A simple[r] approach for a new year

There’s an old phrase I bet you’ve heard: “Keep it simple!” Off and on during the course of my life I’ve tried to follow that piece of advice, and usually failed. I have what appears to be a genetic tendency to complicate things. Today, while poking about some back corners of the internet, I came across an alternative approach that is going to serve as a New Year’s Resolution for me (who gave up resolutions years ago to try to keep it simple): “Make it simple!” 

The difference between keep and make acknowledges my control freak tendencies and also recognizes that “there’s more than one path through the woods.” Plus, it addresses the fact that rarely is anything simple to begin with.

simple celebration at Winter Solstice

Photo by J. Harrington

Over the years I’ve read a bit about the simplicity in zen and wabi-sabi but haven’t really tried to attain a simple life. As I now look about the world we’ve created, I literally can’t envision how to find satisfaction, let alone happiness, coping with the increasing levels of chaos involved. It’s time to Make it simple! This necessitates my deciding to forego longstanding tendencies to be a dilettante because of a perpetual attraction to something new and different. I think it will be worth it. I know it’s at least worth a try for three or six months or a year. (Yes, Yoda is whispering in my ear “Do or do not. There is no try.”) 

I’m not ever likely to become a Shaker, but I can do a much better job of learning to enjoy:

Simple Gifts

Traditional/Shaker

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
’tis the gift to come down where you ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed
To turn, turn will be our delight
‘Till by turning, turning we come round right.

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
’tis the gift to come down where you ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

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Finding our place, digging in

Leaf-out is progressing by leaps and bounds. So are orange road construction signs and detours. We noticed both today when the Better Half joined me on a trip to purchase this year’s fishing licenses. She had spent part of the morning digging new stock into the front garden. Now, if the weather and the fish will cooperate we will do our best to enjoy the day’s accomplishments repeatedly ...

a partially full fly box

Photo by J. Harrington

Back home we noticed that several hummingbirds are now chasing each other from the feeders. We think there’s a pair of bluebirds  nesting in the box in the back yard. The temperature jump this week validates our earlier complaints about Minnesota once again basically skipping spring and going from weak winter straight into summer.

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite poets. Gary Snyder is 92 years old. Years ago, he offered the most succinct and valid environmental advice I’ve ever seen with this quote “Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.” Read what else he has to say about living on our home planet.

Mother Earth: Her Whales 

by Gary Snyder

An owl winks in the shadows
A lizard lifts on tiptoe, breathing hard
Young male sparrow stretches up his neck,
big head, watching—

The grasses are working in the sun. Turn it green.
Turn it sweet. That we may eat.
Grow our meat.

Brazil says “sovereign use of Natural Resources”
Thirty thousand kinds of unknown plants.
The living actual people of the jungle
sold and tortured—
And a robot in a suit who peddles a delusion called “Brazil”
can speak for them?

The whales turn and glisten, plunge
and sound and rise again,
Hanging over subtly darkening deeps
Flowing like breathing planets
in the sparkling whorls of
living light—

And Japan quibbles for words on
what kinds of whales they can kill?
A once-great Buddhist nation
dribbles methyl mercury
like gonorrhea
in the sea.

Pere David’s Deer, the Elaphure,
Lived in the tule marshes of the Yellow River
Two thousand years ago—and lost its home to rice—
The forests of Lo-yang were logged and all the silt &
Sand flowed down, and gone, by 1200 AD—
Wild Geese hatched out in Siberia
head south over basins of the Yang, the Huang,
what we call “China”
On flyways they have used a million years.
Ah China, where are the tigers, the wild boars,
the monkeys,
like the snows of yesteryear
Gone in a mist, a flash, and the dry hard ground
Is parking space for fifty thousand trucks.
IS man most precious of all things?
—then let us love him, and his brothers, all those
Fading living beings—

North America, Turtle Island, taken by invaders
who wage war around the world.
May ants, may abalone, otters, wolves and elk
Rise! and pull away their giving
from the robot nations.

Solidarity. The People.
Standing Tree People!
Flying Bird People!
Swimming Sea People!
Four-legged, two-legged people!

How can the head-heavy power-hungry politic scientist
Government two-world Capitalist-Imperialist
Third-world Communist paper-shuffling male
non-farmer jet-set bureaucrats
Speak for the green of the leaf? Speak for the soil?

(Ah Margaret Mead . . . do you sometimes dream of Samoa?)

The robots argue how to parcel out our Mother Earth
To last a little longer
like vultures flapping
Belching, gurgling,
near a dying doe.
“In yonder field a slain knight lies—
We’ll fly to him and eat his eyes
with a down
derry derry derry down down.”

