Of Art, Love, and picking berries

while gathering wineberries and

anticipating

the sun warm sweet juice
as I mash the the soft red fruit between my teeth and
feel the tiny seeds wedge down in the canyons of my molars,
or
the snowy winter day when the sky is grey with cloud and the air white with snowflake
the loud and rewarding ping as the toaster oven tells me
my sour dough bread is toasted,
I will spread the jam over the melting butter that seeps through the big air pockets formed when the dough was rising, and down onto the butcher block
 putting the warm bread to my mouth, I will crunch into that taste of summer sweet and tart
 an archive of the summer sun and sky and all the colors of the garden that are now faded and buried under the snow that won't melt for 2 weeks and then be covered again, two days later by the next snowy day.

Moving the thorny vines aside to get to the darker richer redder almost purple berries,
the ones the bright red cardinal and his grayer colored lover missed, or left, when they were startled by sound of the screen door,

the vines only protection pierces the skin of my finger, 

the finger I use to strike the Y,U,J,H,N&M

but I only wince
and continue on in my desperate desire for the sweet and deeply red, almost purple, fruit
knowing that the thorn will fester there, in me,
and that later I will be desperate to get it out, bothered by it when ever I try to write, or pick up something, or have to be polite and listen to the same old story over again ,or
am trying to sleep

The moment of biting into that wet sweet warm yielding berry,

it's juice spreading over my tongue, my brain lost to the song my taste buds are singing

comes at a price
the thorn in my finger, the constant awareness of discomfort, festering,

swelling, an inflamed redness surrounding that tiny bit of alien thing under my skin

To remove it means digging deep, probing
further pain and discomfort

I must look close, I must put on my eye glasses
because my eyes are no longer young

and my vision not so clear,

I must look
thru those old eyes,

thru those glasses

thru the magnifying glass

in order to see that tiny sliver, that thorn, that invader of my person

that has sounded the alarms of resistance and defense

thru this glass
thru this glass and
thru eyes straining

I can see

the thorn, the moment it pierced my skin

I was happy then,
until then,
smiling,

excited, anticipating the sweet sensations, not only of the biting down
and breaking open of the

sweet dark berry

but

of the discovery of that
just ripe enough,
just red enough,
not yet picked off by a hungry bird who might not

be as particular, might not be as delighted at having found that just right fruit,

happy in
the search,
thru the brambles, pushing back the underbrush, bending to look under leaves

hastily wiping away at spider webs that stickily cover my face
and then trying to calm myself
so as not to hurt the spiders,
who were trying to catch something other than me
 and now have to rebuild their webs as if I,
hurricane Sandy,
had blown and washed over their beach side cottages

The thorn must come out,
nothing will be possible until the thorn is removed and
the discomfort removed and
the distraction removed and
the swelling removed and
the memories of the summer sun removed and
the joy of the sight of the deep red fruit removed and
the wonder over the spider with the long green legs removed and 

the complaint of the cardinal being kept from her breakfast removed

from within me

With the thorn gone, the fevered skin calmed,
the constant ache subsides

and what remains is the memory of the sun warmed & sweet wineberry in summer

I am only slightly aware of the sharp thorny consequence of my lust,

and I am free to go back into the thicket again.

Letters to Friends

Sometimes we get caught out 

Xxxx,

Sometimes we get caught out in life,

the wind gets too strong

and the seas too big

We gotta tuck a reef into the sail, or two or even three,

And maybe just heave to and ride it out

All of our technology and belief in our 

higher evolved minds

don't change the facts or 

the marching on of time

A young woman, just entering the convent,

with more wisdom and humility than

most ever get,

said, "On the day I was born I also began to die."

No matter how many miles we travel,

Upon the sea or on the land,

we find that the planet is round-ish,

we always end up where we started,

and we actually never went anywhere

They send those guys up in rockets,

but they all just come right back.

While they are up there, out there,

they take pictures of the earth.

1 minute, or 100 years,

for the person living it,

it's a life complete

You can't know what you didn't have,

and you can't have what isn't yours.

I don't remember a single thing that happened before I was born,

I don't have reason to believe that the day after I die will be any different

That doesn't make me sad or scared or even curious much.

It does make me really enjoy these strawberries while they are in season this year,

I may not be here next year, or maybe they won't

When the seas is crashing all around and my hands are locked upon

the ships wheel, trying to keep my little ship afloat, and I see

Another ship out toward the horizon

I know that the crew has it's own ship and storm

and heading

We may eventually see each other in an anchorage

and give a knowing nod to each other, having both weathered the storm

or, one of us may lie to an anchor, in a safe harbor

and look out passed the breakwater and wonder,

"Did that other ship weather the storm?"  "Are they safe in some other harbor?"

"Are they lost?"  " Am I and I just don't know it?"

No matter if I am out on the atlantic sea, or the red rocks of the desert,

or on my couch in my little house,

I can never go to a place, where I don't bring with me,

all I have ever been, all the laughs, all the tears, all the wonderings

and all the pains and regrets.

