Back to the Future, again?

It's been so cold for so long even the dogs have cabin fever. They clamor to go out but as soon as we're outside in -10℉ to -20℉ temperatures and/or windchills, they decide they made a mistake and want to go back inside, forgetting about why they wanted out in the first place. I'm sympathetic but so far each dog has refused offers to be trained to use the inside toilet. They claim their legs aren't long enough. Spring seems like a lonnngg way off this week.

Are we confusing knowledge with wisdom?

Photo by J. Harrington

The days are noticeably longer than they were at the solstice four and a half weeks ago. It's the lag between day length and temperatures that's the problem here in the North Country. But then we're living in times when it snows in Florida so is the concept of "normal" even relevant? Not if we look at Washington, D.C. and the stories coming from there.

It was Buckminster Fuller who told us years ago: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” I've been thinking about that as the current regime, still supported by 30% to 40% of the population, continues to attack the rule of law and disregard our Constitution. The checks and balances envisioned by the Founders aren't. And it's not just for US that democracy is eroding.

Several years ago the Center for American Progress issued a report on Why the World’s Democracies Need a Global Kleptocracy Initiative. There appears to have been as much progress on that front as there has been resolving climate change. And yet we see more and more folks supporting Sarah Kendzior's assessment that "the US is a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government". It becomes more apparent by the day that we need a new model for our country. Maybe we need to mirror some of the thinking the Founders considered when declaring independence and drafting a constitution. They, in part, reflected practices from Native American culture. We could try a variation.

Have you heard oof the Seven Grandfather Teachings?

"The Seven Grandfather Teachings have always been a part of the Native American culture. Their roots date back to the beginning of time. These teachings impact our surroundings, along with providing guidance toward our actions to one another." They are: Love, Respect, Bravery, Truth, Honesty, Humility, and Wisdom.

When was the last time you heard our political leaders talk about these qualities as part of our political process, the American Dream, or the Good Life? To borrow from a popular movie, could it be time for US to go Back to the Future?

What I Keep

Linda Hogan 

Once we had mountains
and you took them down.

It was enchanted before,
with the song of golden winds
of pollens from flowers
you also removed, as if it were the gold
you searched for. We gave you our labor.
We gave you our food, our sleeping mats.
You slept a year before we sent you away
with burning arrows and your fat ran across earth.

You took the plants on ships
away from our beautiful woods
from the forest,
you took them back to strange lands
already destroyed.
Then you needed our lands,
our labor,
and more of you
always arriving,
until you took our homes
while we still lived inside them.
You took the birds, the rookeries of beautiful waters,
feathers for hats
made from animals of this land
and all the time you lost,
so much even
a young woman had to lead the way
for your fame.

You need us now,
so I give to you
my knowledge, my mind, my stone soup.
But to myself, for myself
I keep my soul.
Our gods, your people
will never take.

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Fall Back! fall down!

We  have definitely entered the darker half of the year here in the northern hemisphere. Daylight savings time ended yesterday. The results of tomorrow’s election will largely determine how deep and for how long the darkness may last. The current weather pattern of dank, cloudy, drizzly days, compounding a Halloween snowfall and windblown leafdrop, are, quite literally, putting a damper on what is usually one of my favorite times of year.

autumn leaves leaving

Photo by J. Harrington

Then again, I seem to have solved the problem of my boules of sourdough  bread coming out of the oven much darker than I prefer. I’m combining elements of two basic recipes, including lowering the oven temperature for the second half of the baking period, after attaining oven spring.

Halloween was brightened with a Trick or Treat visit  from our Granddaughter and her parents. She showed off one the the cutest costumes, it made her look as if she was riding  a dinosaur. The only thing that could have made it better would have been of the dinosaur were a dragon, but that’s mostly my bias for flying, fire-breathing, critters showing.

November, as I hope you know, is Native American Heritage Month. I intend to help celebrate by rereading parts of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass and getting a copy of her latest, The  Serviceberry. That will provide just the excuse I need for another trip to Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark Books. I truly believe we would be much closer to resolving the climate breakdown and loss of biodiversity catastrophes if more of US incorporated much more of the Native American relationship to nature.

Without 

Joy Harjo
1951 – 

The world will keep trudging through time without us

When we lift from the story contest to fly home

We will be as falling stars to those watching from the edge

Of grief and heartbreak

Maybe then we will see the design of the two-minded creature 

And know why half the world fights righteously for greedy masters 

And the other half is nailing it all back together

Through the smoke of cooking fires, lovers’ trysts, and endless 

Human industry—

Maybe then, beloved rascal

We will find each other again in the timeless weave of breathing

We will sit under the trees in the shadow of earth sorrows 

Watch hyenas drink rain, and laugh.

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Some ways to wisdom

The Better Half and I spent much of the afternoon listening to a wise and interesting white man, Kent Nerburn, talk about the wisdom of Native Americans. Nerburn has written a number of books on the theme of his talk and he read excerpts from several, plus answered questions and spoke a bit from his own notes. The presentation took place in an art gallery in Sandstone, about an hour’s drive north of our place. The trip home was disrupted by a several mile long traffic backup north of Hinckley and another one near the Pine / Chisago county boundary on I-35. If it’s not winter blizzards messing up Minnesota’s roads, it’s summer road work making drivers harried.

