A resolution for the New Year

I'm (in)famous for refusing to make and honor New Year's resolutions. Next year I'll make an exception for the resolution below. Wouldn't the world be a better place, and we all be better people, if each of us remembered?

under which sky were you born?

Photo by J. Harrington

Remember

Joy Harjo - 1951-

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

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To an age of the healthy family farm

Christmas is come and gone. We face the start of a New Year, a New Decade, and, hopefully, a New Beginning? The headlines listed below weren't grabbed randomly, but they do represent many of the issues that have shown up in Minnesota's mainstream news media over the past year. Ask yourself if there are dots to be connected among these issues. Could we, as a state and a society, have placed too much emphasis on individualism and not enough on community? Have we become overly reliant on what's legal, or can be made to appear so, rather than focusing on what's right, what's ethical? Is making the most of something, at the least cost, for a maximum profit, really at the heart of Minnesota's, and America's, values? Should each township have only one or two farms? Isn't that a real economy of scale?

a built environment needs constant maintenance

Photo by J. Harrington

None of these issues listed below speak directly to Minnesota's opportunities and responsibilities created by the Anthropocene climate breakdown. None seem to be directly related to what's come to be known as the Sixth Extinction. And yet... John Muir noted years ago:

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.

The point of today's posting is to encourage any who read it to consider whether solutions proposed for the following (or other) issues addresses a symptom, or a root cause. It seems to us that we're running out of time for treating only symptoms. There's less than two days left this year. How many years, if any, do we have left to get it right?

     Some current issues facing Minnesota:

• Minnesota’s workforce shortage


• A quiet crisis: Minnesota’s child care shortage


• ‘We need more housing’


• State lawmakers still stuck in efforts to reach solution to insulin crisis


• Mayo closes two more facilities, blames rural health care crisis


• Milk production is rising even as small dairy farms shut down

For a Coming Extinction

By W. S. Merwin

Gray whale

Now that we are sending you to The End

That great god

Tell him 

That we who follow you invented forgiveness

And forgive nothing

I write as though you could understand

And I could say it

One must always pretend something

Among the dying

When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks

Empty of you

Tell him that we were made

On another day

The bewilderment will diminish like an echo

Winding along your inner mountains

Unheard by us

And find its way out

Leaving behind it the future

Dead

And ours

When you will not see again

The whale calves trying the light

Consider what you will find in the black garden

And its court

The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas

The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless

And fore-ordaining as stars

Our sacrifices

Join your word to theirs

Tell him

That it is we who are important

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A Winter's day of our discontent

Today begins the last week of the year and also the decade. Tomorrow we'll focus on closing out the year past and organizing for the new decade's first year. We'll start organizing for tax time. It's the equivalent of Spring cleaning so, as a reward for our anticipated diligence, we'll also start to get organized for next year's fly fishing. We didn't get out as much this year as we had hoped to. High waters and high winds oft hindered our best laid plans and they "gang agley."

Winter visitors: purple finches?

Photo by J. Harrington

Once we've turned the page on the calendar come Wednesday, we hope the mail and email entreaties to help meet nonprofit year end financial goals will diminish radically. We currently are feeling as though we're being punished for any earlier donations we made. Of course, all of that is compounded by the upcoming elections and those requests for financial aid to flip the governments one way or another. At the moment, I'd be willing to trade an increase in income taxes or a single checkoff on our returns for the hundreds of emails in my inbox asking for nondeductible or deductible political contributions. Getting rid of Citizens United by making elections publicly funded seems reasonable right now, even if it means some poor corporation's "speech" is foregone. Maybe allowing corporations to have a "personal" checkoff if they're a net contributor to the treasury would be fair. Yes, the weather's unending dreariness and the season's ceaseless dunning have increased our grumpiness.

stunning Winter sunrise

Photo by J. Harrington

The last weather forecast we saw mentioned 3" to 5" of snow is expected tomorrow in our neighborhood. The fresh coating, once we've blown most of it off the driveway's currently ice-covered surface, should provide safer footing than we have today. On the other hand, come January we can look forward to the possibility of some stunning sunrises and/or sunsets; maybe visits from purple finches, return visits from a pileated woodpecker and other promises that Spring may arrive some day in a far-distant future.

