Stop the bleeding!!!

Welcome to Sun Day! There's an (in)famous quote about news: "If it bleeds, it leads." Doom-scrolling social media, reading the US edition of The Guardian, and watching tv news leaves too many of US with the impression that everything's coming apart or, as Yeats tells US "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;"

Blue Marble, our only home
Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

I've never, to my knowledge, been accused of being a Pollyanna, but I confess that  my sense of doom and gloom has been overdeveloped recently. There's more good and interesting work being accomplished these days than is readily conveyed in Mainstream Media (MSM). I reached this conclusion earlier today when I came across the Climate Action Now website. Check it out, we'll wait.

My email inbox and snail mail box are daily filled with pleas / please to help fund this or that effort to save the world, or at least bits and pieces thereof. The aggregate effect, too often, leaves me with the impression that almost any donation is part of a largely hopeless effort to shovel s_ _ t against the t_ _ e. What is missing from most of the requests is a positive vision of what's to be accomplished. Overturning Citizens United or presidential immunity would be the restoration of a former (imperfect) status quo instead of a positive step forward such as mandating pubic only funding for campaigns or prohibiting anyone convicted of a felony (misdemeanor?) from serving as president, VP, or in the cabinet.

Before starting today's posting, I tumbled into the Sun Day announcement as I was trying to decide if I wanted to reread James Lovelock's Gaia. While skimming through inline reviews, I found Book review – On Gaia: A Critical Investigation of the Relationship between Life and Earth. That in turn led me eventually to BECOMING EARTH, HOW OUR PLANET CAME TO LIFE, which I intend to order from my regular, local, independent bookstore and read instead of rereading Gaia. I wish I had known about evolutionary biology when I was in college but then it might not have been much more than a hypothesis back in those days.

Let's see if these days we can do more and better and prove Yeats a pessimist now that we're almost through the first quarter of the twenty-first century and still have no home but planet Earth.

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?

Make America Great Again, Vote, but NOT for Felons!

I may have known, but forgot, or maybe I missed the announcement when it was made, but today I (re?)learned that there’s no incumbent in our Legislative District in this year’s election. I’m doubtful that will lead to being represented by a Democrat in our area, although that was the case when we first moved in. According to Ballotpedia, our district has leaned more and more Republican for the past decade or so. Since I have neither aspirations to nor any probability of becoming a billionaire, I lean heavily toward the left and find few, if any, uses for Republicans and even fewer for MAGAts. I truly never thought I’d live to see the day when a major political party would nominated a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist as its presidential candidate. So much for American exceptionalism. How about Make America Great Again, Don’t Vote for Felons!

Then again, the contrarian in me (yes, me) raises the question: If Joe Biden were more like Mitch McConnell, would we have Clarence Thomas, aided and abetted by Gini, on the SCOTUS? And why, when they had their trifecta, didn’t the Democrats incorporate Roe V. Wade in legislation? As long as I’m at it, the country would be better served, in my opinion, if we had a mandatory retirement age of 70 or so for all those elected or appointed folx who are on the federal payroll.

If you’d like to gain some insight into why I’m negative on both major parties and both elected and appointed officials, pick up a copy of Andrea Wulf's The Founding Gardners and read it. Those who first served as POTUS seemed to have a preference for the real life of the plantation and/or garden more so than a life of politics. We should be wise enough these days to realize that anyone’s strong aspiration to be elected nationally should disqualify them from office. If major sports leagues can have a draft, why not politics? As a former Speaker of the House from Massachusetts, Tip O’Neill, noted “All politics is local.” If you haven’t played on farm teams, you shouldn’t be allowed to buy your way into the big leagues. That would also help the bench strength of booth parties, but we shouldn’t be limited to two. Can you imagine if there were only two banks, two sports leagues, two tv networks, two internet providers? Why are there only two major political parties who are more indebted to a few corporations than to millions of taxpayers?

Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket

By Vachel Lindsay

I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.

My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.

I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.

I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.

Man is a curious brute—he pets his fancies—

Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.

So he will be, though law be clear as crystal,

Tho’ all men plan to live in harmony.

Come, let us vote against our human nature,

Crying to God in all the polling places

To heal our everlasting sinfulness

And make us sages with transfigured faces.

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Please don’t tell me how the story ends*

leaning day lilies

Photo by J. Harrington

About this time each summer, local day lilies put on a show like the one above. For some years now the stem posture of the lilies has made me think of the haunting lines from Leonard Cohen’s wonderful song Suzanne:

They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever

During the past few days, due to the writings of Heidi Barr, I’ve (re?)encountered an essay by Charles Eisenstein, The Space Between Stories. It resonates strongly with me because over the past few years I’ve developed my own sense that we are living in times of significant transition. One of the more concerning aspects, to me, can be found in the gross inconsistency between a global economic system based on the concept of perpetual growth and the status of our planetary boundaries. 

