230929-experience

"Early this spring I met a musician, the composer Pauline Oliveros, a beautiful woman like a grey rock in a streambed; and to a group of us, women, who were beginning to quarrel over theories in abstract, objective language-- and I with my splendid Eastern-women's-college training in the father tongue was in the thick of the fight and going for the kill-- to us, Pauline, who is sparing with words, said after clearing her throat, 'Offer your experience as your truth.' There was a short silence. When we started talking again we didn't talk objectively, and we didn't fight. We went back to feeling our way into ideas, using the whole intellect not half of it, talking with one another, which involves listening. We tried to offer our experiences to one another. Not claiming something: offering something."

• ursula le guin, bryn mawr commencement address (1986) (included in the collection, space crone by silver press)

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