What to do if you can't always get what you want!

Sometime during the past few days, our local roadside asters have come into bloom. Leaf colors are splashing and splotching their way toward peak later in the season. Sumac, maples and aspens are leading the way. At the risk of jinxing us, I'll note that September turning into full-fledged Autumn is about as close to normal as we've come this year.

sky-blue asters at roadside

Photo by J. Harrington

Local farmers are getting organized for harvest season. Hay wagons and other equipment is being hauled over township and county roads. Pumpkins have not yet been sighted at roadside stands but they should arrive over the next couple of weeks. The Better Half has agreed to bake an old-fashioned apple cake with  brown sugar frosting sometime in the near future. Autumnal Equinox is one week from tomorrow. Election day is 50 days from today. Finally, I saw a political sign that pretty well captures my current perspective, plus, it makes some sense in these times. For background, look here.

I'm old enough to remember when the Rolling Stones first released this always, and especially now, timely observation: You Can't Always Get What You Want. We would do well to keep it in mind.

The World We Want Is Us

Alice Walker - 1944-

It moves my heart to see your awakened faces;
the look of "aha!"
shining, finally, in
so many
wide open eyes.
Yes, we are the 99%
all of us
refusing to forget
each other
no matter, in our hunger, what crumbs
are dropped by
the 1%.
The world we want is on the way; Arundhati
and now we
are
hearing her breathing.
That world we want is Us; united; already moving
into it.

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

Can a crisis be long term?

I remember reading somewhere or other, a while back, something to the effect that humans evolved to better deal with a near-term, immediate, crisis, such as escaping from a saber-tooth tiger, rather than something like the onset of a long-lasting ice age. Based on my own life experiences, that feels true. I've generally found it easier to address a "crisis" and move on when it didn't involve adapting through changing how I live my life. Since I've had to adapt to minimize the risks of contracting COVID-19, and it looks like the changes required won't be short-term, I've started to wonder if my approach to responding to climate breakdown and living (more) sustainably has been equally misguided by focusing on short-term responses.

In part, I suspect I've been inappropriately conditioned by things like the 1973 oil embargo and the accompanying gas lines. We would all have been better served had we responded differently to that "crisis" but, instead,

By the early 1980s, however, the influence of OPEC on world oil prices began to decline; Western nations were successfully exploiting alternate sources of energy such as coal and nuclear power, and large, new oil fields had been tapped in the United States and other non-OPEC oil-producing nations.

So, I'm thinking more and more about systems change including life-style changes. In this I'm heavily influenced by the writings of Gary Snyder, Jim Harrison, Ted Kooser and Wendell Berry. A recent discovery of the treasure trove of stories on the patagonia web site is helping motivate me and making me think broader and more long term than I have historically. Below the picture are links to some of those stories, two of which are specifically relevant to Minnesota and each of which is relevant to all of us.

Boundary Waters periphery

Photo by J. Harrington

• What you can  do from home
• Red Lake, Green Future (Indigenous-led land management)
• It’s All Home Water: Paddling Past the Graveyard (Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness)
• The Books in the Patagonia Team’s Bags

You might also want to take a look at Tools for Grassroots Activists, Edited by Nora Gallagher and Lisa Myers; introduction by Yvon Chouinard.

For the Children

by Gary Snyder

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us,
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light

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