PLANETARY BOUNDARIES

From much of the reading I’ve been doing over the past few years, I’m coming to believe that integrating Native American worldviews with our stories and, eventually displacing our treating Nature as an object subject to our exploitation can give US the new story we need. Will we learn to tell the necessary stories to keep democracy alive on a habitable planet? That’s up to US and those like us.

*<https://oldtimemusic.com/w3/the-meaning-behind-the-song-please-dont-tell-me-how-the-story-ends-by-kris-kristofferson-rita-coolidge/>

Remember

Joy Harjo 1951 – 

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

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What’s a role for invasive species?

Yesterday we promised to share some questions we believe should be answered before any species is officially designated as invasive. We have extracted these questions from a book by Tao Orion, titled: Beyond the War on Invasive Species, A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration. See what you think about getting answers to these questions rather than just a decision that a species may cause harm, per Minnesota laws.

dame’s rocket (invasive species) in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Some Questions to Guide Observation of Ecosystem Function for Plants

    • What type of root structure does it have (taproot, fibrous root rhizome)?

    • Does it provide nectar or pollen? At what time of year? Are there other services available at this time in the area?

    • Does it provide shade, shelter, nesting sites, or refuge for any bird,, animal or insect?

    • Does it fix nitrogen?

    • Does it accumulate heavy metals? PCBs? Other toxins?

    • Does it concentrate other nutrients or minerals?

    • Does it provide a significant source of biomass (organic material)? Think of its entire life cycle.

    • Does it provide an edible nut, seed, leaf, root, or fruit for humans or other creatures?

    • Does the plant have any mycological associates? If so, which ones? What ecological function do they serve?

    • Does the plant serve a role in water filtration and purification?

    • Does it help with erosion control or floodwater abatement?

    • Does it ameliorate the  process of soil salinization or other  trends of desertification?

    • What is its successional status? Early, mid, late? How can you tell?

    • What is its ecological history? Does it thrive in disturbed soil, high- or low-nutrient profiles, sun, or shade?

Some Questions to Guide Observation of Ecosystem Function for animal

    • What part of the food web  does it feed in? Is it a secondary, tertiary, or quaternary consumer?

    • What organisms feed upon it?

    • Is it recycling nutrients? Where do they come from? Where would they end up otherwise?

    • Does it accumulate heavy metals or other toxins in its tissues?

    • How is it contributing to the succession of the ecosystem?

    • What potential yields could it have?

The Weavers Were the First to Know

Arielle Taitano Lowe

The invasion came like a whisper,
and the leaves changed shapes, 
and the niyok grew sick.

Coconut trees,
our culture’s tree of life,
dying slowly 
as invasive beetles 
eat their hearts 
like world powers 
devour islands.

Weavers hold culture in their 
palms,
weave tradition into their families,
tuck young palms 
into their fingers,
mold them into 
entities.

But now,
our culture’s tree of life 
has grown ill from 
foreign settlement.

Palms severed,
bent like a salute
the way Chamorros are cut like cards
and dealt in front lines of American wars.

The weavers were the first to know
that our niyok is 
sick,
in need of healing.

The same way our island is 
sick,
in need of healing.

I’ve taken up the craft,
so I can weave
traditions
into the palms of my children.

I can only hope that when 
I master it,

palms will remain
for them

to weave into our future. 

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On the eve of Earth Day

Leaves are emerging on some bushes and tree tops, really noticeable on aspens. It’s near time to watch for wild plums to bloom. A few hours ago I began reading a digitized version of a book I’ve been attracted to for some time now, Traditional Ecological Knowledge. I was pleased to note references to Leopold’s land ethic and works by other authors with whom I’m familiar mentioned in the introduction. The three sisters garden I wanted to plant last year never happened so, with luck, maybe this year will see seeds planted. The Better Half gave me a couple of packets of glass gem corn seeds at Christmas, so I’ve even more motivation this year. Where to plant is a major question and last year the persistent drought was a disincentive to starting.

it’s leaf out time

Photo by J. Harrington

Blogger’s software seems much better behaved today, although we can’t be sure until this is actually posted. I’m now facing a question of whether I want to and can download/backup more than a decade’s worth of daily postings. I know, it would have been better if I’d done backups all along, but who knew I’d keep at this?

Last week a purple or house finch, or one of each, showed up at the feeder. Dark-eyed juncoes were pecking away at the back yard until a day or so ago. Warmer, wetter, weather in the week upcoming should bring more indicators of spring. One we’re reasonably certain of is the first community supported agriculture share should be available Friday or Saturday. That’s up-lifting, as is the increasing number of bergamot seeds that are germinating. Isn’t it wonderful what some sunshine and water can help make happen?

