Weighty considerations

The trees are covered with hoarfrost. There has been little, if any, wind this morning so the upper branches and twigs remain magically white. Inside the house, none of the amaryllis have bloomed. That remains something we still look forward to.

early January amaryllis

Photo by J. Harrington

During the  past few days, we've realized that somehow this year we've missed honoring one of our Christmas traditions. Please follow the link [below] to last year's December posting of What's the weight of nothing? Upon reading it again today, we believe it holds true in most essentials and is a fitting way to close out the contentious year we're now ending. It also offers valid aspirations for 2021.

May the new year bring us health, happiness, and honesty in abundance, and, as Mr. Spock would say, may we "Live long and prosper."

Long, Too Long America

Walt Whitman - 1819-1892

Long, too long America,

Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,

But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,

And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are,

(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?)

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Finding a way home

Yes, we did manage to collect our Community Supported Agriculture share yesterday and get back home before the snow started. In fact, we even managed to get the Daughter Person's share of our share delivered to her and get back home before the flakes came down. We beat the snow by about ten minutes or so. The drive freshly snow blown and a freshening breeze is now shaking treetops and knocking snow from the branches. All told we got another three to four inches. The township crew thought it was plowable. We found the evidence where our drive meets the township road. The current forecast offers a week or so of slightly milder, sunnier, snow-free weather. Let's hope that's an omen as the new year begins, one which offers a promise of better days ahead.

isn't this true?

Photo by J. Harrington

We received a couple of surprise presents this Christmas, i.e., not on the list we sent to Santa. One was from the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law and new Granddaughter. It's a box full of a handful of different kinds of heritage beans along with a cookbook full of recipes for same. We've been getting more and more interested in heritage and place-based foods as an element of our interest in bioregionalism and localization. As we've been working our way through the cook book we're belatedly realizing that increasing the meals of beans instead of meat in our diet moves us in the direction of a plant-rich diet, better for the climate. We're fascinated that Drawdown doesn't seem to specifically mention beans as a substitute for meat and a source of protein. We also really like the linkage back to our place of origin and the famous Boston baked beans. Another sign of hope for next year? We have our fingers crossed.

Now that we have the beans and the cookbook, we want to find a good great local source for smoked, thick-sliced bacon. Can you see the slippery slope shaping under our feet? Local explorations for local food sources leads us, we hope, to more local knowledge about our local food supply and producers. We may yet begin to feel at home in Minnesota, instead of just being a long-term visitor. There is that old saying about the way to a person's heart is through their stomach.

Ode to the Midwest

By Kevin Young

The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
—Bob Dylan

I want to be doused

in cheese

& fried. I want

to wander

the aisles, my heart's

supermarket stocked high

as cholesterol. I want to die

wearing a sweatsuit—

I want to live

forever in a Christmas sweater,

a teddy bear nursing

off the front. I want to write

a check in the express lane.

I want to scrape

my driveway clean

myself, early, before

anyone's awake—

that'll put em to shame—

I want to see what the sun

sees before it tells

the snow to go. I want to be

the only black person I know.

I want to throw

out my back & not

complain about it.

I wanta drive

two blocks. Why walk—

I want love, n stuff—

I want to cut

my sutures myself.

I want to jog

down to the river

& make it my bed—

I want to walk

its muddy banks

& make me a withdrawal.

I tried jumping in,

found it frozen—

I'll go home, I guess,

to my rooms where the moon

changes & shines

like television.

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In anticipation of next year

Snow is forecast to start between 3 pm and 4 pm in our neck of the North Woods. By that time we hope to be back in the garage or close to it after we've picked up our final Community Supported Agriculture share for the year and the season. Tomorrow will largely be dedicated to clearing the drive and recuperating therefrom. Thursday is getting cleaned up so we look presentable when we head for the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law's for New Year's Eve dinner. It's highly unlikely we'll even try to stay up to see the New Year in. We haven't for quite a few years now. Seen one midnight, seen most of 'em, said the old codger.

late December, moonset

Photo by J. Harrington

Last night and very early this morning the full moon was very bright. The snow-covered fields were shining in moonlight. It was just a little eerie, but beautiful. It's about time to listen for pairs of great horned owls duet hooting as their mating season approaches. We've heard and seen barred owls, but, so far, no great horned owls have inhabited the neighborhood as far as we know.