Thinking about Nerburn’s comments while sitting in the southbound backup pretty much convinced me, not that I needed much, that Native Americans have more sustainable and resilient cultures than ours. Plus, ours is headed in the wrong direction. We have much too much emphasis on individuals and not enough on community; we place waayyy too much value on money and not enough on intangible values like friendship and kindness; we confuse religion with spiritual. Over the past several decades, I’ve noticed increasing awareness of, and acceptance of, Native American culture. More is needed. I hope we become wise enough to include many indigenous teachings in our children’s education. Whether he intended to or not, I believe President Biden reflected honor on the role of elders in a healthy culture when he decided to not campaign for the nomination and became a potential elder advisor to the next president. We need more of that kind of thinking and doing.

sometimes an owl symbolizes wisdom

Photo by J. Harrington

If you’re interested in learning more about how Native American and Western Judeo-Christian perspectives can complement each other, try reading any of these:

• Gathering Moss, Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Medicine Wheel for the Planet, Dr. Jennifer Grenz
• The Seven Generations and The Seven Grandfather Teachings, James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw
• The above linked list of books by Kent Nerburn
• Almost any Joy Harjo poem such as this

For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet 

Joy Harjo
1951 – 

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 it 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 your spirit back. It may be 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 may 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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Sorcerer’s apprentice opens Pandora’s box

Yesterday the Better Half and I drove past one of the local sugarbushes. She noticed they had their sap collection tubing strung. A little farther down the road, as we crossed the St. Croix river, she spotted a fisherman, in a boat, on the open water of the river. This is not usual for early February in the North Country.

Today, as we drove home from a mid-morning visit to the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law and Granddaughter, in 28℉ temperatures, with cloud covered skies, we noticed the dusting of snow on the road edges was melting. Neither of us has the slightest idea how to explain that, since the overnight temperatures had stayed well below freezing and there had been no noticeable sunshine all morning.

phone lines: threads by which we hang?

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday’s ultra-ultra-slow internet service has been restored to its usual less than broadband speeds, after only about 36 hours of effective outage. I suspect things will get worse before they get better. Why? Here’s some examples:

• Landline Phone Owners Are Protesting AT&T’s Plans to Drop Service


• Still love your landline? Phone service providers are getting closer to phasing it out


• Fiber cut along North Shore exposes vulnerabilities in tech-dependent world


• Chinese hackers infiltrated plane, train and water systems for five years, US says

We have created, and are becoming increasingly dependent on, systems that are insufficiently reliable relative to their criticality. Who in the US government is the systems agency responsible for thinking about the system of systems we depend on? It might be helpful to think about something more than short term self indulgence come next November.

The Battle of Silicon Valley at Daybreak

Alexandria Peary

In a countryside green as a dollar bill,
with the much handled commercial vegetation
from around mall parking lots or in freeway divides,
in a landscape where the wireless has been shut off,
emoji are at war. Emoji are at war
in the mural outside the employee cafeteria
for reading The Things They Carried or Yellow Birds
or The Red Badge of Courage: instead of eating,
emoji are at war.

Outfitted in a list supplied by Wikipedia,
(breastplates, gauntlets, steel collars, mail shirts,
vambrace, pouldron, bassinet, barbute, aventail),
chain armor from a 3-d printer for a smaller budget,
emoji are at war: Blushing Emoji, Frustrated, Weeping,
Smiling Emoji near the village firewall, 
& a thousand spears like toothpicks,
emoji are at war.

It’s like Where’s Waldo. It’s like Pac Man.
I spot with my little eye in the “watch-fires of a hundred
circling camps” two generals outside a recharging tent,
a tiny banner unfurling PRIVACY  *  NET NEUTRALITY  
* DEREGULATION. Sound of emoji blood 
as the Smiling Emoji advance, swallowing everything,
going postal, kamikaze, road rage, suicide bomber
“hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,”
sound of emoji blood.

A sword pierces Blushing Emoji #956, Pram’s son, 
below the groin, and “the dark came whirling down 
across his eyes”; a hurled spear is shot through the temple of 
Angry Emoji #23, only son of Matthew Thornton 
of Boston, and “the dark came swirling thick across his eyes,”
sound of emoji blood. Sound of Emoji blood as Weeping 
Emoji #3,418, daughter of the river god, a bullet 
plunging into her lung, lodges in the “mortal spot,”
scream fumes.

Outside the village firewall, internet access was slowing 
way, way down until the CEO who has her eye on Jim,
a Cubicle Emoji, petitions the Board of Directors
to rescue Jim from his jangling fate of war, seduces him, 
gives birth to a daughter ½ Hollywood, ½ New Jersey mortal, 
with a weak ankle…Emoji were at war.

