Farewell 2023! Welcome 2024?

Remember that the founding fathers created a government built on a system of checks and balances? Remember what happened in 2016 and 2020/2021? We had one candidate win the popular vote and a different candidate win the electoral college in 2016, shades of Bush / Gore 2000! The last presidential election almost ended with a successful insurrection. We’ve been faced with a quarter century’s dicy political results and no one has really tried to change the system. Is next year going to serve US a platter of “people get the government they deserve?”

I’m more than pleased with most of the job President Biden’s done. I’d be much happier if he weren’t just a bit older than me. If the Democrats had an actual strategy to crush Trump and his supporters, I’d be delighted. I’m afraid next year will bring another period of Thomas Paine’s:

These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

a New Year dawns

Photo by J. Harrington

Who and where is our contemporary Paine to help US vanquish our source of real pain in the .... Rump? There are several individuals whose writings have helped me keep at least partially grounded. If you’re not reading what they have to say, you might want to consider:

• Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American,
• Tristan Roberts, and/or
• Chris LaTray’s An Irritable Métis

I had been looking forward to crafting a brief summary of the past year’s high points. Then I read the prognostication in The Guardian that:

Suspense over the outcome of the US presidential election in November will increasingly command American domestic and international attention. Joe Biden plans to ignore many in his own party and seek a second term despite his age (81) and low approval ratings. The Democrats’ nightmare: Biden becomes unwell or suffers some disastrous embarrassment when it’s too late to replace him. Few believe vice-president Kamala Harris could step into his shoes. Donald Trump, who will be 78 in November, will win the Republican nomination. But his overall national approval rating is as negative as Biden’s, at roughly -15%. It’s also possible Trump will be in jail come the election. Prediction: Biden wins the popular vote, Trump the electoral college – which means Trump gets a second term.

We need every honest voter to serve this country, the world’s leading democracy, and VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO! The other day we posted that next year is WAR 2024 (Women Against Republicans). Perhaps it is also WAM 2024 (Women Against MAGAts or Wisdom Against MAGAts).

Here’s wishing you and US a happy and healthy and prosperous New Year full of freedom and free from unpleasant surprises and big, orange pains in the Rump.

Counting, This New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain To Me

Jane Hirshfield     1953 – 

The world asks, as it asks daily:  
And what can you make, can you do, to change my deep-broken, fractured?

I count, this first day of another year, what remains.  
I have a mountain, a kitchen, two hands.  

Can admire with two eyes the mountain,  
actual, recalcitrant, shuffling its pebbles, sheltering foxes and beetles. 

Can make black-eyed peas and collards. 
Can make, from last year’s late-ripening persimmons, a pudding. 

Can climb a stepladder, change the bulb in a track light. 

For four years, I woke each day first to the mountain,  
then to the question. 

The feet of the new sufferings followed the feet of the old,  
and still they surprised. 

I brought salt, brought oil, to the question. Brought sweet tea,  
brought postcards and stamps. For four years, each day, something. 

Stone did not become apple. War did not become peace.  
Yet joy still stays joy. Sequins stay sequins. Words still bespangle, bewilder.  

Today, I woke without answer.  

The day answers, unpockets a thought from a friend

don’t despair of this falling world, not yet 

didn’t it give you the asking

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A New Year’s Phoenix

We’re closing out the month and the year with another cloudy, frosty day. Today is the second last day of 2023. New Year’s Eve arrives tomorrow. Snow showers are forecast for tonight. Tomorrow evening brings the Vikings Packers game, a “must win” for both teams to keep alive playoff hopes. I’m sure some fans may be excited but Lucy Viking has snatched the football away from this Charlie Brown once too often, four time Superbowl losers!

a New Year arises from the ashes of the old

Photo by J. Harrington

As is all too typical around here, today we found and delivered the stocking stuffers and Christmas presents that fell out of Santa’s sleigh. By some strange coincidence, all were destined for the Better Half. I’m blaming it on friction on the sleigh runners (no snow) and the way the sleigh was packed by elves. Maybe they’ll do better next year.

