On seasonal success[ion]

Tomorrow is Indigenous Peoples Day. Depending on where you are, it may, or may not, be celebrated as such. I don't think there's mail delivery tomorrow, but don't take my word for it, check here. Personally, I'm looking forward to a notable drop in temperatures, since yesterday and today we've been experiencing highs in the mid-80's. Tomorrow is forecast to be about 15℉ cooler, but with scattered thunderstorms. The latter means I may, or may not, try to catch up on leaf picking-upping.

local maple trees, mid-October color

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday, to honor Banned Books Week, I renewed my library card and borrowing privileges at two nearby libraries, each a member of a different system. One of them had available a copy of a book I've been wanting to read for several weeks, Living Resistance, by Kaitlin B. Curtice. I'd recently finished enjoying reading Everything Is a Story by the same author and had been putting off buying a copy due to my continuing stacks of unread books. Based on reading the first few chapters of Living, I suspect it will go on my Christmas list for a reread this winter.

Things are busying up as we head toward the holiday season. Next week we pay the second half of this year's property taxes early in the week and head back to the same county building late in the week to VOTE EARLY, before we join a NO KINGS DAY protest next Saturday, the 17th. Then it's on to Samhain/Halloween; Native American Heritage month in November, Thanksgiving and come December, some family birthdays and Christmas. Amidst the frivolity, we need to sign up for and complete a half day safe driver refresher course for our auto insurance discount.

I don't know how you're viewing the state of the world these days, but I've developed some real questions about the path(s) we're on. Do we really need more data centers? Is Artificial Intelligence a real net benefit? Why haven't we accomplished more to meet climate change adaptation and reduction goals? Should we be satisfied that "Nearly half of adults, 47%, read below a 6th-grade level." 

Kaitlin B. Curtice has an online journal. When I subscribed, I got a link to a pdf of several of her poems, from which I've borrowed the one below. As a society and/or culture, it seems to me that we aren't doing all that well with the way we've approached "success" in our country (and elsewhere). Here's a healthier perspective, I believe.

Success.
They tell us how it’s supposed to be—
success is earned,
learned,
fought for,
worth dying for,
success is a thing that you’ll
climb every mountain
to achieve.
But I think there’s a gentler way.
What if success, for you, for me,
is simply learning to be—
to be with ourselves,
to be with the quiet,
to be with Earth, our Mother,
to be when the noise is loud,
to be when the hustle is demanding,
to be when we “should” be going.
Success isn’t a thing to earn or achieve
but a letting go
so that we get to the right stuff,
the good stuff,
the stuff of magic and love
in the end.
Success to them is an unattainable dream. Success for us, right now, is this moment’s breath and every little sliver of sacredness that follows.

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