Remember the Declaration of Interdependence?

The first half of the year is almost gone. Tomorrow we begin the second half of 2022. Speaking for myself, I can but hope the second half of this year has fewer, but more pleasant, surprises than we’ve enjoyed in the first six months. But, I’m not counting on it.

I can’t bring myself to simply walk away from the trials, tribulations and turmoil that’s going on. That would feel like painting the deck chairs on the Titanic before we rearranged them. Neither can I find a satisfactory avenue of response. The Democrats seem to be entirely too ineffectual to put much hope in. The environmental organizations I support have yet to put together a common front or umbrella organization. Once, about thirty years ago, there was an Earth Summit that incorporated parts of the Declaration of Interdependence into an Earth Charter.

Years ago, I participated as a member of the Minnesota Design Team in a visit to a community in southeast Minnesota. One of the more useful concepts I picked up during that process was the idea of aligned vision.

Minnesota Design Team “Directions"

These days I know the Democrats could stand to create a unified direction rather than an imposed one. In fact, I believe the entire country needs a unified direction instead of the No Direction condition we’re in. From what I read, the United Nations is trying to help create a unified direction for most of the countries on Earth. That’s one of the reasons we have the Sustainable Development Goals. One or two countries alone are not going to be able to address climate breakdown or loss of biodiversity or exceeding the capacity of several of Earth’s systems.

The planet Earth will continue without US earthlings. The converse is far from true. Is it too embarrassing to admit that and act on it? Are our world leaders engaged in a huge game of chicken?

A Map to the Next World

By Joy Harjo

for Desiray Kierra Chee

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

those who would climb through the hole in the sky.

My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the

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

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

children while we sleep.

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

there of nuclear anger.

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

disappear.

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

them by their personal names.

Once we knew everything in this lush promise.

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

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

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

An imperfect map will have to do, little one.

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

small death as he longs to know himself in another.

There is no exit.

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

spiral on the road of knowledge.

You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking

from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh

deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way.

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

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

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

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

she is singing.

Fresh courage glimmers from planets.

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

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

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

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

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

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

destruction.

Remember the hole of shame marking the act of abandoning our

tribal grounds.

We were never perfect.

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

once a star and made the same mistakes as humans.

We might make them again, she said.

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

You must make your own map.

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Rates of changes

Many of the fields of corn I drove past this morning will not be “knee high by the 4th of July.” Lots of carryover corn in many soy bean fields. Hay fields in various stages of cut, raked and drying, baled. We haven’t yet reached the boring (for us) monotonous condition of head high cornstalks lining many roads and obscuring much of the view. That comes later this summer.

late June, corn field

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m finding myself a little bit surprised that Independence Day weekend is almost upon US. If the weather so far this year is an indication of the future, we’re likely to have a hard time remembering how it used to be with four seasons. These days it seems almost as though we’re experiencing a different season every week. The prior sentence does not apply to road construction season. If our winters keep warming, road construction season could become year round and we may need that to repair all the buckling roads caused by summer’s heat.

There’s a joke about “I’m not the man I used to be. Never was.” That’s getting to be more and more true of many things in the world these days. The rate of change is faster than I can keep up. How about you? Back in my Fundamentals of Sociology college days, the professor made a point of stressing that technological change often occurs faster than societies and cultures can adapt or adjust. That was long before things began moving as fast as they are these days. And pundits tell US that much of the current friction in our society is due to the efforts of a significant minority to go back to when white males were the unchallenged Alphas in charge. That would have to be before the Civil War, wouldn’t it? If we follow the direction conservative, fundamentalist, radical, rightists are headed, how long will it be before we’re back living in caves? Remember Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear series? Are the Democrats and Republicans of today comparable to the Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals of her novels? Since we’ve considered moving back in time, let’s close today’s post with a poem from days gone bye.

If—

By Rudyard Kipling

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

As we enter the depths of summer.

Local roadsides are full of crown vetch in bloom. Baltimore orioles are back at the nectar feeder. Much, but far from all, of the natural world seems pretty much as it should be, at least in our neck of the woods. To the contrary, much of our economic, political, cultural and other segments of our society seem to be coming apart with the wheels flying off at the same time.

crown vetch in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday evening I looked out a downstairs window just before dusk. A whitetail deer, standing on the top of the small hill behind the house, looked almost white. I went upstairs and confirmed it was the angle of the sunlight and now the pelage that made the animal appear to glow. The sight, as brief as it was, was memorable.

The beauty of the birds and the flowers and bees and wildlife are tempered at this time of year by the bugs. We’ve got mosquotos, deer flies, and several other biting species. The dogs hate it, especially the little beagle, Harry, who snaps and tries to bite back. The dog walkers also hate it, especially as they’re standing still targets while the dogs sniff and do their business. I’m not sure how it works, but extra humidity seems to bring on extra bugs.

The way politics are playing out these days reminds me very much of the joke about the Friday night poker game.