The crazy warm weather we’ve been experiencing is getting me antsy for next fishing season and I know I’m headed for a fall -- snow fall that is. There’s two+ months of North Country winter ahead of us. At least I have books to look through and gear to clean and organize. Maybe next year will be the year the Son-In-Law gets induced to seriously try bass bugging with a fly rod. We know his brother-in-law gave him a couple of bass flies for Christmas and his father-in-law haas a spare bass weight rod available to borrow. (I think I may have just given away a New Year’s resolution.)

Burning the Old Year

By Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,   

lists of vegetables, partial poems.   

Orange swirling flame of days,   

so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,   

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   

only the things I didn’t do   

crackle after the blazing dies.

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Here’s to a Happiness-filled New Year!

Much of the world outside the house is frost covered, from grass stems to tree crowns. I have not doubt that, at some point soon, we’ll again be covered by snow instead of frost, but not yet. Some day soon we may even get another glimpse of something called sunshine.

a frost-covered landscape

Photo by J. Harrington

I recently started rereading a book that was copyrighted ten years ago and first published January 1, 2015. It’s titled Sustainable Happiness and was edited by the folks at YES! magazine. The difference with this reading is that I’m leaning heavily toward actually following the book’s guidance. The first reading, years ago, was more an exploratory adventure. For better or worse, I’m beginning to believe, or at least accept as true, a number of the principles I’ve read over the past couple of decades. That has prompted me to change. Remember the old line about “Doc, it hurts when I do this.” Doc replies: “Don't do it!” If most of what I do is find fault, I’m blocking my own road to happiness. My new-found motivation is that I can think of few things more likely to crush Republicans and fascists than the rest of US becoming happy. This approach is just an enlargement on the old wisdom “Living well is the best revenge.”

Sustainable happiness is one way to measure “living well.” Others can be found in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Genuine Progress Indicator. Of course, most of this derives from Donella Meadows work on places to intervene in a system. Are we perhaps rediscovering some of the wisdom of Jefferson when he insisted that the Declaration of Independence include the phrase “pursuit of happiness?”

So Much Happiness

Naomi Shihab Nye     1952 – 

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records . . .

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

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Women Against Republicans: 2024’s WAR

Years ago, when I started homemade bread baking, I read that some folks named their sourdough starter and treated it like a pet that had to be fed regularly. My starter is named Lazarus because I regularly starve him to death in the refrigerator and then bring him back to life. That’s what we’re working on today. If a feeding of all-purpose flour doesn’t result in bubbles, we’ll next try whole wheat white flour. Fingers crossed time. I’m looking forward to baking the first sourdough boule of the new year.

One of the amaryllis flowers looks like it may bloom for New Year’s day. It stayed in bud past Christmas and is just now beginning to open. Another bulb has two short stems but I’ve not a guess when we’l see flowers. Before Valentine’s day probably. I know, that is a guess. I’m in a mood because we’re still under cloud cover. A few brief glimpses of sun late yesterday and last night the clouds returned. At least they didn’t block the gorgeous golden glowing nearly full moon as it rose in the evening.

We usually leave Christmas decorations up until the Feast of the Epiphany (January 7 next year). It takes several days to a week to take them down and put them away, by which time we decorate for Valentine’s. One of my Christmas presents, again this year, is a bulb bucket of flowers that will be blooming for weeks. Here’s a picture from late January 2023 of the Christmas 2022 bucket.

late January, forced blooms

Photo by J. Harrington

Here in the North Country, some of us are grateful for every sign of impending spring we can get. I’m definitely one of those some. As long as we’re on the topic of upcoming Spring, that’s when I plan to cash in a different Christmas present, a gift certificate at a local, independent, book store. (I know, quite a surprise!) Milkweed Editions is scheduled to publish Ada Limón’s Poet Laureate project: You Are Here, Poetry in the Natural World.