Tools

I have wondered what our world would be like if we CHOSE to build tools that only used human power to do the work they assisted us with.

No pollution and no need for a gym membership, or the vast
amount of entertainments that we currently use.
(picture taken from internet)

This seems like a reasonable choice.  We'd still mine and smelt ore.  We'd still manufacture things........
But,
Instead of a leaf blower we'd use a rake.

Instead of a car we'd use a bicycle, or maybe a horse.

Instead of a dryer we'd hang clothes in the sun, or by a wood stove.

In so many ways we might remove so many of the problems that we have created with machinery.

We might have less traffic fatalities due to high speed collisions, and we'd have less pollution from cars.  True we'd have do deal with horse shit if we used them for transportation, but that can be absorbed by the earth and even used as fertilizer, adding to the quality of the soil.

We'd need more people to do the work that is now done by machinery.  The jobs are traditionally less paying but then maybe the goods made would have to cost more to balance out the whole system.

Owners of farms have said that they can't afford to pay workers, but that is a construct of man.  If the food cost what it does in labor to grow it then the price at the market should reflect that.  What choice is there otherwise, not to eat.  Each laborer on the farm should be able to eat well if he, or she, is in fact doing the work it takes to grow the actual food.  Doesn't that just seem reasonable?

I'd rather here my neighbor's rake dragging across his leaf and stone than the whining motor of his leaf blower.

letters to friends

Xxxx,

......It is too bad you don't have the farming/gardening bug, but I don't have it either.  I'd rather be sailing.  I'd rather be traveling and seeing things like the high latitudes, the Pacific Islands, New Zealand.  I'd rather be in my Vanagon traveling to Patagonia or back out west to hang out with the families.

I don't garden because it is a bug I caught, or even an obsession, like sailing and boats are for me.  I do it because I think it is the right thing to do, a responsible way to live and eat and think.

  Most all other living things, actually all other living things, spend their time and energy trying to get food, shelter and sex.  All you have to do is look around to see it.
     Look at a plant, any plant, or a bird, or a raccoon, or a fly or a mouse, or a fish.  Not much time spent watching YouTube for these beings, nor do they spend their time writing emails. Because of the lack of time spent doing these things, and all the other things that only humans do, they don't have the infrastructure needed to support these activities, or the industry that creates them, or the resource exploitation required to supply the raw materials to manufacture them.  They don't build fires to melt ore, or even, to keep themselves warm.  They don't unleash fossil particulates that have been sequestered for thousands of millennia, into the atmosphere while creating fuel to get them from one place to the other.  They aren't so stationary and concentrated in there living situation so as to piss and shit themselves into disease.

I don't garden because it is the only thing I want to be doing.  I do it because no matter what else I change in my life to be reasonable about what I take from the planet, and how I live on it, food is still the one thing, the first thing, I must get and how I get it matters.  

Everything I eat has to be hunted, gathered, or grown or raised.  Most of the food that is in the grocery store is grown or raised, processed and prepared, packaged and transported in ways that are very harmful to all of us.

When I say that  this food is harmful to all of us, I mean all of us, the entire living planet, plants and animals included.  It seems almost impossible that with so many species of living things on the planet, just one of them, humans, could live in a way that is so out of alignment with the system we find ourselves in, that we could threaten most of the living things currently in it, including ourselves.  Yet, this is where we find ourselves.

When we bother to think about how that one little box of cereal came into being, all of the farm land, tractors, pesticides, fertilizers,packaging and transportation used to get it to your table, we should loose our appetite.  If you put some milk on it and think about the way dairy cows live, what they are injected with, subjected to, and the amount of shit they produce, in concentration, then you might just skip your breakfast.

It doesn't have to be this way.  That's why I garden.  That's why I keep a few chickens at home, on my .8 acres of sloped rocky soil that I call home.  All of our waste, stays on site, except for the little bits of plastic and metal that, try as I do, seem to make it to our home and to be way too much.  Most of that is recycled.
     A good portion of the energy we need to live comes from our property too.  The goal is to either get more energy from here and/or, use less.

The positive thing about your 17 acres of land and not gardening, is that you have 17 acres of land that is not being leased to energy companies or logging companies or being razed to create more houses or factories for humans.  That land evolved, over a very long time, to work for the living things that inhabit it and the rest of the planet and continues to.  It is a bit of a preserve in that way.  It is actually working in opposition to all the destructive ways humans are living.  Trees, soil, water, animal life are all existing in a manner that promotes life rather than degrades or destroys it.

You don't have to have the gardening bug to dig up a few feet of earth outside your kitchen door and plant a few beans or carrots or squash.  All you need is to have a bigger view life, and an honest assessment of what each penny you spend supports, where each calorie you burn comes from.  Not only does growing a few vegetables give you a bit of food to eat that has not had to use petroleum to get to your table or be petro-chemically fertilized, but it also puts you right up close to the other living things that have to share this planet with us.  It promotes the nurturing and compassionate side in us.