Winter Branches

Margaret Widdemer

When winter-time grows weary, I lift my eyes on high
And see the black trees standing, stripped clear against the sky;

They stand there very silent, with the cold flushed sky behind,
The little twigs flare beautiful and restful and kind;

Clear-cut and certain they rise, with summer past,
For all that trees can ever learn they know now, at last;

Slim and black and wonderful, with all unrest gone by,
The stripped tree-boughs comfort me, drawn clear against the sky.

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Did you say Minnesota Ice(?)

It's raining, again! It's late December, in Minnesota. Earlier today, most roads in the Twin Cities metro area were covered with ice. At least one of us is wondering if this is becoming a "new normal." The picture below was taken in early January of this year (2019). If you look carefully you'll notice there are only traces of snow on the ground. Today we have more snow, but not by much. The drive has a large puddle. No puddle today but we'll see what tomorrow brings. The entire driveway in the picture is ice covered. Today's conditions match that. If it gets warm enough, and rains enough, the ice may melt. If not, we'll be slipping and sliding until the next snow storm covers the ice with snow. This is not what some of us consider a "fun Winter."

early last January was ice-coated too

Photo by J. Harrington

It's not clear if it will make the national news, but we've already seen videos of folks ice skating on sidewalks in Savage, MN and a paved road in Richmond, WI. (We drove through Richmond yesterday. What a difference a day makes.) One of the better ways to deal with today's weather was once demonstrated by SiSi, the rescue dog lab cross breed. If you have a better approach, feel free to share. After we post today's blog, we're going to get a fresh cup of coffee and curl up to research Springtime's local fly hatches. SiSi gave us that idea when we realized this kind of Winter weather is best for dreaming.

the proper response to an ice storm

Photo by J. Harrington

Ice

By Mary Oliver

My father spent his last winter
Making ice-grips for shoes

Out of strips of inner tube and scrap metal.
(A device which slips over the instep

And holds under the shoe
A section of roughened metal, it allows you to walk

Without fear of falling
Anywhere on the ice or snow.) My father

should not have been doing
All that close work

In the drafty workshop, but as though
he sensed travel at the edge of his mind,

He would not be stopped. My mother
Wore them, and my aunt, and my cousins.

He wrapped and mailed
A dozen pairs to me, in the easy snows

Of Massachusetts, and a dozen
To my sister, in California.

Later we learned how he'd given them away
To the neighbors, an old man

Appearing with cold blue cheeks at every door.
No one refused him,

For plainly the giving was an asking,
A petition to be welcomed and useful-

Or maybe, who knows, the seed of a desire
Not to be sent alone out over the black ice.

Now the house seemed neater: books,
Half-read, set back on the shelves;

Unfinished projects put away.
This spring

Mother writes to me: I am cleaning the workshop
And I have found

So many pairs of the ice-grips,
Cartons and suitcases stuffed full,

More than we can ever use.
What shall I do? And I see myself

Alone in that house with nothing
But darkly gleaming cliffs of ice, the sense

Of distant explosions,
Blindness as I look for my coat-

And I write back: Mother, please
Save everything.

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Home waters

Today we [the Better Half and I] took an exploratory, reconnoitering trip to take a peek at some waters we hope to fish next year. In the process, we visited a new fly shop and a book store we've wanted to check out for some time. We did a lot of driving through some pretty farm country and found a handful of places we're looking forward to seeing again. In the process, we came across a spot I used to fish 25 or 30 years ago. It hadn't changed much but lots of the country around it has, not all for the better. Nevertheless, the stream we reconnoitered today is where I learned most of my fly fishing for trout. It's as close as I come in the Midwest to having home waters.

open water in Winter is a treat to watch

Photo by J. Harrington

It felt good to get out and poke around, especially since we may end up spending the "better part(?)" of the weekend indoors, seeking, as Dylan wrote, Shelter from the Storm. If the forecast is close to accurate, the brunt of the snow will fall North and West of us but we may get more ice than is good for us. Stay tuned. In any event, come Spring it will all melt and flow into rivulets and creeks and streams and rivers and, eventually, with evaporate or return to an ocean, sea or gulf. All waters are part of the same world-wide flow. Actually, I like the way Norman Maclean expressed it, ending A River Runs Through It:

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.”

