Spring rolls in on the backs of the shimmering clouds of blackbirds, swarming together above rivers and fields, dancing aloft for the delight of us children. Spring is cast upon us by roiling clouds thick from treks across vast waters. Spring is the baptism of the once sleeping bear that is our soul in winter. Creeks rise, overcome by the multitude of frozen dewdrops come undone. Pieces of tree bark, shed from last autumn, combine with old fruit, forgotten leaves, dead branches, and children's mittens to clog the arteries of runoffs, forming patchwork swamps, silting the land like a small river delta, providing the growers with loamy rich topsoil for gardens and flower beds. Spring is the time of the Resurrection, the promise of the sun, and the quenching of thirsts. The herds migrate, the people open their wells, the ice packs, which scoured the granite to a polished shine, recede into dark memories. Consciences are formed from those old ice packs, and we are loathe to celebrate too decadently, for there is work to be done, seeds to be gathered, and hearths to be readied for the return of the cold.
When people ask me what my favorite season is to be working outside, what they're really asking is, which season do I hate more, Summer or Winter. At this latitude, in this climate, people either love the Spring, or they love the Autumn, because those are the seasons of great change, the time of remembrance, of temperate air. A summer rain may be a blessing, but the rains of spring and fall are pregnant with meaning, and carry a certain violence with them. To be outside, in the watery sunlight of a sixty degree day in March, is to be counted with the angels, to be enlightened in the old sense, the impassioned sense. This year, the winter was about as mild as I've seen in my nine years of reading meters. I can barely recall the number of days it dipped below thirty degrees. I must admit I feel a bit disappointed by that, as if I was robbed of a certain hardship, nullifying any glory in the onrushing Spring. It lends to the unease, the strangeness of this strange year, the year of change, of catastrophe. I kept thinking, as January turned to February, and into March, when will we reap the bad harvest of days we have sown in this field of pleasant weather? It seems as if there is a storm coming, a storm that's been brewing since the time of the first calenders. Are we in the eye of the storm? Is this the calm before the storm? Perhaps this is a product of our interference with the natural flow of the waters? Unanswerable questions flower up out of the richness of Spring, just as Pleasure and Leisure spring from Summer, Memories and Sadness from Autumn, and the Ponderance of Mortality in the depths of Winter.
So to answer the question, my favorite season in which to work outside is the Spring. Maybe as I get older I will change, but for now I'm young at heart, and the Spring is the time to sing out loud, to throw open the windows and shake off the dusty blankets, to wash in the rivers and turn over the soil. Spring is the time to awaken to birdsong and smell the dank swampy sod. We fall in love in the spring, we court in the summer, and we wed in the Autumn. And our lives are full of that first morning light.
Until we meet again...
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
March 3, 2012: Politics
To use this forum as a means of political expression was never my intention. Mostly I wanted to speak about the personal, the inner burgeoning consciousness, to express myself publicly in order to reach an understanding with the outside world. With the whole world seemingly involved in an extreme political discourse, I thought it would be futile and pointless to add yet another voice to the cacaphony already engaged in what has degraded into a shouting match. However, I realize now that my own political viewpoint is intertwined with my awakening, and to disregard it is to ignore a large portion of my feelings and my time. Most of my day is spent in my car or by myself, listening to news and current events, podcasts, public radio... I check my phone for updates on the presidential race and world news... and I read links my friends post on facebook. There was a time when myself and many of my friends were completely apolitical. The great bureaucracies of the world succeeded in developing in me a sort of malaise. I felt isolated, cynical, and (if ever there was a word to describe the 20th century) alienated. The regression of the human race seemed almost preordained, and I felt like a leaf floating in a vast and powerful sea, subject to the whims of forces unseen, indeterminate, and powerful beyond measure. Like many in my generation, I was subjected to a mass culture of nihilism, materialism, anti-intellectualism, and self indulgence, so that the most important thing was to discover oneself... by oneself. To be strong was to be strong alone, without reference to anyone else. But I see now that this way of thinking was taught to me by the instruments of shysters, salesmen, and power brokers. I can see a new world breaking free of this by the simple realization that we are all connected, that our actions have consequence, and that the world as it is now was built upon a foundation cast in stone throughout the aeons of history.
It seems to me that the worst aspect of the modern age is the way we receive information. With the modern news cycle being on a 24 hour basis it seems as if we are bombarded with stories of tyranny, oppression, degradation of values, and passionate discourse. We are fed constant updates until we fear going to sleep at night because the world might change in the course of the six to eight hours we are disconnected! The modern age comes at us so fast that the news has become a headline, a picture with a caption, and two paragraphs written by a "news service". This is followed by a litany of opinions on the various social networks, spewed forth by an ignorant, uninformed audience, who are reacting to an initial soundbite they didn't experience for themselves. If this initial news item is about something which is connected to the tax base or has to do with research grants or is about a certain person allegedly doing something illegal or amoral, suddenly the whole world has become judge, jury, and executioner, and lives are ruined, studies are lost, programs are de-funded, and the world loses insight into itself. When the whole story is revealed, either nobody hears it, or they hear only what they want to hear and stick to their initial knee jerk reactions. It isn't just a wheel spinning in mud, it is seven billion wheels spinning in small interconnected circles, bumping into each other and sending each other screaming off in a tangent to slam into another wheel, while the ground underneath becomes a sea of quicksand.