                         The CAPS LOCK is on,
so this story ends at the door to the men’s restroom. 
For we have seen,

I have seen, you have seen, they have seen how emoji blood sounds
like a ring tone of a 50 gun salute in a thousand wavy ploughed
lines, lines, lines, lines where truth is marching on.

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More of the same? Really?

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to really give a damn about national affairs. There seems to be no effective way to eliminate Republicans incompetent at governing, nor does there seem to be an upwelling of voters with torches and pitchforks ready to descend on Congress in order to force effective compromise. I doubt very much that the Founders envisioned a situation such as the nation faces today.

Perhaps the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will reawaken a strain of Luddites to bring some sanity to that sector before it does too much damage. In the process, maybe we will see a third major political party based on some version of democratic Anarchy. If we got lucky, significant progress along those lines might do much to diminish (eliminate?) global neoliberal capitalism, destroy global corporatocracy, and thereby eliminate ecocide.

“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

Look about and tell US how it is that perpetual growth producing more, bigger, faster, with little, if any, effective recycling or related activities is producing a world that functions well, makes people happy, and meets human needs. Perhaps next session, the Minnesota Legislature could, and should, establish a Task Force to study and report on the benefits of adopting a system like Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) instead of studying metro governance with few, if any, clear performance objectives in sight. On the other hand:

According to the Bhutanese government, the four pillars of GNH are:^[13]

1. sustainable and equitable socio-economic development;
2. environmental conservation;
3. preservation and promotion of culture; and
4. good governance.

The nine domains of GNH are psychological well-being, health, time use, education, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and living standards.^[14][15][16]

As the old saying goes, “you ain’t lost if you don’t care where you are.” That’s about the only reason I can think of why we haven’t been declared yet another Lost Generation. The list of countries reported to hate each other seems to be growing. Respite is needed.

Happiness

By Jane Kenyon

There’s just no accounting for happiness,

or the way it turns up like a prodigal

who comes back to the dust at your feet

having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?

You make a feast in honor of what

was lost, and take from its place the finest

garment, which you saved for an occasion

you could not imagine, and you weep night and day

to know that you were not abandoned,

that happiness saved its most extreme form

for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never

knew about, who flies a single-engine plane

onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes

into town, and inquires at every door

until he finds you asleep midafternoon

as you so often are during the unmerciful

hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.

It comes to the woman sweeping the street

with a birch broom, to the child

whose mother has passed out from drink.

It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing

a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,

and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots

in the night.

                     It even comes to the boulder

in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,

to rain falling on the open sea,

to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

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Returning to flow state

We dodged several bullets yesterday, almost literally. There were thunderstorms all around us and we were caught, briefly, in a torrential downpour, but we avoided, through pure luck or something, the hail that shattered windshields and dented sheet metal elsewhere in the Twin Cities area. Strangely enough, we also had a brief dry spell while we picked up our CSA share box and again later while we were unloading bags and boxes of items for a yard sale. It looks as though I’m going to have to forego my “poor me” complaints for at least a week or two.

Upon arrival home, the mail contained a package of pamphlets from the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids, including several on the role of water in Celtic and Druid spirituality. Those nicely complement the Kimberly Blaeser paper I’m currently reading, A Cosmology of Nibi. I’m more and more delighted by the correspondence I find between Celtic and Native American cultures. The likelihood that what passes for culture in colonial America will ever give earth and water and air the respect they deserve is not great, but I keep hoping to find ways to move the needle in the right direction. I think that’s something elders are supposed to do, isn’t it?

(upper) Kinnickinnic River

Photo by J. Harrington

As long as we’re on the theme of moving needles, I want to share a recently distributed notice from the Twin Cities chapter of Trout Unlimited, of which I’m a long time member, that may be of interest.

Regular newsletter readers are aware that we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to remove two dams on the Kinnickinnic River, an iconic trout stream that is the home water for much of our membership.  This year, the US Army Corps of Engineers is conducting a feasibility study on the removal of the dams and restoration of the river corridor.  This feasibility study is the first big step in developing a firm plan for the restoration of the river, and can bring up to $10 million in federal funding to the project. TCTU members have provided critical seed money to get this project going.  
The Corps will be hosting an open house on Tuesday August 15th from 6 pm to 8 pm at the River Falls Public Library.  Corps officials will provide a detailed overview of the feasibility study, and welcome the public to join and provide comment. River Falls City Officials will also be present.  The Corps' press release announcing the Open House is here.
This is a great opportunity for us to show our support for the restoration, provide comments, and get our questions answered.  I plan to attend, and I hope that you can join, too! A strong contingent of TU members at this meeting will demonstrate to the Corps and the City just how important this project is to us.
If you would like to read more about the Kinni Restoration project, please check out this page on our website. 

It is a very pleasant surprise to find the Corps actively engaged in river restoration as well as their normal efforts at river industrialization. We look forward to a positive outcome of the feasibility study and, ultimately, the removal of two dams in River Falls. We’ll check for press coverage late next week and will post here anything we find.

