Not just a new, but a "new and improved" normal

 Mid-afternoon, the last day of November, 2020, the weather is brisk, with blue skies and sunshine. Approaching what we've come to consider normal for this time of year in this place. The Better Half [BH] has taken the three ears of maize we had on the table for Thanksgiving decoration, softened the husks, braided them together and hung them for the squirrels and birds to enjoy.

Much of the morning was spent Christmas shopping for family members' presents. We're not finished but we've made noteworthy headway. Later this week the BH will inform us of which of our pines she's selected and we'll "cut our own" tree. One of the amaryllis is showing signs of new growth. Perhaps the others will also by week's end. We're trying to acknowledge and respect the existence of the COVID-19 virus without letting it diminish the joys of Christmas any more than is unavoidable.

last year's tree with lights, pre hanging ornaments

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning, before we began shopping, we were wandering the byways of the internets and discovered a web site we want to share. You will probably find it interesting and may even find it useful, or so we hope. There's a recently formed Consortium of Environmental Philosophers [CEP] whose work they describe thusly:

The twenty-first century will be defined by how humans interact with the Earth, its processes, diverse environments and species. But it is not clear how governments, scientists, technologists and decision-makers will meet the complex challenges ahead without critical thinking about the ideas, concepts and value-assumptions that influence our policies and practices. Our work is to advocate for the importance of fair and transparent deliberation of the ways we live in the world.

We have seen entirely too much of the antithesis to fair and transparent deliberation in governance during the past four years, let alone anything resembling critical thinking. It will be interesting to see what this group manages to accomplish in the near future, since we do agree that the century we're in "will be defined by how humans interact with the Earth, its processes, diverse environments and species." Many years ago, we had a poster on our office wall, based on a Harvey Cox quotation. It read "Not to decide is to decide." We've basically run out of time to defer decisions on climate change, biodiversity, and new ways of supporting billions of people, so we wish the folks at CEP all the success in the world. A restored world would make a great Christmas present, if not this year, maybe next?

Various Portents

By Alice Oswald

Various stars. Various kings.

Various sunsets, signs, cursory insights.

Many minute attentions, many knowledgeable watchers,

Much cold, much overbearing darkness.

Various long midwinter Glooms.

Various Solitary and Terrible Stars.

Many Frosty Nights, many previously Unseen Sky-flowers.

Many people setting out (some of them kings) all clutching at stars.

More than one North Star, more than one South Star.

Several billion elliptical galaxies, bubble nebulae, binary systems,

Various dust lanes, various routes through varying thicknesses of Dark,

Many tunnels into deep space, minds going back and forth.

Many visions, many digitally enhanced heavens,

All kinds of glistenings being gathered into telescopes:

Fireworks, gasworks, white-streaked works of Dusk,

Works of wonder and/or water, snowflakes, stars of frost . . .

Various dazed astronomers dilating their eyes,

Various astronauts setting out into laughterless earthlessness,

Various 5,000-year-old moon maps,

Various blindmen feeling across the heavens in braille.

Various gods making beautiful works in bronze,

Brooches, crowns, triangles, cups and chains,

And all sorts of drystone stars put together without mortar.

Many Wisemen remarking the irregular weather.

Many exile energies, many low-voiced followers,

Watches of wisp of various glowing spindles,

Soothsayers, hunters in the High Country of the Zodiac,

Seafarers tossing, tied to a star . . .

Various people coming home (some of them kings). Various headlights.

Two or three children standing or sitting on the low wall.

Various winds, the Sea Wind, the sound-laden Winds of Evening

Blowing the stars towards them, bringing snow.

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As we enter the season of magi(c)

 One of our favorite songwriters, Joni Mitchell, has a refrain in her song Big Yellow Taxi, that goes like this:

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

We remember reading, but not who wrote, that one of the hardest things to notice is what's missing or not there. We've observed recently that our cardinals, the pair or two who were hanging around all Summer, have been absent from the feeders for weeks approaching a month or more. Where they've disappeared to is beyond our ken, but we miss them, especially now that we've noticed they're gone.

male cardinal at a December feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

Another thing we've been missing during the past several years, even before COVID-19 struck, is the Christmas spirit of "peace on  earth, good will toward all." Several of the early Christmas presents we've given to ourselves this year prompt us to be more thoughtful and kind whenever possible. To act instead of reacting. Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot (one of my presents to myself) points out that

“Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”

We can easily scale that observation down from the cosmic and global to the individual, can't we? In two days the most magical month of the year begins. It includes the shortest day and longest night  of the year. Shall we practice acting in the season soon to begin so that, when the days again grow longer, being kinder to each other, including ourselves, and our only home, will be a permanent habit we've developed? 

