The theme of class was based on the quote by French author and philosopher, Albert Camus “In the midst of winter, I discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.” As the light of the day becomes less and less, we are compelled to turn inward and discover our invincible summer.  A poem by Mary Oliver called “The Summer Day” helps us remember the luscious green life that is resting dormant beneath the cold ground or the winged creatures curled up beneath the shelter of rock, waiting to emerge again, but always present within.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean– the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down–
who is gazing with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her faces.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do no how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

There will be no Friday 9am class on Nov 26th, due to the holiday.