An Owl winks in the shadow
A lizard lifts on tiptoe
breathing hard
The whales turn and glisten
plunge and
Sound, and rise again
Flowing like breathing planets

In the sparkling whorls

Of living light.

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Without trust, we have ...

Moonset was beautiful this morning, very cold, but beautiful. It looked a lot like the photo below, which was taken in December several years ago.

winter moonset

Photo by J. Harrington

I wish I could train myself to spend more time enjoying the good things in life and less time focused on what’s wrong. That would mean I’d spend more time enjoying life instead of fretting about what I want but don’t have at the moment. In the current example, that would be spring and warmer weather. If I were more accepting of what is, in winter I would not complain about walking dogs in bitter cold weather, nor spring’s rain and ice and mud, nor about summer’s flies and mosquitoes. Instead, I’ve limited the potential enjoyment of much of three seasons, not because of pain but because of discomfort, irritation or aggravation. I don’t believe this kind of dissatisfaction is what Robert Browning had in mind when he wrote 

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?”

Alternatively, Jane Hirshfield has said:

I have been given this existence, these years on this Earth, to accept what has come into my lifetime — wars, loves, trucks, betrayals, kindness. I must take them. I must find a way to live in this world. You can’t refuse it. And along with the difficult is the radiant, the beautiful, the intimacy with which each one of us enters the life of all of us and figures out, what is our conversation? What is my responsibility? What must be suffered? What can be changed? How can I meet this in a way which both lets me open my eyes the next day and also, perhaps, if I’m lucky, can be of service?

Rarely, if ever, do I do well with acceptance. Not because I don’t try but because it does not seem to be in my nature to be zen-like. My focus has been much more on the questions “What is my responsibility? What must be suffered? What can be changed?” Perhaps the issue is one of balance rather than absolutes. 

If your email inbox is like mine, it daily fills with please to help alleviate one crisis after another. Rarely is there an acknowledgement than any given crisis has been abated, even for the moment. Such beleaguerment feeds guilt but rarely accomplishment. But then there’s the story of saving starfish.

If, come November of this year, democracy is extinguished in the US by US, due to indifference and/or incompetence, it will be tragic but, at least for awhile, the world will continue. Chile lost and then restored its democracy under political conditions that seem quite similar to those of our current time and place: a loss of trust between the two major political parties. In our case, compounded by a loss of trust between the each of the parties and many of its proponents.

As a recovvering planner, I well remember the old dictum “More of the same never solved a problem.” We continue to elect people who believe their side is always right, the other side is always wrong and gridlock is preferable to letting the other side look good or a problem get solved. Until we cease repeating that mistake (those mistakes?), nothing we do is likely to improve things very much. If politics is the art of the  possible, then we’ve elected too many politicians who’ve made art impossible. Can we do better?

Trust

By Susan Kinsolving

Trust that there is a tiger, muscular 

Tasmanian, and sly, which has never been 

seen and never will be seen by any human 

eye. Trust that thirty thousand sword- 

fish will never near a ship, that far 

from cameras or cars elephant herds live 

long elephant lives. Believe that bees 

by the billions find unidentified flowers 

on unmapped marshes and mountains. Safe 

in caves of contentment, bears sleep. 

Through vast canyons, horses run while slowly 

snakes stretch beyond their skins in the sun. 

I must trust all this to be true, though 

the few birds at my feeder watch the window 

with small flutters of fear, so like my own.

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A present of Presence

Thanks to the Better Half’s [BH] leading the way, today we dumped half a coffee can’s worth of change into the coin counter at our credit union. For a long while the lobby at the branch we use was off limits due to COVID and the only coin counters I could find were the commercial ones that limit you to a gift certificate or charge a fee of almost 12%. Last week the BH did a run with her coin jar and today she showed me how it works. Despite Omicron, things seem to be improving slightly, at least on some fronts, although, unless there’s a massive change in behaviors and attitudes all over the world, we had best learn to live with pandemics and adapt to horrendous climactic and related conditions and growing levels of autocracy. It’s up to us and our record so far isn’t encouraging. Perhaps for Christmas and during the new year we can “do better."

one of my all-time favorite Christmas ornaments

Photo by J. Harrington

After the credit union, fully vaxxed, boosted and masked, the BH and I visited our local bookstore and, as my contribution to “Giving Tuesday,” I bought a poetry anthology, Poetry of Presence. I gave it to myself as an early Christmas present. After Minnesota’s “Give to the Max” day, I’ve pretty much reached my limit on charitable contributions for the time being. However, I am once again going to try to be more mindful in my daily life and including the anthology’s poems as part of my morning reading routine seems like a helpful and hopeful way to ease in to themes of mindfulness such as “acceptance, impermanence, non-clinging (“letting go”), compassion, or the unity of all things.” Few, if any, of these themes get much attention in the news or social media and yet, they seem to be essential if we are to have any joy in the world we’ve created.

