Winter's Call

What is it about a snowfall? Even from the reaches of a darkened room it is clear that snow has fallen. Is it the muffled sounds reaching through the open window? Maybe it is the reflected light coming through the crack between the drapes in the pre-dawn darkness. Whatever tell-tale signs of this quintessential sign of winter, it came to us a couple of weeks ago. We stayed home rather than brave the drivers rushing to get to work. For a few days afterward tufts of snow sprouted from hidden corners or clung silently to the upper reach of a remaining apple.

The snow was supplanted by episodes of sun and rain that hung like drapery between us and that celestial warmth.  Coldness lifted away from the clay soil and our temperate rainy season descended upon us. Our seasonal creek showed its seasonal mood swing by going from from torrential and dominant to a smooth flowing creek and back to demanding. The riparian zone though which it winds is but one marker of its presence. The sound of water rushing through ash, blackberry, snowberry, and currant is the dominant sound in the orchestra.

Chickadees, Red-Shafted Flickers, Stellar Jays, and Scrub Jays episodically mark a moment in time, but the rush of water playing against the string-like grasses and shrubs is like the constant play of violins in the background of an orchestra.

Thanks to Nerissa Draeger for this poem:
"Upon Discovering My Entire Solution to the Attainment of Immortality Erased from the Blackboard"

by Dobby Gibson

If you have seen the snow
somewhere slowly fall
on a bicycle,
then you understand
all beauty will be lost
and that even the loss
can be beautiful.
And if you have looked
at a winter garden
and seen not a winter garden
but a meditation on shape,
then you know why
this season is not
known for its words,
the cold too much
about the slowing of matter,
not enough about the making of it.
So you are blessed
to forget this way:
a jump rope in the ice melt,
a mitten that has lost its hand,
a sun that shines
as if it doesn't mean it.
And if in another season
you see a beautiful woman
use her bare hands
to smooth wrinkles
from her expensive dress
for the sake of dignity,
but in so doing trace
the outlines of her thighs,
then you will remember
surprise assumes a space
that has first been forgotten,
especially here, where we
rarely speak of it,
where we walk out onto the roofs
of frozen lakes
simply because we're stunned
we really can.

From the Darkness

 There are many things that come to us from the dark. As the darkness lingers longer and the rains moisten the soil,  the mushrooms appear. The property has many different types and none of them can we say is edible. So we watch them blossom and then fade into their inky black blob shapes.They are very beautiful in their variety of shapes and sizes.

When I was studying biology in the late 70's there were three kingdoms identified in the textbooks: animal, plant, and fungi. There was discussion about there being some other things that didn't quite fit in any of the categories, but they were swept under the rug quicker than in a college dorm room the night before parent's day. Today there six kingdoms... that isn't even including viruses.

 So, what's the big deal with all this naming? On one level, it doesn't really matter- we have a bunch of mushrooms on the property, so why do we need to classify it into some category? That is a question that used to occupy my time when I was studying science, but it doesn't mean much anymore. The one thing that it does do is that it provides us with a common language to talk about things.

As people, we communicate with each other. By having a shared language, we are able to talk about abstract ideas: theories, history, and the future. When we see a clump of feathers heading to our bird feeder, we are able to say "Bird" and someone knows what we are talking about. The power of this can easily be understood when one considers what happens when I'm driving in the car and I tell Susan "Look over there" and I give no clues as to where or even what I might be looking at. Without being able to articulate a word like "hawk" or "Red-Tail". She'd have no idea to what I was referring. So language gives us the ability to connect.

Now darkness also brought to mind the unconscious. It is a part of us that is in the dark from our everyday way of operating. Does the unconscious actually exist? Is there something that one can be opened up to and revealed? Of course not. There is no tangible thing called the unconscious though it is something that is readily accepted as being a part of human beings. But where is it? No matter how much we search, we will never find it growing from the dark like some mushroom. The term unconscious mind comes to us thanks to Sir Christopher Riegel and then came to us in English thanks to  Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Did the unconscious exist before the 18th Century? Thanks to the creator of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kublai Khan, we have this term describing the things that happen in the darkness of our inner world.

In some mystic traditions it is silence that devotees embrace. There is an understanding that the power of language can be a barrier to understanding the inner truths. Our little cabin on the property affords us a place to turn inward and into quietness. If I were able to settle into the rhythm of the season I would retire into the cabin like the bear into its cave for the winter. It is a time for contemplation and meditation.

May you, and all beings, find solace in the unconscious world that runs through us all like the current in the ocean.

S

All Hail the Fall

T

We just had an awesome thunder and lightning storm pass through. The hail drove the cats deep under cover. Just prior to that the winds were blowing hard and we had a leaf storm with the sky filled with oak, ash, and birch leaves.

 The photo on the left you can see the rock pathway that was laid this year dusted with leaves from the birch tree. This is the start of the rainy season for us.  For most of October there hasn't been very much rain and we've been really spoiled. They say we are suppose to have a wet and snowy winter.

