A bag mixed with gratitude

In my younger days, a mixed bag might have meant returning from an afternoon’s hunt with a rabbit, a squirrel or two, and maybe a grouse or a woodcock. These days it’s more likely to refer to counting my/our blessings as well as those things that aren’t going the way we think they should, such as November 5’s outcome.

One of my favorite local writers has an interesting piece that’s worth the time to read and then to think about this Thanksgiving week and for the rest of the season (no, not autumn, the “holiday season”). Speaking strictly for myself, I have a tendency to take the good stuff for granted, as my due, and complain about both the other, and about wanting more and/or better. At least these days I’m more aware of such tendencies and am working toward reducing my malcontentedness. Here’s a link to Heidi Barr’s perspective on Gratitude practice.

Gratitude is also a theme in a book I’ve been reading for the past week or so. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s THE SERVICEBERRY Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. An abbreviated version of the book can be found here in Emergence magazine.

As you no doubt already know, November is Native American Heritage Month and November 29 this year is Native American Heritage Day. Some argue that honoring Native Americans on the day after Thanksgiving is disrespectful or, at best, in poor taste. My preferred perspective on the subject is well covered by a Native American poet and former Poet Laureate of the United States, Joy Harjo. Please pay particular attention to the second line.

This Morning I Pray for My Enemies

Joy Harjo
1951 – 

And whom do I call my enemy?
An enemy must be worthy of engagement.
I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.
It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.
The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun.
It sees and knows everything.
It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.
The door to the mind should only open from the heart.
An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.

Reason to believe

Many have been honoring the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Others have been receiving unwelcome recognition such as: UN adds Israel to list of states committing violations against children. Kind of makes it difficult to believe that D-Day was the beginning of the end of the Holocaust.

But then, back in my growing up days, when things seemed less complicated, there was a folk singer named Tim Hardin who wrote a number of songs, including one titled Reason to Believe. For the past several years I’ve been haunted by how well his lyrics fit not just personal relationships, but politics, nation-states, neoliberal corporatism, and other aspects of contemporary life. We have become the product corporations and governments are selling to each other, and I don’t want more reasons to believe that. Misinformation and disinformation make it increasingly difficult to believe there is such a thing as truth and facts that are recognized and accepted by humans.

In one of my all-time favorite novels, Dune, the Bene Gesserit "made extensive use of the Gom Jabbar, especially when they tested the humanity of certain individuals.” Perhaps we need politicians willing to submit to such a test as part of their qualifications for office. After all, we don’t want to allow those less than human to be elected to represent US, do we? Or, perhaps and?, we could develop and use a

Truth Serum

By Naomi Shihab Nye

We made it from the ground-up corn in the old back pasture.

Pinched a scent of night jasmine billowing off the fence,   

popped it right in.

That frog song wanting nothing but echo?   

We used that.

Stirred it widely. Noticed the clouds while stirring.

Called upon our ancient great aunts and their long slow eyes   

of summer. Dropped in their names.   

Added a mint leaf now and then   

to hearten the broth. Added a note of cheer and worry.   

Orange butterfly between the claps of thunder?   

Perfect. And once we had it,

had smelled and tasted the fragrant syrup,   

placing the pan on a back burner for keeping,   

the sorrow lifted in small ways.

We boiled down the lies in another pan till they disappeared.

We washed that pan.

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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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Will we soon be able to give thanks for peace?

Early this morning, the dogs and I saw a beautiful crescent moon almost cradling Venus in the predawn eastern sky. It was beautiful enough to make it worthwhile to be up and out at that hour walking the dogs. Perhaps an even bigger surprise was that the sky was finally clear enough to see the moon and Venus and the stars. Even the wind had a temporary lull in its howling. A rare moment of peace in our corner of the world. Would that others could share moments like that for even longer periods.

Tamaracks have turned golden. Many have shed half or more of their needles. Our local swamps, bogs and wet lands are looking somewhat shorn and forlorn but ice free so far. The local big box grocery store already has Christmas greenery for sale. (They might have had it on display before today but I’ve not been there for a week or more.) Thanksgiving is two weeks from today so the greenery is almost in season. Not only have I not started Christmas shopping, I’ve barely begun a Christmas list for me.

may all enjoy the peace of Nature

Photo by J. Harrington

Looking ahead, one of my wishes for the season, and a great reason to get a jump on the season, is for peace on earth, good will toward men, especially in the region where Christ walked the earth, and anywhere else ravaged these days by war or hatred. Although we’re still in the phase where days get shorter, may those with good will hope for a solstice that brings not only longer, but truly brighter days for all. That would obviously be something for which men of good will would give thanks. That’s how we can tell if they’re men of good will.

