Lessons learned?

Yesterday, the Star Tribune had an editorial about Bad marks on the 'nation's report card’. Among other points raised:

In addition to the math and reading scores, a survey administered along with the NAEP exams indicated that chronic absenteeism and mental health challenges are growing problems among American students — both negative indicators for academic achievement.

That strongly suggests the source(s) of the problem lie(s) somewhere other than with instructional methods. Regardless, this past session, the Minnesota Legislature, that bastion of well-informed clear thinking folks, saw fit to specify in law instructional methods for reading. According to MinnPost:

Transformational was a word used a lot this session, but it might be most apt for changes made to how the state teaches young students to read. What had been known as the reading wars has been settled with the state mandating new curricula that embrace what is known as evidence-based teaching or the science of reading. Either way, it will require returning to phonics-based instruction in early years and also creates and pays for interventions to diagnose dyslexia and other reading disabilities and to measure student progress in reading.

I noted in social media a number of folks who strongly disagree(d) with the approach incorporated in the legislation.

Then there’s the continuing emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) which, some of us think, would better serve the individual and economy and civil society if it were revised to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math). College, the last I checked, was envisioned as more than an expensive tech school, which is what it becomes if the arts and humanities are limited to diminished roles in education. Where in STEM does one to learn to interpret and apply the meaning of the phrase “All men are created equal,” in Math because it says “equal?”

table top at Minneapolis’ Center for the Book

Photo by J. Harrington

Now that SCOTUS has brought attention to the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, I’m curious if anyone can point to a well done comparative analysis of how it is that, recently, women outnumbered men in secondary school enrollment, since not that long ago women weren’t even allowed to vote or enroll in many elite institutions and yet, as far as I know, women were not  the focus of affirmative action. This entire situation reminds me of something the folks in systems dynamics observed many years ago:

The systems analysis community has a lot of lore about leverage points. Those of us who were trained by the great Jay Forrester at MIT have all absorbed one of his favorite stories. “People know intuitively where leverage points are,” he says. “Time after time I’ve done an analysis of a company, and I’ve figured out a leverage point — in inventory policy, maybe, or in the relationship between sales force and productive force, or in personnel policy. Then I’ve gone to the company and discovered that there’s already a lot of attention to that point. Everyone is trying very hard to push it IN THE WRONG DIRECTION!”

If you look at the front page of almost any news outlet almost anywhere in the world these days, you’ll find distressing evidence that we’re alll still pushing in the wrong direction while arguing about whose fault that is. Once again we wonder, along with Liz Cheney, how it is we can stop electing idiots while still allowing “idiots” to vote.

School

By Daniel J. Langton

I was sent home the first day

with a note: Danny needs a ruler.

My father nodded, nothing seemed so apt.

School is for rules, countries need rulers,

graphs need graphing, the world is straight ahead.

It had metrics one side, inches the other.

You could see where it started

and why it stopped, a foot along,

how it ruled the flighty pen,

which petered out sideways when you dreamt.

I could have learned a lot,

understood latitude, or the border with Canada,

so stern compared to the South

and its unruly river with two names.

But that first day, meandering home, I dropped it.

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Late June #phenology

Common milkweed is beginning to bloom. Black-eyed Susans have started to flower. Butterfly weed has erupted across one local hillside field. June is about to bust into July, so we could claim June is busting out all over, but we won’t.

meadow with black-eyed Susans

Photo by J. Harrington

It looks as though, at least temporarily, the smoke / PM 2.5 alerts have subsided. We may actually get to spend time outside and enjoy it if the mosquitos and deer flies aren’t too bad. Living in Minnesota and getting the equivalent of cabin fever [shack nasties] during the Summer is the pits.

