Abundance and Reciprocity

Summer's midpoint is about a month away, on August 7, unless, like many of the Celts, we recognize only two seasons, in which case Summer solstice was also midsummer, half way between the two equinoxes. Since Minnesota is (in)famous for its two seasons of either winter or road work, I'm not sure where that leaves us. Each, in its own way, is exceptionally irritating and this road work season's trials and tribulations are compounded by roads being buckled by well above (historic) normal temperatures. At least we've not (yet) reached the level of flash flooding Texas is experiencing these days.

butterfly weed in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Locally, butterfly weed has started to bloom. Roadsides are also brightened by black-eyed Susans and what I think is bird's-foot trefoil. Many Eastern-tailed blue butterflies have been flitting around the driveway. Yard work is getting done in bits and pieces and short bursts in between downpours and unworkable levels of heat and humidity. Storms keep bringing down more branches, and an occasional tree, which have to get cleaned up before the mowing can occur. 

I suspect lots of folks in Gaza and Ukraine would be only too happy to trade problems with me, even if I add in a raccoon that twice yesterday tried to feed from the bird feeder and mention that it looks like deer, rabbits, or somethings, have managed to do in the serviceberry bushes I planted a couple of weeks ago. Maybe they'll recover. We'll wait and see (with extremely lowered expectations).

One of the bigger concerns I have these days is that we're living in a time of sliding baselines in environmental, societal and political sectors. I'm too often hearing in my head the line from Me and Bobby McGee "freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose." Is a freedom with nothing left to lose what we really want as a country? Or, do we need to include responsibility to balance our freedom? Have you read Robin Wall Kimmerer's The Serviceberry? It offers a helpful and healthy alternative to our current situation.

Solstice

by Jane Hirshfield

The Earth today tilts one way, then another.

And yes, though all things change,
this night again will watch its fireflies,
then go in to a bed with sheets,
to lights, a beloved.

To running water cold and hot.

Take nothing for granted,
you who were also opulent, a stung cosmos.

Birds sang, frogs sang, their sufficient unto.
The late-night rain-bringing thunder.

And if days grew ordinarily shorter,
the dark’s mirror lengthened,

and one’s gain was not the other lessened.

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

Approaching Thanks! Giving?

Last night, for the first time in months, we had chili for dinner. It helped ease the dank and dreary weather we’ve been having and the even more dank and dreary results of Tuesdays elections. I suspect the deer hunters are wishing the showers, drizzle, and mist we’ve been living with would turn into tracking snow but, so far, the snow we got at the end of October is all that’s come and that melted before firearms season opened around here.

Nature's Halloween trick, now gone

Photo by J. Harrington

The tractor, lawn mower, and I have been struggling with an overload of wet leaves covering the lawns and driveway. Even the mulching deck on the tractor has been getting clogged with wet leaves and the bagging mower discharge chute keeps getting jammed. We’ll keep trying so that, come spring thaw, we’ll be in better shape for seeding and meanwhile, we hope to make the place less attractive to moles.

A major breakthrough appears to have been attained by blocking two gaps in the walls with coarse steel wool. The number of mice caught in traps has dropped remarkably since the illicit entrances were blocked.

Despite the trials and tribulations, we have a lot to be thankful for this year, as usual. I confess that I’ve caught myself focused too much on what’s wrong and not feeling and sharing enough gratitude for what’s still good in our lives. Robin Wall Kimmerer has a book that will be published in a little more than a week. I have preordered a copy and hope to have it read by Thanksgiving. If you’re interested, you can get more info here at Birchbark Books. Who knows, I may even start a gratitude journal. For Thanksgiving, I’m planning to read the version of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address found here before we enjoy the meal.

Tomorrow is Veterans’ Day. We’ll be remembering those in our families who have served in the armed forces and have defended freedoms we may well have to fight to retain during the next several years. Let’s do our best to help ensure the wars fought by our troops to preserve democracy weren’t fought in vain. Let’s also honor Native American Heritage Month by remembering the guidance below as we grapple with the differences among US.

