February 28, 2015 - Ice Caves

The Lord of Winter begins to build fortresses all along the banks of rivers, and seemingly overnight these ice caves appear.  Some of them are deep and elaborate with many rooms and corridors.  Daily the sun grows stronger, and as it does, the construction of the ice caves continues at a furious rate.  Whereas winter lazily dropped its feathery snow here and there, now ice as hard as steel forms at an alarming rate as the sand goes pit-pat pit-pat in the hourglass.  The ice caves rise up as if by magic and gleam like diamonds.  Soldiers are posted outside to ensure the passage of creatures of the cold only.

When the largest stronghold is built, the Lord of Winter will retire within.  He will invite any creature of the cold who wishes to oversummer in his palace.  Those who do not come are lost in time.  All of the snow on the fields and the ice on the lakes are carefully brought into the ice caves at night, under cover of darkness.  In these secret caves, all of the frozen winter things will stay safe and sleep until needed again.

Ice caves on the shore of the Cathance River.

Then the Lord of Winter will put a spell on the portcullis of his ice mansion, and a faerie glamour will be cast so that no eye looking upon it shall see it.  To all who walk by, to those in boats and the children who swim in the lake in the summer, the ice mansion will be invisible.  A keyhole will be carved into the portcullis, and no key forged by man will work on this hidden lock.  It is the Sun King himself who holds the key, although he does not know it.

And someday when the heat of summer has parched the land and the harvests have been collected and the explosion of life has grown tired and weary, the Sun King will grow listless and will turn his chariot in a slightly different direction, hopelessly searching for the Maiden of Spring.  The tiny beam of light he casts at that very moment will find the hidden keyhole on the frozen portcullis, and the ice mansion and ice caves will rise again as if by magic.  Then the eye will see once again what was always there, and the Lord of Winter will take his rightful place.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  Stories.  All stories.  We tell them in the late winter when we are consumed by ice and death.  They keep the Candle of Hope lit in our hearts as the ice crashes relentlessly against the shores.

February 27, 2015 - The Old Windmill

I drive by it too often to not wonder about it now and then.  This rickety old windmill sits out in a field, not doing much of anything these days.  There’s a house in the background, but I don’t believe the windmill is on its property.  There is an old farm to the left of the windmill, not shown in the photo, and I think at one point this old windmill played a part on that farm, although it appears to have retired quite some time ago.  A road now runs between the farm and the windmill.

I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s an old Aermotor windmill.  They were known as “the mathematical windmill,” based on sound engineering principles.  The Aermotor Company was founded in the 1800’s and is still around today, but I think this particular windmill was made back in the earlier years.  When the steel wheels first came out, they seemed almost a joke, but they were dramatically more effective than the wood wheels that were used in the 1800’s and they rapidly replaced them.  These windmills were, and still are, used to power water pumps.

But there are no animals on that farm anymore, and no more crops are grown either, other than a small personal garden.  The windmill sits in a field as a marker of former times and days gone by.  It’s like an old monument now, an old statue.  I use it as a marker these days to identify where I am on my trip.  “Oh, there’s the old windmill,” I say to myself, “I’m halfway there.”

The old Aermotor windmill.

February 26, 2015 - Solar Power

Next year’s heating wood is stacked in large piles all around people’s houses.  It’s drying out and becoming “seasoned.”  Even in winter, the process of drying out and seasoning continues.  Winter air is often quite dry, and winter wind can do much to dry out a pile of wood.  Seasoned wood burns much easier than green wood.  It’s easier to care for a fire made from seasoned wood, and there’s less creosote in the chimney, which means a lower chance of a chimney fire.

As I look at the piles of wood sitting everywhere in huge drifts of snow and ice, I imagine how they will transform when they are used.  I imagine the warmth they will give off when they burn.  I think about the snug feeling of heat, the glow of the fire, and the happy faces of the people and the animals who sit around the fire.  But when you look at the wood in several feet of snow and ice, it’s hard to believe it will give off such heat and light.  Why isn’t it giving off the heat and light now?  Why does it sit there now in a frozen and motionless lump?  And how did the potential for heat get stored in the wood in the first place?