As we close out 2020 and prepare for 2021, we hope we'll be successful at reframing our goals onto what we want to see happen or accomplish, rather than continuing a defensive battle. That's moving us in some interesting directions, such as those outlined in both the Center for Humans and Nature and emergence magazine. If we want our children and grandchildren to have any assurance of living in a world of clean air, clean water, adequate food and shelter, and any sense of community, we need to ensure there are major changes in what we do, how we do it, and why. The United Nations has Sustainable Development Goals, the Biden-Harris administration is pushing for Build Back Better, which is an improvement of the current regime's scorched earth program, but seems to lack a necessary emphasis of a future orientation. Even the Green New Deal doesn't, in our opinion, focus far enough into the future we want to create but it is an improvement over abandoning the Paris Accord.

What we haven't yet been able to do is find a crystal ball to give US a clear picture of how these grand visions get translated into daily life most will be leading in the next decade or two. Should we plant and tend a subsistence garden or spend more of our time learning our way around a local food system. We have become more and more concerned that too many of US, too often, are repeatedly and intensely focused on what we want to prevent, rather than what we want to achieve. We hope to spend time next year trying to sort that out. Meanwhile, it's now time for us to go get our final CSA share and hurry home before the storm intensifies.

Horses at Midnight Without a Moon

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Jack Gilbert - 1925-2012

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Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets. It is no surprise 
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,
can hear them breathing. 
Our spirit persists like a man struggling 
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.

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As the days dwindle down...

 We're down to the last few days of 2020. It's been a strange year. The good news is it won't take a lot to create major improvements next year compared to this one almost past. A significant one will occur on January 20, but you knew that. Meanwhile, we're trying to sort out whether and how to balance the philosophy that notes that "less bad is not the same as good," with a perspective that reminds us "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

a hazy shade of Winter bringing a new dawn

Photo by J. Harrington

As we were driving home from finishing a couple of errands, a song from our past, more than a little fitting for this time of year and our recent weather, popped up on our Jeep's playlist. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel started singing "A Hazy Shade of Winter" as we pulled onto Northbound I-35. The opening lines complemented, almost perfectly, the mood and state of mind we felt as we headed home.

Time, time, time
See what’s become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

If you're not familiar with the song, you can listen to Simon and Garfunkel here and scan the rest of the lyrics here. All in all, we can't, at least at the (pensive) moment, think of a better way to start to really close out 2020. In a few months we will again be enjoying a Springtime with new growth and fresh starts in abundance. I intend to leave behind in the old year my tendency to be so hard to please. I'm learning that it gets in the way of enjoying what can be enjoyed and makes me too much like someone I've grown to despise over the past four years.

Of History and Hope

By Miller Williams

We have memorized America,

how it was born and who we have been and where.

In ceremonies and silence we say the words,

telling the stories, singing the old songs.

We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.

The great and all the anonymous dead are there.

We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.

The rich taste of it is on our tongues.

But where are we going to be, and why, and who?

The disenfranchised dead want to know.

We mean to be the people we meant to be,

to keep on going where we meant to go.

But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how

except in the minds of those who will call it Now?

The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?

With waving hands—oh, rarely in a row—

and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.

Who were many people coming together

cannot become one people falling apart.

Who dreamed for every child an even chance

cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.

Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head

cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.

Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child

cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.

We know what we have done and what we have said,

and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,

believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become—

just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.

All this in the hands of children, eyes already set

on a land we never can visit—it isn’t there yet—

but looking through their eyes, we can see

what our long gift to them may come to be.

If we can truly remember, they will not forget.

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The return of normalcy?