As an example, today’s poem is included in the anthology and, without naming names, at least once of us needs to be reminded again and again!

How to Be a Poet

By Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i   

Make a place to sit down.   

Sit down. Be quiet.   

You must depend upon   

affection, reading, knowledge,   

skill—more of each   

than you have—inspiration,   

work, growing older, patience,   

for patience joins time   

to eternity. Any readers   

who like your poems,   

doubt their judgment.   

ii   

Breathe with unconditional breath   

the unconditioned air.   

Shun electric wire.   

Communicate slowly. Live   

a three-dimensioned life;   

stay away from screens.   

Stay away from anything   

that obscures the place it is in.   

There are no unsacred places;   

there are only sacred places   

and desecrated places.   

iii   

Accept what comes from silence.   

Make the best you can of it.   

Of the little words that come   

out of the silence, like prayers   

prayed back to the one who prays,   

make a poem that does not disturb   

the silence from which it came.

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Spring is what it is, when it is

All day it's been snowing off and on. No accumulation, but it's traumatizing the blossoms on our back yard forsythia. Since it's only April in the North Country, the snow wouldn't be noteworthy if we hadn't already set a daily high temperature record of 85℉ a little more than a week ago.

purple finch in mid-April snow, 2018

Photo by J. Harrington

Three years ago, on April 15, we got several inches accumulation in our yard. In early April 2014 we got considerably more than a few inches (see below). We just got caught off guard this year by the "irrational exuberance" of that exceedingly warm spell. Unfortunately, we're old enough that it's a challenge to remember the very worthwhile advice from our boyhood: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

early April 2014

Photo by J. Harrington

Even more ancient than my childhood days is Lao Tzu's observation that “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” If I forego any expectations, and focus on attentive observations, I can't be fooled. Would that I had thought of that a lifetime ago and that I can remember it from now on.

[Sidebar: For years we've been listening to Joan Baez sing today's poem. It wasn't until today that we learned it was written by Willie Nelson. Since we've also been fans of Willie's for ages, the discovery was a delightful treat. If you want to hear as well as read it, here's links to the Joan Baez version and Willie Nelson version.]

"One Day At A Time"

By Willie Nelson

I live one day at a time I dream one dream at a time
Yesterday's dead and tomorrow is blind and I live one day at a time
I guess that's your surprise to see me back at home
But you know how much I miss you when I'm gone
But don't ask how long I planned to stay it never it crossed my mind
I live one day at a time
See that sparrow fly across the cloudy sky
Searching for a hatch of sunlight so am I
I wish I didn't have to follow and perhaps I want in time
But I live one day at a time
I live one day at a time I dream one dream at a time
Yesterday's dead and tomorrow is blind and I live one day at a time
And I live one day at a time

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If not for trees ...

Today is, among other things, World Wildlife Day. This year's theme is "Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet." It's unclear which of the wooded areas near us qualify as forest under any of the many definitions of that term. The patchiness of the stands of trees, interspersed with fields, wetlands and water complicates things. Fortunately, for the Carlos Avery Wildlife management Area near us, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has mapped out the land cover. As far as we're concerned, wooded areas that aren't forests are woodlands since we are more of a water and wetlands person than a forest or mountain type but we readily acknowledge that trees, both singly and in the aggregate, are beautiful, functional, and beneficial. If it weren't for trees, where would we put all the leaves for  photosynthesis, or store lots of carbon? And turkeys would probably take to roosting on our decks instead of in trees.

wild turkey hen perched on deck railing

Photo by J. Harrington

You might find it both enjoyable and edifying to read John Fowles The Tree.

We shall never understand nature (or ourselves) until we dissociate the wild from the notion of usability – however innocent and harmless the use. For it is the general uselessness of so much of nature that lies at the root of our ancient hostility and indifference to it.

It's time for us to reread our copy of Fowles' essay to see if we can find reconciliation between forests as entities "sustaining people and planet," and how to "dissociate the wild from the notion of usability." If we're successful, perhaps it will be an indication we have attained satori.