A story is told about a 19th century gambler who was gambling in a small town. A friend told him that the game was rigged, but the gambler remarked, “I know it’s crooked, but it’s the only game in town.” 

Republicans are evil, for the most part. Democrats are less so and that’s supposed to be the reason we send them money and vote for them. I may do the latter, to help limit the amount of evil in politics, but I won’t send good money after bad. Both parties are more responsive to corporate “persons” than to human people. If I seem stuck on that theme these days, our “representatives” have been that way since before Citizens United. We need truly transformative change in our politics. I think it would be wonderful if we had a women’s strike similar to that in Iceland in 1975. Such actions may not transform our governance enough, but it would be a start.

According to the United Nations, we have a long way still to go:

In direct relation to the irreversible growth and greater diversity of the women's movement, another key development is that the meaning of "women's rights" has expanded enormously since the 1940s, from a mainly legal interpretation prioritized by Western countries, to the acceptance of socio-economic rights as equally fundamental to political rights, to the inclusion of the right to "family planning", i.e., a woman's right to control what happens to her own body and, most recently, to the right to live free from violence. The notion that women's rights are human rights has become more accepted since 1993, and the links between women's rights and both development (nowadays, "sustainable development") and peace have become clear. Task Ahead But as important as it is to understand the progress that has been made, it is equally crucial to be aware of the enormity of the task that lies ahead. Despite the almost universal recognition of women's rights at the formal level, the "deep[er] structure" of women's secondary status and oppression persists, whether in countries that top the UN gender equality index or those at the bottom. There is no country in the world where women enjoy equal status with men. Moreover, the gulf between rich and poor countries has increased, and the rise of various religious fundamentalisms is a threat to women's rights in many places.²¹

In Minnesota, voting is open for the August primary. Please be sure to check whether those you want to elect support human rights for all humans. We all deserve no less.

The Socialist and the Suffragist

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Said the Socialist to the Suffragist:
   “My cause is greater than yours!
     You only work for a Special Class,
     We work for the gain of the General Mass,
   Which every good ensures!”

Said the Suffragist to the Socialist:
   “You underrate my Cause!
   While women remain a Subject Class,
   You never can move the General Mass,
   With your Economic Laws!”

Said the Socialist to the Suffragist:
   “You misinterpret facts!
     There is no room for doubt or schism
     In Economic Determinism–
   It governs all our acts!”

Said the Suffragist to the Socialist:
   “You men will always find
     That this old world will never move
     More swiftly in its ancient groove
   While women stay behind!”

“A lifted world lifts women up,”
   The Socialist explained.
     “You cannot lift the world at all
     While half of it is kept so small,”
   The Suffragist maintained.

The world awoke, and tartly spoke:
   “Your work is all the same:
     Work together or work apart,
     Work, each of you, with all your heart–
   Just get into the game!” 

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

All Bonus, no Onus? (All the good without work?)

A male Baltimore oriole appeared at the feeder this morning. That seems to confirm our suspicion that they’ve been too busy parenting hatchlings to visit the feeder. As we’re writing this, a female has arrived to help herself to the nectar feeder. We've also been enjoying red-winged blackbirds, rose-breasted grosbeaks, goldfinches, chickadees, nuthatches and an occasional unrecognized bird.

Baltimore oriole at nectar feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

There’s a really pretty cluster of pink phlox plants next to one of the  oak trees behind the house. I would have taken pictures today but my hands were full of the poison ivy killer sprayer. Maybe later, or tomorrow, if the thunderstorms cooperate.

Social media, at least mine, has been full of complaints about Democrats, push back about why Democrats are our only hope, wails that “we voted for them, why won’t they deliver for us?” I’ve been reminded of a story about one of our greatest presidents, FDR. The story supposedly goes:

"You know, Mr. Randolph, I've heard everything you've said tonight, and I couldn't agree with you more. I agree with everything that you've said, including my capacity to be able to right many of these wrongs and to use my power and the bully pulpit. ... But I would ask one thing of you, Mr. Randolph, and that is go out and make me do it."

I don’t think politics should be an avocation or even a time-consuming hobby. I’d rather be fly-fishing. I do, however, believe that far too many of US have taken way too much for granted when it comes to participation in a democracy. It should, I believe, take way more than name recognition to prompt receiving someone's vote. Several years ago I tried to get some background information on a local school board candidate. I couldn’t find a web site or any real information about the candidate’s beliefs, values and approach to education. In fact, that’s true of many candidates, isn’t it? As of 3:30 pm today, our Minnesota senate district supposedly has a DFL endorsed candidate for state senate but her candidacy isn’t listed on the local DFL organization’s web site. That certainly doesn’t help me maintain any enthusiasm for the Democratic party. Our political system, regardless of party, could stand some significant improvements.

