'Tis time for a new world and a new year

Have you noticed today a thinning of the curtain between this world and tother? Has it thinned enough to peer through? Did you grasp a curtain corner and pull it back a bit to peek and see what’s beyond? Do you know that before there was All Hallow’s Eve [Halloween], there was Samhain.

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.

This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

visitors crossing the  curtain?

Photo by J. Harrington

It doesn’t take much imagination to picture leaves blown from the trees this afternoon, sailing through the air, as visitors passing through the curtain that separates those living in this world from those in tother. If, as science tells us, we are indeed made of stardust, then belief in reincarnation of one sort or another could also be scientific, couldn’t it be? Is the entire universe in which we live an oversized recycling bin and the big bang a remanufacturing center? How you answer such questions probably depends on your basic world view, of which  there are many. One of my favorites is portrayed by Joni Mitchell and shared below. Another is described by Joy Harjo and, because tomorrow begins Native American Heritage Month, is shared here as A Map to the Next World.

Woodstock

by Joni Mitchell

I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm *
I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an' get my soul free 

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it's the time of man
I don't know who I am
But you know life is for learning

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation

We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
back to the garden

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It’s the time of year for...

Cleaning the gutters today was complicated because the gunk was frozen in some places. The bird bath was also frozen although, until late yesterday, the overnight temperatures weren’t forecast to drop below freezing. The bird bath heater is now plugged in. Gutters and roof are cleared of gunk, pine needles, acorns, and leaves. More leaves and needles will fall this year, but next spring’s snow melt should flow reasonably well. At least that’s the hope.

ice covered bird bath

Photo by J. Harrington

Before his arrival, I climbed a ladder repeatedly to clean the gutter-gunk. The Son-In-Law then did the part that involved walking around on the roofs with an electric leaf blower. As an element of my mostly unsuccessful attempts to age gracefully, I had acceded to the wishes of the Better Half and the Daughter Person to "stay off the roof and act my age," although their concepts of age-appropriate behavior don’t match mine. In any event, everyone  is safely back on the ground. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I’ll bag and mulch the leaves covering the front and back yards and then debate whether to celebrate Halloween with a fire in the fire pit, again, weather permitting.

fitting for All Hallow’s Eve?

Photo by J. Harrington

In case you missed the announcement, Folk Alley has a Scream Stream playlist for your listening pleasure this weekend. I offer the link as further evidence of my contention that one is only as old as one acts. See what I mean about a lack of success at aging gracefully?

Written in a Carefree Mood

- Lu Yu

Old man pushing seventy,
in truth he acts like a little boy,
whooping with delight when he spies some mountain fruits,
laughing with joy, tagging after village mummers;
with the others having fun stacking tiles to make a pagoda,
standing alone staring at his image in a jardiniere pool.
Tucked under his arm, a battered book to read,
just like the time he first set off for school.

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Approaching the year’s darker half

The Better Half erupted into a frenzy of Jack-O-Lantern carving this morning. I, displaying my usual level of artistic ability, took the pumpkin chunks and guts up the hill behind the house and dumped them for the deer to feed on. The carved pumpkins, and the uncarved one that’s already starting to rot, will join them after the weekend. We’ve learned over the years that, left along the drive, the deer munch their way through pumpkins while the rest of us are sleeping.

The Better Half’s pumpkin artistry from a couple of years back

Photo by J. Harrington

If you measure winter by shorter days and colder nights, next week brings the beginning of winter to the North Country even though we’re weeks from the solstice. Beginning with Halloween, each night brings below freezing temperatures; by week’s end, daylight will last less than ten hours, and a week from Halloween standard time returns. Meanwhile, at the moment we’re really enjoying what’s left of autumn’s colors in the oak trees and looking forward to seeing if anyone comes to the door Sunday night.

pumpkins “nibbled” by deer

Photo by J. Harrington

So far this autumn we’ve not yet seen and woolly bear caterpillars, and sightings of deer and wild turkeys have occurred elsewhere than in the fields behind the house. Unfortunately, the pocket gophers have been very active, as have the moles and shrews under the bird feeder. Soon the ground will be frozen and thoughts of reducing those populations will once again be deferred until spring.

Theme in Yellow

Carl Sandburg - 1878-1967

I spot the hills 
With yellow balls in autumn. 
I light the prairie cornfields 
Orange and tawny gold clusters 
And I am called pumpkins. 
On the last of October 
When dusk is fallen 
Children join hands 
And circle round me 
Singing ghost songs 
And love to the harvest moon; 
I am a jack-o'-lantern 
With terrible teeth 
And the children know 
I am fooling.

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Shooting my blog mouth off?