Native Trees

By W. S. Merwin

Neither my father nor my mother knew

the names of the trees

where I was born

what is that

I asked and my

father and mother did not

hear they did not look where I pointed

surfaces of furniture held

the attention of their fingers

and across the room they could watch

walls they had forgotten

where there were no questions

no voices and no shade

Were there trees

where they were children

where I had not been

I asked

were there trees in those places

where my father and my mother were born

and in that time did

my father and my mother see them

and when they said yes it meant

they did not remember

What were they I asked what were they

but both my father and my mother

said they never knew

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An auspicious and suspicious day

Of note:

• Today is Eeyore the Donkey's 149th birthday.
• [UPDATE] Today is Joy Harjo's birthday.
• Yesterday was Gary Snyder's 90th birthday.
• Tomorrow is Mother's Day in  the US.

Eeyore and Gary and Mothers all are among our most favoritest peoples and we wish each and every one of them health and happiness for many years to come, while they live with us and in our memories.

On the other hand (remember Harry Truman's request for an economist that had only one hand?), we have a more than moderate case of the grumpies because today is unseasonably cold, below freezing temperatures are forecast during the next couple of nights, the latest Coronavirus is still rampant and  the #OrangeIdiot is still in the White House. Then  again, we discovered a very interesting online resource for food information: FoodPrint. It's worth your time to take a look. Our current  food "system" has passed the point  of diminishing returns. One of our favorite native Minnesotans has said it all better than we can. If not Maggie's, whose? We all Gotta Serve Somebody.

Maggie’s Farm

Written by: Bob Dylan 

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
Well, I wake in the morning
Fold my hands and pray for rain
I got a head full of ideas
That are drivin’ me insane
It’s a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
Well, he hands you a nickel
He hands you a dime
He asks you with a grin
If you’re havin’ a good time
Then he fines you every time you slam the door
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more
Well, he puts his cigar
Out in your face just for kicks
His bedroom window
It is made out of bricks
The National Guard stands around his door
Ah, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
Well, she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law
Everybody says
She’s the brains behind pa
She’s sixty-eight, but she says she’s twenty-four
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
Well, I try my best
To be just like I am
But everybody wants you
To be just like them
They sing while you slave and I just get bored
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more

Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music

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An Equinox equivocation

Cold, damp, cloudy, dreary...Welcome to Spring in Minnesota. The Equinox occurs tonight at 10:49 pm CDT. It's preceded by rain and, maybe, snow forecast for this afternoon. The small pond up the road looked like this yesterday:

approaching Spring Equinox 2020

Photo by J. Harrington

Although I've seen reports of trout anglers doing a "social distance" dance in Southeast Minnesota and Western Wisconsin (the Driftless Area), I'm having a hard time getting motivated to take a long drive, get layered up, and then fight the wind to make a decent cast. Maybe next week?

early May, Driftless Area

Photo by J. Harrington

From a flood risk perspective, thus far we've "enjoyed" a moderate and tempered Spring thaw. The snow cover and banks have diminished slowly and, it looks like, much of the snowmelt has infiltrated the groundwater rather than flow overland into creeks and streams and rivers. Writing this has me looking forward to spending more time outside, poking around, seeing what's going on and maybe even enjoying the feeling of warm sunshine on my back. But not today. Today we're a month or six weeks or more from wildflowers and hummingbirds. Fortunately, Jane Hirshfield has a recently published volume of poems that promises to provide us with a re-grounding and to help us reconcile to the world on which we live and with the universe in which it lives. I can almost envision lolling about with a copy, resting my back against a tree trunk, while zephyrs entwine the crown, and sunlight dapples the pages I'm reading. Remember, no matter how deep the forest, we can only go in halfway, then we're on our way out again.

Let Them Not Say

Jane Hirshfield - 1953-

Let them not say:   we did not see it.
We saw.
Let them not say:   we did not hear it.
We heard.
Let them not say:     they did not taste it.
We ate, we trembled.
Let them not say:   it was not spoken, not written.
We spoke,
we witnessed with voices and hands.
Let them not say:     they did nothing.
We did not-enough.
Let them say, as they must say something: 
A kerosene beauty.
It burned.
Let them say we warmed ourselves by it,
read by its light, praised,
and it burned.

—2014

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A post-Christmas lull

The current weather has been like mid-to-late-March or thereabouts for the past few days. We drove home last night, Christmas night in Minnesota, through rain showers. Over the upcoming weekend we're expecting snow and/or rain and/or sleet and/or ice and/or some mix, depending on where and when we are and the related atmospheric conditions.

soon a New Year and a New Decade will dawn

Photo by J. Harrington

We can think of no way, other than hiding under the bed, to prepare for ice / freezing rain storms. With that exception, I think we're reasonably prepared for the forthcoming weather, which may, or may not, be at all reasonable. The weather app on our smartphone switches icons for Saturday and Sunday back and forth between snow and rain about every twenty minutes or so. If this becomes a new Winter weather pattern in the North Country, it's going to become a real challenge planning vacations that involve snowshoes, skis, snowmobiles etc.