Navigation

Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

Nervous-system tracings of rivers before dams—
to map watercourses is to diagram human hands
running in fingers to deltas. Neosho, Kaw,
Cimarron, Verdigris, Arkansas, Chickaskia.
Flood flow in spring, summer languid. Call
their names—conjure those whose language
they carry. Memory exists in nerves, lives in
rivers like silver-scaled great-horned serpent,
basilisk who admonishes our failures. Metaphor
reminds us that humans subsisted along rivers
immemorial. Recall, then, those dead metaphors,
breathe them back to life—river of time, river
of memory, river of life, river of blood, river of
song, river of death. River of contempt. Not the
same river, not the same woman—Heraclitus’
axiom along cattail-encumbered bank. Honor
rivers’ meanders, their currents our late-night
reveries that roar, crawl along, rush downstream,
and overflow, leaving mica scales behind. How
rivers sometimes get lost. How we all get lost.

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Becoming native to this place

Today’s title borrows from Wes Jackson. Today is International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. Yesterday, the voters in Ohio chose self-determination, for women and men, over autocracy. Kimberly Blaeser seems to have anticipated such a combination of events in a poem she wrote several years ago. Her words exceed any ability of mine to honor those who must continue the battles to control their own bodies and lands. (Some years back I had the pleasure of participating in a poetry class she taught at the Aldo Leopold Foundation.)

American Indian Cultural Corridor, Minneapollis

Photo by J. Harrington

A Quest for Universal Suffrage

Kimberly Blaeser

I.

Suffrage:

In late middle English

intercessory prayers,

a series of petitions.

Not the right—but the hope.

 

Universal:

applicable to all cases—

except those marginalized

and unnamed.

A belief, but not a fact.

 

II.

In the trombone slide of history

I hear the suffer in suffragette

the uni uni uni in universal—

each excluded ikwe: women

from five hundred tribal nations

mindimooyenh or matriarchs

of ancient flourishing cultures

still disenfranchised by race,

still holding our world together

in the dusky and lawless violence

manifest in colonial america.

 

Twenty-six million american women

at last granted the right to vote.

Oh, marginal notes in the sweet anthem

of equality, Indigenous non-citizens

turn to the older congress of the sun

seek in the assembled stories of sky

a steady enlightenment—natural laws

(the mathematics of bending trees,

sistering of nutrients—maizebeanssquash,

or wintering wisdom of animal relatives)

each seasonal chorus colored with resilience—

earth voices rising in sacred dream songs.

 

Even now listen, put on the moon-scored

shell of turtle, wear this ancient armour

of belonging. In the spiral of survivance

again harvest the amber sap of trees

follow the scattered path of manoomin

the wild and good seed that grows on water.

Oh water, oh rice, oh women of birch dreams

and baskets, gather. Here reap and reseed

raise brown hands trembling holy with endurance.

Now bead land knowledge into muklaks

sign with the treaty X of exclusion.

Kiss with fingers and lips the inherited

woodland flutes and breathy cedar songs. 

Say yea, eya, and yes. Here and here cast

your tended nets—oh suffered and sweetly mended

nets of abundance. This year and each to follow

choose, not by paper but by pathway, a legacy:

woman’s work—our ageless ballad of continuance.

Copyright © 2020 Kimberly Blaeser. This poem was co-commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and the New York Philharmonic as part of the Project 19 initiative.

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Will the MPD / DOJ Consent Decree be POSTed?

I haven't read the 92(?) page US Department of Justice report nor much of the coverage of this morning’s announcement of its findings: Justice Department finds pattern of discriminatory policing in Minneapolis. I’m also skeptical about the amount of time estimated to be necessary to negotiate a consent decree (Justice delayed is justice denied?). On the other hand, it could be interesting to see if anyone demands an early approval that builds on recent changes in Minnesota’s police licensing standards.

The POST Board adopted new rules effective May 30, 2023 for law enforcement officers related to background investigations, psychological screening, minimum selection standards and new standards of conduct. 

The new standards of conduct have provisions that appear to be particularly relevant, including:

Prohibited Conduct related to law enforcement authority: Use of Force:

• Engage in unreasonable or excessive use of force; unauthorized use of force, or unauthorized use of deadly force;

• Fail to intercede when observing another officer using force beyond that which is objectively reasonable (Minn. Stat. 626.8475);

• Fail to report any use of force violations by another employee or officer in writing within 24 hours to the chief law enforcement officer (Minn. Stat. 626.8475);

I am not a lawyer nor a police officer nor a politician, etc., but it seems to me it would simplify reforms and enhance accountability if an initial Consent Decree incorporated all the new standards as court enforceable provisions. Does that make sense to you?

Perspective

By Amy King

When I see the two cops laughing 

after one of them gets shot

because this is TV and one says

while putting pressure on the wound,

Haha, you're going to be fine,

and the other says, I know, haha!, 

as the ambulance arrives—

I know the men are white.

I think of a clip from the hours 

of amateur footage I've seen

when another man at an intersection

gets shot, falls, and bleeds from a hole

the viewer knows exists only by the way 

the dark red pools by the standing cop's feet,

gun now holstered, who

yells the audience back to the sidewalk.

