Village Life

Jewel weed in bloom at the pond.

It was cold this morning and felt like autumn; I needed a sweater when I took the dog out. The leaves are beginning to change, too, and acorns and beechnuts crunch under my feet when I walk through the woods around the pond.

If I go to the pond at the same time every day I run into the same people:  the lady with the bull mastiff who smiles and says, "Your dog looks just like a mini version of mine''; the old man with the yellow lab; the retired couple with matching westies...

I just started reading Alexandra Stoddard's book, Gracious Living in a New World: Finding Joy in Changing Times.  Like all of Stoddard's books it shines with insight and positivity. The first chapter is titled, "Redefining How We Want to Live" with the very first section called, "Lessons From A Village".

It's got me thinking about:

• my life and the choices I make about how I spend my days
• how much of my communication with others happens through an intermediary device (computers, phones, etc.)
• the steps I can take to embrace a village spirit 

 In her introduction Stoddard writes:

"Laborsaving devices (technology) seem not only to have failed to enhance the quality of our lives and free up more time, but get between us and the immediate, sensory pleasures of life and increase the pressures on us to do more.  Many of us feel cut off from life's blessings, from our neighbors, from the wonders of nature, and from a sense of our own significance in the scheme of things. Modern life leaves us feeling spiritually starved."

In the first chapter she writes about French philosopher and microbiologist Rene Dubos who told about his childhood growing up in a French village in the book, A God Within. This book helped shape Stoddard's thinking about the advantages of village life in the modern world:

"Dr. Dubos found in his village an ideal microcosm, a small representative system having elements of what is large. In his small world he found fertile soil for play, learning, comradeship, and wonder.  In a pond he found elements of nature that inspired him to become an internationally recognized microbiologist.  He was a great believer in the value of living within range of the sound of church bells. Dr. Dubos teaches us the necessity of an appropriate scale for our needs as human beings. He believes we can only know a few hundred people and we can have approximately a dozen intimate friends. By breaking bigness down, we're able to know ourselves and others better, and we're able to participate more because we can understand the dynamics  of our interchanges."

There are two things I need to note here:

• This wisdom challenges the philosophy behind most online social media platforms which encourage wide, but shallow, connections. 
• You don't need to live in an actual village to enjoy "a village life". It can be found in the city, the country, the suburbs--really wherever you are right now. It is about how you live rather than where you live.

The internet is a modern wonder that has enhanced my life in many ways--I would not want to live without it.  But, in asking myself how I want to live, I know that I desire the kind of vibrant, meaningful interactions that occur daily in "a village life".

 :::

I highly recommend all of Alexandra Stoddard's books and ideas, if for nothing more than the fabulous collection of quotes she has gathered and sprinkled throughout, such as: 

"I will speak ill of no man and speak all the good I know of everybody." ~Ben Franklin

"Friendship, compounded of esteem and love, derives from one its tenderness and its permanence from the other." ~ Samuel Johnson

"The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds can change the outer aspects of their lives." ~ William James