There was a moment when the vast machinery of political power and modern presidential campaigns became clarified for me. Rick Perry was asked a question pertaining to his economic policies; I can't recall exactly how the line of questioning went; As he was answering, citing his tax reform ideas, how he would promote job growth, etc., he suddenly held out his hands as if he were holding a flagpole and exclaimed passionately, "We need to stick a flag in the ground that says, 'America is Open for Business Again!'" The camera angle switched, a small number of the audience members applauded, and the moderator continued on to a different candidate. Two things occurred to me at once... (1) Rick Perry can't distinguish between an intellectual debate and a political rally, and (2) these candidates have to speak in bold idealistic terms in order to incite the constituency to vote for them. A campaign isn't about solving problems, about pragmatic approaches to governing... it's about highlighting ideals and promoting a kind of philosophical vision of the future. These men must separate themselves from the pack and hold themselves upright in the bright spotlight of media attention, in order to convince others to place them at the head of all tables, in THE seat of power. So they speak to us about America. They speak of how they see this country, how they relate to the vast masses of people from the populous East, through the Heartland, out to the vast West. They speak of their vision of Justice, Peace, and Freedom, as if they are commodities to be sold to us at the nearest pharmacy. They tell us how they are the chosen, the deliverers, and their opponents will lead America down a dark and storm ravaged path... and not only will there be the loss of everything we now hold dear, but it will be a slow and tortuous loss. This is what politics in America has become... maybe it's always been this way. When they talk about America, I really wonder where this grand country is located. Can we really look across this vast country and say that we all share a common set of core values? Can I relate to a person who belongs to the Ku Klux Klan? Does a corporate executive look at art the same way I do? We are all scattered about in tribes. We tread common ground with each other, but our communities are small, and our lives rarely venture outside the confines of our domestic circles. To speak of a United America is to sell us something, to ask us to buy something, or buy into something.
It's all too much for me sometimes. I don't have any answers. Sometimes I swing from anarchist unpredictability to traditional values. I've always had a leftist bent, like most of my generation, and for the past three elections I've voted Democrat. But I can see value in ideas from both sides of the aisle. Most intelligent people I know are intelligent because they carry many different values, and can see understanding and compromise as the only possible future. Winston Churchill once said, if you aren't a liberal when you're young you have no heart... and if you aren't a conservative when you're old you have no head. When I hear someone talk about their business, and they say liberals are wrong for creating a welfare state, that there have always been rich and poor people and the rich have always taken care of the poor, and that he shouldn't be penalized for working hard and becoming a productive member of society, I can't argue. And when a social worker tries to argue for the rights of the homeless, and tries to battle for the voiceless, reminding us that equality in America is a myth, I see that as truth, too. Can these two truths coexist? Will there always be a disparity between those who have and those who do not? If a major change in the structure of our society occurs, will the new society be any different than the previous? Or will the sides just switch ends of the playing field? For the cynics out there, the answer is no. They say we are all doomed and men will always kill each other for power. They say that they don't care about the future, that people who are uneducated and lazy don't deserve our sympathy, and that this world is a winner take all melee and you have to get yours while you can. Fools. If they don't care about their brothers, why should their opinion count at all? Maybe they should be told what to do, since they don't really want to hear our side of the story. It's not that hard to be optimistic. Television is not American Culture. The internet is not the answer to democratic power. Revolution is not spawned by looting neighborhood stores. We have to go out and find culture. We have to unlearn everything we think we know about how the world is and how it should be. Most of our belief systems were taught to us through authority figures and peer groups, and true perspective takes time and work. Revolution is a state of being, a paradigm shift.
Mostly I want people to realize how much power is really in our hands. Every dollar we spend is surveyed. Every movie we watch, every TV show we see, every second we lose listening to some fool spouting off at us is calculated and used for advertising. So what if we all decided to become activists? Instead of complaining about the world what if we acted to change it? Don't like how the garbage is piling up? Recycle and organize community clean up programs. Don't like how much food prices are going up? Start a garden and go to farmers markets. Don't like looking at bums every time you go to a baseball game downtown? Volunteer at soup kitchens and food banks. I was a little disappointed at Christmas. For all the grand talk about Money and Power and Corruption, people still went out in droves and spent the night outside Best Buys over Thanksgiving to get the newest toys and gadgets. What if for once nobody bought anything at Christmas? What if we decided to exchange gifts we made ourselves? What if we painted a picture for someone, or took a pottery class, or bought from a local antique shop? What if for that week around Christmas, we read to our children... turned off the TV and learned something about the history of Christmas? What if we communicated and contemplated the world around us... slowed down our lives for one week? All the billions of dollars spent on advertising would be lost. Companies who were struggling would crash, and the politicians and pundits would scream at us for weeks that we are ruining everything. We are slaves to this system that we created. We are locked into this consumptive lifestyle that separates us from each other and leaves us alienated. Does it have to be this way? It's a long conversation isn't it.
Until we meet again...
It seems to me that the worst aspect of the modern age is the way we receive information. With the modern news cycle being on a 24 hour basis it seems as if we are bombarded with stories of tyranny, oppression, degradation of values, and passionate discourse. We are fed constant updates until we fear going to sleep at night because the world might change in the course of the six to eight hours we are disconnected! The modern age comes at us so fast that the news has become a headline, a picture with a caption, and two paragraphs written by a "news service". This is followed by a litany of opinions on the various social networks, spewed forth by an ignorant, uninformed audience, who are reacting to an initial soundbite they didn't experience for themselves. If this initial news item is about something which is connected to the tax base or has to do with research grants or is about a certain person allegedly doing something illegal or amoral, suddenly the whole world has become judge, jury, and executioner, and lives are ruined, studies are lost, programs are de-funded, and the world loses insight into itself. When the whole story is revealed, either nobody hears it, or they hear only what they want to hear and stick to their initial knee jerk reactions. It isn't just a wheel spinning in mud, it is seven billion wheels spinning in small interconnected circles, bumping into each other and sending each other screaming off in a tangent to slam into another wheel, while the ground underneath becomes a sea of quicksand.