We’ve lost about 3 minutes of daylight since the solstice. Have you noticed the difference? We’ll keep losing until we get to Winter Solstice, when the days will then begin to grow longer. Meanwhile, I’ve not really been able to get into a routine or a rhythm all year. Before that, COVID was responsible for many disruptions. Now, is it simply a post-pandemic adjustment period, plus the increasing effects of climate breakdown, or is something else at work? I don’t want to turn into a mindless automaton, but constantly adjusting to whatever’s next has become wearing. Plus, thanks mostly to the weather and climate-related disruptions, we’ve not yet wet a line this summer.

Back in the old days, if we threw out something that had gotten broken, or worn out, or used up, my mother and/or grandmother used to say “May all bad luck go with it.” June ends tomorrow. May all bad luck go with it.

June Sunset 

Sarojini Naidu
1879 – 1949

Here shall my heart find its haven of calm, 
By rush-fringed rivers and rain-fed streams 
That glimmer thro’ meadows of lily and palm. 
Here shall my soul find its true repose 
Under a sunset sky of dreams 
Diaphanous, amber and rose. 
The air is aglow with the glint and whirl 
Of swift wild wings in their homeward flight, 
Sapphire, emerald, topaz, and pearl. 
Afloat in the evening light. 

A brown quail cries from the tamarisk bushes, 
A bulbul calls from the cassia-plume, 
And thro’ the wet earth the gentian pushes 
Her spikes of silvery bloom. 
Where’er the foot of the bright shower passes 
Fragrant and fresh delights unfold; 
The wild fawns feed on the scented grasses, 
Wild bees on the cactus-gold. 

An ox-cart stumbles upon the rocks, 
And a wistful music pursues the breeze 
From a shepherd’s pipe as he gathers his flocks 
Under the pipal-trees. 
And a young Banjara driving her cattle 
Lifts up her voice as she glitters by 
In an ancient ballad of love and battle 
Set to the beat of a mystic tune, 
And the faint stars gleam in the eastern sky 
To herald a rising moon. 

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Liz is right!

Skies are cloudy. Ground level air is smokey. Reports are that 80 million Americans are under air quality  alerts. We’re included. If we get lucky, local rainstorms may help clear the air, at least briefly, without lightning strikes igniting local wild fires. Nevertheless, governments worldwide continue to be insufficiently responsive to climate breakdown and too many are allowed to claim it’s all a hoax.

Meanwhile, one of the challengers for the Democratic presidential nomination triggers this question: “At least 100 million people are eligible to run for US president. Why are we left with Robert F Kennedy Jr?” 

No voting for idiots

Photo by J. Harrington

Even the remotest prospect of a 2024 presidential election contest between RFK, Jr and the twice impeached orange imbecile is enough to turn my stomach. That would make “Dumb and Dumber” look like Nobel prize material. Meanwhile, I believe Liz Cheney has nailed it, according to the Washington Post: “Liz Cheney on what’s wrong with politics: ‘We’re electing idiots’” I did a quick scan of the piece and couldn’t find an explanation of why we’re doing that. I have my own suspicion that a good part of the issue is the lack of qualifications required for the job.

Candidates for president must:

•     Be a natural-born citizen of the United States
•     Be at least 35 years old
•     Have been a resident of the United States for 14 year

Ask any well-qualified Human Resources professional, or even Catbert, what they think of the list of minimum qualifications compared to the job responsibilities. A good way to stop electing idiots is to disqualify them from the job. That would be quicker and easier than providing the electorate with the amount and quality education necessary too keep voters from electing idiots.

Now for Instance the Idiot

David Meltzer
1937 – 2016

Now for instance the idiot
who watches through the slit eye
and tilted head

a mouth that smiles without a sense of humor
watch him watching you
and know that he sees you

without smiling

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The more things change ...

There’s not much new and exciting to report on today. Deer flies are becoming more numerous. We’ve responded by installing a new blue ball covered with sticky goo. The flies are attracted to the color and get caught in the sticky stuff. Last summer we end up with a blue ball encrusted with the blackish bodies of dead flies. Our dogs and our skins appreciated the results and we didn’t spray pesticides hell, west, and gone around the place. There’s already a couple of dozen flies stuck on the ball after a few hours.

would you expect this from a caterpillar?

