Spring Is a New Beginning

Today, as I hope you know, is the first day of meteorological Spring. Parts of the driveway are still ice-covered. Maybe by the time daylight savings starts next weekend, the ice will be gone. The dogs and I are tired of slip-sliding away during our walks.

a March full moon in a dark blue sky

Photo by J. Harrington

Emergence Magazine has a fascinating essay by Melanie Challenger about The Springing Time. I commend it to your attention as a worthwhile alternative to doom-scrolling in social media or reading the news.

Did you ever read Spring Is a New Beginning by Joan Walsh Anglund? We used to have a copy that, I suspect, now resides with the Granddaughter. My interest in phenology and seasonal changes has been growing for a number of years, enhanced by actual and potential effects of climate disruption. Challenger's essay and other writings offer some reassurance that all is not totally lost (nor yet won).

This Tuesday, March 3, is both a full moon and a lunar eclipse. I'm not sure if or how that (those?) may affect horoscopes for that day. The current weather forecast calls for cloudy skies during the eclipse period. We'll see if that improves or deteriorates.

You're correct, we've not mentioned the attack on Iran, pedophiles in office, or related matters. I vote. I donate to causes. I participate in protests. I even contact my elected officials from time to time. What I don't, can't, and won't do is charge enough rent to let treasonous politicians and their MAGAt followers live inside my head. See the title of today's posting. It's also the equivalent of a cerebral eviction notice to those who do all they can to make my days miserable. That includes most Republicans, billionaires, tech titans, and too many elected Democrats. If I can't or won't take action for or against something or someone, I don't need to know about it or them.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Grace

Joy Harjo    1951 –

                                    For Darlene Wind and James Welch

I think of Wind and her wild ways the year we had nothing to lose and lost it anyway in the cursed country of the fox. We still talk about that winter, how the cold froze imaginary buffalo on the stuffed horizon of snowbanks. The haunting voices of the starved and mutilated broke fences, crashed our thermostat dreams, and we couldn't stand it one more time. So once again we lost a winter in stubborn memory, walked through cheap apartment walls, skated through fields of ghosts into a town that never wanted us, in the epic search for grace. 

Like Coyote, like Rabbit, we could not contain our terror and clowned our way through a season of false midnights. We had to swallow that town with laughter, so it would go down easy as honey. And one morning as the sun struggled to break ice, and our dreams had found us with coffee and pancakes in a truck stop along Highway 80, we found grace.

I could say grace was a woman with time on her hands, or a white buffalo escaped from memory. But in that dingy light it was a promise of balance. We once again understood the talk of animals, and spring was lean and hungry with the hope of children and corn. 

I would like to say, with grace, we picked ourselves up and walked into the spring thaw. We didn't; the next season was worse. You went home to Leech Lake to work with the tribe and I went south. And, Wind, I am still crazy. I know there is something larger than the memory of a dispossessed people. We have seen it. 

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

This is a taxing season!

One week from today, March 1, is the start of meteorological Spring. Astronomical Spring follows about three weeks later. Then, here in the North Country, we enjoy several months of false spring with intermittent periods of snow and melting. Then, usually in late May or early June, the temperature jumps from the 60's to the upper 80's within a week, and it's Summer. I find it distressingly rare for Minnesota to produce a gradual, progressive, temperature increase between winter and summer. The clothes hooks in the front hall are crowded with three seasons of coats and hats, but it's an improvement over single digit temperatures and freezing rain. Thanks for letting me me get that off my chest!

Spring will slog her way to Summer

Photo by J. Harrington

This past week SCOTUS announced a decision that partially clips FOTUS' wings on tariffs. A recent study indicates that almost all of the cost of tariffs is paid by American households and businesses. Other analyses indicate that tariffs cost the average household $1,000 or more last year. In skimming through the reports, I could find no indication of a compounding effect on household budgets caused by local and state sales taxes. In a nearby city where we do much of our shopping, the sales taxes we pay are listed as follows:

State    6.875%
Special 0.75%
Special 0.25%
Special 0.50%

The cumulative 8.375% state and local sales taxes would add $83.75 (approaching 10%) to the household cost if the goods on which tariffs were imposed are also subject to local taxes. Something to think about between now and midterm elections.

I don't know about you but I haven't seen any indication of receiving any kind of actual offset to the increases imposed by the current regime, have you? It sure llooks to me as though only billionaires and large corporations benefit from getting US to vote Republican.

The Tax Poem by Author Unknown

Tax his land, tax his wage, Tax his bed in which he lays. Tax his tractor, tax his mule, Teach him taxes is the rule. Tax his cow, tax his goat, Tax his pants, tax his coat. Tax his ties, tax his shirts, Tax his work, tax his dirt. Tax his chew, tax his smoke, Teach him taxes are no joke. Tax his car, tax his grass, Tax the roads he must pass. Tax his food, tax his drink, Tax him if he tries to think. Tax his sodas, tax his beers, If he cries, tax his tears. Tax his bills, tax his gas, Tax his notes, tax his cash. Tax him good and let him know That after taxes, he has no dough. If he hollers, tax him more, Tax him until he’s good and sore. Tax his coffin, tax his grave, Tax the sod in which he lays. Put these words upon his tomb, "Taxes drove me to my doom!" And when he’s gone, we won’t relax, We’ll still be after the inheritance tax.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.