May your next year be full of joy and health and, frequently, lines tight with what you pursue with love hooked on the other end.

The Song of Wandering Aengus

By William Butler Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

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A post-Christmas lull

The current weather has been like mid-to-late-March or thereabouts for the past few days. We drove home last night, Christmas night in Minnesota, through rain showers. Over the upcoming weekend we're expecting snow and/or rain and/or sleet and/or ice and/or some mix, depending on where and when we are and the related atmospheric conditions.

soon a New Year and a New Decade will dawn

Photo by J. Harrington

We can think of no way, other than hiding under the bed, to prepare for ice / freezing rain storms. With that exception, I think we're reasonably prepared for the forthcoming weather, which may, or may not, be at all reasonable. The weather app on our smartphone switches icons for Saturday and Sunday back and forth between snow and rain about every twenty minutes or so. If this becomes a new Winter weather pattern in the North Country, it's going to become a real challenge planning vacations that involve snowshoes, skis, snowmobiles etc.

On Christmas Eve day we noticed several different large farm vehicles on the local roads. Some fields that had been full of standing corn are now harvested. Our 21st century "new normal" seems to lack any normal at all. Fortunately, someone we know (but won't name) got a nice fleece vest and a pair of insulated LL Bean boots for Christmas. We'll give you a hint at who it may be when we tell you we overheard that recipient muttering about breaking in boots being a young man's job and not something old curmudgeons should have to cope with. So, as long as we don't get encrusted in ice, we know a curmudgeon who thinks Winter's weather can be managed. We'll see.

Since we are in the post-Christmas lull, with nothing to return to a retail outlet, and the stacks of unread books and bags of unbrewed coffee beans are more than abundant, we'll continue to take a wait and see attitude toward the weekend and its weather. In fact, we're going to increase our quanta of wait and see-ness throughout the next year. One of the Christmas presents we gave ourselves is a recognition and acceptance that we can't control everything. In fact, even on the best days, we can barely control ourselves. That's our focus for the New Year -- increasing our level of self control. We think there's a combination of zen, baking sourdough breads, fly fishing, reading and writing poetry and prose, and sitting on our duff watching, smelling, listening and feeling what's going on in the actual world around us that will help a lot. We plan to spend lots of time finding the right combination of that mixture. We'll know we're close as our self-control levels increase and our blood pressure approaches normal. May you find your own ways to make your next year be at least as full of mindfulness and joy.

To the New Year

By W. S. Merwin

With what stillness at last

you appear in the valley

your first sunlight reaching down

to touch the tips of a few

high leaves that do not stir

as though they had not noticed

and did not know you at all

then the voice of a dove calls

from far away in itself

to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you

here and now whether or not

anyone hears it this is

where we have come with our age

our knowledge such as it is

and our hopes such as they are

invisible before us

untouched and still possible

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A Christmas wish

The lines below are as much in the spirit of the season as anything I've ever seen.

Merry Christmas!

away in a manger, no crib for a bed

Photo by J. Harrington

Forever Young

Written by: Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young 

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To be opened on Christmas Eve

One of the ways I find poetry most full of life is that, as often as not, poets surprise me with their poems. I've enjoyed many Christmases in my life. I've also read many of Mary Oliver's poems. Until this Christmas Eve, I hadn't unwrapped The Gift or her Christmas Poem. Many families enjoy a tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve. It's in that spirit we share today's posting.

a star shone and angels watched

Photo by J. Harrington

May your Christmas Eve be full of love and warmth. May you always find room at the inn. May the days ahead be better for you, and to you, than those you've left behind. May Christmas angels and shepherds watch over you year round and may we all finally learn to listen to Wise Men, whether or not they come bearing gifts.

no room at the inn

Photo by J. Harrington

Christmas Poem

by:  Mary Oliver

Says a country legend told every year:
Go to the barn on Christmas Eve and see
what the creatures do as that long night tips over.
Down on their knees they will go, the fire
of an old memory whistling through their minds!

