Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored
Alice WalkerRead
Part of my ancestry is Cherokee. And in that tradition, you become an adult when you're 52.
Interpretation
In Cherokee tradition, adulthood is recognized later in life, specifically at the age of 52.
Alice Walker's quote reflects on the Cherokee tradition which defines adulthood at the age of 52, suggesting that wisdom and maturity are gained through life experiences rather than earlier milestones. This perspective invites reflection on cultural values and the importance of understanding time and personal growth in different contexts.
In practice
During a cultural presentation, I shared this quote to illustrate different philosophies on adulthood.
Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored
June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.
On a spiritual level, it's as though with my sighted eye I see what's before me, and with my unsighted eye I see what's hidden. It's illuminated life more than darkened it.
I think 'The Color Purple' is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe.
How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed?
One white man on the platform in South Carolina asked us where we were going--we had got off the train to get some fresh air and to dust the grit and dust out of our clothes. When we said Africa he looked offended and tickled too. Niggers going to Africa, he said to his wife. Now I have seen everything.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends.
It seems to me there's this tyranny that's not accidental or incidental, to make women feel compelled to look like somebody they're not. I think the effort is being made to get us to turn our time and attention to this instead of important political issues.
How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.
We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God
A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones.
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