Meanwhile, I’m spending time these days raking small rocks out of our front yard grass. Last year the township reinforced the road shoulder with a gravel mix and then last winter the township’s plow scattered many of those rocks out of their ditch easement onto our property beyond the easement. It doesn’t help my mower blades to suck up those rocks when cutting the grass. The township did something similar last year as they were brushing the roadway ditch and ejected much of their wood chip mulch onto our property, in places where we neither needed nor wanted mulch. Even under the best of circumstances, government is too often too much of a pain in the arse. We’re not quite as bad as Russia or Afghanistan yet, but give the fundamentalist right Republicans another election or two and we’ll be able to show the world what a real shithole country looks and acts like.

Democracy

By Dorianne Laux

When you’re cold—November, the streets icy and everyone you pass

homeless, Goodwill coats and Hefty bags torn up to make ponchos—

someone is always at the pay phone, hunched over the receiver

spewing winter’s germs, swollen lipped, face chapped, making the last

tired connection of the day. You keep walking to keep the cold

at bay, too cold to wait for the bus, too depressing the thought

of entering that blue light, the chilled eyes watching you decide

which seat to take: the man with one leg, his crutches bumping

the smudged window glass, the woman with her purse clutched

to her breasts like a dead child, the boy, pimpled, morose, his head

shorn, a swastika carved into the stubble, staring you down.

So you walk into the cold you know: the wind, indifferent blade,

familiar, the gold leaves heaped along the gutters. You have

a home, a house with gas heat, a toilet that flushes. You have

a credit card, cash. You could take a taxi if one would show up.

You can feel it now: why people become Republicans: Get that dog

off the street. Remove that spit and graffiti. Arrest those people huddled

on the steps of the church. If it weren’t for them you could believe in god,

in freedom, the bus would appear and open its doors, the driver dressed

in his tan uniform, pants legs creased, dapper hat: Hello Miss, watch

your step now. But you’re not a Republican. You’re only tired, hungry,

you want out of the cold. So you give up, walk back, step into line behind

the grubby vet who hides a bag of wine under his pea coat, holds out

his grimy 85 cents, takes each step slow as he pleases, releases his coins

into the box and waits as they chink down the chute, stakes out a seat

in the back and eases his body into the stained vinyl to dream

as the chips of shrapnel in his knee warm up and his good leg

flops into the aisle. And you’ll doze off, too, in a while, next to the girl

who can’t sit still, who listens to her Walkman and taps her boots

to a rhythm you can’t hear, but you can see it—when she bops

her head and her hands do a jive in the air—you can feel it

as the bus rolls on, stopping at each red light in a long wheeze,

jerking and idling, rumbling up and lurching off again.

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End an era. Ratify the ERA!

We are down to (up to?) the last week of June. We celebrate Independence Day a week from tomorrow. I have concerns and reservations about how much celebration there will be and what it will be about this year. June gone and I’ve not wet a line yet this fishing season. Climate weirding can account for most of that. Throw in a 10% laziness factor and a few other obligations and there you have it. The good news is we’ve reached Trico season so I will, if at all possible, get out and get casting. The yard can go to weeds if necessary.

better bouquets than a lawn provides

Photo by J. Harrington

Speaking of the yard, the Better Half pointed out today that we have a butterfly weed in bloom. It’s probable that the bloom is part of the myriad of seeds we scattered last autumn. We’re looking forward to more blossoms of various species over the duration of the warmer months. Meanwhile, I continue to cut the grass in places we haven’t seeded recently. We are looking more country and less suburban by the year. Pollinators and the like should be pleased. My overdeveloped, middle-class sense of orderliness and neatness will eventually calm down, at least about not having well manicured Kentucky bluegrass to fawn over. 

Since I am the proverbial “old, white, codger,” I approach the following with some hesitation but I’ve been known most of my life as a pot-stirrer, so here I go again.

Would it be helpful to screen candidates for the upcoming primary and general elections for their position on both pro-choice and seeing the Equal Rights Amendment finally ratified? Although I am not a lawyer, I can’t help but wonder if the recent SCOTUS decision would have been preempted had the ERA been ratified. There’s a web site that offers what appears to be resources and coherent strategies for moving ahead on that front. Now, if ever, it might be possible to build enough pressure to get it done. In case you’re wondering, I make this suggestion not as an alternative to getting Congress to enact viable and helpful responses to SCOTUS’ recent decision, but as a “both and” approach.

I also offer, for your consideration, some additional context for the current state of affairs. Donella Meadows, long one of my heroes, published several columns on RvW, contraception, and related matters. You may find it worthwhile to read them.

What are we Really Fighting About?

He Who Frames the Question Determines the Answer

Preparing for the Birth Summit

And, for a slightly different perspective, try

The Anti-Suffragists

By Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman

Fashionable women in luxurious homes, 

With men to feed them, clothe them, pay their bills, 

Bow, doff the hat, and fetch the handkerchief; 

Hostess or guest, and always so supplied 

With graceful deference and courtesy; 

Surrounded by their servants, horses, dogs, —  

These tell us they have all the rights they want. 