  

There are great lessons to learn when you put a seed in the ground and water it, and watch it grow.  You have to put it in the right spot for sun and drainage, give it the right environment.  You may have to watch a beetle or a fly or worm or groundhog threaten it and then decide what to do about that.  Do you kill or hurt the thing that wants to feed on your tomato or bean, or do you let it get it's food, just the way you are trying to get your food?  Those "pests" didn't force the cucumber plant to grow here, you did.  They are just hunting and gathering from what is available, the way that their kind and all other kinds, except humans, have always done.  It is then that you will have to decide what kind of person you are willing to be.  

Most of us decide, even though we our lives are short, that our lives, and more importantly, our lifestyles, trump all other lives.  Not just the ones in front of us now, but even those we don't see, don't know, will never know and that will come after us.  If it were just thinking about our own personal lives, instead of our lifestyles, being the most important thing to us, we might act differently.  Then when that groundhog or deer come into your garden to eat your tomato, you'd probably just kill the animal and eat it.  But instead we poison the ground with pesticides that kill other living things that we don't even eat and that don't come chasing after us.  We want it all for ourselves and we want it the way we want it and we don't share well.  

But just because we can do something doesn't mean we should do it.

     I know that my garden doesn't feed me completely.  I don't get all of my energy needs from here at my home.  I use things that are made of plastic and other materials that come at high costs to others and the environment, like this computer.  But I am trying to use less and I am aware of what I do use.  

     Every bean that comes from my garden, or even a bean I buy from a local and ethical farmer, is one less that is shipped from far away, in trucks and trains and boats that pollute the air.  It seems to me that if we all made efforts to reduce the harmful tolls we take on the planet, then we all might still be able to enjoy the real and good and meaningful benefits of innovation and technology, without the huge negative affect we have had on the planet over the past century and without threat to the entire system.  

     All it would take is each of us trying to live a reasonable life, walk a Reasonable path.

Peace,

R

P.S. 

I know that reason is subjective, but, the negative affects upon all life, from the way humans live, is not.  We are in a time that is a bit scary.  People in powerful positions hide behind superstition and ignorance in order to sustain and justify their lifestyle.  Some of these people are highly educated and because of that and their money, many align with them.  The polarization that is growing in the world might be largely economic but it has foundations in a philosophy about life and humanity that is short-sighted, simple minded, egotistical, and destructive.  It threatens another dark age in the midst of a technologically advanced society.  So much power, but without the wisdom to use it well.

Have a Nice Day!

Connect to a good set of speakers or headphones, put on some comfy clothes, clear away the furniture, or better yet get outside, maybe do a little stretching, put on a smile and click on the link and enjoy.

Pharrell Williams - Happy (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Check out the 24hr. video there is some fun dancing and lots of views of L.A.  Just lots of fun!

Happy Birthday Sam

Ownership

Like many of us, I struggle with the idea of ownership.  In our society the struggle is likely to be something along the lines of how to acquire and own more.  This is not my struggle.

Because of where I happen to be born my struggle is with how to own less.  As Americans most of us have more than we need, and use up most of the resources in the world.

I listened to somebody tell me how great the property was that he had just purchased.  It had lots of room and a great view.  He then told me how busy he was and that he had no time for the very things that come with owning a property.  He, thought it made more sense, economically, to pay somebody else to do that work.

We also spoke about automobiles.  He noticed the truck I had just purchased.  It is 18 years old, but in reasonably good condition and was very inexpensive.  Something another person was done with.  My friend said, "You got yourself a nice little truck there".  He then asked if he might buy it, but then went on to talk about trading in his own truck that was 5 years old for a newer one.  He talked of the "full coverage insurance" he carries on his vehicles and how much that cost.  His insurance coverage for a few months equals the purchase price of my new-used truck.

I like the things I buy to be "used" or discards.  They require less of the resources of the planet for their construction, manufacture, & transport to market.  The also most times, remove something from being piled up into a landfill.  I give them more useful time, as well as get to learn something about them by fixing any issues they might have had.  This makes me feel good and it also saves me a huge amount of money.

I do own a lot of things.  Many of the things I own were in trash heaps or headed to them.  The benefit of owning enough property to store some things on is that once I acquire them the can sit and be worked on, or be stored for use later and their is no inconvenience or cost.

For example, I like sailboats.  I own three, and about 6 other boats.  They were all either purchased used and for very little, or I built them myself.  In fact 2 of them were given to me.  These boats cost me nothing to keep.  The barn I built to house them cost me nothing to build as it was from scrap wood and materials.  I am now paying for one boat to be in slip in a marina and this is my indulgence to myself.  I am paying the off season rate and thus it is much more economically manageable for me.  I take the boat out about once a week and this is my favorite recreation.  Even though they cause me no hardship of money and they do give me great pleasure and inexpensive recreation, I don't need the number of boats that I own.

I do realize that when I have just one of something and enjoy it, I quite possible enjoy it more.

As long as ownership is not a burden on myself or the world around me by using up resources, my own, or the worlds, I see no great problem with ownership, with the understanding that ownership should be useful and not just to attempt to satisfy an unquenchable hunger to consume or gain status or identity.

Ownership should be reasonable.