Until Earth Day...

Gidiskinaadaa Mitigwaakiing/Woodland Liberty

Margaret Noodin

Apii dibikong gaashkendamyaan miinawaa goshkoziyaan
When in the night I am weary and awake wondering
endigwenh waa ezhichigewag bagoji Anishinaabensag odenang,
what the wild young Anishinaabeg of the cities will do,
mitigwaakiing izhaayaan miinawaa anweshinyaan.
into the woods I go and rest.
Nimawadishaag zhingwaakwag miinawaa okikaandagoog
I visit with the white pines and the jack pines.
Nibizindaawaag zhashagiwag miinawaa ajiijaakwag.
I listen to the herons and the cranes.
Nimaatookinaag zaagaa’igan ogaawag miinawaa apakweshkwayag.
I share the lake waters with the walleye and the cattails.
Niwaabaandaanan wesiinhyag-miikanan miinawaa nakwejinaanig
I marvel at the complexity of wild paths and webs woven.
Miidash apii bidaaban niswi giosewag miinawaa
Then when the dawn hides the three hunters
niizhwaaswi nimisenhyag dibiki-giizhigong gaazhad
and seven sisters of the night sky
baabimoseyaan nikeye naawakweg zoongide’eyaan.
I walk bravely toward the noonday.
 

This poem was written in response to "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry.

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Is an anti-rescue curmudgeon all wet?

There’s lots of open water showing on local lakes and ponds. The Minnesota legislature is considering a bill to reimburse counties for “ice rescues.” Apparently counties are already reimbursed for surface water rescues. The article troubles me the same way that seeing boaters act stupidly on the Atlantic Ocean used to trouble my friends and I. Since it was, and probably still is, possible to take a small craft handling and seamanship course, we argued that completion of that course should be required to enable anyone to purchase a marine radio that could be used to summon the Coast Guard if one got in trouble on the water.

An outdoor writer I read years ago, possibly John Gierach, proposed in a story that “wilderness” trailheads should have signs posted to the effect that visitors were informed “You’re on your own if you get in trouble! Don’t expect rescues beyond this point.” Not doing so seems to violate the very concept of wilderness, and could do wonders for reducing competition for permits for the BWCA.

should lakes like this be declared “wilderness?"

Photo by J. Harrington

Contemporary societies are doing a horrendously bad job of managing our commons of air, water, land and culture. In part because we allow distortions such as obscuring the distinctions between human beings and legal persons. Otherwise, corporations, which could in theory be eternal, should be faced with the prospect of a death penalty if convicted of ecocide or equally horrendous, but all too common, behavior.

In order to instill more respect for informed and appropriate behavior, why not declare all the water bodies in central and northern Minnesota as wilderness areas. No rescues permitted. If resorts want to support untrained and uninformed folks venturing forth, let those resorts provide the rescue teams and reflect the costs in their rates, providing a discount for a stay that doesn’t trigger a rescue effort.

Come wilderness into our homes

By Daniela Danz
Translated by Monika Cassel

break the windows come

with your roots and your worms

spread yourself over our wishes

our waste-sorting systems our protheses

and outstanding payments

cover us with your rustling greenery

and your spores cover us that we may

become green: green and reverent

green and manifestly green and replaceable

come weather with your storms

and sweep the slates off the roofs come

with snow and hail smash

through the collective sleep

we are all enjoying in our beds

our worn rationalizations come ice

and form glaciers over the shadow banks

and our drive for liquidity

come through the cracks under the doors

you desert with your sands fill

our desolation up until it forms into a solid mass

rise up over the search-and-rescue teams

and our growth compulsion trickle into

the control panels of the missiles

and the missile defense systems into

the think tanks and the hearts of internet trolls

just leave the hedgehogs with their

snuffling so that it may calm us

come rising sea levels

up over our shorelines both the developed

and the undeveloped the homey

lowland areas wash

jellyfish into our soup bowls

and ramshorn snails into our hair

as we swim in each other’s direction panicked

with our yearning for one another

because almost nothing is left because it’s all gone

and thoroughly soaked through with regrets

finger-pointing and tranquilizers

come earthquakes shatter the apartments

which we built on the foundations

of how we always did everything

come tremors fill the mine shafts

the end of work and

the literature of redemption bury anger

and affection and all manner of added values

swallow up the memories come tremors

hurry so that the bedrock covers us

so we are covered with water desert weather

and over everything that which covers all the wilderness

Translated from the German

Notes:

Read the German-language original, “Komm Wildnis in unsere Häuser,” and the translator’s note by Monika Cassel.