Successful women who have won their way 

Alone, with strength of their unaided arm, 

Or helped by friends, or softly climbing up 

By the sweet aid of ‘woman’s influence’; 

Successful any way, and caring naught 

For any other woman’s unsuccess, —  

These tell us they have all the rights they want. 

Religious women of the feebler sort, —  

Not the religion of a righteous world, 

A free, enlightened, upward-reaching world, 

But the religion that considers life 

As something to back out of! — whose ideal 

Is to renounce, submit, and sacrifice, 

Counting on being patted on the head 

And given a high chair when they get to heaven, — 

These tell us they have all the rights they want. 

Ignorant women — college-bred sometimes, 

But ignorant of life’s realities 

And principles of righteous government, 

And how the privileges they enjoy 

Were won with blood and tears by those before —  

Those they condemn, whose ways they now oppose; 

Saying, ‘Why not let well enough alone? 

Our world is very pleasant as it is,’ —  

These tell us they have all the rights they want. 

And selfish women, — pigs in petticoats, — 

Rich, poor, wise, unwise, top or bottom round, 

But all sublimely innocent of thought, 

And guiltless of ambition, save the one 

Deep, voiceless aspiration — to be fed! 

These have no use for rights or duties more. 

Duties today are more than they can meet, 

And law insures their right to clothes and food, —  

These tell us they have all the rights they want. 

And, more’s the pity, some good women, too; 

Good conscientious women, with ideas; 

Who think — or think they think — that woman’s cause 

Is best advanced by letting it alone; 

That she somehow is not a human thing, 

And not to be helped on by human means, 

Just added to humanity — an ‘L’ — 

A wing, a branch, an extra, not mankind, —  

These tell us they have all the rights they want. 

And out of these has come a monstrous thing, 

A strange, down-sucking whirlpool of disgrace, 

Women uniting against womanhood, 

And using that great name to hide their sin! 

Vain are their words as that old king’s command 

Who set his will against the rising tide. 

But who shall measure the historic shame 

Of these poor traitors — traitors are they all — 

To great Democracy and Womanhood!

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Get Better, or Get Out!

 Each  and every year we go through the same sequence: Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn. Some seasons are warmer or hotter than normal, Some are wetter or snowier than average. Some combinations advantage farmers; others are more beneficial for anglers. We adjust or adapt and, most of us, most of the time, try to make the best of it. Politics, which creates the laws we’re supposed to obey, resembles the cycle of the seasons more than we want to believe. There is no perfect fairness or, better said, there is no agreement on what represents perfect fairness. The cycle continues and sometimes advantages one group, other times a different group. Is that how we want it?

Science and religious faiths appear to be at odds regarding the beginning of life. If we lived in a theocracy, dominated by one faith, our laws, which are no more than agreed upon rules we follow, not precepts handed down from a burning bush on a mount, would derive from theology. We are supposed to be a secular country, founded, in part, by those fleeing religious persecution. That failed to prevent the Salem Witch Trials. We are supposed to be a country in which “all men are created equal,” unless the “man” in question is black, red, female or, probably, poor.

would a clan system improve American politics?

Photo by J. Harrington

The lands on which each of US lives were once the domain of nonwhite, nonchristian, noneuropean, indigenous peoples. We, citizens of the US, have predecessors who took those domains by force, chicanery, and genocide, based largely on religious beliefs that converting the heathens was the proper, and profitable, thing to do. With this kind of background and history and fundamental beliefs, is it really a surprise that the current SCOTUS has effectively declared “stare decisis” no longer binding. By so doing, have they created an effective precedent for overturning Citizens United when the political pendulum swings in the opposite direction, which it almost always does?

Will the lack of an ability to rely on precedent hinder corporate decision making, or will that always be limited by what’s profitable this quarter? Many corporations have been known to invest in both political parties as a way of hedging their bets. Is it possible that recent decisions by SCOTUS, combined with lack of appropriate action by Congress, and/or the White House, has diminished the legitimacy of our governance systems to the point that no political investment would be worthwhile?

This country began in a violent revolution. It fought a subsequent civil war to maintain federal primacy over many state’s rights. Have things such as the World Trade Organization, NAFTA and its ilk, the continuing loss of rural populations, plus a rejection of precedent and honesty by members of SCOTUS pushed us toward a country in which only power, as much ballistic as political, is the only rule that prevails?  Is that why so many billionaires are looking for ways to move off of Earth? Because the rule of law is obviously dying? Is there an alternative?