I’ve kept you in suspense long enough. Here’s what the title is about. At the moment, it appears I can do a reasonable job managing and scheduling most outcomes next year except for the one on November 5, For that I’ll need help from each of you. As of today, it’s time to declare a top 2024 WAR, Women Against Republicans! Down with insurrectionists. Up with bodily autonomy and women’s health!

How to Triumph Like a Girl

By Ada Limón

I like the lady horses best,

how they make it all look easy,

like running 40 miles per hour

is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.

I like their lady horse swagger,

after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!

But mainly, let’s be honest, I like

that they’re ladies. As if this big

dangerous animal is also a part of me,

that somewhere inside the delicate

skin of my body, there pumps

an 8-pound female horse heart,

giant with power, heavy with blood.

Don’t you want to believe it?

Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see

the huge beating genius machine

that thinks, no, it knows,

it’s going to come in first.

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A year’s end inventory

There’s a summer thunderstorm size puddle in the driveway. The wet spot behind the house is showing open water that suggests our moderate drought is over and done for now. Somethings with vivid green leaves (vivid vernal?) have emerged in the woods in front of the house. The creek/pond up the road is almost all open water. It is not feeling very much like Christmas time in the North Country. If we try to adjust and adapt, it will most likely trigger several eighteen inch snowstorms in a row.

a full moon in December looks like this

Photo by J. Harrington

Although  there was too much cloud cover to enjoy it, yesterday was the December full moon, know as Little Spirit Moon by the Ojibwe and Shedding Horns Moon by the Lakota. Come Saturday, days will be three minutes longer than they were a week prior. Spring Equinox is 83 days away (March 19, 10:06 pm locally). Around here, that rarely marks the end of winter weather. It’ll be interesting to see what next year brings.

We appear to be augmenting increasingly volatile weather patterns with comparable political instability. These are times when we should focus more and more on the reality that the future isn’t just something out there that happens to US, it’s something we create with every action we take and decision we make every single minute of each and every day.

There’s only a few days before the  start of a new year. What kind of year will we make of it?

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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A life worth living

 

Open Book stone table

Photo by J. Harrington

Does anyone else see a problem here?

• Writing helps the incarcerated reclaim their humanity


• Public Colleges Serving Rural Areas Especially Likely to Cut Humanities

According to the National Humanities Center:

From an academic standpoint, the humanities include the study of history, philosophy and religion, modern and ancient languages and literatures, fine and performing arts, media and cultural studies, and other fields. Humanities research adds to our knowledge of the world, as scholars investigate differences between cultures and communities around the world and across time, consider the ways art is made and received, or unveil the undercurrents that have shaped history. Humanities education encourages students to think creatively and critically, to reason, and ask questions. And, as the humanities offer insight into nearly every aspect of life, they have been considered a core element of a well-rounded education since ancient times.

Put simply, the humanities help us understand and interpret the human experience, as individuals and societies.

Minnesota's higher education system provides for technical education options, including online and associate degrees. The Minnesota Humanities Center doesn't appear to have comparable offerings. What does this say about the value of learning how to be a [better] human?

“The case for the humanities is not hard to make, though it can be difficult--to such an extent have we been marginalized, so long have we acceded to that marginalization--not to sound either defensive or naive. The humanities, done right, are the crucible in which our evolving notions of what it means to be fully human are put to the test; they teach us, incrementally, endlessly, not what to do, but how to be. Their method is confrontational, their domain unlimited, their "product" not truth but the reasoned search for truth, their "success" something very much like Frost's momentary stay against confusion.” 
― Mark Slouka, Essays from the Nick of Time: Reflections and Refutations

Humanities Lecture

By William E. Stafford

Aristotle was a little man with

eyes like a lizard, and he found a streak

down the midst of things, a smooth place for his feet

much more important than the carved handles

on the coffins of the great.