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No news isn’t always good news

I'm using today's posting to share some news that pleased me when I first learned about it and then caused me to wonder why I hadn't come across it sooner. Science appears to be making progress in the battle against buckthorn. For those with woodlands that are buckthorn infested, and that live near state lands that rarely appear to experience buckthorn removal, buckthorn can become a sensitive topic. If we remove it from our property, and MNDNR leaves infestations nearby, their infestations can serve as a reservoir of reinfestation for our property. Plus, we’re not supposed to transport buckthorn and weather doesn’t always cooperate (drought, anyone?) to make burning safe. So, here’s some links to the latest from the University of Minnesota:

• Controlling buckthorn: the who, what, where, when and how
• Minnesota Invasive Terrestrial Plants and Pests Center (MITPPC)
• The Cover It Up Project

female buckthorn with berries

Photo by J. Harrington

I stumbled into these resources because I had been glancing through a book I read some time ago, Beyond the War on Invasive Species, A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Management, by Tao Orion, and was frustrated to find the index lacked any mention of buckthorn. So, off to the internet and a search on buckthorn permaculture as key words. We were initially confounded by a number of references to sea buckthorn, but eventually found our way to the linked resources listed above.

The changes in forest management practices may not occur soon enough to benefit me personally, but it is encouraging to see progress bring made that offers some hope for minimizing the threat of buckthorn. Since so much of the news these days is full of discouraging reports, I think it would be great if there were a newspaper or magazine that expounded on the good news rather than extinctions, habitat loss and other forms of ecological crises. Wouldn’t you rather contribute to a successful startup rather than trying to protect another last stand? I wonder if any of the environmental nonprofits have considered a more entrepreneurial approach to project and program funding.

Anyhow, I hope this shows that the world isn’t only full of bad news, because, heaven knows, we need all the good news we can get these days.

Yes! No!

by Mary Oliver

How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout
lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I
think serenity is not something you just find in the world,
like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.

The violets, along the river, are opening their blue faces, like
small dark lanterns.

The green mosses, being so many, are as good as brawny.

How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly,
looking at everything and calling out

Yes! No! The

swan, for all his pomp, his robes of grass and petals, wants
only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond. The catbrier
is without fault. The water thrushes, down among the sloppy
rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination is better
than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless
and proper work.

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Word!

Have you heard the phrase “there’s a word for that?” The next year plus promises to be an interesting time in our good old U.S. of A. Today’s posting is intended to help US with a necessary vocabulary. Entries 1 through 5 are from Wordnik.

1. oligarch

noun

1. A member of a small governing faction.
2. A member of an oligarchy; one of a few holding political power.
3. A member of an oligarchy; one of the rulers in an oligarchical government.

 2. autocrat

noun

1. A ruler having unlimited power; a despot.
2. A person with unlimited power or authority.
3. An absolute prince or sovereign; a ruler or monarch who holds and exercises the powers of government as by inherent right, not subject to restrictions: as, “the autocrat of all the Russias,” a title assumed by the emperor of Russia.

3. fraud

noun

1. A deception practiced in order to induce another to give up possession of property or surrender a right.
2. A piece of trickery; a trick.
3. One that defrauds; a cheat.

4. democracy

noun

1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2. A political or social unit that has such a government.
3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.

5. choice

noun

1. The act of choosing; selection.
2. The power, right, or liberty to choose; option.
3. An alternative.

6. background 

1.  Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America,
2. Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America

One Vote

Aimee Nezhukumatathil

            ^{After reading a letter from his mother, Harry T. Burn cast the deciding vote to ratify the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution}

My parents are from countries
where mangoes grow wild and bold
and eagles cry the sky in arcs and dips.
America loved this bird too and made

it clutch olives and arrows. Some think
if an eaglet falls, the mother will swoop
down to catch it. It won’t. The eagle must fly
on its own accord by first testing the air-slide

over each pinfeather. Even in a letter of wind,
a mother holds so much power. After the pipping
of the egg, after the branching—an eagle is on
its own. Must make the choice on its own

no matter what its been taught. Some forget
that pound for pound, eagle feathers are stronger
than an airplane wing. And even one letter, one
vote can make the difference for every bright thing.

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Let me draw you a picture

 Today I’m going to let you draw your own conclusions and hope, unrealistically, for the best.

Earth ‘well outside safe operating space for humanity’, scientists find

planetary boundaries over time

Meanwhile, in our nation and it's capital:

• Why are Republicans launching Biden impeachment inquiry and what’s next?