Perhaps the World Ends Here

Joy Harjo     1951 – 

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

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Cylindrical file time

I’m spending less time on social media these days. Elon is busy trashing what used to be a decent online place to hang out and Mastodon, my alternative, needs more curating than I’m willing to put effort into. I’m also spending less time checking the news. Star Tribune is hiding behind a paywall and I refuse to subscribe. The Guardian is repeating many stories for several days in a row so I don’t check in there as often as I used to. If I manage to keep weaning myself from doomscrolling, I could end up spending more time living my own life rather than reading about other’s. That’s likely to be an improvement.

“The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something
today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.”

― Gaylord Nelson

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, as I work on organizing and purging years’ worth of neglected files, both computer and physical, I keep finding stuff I had completely forgotten I have. Much of it is offering ideas for new or revived projects that I can work on with the time I no longer spend on social and news media. The hangup involves making an educated guess at what I would find satisfying to do, particularly regarding writing poetry and/or creative nonfiction (that’s what this blog is, as far as I’m concerned). For now, I’m foregoing decisions as I work through piles of files, organizing, deleting or shredding as we go.

Despite being a college graduate, I don’t recall ever being offered a course in how to organize files nor any  explanation regarding what files need to be kept for how long. Meanwhile, congress and state legislatures waste time and energy (theirs and ours) fiddling with laws that are too often poorly conceived and all too often not considered from a systemic perspective. Instead of the almost constant battles and impending government shutdowns over appropriations bills and continuing resolutions, should we, as citizens, require a constitutional amendment that mandates that agencies will continue to be funded at current levels until a new appropriations bill is enacted? Political fights should be kept among politicians. Those of US in the real world should be held harmless. At least that’s my opinion of a key element of good governance. I refuse to support a politician or party whose primary strategy or objective is to break things.

Open Memo To The Congressional Appropriations Committee And The Military Department Of Defense 

By Sandra Maria Esteves

To Whom It Does Concern:

 

        Could we please have just one space flight,

           one nine-million dollar adventure into the great breath,

           so that we could divide the loaves and fishes

           and put 900 more people to work for a year.

 

           Or could we please have one nuclear missile,

           so we can difuse it, sell the used parts

           for one-point-ten billion worth of more than just

           rice krispies breakfast-lunch-dinners.

 

           What if we could exchange an M-1 rifle for a solar reflector

           so that our building could have heat all the time,

           not wait for avaricious gun-toting landlords

           to remember to call the oil company tomorrow

           for the child next door with pneumonia today.

 

           We would even accept a leftover bomber,

           or one two-million dollar high tech space suit,

           however patronizing it may seem,

           or a decommissioned aircraft carrier to relieve tight housing

                problems.

 

           Its not much, is it?

           When you add it up, pull together the sum total

           of the four billion dollars-a-day catastrophy fantasy,

           the whole is worse than its parts.

 

           So to continue our list,

           could you please refund on our next tax return

           the difference between the limousines you drive,

           and the tokens we do not have

           to build our nation strong.

 

                                        Signed,

                                        The People of the Rest of the World

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Some sources of hope

With some luck, tomorrow we will celebrate Lammas / Lughnasadh. The sourdough loaf I baked a week or so ago is almost gone. Tomorrow I’ll freshen the starter again and bake around midweek. I just read a paragraph that highlights for me how this feast fits these times.

The essence of Lughnasadh is the joy of life under the knowledge that darker times are moving in. We take in the warming rays of the Sun and store their power for the times coming. At the time we celebrate the next festival, Alban Elfed, it will be fall and the warm summer days will already be a memory.

we live by bread, but not alone

Photo by J. Harrington

If you’re concerned about our own darker times, you should consider taking a look at a book to be published next month, Democracy Awakening NOTES ON THE STATE OF AMERICA, By Heather Cox Richardson. I’ve been reading her Letters from an American for some time and find it heartening and reassuring. We’ve been through dark times before and, no doubt, will again. In large part it’s up to US how things get resolved.