There was a moment when the vast machinery of political power and modern presidential campaigns became clarified for me. Rick Perry was asked a question pertaining to his economic policies; I can't recall exactly how the line of questioning went; As he was answering, citing his tax reform ideas, how he would promote job growth, etc., he suddenly held out his hands as if he were holding a flagpole and exclaimed passionately, "We need to stick a flag in the ground that says, 'America is Open for Business Again!'" The camera angle switched, a small number of the audience members applauded, and the moderator continued on to a different candidate. Two things occurred to me at once... (1) Rick Perry can't distinguish between an intellectual debate and a political rally, and (2) these candidates have to speak in bold idealistic terms in order to incite the constituency to vote for them. A campaign isn't about solving problems, about pragmatic approaches to governing... it's about highlighting ideals and promoting a kind of philosophical vision of the future. These men must separate themselves from the pack and hold themselves upright in the bright spotlight of media attention, in order to convince others to place them at the head of all tables, in THE seat of power. So they speak to us about America. They speak of how they see this country, how they relate to the vast masses of people from the populous East, through the Heartland, out to the vast West. They speak of their vision of Justice, Peace, and Freedom, as if they are commodities to be sold to us at the nearest pharmacy. They tell us how they are the chosen, the deliverers, and their opponents will lead America down a dark and storm ravaged path... and not only will there be the loss of everything we now hold dear, but it will be a slow and tortuous loss. This is what politics in America has become... maybe it's always been this way. When they talk about America, I really wonder where this grand country is located. Can we really look across this vast country and say that we all share a common set of core values? Can I relate to a person who belongs to the Ku Klux Klan? Does a corporate executive look at art the same way I do? We are all scattered about in tribes. We tread common ground with each other, but our communities are small, and our lives rarely venture outside the confines of our domestic circles. To speak of a United America is to sell us something, to ask us to buy something, or buy into something.
It's all too much for me sometimes. I don't have any answers. Sometimes I swing from anarchist unpredictability to traditional values. I've always had a leftist bent, like most of my generation, and for the past three elections I've voted Democrat. But I can see value in ideas from both sides of the aisle. Most intelligent people I know are intelligent because they carry many different values, and can see understanding and compromise as the only possible future. Winston Churchill once said, if you aren't a liberal when you're young you have no heart... and if you aren't a conservative when you're old you have no head. When I hear someone talk about their business, and they say liberals are wrong for creating a welfare state, that there have always been rich and poor people and the rich have always taken care of the poor, and that he shouldn't be penalized for working hard and becoming a productive member of society, I can't argue. And when a social worker tries to argue for the rights of the homeless, and tries to battle for the voiceless, reminding us that equality in America is a myth, I see that as truth, too. Can these two truths coexist? Will there always be a disparity between those who have and those who do not? If a major change in the structure of our society occurs, will the new society be any different than the previous? Or will the sides just switch ends of the playing field? For the cynics out there, the answer is no. They say we are all doomed and men will always kill each other for power. They say that they don't care about the future, that people who are uneducated and lazy don't deserve our sympathy, and that this world is a winner take all melee and you have to get yours while you can. Fools. If they don't care about their brothers, why should their opinion count at all? Maybe they should be told what to do, since they don't really want to hear our side of the story. It's not that hard to be optimistic. Television is not American Culture. The internet is not the answer to democratic power. Revolution is not spawned by looting neighborhood stores. We have to go out and find culture. We have to unlearn everything we think we know about how the world is and how it should be. Most of our belief systems were taught to us through authority figures and peer groups, and true perspective takes time and work. Revolution is a state of being, a paradigm shift.
Mostly I want people to realize how much power is really in our hands. Every dollar we spend is surveyed. Every movie we watch, every TV show we see, every second we lose listening to some fool spouting off at us is calculated and used for advertising. So what if we all decided to become activists? Instead of complaining about the world what if we acted to change it? Don't like how the garbage is piling up? Recycle and organize community clean up programs. Don't like how much food prices are going up? Start a garden and go to farmers markets. Don't like looking at bums every time you go to a baseball game downtown? Volunteer at soup kitchens and food banks. I was a little disappointed at Christmas. For all the grand talk about Money and Power and Corruption, people still went out in droves and spent the night outside Best Buys over Thanksgiving to get the newest toys and gadgets. What if for once nobody bought anything at Christmas? What if we decided to exchange gifts we made ourselves? What if we painted a picture for someone, or took a pottery class, or bought from a local antique shop? What if for that week around Christmas, we read to our children... turned off the TV and learned something about the history of Christmas? What if we communicated and contemplated the world around us... slowed down our lives for one week? All the billions of dollars spent on advertising would be lost. Companies who were struggling would crash, and the politicians and pundits would scream at us for weeks that we are ruining everything. We are slaves to this system that we created. We are locked into this consumptive lifestyle that separates us from each other and leaves us alienated. Does it have to be this way? It's a long conversation isn't it.
Until we meet again...
Sunday, February 19, 2012
February 19, 2012: Sea Change
On land, the tuggings of the moons can somewhat safely be ignored my men, and left to the more pliant senses of women and seeds and an occasional warlock. But at sea even males are victims of the rise and fall, the twice daily surge of the waters they float on, and willy-nilly the planetary rythm stirs them and all the other voyagers.
MFK Fisher
In the days, long past, when crossing an ocean was a true ordeal, perilous, expensive, and seemingly endless, people underwent an existential change. On those massive ocean liners, powered by steam and the brawn of faceless nameless men, people would eat their steak and potatoes, drink draught beer, smoke lean cigars, talk listlessly to a compartment mate, then drift out onto the deck to try to gauge their location, their speed, their place in the world. Was it the sea? The vast unfettered night sky? The movement of the ship rocking them into a dreamlike trance? What was it that caused people to drift into a different consciousness? With all the water around them, and the moon given free reign, no mineral laden lands to block it's magnetic thrust, I like to think that the moon created a neap and ebb tide out of the water in the voyagers' bodies, realigning them with the natural flow of the vast Earth. In those days, families left their homelands with naught but a few scant coins, a duffel of clothes, and the hunger of memory and hope in their hearts. The young leaned on the old, the men gathered daily to trade second hand knowledge like a commodity, and the women sang to their babies and convinced themselves that they would make it to a new world, succeed, and see their mothers and fathers again. At the other end of the deck, artists and tradesmen would read newspapers, drink cognac, and pace impatiently, eager to reach the other side of the sea. It would take over a week. A week of drifting, of slowing, a week of staring out at the glint of steel grey sea under charcoal white sky, or the deep purple-blue-green unearthly glow on a hot sun drenched sky. How the sea must have played tricks on them! At times they must have looked out over the railing and thought the sea was higher than the boat deck. Other times sounds and smells must have come to them from across the vast breaks. With nothing else to occupy them, the sea must have claimed their souls for a time, shifting priorities, slowing down their gait, lifting them and setting them down over and again.