Spend too much (any?) time on social media or scanning the home pages of newspapers these days and you may well end up looking like poor Mr. Jack below:

too much time spent on social media

Photo by J. Harrington

And yet, doom scrolling has become somewhat akin to watching an impending train wreck or rubbernecking past a serious automobile accident. Fortunately, there’s also bits and pieces of, if not absolutely good news, at least better news, but we have to look hard for it. Good news doesn’t draw clicks?

Part of the issues seems to be the expectations we have to begin with and whether they’re derived from a shifting baseline. We suspect, and hope, that during the past five or six years you heard the phrase “don’t normalize it” more than once. Despite my perfectionist tendencies and the problems they cause, I’m sticking with my belief that our society / culture has lowered our expectations much more than we should have. Here’s one example:

No doubt you’ve heard about the tragic shooting and death on the set of the “Rust” movie. There’s been lots of finger pointing around an assistant director informing those on the set about a “cold gun.” According to the gun safety rules I learned when I first started hunting many years ago, that call should have been irrelevant. Recently I was given a handgun as a birthday / father’s day present. The Safety and Instruction manual that came with it documents that the safe gun handling rules I learned long ago still prevail. To quote:

• Always keep your firearm pointed in a safe direction.
• Always treat every firearm as if it is loaded and will fire.
• Never place your finger inside the trigger guard or on the trigger unless you intend to fire.
• Always be sure of your target and what is beyond it.
• Safe gun handling is your personal responsibility at all times.
• You are responsible for the firearm at all times.
• Never allow a firearm to be used by individuals who do not understand its safe operation or have not read these firearm safety rules.

Each of the rules above, plus others not cited, is printed in the manual in ALL CAPS RED LETTERS. I haven’t seen reference to any of these rules in any of the articles about the tragedy. From what I have read, compliance with these basic safety precautions was conspicuous by its absence.

At the risk of overreaching a point, a similar criticism can be made these days about our politics, our economics, compliance with most of our basic legal and civic rules and the erosion of our public health and safety. We may not need more laws as much as we need to follow and enforce the ones we have. At the moment, we are suffering too much from the ignorance and tyranny of a minority. Some of the thinking in today’s posting results from an article I read this morning, one with which I don’t entirely agree by believe is worth thinking about. If you’re interested, follow the link to Review: ‘Gunfight, My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America’ 

Some Rules

by Wendy Cope

Stop, if the car is going “clunk”
Or if the sun has made you blind.
Don’t answer e-mails when you’re drunk.

You fire off something fierce. You’re sunk.
It’s irretrievable. It’s signed.
You feel your spirits going “clunk.”

Don’t hide your face with too much gunk,
Especially if it’s old and lined.
Don’t answer e-mails when you’re drunk.

Don’t live with thirty years of junk—
Those precious things you’ll never find.
Stop, if the car is going “clunk.”

Don’t fall for an amusing hunk, 
However rich, unless he’s kind.
Don’t answer e-mails when you’re drunk.

In this respect, I’m like a monk:
I need some rules to bear in mind. 
Stop, if the car is going “clunk.”
Don’t answer e-mails when you’re drunk.

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Why I'm optimistic about COP26

I’ve spent much  of the  day in a brooding, pensive mood, wondering if there’s any significance to be read into the fact that the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow begins in a few days on Halloween and Samhain. That means it will be occurring, almost entirely, during the darker half of the Gaelic / Celtic year, winter. I can interpret that in an optimistic way to look for outcomes that will support major, necessary reductions in the consumption of fossil fuels and therefore relatively darker, more sustainable, times ahead. Or, we could look at it as foreboding a dark and dismal outcome presaging continued extinctions including, possibly, that of “Homo sapiens,” making the scientific naming of our species a misnomer if ever there was one. Clearly I’m more fun to be around when the weather is mild and sunny and the future of the human race isn’t at such obvious risk.

jack-o-lanterns carved with faces to spook spirits away

Photo by J. Harrington

Fortunately, some of my ancestors were Irish and, according to Irish Traditions,

Samhain was the time of year many great legends took place. It was this season Irish storytellers would tell about the Second Battle of Mag Tuired between the Tuatha de Danaan and the evil Fomorians. They’d retell the adventures of Nuada, or tell of Finn Mac Cumhail and how he defeated Ailleen. According to legend, it is because of Finn Mac Cumhail that Ailleen no longer burns down the hill of Tara each Samhain.

These bits of folklore and mythology provide me with a reason to be optimistic if I simply interpret cessation of burning down the hill of Tara to represent a successful agreement to stop destroying our only home planet by burning it down. (If I recall my bible, after Noah there was a promise to never again destroy the world by flood. That makes warming to the point of burning an obvious alternative.)

