A Smear of Life

This morning I rose with trepidation and sorrow. I am moving house during a pandemic because the world of limitless causes (action/reaction, karma; call it what you like) is guiding me there. None-the-less, sorrow comes with change, as a part of the body’s system of attachment and letting go, keeping itself safe, and fear comes with that process. All these words are cerebral; my head talking to me, superficial, and nearly artificial. The feeling, though, is visceral, as real as I can understand with my five senses, and I must survive it.

In the realm of ‘new seeing’, that thing that comes on the precipice of change, was my moment of insight. I stepped out into a cool, clear morning, which promised to beget a hot summer’s day, and saw the tree. Just an ordinary pine which I see on a daily basis. With a sudden clarity, I saw the Earth as a giant rock moving in space and the tiny film of water and biota that coats it. The biota that grows and dies in a continual process, that is almost unnoticeable from space, but it is our whole world, the one that we are constantly in flux with.

The tree was a huge and imposing living being that thrust up into the heavens, reached down equally into the earth and would out-live me by three or four life spans.

Just like that, I let go. I stopped worrying about the fibs the realtor told, the drama of my friends left behind, the anxiety of my sweetheart and his spread sheets, the concern about possible disaster scenarios, the impending election, the discomfort of change. It may not stay, this feeling of understanding from a new perspective, but I feel re-set. I feel my life-death process as sweet and inevitable, as it is. I feel my recognition of the process being boiled down to simple acts of kindness melded with forgiveness. I feel grateful.

From my tiny spot embedded in the film of life on a rock in space, I love you all. Nothing more.

The Last Tree Standing

When you climb up the mountains you will get to a meadow. On the meadow you will see one last tree standing. Go to that tree and wait for further instructions.
The Last Tree Standing

A favorite by Rabirius.

Welcome Summer Solstice

In Summer Time

Paul Laurence Dunbar – 1872-1906

(The author of numerous collections of poetry and prose; he was one of the first African American poets to gain national recognition.)

When summer time has come, and all
The world is in the magic thrall
Of perfumed airs that lull each sense
To fits of drowsy indolence;
When skies are deepest blue above,
And flow'rs aflush,—then most I love
To start, while early dews are damp,
And wend my way in woodland tramp
Where forests rustle, tree on tree,
And sing their silent songs to me;
Where pathways meet and pathways part,—
To walk with Nature heart by heart,
Till wearied out at last I lie
Where some sweet stream steals singing by
A mossy bank; where violets vie
In color with the summer sky,—
Or take my rod and line and hook,
And wander to some darkling brook,
Where all day long the willows dream,
And idly droop to kiss the stream,
And there to loll from morn till night—
Unheeding nibble, run, or bite—
Just for the joy of being there
And drinking in the summer air,
The summer sounds, and summer sights,
That set a restless mind to rights
When grief and pain and raging doubt
Of men and creeds have worn it out;
The birds' song and the water's drone,
The humming bee's low monotone,
The murmur of the passing breeze,
And all the sounds akin to these,
That make a man in summer time
Feel only fit for rest and rhyme.
Joy springs all radiant in my breast;
Though pauper poor, than king more blest,
The tide beats in my soul so strong
That happiness breaks forth in song,
And rings aloud the welkin blue
With all the songs I ever knew.
O time of rapture! time of song!
How swiftly glide thy days along
Adown the current of the years,
Above the rocks of grief and tears!
'Tis wealth enough of joy for me
In summer time to simply be.

The Blog or the Tree

The Blog that ate reality. (Only consider the indigestion.)

Perhaps this is closer to the electron vs. the tree product? I would not know. I am not sure at all what the blog is in terms of my real world. This is not due to diminished tech ability so much, but rather to a lack of curiosity.

I was given stern instructions to begin a blog, if I ever wanted to produce marketable writing and be able to sell it; to have an electronic presence. I made the effort, thinking that I would open a door to creativity and meet people of ‘like mind’.