In Democracy Awakening, Richardson crafts a compelling and original narrative, explaining how, over the decades, a small group of wealthy people have made war on American ideals. By weaponizing language and promoting false history they have led us into authoritarianism — creating a disaffected population and then promising to recreate an imagined past where those people could feel important again. She argues that taking our country back starts by remembering the elements of the nation’s true history that marginalized Americans have always upheld. Their dedication to the principles on which this nation was founded has enabled us to renew and expand our commitment to democracy in the past. Richardson sees this history as a roadmap for the nation’s future.

Another level headed source of hope that I think I’ve mentioned before is Tristan Roberts. Today he asks, and answers quite satisfactorily, the question: do you have hope for our kids? He concludes his answer this way:

 I don't need to summon hope for the kids. They were born for this world. They've got everything they need.

That includes us, showing up every day, expressing ourselves.

Tomorrow is a first attempt at a Tweetless Tuesday. I’m going to do my best to avoid that platform tomorrow and may even see if I can forego my daily dose of doom and gloom by not reading the news media. If the world does end tomorrow, would one of you ber so kind as to mention it in the comments here? Thanks!

The Power of Hope Today

Gabrielle Marshall

Today’s hope is a flickering candle that dwells in a snow-dusted window, 
circulating the prayers of Christmas mornings. 
Today’s hope is the crisp daffodil in colorless photos,
containing the soul of a small 
child,
who only wishes and knows of 
peace and love.
Today’s hope is the sparkling eyes that
truly believe in achieving
anything to reach unity.
Today’s hope is the palm to palm connection
bracing each other for the climb neither expected,
but couldn’t abandon.
Today’s hope is peering
beyond
the lingering barrier,
but still recognizing the diversity in ourselves.
Today’s hope has been dimmed and tossed recklessly,
but still generously stays with us,
for we cannot help but come back
like wide eyed children to candy.
We are said to be weak to rely on such strength,
but we are only believers.
That spark 
That gives science a baffled case
And oceans an infinite plane,
is the eagle that dips 
and soars
and fights,
which stands for
the hope of 
today. 

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It’s T Day

Depending on your perspective, “T” stands for Turkey or Thanksgiving. It’s a day many of us give thanks for our blessings. Some would argue that we should give thanks daily, or more often, but this is not a day for arguing, even with wrongheaded family members.

“T” also stands for Today and/or Tomorrow. Tomorrow is Buy Nothing Day. It is also Native American Heritage Day. Today, Thanksgiving, Turkey Day, has a significant Native American element to it, an element that is too often distorted. Today, this morning, I found a web site, Many Hoops Around Thanksgiving, that reflects on Thanksgiving with a Native American perspective from Massachusetts, my home land. I hope you will visit it and spend some time contemplating its message, which includes:

This website is many hoops made up of historical and current information, recipes, arts and crafts, and a variety of resources all of which are historically accurate and do not include any form of stereotyping of either the Pilgrims or Indians. For instance, the recipes unless otherwise noted are made of ingredients available in the early 1600's in the Plymouth Massachusetts area. It is an adventure into authenticity that is not readily available elsewhere. Information pertaining to the Wampanoag is from the Wampanoag themselves. The arts and crafts are based on authenticity and do not include activities that are commonly available. 

From that same site, we will close today’s posting with this prayer for you, those you love, those who care about you, and all our relations:

Prayer from Princess Red Wing Narragansett/Wampanoag

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Making happy magically!

So, what are you going to do with the extra hour we all get tonight? It seems a shame to waste it by sleeping, but at least while I’m asleep the emails, text messages, Tweets and tv ads from and on behalf of political campaigns go unnoticed. Such interruptions were annoying enough before the Better Half and I completed our early voting exercise. Now all they do is feed my naturally misanthropic perspective. But, I’ve found a counter to the attack ads. I’m getting out more and doing stuff.