Photo by J. Harrington

Earlier this year members of the younger generations of the family got together and gave me a new iPhone for my birthday. Since I had been using an iPhone 6, you have an idea of how much new technology I’m trying to adjust to. This morning I got my new hearing aids. My old ones had served for about a decade. The technology for hearing aids has gotten quite a bit more complicated over the past ten years. I’ve read that I can use my new iPhone to adjust my new hearing aids, once I find and learn how to download a couple of apps, and then learn how to use those apps. I’m wondering why I didn’t plan better and schedule these changes for the winter, when I’d be fine sitting in the house playing with new toys. Each of our offspring were born in December. I could have borrowed one of their birthdays last year.

Did I mention I’m (over)due for a new laptop computer. This is getting typed on a five or six year old MacBook Pro with a sticky keyboard and slightly erratic trackpad. I’m not sure if I should try to get the phone and hearing aids under control first or just immerse myself in updates and let the bytes fall where they may. I’ll decide as soon as I get used to how much noisier the world is this afternoon than it was this morning. At least we’re not living in Russia, or China, or Texas, where the technology is failing while the  heat, literal and figurative, increases. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go study a manual or two, or three, or....

Meditation 29

Philip Pain

How mutable is every thing that here
Below we do enjoy? with how much fear
And trouble are those gilded Vanities
Attended, that so captivate our eyes?
   Oh, who would trust this World, or prize what's in it,
   That gives, and takes, and changes in a minute?

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Home, again?

A week from tomorrow is July 4. Where I come from [Boston, MA], that’s deep into Summer. June is wending along the same path as Spring, into memory land. Greens are deepening, as we get some rain. More types of butterflies are showing up almost daily. We’ve already more than halfway to the average number of days we reach 90℉ [9 so far, 13 is average]. We’ll have to wait and see how it goes from here. Cooler and wetter, but not too much, would be nice.

I’m noticing that spending less time checking newspapers and social media usually puts me in a better mood and gives me more time to devote to things I can actually do something about and/or things I enjoy doing. I’ve been reading more and more about Traditional Ecological Knowledge [TEK] and that’s slowly helping me to shift bits and pieces of my world view. I’m involved, as a volunteer, in a project for which I’d like to find at least one way to integrate TEK, similar to the Wakan Tipi Center at the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary in St. Paul. 

Water of the Dodem Spirits

Photo by J. Harrington

I grew up learning about the American Revolution, the Minutemen, and the “shot heard round the world.” I have been much slower, as I grow older, learning about those who lived here before “settlers” arrived, before the fur trade changed the economy and the relationships among those living here. We can’t go back, but we can do a much better job of restoring not only the environment on which we depend for food, clean air and water, and our relationship to that environment plus our relationship with those who lived here before US and are still here.

Dakota Homecoming

By Gwen Nell Westerman

We are so honored that

              you are here, they said.

We know that this is

             your homeland, they said.

The admission price

             is five dollars, they said.

Here is your button

             for the event, they said.

It means so much to us that

             you are here, they said.

We want to write

             an apology letter, they said.

Tell us what to say.

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The fields are alive with the sounds of ...

As the dogs and I were taking their after lunch walk along the road today, we got yelled at. No, not by an irate motorist but by a pair of sandhill cranes walking through the neighbor’s hayfield across the road. Apparently we were getting too close for the crane’s comfort so we slowed down and gave them some time to increase the distance separating us. The dogs then finished their business, we turned around and headed back toward the house, and the cranes continued whatever business they were on without further comment.

neighborhood field, sandhill cranes

Photo by J. Harrington

Living where we do, cranes are frequently seen in the neighborhood. We’ve not yet, to our knowledge, had them visit our property. Although that would be nice, and we’re mildly jealous that the neighbors properties are more appealing to cranes than ours have been, seeing cranes up close fairly regularly is a wonderful enrichment to our day-to-day activities.