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

by Joy Harjo

I am the holy being of my mother's prayer and my father's song
—Norman Patrick Brown, Dineh Poet and Speaker

1. SET CONFLICT RESOLUTION GROUND RULES:

Recognize whose lands these are on which we stand.
Ask the deer, turtle, and the crane.
Make sure the spirits of these lands are respected and treated with goodwill.
The land is a being who remembers everything.
You will have to answer to your children, and their children, and theirs—
The red shimmer of remembering will compel you up the night to walk the perimeter of truth for understanding.
As I brushed my hair over the hotel sink to get ready I heard:
By listening we will understand who we are in this holy realm of words.
Do not parade, pleased with yourself.
You must speak in the language of justice.

2. USE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS THAT DISPLAY AND ENHANCE MUTUAL TRUST AND RESPECT:

If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run."

The lands and waters they gave us did not belong to them to give. Under false pretenses we signed. After drugging by drink, we signed. With a mass of gunpower pointed at us, we signed. With a flotilla of war ships at our shores, we signed. We are still signing. We have found no peace in this act of signing.

A casino was raised up over the gravesite of our ancestors. Our own distant cousins pulled up the bones of grandparents, parents, and grandchildren from their last sleeping place. They had forgotten how to be human beings. Restless winds emerged from the earth when the graves were open and the winds went looking for justice.

If you raise this white flag of peace, we will honor it.

At Sand Creek several hundred women, children, and men were slaughtered in an unspeakable massacre, after a white flag was raised. The American soldiers trampled the white flag in the blood of the peacemakers.

There is a suicide epidemic among native children. It is triple the rate of the rest of America. "It feels like wartime," said a child welfare worker in South Dakota.

If you send your children to our schools we will train them to get along in this changing world. We will educate them.

We had no choice. They took our children. Some ran away and froze to death. If they were found they were dragged back to the school and punished. They cut their hair, took away their language, until they became as strangers to themselves even as they became strangers to us.

If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters in exchange "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run."

Put your hand on this bible, this blade, this pen, this oil derrick, this gun and you will gain trust and respect with us. Now we can speak together as one.

We say, put down your papers, your tools of coercion, your false promises, your posture of superiority and sit with us before the fire. We will share food, songs, and stories. We will gather beneath starlight and dance, and rise together at sunrise.

The sun rose over the Potomac this morning, over the city surrounding the white house.
It blazed scarlet, a fire opening truth.
White House, or Chogo Hvtke, means the house of the peacekeeper, the keepers of justice.
We have crossed this river to speak to the white leader for peace many times
Since these settlers first arrived in our territory and made this their place of governance.
These streets are our old trails, curved to fit around trees.

3. GIVE CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK:

We speak together with this trade language of English. This trade language enables us to speak across many language boundaries. These languages have given us the poets:

Ortiz, Silko, Momaday, Alexie, Diaz, Bird, Woody, Kane, Bitsui, Long Soldier, White, Erdrich, Tapahonso, Howe, Louis, Brings Plenty, okpik, Hill, Wood, Maracle, Cisneros, Trask, Hogan, Dunn, Welch, Gould...

The 1957 Chevy is unbeatable in style. My broken-down one-eyed Ford will have to do. It holds everyone: Grandma and grandpa, aunties and uncles, the children and the babies, and all my boyfriends. That's what she said, anyway, as she drove off for the Forty-Nine with all of us in that shimmying wreck.

This would be no place to be without blues, jazz—Thank you/mvto to the Africans, the Europeans sitting in, especially Adolphe Sax with his saxophones... Don't forget that at the center is the Mvskoke ceremonial circles. We know how to swing. We keep the heartbeat of the earth in our stomp dance feet.

You might try dancing theory with a bustle, or a jingle dress, or with turtles strapped around your legs. You might try wearing colonization like a heavy gold chain around a pimp's neck.

4. REDUCE DEFENSIVENESS AND BREAK THE DEFENSIVENESS CHAIN:

I could hear the light beings as they entered every cell. Every cell is a house of the god of light, they said. I could hear the spirits who love us stomp dancing. They were dancing as if they were here, and then another level of here, and then another, until the whole earth and sky was dancing.

We are here dancing, they said. There was no there.

There was no "I" or "you."

There was us; there was "we."

There we were as if we were the music.