I decided that it was definitely time to harvest all the potatoes and the remaining squash. There are still a few  squash and tomatoes  still on the vines. Carrots and beets are firmly rooted; kale and chard still producing; even have a new crop of radishes that came on because of this warm Fall.  Gardening-wise it has been a low intensity year. I didn't spend a lot of time with it so I'm glad they took care of themselves. For months- there was no problem with deer- then they found their way over our orchard fence and trimmed all the new leaves from the almonds, Asian pears, pears... basically all of the newly planted trees (except the apples and filberts) were given a hair cut. They didn't eat the stems thankfully... we'll see if the make a comeback.


Here are a few images from the Fall for your viewing pleasure.

The Small Things in Life

Haven't felt the urge to use words, but here are a bunch of photos from over the last month.

The world needs only a few geniuses; civilization is maintained and extended by those lesser souls who corral the men of greatness, tie them down with explanations and footnotes and annotated editions, explain what they meant when they didn't know themselves, show their true place in the awesome progression of mankind.
Iain Pears in The Dream of Scipio (pp. 24-25)

I'm not sure why this quote captures me so much. But this evening, sitting beneath the fir tree in the Sky Chair, it is this book that I've been reading.  It is an interesting book and still a mystery. There are those who demand a clear literary trajectory right in the beginning of reading. It seems that there is a need for certainty and a demand that all things make sense from the beginning. For me that does not allow us the honor of discovery, but a confirmation of our history.  Too much of civilization has been a synchronized march to self-confirmation and the molding of the landscape and others into that which we proclaim as the right type.

H

Most mornings I sit on our porch and watch the sunrise. Here you see the sun coming over the horizon and casting light on the meadow and the cabin. This is about 6:30 am. The light of day is slowly shortening and the heat of summer is rising. Today it was about 97.

We are contemplating putting a large pond in the meadow. Right now our neighbors horses have started to graze the long grasses. Soon we will be able to see the contours of the land. Part of the reason for letting the four legged lawn mowers onto the land was the increasing presence of blackberries. They don't eat the blackberry, but once they graze down the grasses, we can cut the blackberry back.

On the way home, I stopped at the Finley Wildlife Refuge and hiked on a short trail. It is only a few miles from the house and a great stretch of land to hike on. I saw a small herd of cow elk off the side of the road. But with it being so hot, there wasn't much out and about. One of the wonderful things about this country is the series of parks, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas that have been created. There has been so much habitat loss for creatures- we hope that this little speck of land at Aisling can be another haven that they can call home or, at least, check in for a little visit.

The Unexpected

We have two new members of our extended family: Fluffy (aka Ameila) and Mr. Cat. These cats had been wandering around the property and since Shiva's passing last year we've been talking about adopting another cat... well, now these two have become a part of our lives. It turns out that Fluffy really belongs to our neighbors but they have a cat that gave birth to kittens and has pushed Ameila (their name for the cat) away from the feeding dish. Eats are pretty easy here, so she sleeps and eats on the porch. During our morning meditations on the deck, she often crawls onto our lap.

Mr. Cat is another story. Yesterday, for the first time, he let me pet him. Susan has yet to be given that privilege.  He is a feral cat that is slowly warming up to us. I decided to take his photo the other day and the flash went off... and so did he. Unfortunately, he wasn't paying attention to the fact that a hen turkey was nearby with her chicks. These hens are VERY territorial when it comes to protecting their chicks and their food. You can see the result- turkey chasing Mr. Cat. It all turned out fine and Mr. Cat is still here. But the unintended consequence of a photo....

The weather has turned very warm. It was in the mid-90's today. The only lilies that haven't finished their blooming are the red ones. The Magnolia is just now staring to blossom and most of the leafy vegetables have bolted. The artichokes are coming on and the tassles are starting to form on some of the corn.

Swarming

The other day we were outside and I heard the sound of bees. I don't know if you've ever been in a fruit orchard when all the trees are in bloom and there are thousands of bees humming away- well that is what this sounded like. Walking toward the sound, soon the air was filled with honey bees and they were swarming around one of the apple trees. It was a hopeful thought that they'd stay around and make a place on the property, but no, they headed out. I did call our neighbor who keeps bees and a local beekeeper. Neither were available to come by and capture the swarm. Found out today that it was our neighbors hive. Maybe next year we can put some bees out.

Watching the bees it brought to mind a few things- the first is the human mind. It seems that most people's consciousness more resembles a bee swarm than migrating geese. Our thoughts and emotions buzz around inside and it isn't always clear where it is going. It is more akin to Chaos Theory than Newtonian Physics. There is order to it, but it isn't clear what that order actual is and that an internal state from a previous moment has spun off and caused unconsidered repercussions. I think mind training (such as meditation) is essential to get "the bees into a hive where they create honey". Many of the problems in the world could be solved if more people trained their minds- especially if the focus were on the creation of more compassion and loving-kindness in the world. It has never made sense to me that we don't actively train young people's minds. We indoctrinate them, we socialize them, we train them to hit baseball's, we show them how to cook, but is a rare child who actual gets training on how to focus, to work with their emotions, and ways to channel their negative energy. It is common to tell them to "Just Say No!" or give them the moral code, but not the how-to. With this increased concern about test scores I don't think that we'll see this happening anytime soon.