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

By Joy Harjo

I am the holy being of my mother's prayer and my father's song

                                                      —Norman Patrick Brown, Dineh Poet and Speaker

1. SET CONFLICT RESOLUTION GROUND RULES:

Recognize whose lands these are on which we stand.
Ask the deer, turtle, and the crane.
Make sure the spirits of these lands are respected and treated with goodwill.
The land is a being who remembers everything.
You will have to answer to your children, and their children, and theirs—
The red shimmer of remembering will compel you up the night to walk the perimeter of truth for understanding.
As I brushed my hair over the hotel sink to get ready I heard:
By listening we will understand who we are in this holy realm of words.
Do not parade, pleased with yourself.
You must speak in the language of justice.


2. USE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS THAT DISPLAY AND ENHANCE MUTUAL TRUST AND RESPECT:

If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run."

The lands and waters they gave us did not belong to them to give. Under false pretenses we signed. After drugging by drink, we signed. With a mass of gunpower pointed at us, we signed. With a flotilla of war ships at our shores, we signed. We are still signing. We have found no peace in this act of signing.

A casino was raised up over the gravesite of our ancestors. Our own distant cousins pulled up the bones of grandparents, parents, and grandchildren from their last sleeping place. They had forgotten how to be human beings. Restless winds emerged from the earth when the graves were open and the winds went looking for justice.

If you raise this white flag of peace, we will honor it.

At Sand Creek several hundred women, children, and men were slaughtered in an unspeakable massacre, after a white flag was raised. The American soldiers trampled the white flag in the blood of the peacemakers.

There is a suicide epidemic among native children. It is triple the rate of the rest of America. "It feels like wartime," said a child welfare worker in South Dakota.

If you send your children to our schools we will train them to get along in this changing world. We will educate them.

We had no choice. They took our children. Some ran away and froze to death. If they were found they were dragged back to the school and punished. They cut their hair, took away their language, until they became as strangers to themselves even as they became strangers to us.

If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters in exchange "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run."

Put your hand on this bible, this blade, this pen, this oil derrick, this gun and you will gain trust and respect with us. Now we can speak together as one.

We say, put down your papers, your tools of coercion, your false promises, your posture of superiority and sit with us before the fire. We will share food, songs, and stories. We will gather beneath starlight and dance, and rise together at sunrise.

The sun rose over the Potomac this morning, over the city surrounding the white house.
It blazed scarlet, a fire opening truth.
White House, or Chogo Hvtke, means the house of the peacekeeper, the keepers of justice.
We have crossed this river to speak to the white leader for peace many times
Since these settlers first arrived in our territory and made this their place of governance.
These streets are our old trails, curved to fit around trees.
 

3. GIVE CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK:

We speak together with this trade language of English. This trade language enables us to speak across many language boundaries. These languages have given us the poets:

Ortiz, Silko, Momaday, Alexie, Diaz, Bird, Woody, Kane, Bitsui, Long Soldier, White, Erdrich, Tapahonso, Howe, Louis, Brings Plenty, okpik, Hill, Wood, Maracle, Cisneros, Trask, Hogan, Dunn, Welch, Gould...

The 1957 Chevy is unbeatable in style. My broken-down one-eyed Ford will have to do. It holds everyone: Grandma and grandpa, aunties and uncles, the children and the babies, and all my boyfriends. That's what she said, anyway, as she drove off for the Forty-Nine with all of us in that shimmying wreck.

This would be no place to be without blues, jazz—Thank you/mvto to the Africans, the Europeans sitting in, especially Adolphe Sax with his saxophones... Don't forget that at the center is the Mvskoke ceremonial circles. We know how to swing. We keep the heartbeat of the earth in our stomp dance feet.

You might try dancing theory with a bustle, or a jingle dress, or with turtles strapped around your legs. You might try wearing colonization like a heavy gold chain around a pimp's neck.


4. REDUCE DEFENSIVENESS AND BREAK THE DEFENSIVENESS CHAIN:

I could hear the light beings as they entered every cell. Every cell is a house of the god of light, they said. I could hear the spirits who love us stomp dancing. They were dancing as if they were here, and then another level of here, and then another, until the whole earth and sky was dancing.

We are here dancing, they said. There was no there.

There was no  "I"  or "you."

There was us; there was "we."

There we were as if we were the music.

You cannot legislate music to lockstep nor can you legislate the spirit of the music to stop at political boundaries—

—Or poetry, or art, or anything that is of value or matters in this world, and the next worlds.

This is about getting to know each other.

We will wind up back at the blues standing on the edge of the flatted fifth about to jump into a fierce understanding together.


5. ELIMINATE NEGATIVE ATTITUDES DURING CONFLICT:

A panther poised in the cypress tree about to jump is a panther poised in a cypress tree about to jump.

The panther is a poem of fire green eyes and a heart charged by four winds of four directions.

The panther hears everything in the dark: the unspoken tears of a few hundred human years, storms that will break what has broken his world, a bluebird swaying on a branch a few miles away.

He hears the death song of his approaching prey:

I will always love you, sunrise.
I belong to the black cat with fire green eyes.
There, in the cypress tree near the morning star.