Red Bird Explains Himself

By Mary Oliver

“Yes, I was the brilliance floating over the snow
and I was the song in the summer leaves, but this was
only the first trick
I had hold of among my other mythologies,
for I also knew obedience: bringing sticks to the nest,
food to the young, kisses to my bride.

But don’t stop there, stay with me: listen.

If I was the song that entered your heart
then I was the music of your heart, that you wanted and needed,
and thus wilderness bloomed there, with all its
followers: gardeners, lovers, people who weep
for the death of rivers.

And this was my true task, to be the
music of the body.  Do you understand?  for truly the body needs
a song, a spirit, a soul.  And no less, to make this work,
the soul has need of a body,
and I am both of the earth and I am of the inexplicable
beauty of heaven
where I fly so easily, so welcome, yes,
and this is why I have been sent, to teach this to your heart.”

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Signs and scenes of the season

It's Small Business Saturday, but you know that, right? We hauled ourselves (the Better  Half [BH] and I) over to our local bookstore, Scout & Morgan, where we purchased a book or two while the BH went to the food co-op next door and picked up a few essentials.

the kind of snow flakes we prefer, no shoveling

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we were successful at buying absolutely nothing [Even dinner was made of leftover turkey in sandwiches.] and even managed to get ourselves into the fresh air for an hour or so. Today, after returning from small business shopping, we managed to get the outside Christmas lights hung. (Only one animal [the human currently typing this] was slightly injured in the process and he should recover soon.) Since this is our second sunny day in a row, we're again enjoying the sparkly snow flakes the BH hung in the window earlier this week when all was cloudy and dreary. Despite political and economic and public health madness, benign spirits of the season are slowly taking command.

Earlier today we saw a flock of 5 or 6 swans headed northerly to ???. Yesterday we noticed a whitetail cross our road about a quarter of a mile North of the house. On Thanksgiving, we drove past a flock of tom turkeys a couple of miles North of our house. They were foraging the fields of a truck farm whose season has passed.

As long as we stay healthy, we're going to focus on spending more time outside (snowblowing doesn't count). Fresh air and sunshine help a lot to maintain some semblance of balance in our mental and emotional health. We don't expect things to turn around on a dime come January 21, 2021, although that will mark a major milestone in improvements conditions and one of the better belated Christmas presents in years.

Changing the Front Porch Light for Thanksgiving

By Jared Carter

To balance there, again, in the early dark,

three rungs up on the old stepladder,

afraid to go any higher, it wobbles so—

to reach out and find the first set-screw

stripped of its thread, barely holding the lip

in place—to stretch even farther, twisting

the next one to break the rust, turning

the last with the tips of your fingers until

the white globe drops down smooth and round

in your hands, and you see inside a pool

of intermingled wings and bodies, so dry

it stirs beneath your breath. To watch them

flutter, again, across the grass, when you

climb down and shake them out in the wind.

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It's Native American Heritage Day

Today is Native American Heritage Day. In lieu of a normal posting, we ask that you follow the link below and read Sara Sinclair's entire article titled:

Indian country showed up to beat Trump. How can you show up for Indian country?

We are going to Buy Nothing today and are going to #OptOutside and try to follow 

have you visited the American Indian Cultural Corridor?

Photo by J. Harrington

 

A Map to the Next World

By Joy Harjo 

     for Desiray Kierra Chee

In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for

those who would climb through the hole in the sky.

My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged

from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens.

For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet.

The map must be of sand and can’t be read by ordinary light. It

must carry fire to the next tribal town, for renewal of spirit.

In the legend are instructions on the language of the land, how it

was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it.

Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the

altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace.

Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; the fog steals our

children while we sleep.

Flowers of rage spring up in the depression. Monsters are born

there of nuclear anger.

Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to

disappear.

We no longer know the names of the birds here, how to speak to

them by their personal names.

Once we knew everything in this lush promise.

What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the

map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us, leav-

ing a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood.

