Resonant Reading (Wednesday)-No Bad Herbs-Hugo

An exploration of ideas, feelings, and our life experiences, using a different short reading as our springboard each time. The sessions are on Saturdays, 4-5, and on Wednesdays, 12-1. All are wide open and you are welcome to come twice a week or once in a while.

The participants over the years have found that the approach we take, and the respectful, affectionate community of inquirers in which we read and converse, are as important as the reading itself. While many small groups begin with a check-in, with a session only an hour long, Resonant Reading jumps right in to the conversation. Those who are frequently in the group get to know each other very well this way, and those who are new will soon find they are among friends.

Facilitators use a light hand, posting the reading in the chat and calling on whoever’s Zoom hand is up. Suggestions for readings* come from group members, who also take turns facilitating, if they want to try that role.

The reading for this session: Wednesday (2/11 at 12 noon)

It was supposed that he must have formerly lived out in the country, for he had all sorts of useful secrets that he taught the peasants. He showed them how to get rid of grain moths by sprinkling the granary and washing the cracks of the floor with a solution of common salt, and how to drive away weevils by hanging up all around the ceiling and walls, in the pastures, and in the houses, orviot flowers. He had recipes for clearing a field of rust, of vetches, of moles, of dog grass, and all the weeds that compete with the grain. He protected a rabbit warren against rats with nothing but the odor of a little Barbary pig that he placed there.

One day he saw some peasants busily pulling out nettles; he looked at the heap of plants, uprooted, and already wilted, and said, “They’re dead; but it would be good if we knew how to put them to some use. When the nettle is young, the leaves make excellent greens; when it grows old it has filaments and fibers like hemp and flax. Cloth made from the nettle is as good as cloth made from hemp. Chopped up, the nettle is good for poultry; pounded, it is good for cattle. Nettle seeds mixed with animals’ fodder gives a luster to their hides; the roots, mixed with salt, produce a beautiful yellow dye. And it makes excellent hay, because it can be cut twice in a season. And what does nettle need? Very little soil, no care, no culture; except that the seeds fall as fast as they ripen, and it is difficult to gather them, that’s all. If we took a little time, the nettle would be useful; we neglect it, and it becomes harmful. Then we kill it. Men are so like the nettle!” After a short silence, he added, “My friends, remember this: There are no bad herbs, and no bad men; there are only bad cultivators.”

—Victor Hugo from Les Miserables about Monsieur Madeleine

Questions? Drop an e-mail to resonant-reading+owner@uucpa.org.