6. AND, USE WHAT YOU LEARN TO RESOLVE YOUR OWN CONFLICTS AND TO MEDIATE OTHERS' CONFLICTS:

When we made it back home, back over those curved roads
that wind through the city of peace, we stopped at the
doorway of dusk as it opened to our homelands.
We gave thanks for the story, for all parts of the story
because it was by the light of those challenges we knew
ourselves—
We asked for forgiveness.
We laid down our burdens next to each other.

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

Make them rue the day!

Minnesota’s August primary election starts early voting today. In response to recent disheartening news out of Washington, D.C., it is both helpful and necessary to respond with something more than a snarky media posting. I fear too many of US are reaching a “why bother?” mode. Here are some suggestions:

Read Dirt Road Revival, An account of unlikely wins by a young Democrat in rural Maine could serve as blueprint for progressive candidates setting their sights on rural America.

It is a how-to manual for those on the left who want to win in rural America. “An unwavering commitment to stay connected to the working class and rural people is a must in order to achieve long-term success,” they write. That includes rural voters who may have voted for Trump, a group for whom too often on the left “people’s tremendous empathy stops cold…”

Are you ready to vote?

Support individual candidates more than a political party. I once considered myself a Democrat. I even almost forgave the party for the 1968 police riot at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. [Yes, I’m that old.] I’m not sure if I’ve moved further left, the Democratic party has moved right, or some of each, but I can no longer find a sufficiently comfortable alignment with the party to blindly support it. I’m more in alignment with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than with more mainstream Dems. In fact here’s an excerpt from her message in light of the overturn of what had been established as women’s health rights.

A lot of people, especially on days like today’s SCOTUS ruling, ask me about hope. I shared some thoughts on Instagram last night during a Q&A, when someone asked me, “Are we screwed?”:

My honest view is that things are likely going to get harder before they get better, and we will need to stick together. 

What is important in moments like these is not to think in binaries. Good/bad, screwed/not screwed. There is no doubt that things are bad. Some things, really bad. And they may likely get worse. 

But that does not preclude the fact that slowly but surely, some good can be growing as other things fall apart. This is not some syrupy sweet silver lining case for optimism. Rather, it is really about a choice all of us will have to make in life, either consciously or unconsciously: will I be a person who is safe and creates good for others? 

Will I be a person who stands up? Will I be a person who primarily minds my business and serves myself or try to be part of something bigger? Or will I just be a passive, “neutral” observer of it all? 

What I sometimes tell my staff is that the world we are fighting for is already here. It exists in small spaces, places, and communities. We don’t have to deal with the insurmountable burden of coming up with novel solutions to the world’s problems....

Her message is consistent with what I’m observing in the world, a world that has grown small enough that there are few, if any, places to hide. Her message also echoes one of my favorite observations from a writer whose science fiction I have read and enjoyed:

“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.

The Economist, December 4, 2003”

― William Gibson

Have you observed the growing resilience of Native Americans in the life of North America. I have, and it pleases me no end. They have been persecuted and driven from their native lands for hundreds of years. Never-the-less, they are still here and contributing. That creates, it seems to me, a model for those of us feeling overwhelmed by recent and current events. Stay, maintain a life-supporting, equitable culture. Resist. Be ready when opportunities present themselves. Don’t give up or in.

But then, in a democracy, the choice of how to respond and how to live is yours, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be.

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. 

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

Between anarchy and autocracy

Let’s see: past the Summer solstice; temperatures again exceeding 90℉; thunderstorms in the forecast for the evening hours; seems like Summertime! I’ve been observing that, just as one of the problems with being more than school age is one doesn’t get the summer off, one of the problems of having reached retirement age is that retirees don’t get holidays or vacations. The laws of nature and the laws of humans are far from immutable but we keep acting as if we all know what’s best and what those laws are, or should be. Should everyone get to vote on everything all the time? Would that work? Here’s an item we’ve been back and forth on depending on who’s been elected: mining near the Boundary Waters..

In case any of you want to read the Environmental Assessment report supporting the withdrawal of the Rainy River watershed from potential federal mining leases, here’s the link, courtesy of the Star Tribune’s Jennifer Bjorhus. I’m looking forward to reading the whole thing myself.

Laurentian Divide, Birch Lake

Photo by J. Harrington

As I’ve noted from time to time in these postings, I am not a lawyer but I spent many of my younger years hanging around with some. It didn’t come up at the time, but I’ve read and observed that laws are not sacred, not even sacred laws. Laws are what those in power state and interpret them to be. There’s what the law says, what proponents and opponents claim the intent of the law was or is (have you ever read a “legislative intent?”), what many police and prosecutors and plaintiffs claim the law means, and often what a jury of peers or a judge or judges assert the law means as applied to a particular set of facts. Plus, at a minimum, there’s also what happens when one law conflicts with another.

One of the better rules of thumb I ever learned was: “If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the facts are against you, argue the law. If both the law and the facts are against you, pound on the table and yell like hell.” I believe the Republicans invented the last part of that tactic.