[So] I went. Wrapped to my eyes against the cold
I creaked back the barn door and peered in.
From town the church bells spilled their midnight music,
and the beasts listened –
yet they lay in their stalls like stone.

Oh the heretics!
Not to remember Bethlehem,
or the star as bright as a sun,
or the child born on a bed of straw!
To know only of the dissolving Now!

Still they drowsed on –
citizens of the pure, the physical world,
they loomed in the dark: powerful
of body, peaceful of mind,
innocent of history.

Brothers! I whispered. It is Christmas!
And you are no heretics, but a miracle,
immaculate still as when you thundered forth
on the morning of creation!
As for Bethlehem, that blazing star

still sailed the dark, but only looked for me.
Caught in its light, listening again to its story,
I curled against some sleepy beast, who nuzzled
my hair as though I were a child, and warmed me
the best it could all night.

The Gift 

By Mary Oliver

Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful. That the gift has been given.

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'Twas the day before the night before the night before Christmas

Let us begin by wishing a very Happy Birthday! to Robert Bly, Minnesota's first (legally) official poet laureate. We append a wish for Many Happy Returns, and note that, this year past, we enjoyed reading, cover to cover, his recently published Collected Poems.

some presents go on, rather than under, the tree

Photo by J. Harrington

In many homes anticipation and excitement will build over the next forty-eight hours or so, only to be dissipated in a wave of delights or disappointments, depending on what's been left in carefully hung stockings and under well-decorated trees. But we all know it isn't about how much we do or do not get to add to our collection of "stuff." At least those of us familiar with the story of the humble origins embodied in the original Christmas or those who've learned from the Grinch who endeavored to steal Christmas know this celebration is about the size of our hearts.

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

Christmas is a time for angels to visit

Photo by J. Harrington

Returning to Bly's Collected Poems, we find a slightly different perspective on "What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more." From his volume Morning Poems, we find

A Christmas Poem

by Robert Bly

Christmas is a place, like Jackson Hole, where all
     agree
To meet once a year. It has water, and grass for
     horses;
All the fur traders can come in. We visited the place
As children, but we never heard the good stories.

Those stories only get told in the big tents, late
At night, when a trapper who has been caught
In his own trap, held down in icy water, talks; and a
     man
With a ponytail and a limp comes in from the edge of
     the fire.

As children we knew there was more to it—
Why some men got drunk on Christmas Eve
Wasn't explained, nor why we were so often
Near tears nor why the stars came down so close,
Why so much was lost. Those men and women
Who had died in wars started by others,
Did they come that night? Is that why the Christmas
     tree
Trembled just before we opened the presents?

There was something about angels. Angels we
Have heard on high Sweetly singing o'er
The plain. The angels were certain. But we could not
Be certain whether our family was worthy tonight.

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December thaw, solstice observations

It is not every day we get to see an osprey and a bald eagle on different legs of the same trip. We saw the osprey perched atop a telephone pole in Crystal this morning. Don't ask what an osprey was doing near the heart of the Twin Cities metro area when almost everything is frozen over. As we neared home, returning from Crystal, we were buzzed by a bald eagle over old Highway 61 in Wyoming.