Now, if you’re not of “Irish extraction,” you may well think I’ve lost what passes for my mind and I won’t argue with you. But, I will ask if you’re familiar with Samhain representing the beginning of a new year. What better time to begin new, or return to old, practices that can bring good fortune in the times ahead.

Samhain prayer for children:

Samhain is here, cold is the earth,

as we celebrate the cycle of death and rebirth.

Tonight we speak to those through the veil,

the lines between worlds are thin and frail.

Ghosts and spirits in the night,

magical beings rising in flight,

owls hooting up in a moonlit tree,

I don't fear you and you don't fear me.

As the sun goes down, far to the west,

my ancestors watch over me as I rest.

They keep me safe and without fear,

on the night of Samhain, the Witches' New Year.

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A Modest Proposal for transforming Facebook

With apologies to Jonathan Swift and the genre of satire, today we offer a proposal that could exceed Zuck’s efforts to rule the metaverse. Transform Facebook, or create a competitor, that is similar to the original SimCity game but that allows multi-players on the internet to collaborate on creating a shared and shareable vision of the kind of world in which they, and, conceivably, we, might want to live.

What's envisioned would require a significant upgrade over SimCity BuildIt by incorporating some AI version of the various algorithms and models used to test various carbon sequestration techniques, to assess the intended and unintended consequences of various urban and rural mixes, such as eliminating dairy and meat sectors from agriculture, composting food waste and then what happens to the soils and is there enough or too much compost to provide year-round food for the 10 billion expected.

But, and it’s a huge but (no pun intended), such an approach offers options to test Republican versus Democratic social and economic approaches; ways and means to test bridging or closing the urban rural splits; vegan, vegetarian and plant-based diets; and a variety of policy-based options that are currently being debated with few, if any, actual assessments of how well any policy may or may not work in a complex, emergent, dynamic world. (Build  Back Better anyone?)

blue sky flight test

Photo by J. Harrington

At the moment, we have a number of places trying doughnut economics; the United Nations has proposed its 17 Sustainable Development Goals; Paul Hawken et. al. have brought us Drawdown and Regeneration; all of which, and other approaches, require societies and cultures and nations to kind of buy a pig in a poke. If folks had access to the kind of SimWorld that’s policy-driven and systems-based, we could avoid a lot of misinformation, disinformation and consequent debate by offering folks an opportunity to plug a proposed policy into the simulation and see what happens. When multitudes are doing it at the same time, we will, I believe, at a minimum, clearly eliminate economists’ hiding behind the skirts of “rational person.” Between that and eliminating the nonsense now served on Facebook, we’ll have made major progress at creating a newer and better world. Zuck could become the snake that swallowed its own tail.

One Vote

Aimee Nezhukumatathil

            ^{After reading a letter from his mother, Harry T. Burn cast the deciding vote to ratify the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution}

My parents are from countries
where mangoes grow wild and bold
and eagles cry the sky in arcs and dips.
America loved this bird too and made

it clutch olives and arrows. Some think
if an eaglet falls, the mother will swoop
down to catch it. It won’t. The eagle must fly
on its own accord by first testing the air-slide

over each pinfeather. Even in a letter of wind,
a mother holds so much power. After the pipping
of the egg, after the branching—an eagle is on
its own. Must make the choice on its own

no matter what its been taught. Some forget
that pound for pound, eagle feathers are stronger
than an airplane wing. And even one letter, one
vote can make the difference for every bright thing.

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Since it’s Samhain / Halloween week...

Have you noticed that lots of organizations and individuals seem to think that keeping us in a constant state of crisis avoidance is to their benefit. I’m getting particularly annoyed by the invitations to ensure or secure my legacy by making provision in my will to continue donations after my demise. I think I understand why that’s important to some folks but my legacy is mostly walking around on two legs and I plan to let my living legacy decide how to use whatever I leave behind. In fact, on my more cranky days, I’m reminded of the old four-wheeler admonition to “leave no trace.”

Most of the preceding is my way of grumping about the very limited “green” options available in Minnesota for “environmentally friendly burials.” An organization we’ve supported for some years is offering an upcoming class in Death, Dying and Green Burials

In this workshop we will collaboratively examine the growing trend of reclaiming the naturalness of our death processes including embracing the dying journey, home vigils, family directed rituals and funerals, and options for green/environmentally friendly burials.