On Christmas Eve day we noticed several different large farm vehicles on the local roads. Some fields that had been full of standing corn are now harvested. Our 21st century "new normal" seems to lack any normal at all. Fortunately, someone we know (but won't name) got a nice fleece vest and a pair of insulated LL Bean boots for Christmas. We'll give you a hint at who it may be when we tell you we overheard that recipient muttering about breaking in boots being a young man's job and not something old curmudgeons should have to cope with. So, as long as we don't get encrusted in ice, we know a curmudgeon who thinks Winter's weather can be managed. We'll see.

Since we are in the post-Christmas lull, with nothing to return to a retail outlet, and the stacks of unread books and bags of unbrewed coffee beans are more than abundant, we'll continue to take a wait and see attitude toward the weekend and its weather. In fact, we're going to increase our quanta of wait and see-ness throughout the next year. One of the Christmas presents we gave ourselves is a recognition and acceptance that we can't control everything. In fact, even on the best days, we can barely control ourselves. That's our focus for the New Year -- increasing our level of self control. We think there's a combination of zen, baking sourdough breads, fly fishing, reading and writing poetry and prose, and sitting on our duff watching, smelling, listening and feeling what's going on in the actual world around us that will help a lot. We plan to spend lots of time finding the right combination of that mixture. We'll know we're close as our self-control levels increase and our blood pressure approaches normal. May you find your own ways to make your next year be at least as full of mindfulness and joy.

To the New Year

By W. S. Merwin

With what stillness at last

you appear in the valley

your first sunlight reaching down

to touch the tips of a few

high leaves that do not stir

as though they had not noticed

and did not know you at all

then the voice of a dove calls

from far away in itself

to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you

here and now whether or not

anyone hears it this is

where we have come with our age

our knowledge such as it is

and our hopes such as they are

invisible before us

untouched and still possible

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On the eve of Winter Solstice

If life were a movie, the next few days would be the trailer for late February, early March. That's when average daytime highs once again reach and exceed freezing. We're considering this December thaw an early Yuletide present. It goes nicely with the fact that, starting the day after tomorrow, daylight becomes microscopically longer each day. Later today or early tomorrow it will be time to see if the portable fire pit can be made portable, rather than frozen in place, so we can enjoy a Solstice fire in the drive. Alternatively, if we keep the flames small enough, we can leave it where it is. Come Spring we'll get some pavers to put under the fire pit legs that keep freezing into the ground. We could use the tractor to loosen it, but the fire pit may not survive that exercise.

Winter Solstice, 2018

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we touched on the Center for Humans and Nature "Kinship Project." That seems to fit well with our growing interest in zen and druidry. Although we suspect that Christmas will bring a new collection of unread books, we're getting a sense that this Winter it's time to reread some books that have been on our shelves for awhile. Among those are Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss. We hope, over the next couple of weeks, to lay out some strategies, activities and priorities for next year. High on that list will be a three sisters garden we never got around to planting this year and doing a better job of journaling so we'd be able to tell if it was the weather, laziness, competing priorities or none of the above that hindered us this year. We have the seeds and a vague memory about needing to get the Mantis tiller serviced so we could create mounds with it. This all brings back memories of a former landlord who often noted it wasn't doing the work that was so much trouble, it was getting organized and ready to do the work that took the most time and effort.

Anyhow, a Christmas present we promised ourselves is that next year we will bring (I almost wrote "try to bring" but, as Yoda teaches us "Do or do not. There is no try!") focus and order to our scattered interests. We're making limited progress following the Taoist observation that the longest journey begins with a single step.

We wish you a warm, wonderful, and brief Winter Solstice. May your days soon grow in light and wisdom!

Winter Solstice

By Hilda Morley

A cold night crosses

our path

                  The world appears

very large, very

round now       extending

far as the moon does

                                        It is from

the moon this cold travels

                                        It is

the light of the moon that causes

this night reflecting distance in its own

light so coldly

                                          (from one side of

the earth to the other)

                                        It is the length of this coldness

It is the long distance

between two points which are

not in a line        now

                                       not a

straightness       (however

straight) but a curve only,

silver that is a rock reflecting

                                                      not metal

but a rock accepting

distance

                     (a scream in silence

where between the two

points what touches

is a curve around the world

                                                      (the dance unmoving).

new york, 1969

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Many Happy Returns to Smokey the Bear!