You cannot legislate music to lockstep nor can you legislate the spirit of the music to stop at political boundaries—

—Or poetry, or art, or anything that is of value or matters in this world, and the next worlds.

This is about getting to know each other.

We will wind up back at the blues standing on the edge of the flatted fifth about to jump into a fierce understanding together.

5. ELIMINATE NEGATIVE ATTITUDES DURING CONFLICT:

A panther poised in the cypress tree about to jump is a panther poised in a cypress tree about to jump.

The panther is a poem of fire green eyes and a heart charged by four winds of four directions.

The panther hears everything in the dark: the unspoken tears of a few hundred human years, storms that will break what has broken his world, a bluebird swaying on a branch a few miles away.

He hears the death song of his approaching prey:

I will always love you, sunrise.
I belong to the black cat with fire green eyes.
There, in the cypress tree near the morning star.

6. AND, USE WHAT YOU LEARN TO RESOLVE YOUR OWN CONFLICTS AND TO MEDIATE OTHERS' CONFLICTS:

When we made it back home, back over those curved roads
that wind through the city of peace, we stopped at the
doorway of dusk as it opened to our homelands.
We gave thanks for the story, for all parts of the story
because it was by the light of those challenges we knew
ourselves—
We asked for forgiveness.
We laid down our burdens next to each other.

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

It’s broke! How should we fix it?

The sound of water dripping down the downspout brightened a gray day today and helped take the edge off this morning's slickery roads. Temperatures are expected to reach the mid-30s this week and mid-40s next. There’s even a tantalizing hint of sunshine arriving next week. It’s not true that I caused this exceptional warm spell by buying a handful of good books to carry me through the rest of the winter. 

early January 2023

Photo by J. Harrington

I know I keep going on about the weather, but the differences between last winter and this one are astounding. As of March 1 last year, we had had the snowiest or second snowiest winter on record. As of today, there is only spotty snow cover in the yard. I wonder if this is an example of the volatility the climate scientists tried to warn US about. Between the vagaries of Congress (still no new farm bill) and those of the climate, I’m glad I’m not a farmer, but then we do depend on some farmers for food, don’t we?

It’s not just the weather and the government that’s become unreliable. Boeing’s planes have become noted for a lack of quality control and safety. In fact, many sectors of the economy, including pharmaceuticals, health care, food, packaging, manufacturing, I could go on, seem to have lost track of the basic concept that it’s not a good idea to imperil your market (you know, the peoplle who buy  your stuff). PFAS or microplastics anyone? How about unsafe levels of nitrates in your water supply?

Perhaps it’s time for US to incorporate a Native American seventh generation principle into our constitution and environmental and economic assessments. We’ve been allowing the corporatocracy to use shorter and shorter time frames and narrower perspectives as they lobby for greater profits. That doesn’t seem to be working out so well as we look about US, does it? Do you suppose AI can solve this one?

Once the World Was Perfect

By Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

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

Restoring the middle class to what?

We are currently in the Red Zone of an Air Quality Alert. The Alert continues through 6 am Friday. This, and conditions like it, make me fuss and fret and fume about the kind of world my almost three year old granddaughter will inherit. Meanwhile, much of mainstream media and social media is agog over the federal indictment of a former president who should never have been nominated, let alone elected.

Current air quality conditions 6/14/23 ~4:30 pm

Locally, we’re back in a moderate drought. I’m glad I’m not a local farmer with corn in the field. Of course, if much of that corn is being raised as a feedstock for biofuels or animal feed, any sympathy I have is sorely tested. There’s a new farm bill being drafted. Any bets on whether it will have air or water quality mandates as prerequisites for any kind of federal subsidies?

President Biden and the Democrats are touting their successes at restoring the middle class and growing the economy. Have they done anything to educate the American public about the fact that we’re living on borrowed time (see preceding two paragraphs)? If politics is always a short term game won by pandering to US voters, where and when does a long game of preserving and restoring our home planet come into play? As those older and wiser than I have noted, “There are no jobs on a dead planet!” Meanwhile, The Guardian informs US that Shell drops target to cut oil production as CEO aims for higher profits.

