Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

by Henry Miller

Trade Paperback

One of Henry Miller's most luminous statements of his personal philosophy of life, Stand Still Like the Hummingbird, provides a symbolic title for this collection of stories and essays on the subject of art and the artist.

Many of them have appeared only in foreign magazines while others were printed in limited editions which have gone out of print.

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, Thoreau, Emerson, Walt Whitman, this volume is for you. Henry Miller says nothing here 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 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 something here for everyone: 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."

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