Today’s Guardian has an article: Study finds first direct evidence of a link between low serotonin and depression. It notes that the brain chemical is sometimes referred to as a “happy hormone”. but does not inform the reader of the source of serotonin. That gap was quickly closed via an internet search that produced: Serotonin: The natural mood booster with the assertions that:

• One natural way to increase serotonin is by working out.
• Exposure to either the sun or to the bright light meant to replicate it is another way to naturally increase serotonin levels.

sunrise on a country walk

Photo by J. Harrington

Having reconfirmed that a serotonin boost is likely to help get through the winter and the months that follow,  I’m going to be much more consistent about doing my morning exercises, especially on dreary, cloudy days like today, and I’m going to increase the frequency and duration of walks in and around the woods and streams, especially on sunny days.

Another activity that often cheers me is reading poetry, especially by Native American poets such as Joy Harjo, Linda Hogan, N. Scott Momaday, and Louise Erdrich. Many of their poems highlight the importance of Catching the Light as a means to get through depressing times. As we continue through Native American Heritage Month this November, consider reading works by Native American authors and learning how to honor nature and to withstand the consistent, persistent, dominant culture's attacks on your beliefs. We would benefit from such improved abilities regardless of how Tuesday turns out.

Original Fire

by Louise Erdrich

for Aza

I watch my daughter build a fire
not from a match or cigarette lighter
but from the original elements,
two sticks, a length of sinew, friction.
She has formed a cup of juniper shreds,
and when she spins out a black ember
and breathes it to life
she transfers the radiant pebble
into the nest and breathes again.
Sparks fly from her lips.
A dove of flame bursts from between her hands.
She speaks to the spark
until the words catch and burn
and I think, here is my daughter
who is innocent of all things
yet from whose lips
the terrible and merciful
flame flies out, the truth, the fire.

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A father’s thoughts on Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day to all who celebrate. As I recall, I’ve been lucky enough that never once did I receive a necktie as a Father’s Day gift. It seems to me that would be akin to dad giving the family a new roof on the house as a Christmas present. A new roof might be needed and suck up lots of money, but it’s not consistent with my idea of a present in the spirit of the season. Come to think of it, to my knowledge, I don’t believe I’ve ever known a man who thought he needed a necktie as a gift but perhaps my friends have been keeping such preferences from me so I wouldn’t get upset.

We’re off to visit our children for much of the day. The Jeep is air conditioned so that will help. Acting in loco parentis, the bird bath has been cleaned and refilled. Birds and squirrels, just like the rest of us, need to keep hydrated in weather like this. The Better Half has been diligently watering the reseeded yards and the new garden plantings since rain showers, when they appear at all, have been passing to our north and south but we’ve been getting little more than occasional sprinkles and there’s none of that in the forecast for days. Didn’t the climate scientists mention something about increased volatility in weather patterns?

red squirrel at birdbath

Photo by J. Harrington

If I’m stuck in the house much of the week, I’ll keep busy with reading and getting an excess of books organized, if I can figure out how I want to organize them. I keep vacillating among genre or author or geographic area and/or cross referencing. For example, Jim Harrison is known for his novels and novellas, but he was also an accomplished poet and screenwriter and wrote about food. Much of his work focuses on the outdoors as a theme or context. His works are a classic example of my inclination to lump everything together by author, but then where do the author’s books go? Everything arranged alphabetically by last name? That would simplify some searches but not all.

I’ve been fascinated for a long time by the friendship between Harrison and another author I enjoy, Ted Kooser, known primarily as a poet but also accomplished as an essayist and memoirist. I’ve read references that Harrison got to know Kooser when Harrison was researching his novel Dalva. Kooser lives in Nebraska, the setting for much of Dalva.

Obviously, many of my “problems” are clearly first world, privileged, middle-class issues. Too many fathers are currently fighting wars or natural disasters and unable to satisfactorily provide food, water, shelter and love to their children. That means the rest of us need to do what we can to make next Father’s Day better for everyone. That includes Republicans and Russians and Palestinians and everyone. Paul Wellstone said it right when he noted “we all do better when we all do better.” That sounds like something my father might have told me when I was growing up.

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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Beginning to see the lights

At the Sunrise River pools in Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area, the water is high and there’s no sign of ice. Most of the snow on the ground has melted. We may, or may not, get more snow in the foreseeable future. My smartphone’s weather app has the snowflake symbol appear at times and disappear entirely at others. Such is life in a season of transition.