I would suggest those of US with descendants, or who hope to have some, consider a flat out revolution that results in the only corporate entities allowed to exist have to be:

• certified B corps  
• fair trade certified
• compatible and consistent with Patagonia’s Supply Chain Environmental Responsibility Program
• if an extractive industry, a member of an operating in accord with the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance standards and audits.

What would you add to this list? The pieces of the puzzle of creating a sustainable world are here, we need to make sure those we elect and buy from support a thriving future for US. We’re not there yet, in part because we waste way too much time on trivia.

Once the World Was Perfect

By Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

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

On the state of the world

There are days, sometimes days on end, when it’s difficult to accept the first sentence of the last stanza of Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata: “And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” This is one of those days, embedded in one of those times. Of course, that assessment presumes I know how things should be compared to how they are. I don’t know. I only know how, with my limited knowledge and perspective, I think they should be, or, more precisely, how I would like them to be.

Waaayy back in my younger days, the guys I hung around with frequently argued about whether it was better, once you got into a fight and were winning, to try to beat the hell out of your opponent so they never wanted to mess with you again, or, to instead give your opponent a sporting opportunity too say “enough,” and perhaps win a friend rather than a perpetual enemy. I believe those arguments are continuing to this day because, in part, those outcomes depend as much on your opponent’s world view as on yours. Neville Chamberlain or Winston Churchill?

happiness is a friend who loves you

Photo by J. Harrington

One of the reasons Desiderata is such worthwhile guidance is that it focuses on helping us attain an all too rare condition in the world these days, happiness, or the striving to attain it. So, for today’s posting the key concept is found in these questions: Do you know what it is that really makes you happy? How did you learn that?

Something I first read many years ago relates to happiness in a different way, especiallly for those of us who have a tendency to focus primarily on goals. 

“Happiness is to be found along the way, not at the end of the road, for then the journey is over and it is too late. Today, this hour, this minute is the day, the hour, the minute for each of us to sense the fact that life is good, with all of its trials and troubles, and perhaps more interesting because of them.”

― Robert Updegraff 

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

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

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

dots to be connected or trial balloons?

Photo by J. Harrington

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

On Teaching the Young

By Yvor Winters

The young are quick of speech.

Grown middle-aged, I teach

Corrosion and distrust,

Exacting what I must.

A poem is what stands

When imperceptive hands,

Feeling, have gone astray.

It is what one should say.

Few minds will come to this.

The poet’s only bliss

Is in cold certitude—

Laurel, archaic, rude.

 

This may go into your permanent record.

Welcome to autumn, meteorologically speaking. As far back as I can remember it’s been my favorite season, despite summer’s freedoms being replaced by a return to school. Even that brought the return of school friends barely, if at all, seen for months. Of course, all of this was decades before the complications of schooling during a pandemic like the COVID-19 virus compounded by wildfires, droughts and other concurrent indicators of our climate crises. I’m old enough that I was attending school before the polio vaccine was approved for use. I don’t remember if I received a shot of the Salk vaccine or the orally administered Sabin version, although the latter seems likely since I have vague recollections of summers full of concerns about becoming crippled or ending up in an iron lung. A face mask is far less limiting to my current freedom than experiencing intubation during an ICU stay.

preview of coming attractions: autumn leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

Despite my memory lapses, the reading I’ve been doing recently makes it clear that those opposing vaccination are but the latest incarnations of a tribe that’s been around most likely since the development  of vaccines. And long before that, remember the Salem witch trials? There’s a long and unfortunate history of people being irrational and unreasonable, and wrong, ever since there were people, or at least records about people.

I recently got a booster shot, not for COVID-19 but for tetanus. Why? Because my primary care physicial knows I occasionally play in the dirt and that’s where the bacteria live. Somehow I had acquired the misinformation that tetanus was caused by getting cut by a rusty piece of metal. I had also lost track of getting a prior tetanus booster a decade earlier.

I doubt if I could find a paper trail of which shots I’ve received or when I received them, although I do have a copy of my baptismal certificate, and there’s a bunch of other information scattered about in other  paper files around the house, but organized? complete? not so much. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a copy of my  permanent record? Have you seen  yours?

