A circle game?

Much of the local field corn is now harvested. Many of the local trees are bare of leaves, except for the oaks which  will be shedding leaves until bud burst next Spring starts a new cycle. I hope to finish raking, hauling and mulching this coming week, maybe even by mid-week Veterans' Day on the 11th.

are we at the dawn of a new era?

Photo by J. Harrington

Election Day brought most of the results I hoped for. Now we need leadership that believes accountability involves more than strongly worded letters and private meetings with oligarchs and wannabes. Do you think the Alaska and Mississippi senatorial elections will be resolved before the 2028 presidential elections? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had more elected folks (and political parties) who put governance ahead of politics?

Once upon a time, before Citizens United, and maybe even pre- pre-C.U., I used to be able to feel comfortable voting for a candidate and letting it go at that. My mail box and email inbox weren't daily filling with requests (demands) that I contact my members of Congress to get them to vote for or against various bills. The concept of representative democracy has been severely complicated by the question of who (not what) is to be represented. Corporations are legal persons. I'm surprised that the Supreme Court that determined money is analogous to speech didn't also decide to award non-natural legal persons a right to vote! This should get really interesting as real persons and voters begin pushing harder for Green Amendments establishing the Rights of Nature. I believe we are now living in one of those "interesting times" that have been referred to as a curse.

Meanwhile, it's finally stopped raining. Temperatures are running slightly above seasonal "normals." The upcoming week brings a holiday and we're in the first weekend of local deer hunting season with firearms. We experiennced the first hard frost of the season this past Friday and there's no sign yet of the northern waterfowl migration. If I were younger and still an active waterfowler, I suspect I'd be mightily agitated and disappointed. Climate channge strikes again?

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

by Joy Harjo

Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that

bottle of pop.

Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel

the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give back with gratitude.

If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and

back.

Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were

a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.

Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the

guardians who have known you before time,

who will be there after time.

They sit before the fire that has been there without time.

Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.

Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people

who accompany you.

Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought

down upon them.

Don’t worry.

The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises,

interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and

those who will despise you because they despise themselves.

The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few

years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.

Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and

leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the

thieves of time.

Do not hold regrets.

When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning

by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.

You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.

Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.

Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.

Ask for forgiveness.

Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.

Call yourself back. You will find yourself caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.

Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It will return

in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be

happy to be found after being lost for so long.

Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and

given clean clothes.

Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who

loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no

place else to go.

Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.

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

It's November, be thankful

'Tis a weekend of Halloween and Samhain. Whether you consider it a trick or a treat, don't forget to turn your clocks back to standard time. With luck, skill, organization and numbers, on November 4 we'll also start to turn history back toward something more approaching standard. Speaking of history, November is National Native American Heritage Month.

no signs yet of the northern migration

Photo by J. Harrington

As of moments ago, the Minnesota Vikings undefeated streak ended with a loss to the Detroit Lions. Almost all Minnesota sports fans have become accustomed to treats and tricks and heartbreaks. 'nuff said.

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, the Better Half and I stopped by Birchbark books this afternoon. I followed in Oscar Wilde's footsteps ("I can resist everything except temptation.") and came away with three titles:

• WE ~ Layli Long Soldier 

• Kincentricity - Connecting to Nature with American Indian Food Traditions, ~  Enrique Salmon, and 

•  Living Resistance ~ Kaitlin Curtice

Even with a super El Niño this winter, I'm going to spend time inside, reading, drinking coffee with my feet up, and doing what I can to enjoy life. My current strategy is to eat more healthy and think more healthy to feel more healthy. I'm beginning to take quite seriously Dana Meadows observations in Dancing with Systems:

"People who are raised in the industrial world and who get enthused about systems thinking are likely to make a terrible mistake. They are likely to assume that here, in systems analysis, in interconnection and complication, in the power of the computer, here at last, is the key to prediction and control. This mistake is likely because the mindset of the industrial world assumes that there is a key to prediction and control."

Her identification of the type of terrible mistake, it seems to me, is even more applicable to those who would sell us Artificial Intelligence instead of offering us wisdom. That mistake is compounded by the buyers of AI systems. As Meadows further notes: "But self-organizing, nonlinear feedback systems are inherently unpredictable. They are not controllable. They are understandable only in the most general way. The goal of foreseeing the future exactly and preparing for it perfectly is unrealizable. The idea of making a complex system do just what you want it to do can be achieved only temporarily, at best...."

From much of the reading I've done in the last couple of decades, Native Americans in many?, most?, all? of their world views seem to have a much more realistic understanding of the natural systems on which we depend for the basics of life. We should, I believe, pay lots more attention to their perspectives.

Kaitlin Curtice

From Glory Happening 

God,
If there is some mysterious order of things that holds the world together,
we don’t really know about it.
What we know is what we see and feel and touch, what we partake of with the senses.
We know how to feed each other,
to take in beauty,
we share moments with created things,
to remember that we are tethered to each other
for a greater and deeper good,
for a true and lasting holiness.
This seems to be Kin-dom where Kin-dom can be understood in tiny bits and pieces,
tiny things that keep us longing for more of you.
Iw, amen.1

1. Poems have been edited since their original publication.

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