Have you heard there may be problems due to supply chain issues and/or shortages? We’ve already been informed that one of the Christmas presents we ordered will be delayed in delivery by an unspecified amount of time. We have a recommendation that may serve as at least a partial solution for many of you. Last year we got and mostly read the book Merry Midwinter. See if you can lay your hands on a copy of it and follow advice therein. If, understandably, you want more insight into what the book is all about, here’s a link to the author’s website page celebrating its publication. An even more abbreviated executive summary goes like this:

“... It demonstrates how we can dress our houses with traditional authentic evergreen decorations, give thoughtful and sincere gifts, celebrate more genuinely, and be more inclusive in all our activities. It suggests how we can be more considerate and honest in our dealings with each other. How, for instance, we can more authentically and genuinely send out greetings cards and ‘round robin’ letters. When we can ask for – and expect/get – support and help. How to deal with the challenges of difficult relatives and family members and to remember the less fortunate, lonely and sick. All this in a flurry of family recipes, craft instructions, historical facts and explanations, fresh and inspiring suggestions, stories, vignettes, childhood reminiscences and present day snapshots of a busy but dedicated family.” 

 

merry midwinter lights

Photo by J. Harrington

Consonant with the preceding version of the Christmas spirit, we hereby suggest that the current status of our neoliberal, global, capitalist society is a barely mitigated failure. We are destroying global ecosystems on which we depend for food, water, air and shelter. We have created unsustainable levels of economic and social inequity. We have foregone truth, respect, integrity and authenticity for the sake of social media memes, misleading ads, inept journalism all for the sake of accumulating more individual power and/or material wealth than we know how to enjoy. There is little, if any, sense of community among US. At the risk of overstressing a point, we close today’s posting with Yeats’ The Second Coming. Although we’ve closed with it before, it fits too well as a descriptor of the prevailing themes of our times. Nevertheless, we wish one and all a Merry Midwinter leading to better years ahead!

The Second Coming

By William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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The “fat lady” hasn’t sung. She’s not even on stage, yet.

I’m not denigrating the size, seriousness nor complexity of the issues we face locally, nationally nor globally, but among the current crop of books I’m reading, it’s obvious that humans and their societies have a long experience of making a mess of things and fumbling through. Will this time be different? We don’t know and won’t know unless and until enough [too many] of us give up. Furthermore, neither is this intended to be a “misery loves company” solution. Here’s the books I’m referring to:

• Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul: chapter 1, Pelagius, makes repeated reference to “the religion of the [Roman] empire was about to formalize a teaching that was convenient for imperial power, enabling empire to relativize people’s worth rather than reverence their dignity.” 


• The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity: chapter 1, Farewell to Humanity’s Childhood, asserts (all in UPPER case) among other things “How the conventional narrative of human history is not only wrong, but quite needlessly dull”


• On Immunity, an Innoculation (which I’m rereading) notes that “Throughout the nineteenth century, vaccination left a wound that would scar. “The mark of the beast,” some feared. In an Anglican archbishop’s 1882 sermon, vaccination was akin to an injection of sin, an “abominable mixture of corruption, the lees of human vice, and dregs of venial appetites, that in after life may foam upon the spirit, and develop helll within, and overwhelm the soul.”

not all serpents are snakes

Photo by J. Harrington

If you read the Bible’s Old Testament, you may have noticed that, although Adam and Eve had only one job, it didn’t take them long to screw it up. Then, some time later, the whole human race had to start over with Noah and the Ark. Does this mean that our species is hopeless? Probably not, but it seems to strongly suggest we are subject to evolutionary developments. If we continue to destroy earth’s climate and life support systems on which we depend for food, water and shelter, it might be unwise to expect divine intervention to bail our dumb asses, or us, out of our self-created diminution. What we seem to be facing is not a serpent in a tree but the excessive, egregious influence of non-human “persons” on our institutions, customs, and values. Frankly, the serpent was less pernicious.

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

To trust, or not to trust, that is the question

Each  of the four sections below has been taken from today’s US version of The Guardian. See if  you can connect the dots embedded in each section.

dots to be connected or trial balloons?

Photo by J. Harrington

How the US vaccine effort derailed and why we shouldn’t be surprised

“So much of the whole issue of social determinants of health and the US ‘health disadvantage’ is rooted in a lack of trust and a lack of trustworthiness in many parts of our society,” said Laudan Y Aron, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s health policy center.