Many people react as though they have studied law, practiced law, understand legal processes, when, in fact, listening to or reading their opinions makes one question if the person exponding is functionally literate. [Have you noticed I’m back in a “why do I spend so much time on social media?” mode?]

All of the preceding happens in ways that we as citizens rarely get to directly affect. Our voters turned down an amendment to the constitution that would have allowed Initiative and Referendum. We do have the ability to recall elected state officers. We still are struggling to find the balance between anarchy and autocracy. The best way we can do that is to vote, but before we vote we should really spend more time talking to those with opinions that differ from ours. That would, I believe, be a healthier approach than paying attention to the stupid, misleading, attack adds that too often sway our perceptions. Remember, if we give up on voting, “They” win.

Self-portrait

By Edward Hirsch

I lived between my heart and my head,

like a married couple who can't get along.

I lived between my left arm, which is swift

and sinister, and my right, which is righteous.

I lived between a laugh and a scowl,

and voted against myself, a two-party system.

My left leg dawdled or danced along,

my right cleaved to the straight and narrow.

My left shoulder was like a stripper on vacation,

my right stood upright as a Roman soldier.

Let's just say that my left side was the organ

donor and leave my private parts alone,

but as for my eyes, which are two shades

of brown, well, Dionysus, meet Apollo.

Look at Eve raising her left eyebrow

while Adam puts his right foot down.

No one expected it to survive,

but divorce seemed out of the question.

I suppose my left hand and my right hand

will be clasped over my chest in the coffin 

and I'll be reconciled at last,

I'll be whole again.

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

Maintaining a perimeter

Yesterday I discovered a bird’s nest built on top of the motion-activated lights on the south corner of our garage. If there are eggs or hatchlings, it can stay. Otherwise, we’ll be doing an eviction and demolition and the squatters can find another locale. I’m not comfortable with the prospect of the lights/wiring getting shorted. Such an event probably wouldn’t do the birds much good either.

The north side of the foundation got sprayed for ants today. The little insects keep appearing around the kitchen sink from time to time and that’s not ok. I’ll be curious to see if spraying the foundation results in a noticeable diminishment in ant numbers.

The garage mousetraps did in one mouse (two traps triggered) yesterday or the day before. The pocket gopher traps we set over the weekend were successful and we now have one less gopher eating tree roots and mounding dirt to wreck the mower deck.

a preferred rodent controller

Photo by J. Harrington

As much as I like the idea of live and let live, I’m against unhygienic conditions and/or wrecking expensive equipment or twisting ankles due to underground rodents. If it weren’t for the enjoyment the birds at the feeders bring, we’d seriously consider adding a barn cat to our menagerie, even though we don’t have a barn. But unless I’m willing to give up feeding the birds, an outdoor cat feels too much like police entrapment for me to be comfortable. I’d actually prefer it if we had more bull and hognosed snakes around here to tend to the rodents, but snakes are about as common as drivers for yard waste trucks these days.

Trout are noted for eating bugs. Birds, bats and dragonflies consume mosquitos and other flying pests like horseflies. Hawks eat birds. There’s a fascinating array of bat predators. We live on a world where life feeds upon life. The COVID-19 virus, among others, uses us “important” humans as little more than an incubator or nursery. The longer I live and the more I read, I believe more and more that we’ve misperceived large parts of our role on earth. More on that some day in the future.

To Vermin

By Lêdo Ivo
Translated by Andrew Gebhardt

This morning I salute

the weevil, who ruins

the most precious grain.

I reserve my compliments

for the sober larva that does not rest

even in the most crystalline waters.

And spare no applause

for the silverfish, taking their time

in books, without ever learning the Latin for life.

I honor the cockroach

who, in the dim night, gnashes

at the old clothes of ordinary people.

And before the rat

who gnaws at the feet of the people’s table,

I bow, respectfully:

this resembles the passage

of the king who chews up even the dreams

and tears of citizens.

Woodworm and white ant,

to you, vassals of an obscure realm,

my congratulations.

To rapacious insects,

to the plagues that lay waste to crops and livestock,

a word of solidarity.

And I congratulate the squirrels

that nibble the nuts of poetry

on the moist ground of Washington,

and the hare hidden in the hedge

which, sniffed out by hunting dogs,

breaks open what autumn conceals.

And I offer my respects

to the engineer of decay,

the earthworm, who swallows man.

We must devour the wind and the palace,

demolish the structures of rot,

change the face of the world.

And may the admirable termite,

in the sack of corn or among the eaves,

correct for the error of men.

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

Will the Solstice bring US solace?

We ended what was left of Spring and started Summer with an almost Solstice time power outage that began a little before 3 am and lasted until almost 11 am. A morning without coffee has left me in a snarly mood. (Our stove and coffee maker are both electric.) My hyper-sensitive to thunder demons yellow Lab rescue dog cross hid under my reassuring hand for more than an hour while the storms passed early this morning. Then all of us napped while we waited for the return of electricity and what passes for normalcy these days.

