the Mother Courage Collective is a ragtag band of teachers and students, artists and activists - poets and painters, musicians and actors, bakers and the occasional candlestick maker, each of us growers - committed to the hard work of mercy and peace in a damaged world. we work together on projects which open spaces where art and work, as communal celebrations and explorations, can contribute to the resilience and regeneration of local life. we are guided in our work by a dedication to truth, nature, imagination, affection, love, hope, beauty, joy. "those words" wendell berry said in his recent jefferson lecture, "are hard to keep still within definitions; they make the dictionary hum like a beehive. but in such words, in their resonance within their histories and in their associations with one another, we find our indispensable humanity, without which we are lost and in danger." |