Bioenergy.

Green plants are amazing things.  They transform solar energy into chemical energy through photosynthesis.  We can’t do that.  We have to rely on the plants to do that, and they do it quite well.  When an animal or a human eats a plant, the chemical energy stored in that plant is burned through the process of metabolism.  The energy is then released and transferred to the body to be used for its various processes.  So the human body is obtaining solar energy in a second-hand form if it eats a plant and in a third-hand form if it eats an animal.

Trees, being large green plants, transform solar energy into chemical energy and store it in the wood.  This biomass is a renewable energy source based on the carbon cycle (as opposed to fossil fuels).  The combustion of wood releases the hidden stored solar energy within it, and we experience the heat.  This actually comes from the sun but is stored within the wood as chemical energy and released as bioenergy.  But it still comes from the sun.

Everything we do under our own power takes energy, which we get by consuming something, such as a plant that stored the sun’s energy firsthand or an animal that received it secondhand by consuming a plant.  But it still comes from the sun.

We’re all filled with the energy of the sun.  Some of that energy is actively being used right now.  Most of it sits in silence and waits.  This pile of wood contains a tremendous amount of potential heat, but only if it’s burned.  That makes me wonder what’s hidden within us, but only if it’s somehow released.  Each of us is filled to the brim with potential.  Whether or not we use it is another matter, but it’s there.  How will you express the sun today?

February 25, 2015 - Masters Of The World

It doesn’t seem fair that we humans should have to use a foot bridge to cross a river when a gull can just fly under the bridge or over it, but in either case it can easily cross the river without any help.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  Birds are the masters of this world.  What other creature can fly in the air, swim in the ocean, and walk on the land?  What other creature is at home with all three of these elements--air, earth, and water?

Humankind has come a long way, to be sure.  We have mastered land for certain.  We can swim short distances and build boats that will take us long distances over water.  That’s not mastery of the water, though, but cooperation because we still are not at home on the water.  We cannot fly at all, although it has always been our dream to do so, but we can build machines that can fly and they can carry us through the air.  Again, that’s not mastery of the air, but it is cooperation.  We can’t do any of these things as effortlessly as birds do, or other animals depending on the element, but we are trying.

The gull doesn't need this foot bridge.

There is one thing that we can do that the birds cannot, or any other animal, for that matter.  We can cooperate with fire, and the extent of our cooperation is intricate and tremendous.  We may not be able to bring flame forth instantaneously, but we can just about do so.  We can harness the energy of fire in a way that no other animal could ever hope to do, in a way that we could never have imagined just a few hundred years ago.

And because of this, we call ourselves masters of the world.  We tell ourselves that the Earth is ours and we are her stewards.  We plunder the planet in the name of privilege and call it our gift, our destiny, our right.  All because of fire power and our ability to cooperate with it.  The animals cannot do this, and therefore, we say that they are less than us.

What an awkward creature we are--landlubbers who believe we have conquered the sea and the air, our efforts clumsy and noisy, our attempts laborious and exhausting.  We are landlubbers who dabble in fire, our game dangerous and destructive.  But we are new, and we can blame our tomfoolery, our poor imitation of the creatures around us, on the infancy of our species.  Perhaps in time we will acquire the grace and patience of the rest of the animals and the majesty of the birds.

February 24, 2015 - No Trespassing

The sign on the old oak said “No Trespassing,” and each boy read it silently as he walked by.  Each boy had heard the stories about old Duncan who lived in the cemetery.  “Keep Out” said the next sign, and the one after that said “Private Property.”  Every day the three boys passed by old Duncan’s place, as the locals called the cemetery, when they were on their way to school and back, and every day each boy wondered why anyone would live in a graveyard.

One day Tom said, “Do you suppose anyone really lives in there?”  Jacob said he had always heard that old Duncan lived there and everyone knew that and how stupid could anyone be to ask.  Eddie said that sometimes he saw a wisp of smoke coming up from the old mausoleum now and then, like maybe somebody was cooking, so it was likely that someone lived there.