Cop26 climate talks will not fulfil aims of Paris agreement, key players warn 

A US official told the Guardian countries must still aim as high as possible on emissions cuts: “We are going to try to achieve [the emissions cuts necessary]. No one in the administration wants to admit defeat before we have made the maximum effort. You should set an ambitious agenda and may have to, in the end, take baby steps but you should plan for long strides. We are taking long strides.”

Judge rules in Wisconsin teen’s favor after sheriff threatened jail over Covid post 

The teen, Amyiah Cohoon, and her parents sued the sheriff’s department after a deputy threatened to arrest family members if Amyiah did not delete an Instagram post which described her experiences when possibly infected by Covid-19. She was 16 at the time.

Food myths busted: dairy, salt and steak may be good for you after all 

Government-led lack of trust in the healthfulness of whole foods in their natural forms encouraged us to buy foods that have been physically and chemically modified, such as salt-reduced cheese and skimmed milk, supposedly to make them healthier for us.

No, we’re not going to explain how to connect the dots. Just trust us, the answers are obvious. Return tomorrow and we’ll share another clue in the form of a paragraph from Paul Hawken’s Regeneration.

 

On Teaching the Young

By Yvor Winters

The young are quick of speech.

Grown middle-aged, I teach

Corrosion and distrust,

Exacting what I must.

A poem is what stands

When imperceptive hands,

Feeling, have gone astray.

It is what one should say.

Few minds will come to this.

The poet’s only bliss

Is in cold certitude—

Laurel, archaic, rude.

 

About climate goals

Minnesota, although failing miserably to attain legislatively mandated goals established in 2007 for greenhouse gas [GHG] reductions, has done an admirable job describing our failures. [Much as I would like to "blame the gummint,” the failure is a collective one.] If you want, you can find most of the details here.

Minnesota GHG  emissions and goals

Unfortunately, the federal government doesn’t provide nearly as clear a picture of where our nation is in reducing greenhouse gases, primarily, I believe, due to the regime that ruled US from 2016 - 2020. The current  administration has set a "new target for the United States to achieve a 50-52 percent reduction from 2005 levels in economy-wide net greenhouse gas pollution in 2030...” Nowhere in the fact sheet preceding the announcement is  the 2005 level of GHGs specified, nor is the target announced in numerical terms. I believe that’s wrong.

A “little” digging on the internet provided access to an Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2005, in which the total GHG emissions are listed (Tg CO₂ Eq) as 7,260.4 Total and 6,431.9 Net Emissions (Sources and Sinks). So, one of my frst questions is “Does the Biden administration’s 50-52 percent reduction apply to Total or Net, or is the difference of 828.5 (11%) incorporated into the difference between 50% and 52%? The absolute numbers may not be critical in terms of saving the world, but for clarity, transparency, and credibility, they are.

The current issue of Sierra Magazine has an article by Paul Hawken, editor of Drawdown, that’s an excerpt for his latest work, Regeneration. Drawdown would be much more useful, in my opinion, if it actually tracked reality against the hypothetical reductions in GHGs it identifies. I’ll be  curious to see how much specificity is contained in Regeneration.

Global Warming

Margaret Gibson

Even so, it’s a cold spring

I unroll the map of the watershed, and my fingers trace the blue threads of the rivers

as I’d touch the veins on my throat

I chant kalmia latifolia.   pinus silvestris.   geum odoratissimum

as if I might travel once more the fresh land of the Choctaw and the Creek

as if the hooves of my horse, like Bartram’s, might splash red with the juice
             of the trampled berries

I fill the gas tank, chart the wobble of the earth, its tilt, the shape of its orbit

The words I taste—Milankovich, albedo—melt on my tongue like the Greenland
             ice sheet

Hear the beat of the drum?  That’s my heart

Come now let us reason together

Because the honeycreeper

Because a bag of bones on a museum shelf in Mauritius

Because clouds thicken like swamp gas in the marshlands

Because the fetus will not ripen

Because the relict trillium, and the tanager, and the wren

Because the solar flare of blackflies on our skin

Because malaria, because dengue fever

Because of the dieback and the auction block

Because the kestrel

Because the peach orchard is a memory of mildew, ash blue

Because the fetus will not ripen

Because earth everywhere is archipelago

Because I taste the words, and these words, these words they stick in my throat.

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