Today is Smokey the Bear's 75th birthday. One of our favorite poets, 50 long years ago, said what is even more important today and tomorrow and thereafter:

Gary Snyder: Smokey the Bear Sutra

.
Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago, the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite Void gave a discourse to all the assembled elements and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings, the flying beings, and the sitting beings–even the grasses, to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a seed, assembled there: a Discourse concerning Enlightenment on the planet Earth.

“In some future time, there will be a continent called America. It will have great centers of power called such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt. Rainier, Big Sur, Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand Canyon. The human race in that era will get into troubles all over its head, and practically wreck everything in spite of its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature.”

“The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth. My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind hunger: and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it.” 

And he showed himself in his true form of

SMOKEY THE BEAR

A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on his hind legs, showing that he is aroused and watchful.

Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;

His left paw in the mudra of Comradely Display–indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that of deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma;

Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a civilization that claims to save but often destroys;

Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the west, symbolic of the forces that guard the wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the true path of man on Earth:

all true paths lead through mountains—

With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the forest fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind;

Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her;

Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs, smashing the worms of capitalism and totalitarianism;

Indicating the task: his followers, becoming free of cars, houses, canned foods, universities, and shoes, master the Three Mysteries of their own Body, Speech, and Mind; and fearlessly chop down the rotten trees and prune out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the leftover trash.
Wrathful but calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or slander him… 

HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.

Thus his great Mantra:

Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana Sphataya hum traka ham mam

“I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND BE THIS RAGING FURY BE DESTROYED”

And he will protect those who love the woods and rivers, Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children:

And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television, or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR’S WAR SPELL:

DROWN THEIR BUTTS

CRUSH THEIR BUTTS

DROWN THEIR BUTTS

CRUSH THEIR BUTTS 

And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out with his vajra-shovel.

Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada.

Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.

Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.

Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.

Will always have ripened blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at.

AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT

…thus we have heard…

(may be reproduced free forever)

.

---

Note: Smokey the Bear Sutra is a 1969 poem by Gary Snyder which presents environmental concerns in the form of a Buddhist sutra, and depicts Smokey as the reincarnation of Vairocana Buddha. Snyder composed the poem in one night for a February 1969 Sierra Club Wilderness Conference, at which he distributed the first copies. The poem “may be reproduced free forever,” and has since been widely disseminated in print and electronic forms. [Wikipedia]

Filling time

Sometimes, life's coincidences are a little scary. Late last week we lost a filling in one of our molars. Today, one of the most delightful days of Summer this year, we spent at the dentist. In fact, we were surprised she's even speaking to us, it's been so long since we last visited. During the four or five days between the loss of a filling and and the replacement / repair of that filling, we have been extremely grateful that we were not suffering an aching tooth due to the missing filling. (We haven't written about this before because we didn't want to jinx ourselves.)

As we were killing filling time before heading to the dentist this morning, we read a few more pages of one of our latest book acquisitions intended to lead to self-improvement. [see below] That's when we encountered ENJOYING YOUR NONTOOTHACHE.

Here's the critical excerpt, for those not currently suffering a toothache: "If my tooth hurt, this is exactly what I'd be wishing for. I'd believe that I would be so happy if only my tooth felt okay." The fact that we read exactly this page with precisely these words under our current circumstances suggests quite strongly to us that we had best give the reading of and exercises in the book our utmost attention. We, along with many of you we suspect, have been letting the times and the customs diminish our humanity and we don't like that. Time to do something about it, something like learning to be grateful for lots that we take for granted.

When we were older and knew everything we needed to know, like sometime last week, we might have needed to have the proverbial brick wall fall on us. But, as Dylan wrote in My Back Pages:

Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

The coincidence of enjoying a non-toothache experience that might well have been otherwise, and then reading we should learn to appreciate what is working and enjoyable in our lives is our metaphorical brick wall for this week. Let's now assume we succeed in attaining a necessary degree of youthfulness to enjoy as much as we can of each moment we have. That's when we turn to Dylan's wish from parents for their children. Imagine how much nicer the world would be and how much happier our lives would be if we could all remain

Forever Young

Written by: Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

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Making Minnesota home #phenology

Today, the Yellow Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius) has come into bloom. We've been sprinkled on a few times, but not even a real shower has fallen yet. We're noticing that trees that are fully leafed-out appear much more restless, more often, than Winter-bare branches. Unaccustomed as we are to actually chilling out and enjoying a lazy day, we're going to take a crack at that this afternoon since we don't want to do yard work in the rain and aren't really in the mood to do much around the house.

yellow goat'sbeard in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

We've almost finished reading the prose poems in Thomas R. Smith's Windy Day at Kabekona. We've taken a couple of his classes at The Loft Literary Center and both enjoyed and learned from them. Somehow, we missed his prose poetry writings until recently. As we read the blurbs on the back cover of Windy Day, we discovered another acknowledged master of the prose poem, Nin Andrews. Looks like we may have to get our hands on one or more of her volumes to add to our collection of prose poetry. We note that we've come to particularly associate the prose poem with our adopted state of Minnesota, thanks to its creation by such native or naturalized Minnesotans as Smith, Robert Bly, Louis Jenkins, and Julie Gard.