Earlier today the Better Half called to our attention the fact that there were three male cardinals outside, two in the tree and one at the feeder. At sunset yesterday we noticed a female cardinal searching for seeds on the deck. A pileated woodpecker, we haven't been able to confirm whether male or female, has been showing up at the suet feeder. The  fact that we're "enjoying" snow showers all day, plus the several inches that fell a couple of days before Christmas, seems to have moved things into a more typical winter pattern. There was even what looked like a purple finch at the feeder earlier today.

male cardinal awaiting turn at feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

Tuesday we'll do our last Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] pick-up for the year. We hope we get to complete our trip before the forecast snowstorm hits. Many of the roads we've been driving for the past few days are covered with compacted snow, ok but not great, interspersed with streaks of ice, instant, hopefully brief, traction loss. More snow on top of that isn't going to make longer drives any more enjoyable, although we've found that the gravel/dirt roads are less treacherous than those with blacktop. Most folks who drive gravel roads also have enough sense to slow down, unlike too many drivers on county and state highways.

pileated woodpecker at suet feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

Are you ready to start a new year? In most ways we're glad to put 2020 behind us, but we're even less certain of what may lie ahead than we are many years. We can't afford to accept a return to the "good old days" of 2008 -- 2016 because most of the crises we're facing: climate weirding; adaptation; sixth extinction; COVID-19 and its successors; and, at a minimum, unsustainably increasing inequality, haven not been addressed sufficiently to leave us much time to respond with gradual, coordinated transitions. "Continuing resolutions," or their equivalent, aren't going to yield the results we need. It's not yet clear that enough folks recognize the significance of both the constellation of issues and the brevity of the lead time to address them. A worthwhile resolution for the new year would be to study the effectiveness of solutions we're busy implementing rather than doing more studies before we implement anything.

Year’s End

By Richard Wilbur

Now winter downs the dying of the year,   

And night is all a settlement of snow;

From the soft street the rooms of houses show   

A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,   

Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin   

And still allows some stirring down within.

I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake

The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell   

And held in ice as dancers in a spell   

Fluttered all winter long into a lake;   

Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,   

They seemed their own most perfect monument.

There was perfection in the death of ferns   

Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone   

A million years. Great mammoths overthrown   

Composedly have made their long sojourns,   

Like palaces of patience, in the gray

And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii

The little dog lay curled and did not rise   

But slept the deeper as the ashes rose

And found the people incomplete, and froze   

The random hands, the loose unready eyes   

Of men expecting yet another sun

To do the shapely thing they had not done.

These sudden ends of time must give us pause.   

We fray into the future, rarely wrought

Save in the tapestries of afterthought.

More time, more time. Barrages of applause   

Come muffled from a buried radio.

The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.

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A Christmas wish for the New Year

Christmas is, and should be, a celebration of and for children. Sharing Christmas with our two children and new grandchild made Christmas this year extra special. Our son rarely gets to see his three month old niece and it was clear from his body language that he thinks she's someone extra special.

children are the essence of Christmas

Photo by J. Harrington

Christmas is, or should be, a time when wishes come true. There's also a cautionary old saying about "Be careful what you wish for, you may get it." Somehow, this year, we missed sharing with any of you a packet of Christmas wishes that we have for all of you . On this day after Christmas, as the old year closes and a new one opens, with deepest thanks to Robert Zimmerman, we offer these wishes for each of you and all of us for at least the next year.

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

Copyright © 1973 by Ram's Horn Music; renewed 2001 by Ram’s Horn Music

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A Christmas wish

 May we all, in this time of love and COVID, remember the story of the first Christmas and be grateful.

The creche at the St. Paul cathedral

Photo by J. Harrington

In the bleak midwinter

By Christina Rossetti

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.

In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,

Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;

Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,

The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;

But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,

Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

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Merry Christmas Eve!

We hope those of you wishing so hard for a white Christmas are satisfied. Merry White Christmas Eve! Yesterday's storm-induced power outage only lasted a couple of hours. Thanks Xcel! We're glad we didn't have to clear downed branches, or whatever it was, during yesterdays snow and howling winds. Our chore comes later this morning, clearing 9 inches ± of snow from the drive in windchills around -20℉. By the time we've finished, we hope the roads will be clear enough to make our trip to pick up Christmas dinner less hazardous. Grumble, grumble, grumble--our Eeyore side has been brought out this morning. No watching Poohsticks on a frozen, snow-covered river.

male cardinal at snow-covered feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

Actually, we're truly grateful the power wasn't out for longer. As Joni Mitchell sings: "Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" [Big Yellow Taxi]. We used the time to look through some photo albums, the kind with real prints, at pictures of Christmas past, when our children were young, and so were we. We're also quite pleased that the storm triggered an appearance at the feeders by a male cardinal, the first one we've seen in weeks. He added a very bright spot in the midst of yesterday's whiteout.