An imperfect map will have to do, little one.

The place of entry is the sea of your mother’s blood, your father’s

small death as he longs to know himself in another.

There is no exit.

The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestine—a

spiral on the road of knowledge.

You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking

from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh

deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way.

They have never left us; we abandoned them for science.

And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world

there will be no X, no guidebook with words you can carry.

You will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song

she is singing.

Fresh courage glimmers from planets.

And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you

will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns.

When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers where they

entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us.

You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder.

A white deer will greet you when the last human climbs from the

destruction.

Remember the hole of shame marking the act of abandoning our

tribal grounds.

We were never perfect.

Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was

once a star and made the same mistakes as humans.

We might make them again, she said.

Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end.

You must make your own map.

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On giving thanks

 Doe to a worldwide pandemic, many today are more isolated than they would otherwise choose to be. Thanks to Carl Sagan, his wife Ann Druyan, and the folks at NASA, we can have a different perspective on isolation. Aren't we all isolated on the pale blue dot of earth?

Seen from about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles), Earth appears as a tiny dot within deep space: the blueish-white speck almost halfway up the brown band on the right.

The passengers on the Mayflower were largely isolated from all they had known in England and on the European continent when they disembarked to a world new to them. Yr. obt. svt. was born in Boston, raised in Massachusetts' South Shore and Cape Cod, and herewith shares some myths about today's holiday, published and sourced via the Cape Cod Times.

Pilgrim myths: Don’t believe everything your kindergarten teacher told you

A nation created, a nation diminished: Pilgrims’ arrival in Provincetown 400 years ago spawned a clash of cultures

We hope each and every one of you has a safe, happy, healthy, and caring holiday and lives to celebrate with loved ones again next year.

a sole Tom Turkey gobbles "Happy Thanksgiving"

Photo by J. Harrington

Thanksgiving

By Robert Nichols

Amazement fills my heart to-night, 

Amaze and awful fears; 

I am a ship that sees no light, 

But blindly onward steers. 

 

Flung toward heaven’s toppling rage, 

Sunk between steep and steep, 

A lost and wondrous fight I wage 

With the embattled deep. 

 

I neither know nor care at length 

Where drives the storm about; 

Only I summon all my strength 

And swear to ride it out. 

 

Yet give I thanks; despite these wars. 

My ship—though blindly blown, 

Long lost to sun or moon or stars— 

Still stands up alone. 

I need no trust in borrowed spars; 

My strength is yet my own.

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Shades of gratitude

The other day we posted a complaint about our oak tree leaves that seem to fall from October through March into April. We were focused on the inconvenience that on the ground oak leaves may cause. If we shift our focus to the good those trees and their leaves do, they bring shades of green to Spring, shade from the sun in Summer, and sussurating sounds as they are caressed by warm breezes. Oaks also provide acorn forage that helps feed turkeys, deer, squirrels and other local wildlife. We have a burr oak at the end of our drive that exhibits character in abundance. We're grateful we've learned to not take it for granted.

trees that share their neighborhood with us

Photo by J. Harrington

We're also grateful we're learning how to shift and broaden our focus to see a multitude of perspectives on many subjects. Our life would be diminished were it not for creative folks such as writer Robert Macfarlane and painter Jackie Morris producing treats such as The Lost Spells, which includes this perspective on the oak and other trees.

OAK

Out on the hill, old Oak still stands:
stag-headed, fire-struck, bare-crowned,
stubbornly holding its ground.

Poplar is the whispering tree,
Rowan is the sheltering tree,
Willow is the weeping tree —
and Oak is the waiting tree.

Three hundred years to grow,
three hundred more to thrive,
three hundred years to die —
nine hundred years alive.

Then there are artists such as Katie Holten, who have created works such as The Irish Tree Alphabet. We've not yet played with this version of a tree alphabet, but we've read her book, About Trees, and enjoyed every page. We're full of gratitude that we share a world with so many close to us that are part of our lives, and others, more distant, whose talent and efforts bring joys to our life through their arts. If we limit our focus to what needs fixing, we may become depressed and despairing since there's plenty of room for improvement almost everywhere we look. If we work toward a more balanced focus, enjoying and supporting and sharing what's going well, in addition to objecting to what's not, we'll probably live a longer, happier and more beneficial life. That would be something for which we can give thanks, today, tomorrow and every day, even if we lived nine hundred years.

