Jim Harrison devoted a chapter in his memoir to the troublesome notion of “private religion.” He said:
I daily wonder if the bedrock of my own private religion is fear and incomprehension.
He didn’t question whether his religion existed or was real. He worried about what it looked like.
Harrison supposed that wonder or awe — a helpful quality for a writer — is just curiosity, and that curiosity might be the foundation of his religion. It’s the kind of curiosity that allows a person to hold many questions in mind without forcing an answer.
He collected sacred objects as he went. His examples were from nature — a feather from a crow.
He stuck closer to poetry than to theory.
A good friend and I recently talked about Harrison, agreeing that he wrote some good things and that he could be bloody-minded.
• Source: Jim Harrison, Off to the Side; New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, p. 120.
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