Canada goose/gander with goslings

Photo by J. Harrington

Before the county “improved” the Hwy 36 bridge over the Sunrise River, and the adjoining roadway, we used to be able to watch for geese and goslings near the bridge at this time of year. An extended guard rail cut off the small piece of field between the road and the marshes, so the geese have gone elsewhere to nest and we no longer get to enjoy watching goslings grow. On the other hand, partially grown goslings are no long as likely to be struck by a passing vehicle doing 55 mph or so. Better for the geese if not for would-be naturalists.

The Sandhills

By Linda Hogan

The language of cranes

we once were told

is the wind. The wind

is their method,

their current, the translated story

of life they write across the sky.

Millions of years

they have blown here

on ancestral longing,

their wings of wide arrival,

necks long, legs stretched out

above strands of earth

where they arrive

with the shine of water,

stories, interminable

language of exchanges

descended from the sky

and then they stand,

earth made only of crane

from bank to bank of the river

as far as you can see

the ancient story made new.

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In praise of poets laureate

The elderberry bush growing in the “wet spot”in the back yard is coming into flower. More orange day lilies, plus one scarlet one, have started to bloom along the road ditch. One of the azaleas hydrangeas [the Better Half informed me my  plant i.d. was incorrect] and peonies we planted behind the house is each developing a flower. Yesterday we got enough rain to settle the dust, but not much more. Today offers additional possibilities. We’ll see if the clouds actually deliver or again pass us by. The local paper is now reporting that we’re experiencing the “Driest spring in 5 decades ...” 

June dawn, Sunrise River pools

Photo by J. Harrington

Among other volumes recently, I’ve been reading Michael Garrigan’s poetry. One of his redeeming perspectives is that he “believes that every watershed should have a Poet Laureate.” I think that’s one of the better ideas I’ve run across in a while and think the St. Croix, between Minnesota and Wisconsin, would be a wonderful place to begin. We already have a number of Poets of Place from last year’s Big Read. The selection process raises the question of what level of watershed are we talking about. I’d like to see a laureate for each 10 digit or 12 digit watershed like our own Sunrise River, but we should have one for no less than watersheds as large as the St. Croix. Poetry can grow community in a place like a watershed. It can also capture the horror of a watershed misused and abused.

Watershed

Tracy K. Smith
1972 – 

200 cows         more than 600 hilly acres

            property would have been even larger
had  J not sold 66 acres to DuPont for
                      waste from its Washington Works factory
where J was employed        
                                                did not want to sell
            but needed money   poor health         
mysterious ailments

Not long after the sale cattle began to act
deranged     
                          footage shot on a camcorder
grainy               intercut with static         
Images jump repeat      sound accelerates        
      slows down          
                    quality of a horror movie

the rippling shallow water       the white ash
      trees shedding their leaves 
                                                      a large pipe
discharging green water      
                                                  a skinny red cow
hair missing      back humped  
                                               
a dead black calf in snow         its eye
      a brilliant chemical blue    

                                            a calf’s bisected head       
      liver     heart    stomachs    kidneys           
              gall bladder      some dark      some green                  

cows with stringy tails         malformed hooves           
      lesions      red receded eyes        suffering   slobbering       
                  staggering like drunks

It don’t look like
                               anything I’ve been into before

                                   

I began rising through the ceiling of each floor in the hospital as though I were being pulled by some force outside my own volition. I continued rising until I passed through the roof itself and found myself in the sky. I began to move much more quickly past the mountain range near the hospital and over the city. I was swept away by some unknown force, and started to move at an enormous speed. Just moving like a thunderbolt through a darkness. 