When the Virus Comes

Angelo Geter

When the virus comes,
Talking heads on television screens
will tell you to abandon ship.  
To drown yourself in a sea of isolation.  
Submerge homes in lysol wipes and hand sanitizer.
Engulf body in face mask and plastic glove
until it becomes second nature.

They will tell you to turn your kitchen into a panic room,
basement into fallout shelter.
Instruct you to grab everything you can,
while you still can.
They will say
the shelves at the stores are empty,
and not realize they are also talking about you.

They will preach from the gospel of quarantine.
Shout parables of
“Thou Shalt wash thine hands.”
“For God so loved the world
he socially distanced himself
from the very people he wanted to save.”
It will make you wonder how a hero
or a government
Can rescue someone they can’t even touch.

When the virus comes,
you will kiss your lover like it’s the last time,
because maybe it is.
You will dance on timelines
like decades are stuck on the balls of your feet.
Sing like a quartet is trapped in your throat.
Laugh like this is the last time you know what joy feels like,
because maybe it is.

And today that will be more than enough. 

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

Caveat emptor! especially if it's free!

Once upon a time, when I was much younger and more naive, I was also less cynical. Somewhere along the way, I learned an old saying about politicians: "watch his lips, if they're moving, he's probably lying." Then I discovered the same truth holds for corporations, corporate executives, ads, marketing, etc. Having a former President like Nixon claim "I am not a crook;" or one like Bush proclaim "Mission Accomplished;" or a Democrat like Clinton sell out workers and the environment with NAFTA and "Welfare reform;" failed to help me rescind my cynicism.

absentee ballot envelope

Photo by J. Harrington

The question all this leaves me with is "can an economy function, never mind thrive, based on mutual distrust?" Here's a contemporary example, based only on my speculation. For the first year or so of the pandemic, it was pretty obvious that no helpful information was likely to come out of the White House or the remainder of the Washington, D.C. establishment. Even after the election was settled (it is settled now, isn't it?) the credibility of the CDC had been undermined and severely tainted by political influence, or the appearance thereof. Now, before we've reached a stage of herd immunity, we're being told we can, if we're fully vaccinated, remove our masks. How are we to know that the unvaccinated aren't lying? What about the children? Just this morning I read that "removing masks isn't a mandate." Talk about mixed messages.

Meanwhile, as a society we've claimed that certain workers are essential but don't pay them as if they are or treat them with much respect, if any at all. And then employers wonder why it's a challenge to get folks to return to work. I wouldn't, if I were still in the labor force. Why? I very much doubt my employer would see me as essential; nor guarantee a safe work place; nor provide adequate leave should I become ill. It's almost as if many employers believe workers should be grateful for crumbs from the table. The idiot who claimed to Make America Great Again left out several critical ingredients in that recipe: honesty, integrity and reciprocity, leading to the establishment of trust. Without trust, on what basis do we trade?

A Perfect Mess

By Mary Karr

          For David Freedman

I read somewhere

that if pedestrians didn’t break traffic laws to cross

Times Square whenever and by whatever means possible,

      
the whole city

would stop, it would stop.

Cars would back up to Rhode Island,

an epic gridlock not even a cat

could thread through. It’s not law but the sprawl

of our separate wills that keeps us all flowing. Today I loved

the unprecedented gall

of the piano movers, shoving a roped-up baby grand

up Ninth Avenue before a thunderstorm.

They were a grim and hefty pair, cynical

as any day laborers. They knew what was coming,

the instrument white lacquered, the sky bulging black

as a bad water balloon and in one pinprick instant

it burst. A downpour like a fire hose.

For a few heartbeats, the whole city stalled,

paused, a heart thump, then it all went staccato.

And it was my pleasure to witness a not

insignificant miracle: in one instant every black

umbrella in Hell’s Kitchen opened on cue, everyone

still moving. It was a scene from an unwritten opera,

the sails of some vast armada.

And four old ladies interrupted their own slow progress

to accompany the piano movers.

each holding what might have once been

lace parasols over the grunting men. I passed next

the crowd of pastel ballerinas huddled

under the corner awning,

in line for an open call — stork-limbed, ankles

zigzagged with ribbon, a few passing a lit cigarette

around. The city feeds on beauty, starves

for it, breeds it. Coming home after midnight,

to my deserted block with its famously high

subway-rat count, I heard a tenor exhale pure

longing down the brick canyons, the steaming moon

opened its mouth to drink from on high ...