He said you should put your hand out

at the time and place of need:

strength matters little, he said,

nor even speed.

His pupil, a king's son, died

at an early age. That Aristotle spoke of him

it is impossible to find—the youth was

notorious, a conqueror, a kid with a gang,

but even this Aristotle didn't ever say.

Around the farthest forest and along

all the bed of the sea, Aristotle studied

immediate, local ways. Many of which

were wrong. So he studied poetry.

There, in pity and fear, he found Man.

Many thinkers today, who stand low and grin,

have little use for anger or power, its palace

or its prison—

but quite a bit for that little man

with eyes like a lizard. 

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Merry Christmas!

 From time to time I mention that I’m proud to “be of Irish extraction.” Here’s one reason why:

The Littlest Christmas Tree

By Amy Peterson

The littlest Christmas tree
lived in a meadow of green
among a family
of tall evergreens.
He learned how to whisper
the evergreen song
with the slightest of wind
that came gently along.

He watched as the birds
made a home out of twigs
and couldn’t wait till
he, too, was big.
For all of the trees
offered a home,
the maple, the pine, and the oak,
who’s so strong.

“I hate being little,”
the little tree said,
“I can’t even turn colors
like the maple turns red.
I can’t help the animals
like the mighty old oak.
He shelters them all
in his wide mighty cloak.”

The older tree said,
“Why, little tree, you don’t know?
The story of a mighty king
from the land with no snow?”
Little tree questioned,
“A land with no snow?”
“Yes!” said old tree,
“A very old story,
from so long ago.”

“A star appeared,
giving great light
over a manger
on long winter’s night.
A baby was born,
a king of all kings,
and with him comes love
over all things.”

“He lived in a country
all covered in sand,
and laid down his life
to save all of man.”

Little tree thought of the gift
given by him,
then the big tree said with the
happiest grin,
“We’re not just trees,
but a reminder of that day.
There’s a much bigger part
of a role that we play!”

“For on Christmas Eve,
my life I’ll lay down,
in exchange for a happier,
loving ground.
And as I stand dying,
they’ll adorn me in trim.
This all will be done
in memory of him.”

“Among a warm fire,
with family and friends,
in the sweet songs of Christmas,
I’ll find my great end.
Then ever so gently,
He’ll come down to see
and take me to heaven,
Jesus and me.”

“So you see, little tree,
we are not like the oak
who shelters all things
beneath his great cloak.
Nor are we like the maple
in fall,
whose colors leave many
standing in awe.”

“The gift that we give
is ourselves, limb for limb,
the greatest of honor,
in memory of him.”

The little tree bowed
his head down and cried
and thought of the king
who willingly died.
For what kind of gift
can anyone give than to lay down your life
when you wanted to live?

A swelling of pride
came over the tree.
Can all of this happen
Because of just me?
Can I really bring honor?
By adorning a home?
By reminding mankind
that he’s never alone?

With this thought, little tree
began singing with glee.
Happy and proud
to be a true Christmas tree.

You can still hear them singing
even the smallest in height,
singing of Christmas
and that one holy night.

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On Christmas Eve

Almost a decade ago we re-sided and re-shinglled the house. We also had some bracing added to the roof, to be sure it would hold a "miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.” The white stuff on the ground is called snow, which some years arrives in the North Country for Christmas. 

make sure your roof will hold Santa

Photo by J. Harrington

“‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” turns 200 this year

A Visit from St. Nicholas

By Clement Clarke Moore

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds;

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,

Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,

When what to my wondering eyes did appear,

But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,

With a little old driver so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up to the housetop the coursers they flew

With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.

His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;

He had a broad face and a little round belly

That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

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December March(es) out

Despite the attentions and appetite of a certain lovable but unnamed blogger, it looks like there will be enough cookies for Santa and at least a few of his elves, although not necessarily all flavors will be equally represented. 