 

R’s taking on the case I found to be inconceivable

It just felt like the right thing to do
                                                                   a great
opportunity to use my background for people who
                                really needed it          

                                R: filed a federal suit 
                                         pulled permits  
                                             land deeds    
                                                     a letter that mentioned
a substance at the landfill     
                                                 PFOA          
                               perfluorooctanoic acid

a soap-like agent used in
                                              Scotchgard^TM
                                                                         Teflon^TM

PFOA:                 was to be incinerated or
                              sent to chemical waste facilities     
                                    not to be flushed into water or sewers

DuPont:
                 pumped hundreds of thousands of pounds
                          into the Ohio River    
                 dumped tons of PFOA sludge
                          into open unlined pits 

PFOA:
               increased the size of the liver in rats and rabbits         
                                  (results replicated in dogs)
               caused birth defects in rats      
               caused cancerous testicular pancreatic and
                             liver tumors in lab animals      
               possible DNA damage from exposure 
               bound to plasma proteins in blood     
               was found circulating through each organ       
               high concentrations in the blood of factory workers   
               children of pregnant employees had eye defects          
               dust vented from factory chimneys settled well-beyond
                            the property line
               entered the water table
               concentration in drinking water 3x international safety limit
               study of workers linked exposure with prostate cancer
               worth $1 billion in annual profit
 

(It don’t look like anything I’ve been into before)      

 

Every individual thing glowed with life. Bands of energy were being dispersed from a huge universal heartbeat, faster than a raging river. I found I could move as fast as I could think. 

 

DuPont:
               did not make this information public
               declined to disclose this finding       
               considered switching to new compound that appeared less toxic
                        and stayed in the body for a much shorter duration of time
               decided against it
               decided it needed to find a landfill for toxic sludge
               bought 66 acres from a low-level employee
                        at the Washington Works facility
 

(J needed money         
                                         had been in poor health     
a dead black calf              
                                         its eye chemical blue          
cows slobbering               
                                         staggering like drunks)

 

I could perceive the Earth, outer space, and humanity from a spacious and indescribable ‘God’s eye view.’ I saw a planet to my left covered with vegetation of many colors no signs of mankind or any familiar shorelines. The waters were living waters, the grass was living, the trees and the animals were more alive than on earth.

                                   
D’s first husband had been a chemist
                                                                          When you
worked at DuPont in this town you could have
everything you wanted
                                       DuPont paid for his education          
secured him a mortgage           paid a generous salary 
even gave him a free supply of PFOA

 

He explained that the planet we call Earth really has a proper name, has its own energy, is a true living being, was very strong but has been weakened considerably.
 

                                                              which she used
as soap in the family’s dishwasher       

 

I could feel Earth’s desperate situation. Her aura appeared to be very strange, made me wonder if it was radioactivity. It was bleak, faded in color, and its sound was heart wrenching.

 

                                                Sometimes
her husband came home sick—fever, nausea, diarrhea,
vomiting—‘Teflon flu’

             an emergency hysterectomy
                                                                   a second surgery          

 

I could tell the Doctor everything he did upon my arrival down to the minute details of accompanying the nurse to the basement of the hospital to get the plasma for me; everything he did while also being instructed and shown around in Heaven.
 

Clients called R to say they had received diagnoses of cancer
         or that a family member had died

                  W who had cancer had died of a heart attack

            Two years later W’s wife died of cancer

They knew this stuff was harmful
            and they put it in the water anyway
 

I suspect that Earth may be a place of education.
 

PFOA detected in:
                                American blood banks    
                                blood or vital organs of:
                                                                            Atlantic salmon
                                                                            swordfish
                                                                            striped mullet
                                                                            gray seals
                                                                            common cormorants
                                                                            Alaskan polar bears
                                                                            brown pelicans
                                                                            sea turtles
                                                                            sea eagles
                                                                            California sea lions      
                                                                            Laysan albatrosses on a wildlife refuge
                                                                                          in the middle of the North Pacific       Ocean;>

Viewing the myriad human faces with an indescribable, intimate, and profound love. This love was all around me, it was everywhere, but at the same time it was also me.

 

                                      We see a situation

        that has gone

                                from Washington Works
 

All that was important in life was the love we felt.
 