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A hope for Thanksgiving

 Almost all day the mist has varied from light to moderate to heavy and back and forth some more. The light dusting of snow we got has mostly melted. There's no sign yet that the deer are munching on this year's pumpkins. Flying squirrels visit the feeders after dark some nights. Still no sign of a pileated woodpecker at the suet feeder. Should we conclude things are going our way, going against us, or just going? 

On balance, we believe we have much to be thankful for this Thursday, not least of which is the outcome of the recent election. On balance, we believe we have much, much more that needs to be done to have our country reflect the values we espouse. Then again, that's probably true for each of us, isn't it? We know we lose patience, tempers and vision much more frequently than we'd like. Something, something, "only human," right?

Today has been a day full of minor frustrations, including seeing a couple of bozos without masks walking around inside our local Target store and, as far as we could tell, no one proposing to escort them out the door. What would be an appropriate way to deal with folks like that? Perhaps more significantly, we found ourselves earlier today wondering what it might be like if Trump and his accomplices were subject to restorative justice?

In Native American and First Nation justice philosophy and practice, healing, along with reintegrating individuals into their community, is more important than punishment. The Native peacemaking process involves bringing together victims, offenders and their supporters to get to the bottom of a problem. While contrary to traditional Eurocentric justice, this parallels the philosophy and processes of the modern restorative justice movement. In the Native worldview there is a deep connection between justice and spirituality: in both, it is essential to maintain or restore harmony and balance.

 

there are several kinds of healing

Photo by J. Harrington

Since the day after tomorrow is "Thanksgiving" for many of US, and a Day of Mourning for some Native Americans, and since we find our days have been too full of anger and negative thoughts and feelings for too long, we were pleased to find and are happy to be able to share these thoughts from Native Hope:

Here at Native Hope, we hope that this Thanksgiving, the hearts of all people, Native and non-Native, are filled with hope, healing, and a desire to dismantle the barriers—physical, economic, educational, psychological, and spiritual— that divide us and oppress us.

Wouldn't you like to live in a country that has practiced restorative justice with the original inhabitants of the land on which we now prosper? Since, in so many ways, we have more to be thankful for than many others on this earth, would it not be proper to ensure we all benefit from hope, healing and dismantled barriers? That would be something else for which we could all feel proud and thankful some year, don't you think?

For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet 

Joy Harjo - 1951-

Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.

Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give it back with gratitude.

If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.

Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.

Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.

Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.

Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.

Don’t worry.
The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.

The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.

Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.

Do not hold regrets.

When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.

You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.

Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.

Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.

Ask for forgiveness.

Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.

Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.

Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.

Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.

Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.

Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark. 

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There's a word for that?

The Sunrise River pools in Wyoming are starting to show expanses of skim ice. Smaller ponds in the area have become ice-covered. Temperatures seem to have settled into seasonal patterns. Weather that behaves as if this were a normal year is something for which we should be thankful. The year has been so strange that the Oxford Languages folks couldn't capture it in just one "word of the year," so they've produced a Words of an Unprecedented Year report.

water flows in both lines and cycles

Photo by J. Harrington

We understand their point but beg to differ with  their assessment. Each and every year is unique, N'est-ce pa? In fact, each and every moment has never occurred before and will not repeat itself, if we believe that time is linear. We're not sure how that concept plays out among Native American nations who consider time to be circular. Then, again, we can't begin to wrap our head around how long billions of light years might be. Didn't Einstein note something about a "time-space continuum?"

All of this is to suggest that we might want to seriously (re)consider any behavior that suggests any of us has a direct line to absolute truth. No, we haven't become an absolute relativist [see what we did there?], but we are trying to elevate our level of tolerance, which is a real challenge for a classic Type A control freak, not that we know anyone like that.

To return to the good folks who assert that this year has been unprecedented, we interpret that to mean that our holidays may not precisely follow the patterns of prior years nor, even, what we really want them to this year. That doesn't mean we should spoil the joys we could be experiencing by getting all bent out of shape that things aren't exactly what we wanted. The word for that type of reaction and behavior is "SPOILED." (Note to self, be sure to follow our own advice. 'Tis the season to chill.)

The Prophet: On Time

by Kahlil Gibran

And an astronomer said, "Master, what of Time?"

And he answered:

You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.

Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but to-day's memory and to-morrow is to-day's dream.
And that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?
And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?
And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless?

But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons,
And let to-day embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

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Is democracy like fishing?

Several decades or so ago we were much more active in a local chapter of a cold water habitat conservation organization, attending annual banquets and serving for a couple of years or so as the editor of the newsletter. One of the mementos from those days can be seen in the slightly out of focus photo below, of a framed broadside acquired at a banquet's silent auction. It reads:

the charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable,

a perpetual series of occasions for hope

the charm of fishing

Photo by J. Harrington

Fifty-seven years ago today, an event occurred that caused us to lose hope for quite some time. We've lost even more hope during the last four years. And yet, during the past two generations we've seen both some progress made and some ground lost in our efforts to live in a better, kinder, more sustainable and hopeful world. We continue to hope despite the fact that in the very recent past our country has failed to meet, and even rejected, our obligations to ameliorate climate change's causes and effects.

some lures of fishing

Photo by J. Harrington

As we exercised a fishing avocation, we've caught some fish and lost a few. Over the course of the years, we've observed that we have never caught a wild trout while sitting on our duff in the living room. Democracy, likewise, is not a spectator sport. Participation can take many forms but, at a minimum, requires us to get off our duffs and vote for those who we believe will not just make things better for us but will make the country better for all of us. That doesn't mean we all get to get the largest flat-screen tv at the lowest price. Food security, homes, healthy neighborhoods rank ahead of the passive consumption of entertainment.

This week we are thankful that we have an opportunity to try again to better govern ourselves while protecting the air, land, water and wildlife on which our continued existence depends. With more effort and better judgement, we may have an opportunity to diminish and eventually eliminate the current pandemic. If we really work at it, we can minimize opportunities for a repeat performance by a new epizootic in the foreseeable future. Those goals are elusive but attainable, if we learn how to work together to ensure the planet which produced us can continue to support us. Let's start by being sure to wear a mask and keep our distance. No angler we know likes it if someone crowds the pool they're fishing.

Fishing, His Birthday

By Michael Sowder

With adams, caddis, tricos, light cahills, 

blue-wing olives, royal coachmen, chartreuse trudes, 

green drakes, blue duns, black gnats, Nancy quills, 

Joe’s hoppers, yellow humpies, purple chutes, 

prince nymphs, pheasant tails, Eileen’s hare’s ears, 

telicos, flashbacks, Jennifer’s muddlers, 

Frank bugs, sow bugs, zug bugs, autumn splendors, 

woolly worms, black buggers, Kay’s gold zuddlers, 

clippers, tippet, floatant, spools of leader, 

tin shot, lead shot, hemostats, needle nose, 

rod, reel, vest, net, boots, cap, shades and waders, 

gortex shell and one bent Macanudo— 

I wade in a swirl of May-colored water, 

cast a fine gray quill, the last tie of my father.

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Of myths and moods and attitudes

 According to myth, Sisyphus had his boulder to roll uphill. We have oak leaves to clear from the driveway and what laughingly passes for lawns and gardens on the property. In a good year we even get to clean most of the gutters on the house. The drive is the primary focus of attention so we don't have to spend too much time unclogging wads of wet leaves from the snowblower. Maples and aspens and black cherry trees are considerate enough to drop their leaves within a relatively short period. Oak leaves become more like the proverbial Chinese water torture for about six months of the year.

Today's weather cooperated and, once again, we've cleared most of the leaves from the driveway edges. Pumpkins are now lying near the pear tree. We suspect the deer will find them by Thanksgiving and will enjoy their own feast for a day or three.

preview of coming attractions

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half has replace pumpkins along the front stoop with pine and fir branches and red thingys and silver balls. Sometime within the next week we'll hang Christmas lights and the outside will be done for this year. Unless, of course, we find something new that just has to be added to what we have already. A deer statue covered in lights? Probably not, but we're learning to never say never.

We wouldn't want this to get out and be spread around, but, with a few exceptions, such as having our ear protectors/music players fall off our head at one point, and temporarily misplacing one of the pins that holds the back blade on the tractor, we almost had a good time today. That's something we could use more of and will work toward that end for at least the remainder of the holiday season. Something about blah, blah "good will toward men?"

Sisyphus and the Ants

By Jennifer S. Flescher

The story tells us Sisyphus is being punished.