• What Republicans are doing to Wisconsin is a warning sign to all Americans


• Democrats need to realize that there is no alternative to Biden – and buck up

Fortunately, there’s also:

• Doughnut Economics and DEAL


• Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy

Plus, many other sane and credible organizations working to help the world continue to be a place where humans can both survive and thrive. The choice is ours, for now.

On the Fifth Day

by Jane Hirshfield

On the fifth day
the scientists who studied the rivers
were forbidden to speak
or to study the rivers.

The scientists who studied the air
were told not to speak of the air,
and the ones who worked for the farmers
were silenced,
and the ones who worked for the bees.

Someone, from deep in the Badlands,
began posting facts.

The facts were told not to speak
and were taken away.
The facts, surprised to be taken, were silent.

Now it was only the rivers
that spoke of the rivers,
and only the wind that spoke of its bees,

while the unpausing factual buds of the fruit trees
continued to move toward their fruit.

The silence spoke loudly of silence,
and the rivers kept speaking
of rivers, of boulders and air.

Bound to gravity, earless and tongueless,
the untested rivers kept speaking.

Bus drivers, shelf stockers,
code writers, machinists, accountants,
lab techs, cellists kept speaking.

They spoke, the fifth day,
of silence.

—2017

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Food: sovereignty?

Early this morning, but after the dogs’ walk, we had thunder and lightning that, over an hour or two, delivered about a quarter inch of much needed rain. Many trees are showing early color with greens turning into yellows. Lower leaves on a maple sapling in the back yard are turning red, but there’s no red on the throats of the hummingbirds we’ve seen the past few days. Only gray throats around the feeders is a sign the male ruby-throated birds have headed south. Females and youngsters will follow in a few weeks.

backyard: wild turkeys

Photo by J. Harrington

Much of our engagement with our place is either entertainment like watching birds at the feeders or wildlife crossing the yard, or chores like mowing the grass or trapping pocket gophers so their mounds don’t wreck the mower. When we first moved here, we tried planting a vegetable garden. Horseflies, deer flies, sandy soil and similar detractions deterred us from continuing that “hobby.” Our dependence on ecosystem services is indirect, tenuous, or both. Yes we need fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink. We have little, if any, control over significant destruction of forests in the Amazon or the North Woods. We have actively helped oppose hard rock mining in Minnesota, but that’s as much on principle as based on a direct relationship with the resources that would be affected. We don’t eat much wild rice nor vacation “up North” all that often.

On the other hand, we support local and regional food systems as much as we can. That also contributes to the local economy and helps protect local water quality. But, all in all, our dependence on “nature” while  as pervasive as it was for those who lived here prior to colonization is nowhere near as obvious. I’m rambling about this because I can’t figure out how we get substantially more people to understand and appreciate that we can’t afford to destroy our water supplies so that we can eat, harvest timber or mine metals. I’d happily rely on cast iron fry pans and griddles if we could get rid of PFAS. What I haven’t yet found is a rigorous and reliable way to organize my day to day life so that I can tread lightly. The building industry organized itself into the Green Building Council which brought about standardized criteria in the form of LEED ratings. Can someone work up a comparable set of LIFE ratings? Would enough folks bother to apply such criteria if they existed? Do we need an update to our Original Instructions? And how do we consumers get honest ESG ratings on the producers of our products? There’s lots of advice available, almost all too general or abstract to be applied by ordinary folks who have overly complicated lives to live.

Ledger

Jane Hirshfield
1953 – 

Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin is 3,592 measures.
A voice kept far from feeling is heard as measured.
What’s wanted in desperate times are desperate measures.
Pushkin’s unfinished Onegin: 5,446 lines.

No visible tears measure the pilot’s grief
as she Lidars the height of an island: five feet.
Fifty, its highest leaf.
She logs the years, the weathers, the tree has left.

A million fired-clay bones—animal, human—
set down in a field as protest
measure 400 yards long, 60 yards wide, weigh 112 tons.
The length and weight and silence of the bereft.

Bees do not question the sweetness of what sways beneath them.
One measure of distance is meters. Another is li.
Ten thousand li can be translated: “far.” 
For the exiled, home can be translated “then,” translated “scar.”

One liter
of Polish vodka holds twelve pounds of potatoes.
What we care about most, we call beyond measure.
What matters most, we say counts. Height now is treasure.

On this scale of one to ten, where is eleven?
Ask all you wish, no twenty-fifth hour will be given.
Measuring mounts—like some Western bar’s mounted elk head—
our cataloged vanishing unfinished heaven.

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Person, party, country: which first?