                                                                                          to statewide
 

All that was made, said, done, or even thought without love was undone. 

 

                                     to everywhere
 

                  it’s global

                                  

In my particular case, God took the form of a luminous warm water. It does not mean that a luminous warm water is God. It is just that, for me, it was experiencing the luminous warm water that I felt the most connection with the eternal.

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Planning will never replace dumb luck

Our Air Quality Alert is still with us. I believe it’s the same one that was initially supposed to end last night about 7 pm. Meanwhile, cumulous clouds pile up every afternoon, do their best to become storm clouds, fail, or succeed somewhere nearby, and leave us muttering about cloudy skies and continuing drought. I think we’re close to three inches below normal precipitation so far this month. Maybe this afternoon, or tonight, or tomorrow, or next week sometime, we’ll finally get some rain? [For the record, the preceding paragraph is somewhere between an observation and a complaint, an observelaint?]

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now... J. Mitchell

Photo by J. Harrington

Due to the air quality (or lack thereof), I’ve been pretty much staying inside this morning and reading about reciprocity and gifts in traditional ecological knowledge, at the moment in the form of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s essay on Mishkos Kenomagwen, the Lessons of Grass, in which she tells a version of the story of the Women Who Fell from the Sky. That caused me to remember that Joy Harjo has a volume by that title, so I went to see if I have a copy. The answer is not yet. As I was looking online to refresh my memory on what the cover looks like, I also discovered Harjo has a recently published illustrated volume of her poem Remember. The latter looks as though it would almost perfectly complement the book our granddaughter gave me for Father’s Day this year [see this June 19 posting]. Since I also received a gift card at one of my favorite book stores on Father’s Day, I intend to reciprocate by using it to get a copy of both Remember and Woman to share with that same granddaughter. See how sometimes it just all comes together?

I think we may have also begun a positive feedback loop with the assembly of the two bookshelves our son gave me for Father’s Day. Beginning to turn stacks of books into semi-organized collections feels rewarding enough that we’ll do some more of it the next time we get a rainy day that’s too stormy and full of lightening to stand in a river waving a graphite stick. We may well salvage most of this summer if we keep this going with the flow attitude.

Remember

Joy Harjo     1951 – 

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

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Late June phenology

Sometime yesterday, or early today, the township mowed the shoulders of roads in our neck of the woods. It appears such efforts are consistent with recent (2022) legislation about providing "enhanced roadside habitat for nesting birds and other small wildlife....” The mower missed most of the patches of orange day lilies that are beginning to bloom along the roads. Although I’m far from expertise on this topic, I believe the day lily is classified as invasive, but not noxious, in Minnesota but a USDA plant database search of invasive/noxious in Minnesota by scientific name results in a null answer. I have no idea what’s going on.

orange day lilies

Photo by J. Harrington

For the past week or ten days, I’ve seen more birds than I ever remember before, especially male goldfinches and downy woodpeckers, going at each other in an effort to establish “pecking order(?).” It’s like watching micro fighter planes having dog fights minus machine guns. Meanwhile, the rose-breasted grosbeaks seem to be getting along, as are the red-winged blackbirds and nuthatches, and the red-bellied woodpecker just helps himself to the feeder whenever he wants.

I’d be upset that, again this year, we missed having a brush pile (bonfire) burn in honor of summer solstice, but it’s been so hot and dry I’m figuring it’s just as well we didn’t try. Plus, we used that time and energy to collect some book shelf kits and got one of the two kits assembled. We’re making progress but it’s too early to claim success in bringing order to our piles of books stacked hither and yon. If only I didn’t find so many topics of interest and so many poets worth reading. But then I’d probably be grumping about being bored much of the time.