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Shall we celebrate Minnesota's Earth Day with a Doughnut?

As you know (we hope), tomorrow is Earth Day 2021. Minnesota's most recent environmental score card leaves a lot to be desired. (We're glad none of our report cards were this bad when we were in school.) But we want to offer a positive suggestion to the Walz administration, the one that isn't doing well on either climate or water. [We really would like to see the Walz administration be more successful, since the other party (GQP) is likely to offer an even worse track record. Just look at the Minnesota Senate.]

Here's our proposal: We recommend, in the strongest possible terms, that the Walz administration, through its Environmental Quality Board and its Department of Commerce and its Housing Agency, etc., announce that it is going to prepare Minnesota to join those leading communities that are adopting a Doughnut Economics Model to guide their decisions.

According to that hotbed of socialism😉, the World Economic Forum, doughnut economics is the new economic model that could help end inequality. Isn't inequality one of the major underlying factors contributing to racism, urban — rural splits, homelessness, and related issues?

As a starting point, we propose the Walz administration use this report as a template and prepare a similar status report on where Minnesota stands regarding its own doughnut measures. They could call it:

The State of the Doughnut in Minnesota

The "Doughnut" model

 

Or, we could continue with a model known as

Proprietary

By Randall Mann

In a precisely lighted room, the CFO speaks

of  start-to-start dependencies.

Says let me loop back with you.

Says please cascade as appropriate.

It’s that time of morning, so we all can smell

the doughnut factory. If scent were white

noise, doughnuts would be that scent.

The factory won’t sell at any price.

The building next to it burns the animals

we experiment on. I have worked

on a few preclinical reports in my time. 

The rhesus monkeys become

so desperate that they attempt suicide,

over and over again. I am legally obligated

to spare you the particulars.

How could things be any different?

Here many choice molecules have been born.

Here. This pill will dissolve like sugar.

Your last five months will be good ones.

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Fenced in, or out?

As this is being typed, we have a boule of artisan sourdough kerns bread beginning to bake. Soon the house will begin to smell wonderful. Later we'll have fresh bread to go with reheated homemade minestrone, compliments of the Better Half. Tomorrow and Friday we may, or may not, get 3 or 5 or 9 inches of snow. It would have been helpful if Mother Nature had delayed the storm until Friday, Saturday and Sunday, to dampen protests at our state capitol.

Has anyone really discovered what Trump supporters really want, other than being able to do whatever the hell they want and not face any consequences? Here's one example of what the Trump supporters in an author's family favor: Praise the Lord and pass the pipe bomb. Reading the article left me with the impression that the US is drifting dangerously close to its own version of sharia. We're old enough to remember the concerns expressed when Jack Kennedy ran for president, that he'd listen to the pope instead of following the Constitution. The more things change, the more they remain the same, sort of?

Other reports suggest that Trump voters feel marginalized, or those feeling marginalized tend to vote for Trump:

Populist messages, like “take back control” or “make America great again,” find a receptive audience among people who feel pushed to the sidelines of their national community and deprived of the respect accorded full members of it.

Part of the family heritage with which we most strongly identify stems from the side that felt most of the effects of the old "No Irish need apply" bias. We know of many groups that have been looked down on and, in turn, have looked down on others. For the most part, it rarely came to attempts to overthrow a government, although, again, the American Colonies and, later, Ireland rebelled. We are treading dangerous waters these days.

fenced in, or out

Photo by J. Harrington

Robert Frost has written a wonderful poem we've shared below. To paraphrase that poem a little, something there is that doesn't love a yoke, whether the yoke be made of culture, economics, or other forms of potential oppression. We're coming to the view that global corporate capitalism is playing for fools politicians and the 99% of us not in the most elite 1% class. There should be no such thing as "too big to fail." Giantism is characterized by excessive growth. If 99% of us all supported more equity and diversity, and less oppression in our politics, we'd be successful. Walls make poor tables for sharing.