I have a very different view today. Somedays I think I am shouting down a well, on others, I am walking along whispering to myself (which is cause for some worry).

Today, it seems I am talking to a very small group of ‘friends in the shadows’. It has a magical and unreal quality to it. I feel myself reaching out and taking a hand, or starting a conversation here and there. Sometimes I simply brush someones cheek with my knuckles and look deeply into their eyes with an attempt to understand who they are. I am looking deep into a mystery that eludes me. You.

It is this sense of presence in an electronic world that has ignited my curiosity again. What is this web we weave? How does it penetrate creativity? Is the glue still kindness, or does the ego rule?

For me to even voice these words, feels strange. Clearly, the precipice of my ignorance is high and airy. I lean out and see only hints along a skyline. I know nothing. Perhaps knowing nothing, much more is possible. Perhaps I can fly after all.

I will let you know.

Wild Wild West

This grainy old-time view is how I hope to display a world that is passing: two cowboys, a rare cowgirl, a couple of cattle dogs and a herd of 30 head. The next generation won’t see this happen. There are too many folk, too little land, too large a drive for money and power. Thus, the world changes as it always has.

Do not, please, assume I am denying change or supporting the meat industry. I am simply playing observer and noting the inevitability. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wonder if we can play the part of guide in this process. Often the very idea of inserting myself into the maelstrom of change terrifies me. How dare I, how could I? Certainly there is very little that I know about the balance of man and nature, the balance of man and mankind. I wonder if it is simply the process of bringing authentic kindness to the process each time we move. This too terrifies me, as I am so inadequate to the task.

So I left the boys, girls, and dogs behind to travel another road, where my inadequacy will be forgiven, if it is ever noticed at all.

The land is dry here, the road is inches deep in the dust of a dry lake bed. The map is torn.

Perfect.

Other travelers have stopped here to discuss something, some story, some prayer. I stop and open up to what I see.

Sky, cloud, life.

This basalt block holds the key to a mind long past. These images, tapped patiently into the rock surface, are thought to be as old as 12,000 years. I am caught by the truth that I will never know what the meaning of all this felt like for them. It is so simple to take a bit of poetry, a bit of some novel, and place myself within the perceived meaning. I realize though, that whenever I write, or read, or gaze at art, that the meaning slips here and there, never the same for artist or art gazer.

Really, this is the point. I do not wish my creations to have some kind of solid, inflexible meaning that will be prattled on about in a classroom. I want the bubble that exploded from my heart and mind to engender a bubble of yours. It is a form of touch. I reach for you and you return the gesture. There is a deep mystery in this, a beauty.

Here is a change of perspective. See the stone-yard biota above? This is the other side of the picture rock I just showed you. Moss and lecithin making its own lovely message heard above the roar of the universe. Here, below is hot spring biology with the same gambit.

In just such moments, it is the striving to understand that precipitates change within. There is no correct answer, there is only the quest.

Out Beyond
by Rumi

Out beyond ideas of wrong doing
and right doing,
There is a field. I will meet you there.

When the soul lies down in the grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase
'each other'
does not make any sense.

Body and Earth

To understand an eccosystem, you must be able to see that every part effects every other, creating a delicate balance. Modern man carefully placed himself above the rest of existence, so as to safely rule it. Slowly, he is finding out that such a pinacle is both unsafe and unreal.

“You are what you eat” has long been a part of common parlance, but what we are beginning to recognize is that we are what we eat, breath, drink, touch and even think.

It is difficult from our present position to see a world where we are integral, not dominant. I suspect that we must look back at story telling and myth for guidance.

In ‘The Fruitful Darkness’ by Joan Halifax, this idea is brought forward:

“Yes, stories are threads that draw one back into the fabric of the Earth. Bright fibers that join worlds, stories illumine our deep past, our origins, our ancestors and the ancestors of all creation, and our psyches and societies.”

The startling beauty of nature, combined with our creative capacity may provide information which our hard, inflexible minds otherwise refuse to comprehend.