In a country with only two major political parties, we have little, if any, bench strength in our political leadership. Why is that? Does anyone other than the current occupant of the White House have the combined name recognition and socioeconomic characteristics to replace Joe Biden on the 2024 ballot if, heaven forbid, he fell over dead tomorrow? Does anyone really believe that any of the miscreant Republican candidates could win the popular vote for president in 2024 unless they finagled voter suppression, fraud, and smoke and mirrors? Is this any way to run a country that’s supposed to be the world’s leading democracy? In football, it might be okay in sports to claim that “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” It doesn’t work out as well in politics.

I’m still reading Founding Gardeners. It has me convinced that there were differences of opinion among our country’s founders (agrarian versus mercantilist) at least as strong as almost any differences today between Democrats and Republicans. But, before the Civill War, there was also a prevailing willingness to put the interest of the country ahead of the party. We seem to have misplaced almost all of that over the past 150 or so years.

To be clear, I’m not referring to the presidential line of succession. I’m wondering why there aren’t more qualified, popular candidates in both parties so that, every four, or eight, years we’re not faced with a series of “yeah, but” decisions. A recent news article flagged substantial issues of concern among voters of both parties. I would like to think we can field stronger teams on both sides, so the challenge becomes voting for the best, rather than the least worst. Returning to founding gardener metaphors, perhaps our politics, and political parties, need better quality manure to produce better candidates?

I believe it was Bill Clinton who emphasized the theme “It’s the Economy, stupid.” These days, I’d say the operative phrase is “It’s the stupid system, stupid!” 

Joan Baez - The President Sang Amazing Grace Lyrics

A young man came to a house of prayer
They did not ask what brought him there
He was not friend, he was not kin
But they opened the door and let him in

And for an hour the stranger stayed
He sat with them and seemed to pray
But then the young man drew a gun
And killed nine people, old and young

In Charleston in the month of June
The mourners gathered in a room
The President came to speak some words
And the cameras rolled and the nation heard

But no words could say what must be said
For all the living and the dead
So on that day and in that place
The President sang Amazing Grace
The President sang Amazing Grace

We argued where to lay the blame
On one man's hate or our nation's shame
Some sickness of the mind or soul
And how the wounds might be made whole

But no words could say what must be said
For all the living and the dead
So on that day and in that place
The President sang Amazing Grace
My President sang Amazing Grace

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Can capitalism evolve?

I’m not sure where this is going today. I’ve been thinking(?) about bioregionalism, habitats, ecosystems and climate change. Here’s a quote from a web site about bioregions:

Bioregions have two distinct elements: 

● SCIENTIFIC: defined by the physical landscape – geology, topology, hydrology, plate tectonics, geography, erosion, rainfall, soil type and variation – and the biological beings and ecosystems living with them, each distinct, each suited and evolved slightly differently. In this, we must ask – how is nature different in different areas, what natural diversity make these regions so different? and how does that impact what we should do?

● CULTURAL: the people and inhabitants living within the bioregion. The sum of our personal actions, and interpersonal relationships that make each area distinct – it is the food we grow, what we eat, our sports, music – the clothes we wear, our shared identity, our economy, governments and politics. In this, we must ask – how does where we live affect these things? What are things we can each do, that taken together, will see the world shift in healthier ways, and improve the well being of our communities and bioregion?

Precipitation patterns are changing. Climate is changing. Except for landslides etc., topography should remain about the same. Biodiversity is declining. People are being forced to migrate. Global food supplies are threatened and being diminished. Many of these factors are creating feedback loops. Meanwhile, most business thinking remains focused on this quarter's profits. When (if?) we think about it, we may realize many of the factors in each of the "two distinct elements" are changing, often with an unanticipated rapidity.

What has this to do with capitalism? Has capitalism not coevolved with the enormous growth of the human population? Does capitalism not try to maximize “externalities?” Is the Earth, except for sunlight  and minor space-related things, not a closed system? Where are the externalities in a closed system?

The natural systems of earth reuse most waste. The  economic systems (primarily capitalism) of earth reuse almost nothing except excuses? Is the root problem becoming clearer? How much wealth will the last person on earth hold? What will it buy them?

Katherine Hayhoe, a world famous climate scientist, tells us that “Our future is still in our hands.” Humans created economics and capitalism. Humans can change both. If capitalism doesn’t coevolve with  humans, it may become a casualty of climate change and human survival.

The “Change” in Climate Change

By Jacob Shores-Argüello

My cousin WhatsApps me from Costa Rica, fits the family

into the rectangle of video as they wave from the balcony.

He turns the phone, shows me a swirl of birds in the hurting sky.

But they are not birds. They are neighbor Tinoco’s roof tiles

flying in a storm’s rotary energy. My family is calling because

I’m in Oklahoma, which, to them, is synonym for tornado.