The other thing that the swarming bees brought to mind was taking care of our environment and creating places that wild bees can live.  Some say that the domestic (United States) wild bee population has declined 50%. One of the things that we want to do here is to create habitat so things like bees can make a resurgence. My neighbor told me an interesting fact: the stingless honey bee that we get our honey from is not native to the U.S.- something I didn't know until yesterday. It came to our shores in the 1600's.

The last thing that came to mind about bees was that good intentions can turn out bad. In an attempt to keep the bees hanging around- I uncapped a hummingbird feeder and put it right in the middle of where the bees seemed to be focused. When I went back a little later- there were dozens of the bees dead in the liquid. Not a good idea. Good intention, but bad result. I'm sorry that ignorance killed them- but it will not happen again!

That's all for now.

Hidden in Plain View

The other day I was talking on the phone and looked out the window. I looked around at the plants growing in the flower beds and noticed a pattern disruption. Something wasn't quite right. What was it? Then the Pacific Tree Frog emerged from its camouflage. It is truly remarkable how this creature could adapt to the color markings of the surrounding vegetation. Even though a scientific explanation exists about how this works, it is still a wonder to see it in action. Have you ever heard a frog croaking outside one of your windows and went out to find the "singer"? I have done that many times and most of the time not been able to find the source. Now, when I'm in the garden I look at these leaves with a new focus; a different type of attention.

This also reminds me of a gift I was able to pass on to my father. Photography has a been a part of my life for so long. I can remember some of the cameras I used as a child and then discovering the science and art of photography in high school. For years I only worked with black and white. At one point my father took a photography course at Skagit Valley Community College in Oak Harbor. Then one day he told me that he was seeing things in a new way- he was seeing birds on wires and patterns on the sides of buildings. He was discovering a new way of seeing the world. It is something that I'm grateful he discovered before he died. His world became larger and more intimate.

There are many things we don't see because we don't know to look and there are other things that we don't recognize because we see them everyday: mission/value statements on a company wall, a mileage marker on the freeway, a loving gesture by a partner. Neuroscience is helping us to understand a number of things about our human-ness. One of the things is that there are so many good things that go on in our everyday life that we don't see them. Love, joy, and compassion are so prevalent that we don't see them. Our systems become high jacked by the intense emotions that stimulate chemicals like adrenalin. These experiences are so intense (and pleasurable) that we see the world from the viewpoint of those things that evoke those wonderful sensations and feelings. Yet, if we measured how much of our time is filled with those intense moments we would have a few examples as compared to the number of times that a person has done us a kindness, that we have experienced the goodness of someone extending a hand, or the fleeting moments of beauty that we actually see in the world. 

This happens around the world and Jeremy Rifkin has written about this in his book, The Empathic Civilization and I'm looking forward to reading his thoughts. It has just landed on my to-read pile.

There are problems in the world and some people deal with horrific conditions. There is no doubt about that. At the same time there are billions of actions each day that bring beauty into the world. The sound of a creek,  the image of a swallowtail landing on a peony, or even that your soccer team won last night... whatever. There are always opportunities when our viewpoint is open.

This morning, after completing my morning meditation, I was reading a passage in the book, The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. (I highly recommend this book.) Here is the passage for you to consider (p. 111): "... I began to see that when the pace of external or material progress exceeded the development of inner knowledge, people seemed to suffer deep emotional conflicts without any internal method of dealing with them. An abundance of material items provides such a variety of external distractions that people lost the connections to their inner lives."

Finding Privacy

Today I started laying stones for the walkway. I rented a compacter a few days ago to smooth out the rocks and today sand and a few rocks were placed. Doing it brought back memories of my first job out of high school as a hod carrier (bricklayer's assistant). Tapping stones into place, tamping down the sand in the cracks... brought back some memories from a long time ago. However, today my energy reserves don't allow me to work on the path for hours at a time.



Lots of flowers are showing up and here are just a few. Our first day lily came out yesterday.

The first really warm day came this weekend. It reached 81 degrees on Saturday. This whole week will be the first summer day that we've had.

As I look outside our view has become less clear due to some smoke. A neighbor must be burning brush- tomorrow is the last day to be able to do backyard burns.

I picked up a collection of poems called "Good Poems for Hard Times by Garrison Keller. Here is an excerpt from a poem by Robert Morgan Working in the Rain
...I thought he sought the privacy of rain,
the one time when no one was likely to be out...
It's an interesting thought about how inclement weather is a time to find privacy- whether it is rain or snow or intense heat. Many people don't venture out if it causes them discomfort- thereby leaving the bad weather to be enjoyed by those willing to be uncomfortable.

Robert Bly has a poem in the same collection and it too approaches the subject of privacy.
Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter...
It is a cold and snowy night. The main street is deserted.
The only things moving are swirls of snow.
As I lift the mailbox door, I feel its cold iron.
There is a privacy I love in this snowy night.
Driving around, I will waste more time.


Joseph