It was a burning hot June day in Athens, Ohio when I experienced a shift in time that I've tried my whole life to realign. It was the day of my graduation from Ohio University, and I sat impatiently with my friends as the keynote speaker droned on about the ways in which technology would be changing the world. When it was time, we walked to the stage, received our diplomas, listened as our names were called out, walked to the side of the stage, had our picture taken, and walked out a set of double doors into the stifling heat. It was as if I was in a dream, or a movie where the protagonist is shown in slow motion - indicating a sudden revelation or realization - when I walked through those heavy doors into the world. I looked for a familiar face, I looked for my friend who had gone before me, and I waited for my other friends to walk through the same doors, I listened for the applause of family, I looked for anyone to acknowledge the moment... only to find myself completely alone, pacing like a lost soul awaiting perdition. A few people were scattered around, but their voices came to me as if through water, as if I was suspended halfway between the sea floor and the surface. I waited in angst for someone to appear, and after a few minutes my sister found me and, smiling, pulled me out of the morass. It was those few lost minutes I have been chasing for the entirety of my adult life. That summer, I went to Idaho to work for my Uncle at his State Park, which had for two previous summers been a source of joy and exhilaration for me. Not so that summer. I walked around without any pleasure for those three months. I had no desire to explore the canyon like I used to. I only sat on an old lawn chair and read endlessly, or lay on my cot listening to music, wondering what I could possibly do to save myself, and I mourned the loss of the life I had known, the ease of it all.
I believe we all suffer from the same angst. We have all become targets. Our priorities are dictated to us, our desires are subverted from the original to live well and peacefully into a desire to overcome our brothers and conquer the living world. We can agree now that we all love the money more than we love God, and at heart we know this is wrong. All day we say to ourselves that those in power have it wrong, that the world is failing, that they are feeding us lies, and that somebody should do something to change it all. At the same time we've forgotten how to change ourselves. We've become truly docile, domesticated, and subdued. We're fed images of suffering around the world and in our own backyards, and at heart we feel we should be doing something to help our fellow children, but we have no ability to change the minds of the despots and oppressors. So we say it's too late, our paths are set toward the inevitable end. We have been offered the chance with every waking sun to seize control of our lives and the course of humanity and we have simply let it slip through our fingers because we have been sated by comforts and the idea that we are freer than most, and that's good enough.
But I'm through with that negative thought process. I've undergone a grand Sea Change. Like an old soldier coming home across the sea, I'm shaking off the heartbreaks of my youth and looking towards the horizon with a sense of optimism. One can look at human history and see it as a downward spiral from the garden to the ash pile. We can trace the arc of history like an arrow shot from the castle towers, and we can see ourselves at the apex, beginning the trend towards a terrific crash. But I ask, how many times have we gone to the edge, compelled to jump into the abyss, only to pull back and change the forces that push us? How many Kings, swept into the destructive vacuum of power struggle, have capitulated to the servants in order to preserve the race of men? How many tyrants have battled against their own people only to realize there would be no future with the path they have chosen? We have always overcome our destructive tendencies, and when the times are most dire, we have collectively awoken to shake off the dust of apathy, and followed the lighted path of righteousness. For myself, I have already lived with boredom, with capitulation, and negativity. I've played the role of the cynic and pessimist. I can't wake up anymore, look at Anna, and justify being the child I once was. It would be foolish to think that she would put up with a man whose heart was filled with venom, whose soul was all coal and ash. I can see how foolish I was not to at least attempt to live. Happiness is not hard to find, indeed it isn't a place or an object to be found. It's simply a choice, like everything else in life, it's a decision one has to make to become happy. For me, to keep learning is a joy. To try something new is a joy. To improve myself is a joy. If we stop learning, if we've decided we have it all figured out, we might as well not lift ourselves out of bed in the morning. Better to admit to ourselves that we know nothing at all, that the not knowing is the important thing, the best way to live. Only then can we see the world from a fresh perspective, a hopeful one. I owe her that much...
Until we meet again...
MFK Fisher
In the days, long past, when crossing an ocean was a true ordeal, perilous, expensive, and seemingly endless, people underwent an existential change. On those massive ocean liners, powered by steam and the brawn of faceless nameless men, people would eat their steak and potatoes, drink draught beer, smoke lean cigars, talk listlessly to a compartment mate, then drift out onto the deck to try to gauge their location, their speed, their place in the world. Was it the sea? The vast unfettered night sky? The movement of the ship rocking them into a dreamlike trance? What was it that caused people to drift into a different consciousness? With all the water around them, and the moon given free reign, no mineral laden lands to block it's magnetic thrust, I like to think that the moon created a neap and ebb tide out of the water in the voyagers' bodies, realigning them with the natural flow of the vast Earth. In those days, families left their homelands with naught but a few scant coins, a duffel of clothes, and the hunger of memory and hope in their hearts. The young leaned on the old, the men gathered daily to trade second hand knowledge like a commodity, and the women sang to their babies and convinced themselves that they would make it to a new world, succeed, and see their mothers and fathers again. At the other end of the deck, artists and tradesmen would read newspapers, drink cognac, and pace impatiently, eager to reach the other side of the sea. It would take over a week. A week of drifting, of slowing, a week of staring out at the glint of steel grey sea under charcoal white sky, or the deep purple-blue-green unearthly glow on a hot sun drenched sky. How the sea must have played tricks on them! At times they must have looked out over the railing and thought the sea was higher than the boat deck. Other times sounds and smells must have come to them from across the vast breaks. With nothing else to occupy them, the sea must have claimed their souls for a time, shifting priorities, slowing down their gait, lifting them and setting them down over and again.