Having done some preliminary research on the limited options available, I’m waffling on whether there’s actual value in attending the workshop. But the resource listing is only part of the content.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has a web page entitled “Grave Matters” that has some useful information and links. According to the Green Burial Council, there are only two GBC-certified cemeteries in Minnesota and only one funeral home. I think I’ve just convinced myself to sign up for the workshop to confirm the listing of resources is really as limited as it appears to be.

a reminder of remains to be disposed of

Photo by J. Harrington

All of the preceding has been triggered by the demise a little more than a week ago of the Better Half’s dog, Franco, plus someone recently posting on my Nextdoor timeline about the cost of cremation, and my recent efforts to donate three float tubes the Better Half and I haven’t used for years. There were no bids for them and I have my doubts about how quickly they might move in an estate sale. Without getting too anxious about it, I’d like to reduce the size of the headaches left behind for my descendants to tidy up. As with too many things in life, it appears that we’ve regulated and priced the hell out of departing it with few environmentally benign options affordable to most folks.

Haunted Houses

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - 1807-1882

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapoursdense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

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The season of soups and stews has returned

We have, without a doubt, once again entered the season of soups and stews. As a matter of fact, we started a little early in our house a week  or so ago when the Better Half, at my request, made a Three Sisters soup, following a recipe in the newsletter of the Mississippi Market (page 14, Fall 2021 issue), one of the food coops in which we’re members. After one meal we decided we liked the concept but the flavor wasn’t really to our taste. We’ll be checking other variations and taste testing until we get to the correct combination. One option I’ve read and liked the looks of won’t be available during the winter, because, instead of hominy, it uses fresh corn removed from the cob.

We have at least two cookbooks written or co-written by Native Americans:

• Original Local by Heid E. Erdrich, and


• The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen by Sean Sherman with Beth Dooley

Neither of those cookbooks, nor the current menu at Owamni, includes a Three Sisters soup offering. [Note to self: research origins of Three Sisters soup!]

The cooler weather will also encourage me to get back to a more regular bread baking schedule, in part to accompany the soups and stews and also because the pleasure of the warmth from the oven and the aroma of fresh-baked bread is enhanced when one returns from walking a dog in brisk temperatures.

Three Sisters often include pumpkins (not this kind)

Photo by J. Harrington

Halloween/Samhain are a week from today. Are you prepared? November 1 begins American Indian Heritage Month, which will prompt a number of postings with appropriate themes, sort of like today’s.

Three Sisters – June 2021

06/20/2021

from Spirit Walker, 1993, by Nancy Wood
Three Sisters

 

We are the Three Sisters of Fire and Earth and Water.

Without us, nothing lives or grows.

 

We are the Three Daughters of Sun and Moon and Stars.

Without us, no path exists through the universe.

 

We are the Three Wives of Birds and Trees and Animals.

Without us, there would be no wings or roots or bones.

 

We are the Three Mothers of Clouds and Wind and Rain.

Without us, our children would go hungry.

 

We are the Three Friends of Beauty.

Without us, flowers would look like stones.

 

We are the Three Grandmothers of Wisdom.

Without us, men would only speak of war.

 

We are the Three Aunts of Endurance.

Without us, what would survive?

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There’s beauty and then, there’s beauty

One year ago today, our front yard was snow covered, and not just a dusting. The past couple of nights we’ve been bringing in the hanging baskets and covering the potted plants by the front steps. Here in the North Country, our weather seems to be getting more volatile, not that it was ever that dependable. The lesson to be taken: pay attention to what’s going on at the moment because it may change at any time. (Maybe that’s why and how our sports’ fans manage to keep coming back for more: anticipation of a change for the better?)

October 23, 2020 snow cover

Photo by J. Harrington

After looking at some past years’ photos, I’m estimating that this year’s leaf color development has been running about ten days to two weeks behind recent years, but don’t plan on running any sort of numerical analysis on our unscientific, limited, statistically insignificant data set. Instead, during the past few days we’ve been joyfully experiencing the quality and beauty of late October afternoon sunlight on the golden and chrome yellow leaves of the birch and aspen trees.

is this pond covered with ice?

Photo by J. Harrington

Returning to a “pay attention” theme, a quick glance at the woodline next to harvested farm fields rarely, if ever, captures the detail of each leaf on a branch trembling in the mildest of breezes, making a tree’s crown look like it’s covered in gossamer-thin gold-leaf foil. We’ve not been able to convince ourselves that the pond up the road was ice-covered by this time last year, but neither have we convinced ourselves that it wasn’t. We’ll leave it up to you to make that call. We’re going to settle for remembering that  we much prefer autumn’s gold to winter’s silver, even as described by Mr. Frost.

Birches

By Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig’s having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

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The value of Natural Capital

Today’s posting will be brief (you’re welcome) but it’s important, or at least it raises important questions for which I’ve not the slightest idea of any wise answers.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is asking for our input on the Funding Future for Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation. Personally, I find their summary(?) justification woefully inadequate:

Why change is needed

Minnesota’s current natural resources funding system can’t sustainably support continued conservation, natural resource management, and equitable access to quality outdoor recreation.  