Mending Wall

By Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

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As week 1 of 2021 ends

For those of you who may have thought that 2020 was a real shit-show, have you noticed that, so far,  2021's response has been "Hold my beer!" We'll hold off for now on further comments regarding yesterday's activities at the National Capitol. If it seemed hopeful that Democrats won both senate races in Georgia, please be aware that Democratic(?) Senator Manchin (WVA) opposes the proposed $2,000 COVID checks. The current regime is abandoning ship rather than taking action on the 25th Amendment. Congress is deferring action on any impeachment (Republicans still control the Senate). It's less than two weeks until the inauguration, to which tRUMP claims he's not going, and those are just among the more obvious anomalous events during the first week or so of the New Year.

hoarfrost covered pine needles

Photo by J. Harrington

On the local scene, we've experienced about a solid week of clouds, fog and hoar frost covering tree branches and pine needles. It's been a damp, cold, raw week in more ways than one. If it weren't for multitudes of birds at the feeders, the outdoors would look like a drear, drab, dead domain. Meanwhile, rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine is slower than promised and the US its setting new records of the number of COVID-related daily deaths.

On the other hand, we haven't been getting blizzards, polar vortices, or similar North Country Winter weather events. We have a decent supply of coffee and good books to read on hand. Most of the family is mostly healthy. It's only 51 days until meteorological Spring and 70 days until Spring Equinox. Valentines Day is next month. All in all, if we're not making obvious progress, we may at least be holding our own. Sometimes, that's the most we can hope for.

Counting Blessings

Marilyn Nelson - 1946-

Joseph and Margaret Cavanaugh, ca. 1847

There’s Bridget and Michael and Catherine and Ann,
there’s Francis X., Moira, Theresa, and Sean:
none of them shivering, everyone fed,
head to feet sleeping, four butts to a bed.

 

The 1845 Irish potato crop failure resulted in widespread famine. More than one million Irish people—one out of every nine—died. Hundreds of thousands emigrated to England, Scotland, and the New World. Mortality rates of up to 30% were common on the “coffin ships” crossing the Atlantic.

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When does Christmas begin for you?

If we remember our gospel story, the Wise Men bringing gifts arrived something like two weeks after Christmas. Yet our contemporary celebration of Christmas has us exchanging presents on the same day we celebrate Christ's nativity. Then, there's the tradition of Santa and his reindeer and the magical trip around the world on the same night. All of which has us wondering this year, when does Christmas really start?

Does Christmas begin with the wrapping of the first presents? With their purchase or making or baking? When the first present is placed under the tree? Is it when Santa lands on the roof of the house? When the elves fill the stockings? When the elves and the reindeer and Santa depart?

Christmas at The Dayton House

Photo by J. Harrington

When we were young, sometime in the last millennium, we remember the rule was no opening presents until mom and dad came downstairs on Christmas morning. Does Christmas begin with the opening of the first present? With the emptying of the stockings? For adults, with the first cup of coffee on Christmas morn?

Obviously, over the years, many of us have found a variety of ways for each of our families to celebrate Christmas in fashions that are traditional but that vary over time and space in each family over generations. Our Christmas seasons have been complicated because our son was born on Christmas day and our daughter early in December. We've found ways to accommodate those births within the flow of the season. When the children lived at home, the tree had to be up in its stand by the Daughter Person's birthday. Christmas, regardless of when it began, ended at noon because at 12:01 pm, our son's birthday celebration began. That was, and is, his special time.

Charles Dickens, author of that wonderful tale, A Christmas Carol, wrote this quote for Ebenezer Scrooge:

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.” 

As we move forward toward this year's Christmas and next year's Epiphany, might it not help each of us, and our families, to remember and act on Dickens' proposition no matter when we start our celebration of the day. Have the past four years not brought sufficient travail that a period of peace and good will is in order? Then again, didn't Christ, as an adult, drive moneychangers from the temple? How do we reconcile those two images if not in the spirit of Christmas? 

Christmas Carol

By Sara Teasdale

The kings they came from out the south, 

   All dressed in ermine fine; 

They bore Him gold and chrysoprase, 

   And gifts of precious wine.