I know which one is dying 

while black and which one stands by white. 

I think this morning about the student 

in my class who wrote a free write line 

on the video I played

that showed a man pouring water

on his own chest, "...the homoerotic 

scene against a white sky" with no other men 

present. Who gets to see and who follows

what script? I ask my students. 

Whose lines are these and by what hand

are they written?

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A passion for poetry

 As I was rereading the first chapter of Joy Harjo’s Catching the Light this morning, my day was brightened by  this paragraph:

The traditional ways and rituals of all of Earth’s peoples are kept in containers of poetry, song, and story. It is how we know who we are, where we are coming from and who we are becoming.

Those thoughts became a great lead-in to an article in today’s Daily Yonder which we’re republishing below. Those who would ban books be damned!! They  would keep us from knowing  who we are.

A ‘Little Town Poets Society,’ and the Woman Behind It

by Presley West, The Daily Yonder
May 24, 2023

Growing up in Scott County, Tennessee, Cheyanne Leonardo's passion for poetry and the arts made her feel like a bit of an outsider.

"It's hard growing up and feeling different, feeling like no one is interested in the same things as you are … I definitely felt like a weirdo. But I kind of liked it, in a way, and I tried to make it my super power."

Community members gather for a Little Town Poets Society meeting.
(Photo courtesy of Cheyanne Leonardo)

 

"Little Town Poet" Cheyanne Leonardo.
(Photo courtesy of Leonardo)

Today, her poetry – and gift for sharing it with others – has become just that. In the past three years, Cheyanne has published three poetry collections, cultivated a thriving group of local poets, launched a local poetry anthology that's received more than 100 submissions, and assumed a leadership role in a recently formed nonprofit working to advance arts in the community.

Though she is now doing what she considers her life's work, it happened by accident.

Only three years ago, Cheyanne was living in Stuttgart, Germany, at the tail end of a decade-long odyssey of boarding school, graduate school, traveling, and living abroad, which she started when she first left home at fourteen. Fluent in French and German after extensive travel in Europe and a graduate degree in modern language and literature, she taught English for two years before the Covid pandemic hit Germany. In the face of so much uncertainty, homesickness — and a chance at a love she’d left behind — brought her home.

"If I'm perfectly honest, the reason that I came home was because I'm a romantic. I was waiting for the right time to be with someone here in our hometown," she said. "When I was faced with the possibility of the imminent death of all my loved ones, I thought, okay."

So she moved home, rented a small apartment behind her old childhood dance studio, and began working as a barista. She wrote poems to process her feelings about her time abroad, her journey home, and everything in between. Those poems eventually became the foundation for her debut poetry collection, More Than Metaphor, published in the summer of 2021.

Birth of the Little Town Poets Society

What began as a personal exploration of her feelings became a way to connect with her community more deeply than she ever had before. Surprised by how much people connected with her work, and humbled by the encouragement she received from friends, family, and strangers while selling her work at the coffee shop, she decided to start a free weekly poetry class.

"So, I am starting a club. And everyone is invited," she wrote on Facebook. "The LITTLE TOWN POETS SOCIETY will be a place for YOU – to join me in creating poetry and art of your very own."

Little Town Poets Society meetings, like the one pictured above,
started as weekly free poetry classes taught by Leonardo.

Despite early fears that no one would show up or care, eleven people – ranging from teens to seniors in their seventies – showed up to Little Town Poets Society's first meeting at the coffee shop. And they've continued to show up since, sharing their work, forming unexpected friendships, and opening up about their feelings.

"More than once, a grown man has cried at Poets Society, which I feel is progress," she said.

The group has been transformative for Whitney Swain. "The little community that [Cheyanne] has created has opened a world of possibilities that I didn't know would exist for me," said Whitney, who is studying to become a licensed counselor. "She gave me space to find an artistic voice that I did not know I had."

A discussion at the Little Town Poets Society.

Weeks after launching Little Town Poets Society in the fall of 2022, a couple of friends and family approached Cheyanne with an idea to start a nonprofit arts organization, a moment she remembers as a "sign that everything was moving in the right direction." 

 

 

 

 

Friends made through the Little Town Poets Society.
(Photos courtesy of Leonardo)

"When I started out, I was kind of hoping it would evolve into something like that."

Today, she serves as Director of Literary Arts for that nonprofit — the Appalachian Society of the Arts — which recently hosted its first fundraiser for a Budding Artist scholarship fund and is planning free and low-cost classes in music, photography, acting, and crafting.

Supporting access to the arts and emerging artists from Scott County has been incredibly meaningful for Cheyanne. "I was dissuaded from pursuing [the arts] for so long because they're “not valuable.” And that's the exact thing I'm trying to break — this notion that it's not helpful or doesn't contribute. Because [with] what I've done in the last two years with poetry alone, I've seen more of a positive impact in terms of other people's lives and the world, that I've been able to do, than anything else ever."