For example, user fees cannot reasonably keep pace with inflation while also ensuring the DNR can appropriately steward resources and provide open and affordable access to the outdoors for all people. 
 
And, while Minnesotans have demonstrated support for the environment and outdoors through the constitutionally-dedicated Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund and Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment, these funds are targeted to specific uses and thus not available to support some key aspects of natural resource management.

I’ve been a hunter and angler for all of my adult life and much of my childhood. I know that many of our current outdoor recreational opportunities are primarily user financed through licenses and fees. Hunters and anglers pay an excise tax on guns and fishing equipment. Here’s a link to a summary of the 2020-2021 MNDNR budget. Both the sources and uses of funds appear to be functionally siloed, an inhibition on holistic management.

how to value trees and wetlands

Photo by J. Harrington

This is where I ask your consideration of a potential funding source that’s been proposed in the agricultural sector, ecosystem services. I’m generally inclined to oppose paying farmers for the provision of ecosystem services, but that approach seems to make sense for an agency like MNDNR ("ecosystem services, include all the jobs performed by the components of an ecosystem, coming from biotic components like plants and insects, to abiotic components, such as the soil and wind”). That may well mean I need to reconsider the basis on which I have been against paying agriculture for such services. Perhaps I, and you?, aren’t using the correct mental model as we consider these system services.

I’ve been a card-carrying environmentalist since before the first Earth Day. The principle of “the polluter pays” is etched into my thought patterns. Yet, if we take an honest look at the state of the environment today, the principle and its application rank somewhere between insufficient and an unmitigated failure. Here’s one classic example from today’s edition of The Guardian: ‘This stuff won’t go away’: PFAS chemicals contaminate Wisconsin’s waterways and soil. As a recovering planner, I believe I’m qualified to point  out  the  planning dictum “More of the same never solved a problem.”

27. What We Have Instead

By Gus Speth

In this our world

if there is meaning                

we create it.

If there is community

we build it.

If there is justice

we forge it.

If there is providence

we provide it.

If there is love

we extend it.

Nothing is given 

save life itself.

We have only

this speck of earth 

and each other.

It is enough.

So let us pray

To fields and friends

And to the spacious sky.

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Peeking at autumn’s peak

Our growing season is over. Today we pick up our final community supported agriculture [CSA] share. Samhain is ten days from now. Even the oak leaves are reaching peak color. Most of the local farm fields have been harvested. We are deep into autumn and cooler temperatures are finally beginning to show it.

hard to believe oak leaves are this color

Photo by J. Harrington

This year we’ve planted two potted asters that lived on the front steps for awhile in a different location, behind the house rather than near the road in front. Some time in early November, pending the possibility of another Halloween blizzard thwarting autumnal planting, will probably see seed scattering for the wildflowers we hope to see next spring and summer.

After the yard dries from yesterday’s rains we’ll take another pass at mulching and/or collecting leaves and call it a season for the mower deck. All too soon we’ll mount the back blade on the tractor to clean up any slush falls. Then it’ll be time to settle in for long winter’s naps, plus Christmas, winter solstice, New Year’s and then winter’s deep cold and snowdrifts. Our hopes are up and  our fingers crossed that the rest of autumn and all of winter will be more sunny than cloudy. We do not like the way our climate breakdown / global warming has increased the apparent number of cloudy days although we understand that warmer air holds more moisture than does cold.

We’re finding that paying attention to the rhythm of the seasons is slowly helping us focus more on what pleasures the day offers in the present moment, or in the moment's anticipation of future pleasures, than on life's deficiencies. It’s a challenging adjustment for those of us from upwardly mobile middle class backgrounds, trained to always seek more and better than whatever we have. It’s taken the better part of a lifetime to learn that seeking is all too often a distraction from enjoying.

Gathering Leaves

Robert Frost - 1874-1963

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use,
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?

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What did they know, and when?

One of my personal heroes is Gus Speth. He’s the author of a recently published book, They Knew: The US Federal Government’s Fifty-Year Role in Causing the Climate Crisis, and was recently interviewed in Orion magazine about the book and its background. We suggest you read the whole interview, followed by the whole book. As a teaser, here’s Speth’s optimistic response at the interview’s conclusion:

MMB: Looking at all this increasing urgency, where do you advise Orion readers to find hope? 