 

The shepherds came from out the north, 

   Their coats were brown and old; 

They brought Him little new-born lambs— 

   They had not any gold.

 

The wise men came from out the east, 

   And they were wrapped in white; 

The star that led them all the way 

   Did glorify the night.

 

The angels came from heaven high, 

   And they were clad with wings; 

And lo, they brought a joyful song 

   The host of heaven sings.

 

The kings they knocked upon the door, 

   The wise men entered in, 

The shepherds followed after them 

   To hear the song begin.

 

The angels sang through all the night 

   Until the rising sun, 

But little Jesus fell asleep 

   Before the song was done.

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It's Native American Heritage Day

Today is Native American Heritage Day. In lieu of a normal posting, we ask that you follow the link below and read Sara Sinclair's entire article titled:

Indian country showed up to beat Trump. How can you show up for Indian country?

We are going to Buy Nothing today and are going to #OptOutside and try to follow 

have you visited the American Indian Cultural Corridor?

Photo by J. Harrington

 

A Map to the Next World

By Joy Harjo 

     for Desiray Kierra Chee

In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for

those who would climb through the hole in the sky.

My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged

from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens.

For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet.

The map must be of sand and can’t be read by ordinary light. It

must carry fire to the next tribal town, for renewal of spirit.

In the legend are instructions on the language of the land, how it

was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it.

Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the

altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace.

Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; the fog steals our

children while we sleep.

Flowers of rage spring up in the depression. Monsters are born

there of nuclear anger.

Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to

disappear.

We no longer know the names of the birds here, how to speak to

them by their personal names.

Once we knew everything in this lush promise.

What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the

map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us, leav-

ing a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood.

An imperfect map will have to do, little one.

The place of entry is the sea of your mother’s blood, your father’s

small death as he longs to know himself in another.

There is no exit.

The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestine—a

spiral on the road of knowledge.

You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking

from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh

deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way.

They have never left us; we abandoned them for science.

And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world

there will be no X, no guidebook with words you can carry.

You will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song

she is singing.

Fresh courage glimmers from planets.

And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you

will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns.

When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers where they

entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us.

You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder.

A white deer will greet you when the last human climbs from the

destruction.

Remember the hole of shame marking the act of abandoning our

tribal grounds.

We were never perfect.

Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was

once a star and made the same mistakes as humans.

We might make them again, she said.

Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end.

You must make your own map.

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We've been here before, haven't we?

[UPDATE: Back to the Future? 1968, Chicago, Democratic Nation Convention]

As governance continues to deteriorate, while the #FakePresident, aided and abetted by the Republican Party, undermines the Postal Service in an effort to steal the upcoming election, it became clear to me that we're facing a "Constitutional Crisis..., a problem or conflict in the function of a government that the political constitution or other fundamental governing law is perceived to be unable to resolve." 

I know about the Civil War but was surprised to see how many other constitutional crises the US has faced, including a couple so far within my lifetime. The upcoming election appears to offer a significant potential to rate among the top two or three, and maybe even top the list, depending on how events play out over the next several months. Thats why today I was both dismayed and heartened to come across

Preparing the Public for a Contested Election

I firmly believe it will be worth your while to click on the link and read the piece. I also fervently hope I'm providing lousy, as in unnecessary, advice. But, as they say in the airline industry, Fasten your seatbelts, please, there's turbulence ahead. Of that I have few, if any doubts.

Politics

By Randall Mann

This is what he dreams of:

a map of burned land,

a mound of dirt

in the early century’s winter.

 

A map of burned land?

A country is razed

in the early century’s winter.

And God descends.

 

A country is raised

because of industry.

And God descends,

messengers rush inside

 

because of industry,

in spite of diplomats.

Messengers rush inside

to haunt the darkened aisles.

 

In spite of diplomats,

the witnesses know well

to haunt the darkened aisles,

experimentally—

 

the witnesses know well

that ushers dressed in black

experimentally

lurk by the cushioned seats.

 

That ushers dress in black

should tell you something:

lurking by the cushioned seats,

the saved and the terrible.

 

I should tell you something:

this is what he dreams of,

the saved and the terrible—

a mound of dirt.

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