bald eagle feeding on whitetail deer

Photo by J. Harrington

I'm always delighted and impressed when given an opportunity to see either of these large raptors. Although far from sure about it, but I have the impression some eagles may be overwintering in our neck of the woods. Might that be a sign of climate change? Eagles and ospreys are both fish eaters, but eagles eat at least their share of carrion. Ospreys, not so much. According to Audubon, the osprey commonly breeds in Minnesota but should, at this time of year, be wintering on the Gulf Coast. One of the nicer aspects of living in Minnesota, as far as I'm concerned, is that seeing eagles, ospreys, wild turkeys, coyotes, and a variety of other, large, wildlife, while not common, is also not rare. Does the word infrequent seem appropriate?

celebrating Winter Solstice

Photo by J. Harrington

Last night the Better Half and I briefly enjoyed a Solstice celebratory blaze in our fire pit. I could feel my atavistic impulses bubbling to the surface. No doubt soon I'll be rereading some Jim Harrison poems, similar to this one.

Man Dog

By Jim Harrison

I envied the dog lying in the yard

so I did it. But there was a pebble

under my flank so I got up and looked

for the pebble, brushed it away

and lay back down. My dog thus far

overlooked the pebble. I guess it's her thick

Lab fur. With my head downhill the blood gorged

me with ideas. Not good. Got up. Turned around. Now I

see hundreds of infinitesimal ants. I'm on an

ant home. I get up and move five feet.

The dog hasn't moved from her serene place.

Now I'm rather too near a thicket where

I saw a big black snake last week that might decide

to join me. I moved near the actual dog this time

but she got up and went under the porch. She doesn't like

it when I'm acting weird. I'm failing as a dog

when my own kind rejects me, but doing better

than when I envied birds, the creature the least

like us, therefore utterly enviable. To be sure

I cheeped a lot but didn't try to fly.

We humans can take off but are no good at landing.

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To better, longer days, and new beginnings

Happy Winter Solstice 2019! If you're looking forward to a fresh start in the New Year, you have approximately 10+ days from today to take out whatever trash you've accumulated that no longer serves you well nor brings joy and beauty into your life. Today is also the anniversary of the death of John Steinbeck, one of my favorite writers and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. As I look at the state of the United States near the end of 2019 and the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, I am putting a reread of The Grapes of Wrath on my 1st quarter reading list for next year. I may even see if I can get the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law to let me watch the movie with Henry Fonda on their Netflix link. With luck and some persuasion, I may even get them to watch it with me. See if this summary rings any bells based on contemporary headlines:

Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes, and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California along with thousands of other "Okies" seeking jobs, land, dignity, and a future.

First Edition Cover 

If Yogi Berra were still alive, he might say "It's Deja Vu all over again!" Back before I became a recovering planner, I frequently espoused the axiom "More of the same never solved a problem." We've been doing more and more of the same since the Great Depression and WWII and Steinbeck wrote "Grapes," with much the same results, and, in many cases, worsening problems.

Here's a disheartening example I discovered in a bookcase this morning. I uncovered a book I read long, long ago, titled The Ecological Citizen, copyright 1971. That was prior to the passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act Amendments and a year after the Clean Air Act of 1970, the first Earth Day, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency. Between 1970 and 2020 a half century has passed and we still don't have clean water or clean air. In fact, our air is full of greenhouse gases which means our climate is broken almost beyond repair. Too many of our streets have too many homeless people trying to survive on them. Too many of our family farms are facing bankruptcy and/or consolidation. Too many of our politicians put party and politics before country and constitution. I'm reaching a point where I believe the best progress left for us is to give North America back to those from whom it was stolen. Perhaps, though, it might be better if we learn to collaborate with them on how to live on our only home planet.

Next Wednesday is Christmas, a time of rebirth and renewal. The New Year and the start of a new decade follow shortly thereafter. Soon days will be noticeably longer and warmer. With prayers, and luck, and hard work, we may, collectively, exhibit some wisdom between now and Christmas, 2020. In fact, I'm very much hoping for an early Christmas present next year, one we can open and begin to enjoy in early November. As the days improve, perhaps we can also. Once again, Happy Yule!