The Tuft of Flowers

Robert Frost    1874 – 1963

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a ’wildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name, 
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me here the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

‘Men work together.’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

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On Alban Hefin

Locally, we passed the Summer Solstice several hours ago at 9:57 am CDT. Spring is officially over both astronomically and meteorologically. Today Druids celebrate Alban Hefin. It’s one of eight festivals celebrated each year, known collectively as the Wheel of the Year. Personally, I enjoy the sense of an annual rhythm I get from a festival every six weeks or so instead of just the two solstices and two equinoxes.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere in these postings that I’m more a fisher, hunter, gatherer than a gardener, so I don’t get much involved in soil preparation, planting, tending, etc. Minnesota has fishing of one sort or another just about year round, so “fishing season” isn’t really. Hunting seasons are in the autumn, but much of early hunting season still feels like summer. Our membership in a community supported agriculture farm [CSA] helps with spring, summer and autumn recognition. Studying Druidry helps bring me more into alignment with an annual cycle of rebirth in spring, growth through the summer, putting food by in autumn, and deep sleep in winter.

this bookcase (2014) is now overflowing plus

Photo by J. Harrington

Much of today  has been spent picking up and assembling one of the two DIY bookcases our son gave me for Father’s Day. The case went together with  few issues. The second one will get assembled after the first has been placed against a wall and filled with books. I am once again attempting to bring stacks of read and unread books into some semblance of order. I’m trying  to restore the house from the equivalent of the old Norwegian uncle's kitchen with  passageways between  the stacks and walls of old newspapers. I think I’ll begin by seeing what happens if I dedicate one case to the unread and partially read stacks scattered about. Wish us luck, I’m pretty sure we’ll need it.

The House Was Quiet and The World Was Calm

Wallace Stevens     1879 – 1955

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

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For a sustainable Summer

In addition to our spring plantings being stressed by the drought this summer, the Better Half and I planted something that seems to have attracted the attention of the local deer, or maybe it’s rabbits, but there’s a clump of plants I’ve been hand-watering that’s been gnawed into almost nonexistence. That’s frustrating. Maybe it’s comic relief, but right next to the chawed-on plants is a small dust bowl that’s getting used by at least one of the local turkeys.

Cooler weather and the possibility of rain return this coming weekend, so there’s that to hope for. At the moment, we’re under an ozone advisory until at least 9 pm Thursday. Following the precautionary principle, we’re going to forego the prospect of fly-fishing for now and hope Friday is a better day. In fact, it would be wonderful if the rest of the weather this Summer turns out better than what we’ve had so far this year.

beardtongue (Penstemon grandiflorus)

Photo by J. Harrington

Milkweed is beginning to develop flowerheads but we don’t see any little caterpillars nibbling on them. Many plants, including orange day lilies and penstemon (beardtongue), plus at least one of the asters we planted this spring, seem to be aborting flower formation, due to drought? Once again I’m getting concerned about a shifting baseline syndrome conditioning the younger generations to think that this is what Summer is supposed to be like, with skies full of smoke from afar and ozone from who knows where, and drought.

Tomorrow, at 9:37 am CDT, we’ll honor Summer Solstice with our own private ceremonies. We hope you’ll do likewise. It will be difficult, but we need to transform our culture into one that recognizes and acknowledges our dependence on Earth’s natural systems for our continued ability to survive, let alone thrive. Our economy and culture continue to behave as though it’s fine to use next year’s seed corn in tonight’s chowder. That’s not sustainable.

Solstice Litany

By Jim Harrison

      1

The Saturday morning meadowlark

came in from high up

with her song gliding into tall grass

still singing. How I'd like

to glide around singing in the summer

then to go south to where I already was

and find fields full of meadowlarks

in winter. But when walking my dog

I want four legs to keep up with her

as she thunders down the hill at top speed

then belly flops into the deep pond.

Lark or dog I crave the impossible.

I'm just human. All too human.

      2

I was nineteen and mentally

infirm when I saw the prophet Isaiah.

The hem of his robe was as wide

as the horizon and his trunk and face

were thousands of feet up in the air.

Maybe he appeared because I had read him

so much and opened too many ancient doors.