Te amo, I say as my cousin lowers the phone for our grandmother

to hear. She’s scared because she’s lived in the town for 80 years

and can’t recognize all these new skies. Because a year before,

a hurricane reaved its way across this country for the first time

in recorded history. Tornado or torbellino or something else,

I ask her about the valley’s strange wind. And she laughs, says

that she was calling to ask me the same thing. I don’t know why

I keep forgetting the change in climate change. My grandmother

sighs as the sky darkens to the color of rum. Why I still think

that we’ll have names for all the things that will come.

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Mine, all mine

There’s an article in the Star Tribune that misses several significant points relative to its purported subject. The head states: Minnesota locked in global dilemma: More copper and nickel are needed, but mine development slow. That’s slightly off the mark, but not as misleading as the lede: “There's a not-in-my-backyard mentality surrounding new hardrock mine projects.” 

If the reporters had thought a bit, they might have noted that the global dilemma could have been avoided if the oil and gas industry had been honest and more forthcoming decades ago about the implications of consuming their products. Of course, the world leaders have been less than dynamic in responding to the scientific evidence and reports about the effects of greenhouse gasses and climate weirding. The real “not in my backyard” issue is global population growth accompanied by a capitalist economy dependent on quantitative rather than qualitative growth to provide return on investment.

There’s another aspect though that is more germane to Minnesota, and the rest of US. Some years ago the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) was begun. It has now reached the point where their standards form the basis against which mining activities can be audited. According to the IRMA web site, none of the audits completed or underway at this writing is in Minnesota or the United States. This is perhaps not surprising since the  lack of systems planning we are pursuing results in a national approach of building renewable generating capacity far from the centers of consumption and lack the transmission capacity to get the product to market, so to speak. We’re as likely to insist mining projects in this country meet stringent international standards as we are to place lots more emphasis on roof-top solar and micro-grids. Either would seem to be a better approach but would upset some of the major players, no doubt.

mining leaves many scars on the earth

Photo by J. Harrington

Aaron Brown, someone much closer to the Iron Range mining issues than I, recently had this and more to say:

Since the dawn of capitalism on this continent, people of northern Minnesota contended with challenging economic conditions. This is true whether we live in Eveleth or Onigum. Up and down. Boom and bust. We share these experiences.

We should be rightly concerned that the powerful deem the people of northern Minnesota less valuable than the logs and ore that define our manufactured regional identity. When companies are denied logs and ore, the powerful speak out. When people are denied health care, affordable housing and dignity, the powerful suddenly show remarkable restraint of tongue and pen. 

Since the evidence is growing daily that the climate scientists who try to inform and warn us of what we’re doing to ourselves, actually, allowing the global corporations to do to us, are telling the truth, maybe it’s time to focus more on working together to bring the corporatocracy, including its political toadies, to heal and spend less energy pointing fingers at various elements of the people who do the work and/or suffer the most while the profits continue to accrue to the 1%.

Love in a Time of Climate Change

By Craig Santos Perez

recycling Pablo Neruda's "Sonnet XVII"

I don't love you as if you were rare earth metals,

conflict diamonds, or reserves of crude oil that cause

war. I love you as one loves the most vulnerable

species: urgently, between the habitat and its loss.

I love you as one loves the last seed saved

within a vault, gestating the heritage of our roots,

and thanks to your body, the taste that ripens

from its fruit still lives sweetly on my tongue.

I love you without knowing how or when this world

will end. I love you organically, without pesticides.

I love you like this because we'll only survive

in the nitrogen rich compost of our embrace,

so close that your emissions of carbon are mine,

so close that your sea rises with my heat. 

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Whiplash isn’t good for businesses or people

Several decisions announced by SCOTUS during the past few days have upset a number of apple carts in addition to the ones overturned a year ago disrupting women’s health care. So doctors and medical schools are deciding how to best respond at a time when there’s an estimated shortage of 100,000± physicians projected for the near future, Locally, we’ve noticed we have to schedule getting sick 2 or 3 months in advance when, not too long ago, we only needed lead time measured in weeks.

There’s now a number of businesses wondering if they have to accept every customer that makes an inquiry: infants at “fine dining” or pacifists at police academies? Speaking of academies, we’re now looking at a system for which the payoff may well not sufficiently reward the investment risk except for the legacy admissions. This at a time when there is growing concern about a need for STEM graduates to maintain our economic competitiveness.

Stay On Path

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, AI and social media are contributing to misinformation, disinformation and alleged copyright violations and, before Minnesotans, and others, can figure out how to adjust their finances to resume repayment of student loans, while those who had their PPP loans forgiven tsk, tsk from the sidelines, the Biden administration is planning a different approach to forgiving student loans that, we hope, won’t be subject to constitutional misinterpretation.