Maggie’s Farm

Written by: Bob Dylan

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
Well, I wake in the morning
Fold my hands and pray for rain
I got a head full of ideas
That are drivin’ me insane
It’s a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
Well, he hands you a nickel
He hands you a dime
He asks you with a grin
If you’re havin’ a good time
Then he fines you every time you slam the door
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more
Well, he puts his cigar
Out in your face just for kicks
His bedroom window
It is made out of bricks
The National Guard stands around his door
Ah, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
Well, she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law
Everybody says
She’s the brains behind pa
She’s sixty-eight, but she says she’s twenty-four
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
Well, I try my best
To be just like I am
But everybody wants you
To be just like them
They sing while you slave and I just get bored
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more 

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On the eve of Winter Solstice

If life were a movie, the next few days would be the trailer for late February, early March. That's when average daytime highs once again reach and exceed freezing. We're considering this December thaw an early Yuletide present. It goes nicely with the fact that, starting the day after tomorrow, daylight becomes microscopically longer each day. Later today or early tomorrow it will be time to see if the portable fire pit can be made portable, rather than frozen in place, so we can enjoy a Solstice fire in the drive. Alternatively, if we keep the flames small enough, we can leave it where it is. Come Spring we'll get some pavers to put under the fire pit legs that keep freezing into the ground. We could use the tractor to loosen it, but the fire pit may not survive that exercise.

Winter Solstice, 2018

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we touched on the Center for Humans and Nature "Kinship Project." That seems to fit well with our growing interest in zen and druidry. Although we suspect that Christmas will bring a new collection of unread books, we're getting a sense that this Winter it's time to reread some books that have been on our shelves for awhile. Among those are Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss. We hope, over the next couple of weeks, to lay out some strategies, activities and priorities for next year. High on that list will be a three sisters garden we never got around to planting this year and doing a better job of journaling so we'd be able to tell if it was the weather, laziness, competing priorities or none of the above that hindered us this year. We have the seeds and a vague memory about needing to get the Mantis tiller serviced so we could create mounds with it. This all brings back memories of a former landlord who often noted it wasn't doing the work that was so much trouble, it was getting organized and ready to do the work that took the most time and effort.

Anyhow, a Christmas present we promised ourselves is that next year we will bring (I almost wrote "try to bring" but, as Yoda teaches us "Do or do not. There is no try!") focus and order to our scattered interests. We're making limited progress following the Taoist observation that the longest journey begins with a single step.

We wish you a warm, wonderful, and brief Winter Solstice. May your days soon grow in light and wisdom!

Winter Solstice

By Hilda Morley

A cold night crosses

our path

                  The world appears

very large, very

round now       extending

far as the moon does

                                        It is from

the moon this cold travels

                                        It is

the light of the moon that causes

this night reflecting distance in its own

light so coldly

                                          (from one side of

the earth to the other)

                                        It is the length of this coldness

It is the long distance

between two points which are

not in a line        now

                                       not a

straightness       (however

straight) but a curve only,

silver that is a rock reflecting

                                                      not metal

but a rock accepting

distance

                     (a scream in silence

where between the two

points what touches

is a curve around the world

                                                      (the dance unmoving).

new york, 1969

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A Christmas present of a New Year's exploration

One of the blogs listed on the right-hand side of this page is based at The Center for Humans and Nature. The Center also puts out a journal called Minding Nature. In the most recent issue, Fall 2019, Volume 12, Number 3, there's an announcement about a new project The Center is initiating, The Kinship Project. I've read the Gavin Van Horn article several times. It's giving me fits in, I think, the best possible way, but, for now, I'm reserving judgement.

I was a teenage when Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird was published. I may not have read it until I was in college. I do remember hearing a number of times variations on a quotation attributed to Mockingbird's author:

“You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.” 

some kin can be prickly, especially at Christmas

Photo by J. Harrington

In describing what The Kinship Project intends to accomplish, Gavin Van Horn writes:

No matter what expression of media is used for CHN’s Kinship Project, we anticipate stories that do the following: disrupt human chauvinism, counter and complicate narratives of human identity that are based on individualistic ideologies, and celebrate what it means to be human in relation to our fellow earthling kin. At a time when human fidelity with the natural world seems to be fraying, the Kinship Project will bring forward stories of solidarity, highlighting the deep interdependence that exists between humans and the more-than-human world. We will explore challenging questions, including how communities might fairly and effectively give voice to non-human beings and landscapes, and attend to the cosmologies, mythic narratives, and everyday practices that embrace a world of other-than-human persons as worthy of response and responsibility.