We’re close to confirming that the Christmas spirit isn’t dependent on snow but does have a lot to do with sharing good wishes with friends and family. Last night a friend dropped by and today the Granddaughter brought her parents to visit and inspect our tree and decorations. We’ll reciprocate on Christmas Day as we also celebrate our son’s birthday. There are two other family birthdays this month, which adds to the business and happiness.

a special snowflake for Christmas

Photo by J. Harrington

All the fog is making me extra nostalgic for Boston and the South Shore of Massachusetts, where I did my growing up and a white Christmas was less frequent than it has been in the North Country. This weekend’s weather feels more like we skipped winter and jumped ahead to March. So far this month there’s only been one day that hasn't had temperatures above “normal.”

The unseasonable weather and the seasonable visit from the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law and Granddaughter created the fortuitous circumstances of the S-I-L getting up on the roof and clearing an accumulation of branches and leaves left over from autumn’s storms. Having a now clearer landing space should make the landing and take-off for Santa’s visit easier for the jolly old elf. Heaven forbid grandparents having to explain that Santa didn’t get to Granddaughter’s chimney because his sleigh got caught on roof debris at Gramma’s and Grandpa’s.

It looks like next month we’ll return to cold temperatures and may catch up on snowfall. Then, again, maybe not. By the third week in February, we can almost smell spring equinox, which arrives as a belated, but much loved, Christmas present from Mother Nature. (What do you mean I sound like I don’t enjoy winter?)

Before Christmas

By Landis Everson

Almost

the first reindeer

shipped North by boxcar from Lapland   

but a toy model

got there first.

A dwarf invented reindeer on his own.   

He was Santa’s favorite. He

hadn't known

they already existed.

This discouraged dwarf

was close to taking his life but

Santa showed up

encircled by snow.

He said, “I will use the real reindeer for my sled

always in yoke

to your original invention.”

That night the gears that turned the Pole   

stopped

and began to turn the other way,   

so it be so.

My love is a toy model waiting

for a reindeer to carry me.

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Season’s greetings!

Effective this morning, we can expect longer, sometimes brighter, days for the next six months. Then it will take several more months before days start getting noticeably shorter. We have a whole growing season ahead of us after we finish our long winter’s nap. But first there’s Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s!

I’ve been rereading Donald Hall’s wonderful Christmas at Eagle Pond, set near a small town in New Hampshire in 1940, when the author was twelve years old. It’s triggering at least some nostalgia for the “good old days” when life was lived at a necessarily slower pace and I was among the grandchildren rather than the grandparents. We won’t go into how many years it’s been since I was twelve.

Christmas from bygone days

Photo by J. Harrington

This year’s weather in our North Country isn’t very Christmas-like: foggy; drizzly; cloudy; unseasonably warm, based on a historical record that precedes our awareness of climate weirding. If polar ice is going to disappear, what does that suggest about a white Christmas in the years ahead? But, as Hall portrays, Christmas is about more than snow and presents.

Winter Solstice, Christmas and New Year mark the beginning of another year’s cycle. Hall has a wonderful poem about yearly cycles, although in this case the cycle’s end and beginning occur a little prior to the Christmas season. The cycle he describes could be a solid basis for responding to climate breakdown and adjusting our priorities to fit a new year with new realities.

Ox Cart Man

By Donald Hall

In October of the year,

he counts potatoes dug from the brown field,   

counting the seed, counting   

the cellar’s portion out,   

and bags the rest on the cart’s floor.

He packs wool sheared in April, honey

in combs, linen, leather   

tanned from deerhide,   

and vinegar in a barrel

hooped by hand at the forge’s fire.

He walks by his ox’s head, ten days

to Portsmouth Market, and sells potatoes,   

and the bag that carried potatoes,

flaxseed, birch brooms, maple sugar, goose   

feathers, yarn.