We’ve been here before, according to some, several times: constitutional conventions, world wars, civil war, new deal. But those times we weren’t also facing growing disruptions from climate breakdown’s effects and the disruptions that result from wholesale changes to the energy sources of the global economy, plus the continuing loss of biodiversity. Yes, Virginia, the sky is falling, sort of literally.

All of the preceding precedes consideration of the implications of Paris experiencing a George Floyd moment and chaos in the air travel system this holiday weekend and whatever comes next. We have met the future and it doesn’t work. It’s time for a convention of cosmologists to make up a new world view that we can all, or at least most of US, accept. Or, we can accept that we are dooming our descendants to subsistence-level living until they’re rescued by the space aliens who figured our that cooperation works better than competition.

Fritz Perl had a version we should carefully consider, captured in the Gestalt Prayer. There’s also

I Am Waiting

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up   

and I am waiting

for a rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting for someone

to really discover America

and wail

and I am waiting   

for the discovery

of a new symbolic western frontier   

and I am waiting   

for the American Eagle

to really spread its wings

and straighten up and fly right

and I am waiting

for the Age of Anxiety

to drop dead

and I am waiting

for the war to be fought

which will make the world safe

for anarchy

and I am waiting

for the final withering away

of all governments

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming   

and I am waiting

for a religious revival

to sweep thru the state of Arizona   

and I am waiting

for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored   

and I am waiting

for them to prove

that God is really American

and I am waiting

to see God on television

piped onto church altars

if only they can find   

the right channel   

to tune in on

and I am waiting

for the Last Supper to be served again

with a strange new appetizer

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called

and I am waiting

for the Salvation Army to take over

and I am waiting

for the meek to be blessed

and inherit the earth   

without taxes

and I am waiting

for forests and animals

to reclaim the earth as theirs

and I am waiting

for a way to be devised

to destroy all nationalisms

without killing anybody

and I am waiting

for linnets and planets to fall like rain

and I am waiting for lovers and weepers

to lie down together again

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed   

and I am anxiously waiting

for the secret of eternal life to be discovered   

by an obscure general practitioner

and I am waiting

for the storms of life

to be over

and I am waiting

to set sail for happiness

and I am waiting

for a reconstructed Mayflower

to reach America

with its picture story and tv rights

sold in advance to the natives

and I am waiting

for the lost music to sound again

in the Lost Continent

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day

that maketh all things clear

and I am awaiting retribution

for what America did   

to Tom Sawyer   

and I am waiting

for Alice in Wonderland

to retransmit to me

her total dream of innocence

and I am waiting

for Childe Roland to come

to the final darkest tower

and I am waiting   

for Aphrodite

to grow live arms

at a final disarmament conference

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting

to get some intimations

of immortality

by recollecting my early childhood

and I am waiting

for the green mornings to come again   

youth’s dumb green fields come back again

and I am waiting

for some strains of unpremeditated art

to shake my typewriter

and I am waiting to write

the great indelible poem

and I am waiting

for the last long careless rapture

and I am perpetually waiting

for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn   

to catch each other up at last

and embrace

and I am awaiting   

perpetually and forever

a renaissance of wonder

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Home, again?

A week from tomorrow is July 4. Where I come from [Boston, MA], that’s deep into Summer. June is wending along the same path as Spring, into memory land. Greens are deepening, as we get some rain. More types of butterflies are showing up almost daily. We’ve already more than halfway to the average number of days we reach 90℉ [9 so far, 13 is average]. We’ll have to wait and see how it goes from here. Cooler and wetter, but not too much, would be nice.

I’m noticing that spending less time checking newspapers and social media usually puts me in a better mood and gives me more time to devote to things I can actually do something about and/or things I enjoy doing. I’ve been reading more and more about Traditional Ecological Knowledge [TEK] and that’s slowly helping me to shift bits and pieces of my world view. I’m involved, as a volunteer, in a project for which I’d like to find at least one way to integrate TEK, similar to the Wakan Tipi Center at the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary in St. Paul. 

Water of the Dodem Spirits

Photo by J. Harrington

I grew up learning about the American Revolution, the Minutemen, and the “shot heard round the world.” I have been much slower, as I grow older, learning about those who lived here before “settlers” arrived, before the fur trade changed the economy and the relationships among those living here. We can’t go back, but we can do a much better job of restoring not only the environment on which we depend for food, clean air and water, and our relationship to that environment plus our relationship with those who lived here before US and are still here.

Dakota Homecoming

By Gwen Nell Westerman

We are so honored that

              you are here, they said.

We know that this is

             your homeland, they said.

The admission price

             is five dollars, they said.

Here is your button

             for the event, they said.

It means so much to us that

             you are here, they said.

We want to write

             an apology letter, they said.

Tell us what to say.

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