Over and over he has to push that boulder

up and up. The mountain and God glaring.

And you, you have

your avalanche of moods.

Pills the size of stars to nearly quell

cascade and tumult.

And still you step

gravity amplified by incline, each hazard

in the way of the boulder a reminder

it should be easier. There should be

a hot fudge sundae at the top. A long nap in the shade.

The story forgot to tell us, though, Sisyphus thrived.

He learned to guide his wrists

and shoulder girdles safely to protect himself.

And later he worked to safeguard every insect

from here to the crest. Considers this his calling.

Even as the sun and the weight of time bears down.

Your strength is kingly.

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A stuttering freeze-thaw cycle

This morning we headed for St. Paul and our dental appointment. Driving through Forest Lake we saw a line of what we think were Canada geese, up at noise-bleed heights, headed on a line that looked like it pointed back to the open waters of the lake. The weather this month has frozen many smaller water bodies, then the ice had melted again, and now it's headed back toward ice-covering. Years that are less spastic usually see shallower, smaller ponds freeze first, concentrating the waterfowl still hanging around on the larger, deeper waters that will be among the last to freeze.

soon, we think, ice will cover the ponds for the season

Photo by J. Harrington

The Sunrise River pools we drove past this morning are as full as ever we've seen them in Spring-time during snowmelt. Next Spring may be very interesting, depending on Winter's precipitation amounts and any January thaw. Although the forecast projects a colder, wetter "La Nina" Winter, we've reached a point at which we're going to take it one day at a time. Seems we've read somewhere or other that that kind of approach may even be good for us. In that vein, we wish each and everyone one of you a safe, healthy, quiet holiday season. With luck and forbearance, enjoying peaceful, quiet holidays, including Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays, may mean that no one will get crushed or trampled in this year's efforts to get the biggest and best deal on whatever is the bright shiny object of distraction at the moment (blogs the blogger who is slowly filling the family homestead with stacks and shelves of books and fly-fishing paraphernalia).

On Winter's Margin

by Mary Oliver

On winter’s margin, see the small birds now
With half-forged memories come flocking home
To gardens famous for their charity.
The green globe’s broken; vines like tangled veins
Hang at the entrance to the silent wood.

With half a loaf, I am the prince of crumbs;
By snow’s down, the birds amassed will sing
Like children for their sire to walk abroad!
But what I love, is the gray stubborn hawk
Who floats alone beyond the frozen vines;
And what I dream of are the patient deer
Who stand on legs like reeds and drink that wind; -

They are what saves the world: who choose to grow
Thin to a starting point beyond this squalor. 

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Before we give thanks, some food for thought!

The sun is shining. Temperatures are mild for this time of year. Snow is melting. Breeze is calm, not howling. It feels as if we've been transported to somewhere other than Minnesota and some time other than 2020. Meanwhile, in our inbox and timeline today we've come across these reads:

• Rebecca Solnit: On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway (Why Is It So Hard for Democrats to Act Like They Actually Won?)


• Joel Salatin’s Unsustainable Myth (His go-it-alone message made him a star of the food movement. Then a young Black farmer dug into what he was really saying.)

The former largely confirms that our observations about Democrats, and many liberals, are correct. The latter has validated many of our concerns about how to create a viable "local food" economy that's also affordable. We had hoped that the basic framework had been worked out to the point that we could move on and research other interests. It's not to be.

Solnit does conclude with a worthwhile and helpful observation:

Now is an excellent time to stand on principle and defend what we value, and I believe it’s a winning strategy too, or at least brings us closer to winning than surrender does. Also, it’s worth repeating, we won, and being gracious in victory is still being victorious.

The Salatin piece points US in a direction of more cooperation:

“When you see all these collective movements and cooperatives coming out of communities of color, it’s really not surprising, because people of color who want to get on the landscape don’t usually have the opportunity to go it alone.” 

 

will the future family farm look like this?

Photo by J. Harrington

We're members of a couple of food co-ops and, over the years, have had shares in several community supported agriculture farms. We believe each could be a bigger part of the food system than they are  at present. We're also aware of some very large agricultural co-ops that appear to have many of the downsides of "industrial ag." The question of appropriate scale appears to be relevant to individual farms, farms organized into coops, processor co-ops and retail co-ops. We're not sure where in that mix food hubs may or may not have a role. All of this is also going to affect how much and when and how agriculture plays a role in climate change solutions too, we suspect. Sigh!

