“Honi soit qui mal y pense” has always been one of my favorite sayings. The motto of The Order of the Garter (I had to look it up, too). The most literal translation seems to be “Shame to him who thinks ill of it.” I’ve heard it modernized to “To hell with you if you disagree with me,” but a more up-to-date interpretation might be, “You got a problem with that?”
These are words for us to live by, living as we do off the grid, in ways that fly in the face of, or perhaps outright mock, the American Way of Life—avid acquisition, conspicuous consumption, complacency and the rest. So, yes, I love to talk that talk.
But I don’t always walk the walk, as has been brought prominently to my attention recently by a lowly porcupine. Continue reading