As we've proceeded with our readings in Creating Minnesota, a History from the Inside Out, we've discovered a similarity we share with its author, Annette Atkins. She's from South Dakota, and finds herself more comfortable and at home in the western, open biome of Minnesota than in the deciduous or boreal woods. We relate our identification with lands near the Atlantic Ocean and the ocean's openness with Minnesota's prairie, but we also have the benefit of having spent time in New England's North Woods in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Perhaps that's why we may actually be more Minnesotan than we realize, according to Atkins. She writes: "It's this passion, this visceral connection to trees and water, that informs Minnesota history, identity, and life. It's the impulse that makes Minnesotans Minnesotans." We admit to a visceral connection to trees and water, although our water has salt in it and our preferred trees tend to grow on mountains or in beach sand, but we fit Atkins' version of Minnesota impulse better than we ever will attain "Minnesota Nice."

A HOMEMADE WORLD

We all live in one, Huxley said.
Look around, and it's here,
individual as a signature.
How have you built your world?

Many people salvage bricks
from their childhood homes.
They nail the old framed
prejudices above the fireplace.

They can't see out their windows
because they've recycled the smoked
glass of fear.  Even their
books keep out light.

If you build with only
the things you've made your own,
a friendliness toward living
warms you like a patchwork quilt.

If you build your world-house
with toxic cast-offs, there's some
poison everywhere you turn.
And if you build your country

with bombs and oil instead of
wheat and schools--you can't help it,
you'll just go on electing
Disaster as your president.

--from The Foot of the Rainbow, Red Dragonfly Press, copyright 2010 Thomas R. Smith
(original appearance:  Pemmican 2010, www.pemmicanpress.com)

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Fly-fishing's just a breeze?

The breeze has been more of a hindrance to fly-fishing than this week’s showers ever were. It’s been blowing consistently in the 10 to 15 mph range out of the East-Northeast. The creek we’re fishing flows East to West. Most of the time today we’ve been “casting” into the wind. We can get the fly line to turn over and cut into the wind but the 9 foot+ leader is a different story. The wind pushes it around as if we aren’t even here.

looking downsteam on Timber Coulee creek

Photo by J. Harrington

The afternoon is bringing intermittent sunshine peeking through the clouds. Frogs, red-winged blackbirds, Baltimore orioles, bluebirds and some kind of sparrow are all singing, chirruping, croaking, peeping,…. We can almost see the leaves on the hillsides growing. It’s all a treat and delightful and charming, but we can’t buy a fish. Then again, we are getting back into practice with all the challenges of lines, leaders, flies, casts, wind, spooky fish and indeterminate hatches. We once again are recalling how fly-fishing, in years past, drove us to study zen. The diminution of a sense of control is exasperating, but true. We can but deal with and accept what is right there that we are experience moment by moment. Wasn’t it Nietzsche who wrote “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger?”

looking upstream on Timber Coulee creek

Photo by J. Harrington

All in all we’re having more fun than today’s posting would lead you to believe. It’s sort of like getting one’s sea legs back after time on land, or vice versa. The weather, other than the wind, has been more cooperative than we anticipated. The fishing has been, for the most part, fine. Now, about the catching…. The tree limb that grabbed our fly a while ago gave it back without breaking it. We're still working on hooking the first fish of the season.

[NOTE: this was posted a few days after it was written. We neglected to bring the cord that would let us transfer pictures from the camera to the computer.]

May

By Jonathan Galassi

The backyard apple tree gets sad so soon,

takes on a used-up, feather-duster look

within a week.

The ivy’s spring reconnaissance campaign

sends red feelers out and up and down

to find the sun.

Ivy from last summer clogs the pool,

brewing a loamy, wormy, tea-leaf mulch

soft to the touch

and rank with interface of rut and rot.

The month after the month they say is cruel

is and is not.

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A wish for "tight lines" to all, whatever you're trying to catch

It has, for the past 48 hours or so, been snowing off and on. More on than off. When it hasn't been snowing it's been blowing, or sleeting, or snizzling, or all of the above. Recently bare ground is again buried under a few inches of heavy, very wet snow. The phrase "this, too, shall pass" keeps looping through my mind.