Native Americans have long depended on the kinship of a more-than-human world

Photo by J. Harrington

Based on my initial reactions and responses, after the aforementioned several readings of the article describing the project, CHN's Kinship Project has already attained in me several of its objectives. My mind and heart have been disrupted, my identity narrative complicated, and, in light of my long-standing observations about how poorly we humans treat many of our closest kin, I've been challenged to follow along and learn about how to improve my own response and responsibilities to other-than-human-persons that share the world I inhabit. Who knows, in the process I may even enhance my relationships with my human kin, close and extended. Care to join us? What better Christmas present could we hope for than a chance to build a better world for ourselves and our descendants?

Kinship

By Margarita Engle

Two sets

of family stories,

one long and detailed,

about many centuries

of island ancestors, all living

on the same tropical farm...

The other side of the family tells stories

that are brief and vague, about violence

in the Ukraine, which Dad's parents

had to flee forever, leaving all their

loved ones

behind.

They don't even know if anyone

survived.

When Mami tells her flowery tales of Cuba,

she fills the twining words with relatives.

But when I ask my

Ukrainian-Jewish-American grandma

about her childhood in a village

near snowy Kiev,

all she reveals is a single

memory

of ice-skating

on a frozen pond.

Apparently, the length

of a grown-up's

growing-up story

is determined

by the difference

between immigration

and escape.

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Minnesota isn't ready for Twin Metals, but it could be!

The folks at Twin Metals Minnesota have submitted a Mine Plan of Operations to the federal government (Bureau of Land Management) and a Scoping Environmental Assessment Worksheet to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The newspaper story in the Star Tribune didn't mention red ribbons or bows so maybe the documents aren't intended as a Christmas present.

Twin Metals Ely, MN offices

Photo by J. Harrington

Since it is likely to take years before the issues related to this proposed project will get sorted out, let alone resolved, we think this is a good time to refresh some fundamentals about mining and sustainable development. The best approach we've found thus far is in a framework called The Natural Step, which posits Four System Conditions:

In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing: 

1. concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth's crust, 

2. concentrations of substances produced by society, 

3. degradation by physical means and, in that society... 

4. people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.

No doubt in the days, months, and years ahead, we will be subjected to repeated assertions to the effect that Minnesota and the United States have the most rigorous environmental standards when it comes to mining. And yet, and yet, we have damn few, if any, mines that do not contribute significant amounts of pollution and that don't "degrade by physical means." Trout Unlimited, an organization I've belonged to for years and years, notes, in regard to hard rock mining, that "Approximately 110,000 miles of streams – enough to circle the Earth four times – are listed as impaired for heavy metals or acidity and abandoned mines are a major source of these impairments." We're still waiting to read about examples of mines that have not severely degraded and/or polluted their environment.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] has organized a noteworthy amount of information on "Environmentally Sensitive 'Green' Mining." We're very dubious that Minnesota's standards are comparable to the "Environmentally Conscious Mining Standards" MIT lists and describes. Plus, we've seen little, if any, indication that Minnesota's regulatory agencies, or politicians, are the least bit familiar with a book coauthored by a senior lecturer at MIT, Peter Senge. It's titled The Necessary Revolution. One final point, for today, is that we have yet to find any indication that Minnesota is aware of and has considered adopting international mining standards that may meet or exceed current site and federal requirements. The Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance [IRMA] has developed and published standards. They can be found here.

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

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What's the weight of nothing?