The Hometown Poems Project

Her current project, "Hometown Poems," is an example of that. It’s a local anthology she created for residents of Scott, McCreary, and surrounding counties that will benefit the Appalachian Society of the Arts. She’s received poetry, photo, and drawing submissions from over 100 residents. "The youngest person who submitted is four years old, and the oldest is in his 80s. So we've got the whole range of life," she said.

She’s also writing, with her current work focused on spirituality. "I'm always a romantic. So there's always love in there as well," she said. "But I like the idea that everybody has a little piece of the divine in them, whatever their name for that is. And for me, poetry is what gets me in touch with it."

Personally, Cheyanne is living happily with her partner — the one who inspired her journey home — and their dog and cat. She quit her barista job to write poetry full time and has wholeheartedly embraced her identity as a Little Town Poet. "I hope to continue representing rural places, especially in Appalachia, and inspiring people to represent themselves.”

While she hasn't ruled out a future odyssey — “there's part of me that still fantasizes about running away and being alive somewhere else." — she's putting down roots for now.

"I really like being here right now … growing up, I felt like, kind of an outcast. So all of a sudden, it's like I'm really active in the community, and I like it. I feel like I'm making a difference, and that is what matters to me."

---

This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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And the answer is..., what was the question?

Lately I’ve been pondering a lot of semi-related questions that leave me more than mildly perplexed. In part they’re due to some reading I’ve been doing in an effort to help with a river restoration effort. I began to wonder about the question of “restore to what?” The first option seems to be: to the condition it was in before settlers dammed the river. Does that mean to eliminate the brown trout that have become naturalized but are not indigenous to North America? Probably not, but then how do we define what will be considered success? Clearly, restoration to the glacial period, when there was no river, isn’t appropriate.

Part of my concerns have been incited by the increasing volatility in what is or isn’t, may or may not be legal or otherwise acceptable. With the overturn of Roe v.Wade, SCOTUS has opened a pandora’s box. Who should decide which, if any, books should be banned and from whom should they be banned? On what basis should bannings be allowed. I seem to recall a past Justice saying something to the effect of “I may not be able to define pornography but I know it when I see it.” I wonder if that Justice ever read much of the Old Testament.

Scientific and Natural Area Rules

Photo by J. Harrington

As individuals, and a society comprised of individuals, it seems to me we have become too sloppy in our use of language. For contemporary evidence, please read Minnesota House bill could cost pain medication patients up to $200 a month in MinnPost with yesterday’s dateline. If it makes any sense to you, please explain it to the rest of us in the comments below.

Back when Congress previously banned “assault weapons” and “high capacity magazines,” the was lots of talk about legally defining an assault weapon. Check the Wikipedia page to see how messy it got and remains.

My point is that too often we undertake vast programs with half-vast ideas and definitions. We then spend unreasonable amounts of time debating terms, conditions and related matters about whether a cup is half empty of half full without bothering to first specify what size cup by volume and or weight. Meanwhile, real problems go unaddressed.

I’d suggest we make the spreading or creation of misinformation and disinformation a capital offense if only I could get consensus on the meaning of those terms. Perhaps one of the newfangled AI-bots will solve the problem by burying all of us in reams of gobbledygook garbage until we return to a pre-language grunt stage and climb back into the trees on the plains of Africa, if there are any trees left. Or, could we, just maybe, try being reasonable and talking to, instead of shouting at, or talking past, each other?

Meaning

Carl Dennis - 1939-

If a life needn’t be useful to be meaningful,
Then maybe a life of sunbathing on a beach
Can be thought of as meaningful for at least a few,
The few, say, who view the sun as a god
And consider basking a form of worship.

As for those devoted to partnership with a surfboard
Or a pair of ice skates or a bag of golf clubs,
Though I can’t argue their lives are useful,
I’d be reluctant to claim they have no meaning
Even if no one observes their display of mastery.

No one is listening to the librarian
I can call to mind as she practices, after work,
In her flat on Hoover Street, the viola da gamba
In the one hour of day that for her is golden.
So what if she’ll never be good enough
To give a concert people will pay to hear?

When I need to think of her with an audience,
I can imagine the ghosts of composers dead for centuries,
Pleased to hear her doing her best with their music.

And isn’t it pleasing, as we walk at dusk to our cars
Parked on Hoover Street, after a meeting
On saving a shuttered hotel from the wrecking ball,
To catch the sound of someone filling a room
We won’t be visiting with a haunting solo?

And then the gifts we receive by imagining
How down at the beach today surfers made sure
The big waves we weren’t there to appreciate
Didn’t go begging for attention.
And think of the sunlight we failed to welcome,
How others stepped forward to take it in.

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Spring dreams

 It’s the eve of Valentine’s Day and the Ides of February [scroll down on the linked page]. Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy [½ an inch or more]. What kind of a mess do you think we’ll be faced with on Wednesday as temperatures drop back below freezing? Late winter and early spring in our North  Country  are as often full of problems as promises. This time the problem is we won’t get above freezing again until mid-day Saturday. Remember when studded tires were legal?

