Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

Henry Miller was so far ahead of his time it's amazing, or maybe it is simply that Henry Miller is timeless. The writing is glorious, the thinking is startling in it's clarity and his wisdom and understanding of what it is to live as a human being is needed in our current world more than ever. If you are a writer and desire to read what a master 'voice' is, this book is for you. If you are someone who wants to think out-of-the-box and in depth, this book is for you. If you want your mind activated intellectually and creatively, this book is for you.

In this book, Miller presents a series of essays of various topics, including his friends, other artists, and Miller's social concerns. The longest piece is "Money and how it gets that way". Of course, this piece is written with subtle sarcasm throughout. Although the longest piece of the book, it doesnt stand out as the best, and in fact, doesnt seem to fit in with the rest of the essays. In the other essays, Miller demonstrates his ability to exploit what is powerful and life-affirming, laughing off all that is refined, petty, and weak. This comes out especially in the essays on fellow writers. There is an essay on Thoreau, Miller writes: "He found Walden, but Walden is everywhere if man is there". It is this sort of formula that is constant throughout both "Stand Still Like the Hummingbird" and the rest of Miller's work: There is something positive and life-affirming everywhere so long as one is alive, it is only a matter of recognizing the greatness of life itself. Although not naively bashing all forms of technology, Miller urges us in "The Hour of Man" to take the time to return the basics and discover not technology, but ourselves, our families, and our friends. As Miller explores that which affirms life, he also takes the time to present piercing criticisms directed at those who are petty, controlling, and all too caught up in the rat-race; for example, he writes: "What, moreover, can you call your own? The house you live in, the food you swallow, the clothes you wear-you neither built the house nor raised the food nor made the clothes. The same goes for your ideas. You moved into them ready-made". This passage is indicative of Miller's insistance on creation and his general emphasis on overabundance and embracing the brilliance of nature and life as opposed to trying to control it. In "Tropic of Cancer", Miller writes that he "loves everything that flows", and one gets the impression that according to Miller, everything flows. Thus, the formula in "Stand Still Like a Hummingbird" can be summed up by saying that rather than try to stop these great flows of life, we should flow with them and embrace their power. Overall, this book is enjoyable, intelligent; yet, for a book of personal philosophy, rarely preaches morality and is never sentimental.

These highly readable pieces reflect the incredible vitality and variety of interests of the writer who extended the frontiers of modern literature. If you think the New Thought movement has some Ancient Wisdom roots, you will enjoy this collection of stories and essays. If you have read, even occasionally, Henry David (Thoreau), Ralph Waldo (Emerson), Uncle Walt (Whitman), this volume is for you. Henry Miller says nothing here either more offensive or less insightful than these three Transcendentalists who lived before him. Miller's genius for comedy is at its best in "Money and How It Gets That Way"-a tongue-in-cheek parody of "economics" provoked by a postcard from Ezra Pound which asked if he had "ever thought about money." Stand Still Like the Hummingbird provides a right and perfect metaphor for this outstanding collection, one of Henry's Miller's most luminous statements of his personal philosophy of life. Much of this book, while previously published, appeared only in foreign magazines or in small limited editions which have gone out of print. If you're an artist (starving or successful), you'll appreciate Miller's deep concern for the role of artist in society, in "An Open Letter to All and Sundry," and in "The Angel Is My Watermark." If you're a writer (struggling to be or already published), you'll find inspiration in words like these, scattered like gemstones--generous and true-throughout these pages: "...when you are convinced that all the exits are blocked, either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird. The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose, only you were too busy searching elsewhere to realize it. The worst is not death but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous." In short, there is much for many: timeless wisdom, not only for us still living "in this world," but also for us, who, like Henry Miller, have always suspected we are "not of this world."