GS: I see hope coming from three possibilities. One is from a massive outpouring of civic action and activism, an unprecedented popular mobilization, strong and unrelenting. Definitely not the comfortable advocacy of the past. Bring it on! Second, we have witnessed continuing failure from the executive and legislative branches of our government, and the situation now demands judicial intervention. In particular, it demands a constitutional remedy that persists throughout coming administrations. That is what Our Children’s Trust is seeking in its litigation. And third, if we have learned anything, it is that our current political economy is not up to the climate challenge. Indeed, it is the source of the problem. What we have here is a fifty-year system failure. If we want fifty years of sustained solution, we are going to have to change the system, including its priorities. As the popular banner at climate marches says, “System change, not climate change!” There is hope, I find, in the number of people coming to see this imperative after all these years.

 

Our Children’s Trust has a web site that summarizes the background and current status of Juliana V. United States.

Orion magazine provides access to some of Speth’s other writing, which they’ve previously published:

• America the Possible: A Manifesto, Part I


• America the Possible: A Manifesto, Part II, and


• Change Everything Now

Mr. Speth is also a poet who creates poems such  as

Thinking Like a Mountain 

By Gus Speth

Aldo Leopold knew nature

like few before or after.

He urged those who listened

“to think like a mountain.” 

Well, hell, I say, I am a mountain!

I am Storm King, here beside the Hudson,

a sentinel with which to reckon.

 

From my shining east flank I 

often heard Pete Seeger singing,

notes forming tunes and rising

from the bow of the sloop Clearwater

as it tacked the Highland’s wind gate.

From far on my top I’ve seen

many times, way past when, 

Clearwater and Pete were strongest

sailing upstream against the wind.

 

Pete sang to all the parts of me, 

not just my verdant slopes rising steep

from the fast-flowing river, but the parts that 

move around, rub brown fur against 

the parts that sink deep in me and share

my waters and my nourishment. 

I give it freely, as do critters too small to see.

They too are part of me.

My leaves shimmer in chartreuse,

for spring I am bringing back.

I want to hear the ovenbird again,

to help the goldfinch find its gold,

to see soon the evening grosbeak

dancing among my limbs and leaves.

 

If you want to think like a mountain,

you must come to see me whole.

Energy flows coursing through me;

life each day from entropy stole.         

 

Can you come to see me sacred,

all the beauty consecrated? 

I am alive and fertile and fecund,

providing sustenance and refuge.

I know then what I am, 

what I do in this world,

how to weather many threats,

how yet to sing back to the river, 

how I am old, yes also that.

But even now I, Storm King,

am not clear on all that we

mountains are supposed to think.

I have told what Aldo meant.

Perhaps that is enough. 

But there may be other thoughts,

thoughts waiting to be remembered.

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On Native Wisdom

Last night  the Better Half and I enjoyed watching (via Zoom) the US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, do a reading from her latest memoir, Poet Warrior. She also shared a song from I Pray for My Enemies. The event more than lived up to its title, Bringing Joy: An Evening with United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. It was presented by Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College and several other Northland American Indian organizations as well as the Library of Congress Center for the Book, the Friends of the St. Paul Library, and others.

All of us in the Northland shared the beauty of an almost full moon, which will be full tomorrow night. Those in Duluth enjoyed its reflection on "the lake." All in all it was one of the most pleasant and relaxing hours I’ve spent in a long, long time. Harjo writes and talks a lot about the relations of individuals with themselves, family, community, and nations. Relations that, in these times, in way too much of the country, have become excessively frayed and frazzled. She  has wisdom to share about that also.

If you search past postings in this blog, you’ll find many of Harjo’s poems. We’ve been fans for some years. Some of us hope that there may soon be an evening with Minnesota’s own Native American poet laureate, Gwen Nell Westerman, shared over the internet. Bringing poetry to the people via internet may be more effective than bringing the  people to poetry in times of pandemics.

Harjo’s reading last night began with the following poem. Please read carefully, and retain.

For Calling The Spirit Back 
From Wandering The Earth 
In Its Human Feet

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 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 yourself back. You will find yourself 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 will 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.

© Joy Harjo. Conflict Resolution From Holy Beings. W. W. Norton & Company, 2015.

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Mysterious blooms in October #phenology

Mid-October+, high temperatures in the low 70’s, and fresh blossoms where we’ve seen none all growing season! Welcome to Minnesota’s autumn in the midst of our global warming climate breakdown!

since when do first blooms occur in October?

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning I stepped out the back door of the garage to fuel the tractor and saw a daisy-like flower. As I moved closer to inspect, the pink flower behind the one I first noticed became more evident. There have been no blossoms like these during spring, summer or early autumn. I have no idea what’s going on, do you? Reports on the effects of climate change in Minnesota claim our winters are warming the most, but spring is the primary season for blooming, isn’t it? A quick check of Minnesota Wildflowers' list of plants blooming in the third week of October showed nothing that looked to me like our two late bloomers.