Our fingers are crossed that our new [last year] Husqvarna snow blower will function during and after driveway clearing. Last year the cables and controls kept freezing. Another example of poor design? execution? making things more complicated and less reliable? The dealer has been hesitant to replace the freezing cables so we are hoping no moisture gets into the cables and controls. We may wish we had stuck with Toro. Our fingers are also crossed that Santa lands safely on all the freshly snow-covered roofs and leaves our heart's desires and moves on without injury or contagion. He'll have to take off his mask to eat cookies and drink his milk. Maybe the Beach Boys could do a new classic: Superspreader Santa? Run, run, Rudolph!

Eeyore showing off his previously snow-covered tail

Photo by J. Harrington

Enough of this Scrooge-like nattering, We can do without visits tonight by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Eeyore joins us in wishing all a safe, healthy, warm and merry Christmas! He's really happy that he found his tail under all the fresh snow.

The Snow Storm

Ralph Waldo Emerson - 1803-1882

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

   Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

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A matter of perspective

We've almost finished reading Carol Bly's fascinating and delightful memoir, An Adolescent's Christmas 1944. This morning we read a section on page 52 that we want to share. We believe it helps put this terrible, awful, very bad year of 2020 in a different, and haunting, perspective.

even snowflakes have turned into gold

Photo by J. Harrington

... We liked Ike and eight years later would say so. We didn't know he was worried about a military-industrial complex. We didn't imagine that in the next few years rich advertisers would dominate American living rooms with sights and sounds of murder, hour in, hour out, because violence fascinates ill-educated people, and people habituated to fascination like fascination better than thinking and they buy products more readily than thinkers do. We knew no group psychology. We could not have guessed that critically massed rich men, once they sit in meetings together, apparently can't control their own behavior: they can't make themselves stand up against what is wrong. If a little task force of two or three come to a meeting, reporting after months of committee work, and make their proposal, the others apparently can't make themselves speak up against it. Irving Janis had not yet done his amazing book about "groupthink."...

The preceding excerpt seems to come very close to capturing a beginning of the slippery slope we've been careening down since at least 1944. We now have a government in which controlling interests in Congress believe it appropriate to provide higher levels of funding to the military-industrial complex than to the sum of all other discretionary spending. The observations about violence fascinating ill-educated people and rich men not controlling their own behavior seem all too fitting for the events of the past four years. We haven't read far enough to decide if Bly proposes responses to the concerns she cites above. That's for tomorrow and, if needed, Christmas morning. Meanwhile, we'll be trying to figure out whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about the condition that "the more things change, the more they remain the same." Perhaps by this time next year we won't have Scrooge in either the White House or as the Majority Leader in Congress.

The Christmas Letter - John M. Morris

Wherever you are when you receive this letter
I write to say we are still ourselves
in the same place
and hope you are the same.

The dead have died as you know
and will never get better,
and the children are boys and girls
of their several ages and names.

So in closing I send you our love
and hope to hear from you soon.
There is never a time
like the present. It lasts forever
wherever you are. As ever I remain.

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Christmas time for family and home

A week from today, in the lull between Christmas and New Years, the last full moon of 2020 will fill the sky. The Ojibwe call it the Small Spirits moon; the Lakota the Shedding Horns moon. December is when the whitetail bucks drop their antlers. By the time we reach 2021, we'll have gained almost five minutes of daylight, a Christmas or belated Solstice season present from Mother Nature.

full Winter: full moon

Photo by J. Harrington

This year, more than most, we're waxing very nostalgic about the homes of our younger days. In part we suspect it's in anticipation of some return of normalcy as Voldemort and his horcruxes move out of the White House, plus trying to fit into the recently awarded title of grandpa, plus the affect of living through almost a year's worth of pandemic, which has prompted a new perspective on our mortality. All of this compounded by the arrival yesterday of the latest issue of Yankee magazine with a cover story on the comforts of pie (breakfast pie is a New England tradition) and a wonderful story titled Memory House. As a side note, and something we'll be testing next year, we discovered, upon searching online, that a supposedly great pie crust can be made from sourdough discards. Artisan pies may get added to artisan sourdough bread as a listed accomplishment next year. New Englanders hate to throw out anything, even excess sourdough starter.