It was a burning hot June day in Athens, Ohio when I experienced a shift in time that I've tried my whole life to realign. It was the day of my graduation from Ohio University, and I sat impatiently with my friends as the keynote speaker droned on about the ways in which technology would be changing the world. When it was time, we walked to the stage, received our diplomas, listened as our names were called out, walked to the side of the stage, had our picture taken, and walked out a set of double doors into the stifling heat. It was as if I was in a dream, or a movie where the protagonist is shown in slow motion - indicating a sudden revelation or realization - when I walked through those heavy doors into the world. I looked for a familiar face, I looked for my friend who had gone before me, and I waited for my other friends to walk through the same doors, I listened for the applause of family, I looked for anyone to acknowledge the moment... only to find myself completely alone, pacing like a lost soul awaiting perdition. A few people were scattered around, but their voices came to me as if through water, as if I was suspended halfway between the sea floor and the surface. I waited in angst for someone to appear, and after a few minutes my sister found me and, smiling, pulled me out of the morass. It was those few lost minutes I have been chasing for the entirety of my adult life. That summer, I went to Idaho to work for my Uncle at his State Park, which had for two previous summers been a source of joy and exhilaration for me. Not so that summer. I walked around without any pleasure for those three months. I had no desire to explore the canyon like I used to. I only sat on an old lawn chair and read endlessly, or lay on my cot listening to music, wondering what I could possibly do to save myself, and I mourned the loss of the life I had known, the ease of it all.
I believe we all suffer from the same angst. We have all become targets. Our priorities are dictated to us, our desires are subverted from the original to live well and peacefully into a desire to overcome our brothers and conquer the living world. We can agree now that we all love the money more than we love God, and at heart we know this is wrong. All day we say to ourselves that those in power have it wrong, that the world is failing, that they are feeding us lies, and that somebody should do something to change it all. At the same time we've forgotten how to change ourselves. We've become truly docile, domesticated, and subdued. We're fed images of suffering around the world and in our own backyards, and at heart we feel we should be doing something to help our fellow children, but we have no ability to change the minds of the despots and oppressors. So we say it's too late, our paths are set toward the inevitable end. We have been offered the chance with every waking sun to seize control of our lives and the course of humanity and we have simply let it slip through our fingers because we have been sated by comforts and the idea that we are freer than most, and that's good enough.
But I'm through with that negative thought process. I've undergone a grand Sea Change. Like an old soldier coming home across the sea, I'm shaking off the heartbreaks of my youth and looking towards the horizon with a sense of optimism. One can look at human history and see it as a downward spiral from the garden to the ash pile. We can trace the arc of history like an arrow shot from the castle towers, and we can see ourselves at the apex, beginning the trend towards a terrific crash. But I ask, how many times have we gone to the edge, compelled to jump into the abyss, only to pull back and change the forces that push us? How many Kings, swept into the destructive vacuum of power struggle, have capitulated to the servants in order to preserve the race of men? How many tyrants have battled against their own people only to realize there would be no future with the path they have chosen? We have always overcome our destructive tendencies, and when the times are most dire, we have collectively awoken to shake off the dust of apathy, and followed the lighted path of righteousness. For myself, I have already lived with boredom, with capitulation, and negativity. I've played the role of the cynic and pessimist. I can't wake up anymore, look at Anna, and justify being the child I once was. It would be foolish to think that she would put up with a man whose heart was filled with venom, whose soul was all coal and ash. I can see how foolish I was not to at least attempt to live. Happiness is not hard to find, indeed it isn't a place or an object to be found. It's simply a choice, like everything else in life, it's a decision one has to make to become happy. For me, to keep learning is a joy. To try something new is a joy. To improve myself is a joy. If we stop learning, if we've decided we have it all figured out, we might as well not lift ourselves out of bed in the morning. Better to admit to ourselves that we know nothing at all, that the not knowing is the important thing, the best way to live. Only then can we see the world from a fresh perspective, a hopeful one. I owe her that much...
Until we meet again...
Sunday, February 12, 2012
February 12, 2012: Blessings of the Father
Fathers and sons, histories of men, old knowledge compiled from experience and distilled through time, the thread of memory, I needed more time to learn. I can feel my father pacing forth in a strange home, see him patting down his arms and his chest in front of a mirror, as if he's trying to remember if he's placed his keys in the breast pocket of his suit coat, when really he is trying to reconcile himself with the image of a man in front of him. He sees the man in the mirror, knows the man resembles him, wonders how the man is able to mimic his actions so acutely, tries to fool the image by moving his raised arms slowly, unusually, in front of himself, then tries to make the man laugh. Father, be at peace. Forget what you have always known now and try to find wonder in the floating dust in the gold sunstreams. Try to lose the memory of us completely, so that when we arrive you retain measures of comfort from us, unexplainable, unreasoned, but real. Forget how this time was stolen from yourself and your wife, this time which was to be enjoyed more than every other time, this reward for a life of toil. You were going to travel. You would have been able to take longer trips than any you have thus taken, spending eternities on the road, seeing the great Glories of creation, wondering at the monuments time has created out of old soil and clay. Try not to know how soon you will have grandchildren bringing back those old enthusiasms of childhood wonderment. Forget how finding a flower in a field is a bit like a miracle to young eyes.
I could talk to you. I could sit you down in front of me and tell you of my gratitude, of my heartache, of my dreams... I could pour oaths and pledges and prayers from a litany of knowledge that would not have been realized without thy tenderness, but I know that you are living in a dreamworld where the past is a river stone, smoothed of it's edges and glistening under the slow light of a sleepy stream. I know that to speak of my plans for the near and far future is to offer up a hopeful sacrifice of sweet smoke to a distant Lord. In this dream present you must travel alone my old friend and teacher. You must lead the way into that next land. But you must try to be kind to us intruders along the way. You must not be swallowed entirely by the dream. For us, you must be a little bit stronger than you have been, to give us a bit of comfort along the way.