When the cart is empty he sells the cart.   

When the cart is sold he sells the ox,   

harness and yoke, and walks

home, his pockets heavy

with the year’s coin for salt and taxes,

and at home by fire’s light in November cold   

stitches new harness

for next year’s ox in the barn,

and carves the yoke, and saws planks   

building the cart again.

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Welcome Yule

Druids celebrate today as Alban Arthan.

Joni Mitchell has written beautifully about an aspect of the solstice cycle in The Circle Game.

May the coming year fill your life with warmth and love, beauty and wisdom, and peace.

winter’s “bluebirds” of happiness

Photo by J. Harrington

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper

    And so the Shortest Day came and the year died

    And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

    Came people singing, dancing,

    To drive the dark away.

    They lighted candles in the winter trees;

    They hung their homes with evergreen;

    They burned beseeching fires all night long

    To keep the year alive.

    And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake

    They shouted, reveling.

    Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

    Echoing behind us—listen!

    All the long echoes, sing the same delight,

    This Shortest Day,

    As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

    They carol, feast, give thanks,

    And dearly love their friends,

    And hope for peace.

    And now so do we, here, now,

    This year and every year.

    Welcome, Yule!

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On Winter Solstice eve

Some folks consider tomorrow to be midwinter because it’s halfway between the autumn and spring equinoxes. Others count it as the first day of winter. Tomorrow’s high temperature is expected to be around 42℉. If we really are that warm at midwinter, we’ll be doing well. It’s what happens over the next eight to ten weeks that has me concerned. Unlike woods into which one can only go halfway, in the North Country some winters feel endless. Maybe this one won’t.

Today’s sunshine may be the last glimpse we get for the next week or so. It’s supposed to rain Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, plus the day after. That may help explain why Minnesota’s new state flag is mostly two shades of blue. Water, water everywhere or, as someone posted on social media: “Minnesota is now the LOON STAR STATE!” Look out Texas!

no critter complaints about our weather

Photo by J. Harrington

According to the Minnesota Weather Guide Calendar, sunrise and sunset occur at the same time today and tomorrow. However, the Time and Date web site lists similar times but tomorrow’s day length is four seconds shorter than today's and tomorrow night and Friday morning make up the longest night, I think (YMMV). Since locally days are always within a day, but nights are part of two “days” it does get a bit confusing. I just hope it doesn’t mess up Santa’s schedule next week. He has to stay ahead of, or is it behind?, the sunrise to get his work done. Then he, his elves, reindeer, and all the rest of us should take it easy until next year.

Re-Incarnation

By Eva Gore-Booth

The darkness draws me, kindly angels weep

Forlorn beyond receding rings of light,

The torrents of the earth’s desires sweep

My soul through twilight downward into night.

Once more the light grows dim, the vision fades,

Myself seems to myself a distant goal,

I grope among the bodies’ drowsy shades,

Once more the Old Illusion rocks my soul.

Once more the Manifold in shadowy streams

Of falling waters murmurs in my ears,

The One Voice drowns amid the roar of dreams

That crowd the narrow pathway of the years.

I go to seek the starshine on the waves,

To count the dewdrops on the grassy hill,

I go to gather flowers that grow on graves,

The world’s wall closes round my prisoned will.

Yea, for the sake of the wild western wind

The sphered spirit scorns her flame-built throne,

Because of primroses, time out of mind,

The Lonely turns away from the Alone.

Who once has loved the cornfield’s rustling sheaves,

Who once has heard the gentle Irish rain

Murmur low music in the growing leaves,

Though he were god, comes back to earth again.

Oh Earth! green wind-swept Eirinn, I would break

The tower of my soul’s initiate pride

For a gray field and a star-haunted lake,

And those wet winds that roam the country side.

I who have seen am glad to close my eyes,

I who have soared am weary of my wings,

I seek no more the secret of the wise,

Safe among shadowy, unreal human things.