Tomorrow and/or Thursday our typical white Christmas is forecast to arrive just in time. We hope we get no more than a few inches since we're committed to a 35 mile one-way drive midday Thursday to pick up our Christmas dinners for Friday. That typical lull between Christmas and New Year's is looking more and more appealing by the moment.

To Mrs K____, On Her Sending Me an English Christmas Plum-Cake at Paris

By Helen Maria Williams

What crowding thoughts around me wake, 

What marvels in a Christmas-cake! 

Ah say, what strange enchantment dwells 

Enclosed within its odorous cells? 

Is there no small magician bound 

Encrusted in its snowy round? 

For magic surely lurks in this, 

A cake that tells of vanished bliss; 

A cake that conjures up to view 

The early scenes, when life was new; 

When memory knew no sorrows past, 

And hope believed in joys that last! — 

Mysterious cake, whose folds contain 

Life’s calendar of bliss and pain; 

That speaks of friends for ever fled, 

And wakes the tears I love to shed. 

Oft shall I breathe her cherished name 

From whose fair hand the offering came: 

For she recalls the artless smile 

Of nymphs that deck my native isle; 

Of beauty that we love to trace, 

Allied with tender, modest grace; 

Of those who, while abroad they roam, 

Retain each charm that gladdens home, 

And whose dear friendships can impart 

A Christmas banquet for the heart!

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Casting some light on Winter Solstice.

As this is written, we're midway through the briefest day of the year, leading to the longest night. Local sunrise this morning occurred at 7:48 am. Sunset will be 4:35 pm. If we've calculated correctly, that provides 8 hours and 47 minutes between sunrise and sunset today. We have no expectations of seeing any sunshine during that period although we've read somewhere on the internet (so it must be true) that December of last year was even more cloudy than this month has been. Sigh. Clear proof that less bad isn't the same as good.

Furthermore, we just noticed that yesterday's sunrise was at 7:48 am and sunset at 7:34 pm. That appears to give yesterday a minute less daylight than today. Tomorrow's sunrise and sunset are at 7:49 and 4:35, again a minute less daylight than today. Could our Minnesota Weatherguide be in error? It's time and dates are for the Twin Cities. The (online) Time and Date Calculator informs us that, at St. Croix Falls (about 30 to 35 miles North of St. Paul), today's sunrise was at 7:47 and sunset will be at 4:30 for a total of 8 hours and 43 minutes of daylight. The differences in day length at this time of year are measured in seconds (or less) and the Weatherguide doesn't reflect that level of sensitivity, but you may be heartened to know that, by month's end, we will have gained 47 seconds of daylight locally. No guarantee how much sunlight we'll actually get to enjoy, but that's standard operating procedure these days.

THE SHORTEST DAY BY SUSAN COOPER

So the shortest day came, and the year died,

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive,

And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, reveling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing behind us—Listen!!

All the long echoes sing the same delight,

This shortest day,

As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

And hope for peace.

And so do we, here, now,

This year and every year.

Welcome Yule!

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'Tis almost time to celebrate Winter Solstice

Tomorrow we celebrate the Winter Solstice. Tonight's weather forecast calls for some overnight snow, an appropriate prelude to the 4:02 am local arrival of the Solstice, since the ground is currently bare. We've found, during the past few years, that the Druid perspective on the Winter Solstice is helpful and satisfying.