Tomorrow is the opening of Minnesota's regular trout season. Years ago, when we were younger and more ardent in our outdoor pursuits, we would have been looking forward to tromping through snow-covered fields on our way to a trout stream, slowly developing stilts underfoot as the snow compacted itself into more and more layers on the bottoms of our felt soled wading boots.

This year we'll forego opening day rituals and await a more pleasing ambiance before we sally forth, but, some time in the near future, sally forth we shall, god willing and the river don't rise, as they say. We'd like to believe we may have finally reached Stage Five of the five stages of fly fishing. We know that we've caught 1) first fish, 2) many fish, 3) large fish, 4) some difficult fish, and, 5) over the years, have come more and more to appreciate the wisdom John Voelker (pen name Robert Traver) expressed in his Testament of A Fisherman.

John Voelker: TESTAMENT OF A FISHERMAN

Since we are still in National Poetry Month, we're going to exercise a bit of poetic license and declare, for our purposes today, Voelker's TESTAMENT to be a prose poem without the typical format, and further, because it can be hard to read the version above, we'll include it again here as today's poem.

I fish because I love to;

Because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly;

Because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape;

Because, in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion;

Because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience;

Because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don’t want to waste the trip; because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters;

Because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness;

Because bourbon out of an old tin cup always tastes better out there;

Because maybe one day I will catch a mermaid; 

And, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant – and not nearly so much fun.

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More signs of Spring awakening! #phenology #ClimateStrike

More signs of Spring are starting to appear on this Ides of March/School Strike for Climate day. Goldfinches are definitely showing more color. Snow wells have appeared around some of the trees in our wood lot. Melting and puddling continues. By this time next week, we should be experiencing temperatures in the range of 50℉+. Perhaps that will trigger the return of purple finches, at least as they pass through, headed North again.

gold (top) and purple finches: a colorful, diverse mixture at the feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

Nature supports and thrives on diversity. And yet, terrorists of all stripes would remake the world in their image? Today we send our condolences to Muslims, New Zealanders, and others who have suffered terroristic violence and attacks. We note that the suspected perpetrator(s?) in New Zealand, unlike many unarmed suspects in the US, were captured alive by police. We think there's a lesson there to be learned, along with increasing our lack of tolerance for intolerance. Is that what we need to do? How would that work? We are faced with increasing amounts of false information, lies, propaganda and skewed, biased data and statistics, much of it made up on the spot. And yet, the system in the US just allowed a creature who is a strong proponent of such measures to become president. He has been aided and abetted by a Republican Senate, especially the Majority Leader, which has shown essentially no inclination to put country ahead of party, nor people ahead of maintaining power. And we the people continue to put up with this kind of governance? Why?

There are, we believe, many worthwhile lessons we can learn about cultural survival from Native Americans. Other beneficial lessons are taught by Buddhists about our need to show and feel compassion for all sentient beings. In fact, the alleged adults, worldwide, are being educated by the generation still in school, about the need to confront and do something everything about out climate disruption crises. Meanwhile, the "world leaders" diddle and dabble about, accomplishing essentially nothing. The Titanic will go down with the deck chairs neatly arranged and properly color coded. We need to elect and select much more carefully those we honor with the opportunity to represent us. How many of you are truly proud of your government's behavior these days. Does it represent you and your values? Did you vote in the last election or abstain in protest? Did you participate in the selection process for candidates? Will you do better net time, if there is a next time? Have we reached the point where we need to celebrate a "Western Spring?"

Blood

By Naomi Shihab Nye

“A true Arab knows how to catch a fly in his hands,”

my father would say. And he’d prove it,

cupping the buzzer instantly

while the host with the swatter stared.

In the spring our palms peeled like snakes.

True Arabs believed watermelon could heal fifty ways.

I changed these to fit the occasion.

Years before, a girl knocked,

wanted to see the Arab.

I said we didn’t have one.

After that, my father told me who he was,

“Shihab”—“shooting star”—

a good name, borrowed from the sky.

Once I said, “When we die, we give it back?”

He said that’s what a true Arab would say.

Today the headlines clot in my blood.

A little Palestinian dangles a truck on the front page.

Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root

is too big for us. What flag can we wave?

I wave the flag of stone and seed,

table mat stitched in blue.

I call my father, we talk around the news.

It is too much for him,

neither of his two languages can reach it.

I drive into the country to find sheep, cows,

to plead with the air:

Who calls anyone civilized? 

Where can the crying heart graze?

What does a true Arab do now?

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