In Which the Author Muses about Darkness and Light

 

Recently I learned that an acquaintance has received a grim medical prognosis.  I don't know her well but I like her very much.  As is typical when we hear such news, the room turned gray and so did my heart.

So here I sit, thinking yet again about sorrow and suffering.  Job offers no answers -- although I must admit that watchiing his pompous blowhard friends get smacked upside the head is quite satisfying.

What can I learn about all this from the nature of things around me?  Sunlight gleams through white curtains.  There is such a thing as ecstasy.  Muttley the Dog kisses Charlie the Cat.  And, yet again, spring comes.

Darkness may bear down, but it does not prevail.

Today's front yard critter count:

Raccoons: 6 (Mama, the 4 teenagers, the New Guy)

Deer: 0

Squirrels:  Lots.  Very loud.

Just Wondering....

 

So why is it that I'll pay for a gym membership but I won't walk up two flights of stairs to my office?   Seems kinda cheeky to make the planet expend the energy to haul an entire elevator plus me up to the third floor when I can get there perfectly well under my own power.  Ditto with regard to the electric can opener and electric toothbrush.  And I've totally never understood the concept of an electric knife.  What's next?  An electric drinking straw?

Today's front yard critter count:

Raccoons: 5 (Crabby Mama and the 4 teenagers)

Deer: 0

Daffodils: Almost blooming

Squirrels: Increasingly vocal out in the woods.

Silence

This is an image of winter grasses at Millersylvania State Park. All I have to say is that I'm grateful places like this exist.

Today's front yard critter count:
Raccoons: 5 (Crabby Mama and the 4 teenagers)
Deer: 0

Looking and Seeing

 

One of the things I love about photography is seeing with new eyes.  The more I look, the more I see.  The more I see, the more I understand.  And sometimes, when I see and understand, I feel as if I've been rung like a bell.

Today's front yard critter count:

Raccoons: 5 (Crabby Mama and her 4 teenagers)

Deer: 0

Little white frogs hopping across the gravel road: Lots

This Time, Horses

 

The poem in my last post brought to mind this equally wonderful poem.  I've loved James Wright's A Blessing since I first encountered it in my freshman English class at Washington State University.   It is an excellent poem to read out loud on St. Valentine's Day.

                   A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans.  They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

                                    -James Wright

Today's front yard critter count:

Raccoons: 2 (Old Tailless Guy and his Little Woman)

Deer: 0

Goat Hooves and Grace

Today my friend and colleague Kathryn shared this wonderful poem with me:

                                Pescadero

The little goats like my mouth and fingers,

and one stands up against the wire fence, and taps of the fence board
a hoof made blacker by the dirt of the field,

pushes her mouth forward to my mouth,
so that I can see the smallish squared seeds of her teeth,
    and the bristle-whiskers,

and then she kisses me, though I know it doesn't mean "kiss."

then leans her head way back, arcing her spine, goat yoga,
all pleasure and greeting and then good-natured indifference: she loves me,

she likes me a lot, she takes an interest in me, she doesn't know me at all
or need to, having thus acknowledged me.  Though I am all happiness,

since I have been welcomed by the field's small envoy, and the splayed hoof,
fragrant with soil, has rested on the fence board behind my hand.
                                                   
                                                                           -Mark Doty 

Today's front yard critter count:
Raccoons:: 6 (Old Tailless Guy's Little Woman, Crabby Mama and her 4 teenagers)
Deer: 3

My Primate Ancestors, Ski Lifts, and Hope

 

I'm afraid of heights.  I've often joked that my primate ancestor was the first one out of the trees -- the minute her feet hit the ground, she wiped her sweaty brow with her hand and said, "Whew, I'm never going back up there again!" My mother was also afraid of heights. When I was little and we would go skiing, mom was always nervous on the chairlift, not simply because she was afraid that she would fall off but also because she feared that she would deal with her fear of falling off by jumping off first, just to stop the stress.

I mention this because I'm reading a wonderful book by Jared Diamond: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Diamond outlines the circumstances leading to past societal collapses (Easter Island, the Anasazi, the Vikings on Greenland, etc.) and then identifies the factors that contributed to the poor group decision making that caused the collapses.  The factors he identified are: (1) failing to anticipate the problem before it arrives, (2) failing to see the problem when it arrives, (3) failing to even try to solve the problem once it is perceived, and (4) trying to solve the problem but not succeeding.  

I'm particularly interested in the third factor: seeing the problem but not even trying to solve it. Why would a society see a problem that is likely to destroy it and do nothing?  Diamond proffers two reasons: the self-interest of those who expect to profit from societal destruction (i.e. selfishness) and the paralysis of those who worry that acting would contradict some deeply-held value (i.e. wooden-headedness). To these two factors, I would add a third: the fear of failure and the associated stress of waiting for outcomes.  This is akin to my mother's contention that that a preemptive jump off the ski lift might be a good way to alleviate her fear of falling..

Climate change, global poverty, religious hatred, and environmental destruction are daunting challenges.  I hope fear of failure doesn't stop us -- both as a society and as individuals -- from taking one step, then two steps, a hundred steps, a thousand steps to solve these problems.

What can an individual do?  Lots.  If you have money, give it.  If you have power, use it. If you're a consumer, consume wisely.  If you have a mouth, a pen, a computer keyboard, a billboard, or a bull-horn, make your views known. If you have a yard, a deck, or a porch, grow at least some of your own food.  If you eat food, buy local and preserve some of it.  Start with whichever of these things come easy to you and ease into the things that come harder. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. Then repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. As Winston Churchill said, "Never, never, never, never give up."  

And remember, there is no such thing as false hope.

Today's front yard critter count:

Raccoons: 1 of the teenagers (a little female)

Deer: 3