We are a society and economy that’s becoming more and more dependent on regenerative-sourced (wind and solar) electricity instead of fossil fuels, but we have to put up with those who resist enhancing the security of the electric grid or oppose decentralized, clustered generation. Many of our economic and political institutions are failing US. Putin doesn’t have to do much of anything except wait for US to destroy ourselves and each other.

will wind and solar supplant corn and beans?

Photo by J. Harrington

We could be building a better, more just and fair and sustainable world, and responding more effectively to the multitude of challenges facing US were it not for the time, energy and resources expended battling the opposition. We’ve deteriorated to the point that NPR is reporting “Democrats are buying ads supporting far-right GOP primary candidates, in the hopes of facing them in the general election...”. I suppose, if you’re not good at gerrymandering, and believe you only have to be better than the opposition, that might seem like a way to go. Some of US heartily disagree.

I keep being brought back to the idea we need more ethics than laws and more tolerance than power. Would we be better off if we redesigned our society and communities so that we were much less reliant on politicians, laws, cops and lawyers and could depend on each other more and more? I’m going to be thinking about those ideas and expect to point out more about Elinor Ostrum’s ways of managing the commons and the way fly-fishing includes lots of techniques and styles and water types and kinds of fish and still finds lots in common among its practicioners. I’ll probably [once again] expound here on some of my thoughts about that. But first, I think I need to get away from what’s not working and go fishing, if the climate-weirded weather cooperates. Remember, if we don’t take care of ourselves, we’re in no shape to fight the good fight.

Solstice

Tess Taylor

How again today our patron star
whose ancient vista is the long view

turns its wide brightness now and here:
Below, we loll outdoors, sing & make fire.

We build no henge
but after our swim, linger

by the pond. Dapples flicker
pine trunks by the water.

Buzz & hum & wing & song combine.
Light builds a monument to its passing.

Frogs content themselves in bullish chirps,
hoopskirt blossoms

on thimbleberries fall, peeper toads
hop, lazy—

            Apex. The throaty world sings ripen.
Our grove slips past the sun’s long kiss.

We dress.
We head home in other starlight. 

Our earthly time is sweetening from this.

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

It’s the eve of Summer Solstice 2022

A mid-day temperature of 90℉ at this time of year is unusual but not unheard of. The record high is 98℉ and record low is 41℉. So sayeth my copy of Minnesota Weatherguide. Normal high: 80℉. We’ve noted previously, several times, Minnesota would be a much more delightful place if our normals weren’t composed of such extremes.

Here comes a bit of a spoiler for those enamored of long, lazy, hot summer days. By month’s end our day’s length will be half a minute shorter than it is tomorrow and it’s all downhill from now until near Christmas. That’s also very much not in the present, so we’ll let it pass.

Father’s Day was enjoyable, if warmer than our preference. The Daughter, Son-In-Law, and Granddaughter persons were a treat to visit. Our visit with the Son person was also lots of fun. He and I now have matching camo t-shirts. When we get together, we won’t be able to see each other.

today’s loaf didn’t rise nearly this much

Photo by J. Harrington

In all honesty, using the limited amount of common sense I have left, I don’t think I’m even going to try for a solstice bonfire. It’s still supposed to be over 90℉ at 8 pm this evening and I expect tomorrow to be about the same. I’d have a stronger claim to common sense if I hadn’t baked a boule of sourdough bread at about 11 am today, thereby heating the house more than it already was. On top of that, I’m not pleased with the rise. I think the sourdough starter may have been a little on the weak (inactive) side and I’m still not sure of the effect of using about 20% Irish flour in the recipe. We’ll keep playing with it. Plus, the dough felt tacky, like it was overly hydrated, compared to our usual 50% bread and 50% all purpose flour mix. But, as I understand it(?), increased hydration yields a more open crumb(?), which isn’t the way this loaf turned out. Is it possible that one quick read through several really good bread baking books didn’t produce personal mastery of the bread baking process?

We hope wherever you are you’re relatively comfortable and safe and enjoying whatever season you’re in. Remember, in the Southern Hemisphere tomorrow is the beginning of Winter.

Solstice

Tess Taylor

How again today our patron star
whose ancient vista is the long view

turns its wide brightness now and here:
Below, we loll outdoors, sing & make fire.

We build no henge
but after our swim, linger

by the pond. Dapples flicker
pine trunks by the water.

Buzz & hum & wing & song combine.
Light builds a monument to its passing.

Frogs content themselves in bullish chirps,
hoopskirt blossoms

on thimbleberries fall, peeper toads
hop, lazy—

            Apex. The throaty world sings ripen.
Our grove slips past the sun’s long kiss.

We dress.
We head home in other starlight. 

Our earthly time is sweetening from this.

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