Two of the amaryllis that missed blooming for winter solstice have developed nice flower buds. It looks like they’ll be in bloom well before Easter, maybe by Ash Wednesday? Most of the tulips and hyacinths in the  downstairs bulb garden are fading. Once the roads get de-iced, we may need to consider getting something to help us maintain a reason to believe until outside begins to bloom and green after it rethaws once, or twice, or thrice, or ??? more this season.

will the dreaded dragon’s teeth return?

Photo by J. Harrington

 I was reminded earlier today that T. S. Elliot wrote, in The Waste Land, that “April is the cruellist month,”. If he had lived in Minnesota during February and March, his famous poem may well have opened differently. This transitional season leaves me feeling like a piñata, getting hit by the weather each time I turn around.

On the brighter side, I’ve been enjoying more time to read and finally got around to looking through a couple of issues of american poets. The Fall-Winter 2021 issue has a wonderful Margaret Noodin poem I want to share today. As the poet wrote, nicely linking the poem with  Black History Month:

“This poem was written after hearing Kwame Alexander and Rachel Martin talk about Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech ‘I Have a Dream’ which was inspired by Langston Hughes’ poem ‘I Dream a World.’ With all we’ve lost and learned this past year, and all that remains to be repaired, I thought perhaps we should all sit down and dream harder and more often with more clarity and infinite diversity.”
—Margaret Noodin

Nimbawaadaan Akiing / I Dream a World

Margaret Noodin

Nimbawaadaan akiing 
I dream a world 

atemagag biinaagami 
of clean water 

gete-mitigoog 
ancient trees 

gaye gwekaanimad 
and changing winds. 

Nimbawaadaan akiing 
I dream a world 

izhi-mikwendamang 
of ones who remember 

nandagikenindamang gaye 
who seek the truth and 

maamwidebwe’endamang waabang 
believe in tomorrow together. 

Nimbawaadaan akiing 
I dream a world 

izhi-biimiskobideg giizhigong 
where our path in the sky 

waabandamang naasaab 
can be seen as clearly as 

gaa-izhi-niibawid wiijibemaadizid 
the place where our neighbor once stood.

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Growing a culture as well as crops

The amaryllis bulbs, which were tucked away in a cool dark place at Christmas last year, are now repotted and showing signs of life. Maybe we’ll enjoy Easter amaryllis blooms this year?

There’s now more than half a dozen jonquils blooming on the downstairs bookcase in the west-facing window. The hyacinths and tulips in the planter are emerging and getting ready to flower.

The Better Half is baking one of my favorite kinds of cookies. That, and coffee, and good books, may help me make it until spring moves from inside to out. Would that snow season were as brief as lilac season.

local lilac season: mid-May

Photo by J. Harrington

I’ve, once again, knocked down icicles growing over the front stoop steps and thrown more chunks of ice melt salt onto the roof over the stoop. I think part of the issue is that the downspout gets blocked with ice so melt water also fills the gutter and overflows and refreezes.

Last night’s celebration of the Land Stewardship Project’s 40th anniversary, with Robin Wall Kimmerer as keynoter, was heartening. I’d like to see US phase out industrial agriculture and CAFOs. Meat raised for food is a significant source of greenhouse gases. This morning I finished reading Arwen Donahue’s Landings, a Crooked Creek Farm Year. I enjoyed reading the words and looking at the drawings. Donahue flagged one concern that troubles me deeply. As a society, how do we enhance the opportunities available to rural residents so they don’t feel compelled to move away to urban centers for what are perceived to be better opportunities? Industrializing agriculture to produce field corn (ethanol) and soy beans (biodiesel) is not feeding the world and it is contributing to automation of agriculture and consolidation of farms, reducing rural populations.

The Farm

By Joyce Sutphen

My father’s farm is an apple blossomer.

He keeps his hills in dandelion carpet

and weaves a lane of lilacs between the rose

and the jack-in-the-pulpits.

His sleek cows ripple in the pastures.

The dog and purple iris

keep watch at the garden’s end.

His farm is rolling thunder,

a lightning bolt on the horizon.

His crops suck rain from the sky

and swallow the smoldering sun.

His fields are oceans of heat,

where waves of gold

beat the burning shore.

A red fox

pauses under the birch trees,

a shadow is in the river’s bend.

When the hawk circles the land,

my father’s grainfields whirl beneath it.

Owls gather together to sing in his woods,

and the deer run his golden meadow.

My father’s farm is an icicle,

a hillside of white powder.

He parts the snowy sea,

and smooths away the valleys.

He cultivates his rows of starlight

and drags the crescent moon

through dark unfurrowed fields.

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a wabi sabi Christmas?

Santa and the reindeer should have no problems in our neck of the woods. There’s several inches of snow on the roofs and the ground and temperatures will stay well below freezing at least through Christmas Eve. Looking at the family letters to Santa, all the adults are pretty undemanding. I think that’s a good sign but it is frustrating for those of us who like to hear “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” come Christmas morning.