Ox Cart Man

By Donald Hall

In October of the year,

he counts potatoes dug from the brown field,   

counting the seed, counting   

the cellar’s portion out,   

and bags the rest on the cart’s floor.

He packs wool sheared in April, honey

in combs, linen, leather   

tanned from deerhide,   

and vinegar in a barrel

hooped by hand at the forge’s fire.

He walks by his ox’s head, ten days

to Portsmouth Market, and sells potatoes,   

and the bag that carried potatoes,

flaxseed, birch brooms, maple sugar, goose   

feathers, yarn.

When the cart is empty he sells the cart.   

When the cart is sold he sells the ox,   

harness and yoke, and walks

home, his pockets heavy

with the year’s coin for salt and taxes,

and at home by fire’s light in November cold   

stitches new harness

for next year’s ox in the barn,

and carves the yoke, and saws planks   

building the cart again.

 

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It's beginning to look a lot like ...

 Christmas decorations to buy, take home and make your home festive, have appeared at a number of retailers. Christmas catalogs are filling our mailbox. We're working on and starting to coordinate Christmas lists with family members. Today we brought home a couple of poinsettias to park on top of the piano. Tomorrow we'll take a look at one of the local floral and nursery shops and see what looks appealing. The Better Half got a jump on the season several weeks ago by surprising me with three live holly stems (plants). We've not killed them yet (although we did commit a sin of overwatering). [Note to self: take pictures of holly soon.]

signs of the season: poinsettias on the piano

Photo by J. Harrington

Most years getting the house decorated for Christmas has seemed as much a chore as a treat. This year feels different. We think we know what's going on: we're just plain weary of being angry at our country and our countrymen.  Four years is a long time to cope with the consequences of corruption an incompetence at governance. This holiday season the "real" Christmas, invoking peace on earth, good will towards men, will finally arrive for many of US not on December 25, but on January 20, 2021.

winterberry, with leaves, in September

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, it's getting to be time to see if we can forage some winterberry to add brightness to evergreen boughs. Supporting our local florists needs to be complemented by some yule decorations we actually harvested ourselves.

Flame-Heart

Claude McKay - 1889-1948

So much have I forgotten in ten years,
  So much in ten brief years; I have forgot
What time the purple apples come to juice
  And what month brings the shy forget-me-not;
Forgotten is the special, startling season
  Of some beloved tree’s flowering and fruiting,
What time of year the ground doves brown the fields
  And fill the noonday with their curious fluting:
I have forgotten much, but still remember
The poinsettia’s red, blood-red in warm December.

I still recall the honey-fever grass,
  But I cannot bring back to mind just when
We rooted them out of the ping-wing path
  To stop the mad bees in the rabbit pen.
I often try to think in what sweet month
  The languid painted ladies used to dapple
The yellow bye road mazing from the main,
  Sweet with the golden threads of the rose-apple:
I have forgotten, strange, but quite remember
The poinsettia’s red, blood-red in warm December.

What weeks, what months, what time o’ the mild year
  We cheated school to have our fling at tops?
What days our wine-thrilled bodies pulsed with joy
  Feasting upon blackberries in the copse?
Oh, some I know! I have embalmed the days,
  Even the sacred moments, when we played,
All innocent of passion uncorrupt.
  At noon and evening in the flame-heart’s shade:
We were so happy, happy,—I remember
Beneath the poinsettia’s red in warm December.

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Seasons in transit

Well, effective today, we have our fingers crossed that the neighborhood bear has headed for hibernation. We've left the bird feeders up the past few nights and the only visitors we've noticed were a pair of flying squirrels (our camera's autofocus doesn't get along well with  the  glass in the walkout door). So far, so good.

nighttime visitors to the bird feeders

Photo by J. Harrington

Today the Better Half brought home a package of beef suet, which is now hanging from the deck railing in hopes of attracting our local pileated woodpecker, but not any bears. We caught a glimpse of a pileated a week or ten days ago as one briefly alighted in an oak tree behind the house. Downy and hairy woodpeckers, and an occasional red-bellied, are often satisfied with the sunflower seeds we use to fill the feeders. Not until the consistently cold weather arrives, and we put out suet, will a pileated show up with any regularity. So, today we're enjoying one more sign that autumn is slipping into winter.

pileated woodpecker on suet feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

If the extended weather forecast is accurate, for the next week or so we'll get to enjoy yet another "spring thaw" that may leave us once again with bare ground and concerns about the likelihood of a white Christmas in our North Country.