All-in-all, my starting chores for our usual seasonal transition has been rocked on its heels by this morning’s discovery. Maybe we have moved into an alternate universe, since the Vikings won in OT yesterday. I’ll keep my eyes on the skies to be sure the birds are headed south and not north, but it must be autumn because the woods are showing more and more florescent orange vests and hats and we do hear the occasional gunshot. Just to be on the safe side, this morning we gassed up the snowblower and made sure it started. Now we just need the Better Half to watch the auger, since our arms aren’t long enough to hold the control and look at the front of the machine.

[UPDATE: The Better Half informs us that last May she planted cosmos seeds last May. According to this description, they should have bloomed a couple of months ago, in August. Our world continues to grow strange.]

Characteristics of Life

Camille T. Dungy - 1972-

^{A fifth of animals without backbones could be at risk of extinction, say scientists.
—BBC Nature News}

Ask me if I speak for the snail and I will tell you
I speak for the snail.
                          speak of underneathedness
and the welcome of mosses,
                                        of life that springs up,
little lives that pull back and wait for a moment.

I speak for the damselfly, water skeet, mollusk,
the caterpillar, the beetle, the spider, the ant.
                                                        I speak
from the time before spinelessness was frowned upon.

Ask me if I speak for the moon jelly. I will tell you
                        one thing today and another tomorrow
        and I will be as consistent as anything alive
on this earth.

                        I move as the currents move, with the breezes.
What part of your nature drives you? You, in your cubicle
ought to understand me. I filter and filter and filter all day.

Ask me if I speak for the nautilus and I will be silent
as the nautilus shell on a shelf. I can be beautiful
and useless if that's all you know to ask of me.

Ask me what I know of longing and I will speak of distances
        between meadows of night-blooming flowers.
                                                        I will speak
                        the impossible hope of the firefly.

                                                You with the candle
burning and only one chair at your table must understand
        such wordless desire.

                                To say it is mindless is missing the point.

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Cherry picking autumn weather

One of my favorite trees for autumn color is now the black cherry (Prunus serotina). This year the color on the tree in the picture below isn't as strong, perhaps because of the drought this past summer, but the flaming branches are still attention arresting.

Black Cherry (Prunus serotina)

Photo by J. Harrington

Much of yesterday was spent clearing cartloads of oak leaves and pine needles from the drive. We’ll see if a similar effort is needed before the snow falls. Meanwhile, we intend to enjoy our warm autumn for as long as it lasts. Lasting snow that arrives just in time to give us a white Christmas is fine with me. (The Daughter Person gets nervous if there’s no snow on the ground for her birthday early in December.)

We’ve not had a frost yet in our area. That may arrive late this week. Soon it will be time to plug in the heated birdbath. If we get a warm spell after the first killing freeze, which may or may not happen this week, we’ll enjoy an Indian Summer. This winter may bring a (weak?) La Niña event, which may, or may not, mean anything, since it will be competing with our trend to milder winters in Minnesota. Sigh! Perhaps we’ll just have to learn to live life one day at a time.

Leaves

Lloyd Schwartz - 1941-

                        1 

Every October it becomes important, no, necessary
to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
by leaves turning; it's not just the symbolism,
to confront in the death of the year your death,
one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony 
isn't lost on you that nature is most seductive
when it's about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its 
incipient exit, an ending that at least so far 
the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
because of course nature is always renewing itself—
        the trees don't die, they just pretend,
        go out in style, and return in style: a new style.





                        2 

Is it deliberate how far they make you go
especially if you live in the city to get far 
enough away from home to see not just trees 
but only trees? The boring highways, roadsigns, high 
speeds, 10-axle trucks passing you as if they were 
in an even greater hurry than you to look at leaves:
so you drive in terror for literal hours and it looks 
like rain, or snow, but it's probably just clouds
(too cloudy to see any color?) and you wonder, 
given the poverty of your memory, which road had the 
most color last year, but it doesn't matter since 
you're probably too late anyway, or too early—
        whichever road you take will be the wrong one
        and you've probably come all this way for nothing.






                        3 

You'll be driving along depressed when suddenly
a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
won't last. But for a moment the whole world
comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives—
red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion,
gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations
of burning. You're on fire. Your eyes are on fire.
It won't last, you don't want it to last. You 
can't stand any more. But you don't want it to stop. 
It's what you've come for. It's what you'll
come back for. It won't stay with you, but you'll 
        remember that it felt like nothing else you've felt
        or something you've felt that also didn't last.

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Time for Democrats to play hardball with DINOs!