It is the Christmas season. The country is in the midst of an impeachment inquiry. The nations of the world are not doing enough, fast enough, to respond to a well established need to Drawdown greenhouse gases. Day by day it becomes more difficult to communicate with those who differ from us and easier to yield to despondency. But, since it is the Christmas season, we will now share with you one of the few seasonal traditions we've started since we reached nominal adulthood. It's a short tale that goes like this:

chickadee estimating the weight of snowflakes

Photo by J. Harrington

“Tell me the weight of a snowflake,” a chickadee asked a wild dove. “Nothing more than nothing,” was the answer. “In that case, I must tell you a marvelous story,” the chickadee said.

“I sat on the branch of a fir tree, close to its trunk, when it began to snow, not heavily, not in a raging blizzard, no, just like in a dream, without any violence. Since I didn’t have anything else to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch—nothing more than nothing, as you say—the branch broke off.”

Having said that, the chickadee flew away.

dove contemplating chickadee's story

Photo by J. Harrington

The dove, since Noah’s time an authority on the matter, thought about the story for a while, and finally said to herself: “Perhaps there is only one person’s voice lacking for peace and justice to come about in the world.”

I don't remember where I first came across that parable, but it has been part of my Christmas repertoire for about a decade and a half. Since I first read the story, I've been haunted  by the fear that mine might be the one voice needed for peace and justice to come to the world, and I'd decided to remain silent. There's a related quotation that is attributed to both Edward Everett Hale and to Helen Keller. It goes:

I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

After this Christmas season we'll be facing a grueling, testing and testy political campaign, compounded by disinformation and efforts at foreign interference, before we once again get to celebrate the Yule tide. Let's do what we can to bring peace and justice to the world whether we feel up to it or not.

Making Peace

By Denise Levertov

A voice from the dark called out,

             ‘The poets must give us

imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar

imagination of disaster. Peace, not only

the absence of war.’

                                   But peace, like a poem,

is not there ahead of itself,

can’t be imagined before it is made,

can’t be known except

in the words of its making,

grammar of justice,

syntax of mutual aid.

                                       A feeling towards it,

dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have

until we begin to utter its metaphors,

learning them as we speak.

                                              A line of peace might appear

if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,

revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,

questioned our needs, allowed

long pauses . . .

                        A cadence of peace might balance its weight

on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,

an energy field more intense than war,

might pulse then,

stanza by stanza into the world,

each act of living

one of its words, each word

a vibration of light—facets

of the forming crystal.

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Yule like this, we bet!

In our neck of the woods, the shortest day is less than a week away. Our Winter Solstice will occur at 10:19 pm CST on Saturday, December 21. Today, after resisting its purchase four or five times, we decided to honor the Solstice and bought a copy of Susan Cooper and Carson Ellis's The Shortest Day. It's nominally a children's book. At this time of year, each of us should honor our inner child as well as our outer children. The book mentions a web site and an organization that performs the poem on which the book is based. The organization is The Revels. It's based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, our old stomping grounds. It's almost like home for the holidays time.

Also today, a Christmas present arrived early(?). We've been enjoying blue skies and sunshine since late morning. Our mood is improved about 317%. Shorter days leading up to and away from Winter Solstice can be, and often are, hard to take. Lack of sunshine has been too often compounded by cloudy days. Joni Mitchell warned us about it in her song Big Yellow Taxi:

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone 

We have dearly missed the sun this month. In fact, to complement our heartiest endorsement of The Shortest Day, and in anticipation of days getting longer, brighter and full of peace next year, we'll share the lyrics to one of our favorite John Denver songs.

sunshine can be magical

Photo by J. Harrington

Sunshine on My Shoulders

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
If I had a day that I could give you, I’d give to you the day just like today.
If I had a song that I could sing for you, I’d sing a song to make you feel this way.

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
If I had a tale that I could tell you, I’d tell a tale sure to make you smile.
If I had a wish that I could wish for you, I’d make a wish for sunshine for all the while.

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
Sunshine almost all the time makes me high.  Sunshine almost always…

(written by John Denver)

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