How Is It That the Snow

By Robert Haight

How is it that the snow  

amplifies the silence,  

slathers the black bark on limbs,  

heaps along the brush rows?  

Some deer have stood on their hind legs  

to pull the berries down.  

Now they are ghosts along the path,  

snow flecked with red wine stains.  

This silence in the timbers.  

A woodpecker on one of the trees  

taps out its story,  

stopping now and then in the lapse  

of one white moment into another.

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As days shorten

So far the deer have left our Halloween pumpkins alone. Other years, not so much. One day this week or next we'll haul this year's pumpkins up the hill behind the house and leave them on the ground under the pear tree. The freeze thaw cycle seems to soften pumpkins, making it easier for deer to gnaw on even if there's no face carved to provide an opening.

a past year's pumpkins gnawed by deer

Photo by J. Harrington

Slowly, in fits and starts, we're easing into what will pass for our holiday spirit this year. Frankly, learning to enjoy more what we have already, rather than wishing and hoping for more of what we may want but don't really need will be a welcome change this year. Provided we don't run out of health, coffee, food, warmth, good books and enjoyable company we have enough and more. Further proof that less can be more, our Twitter timeline is becoming more enjoyable as the quantity of insane political content slowly diminishes. That's a plus.

deer enjoying pumpkins under the pear tree

Photo by J. Harrington

Over the next couple of weeks autumn holiday trappings for Halloween, Samhain, and Thanksgiving will be replaced by yule and Christmas decorations. We're looking forward to that more than usual this year. We're also working harder at not letting "the perfect become the enemy of the good." If you asked us, we'd tell you that we first encountered that concept in Frank Herbert's Dune series, but as of moments ago, we'll be damned if we can find the quotation using all the powers of the internet at our disposal. Perhaps we'll put a reread of Herbert's classics on our list for next year. It's time to begin thinking of such things since the shortest day of the year is but five weeks from today.

Perfect

By Kenn Nesbitt

Today I managed something

that I’ve never done before.

I turned in this week’s spelling quiz

and got a perfect score.

Although my score was perfect,

it appears I’m not too bright.

I got a perfect zero—

not a single answer right.

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Rising to a challenge

Windy, cloudy, occasional snow showers, and the last day of local deer season for firearms hunters. In view of the weather the past couple of weeks, we're glad we decided not to partake this year. We're going to file it under the heading of "just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do it."

Today we're working on a draft Christmas list. That means it's time to think about next year's fly fishing opener and toy with  the possibility of a Winter trip to one of the streams where the season runs all Winter. Then again, we're forecast to be in for a "La Nina" Winter, snowier and colder than usual. Combine that with COVID-19 restrictions and we foresee a multitude of cases of very serious cabin fever and seasonal affective disorder. Fortunately, at least for us, we have lists and stacks of books that need reading, many of which are intended to help us mellow out.

this chickadee looks like it knows something

Photo by J. Harrington

We recently received from Birchbark Books a package containing:

• What the Chickadee Knows by Margaret Noodin (poems in Anishiinaabemowin and English)


• Dwellings by Linda Hogan, a Spiritual History of the Living World; and


• A History of Kindness, Poems by Linda Hogan

From the brief sampling we've done in each of these books, we believe reading them will help put us in the spirit of the upcoming holiday season and do wonders to help us shed the accumulated bitterness we've acquired trying to cope with four years of the Trump regime and the extended and continuing COVID-19 pandemic.

In that vein, we recently finished reading Jackie Morris' magical The Unwinding and other dreamings and are in the midst of Robert Macfarlane' and Jackie Morris' the lost spells, their sequel to The Lost Words bestseller.

All of this, and other related activities, are part of our continuing venture to recover from the hardening of the heart we've suffered since our country displayed signs of political dementia in November 2016. We think we'll be successful but realize there's still much challenging but rewarding work ahead. We wish those of you reading this a safe and healthy and properly challenging holiday season. As an unrepentant and unrecovering fly-fisher, we know that, if there were no challenges, to what would we rise?

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

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