If I was to be there in a moment of clarity, I would not speak. I would only listen for as long as you can hold on. If there is a moment of respite from this torment, use it to remind me of those times you let me eat the food from your plate, let me leap onto your back, of the times when you gave up your comfort to please a needy boy. Speak comforts to me, let me know that you will recognize me before you go, tell me to tell your wife that you loved her above all others, even yourself. This is the Bargain I offer to you. I will listen if you choose to speak.
Until we meet again...
Sunday, February 5, 2012
February 5, 2012: Seven Months
This weekend Anna looked at me and said, "You know what today is? We're officially seven months away from our wedding day!" The planning is starting to heat up. Since I proposed in May, We have found a location, hired a retired Lutheran minister, found a photographer, taken engagement photos, and sent out save the dates. She found a dress after two trips with her mother last fall. In the summer, we took two trips to strangers' houses to pick up blue tinted mason jars and burlap runners that she will place lovingly on tables as decoration at the wedding. The location of our wedding supplies the food, and works pretty much exclusively with one DJ so those things were taken care of rather easily. We hired a distinguished and paternal looking retired Lutheran minister to do the ceremony. She has set up a web site complete with photos of us, our wedding party, recommendations for entertainment in Traverse City, and links to hotels. We have booked a large retreat where we will stay for the weekend along with some members of our family, and she has finally decided on her bridesmaids' dresses. Recently we've registered for gifts at two different stores, booked room at a brewery/restaurant for a rehearsal dinner (no easy task in Traverse City during Labor Day weekend), and decided on the style for our invitations. She has logged hundreds of hours on the internet, finding wedding idea sites, looking at possible cake combinations, unique planning ideas, possible decoration and dress ideas, and menu options. She found a honeymoon spot for us in Costa Rica, and we've picked our menus and four exciting activities we will participate in during that week. Right now she is upstairs, and I assume she is talking on the phone with her mother about the things she registered for this morning. Her mother and my mother have been active participants in this process, planning wedding showers, and posting ideas on pinterest. I've had calls from several of my friends just this weekend trying to figure out if we can get together the Friday of that weekend for a boy's night out. Soon we will be sending out invitations, and we still have to figure out the florist situation, shuttle service, find wedding picture locales, pick a menu, and find a cake. We have to plan a social gathering for after the rehearsal dinner, and pick out something for me and my groomsmen to wear. Along with all this is an effort to lose weight. She has been waking up at 5:30 in the morning to go do an intense workout and we've both been trying to avoid fatty food. I'm going to have to start testing skin care products to get rid of some splotchy patches on my face. She has been growing her hair out so that when she styles it she can have more options. We haven't even thought about what we're going to need to pack.
All this time she's putting in, all those long conversations we've had, the difficult choices we've made, all are leading to a day soaked in emotion. Along with all this planning, we have to consider the smallest details, like bringing a handkerchief for tears, what kind of paper will we write our vows on, how the preacher's voice will sound as he pronounces us man and wife, how the light will shine as she walks down the aisle with her father. It's not like planning a vacation where we pick a flight, find a hotel, and pack the proper clothing, we have to also consider the overall picture. Anna has been working hard on the details so that on the day, we can enjoy each and every little moment without worry. No matter how many details we work out, though, even if we plan it so minutely that nothing is left to chance, I still think I will be surprised at every turn. I wish we could slow everything down so I could see every emotion on her face, and relish every smile surrounding us. I wish that first kiss as man and wife could last forever. I am worried that we will be barraged by friends and family, trying to talk to us all at once. I fear that someone will not have a good time and that something will intrude on the magic of it all. This only happens once in a lifetime and each minute that goes by will be singed with a bit of regret and bitterness, along with the happiness, because I know I don't want it to end. It seems strange to me how much work goes into just a few hours of dining, dancing, and drinking. We strive our whole lives to find the person that we will spend the rest of our lives with, we expend so much psychic energy on this one event, and it is over before we even know it. A wedding should be a series of celebrations, I think. We should have a week of family dinners, small parties, a grand celebration lasting from sunrise to sunrise, gift giving, games and contests like the old Romans and Greeks, and dancing until we collapse from utter exhaustion. A wedding should not end until everyone has wandered home in delirium after a week of festivities. Strangers should wander in and out, offering food, drink, or gifts. Poems should be read by firelight and songs sung to toast the newly minted couple. When it is over, everyone should feel like nothing was left out. No one should walk away wishing they had gotten more time with the couple. Wisdom should be handed down from everyone who has been through all stages of marriage. People should wander into a corner of the room and sleep while the hardy ones carry on. I say let's bring back the Festival of Bacchus, return to the old ways of paying homage to life changes. We should endeavor to spend more time on these events than we do at work. That way I could truly appreciate the magnitude of what Anna and I are undertaking.
Of course, Anna would have to do some more planning...
Until we meet again....