A Winter Solstice celebration

Photo by J. Harrington

"... the Winter Solstice, called in the Druid Tradition Alban Arthan [the Light of Arthur]. This is the time of death and rebirth. The sun appears to be abandoning us completely as the longest night comes to us. Linking our own inner journey to the yearly cycle, the words of the Druid ceremony ask “Cast away, O wo/man whatever impedes the appearance of light.” In darkness we throw on to the ground the scraps of material we have been carrying that signify those things which have been holding us back, and one lamp is lit from a flint and raised up on the Druid’s crook in the East. The year is reborn and a new cycle begins, which will reach its peak at the time of the Midsummer Solstice, before returning again to the place of death-and-birth."

just a light dusting would be nice

Photo by J. Harrington

A Christmas present ordered for someone in the family disappeared for almost two weeks in the USPS system. It was finally delivered this morning. We've been fussing off and on for ten or more days and accomplished absolutely nothing thereby. Aided and abetted by the Better Half, a duplicate of the missing present is on its way, not via the USPS. We'll make arrangement to return the duplicate after Christmas or whenever it arrives. In the process, we've almost convinced ourselves of the futility of getting exasperated. In fact, when we were much, much younger, we hung around with a crew whose approach to life's disruptions was "don't get mad, get even." Somehow, we've let that slip away from us. We've been relearning this holiday season that we enjoy life more if we simply deal with what's in front of us and move on. That reminds us of another old saying that's eluded us during the past four years or so. Remember that "Living well is the best revenge." The way we're feeling this afternoon, it's almost as though Santa came early this year and left some presents between our ears and in our heart.

The Snowfall Is So Silent

Miguel de Unamuno - 1864-1936

translated by Robert Bly

The snowfall is so silent,
so slow,
bit by bit, with delicacy
it settles down on the earth
and covers over the fields.
The silent snow comes down
white and weightless; 
snowfall makes no noise,
falls as forgetting falls, 
flake after flake.
It covers the fields gently
while frost attacks them
with its sudden flashes of white;
covers everything with its pure
and silent covering;
not one thing on the ground
anywhere escapes it.
And wherever it falls it stays,
content and gay,
for snow does not slip off 
as rain does,
but it stays and sinks in.
The flakes are skyflowers,
pale lilies from the clouds,
that wither on earth.
They come down blossoming
but then so quickly
they are gone;
they bloom only on the peak,
above the mountains,
and make the earth feel heavier
when they die inside.
Snow, delicate snow,
that falls with such lightness 
on the head,
on the feelings,
come and cover over the sadness
that lies always in my reason.

---

La nevada es silenciosa

La nevada es silenciosa,
cosa lenta;
poco a poco y con blandura
reposa sobre la tierra
y cobija a la llanura.
Posa la nieve callada
blanca y leve;
la nevada no hace ruido;
cae como cae el olvido,
copo a copo.
Abriga blanda a los campos
cuando el hielo los hostiga;
con sus lampos de blancura;
cubre a todo con su capa
pura, silenciosa;
no se le escapa en el suelo
cosa alguna.
Donde cae allí se queda
leda y leve,
pues la nieve no resbala
como resbala la lluvia,
sino queda y cala.
Flores del cielo los copos,
blancos lirios de las nubes,
que en el suelo se ajan,
bajan floridos,
pero quedan pronto
derretidos;
florecen sólo en la cumbre,
sobre las montañas,
pesadumbre de la tierra,
y en sus entrañas perecen.
Nieve, blanda nieve,
la que cae tan leve 
sobre la cabeza,
sobre el corazón, 
ven y abriga mi tristeza
la que descansa en razón.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Seasonal adjustment time

As this is written, there's less snow on the ground than in the picture below. Not that we're wishing for anything like the East Coast got hit with. We're almost tempted to take the back blade off the tractor and knock down some fresh gopher mounds with the drag harrow. But we suspect that's all that would be necessary to trigger snow and/or ice storms from now 'til New Year's.

lighted Christmas star on barn

Photo by J. Harrington

We did fire up the tractor and putz around a little today. Partly to be sure the machine would start and partly to get out of the house for a bit. Cold, cloudy, dreary weather is inhibiting our inclination to go for a long walk in the woods or through the fields, but we're hoping to enjoy a fire in the fire pit on Monday afternoon and evening, to celebrate Winter Solstice. Since locally the Solstice occurs at 4 am Monday, we may even consider celebrating Solstice eve with a fire tomorrow instead of or in addition to Monday.

