
Today I am made of Thompson Brook,
Of sun pouring down, stored in the green leaves of Maine,
Of the cells of the buried in Belfast’s cemetery, source of compost leaves,
Of the cold nigh air stabbing my lungs.
“Earth my body, Water my blood, Air my breath and Fire my spirit.”

Tomorrow I expect to reach small goals
Like pearls of sand slowly shifting the coastal shape,
And day after day I’ve awoken at 6 a.m.
Walking through the Skeptic
Into Practical Gratefulness for each day
And the knowledge that to continue indefinitely
We must treat ourselves, each other, and our relatives of fin and wing and branch
With utmost respect.

I twist milkweed fibers into rope,
Open my eyes to now and
Walk out.
A seed.