Blind to the gleam of those wild violet rays

That burn beyond the rainbow's circle dim,

Bound by dark nights and driven by pale days,

The sightless slave of Time’s imperious whim;

Deaf to the flowing tide of dreams divine

That surge outside the closed gates of birth,

The rhythms of eternity, too fine

To touch with music the dull ears of earth—

I go to seek with humble care and toil

The dreams I left undreamed, the deeds undone,

To sow the seed and break the stubborn soil,

Knowing no brightness whiter than the sun.

Content in winter if the fire burns clear

And cottage walls keep out the creeping damp,

Hugging the Old Illusion warm and dear,

The Silence and the Wise Book and the Lamp.

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A simple[r] approach for a new year

There’s an old phrase I bet you’ve heard: “Keep it simple!” Off and on during the course of my life I’ve tried to follow that piece of advice, and usually failed. I have what appears to be a genetic tendency to complicate things. Today, while poking about some back corners of the internet, I came across an alternative approach that is going to serve as a New Year’s Resolution for me (who gave up resolutions years ago to try to keep it simple): “Make it simple!” 

The difference between keep and make acknowledges my control freak tendencies and also recognizes that “there’s more than one path through the woods.” Plus, it addresses the fact that rarely is anything simple to begin with.

simple celebration at Winter Solstice

Photo by J. Harrington

Over the years I’ve read a bit about the simplicity in zen and wabi-sabi but haven’t really tried to attain a simple life. As I now look about the world we’ve created, I literally can’t envision how to find satisfaction, let alone happiness, coping with the increasing levels of chaos involved. It’s time to Make it simple! This necessitates my deciding to forego longstanding tendencies to be a dilettante because of a perpetual attraction to something new and different. I think it will be worth it. I know it’s at least worth a try for three or six months or a year. (Yes, Yoda is whispering in my ear “Do or do not. There is no try.”) 

I’m not ever likely to become a Shaker, but I can do a much better job of learning to enjoy:

Simple Gifts

Traditional/Shaker

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
’tis the gift to come down where you ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed
To turn, turn will be our delight
‘Till by turning, turning we come round right.

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
’tis the gift to come down where you ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

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’Twas the week before Christmas....

Last night someone must have left open the door between northern Minnesota and Canada. Today is about half the temperature yesterday was and tomorrow is expected to be. At least we’re finally enjoying some sunshine. My sister, who lives in a Boston suburb, informs me today’s weather on the East coast is like a hurricane, not what one expects around Boston in mid December. It’s almost like something has disrupted the climate.

the Star of Bethlehem

Photo by J. Harrington

With the exception of light pollution, satellites and space junk, I think earth's night skies are pretty much the same as they’ve always been. That isn’t true of the surface of the planet. The dinosaurs are no more. The atmosphere is now oxygen rich. At one time it wasn’t. At various times and places, parts of the earth’s surface have been covered by sheets of ice miles thick. Now there are forecasts that both poles could be mostly free of ice in less than one hundred years. When we consider baselines, I think we should learn to be more nuanced than we generally are. According to most historical records, there were no christians slightly more than two thousand years ago. That means there was a significant baseline shift about two millennia ago.

Although many (most?) of us would do well to live more in the present, i.e., now, we also need to become more sensitive to the realization that change is constant; that it frequently results in differential changes, some for the better for some folks, some not so much. We have reached a point at which our technology allows us to reach toward the star of Bethlehem but our ethical capabilities lag far behind. If you doubt this assessment, please consider Ukraine, Syria, Gaza, Israel and numerous other current war zones and the growing pushback against more inclusive cultures and politics. Once there were few, if any, oxygen-breathing creatures on earth. Is that a state of purity to be desired?

If evolution is to be believed, almost all of us are, or were at one time, immigrants. Our predecessors developed on the plains of Africa and/or China. Then again, at one time, before there were humans, all the continents are theorized to have been part of Pangaea.