I was cooking my life in a cracked clay

pot that was leaking. I had found

secrets I didn't deserve to know.

When the battle for the mind is finally

over it's late June, green and raining.

      3

A violent windstorm the night before

the solstice. The house creaked and yawned.

I thought the morning might bring a bald earth,

bald as a man's bald head but not shiny.

But dawn was fine with a few downed trees,

the yellow rosebush splendidly intact.

The grass was all there dotted with Black

Angus cattle. The grass is indestructible

except to fire but now it's too green to burn.

What did the cattle do in this storm?

They stood with their butts toward the wind,

erect Buddhists waiting for nothing in particular.

I was in bed cringing at gusts,

imagining the contents of earth all blowing

north and piled up where the wind stopped,

the pile sky-high. No one can climb it.

A gopher comes out of a hole as if nothing happened.

 

      4

The sun should be a couple of million miles

closer today. It wouldn't hurt anything

and anyway this cold rainy June is hard

on me and the nesting birds. My own nest

is stupidly uncomfortable, the chair

of many years. The old windows don't keep

the weather out, the wet wind whipping

my hair. A very old robin drops dead

on the lawn, a first for me. Millions

of birds die but we never see it—they like

privacy in this holy, fatal moment or so

I think. We can't tell each other when we die.

Others must carry the message to and fro.

"He's gone," they'll say. While writing an average poem

destined to disappear among the millions of poems

written now by mortally average poets.

      5

Solstice at the cabin deep in the forest.

The full moon shines in the river, there are pale

green northern lights. A huge thunderstorm

comes slowly from the west. Lightning strikes

a nearby tamarack bursting into flame.

I go into the cabin feeling unworthy.

At dawn the tree is still smoldering

in this place the gods touched earth.

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It’s Summer Solstice week

By week’s end, days will no longer be getting longer, but the sun will govern and joy should prevail, because we are in the light half of the year. The longest day of the year is accompanied by the shortest period of darkness. Locally, Summer Solstice occurs on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 9:57 am CDT. We’ll enjoy 15 hours, 40 minutes, and some seconds of daylight. Day’s length will be almost twice night’s. Both meteorological and astronomical seasons will again be in accord. Everywhere in the Northern hemisphere will be summer for the next ten or twelve weeks or so. Since the odds are at least fair that next winter may be as harsh as the last one, I’m going to make a Summer Solstice resolution to replace complement whatever I did for New Year’s. I will spend as much time as possible enjoying whatever I can for the rest of this year. I doubt I’ll ever be able to forego finding fault with contemporary culture, but I can work on letting go of my disgruntlements much quicker. That way I can return to feeling gruntled much quicker.

One of the presents I received for Father’s Day is among the most delightful books I’ve ever read. It was a special present from my two-and-a-half-going-on-three year old granddaughter. The title is maybe, by Kobi Yamada, illustrated by Gabriella Barouch. (Although the linked review claims it’s a “Picture book. 2 – 8,” we respectfully disagree. We know many too many adults who would enjoy the book and could learn lessons as powerful as those in The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.) I look forward to sharing it many times over with my granddaughter. I hope you will get your hands on a copy and read it at least once.

Granddaughters

By Joy Harjo

I was a thought, a dream, a fish, a wing 

And then a human being 

When I emerged from my mother's river 

On my father's boat of potent fever 

I carried a sack of dreams from a starlit dwelling 

To be opened when I begin bleeding 

There's a red dress, deerskin moccasins 

The taste of berries made of promises 

While the memories shift in their skins 

At every moon, to do their ripening

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For Father’s Day, a wish and an assessment

more rain is needed to make a rainbow

Photo by J. Harrington

Wishing you a Happy Father's Day. Mine, so far, has been joyful, but also, essentially, rainless. So that we may all get to enjoy and share many more Father's Days with each other, let's remember and follow this guidance:

Shoulders

Naomi Shihab Nye

1952 – 

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.

We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

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