Despite our best efforts to enjoy the spirits of the season this year, we must admit that the combination of COVID-19 restrictions, USPS Christmas package hangups (due to the criminal regime in DC), unseasonable, dreary weather and related factors, today we are not yet feeling peace on earth, good will to all. Instead, we feel pensive, penned in, cabin-fevered and frustrated. Time to think about what we can do for someone else instead of focusing on what we can't do for ourselves right now. Almost time to begin to enjoy longer days to be eventually followed by warmer days. But first, we'll celebrate Solstice, then Christmas.

When Giving Is All We Have 

Alberto Ríos - 1952-

                                              One river gives
                                              Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

The wonder of Christmas and a new year

Some begin a new year with the Winter Solstice; others wait until January 1. Jewish new year is sometime in September we think; and Chinese around mid-February next year. Lately we've been thinking a lot about how to make 2021 better than the past four years, even allowing for all the things we can't control.

One way we know of, but haven't been doing enough of, is to focus more on the things we can control. Here's an example: during 2020 we let the weather control our decisions about going fishing. Too windy? Don't bother. Too wet, wait for a dryer, less windy day. We missed a lot of fishing trips with that approach. For next year we're going to plan on going when  we can, regardless of weather. If it's too windy, we'll use the time to scout new locations. Too wet? We've already got better rain gear, now we'll get to wear it.

each dawn brings the wonder of a new day

Photo by J. Harrington

Much of this comes under the heading of giving ourself a Christmas present/promise of better self-care in 2021. Recently we began reading for the fifth or seventh or eleventy-nineth time one of our favorite writers, Gene Hill, who portrays much about why this change is important in this excerpt:

But the truth, to my way of seeing it, is that those who love the bits and pieces of being there—the sweetness of a singing lark, the way one whitetail can suddenly fill up a clearing, the fearsomeness of a sudden storm, and the almost unbelievable sense of relief when we’ve gotten out of a very sticky situation—have to have a sense of the magic of it all, a belief in the intangible and unknown, and no small degree of unquestionable wonder.

The other night we gave our copy of Rachel Carson's The Sense of Wonder to the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law to share with their two and a half month old daughter, our granddaughter. We've probably never given our parents enough credit, or thanks, for helping us develop and keep our own sense of unquestionable wonder, nor have we accepted enough responsibility for how much we've allowed it to become run down and worn out over the years. Christmas is a time for children and we've let ourself become too adult too much of the time, so one of our presents to ourself this Christmas is to start to fix that by getting out more to collect more of those important bits and pieces of being there for no better reason than it's a wonder-full place to be, this world of ours.

Loving the World

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

by  Mary Oliver

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Towards Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is one week from tonight. This year we think we're on Santa's lists for both naughty and nice. It's not clear how that will play out in our stocking and under our tree, but we're looking forward to finding out. Mother Nature isn't offering much in the way of sunshine or clear skies between now and Christmas. Maybe she's coordinating with Santa and we're all being punished because we're not taking enough care of our only home, the earth.

This afternoon we get to collect our Community Supported Agriculture share from Foxtail Farm. Next week we'll be picking up Christmas dinner, with all the fixin's, from the Farm Table Foundation in Amery, WI. This helps accomplish two very worthwhile goals. It means that neither the Better Half nor the Daughter Person has to spend much time preparing Christmas dinner, so more time can be spent enjoying the granddaughter/daughter for whom this will be "Baby's First Christmas." It also means that we're helping to support local farms, farmers, and others in a nearby local food system. As we were discussing Christmas dinner last night, the Daughter Person pointed out that we hadn't had a Christmas (Canada) goose since she was about 3½. (That means it's been way too long since we've been goose hunting.)

presents under and on the tree

Photo by J. Harrington

We think we'll finish Christmas shopping today or tomorrow. This year, more than most, we've been aware of how much more we have than many others sharing this world these days. That's prompted us to be more generous than in the past with our year end donations. This is the year we encountered the saying "If you have more than you need build a bigger table – not a higher fence." It makes sense and also helps US feel better about enjoying our blessings.

