The world of the Gnome is vast in detail, and history. Gnome-lore is very old and studied, and there are those who understand it much more fully than I, but the specifics of the mythology are not significant, not to this record label anyway. What is important is that people imagined the world of the Gnome to be so good.

Gnomes, are tiny stewards of the land, they care for its animals, and each other. Living in small, peaceful, sustainable communities. They value work and play, life and death, equally. They are in balance. They live life exceptionally aware! Aware of the ineffable source of life, and so they remain grateful and happy in each moment, even though they suffer no shortage of danger or hard-ship.

It does not take a leap of faith to realize that Gnomes represent the potential for good in each human being, and the willingness to surrender to it. They are an invention of our imagination, a heart-song, so they also represent our longing to live as they do. To be like man, but smaller, and more humble. To rely on one another, trusting and trusted. To be part of the world, and glad to be in it.

So “Gnome Life,” could just as easily be “good life,” or “love life,” or “awake life,” or “the underlying potential of all humans, and nay even more, always present longing, to do good…life.”

In the end, perhaps it will be necessary to return to smaller communities, and simpler living, as the world changes by our hand, and as we are potentially on the threshold of a great struggle. But it is unwise, I think, to dwell on this possibility, and better just to realize that loving each other sounds really nice because it would be, and that it is something we are all capable of, and will all eventually do, if we can “get small,” not like Steve Martin, but like the Gnomes.