Saturday, January 28, 2012
January 28, 2012: Building A Life
When I look at my things, I can trace the arch of my desires. I can remember why I asked my mother for a typewriter, because I wanted to write a novel. I still have small dusty jars of model paint from when I was a child building model ships. I have the same paint brushes I've had since college. I have twelve notebooks with songs, poems, and journal entries written from long forgotten days. I have a print in a heavy wooden frame of a picture of Colonel Pershing standing next to Pancho Villa that I bought in Baja, Mexico. I've bought a guitar, a jump rope, leather bound journals, paints and canvasses, and a mountain bike. All these things I've bought while trying to reconcile myself with this modern world. There are three types of people in the world, those who are obsessed with the past, those who live solely in the present, and those who spend their lives preparing for the future. For me, the past has weighed heavily. Most of the things I had to let go of were little totems from places I've been and things I've seen. These things were to be a part of some great collage so I could surround myself with memories, enshroud myself in the blanket of the past. When I buy a guitar, I am trying to rejoin the present... learn something new. When I buy a calligraphy pen set it's so I can become something new, be present. When I buy new clothes, I'm trying to drag myself out of the old ways, to keep pace with these manic times. It's amusing to think of the ways in which we love our little things. We spend our life buying things that are useful, things that are for decoration, and things that serve no purpose whatsoever, then we carry them with us for our whole lives. To me, it's not that hard to imagine being a hoarder. We all have the same feelings within us to a certain degree. Try throwing something you've had for a time in the trash can. Something you have sitting in a display case. You'll find it a daunting task and you might just pick it out and clean it up and put it back on the shelf. It's become instinct to love the miscellaneous tack we gather around ourselves. Letting go of it is like losing an arm. Carlos Castaneda wrote that small totems were infused with the magic of their previous owners. In a very real sense the things we hold onto become our captors, become like prison bars, sitting in front of us, needing constant maintenance and care, travelling with us through our lives. When I moved in with Anna, I finally looked at all the loose things I've carried with me since olden times and realized that I would never use them. I thought I would finally end up in a place where I could raise them from the dustbin, resurrect them in sacred ceremony, and place them on the altar of memory. But now I realize this will never happen. Thanks to this new life I've entered, I know that in order to adorn myself in the past, I would have to sacrifice the present. Each second wasted on such a project, although justifiable, would only be selfish and overtly personal. I might be able to bask in the glow of a wall full of old posters, fliers, pictures, and bumper stickers, but I would be alone. The modern world is so much more interesting, and the things I've collected, although a bridge to the past, to who I am, are outdated and irrelevant.
Last week Anna set up an appointment at Macy's in order to begin the process of registering for our wedding. We went to the mall on a frigid January night and rode the escalator up to the second floor and entered a seductive world of young couples, well dressed saleswomen, a DJ, and delicious pastries. Without any idea of how to go about collecting new things, we began walking through a vast landscape of china plates, crystal glasses, silverware, kitchen appliances, home wares, bedding, electronic devices, and vacuum cleaners... after an hour I was reeling. It was overwhelming and when it was over we had only registered for four items. Anna was already planning to go to several other places so she didn't want to commit to a large number of things at one store unless she found something better elsewhere so we walked away unfulfilled. For Anna, registering for gifts is the last great opportunity to collect the material goods to build our life together. Like a contractor ordering lumber, cinder blocks, cement, and tools, she goes about the business of constructing a new world for us with aplomb and confidence. She knows what she wants and she knows how to shop. I'm the perfect sucker for the retail world. I see shiny things and I shell out the money like a child at a carnival trying to throw a dart at a balloon. I know too these things she is buying will replace all the old things I have. But I'm fine with that. I think it's time to let go of my material world, the world of concrete functionality. I will probably hold on to things such as my stereo, books, CD's and DVD's, and the artistic things that I want to explore, but the rest is just gathering dust and I've grown tired of boxing myself in, tired of the avalanche of worldly possessions. The past will always be there, like a museum I can visit anytime. Blessed memory returns so fluidly when it's shared with old friends, is so much more true and real when sitting around with people. I can't really trust myself with those times when I look at an old picture, and it's fairly unfulfilling as well. The future will be taken care of by my future wife, so knowledgeable, so adept at thinking of such things. That leaves the present wide open. Until we meet again...
Last week Anna set up an appointment at Macy's in order to begin the process of registering for our wedding. We went to the mall on a frigid January night and rode the escalator up to the second floor and entered a seductive world of young couples, well dressed saleswomen, a DJ, and delicious pastries. Without any idea of how to go about collecting new things, we began walking through a vast landscape of china plates, crystal glasses, silverware, kitchen appliances, home wares, bedding, electronic devices, and vacuum cleaners... after an hour I was reeling. It was overwhelming and when it was over we had only registered for four items. Anna was already planning to go to several other places so she didn't want to commit to a large number of things at one store unless she found something better elsewhere so we walked away unfulfilled. For Anna, registering for gifts is the last great opportunity to collect the material goods to build our life together. Like a contractor ordering lumber, cinder blocks, cement, and tools, she goes about the business of constructing a new world for us with aplomb and confidence. She knows what she wants and she knows how to shop. I'm the perfect sucker for the retail world. I see shiny things and I shell out the money like a child at a carnival trying to throw a dart at a balloon. I know too these things she is buying will replace all the old things I have. But I'm fine with that. I think it's time to let go of my material world, the world of concrete functionality. I will probably hold on to things such as my stereo, books, CD's and DVD's, and the artistic things that I want to explore, but the rest is just gathering dust and I've grown tired of boxing myself in, tired of the avalanche of worldly possessions. The past will always be there, like a museum I can visit anytime. Blessed memory returns so fluidly when it's shared with old friends, is so much more true and real when sitting around with people. I can't really trust myself with those times when I look at an old picture, and it's fairly unfulfilling as well. The future will be taken care of by my future wife, so knowledgeable, so adept at thinking of such things. That leaves the present wide open. Until we meet again...
Saturday, January 21, 2012
January 21,2012: Animal Signs
Winter, like an old friend, sweeps down on the northern country, blanketing us... teaching us about the holy circle of birth, growth, life, and death. Each breath is like a reminder of the ghosts surrounding us, each gust of wind howls across plains of brilliant white, bespeckled with black sod. I revel in the snow storms as I walk through the hushed streets. Each auto blissfully muted, each train accenting the chiming tree branches. In these dark mornings I take a few minutes, in church parking lots, and lift my head from my chest, breathe in icy air, and watch the snow cover the grime of this sullen town.
Animals are all around, life carries on in darts and flashes, fleeing the shadows and chasing the sunlight. The nightly crow, the industrious squirrel, and the proud seagull brace against the wind. The shock of the cardinal is the most pleasing, with his regal crown and black mask, flitting in between the grey-brown undergrowth. That seductive red seems like fire, like cherries, like velvet blankets against the monotone backdrop. The blue jay tries but can't match that passion. Cats and racoons scurry around houses, ever vigilant for a meal and a hiding place. Occasionally the feminine deer, like a ballerina, dances through the back lots and farm fields, pausing to stare in wonder at me, then dash away with the others as they dig under the ice to find grassy shoots. Huskies, at home in this clime, dusted with powdery snow, smile at me as I pass, as if greeting me like a neighbor.