Over the past day or so we've noticed we're way behind on our Christmas reading. During the next week we plan on enjoying the following:

• An Aboriginal Carol ~ David Bouchard
• Christmas Here in Northern Lands ~ Haavik & Kloss
• An Adolescent's Christmas-1944 ~ Carol Bly

We hope each and every one of you can enjoy the blessings of this season and may next year be the best one yet for all of US and the rest of the earthlings with whom we share the planet.

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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Please be kind to each other while you can.

On the sweetness of Christmas

This morning we headed South to Marine on St. Croix to lay our hands on some now "world famous" St. Croix Chocolate Co. chocolates. Today's the last day to get any before the holiday season is gone. There was a line already beginning when the Better Half climbed out of the Jeep to become second in line. We're delighted for Robyn and Deidre's "sold out" success and will craft a quick note to ourselves about what can happen when a local artisan get's discovered. We think it feels similar to when a neighborhood gets gentrified.

On the way to Marine, we drove past a harvested corn field being gleaned by two large flocks of wild turkeys with close to a dozen birds in each flock. Not only was that a treat for this old turkey hunter to see, it reminded us of the time, several years ago, when a local flock of turkeys visited the front yard in early December.

a flock of "Christmas" turkeys

Photo by J. Harrington

Now that we're back home, the Better Half is again baking her infamously wonderful orange cookies. It appears we may be getting surreptitious visits from elves who are absconding bit by bit (bite by bite?) with the products of prior sessions of baking Christmas cookies. We can't think of how else they might be disappearing as quickly as they have. 😇 At least with this latest batch we should be able to save enough to leave for Santa to go with  his glass of milk on Christmas eve.

As we pulled into the drive we noticed a large package on the stoop. Upon opening it, we discovered smaller boxes of frozen lobster pies sent from Maine by our sister in Massachusetts. We're truly looking forward to tasting a "flavor from home" this Winter and are very grateful to have a sister who is considerate and knowing enough to brighten our holidays considerably.

Johnnie's Christmas

Libbie C. Baer - 1849-1929

Papa and mama, and baby and Dot,
Willie and me—the whole of the lot
Of us all went over in Bimberlie’s sleigh,
To grandmama’s house on Christmas day.

Covered with robes on the soft cushioned seat,
With heads well wrapped up and hot bricks to our feet,
And two prancing horses, tho’ ten miles away,
The ride was quite short, on that bright Christmas day.

When all were tucked in and the driver said “Go!”
The horses just flew o’er the white, shining snow;
The town it slipped by us and meadow and tree,
And farm house till grandmama’s house we did see.

Grandmama was watching for us, there’s no doubt;
She soon come to meet us, and helped us all out;
And kissin’ and huggin’ said how we boys growed,
And big as our papa we’d soon be, she knowed.

And Dot she called handsome and said: “Ah! I guess
Grandmama’s woman has got a new dress.”
And said that the baby was pretty and smart;
“Dod b’ess it and love its own sweet ’ittle heart.”

And O, the red apples, and pop-corn on strings;
And balls of it, too, and nuts, candy and things;
And O, such a dinner and such pumpkin pie;
I eat and I eat till I thought I would die.

And grandmama urgin’, “Now, Johnnie, my man,
I wants you to eat; just eat all you can.”
When I eat all I could then I eat a lots more,
And I didn’t feel good as I had felt before.

At last it came time for us all to go back,
And into the sleigh again, all of us pack;
With grandmama kissin’ and sayin’ good byes,
With smiles on her lips, but the tears in her eyes.

We seemed much more crowded, and Bimberlie’s sleigh
Kept jerkin’ and hurtin’ me most all the way;
The robes were so stuffy I couldn’t get breath,
And Dot and the baby most squeezed me to death.

All night I kept tumblin’ and tossin’, ma said,
And frowed all the cover half off of the bed;
I dreamed of roast turkey and pop-corn and pie,
And fruit cake and candy, piled up to the sky! 

And I dreamed I was sick and just lookin’ at it,
A wantin’ and yet I could not eat a bit;
And grandmama urgin’, “Now, Johnnie, my man,
I want you to eat, just eat all you can.”

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Please be kind to each other while you can.