by Jim Harrison
There is an urge to keep everything secret. But this is what Protestants call the sin of pride, also greed. They have another notion relevant here, that of the “stumbling block,” wherein the mature in the faith behave in such a way as to impede the neophyte. There is, sadly, a lot of this among Buddhists, the spiritual materialism that implies that I have lived in this town a long time and you are only a newcomer. This is like shouting at a child that he is only three years old. It is also the kind of terrifying bullshit that has permanently enfeebled Christianity. Disregarding an afterlife, he who would be first will be last.
We should sit after the fashion of Dogen or Suzuki Roshi: as a river within its banks, the night sky in the heavens, the earth turning easily with her burden. We must practice like John Muir’s bears: “Bears are made of the same dust as we and breathe the same winds and drink the same waters, his life not long, not short, knows no beginning, no ending, to him life unstinted, unplanned, is above the accident of time, and his years, markless, boundless, equal eternity.”
This is all peculiar but quite unremarkable. It is night now and the snow is falling. I go outside and my warm slippers melt a track for a few moments. To the east there is a break in the clouds, and I feel attended to by the stars and the blackness above the clouds, the endless blessed night that cushions us.
Photo Credits
Grateful acknowledgement to Grand Valley State University for archival assistance and providing the photos on pages 1, 9, 141, 207, and 272; and deepest gratitude to all of the photographers for their work.
p. 1: Jim in Key West. Photo by Guy de la Valdène.
p. 9: Jim in Lake Leelanau, mid-1970s. Photo by Bob Wargo.
p. 22: Jim and Linda Harrison at a family wedding. Photo by William Campbell.
p. 39: Jim in France in 1971. Photo courtesy of the Harrison family.
p. 52: At Dick’s Pour House, Lake Leelanau, Michigan. Photo by Bud Schulz.
p. 58: Jim Harrison and Gérard Oberlé. Photo courtesy of Gérard Oberlé.
p. 82: Making breakfast, mid-1970s. Photo by Linda Harrison, courtesy of the Harrison family.
p. 91: A spare hour a day for walking. Photo courtesy of the Harrison family.
p. 95: Jim Harrison and Peter Lewis. Photo © Don J. Usner.
p. 113: Nick Reens, Guy de la Valdène, and Jim Harrison. Photo courtesy of the Harrison family.
p. 141: Jim in the driveway to his Michigan house. Photo by Jurg Ramseier.
p. 147: Guy de la Valdène, Tom McGuane, Russell Chatham, and Jim Harrison in Key West. Photo by Stephen Collector.
p. 151: John and Jim Harrison with their mother Norma and a neighbor kid. Photo by Winfield Harrison and courtesy of the Harrison family.
p. 158: Lulu Peyraud and Jim. Photo by Peter Lewis.
p. 176: With Mario Batali. Photo by John Potenberg.
p. 183: Jim in his Boston years, early 1960s. Photo by Bill Corbett.
p. 207: Jim with his beloved bird dog Tess. Photo by Philip Newton.
p. 216: Jim, Anna, Jamie, and Linda Harrison, early 1980s. Photo by Dennis Gripentrog.
p. 223: Morning hike, Patagonia, Arizona. Photo by Judy Hottensen.
p. 236: Jim and grandson Silas Potenberg. Photo by Jamie Potenberg.
p. 243: Jim in the San Rafael Valley. Photo courtesy of the Harrison family.
p. 250: With chuck wagon, Patagonia. Photo by Peter Lewis.
p. 252: Morning cigarette outside his writing studio in Livingston, Montana. Photo by Amy Hundley.
p. 267: Lunch break at the Livingston “fish shack.” Photo by Amy Hundley.
p. 272: Jim, Judy, and John Harrison with their catch. Photo courtesy of the Harrison family.