There are times, in the country, when I see red tailed hawks. I sometimes wonder if there isn't just one hawk, a spirit guide, leading me through my day. Usually He is sitting atop a telephone pole, but at times He hangs in the air, ever subtlely shifting his tail and wings to remain perfectly still on a draft, reveling in the joy of wind and air. Once, while I was driving on one of my routes, pulling from one driveway to the next, a hawk waited for me to commence my ride to the next house, and fly to the next pole in front of me. I felt blessed and wondered at the great power of this bird of prey. I felt like I was playing a privileged role in a game of chase, and when it was over I felt a small pang of regret.
The strangest occasion happened a few winters ago. I was driving out Walbridge Road, towards those little, old, trading post towns of Curtice and Williston. Out there the farm land comes in patchwork quilts divided by punctuated stands of tangled trees. The land was dug out of old marshes and swamps, dug out by old Germans and Irish, reclaimed from ancient lake beds. The land is flat and the soil black with rich silt and nutrients, and it has been left to the heirs to those old Germans, left by the people of the ports and cities as gratitude for the ditch diggers and reclamation engineers. It was in one of these hollows, on a patch of road drifting with snow, in between tree stands, that I encountered a coyote for the first time. In the high desert country of Southern Idaho, along the Snake River Basin, I heard packs of coyotes singing at night, out along the vast reaches of fenceline and scrub. But even in that wild country they were notoriously fickle. Like a flash of light in the corner of my eye I would think I saw one only to find whispers. I couldn't imagine for a second that there were still coyotes in this old part of the world. Surely man has plodded upon this old ground for too long, taken too much away, and cut himself off completely for such a wild thing to still roam free? Wonders never cease. Out of the corner of my eye I saw this brilliant grey-black flash, darting toward my car like a bullet train! He was on a direct collision course with me and all I could do at forty five miles per hour was take my foot off the gas pedal. The wild dog closed in on the car, leapt across an eight foot wide ditch, and dashed in front of my car, across the other ditch, and onto the next field! It slowed down like an Olympic runner, shook his head and looked back at me. I was stunned! It was a game of chicken, good sport! Some old coyote trickster god reminding me that there is still play to be had, still wild life to be lived, and there are things we must do for no rhyme or reason.
What is the lesson? There is none. These animals aren't here for us. They are here, and we tread upon their grounds, impositioning ourselves, labeling them with our problems. They are, and we are not. That coyote was showing me something, though... That old dog was proving how strong he was to himself and to me, and I loved him for it! Until we meet again...
Animals are all around, life carries on in darts and flashes, fleeing the shadows and chasing the sunlight. The nightly crow, the industrious squirrel, and the proud seagull brace against the wind. The shock of the cardinal is the most pleasing, with his regal crown and black mask, flitting in between the grey-brown undergrowth. That seductive red seems like fire, like cherries, like velvet blankets against the monotone backdrop. The blue jay tries but can't match that passion. Cats and racoons scurry around houses, ever vigilant for a meal and a hiding place. Occasionally the feminine deer, like a ballerina, dances through the back lots and farm fields, pausing to stare in wonder at me, then dash away with the others as they dig under the ice to find grassy shoots. Huskies, at home in this clime, dusted with powdery snow, smile at me as I pass, as if greeting me like a neighbor.
There are times, in the country, when I see red tailed hawks. I sometimes wonder if there isn't just one hawk, a spirit guide, leading me through my day. Usually He is sitting atop a telephone pole, but at times He hangs in the air, ever subtlely shifting his tail and wings to remain perfectly still on a draft, reveling in the joy of wind and air. Once, while I was driving on one of my routes, pulling from one driveway to the next, a hawk waited for me to commence my ride to the next house, and fly to the next pole in front of me. I felt blessed and wondered at the great power of this bird of prey. I felt like I was playing a privileged role in a game of chase, and when it was over I felt a small pang of regret.
The strangest occasion happened a few winters ago. I was driving out Walbridge Road, towards those little, old, trading post towns of Curtice and Williston. Out there the farm land comes in patchwork quilts divided by punctuated stands of tangled trees. The land was dug out of old marshes and swamps, dug out by old Germans and Irish, reclaimed from ancient lake beds. The land is flat and the soil black with rich silt and nutrients, and it has been left to the heirs to those old Germans, left by the people of the ports and cities as gratitude for the ditch diggers and reclamation engineers. It was in one of these hollows, on a patch of road drifting with snow, in between tree stands, that I encountered a coyote for the first time. In the high desert country of Southern Idaho, along the Snake River Basin, I heard packs of coyotes singing at night, out along the vast reaches of fenceline and scrub. But even in that wild country they were notoriously fickle. Like a flash of light in the corner of my eye I would think I saw one only to find whispers. I couldn't imagine for a second that there were still coyotes in this old part of the world. Surely man has plodded upon this old ground for too long, taken too much away, and cut himself off completely for such a wild thing to still roam free? Wonders never cease. Out of the corner of my eye I saw this brilliant grey-black flash, darting toward my car like a bullet train! He was on a direct collision course with me and all I could do at forty five miles per hour was take my foot off the gas pedal. The wild dog closed in on the car, leapt across an eight foot wide ditch, and dashed in front of my car, across the other ditch, and onto the next field! It slowed down like an Olympic runner, shook his head and looked back at me. I was stunned! It was a game of chicken, good sport! Some old coyote trickster god reminding me that there is still play to be had, still wild life to be lived, and there are things we must do for no rhyme or reason.
What is the lesson? There is none. These animals aren't here for us. They are here, and we tread upon their grounds, impositioning ourselves, labeling them with our problems. They are, and we are not. That coyote was showing me something, though... That old dog was proving how strong he was to himself and to me, and I loved him for it! Until we meet again...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)