If you’re familiar with Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and you should be, you may think I’ve lost track of the seasons, since we haven’t yet reached Samhain / Halloween. The reality is that both have spirits as leading characters. Now, picture either Joe Manchin or Krysten Sinema, or both, as Scrooge. I have little faith that either of their hearts could be softened by Tiny Tim’s fate. Much closer to their hearts would be the assets they’re accumulating. SO, the question becomes, what might make them fear for the future of those assets?

spirits of yesterday, today, tomorrow?

Photo by J. Harrington

Has anyone figured out that a hard transition away from fossil fuels, especially coal, would leave many miners in a deep hole if alternative jobs and training aren’t available, because a certain senator from West Virginia overplayed his hand? And wouldn’t that increase the amount of fossil fuel stranded assets? (And, by the way, wouldn’t a hard transition also hurt many of Mitch McConnell’s miners?)

Arizona’s economy includes a major nonprofit sector that gets a lot of earned income from the government sector. It might be a shame if some large federal government funded contracts became cancellable or if a significant effort were launched to make much of the pharmaceutical sector nationalized.

There is no question that  climate change needs to be addressed in a big way by US. There is also little question that collaborating with the enemy has been an unproductive strategy thus far. Both Arizona and West Virginia need to be vigorously reminded of President Kennedy’s profound advice from his inaugural address: "ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

One Day

Joseph Millar

Everything shimmers
with the sound of the train
rattling over the bridge
especially the ears and nostrils and teeth
of the horse riding out
to the pasture of death
where the long train runs
on diesel fuel
that used to run on coal.
I keep listening
for the crickets and birds
and my words fall down below.

I mistook the train for a thunder storm,
I mistook the willow tree
for a home, it's nothing to brag about
when you think of it
spending this time all alone.
I wandered into the hay field
and two ticks jumped in my hair
they dug in my scalp
and drank up my blood
like the sweet wine of Virginia,
then left me under the Druid moon
down here on earth in the kingdom.

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For your weekend enjoyment

Many years ago, the Better Half discovered, I believe on a public broadcasting radio station, a singer-songwriter named Carrie Newcomer. This was, as I remember, back in the days when the Daughter Person was attending college, which gave the Better Half and I an opportunity to enjoy Ms. Newcomer in performance at a near campus coffee house in St. Paul. She was a delight. We have remained fans over the years and have watched her talents find additional outlets, such as several volumes of poetry which accompany her three most recent albums.

Today’s posting is going on about Carrie Newcomer because her writing offers a down-to-earth sanity  that is sadly lacking in too many other parts of contemporary life. Just the other day I bought her most recent CD and book of poems, entitled Until Now (↑). There’s a release tour that follows the album and book, with a Minneapolis date in a few weeks:

Nov 7 Sun 

Cedar Cultural Center @ 7:30pm 

Minneapolis, MN, United States

If you’re brave enough to attend live performances these days, you should definitely consider getting tickets. As noted on the web page for Until Now, 

“We have all lived through a time of great unraveling,” Newcomer says. “Yet, with great disruption comes a possibility for change. We can’t just be healed; we must be transformed.” In her songs and poems, Newcomer tells the universal human story of loss, resiliency, spiritual connection, and hope with the grace, compassion, and humor that characterizes her work....

If you, as a number of us have, are searching for an optimistic response and ways to adjust or adapt to  these trying times in which we live, consider becoming familiar with the perspectives offered by Newcomer, and her friend and mentor, Parker J. Palmer, as an antidote to the pervasive gloom, doom and madness instilled by the multitude of crises we face.

Making Sense

Finding what makes sense 

In senseless times 

Takes grounding

Sometimes quite literally 

In the two inches of humus 

Faithful recreating itself

Every hundred years.

It takes steadying oneself 

Upon shale and clay and solid rock

Swearing allegiance to an ageless aquifer 

Betting on all the still hidden springs. 

You can believe in a tree, 

With its broad-leafed perspective, 

Dedicated to breathing in, and then out, 

Reaching down, and then up,  

Drinking in a goodness above and below 

It’s splayed and mossy feet. 

You can trust a tree’s careful 

and drawn out way of speaking. 

One thoughtful sentence, covering the span of many seasons.  

A tree doesn’t hurry, it doesn’t lie,

 It knows how to stand true to itself 

Unselfconscious of its beauty and scars,

 And all the physical signs of where 

and when It needed to bend,

Rather than break.

A tree stands solitary and yet in deepest communion,

For in the gathering of the many, 

There is comfort and courage, 

Perseverance and protection, 

From the storms that howl down from predictable

 Or unexplainable directions.    

In a senseless time 

Hold close to what never stopped 

Making sense.

Like love

Like trees

Like how a seed becomes a branch

And compost becomes seedlings again.

Like the scent at the very top of an infant’s head

Because there is nothing more right than that. Nothing. 

It is all still happening 

Even now.

Even now.

By Carrie Newcomer 2020

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