In one week, we will again celebrate the birth of one who was first known as King of the Jews, not founder of Christianity. Is nothing sacred?

Museum of Tolerance

By Michael Miller

The shirtless man by the ticket counter

  has already broken the gloom here, his crowd

    of two boys and the cashier with the Star of David

      gathered around and mouthing astonishment

as he tells the tale behind every scar.

  Yes, this one on the side was from the camp—

     he tells them not to be shy to ask—

       when he tripped into the ditch

on the run after stealing cigarettes,

  the one on the knuckle from punching the soldier

   in the bar, brave with whiskey, a decade after.

     Touch it, he snarls, jutting out his fist.

That split a real Nazi’s lip.

  In the rooms behind him, the voices lay low

    but touch is the rule, the extended families

      passing in fours and fives as tight

as at church or the carnival. Are they

  all survivors here, dazed and exhilarated

    by the fate that dropped them so far from blight?

      A father heads the line, shirt fat with muscles

and a single proud thumb pushing the stroller;

  the woman and girl hug sideways, then again,

     tight as dancers in a row. At each display,

       the time lines and the whispered assurances

reiterate that what is done is done.

  Pol Pot is dead, the children of Kampuchea

    reading again to go to college; Rwanda

       has forgiven itself and opened supermarkets;

the ghettos are demolished, the Cold War won.

  Sudan, they skip. For now, the beasts are gone.

    They face the new life, the one after the mending,

      after the last mistakes were made.

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White Christmas?

For the past couple of days I’ve been enjoying my seasonal job as a volunteer Christmas cookie taste tester elf. So far I haven’t had to put in any overtime, but I’m willing to if the job calls for it. We’ve checked chocolate cookies, frosted sugar cookies, raspberry thumbprint cookies, madeleines, orange flavored cookies and maybe one or two more. No wonder I’m tired, and bloated. Fortunately, so far they’ve all passed the taste test. None have had to be returned to the baker for further work. Several packages have been shipped to their ultimate recipients to take some of the load off of Santa’s sleigh.

sparkly, frosted Christmas cookies

Photo by J. Harrington

The forecast high temperature on Winter Solstice is in the low 40’s. Christmas Eve and Day we’re expecting rain showers and more 40’s. I suspect there’s going to be lots of kids worried about how Santa will get around without snow. Maybe we can tell them Santa has always got around Hawaii and they (almost?) never have snow there. This isn’t our grandparents world or winter anymore.

Perhaps it’s time to look for seasonal events that are more stable than the idea of a white Christmas, with apollogies to Irving Berlin, Bing Crosby and Vermont Inns. Children crave security and familiarity. Each year, daylight shortens until the solstice, whether or not it snows. There are other seasonal traditions we can emphasize other than Santa’s visit. We might even consider being radical and emphasize the “wise" in three wise men rather than the presents they brought. Could gold, frankincense and myrrh be traded for Epiphany cookies? Would that be wise?

White-Eyes

By Mary Oliver

In winter 

    all the singing is in 

         the tops of the trees 

             where the wind-bird 

with its white eyes 

    shoves and pushes 

         among the branches. 

             Like any of us 

he wants to go to sleep, 

    but he's restless— 

         he has an idea, 

             and slowly it unfolds 

from under his beating wings 

    as long as he stays awake. 

         But his big, round music, after all, 

             is too breathy to last. 

So, it's over. 

    In the pine-crown 

         he makes his nest, 

             he's done all he can. 

I don't know the name of this bird, 

    I only imagine his glittering beak 

         tucked in a white wing 

             while the clouds— 

which he has summoned 

    from the north— 

         which he has taught 

             to be mild, and silent— 

thicken, and begin to fall 

    into the world below 

         like stars, or the feathers 

               of some unimaginable bird 

that loves us, 

    that is asleep now, and silent— 

         that has turned itself 

             into snow.

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