I suspect much of my desire to overproduce at Christmas is based on decades of being exposed to marketing that tells us buying something is the key to health and happiness (and someone else’s wealth). Meanwhile, I’m sitting in a comfy chair wearing a flannel shirt and a brown cardigan, eating thumbprint cookies the Better Half baked for me (again) with a couple of mellow dogs loafing about and a drive that I’ve again cleared of recently fallen snow, giving me an unaccustomed sense of accomplishment.

impermanent, not quite perfect, almost complete

Photo by J. Harrington

Some time over the next week I need to run a handful of errands, but much of Christmas appears to be as much under control as ever. The core of wabi sabi is finding beauty in that which is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” in nature. Much of this afternoon, and a little of this morning, has been spent watching the blue sky behind the snow covered tree crowns be sometimes covered by thin clouds, other times by thicker, gray clouds. When the sun is shining on the snow from an uncloudy part of the sky, the brilliance is almost overwhelming. When clouds dim the sun and backdrop the tree tops, the appearance much resembles Japanese paintings.

Toward the Winter Solstice

Timothy Steele - 1948-

Although the roof is just a story high,
It dizzies me a little to look down.
I lariat-twirl the cord of Christmas lights
And cast it to the weeping birch’s crown;
A dowel into which I’ve screwed a hook
Enables me to reach, lift, drape, and twine
The cord among the boughs so that the bulbs
Will accent the tree’s elegant design.

Friends, passing home from work or shopping, pause
And call up commendations or critiques.
I make adjustments. Though a potpourri
Of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Sikhs,
We all are conscious of the time of year;
We all enjoy its colorful displays
And keep some festival that mitigates
The dwindling warmth and compass of the days.

Some say that L.A. doesn’t suit the Yule,
But UPS vans now like magi make
Their present-laden rounds, while fallen leaves
Are gaily resurrected in their wake;                           
The desert lifts a full moon from the east
And issues a dry Santa Ana breeze,
And valets at chic restaurants will soon
Be tending flocks of cars and SUVs.

And as the neighborhoods sink into dusk
The fan palms scattered all across town stand
More calmly prominent, and this place seems
A vast oasis in the Holy Land.
This house might be a caravansary,
The tree a kind of cordial fountainhead
Of welcome, looped and decked with necklaces
And ceintures of green, yellow, blue, and red.

Some wonder if the star of Bethlehem
Occurred when Jupiter and Saturn crossed;
It’s comforting to look up from this roof
And feel that, while all changes, nothing’s lost,
To recollect that in antiquity
The winter solstice fell in Capricorn
And that, in the Orion Nebula,
From swirling gas, new stars are being born.

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Piece of earth or Peace on earth?

Several years ago, one of the local bears came onto the deck and bent hell out of the bird feeder holder in the picture, or one very much like it. I never got around to replacing that holder and the other ones we have leave the wire tray feeder too accessible to the local squirrels. Since we’ve been seeing fewer cardinals this year, I think Santa, or one of his elves, may be asked about a replacement hanger. Minnesota winters with cardinals at the feeder are much more tolerable than those without.

Christmas cardinal

Photo by J. Harrington

Today’s seasonal mood / mode also has me thinking about a Christmas wish for our country and the rest of the world. Let’s all work on teaching children how to share and play together in the sandbox. If enough of us focus on that, it could be that we’d even remember, or learn for the first time, those lessons needed to get along without wars. That would be a start and a wonderful step forward.

The wish I just shared occurred to me this morning as I was sitting in the living room muttering about cold drafts and unseasonably cold temperatures outside. Then I realized that at least my family wasn’t trying to survive winter in a war zone in a city in Ukraine. My muttering diminished.

We, the human race, have grown to a point that we are destroying critical systems on which we depend and we continue to focus more on fighting with each other than on saving ourselves and our descendants by restoring those systems which are essential to our long term viability, let alone thriving. This concept isn’t new. It was followed by many of the indigenous peoples of North America. The version below is from here:

Among the nations of the Haudenosaunee is a core value called the Seventh Generation. While the Haudenosaunee encompass traditional values like sharing labour and maintaining a duty to their family, clan and nation and being thankful to nature and the Creator for their sustenance, the Seventh Generation value takes into consideration those who are not yet born but who will inherit the world.

In their decision making Chiefs consider how present day decisions will impact their descendants. Nations are taught to respect the world in which they live as they are borrowing it from future generations. The Seventh Generation value is especially important in terms of culture. Keeping cultural practices, languages, and ceremonies alive is essential if those to come are to continue to practice Haudenosaunee culture.

The preceding two paragraphs seem to me to be completely in alignment with “Peace on earth, good will to all.” If we work at it, we could make Christmas season last all year, after year.

Wartime Christmas

Joyce Kilmer - 1886-1918

Led by a star, a golden star,
The youngest star, an olden star,
Here the kings and the shepherds are,
Akneeling on the ground.
What did they come to the inn to see?
God in the Highest, and this is He,
A baby asleep on His mother’s knee
And with her kisses crowned.

Now is the earth a dreary place,
A troubled place, a weary place.
Peace has hidden her lovely face
And turned in tears away.
Yet the sun, through the war-cloud, sees
Babies asleep on their mother’s knees.
While there are love and home—and these—
There shall be Christmas Day.

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