No Trespassing on Duncan's property.

“Yeah, but no one has ever seen anyone there.  I know I haven’t, have you?” Tom asked the boys.

“No,” said Jacob, “but that don’t mean no one’s there.”
“Doesn’t it??” Tom pressed.  “I asked my dad and mom and they said they never saw old Duncan there.”

“Old Duncan lived around these parts before our parents were born, so maybe they never had a chance to see him,” said Eddie.

“And maybe he died a long time ago,” Tom said, “if he ever lived at all.  Even our parents haven’t seen him!  My dad says all these signs have always been up around the cemetery, but every once in a while, some new ones get nailed up.”

“Your parents wouldn’t know since you only just moved here a few years ago,” Eddie said.

“But what about the signs?  They're so old!” Tom pressed.
“Yeah, they been up a long time, but that don’t mean nothing, and like you said, there’s new ones, too, every now and then,” said Eddie.

Every day the conversation was pretty much the same.  Each day Tom questioned the other two boys about old Duncan, about the cemetery, and about the signs.  Each day both boys looked warily at Tom because everyone knew old Duncan lived in the cemetery.  He always had, people said, and he always would.  No one buried anyone in that cemetery anymore anyhow.  They all used the newer one on the other side of town.  Duncan’s cemetery was strictly off limits and forbidden to anyone.  But the more Jacob and Eddie told Tom the stories about old Duncan, the more interested Tom became in the cemetery.

Even when they told Tom about old Duncan murdering Isabeau Potts for refusing him and then making off with her jewelry and money--and her body--Tom scoffed.  Duncan was a vagrant and never had a home, and Isabeau was rich and pretty and pretty mean, too.  She had secretly encouraged Duncan as a private joke with her boyfriend, and when Duncan professed his love for her in public--which she insisted he had to do in order to gain her favor--she laughed at him, called him names, and humiliated him in front of everyone.  Most of the townspeople laughed at Duncan that day, and he was never seen again.  Shortly after that, Isabeau Potts was never seen again, either, and the rumors spread about how she had died but no one knew for sure.

“I think Isabeau’s jewelry and money are in that mausoleum,” Tom said one day as they were passing by after school.  “I think he killed her, buried her in the cemetery, and then hid out in one of the old tombs until they finally stopped looking for him.  And I think he stashed the stuff in the mausoleum because why else would people see a wisp of smoke coming out of there now and then if he’s not in there?”

Jacob and Eddie looked at Tom like he was crazy, but they were clearly interested.  After all, Isabeau’s murder had never been solved, if she was murdered at all, since no one had ever found her body.  Her parents swore she was killed, and there was no doubt that her money and jewelry were gone but the jewels never turned up either.

“But wouldn’t he be dead now himself, like you said?” Jacob offered.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, “he’s gotta be dead by now.”

“Maybe,” Tom said, “but maybe not.  It could just be that he’s still around but very, very old.  And if that the case, he’s gonna die soon, and when he dies, he’s gonna take the hiding place of Isabeau’s jewels with him.  Unless we can convince him to tell us where they are--before he dies.”

The way Tom said that made Jacob very uncomfortable.  He had never trusted Tom very much anyhow, but Tom was big and kept him safe from some of the other bullies, so he kept his mouth shut.  Eddie knew exactly what Tom meant and it turned his stomach a bit, but he was very greedy for those jewels, having been poor all of his life.

“So what are you saying?” Eddie asked.

“I’m saying we go in there, find the old man, and get those jewels out of him.”

“I just don’t think it’s right,” Jacob said.

“Oh, please!” Tom said.  “He’s probably dead anyway, if he ever existed at all, and if he’s not, he soon will be anyhow because he’s so old.  Why should he get away with the secret?  We’ll split everything three ways!  You’re not scared, are you Jacob?  You don’t actually believe these old fairy tales, do you??”

Jacob just looked down and said nothing.  Eddie asked when, and Tom said tomorrow after school.  That was the end of an awkward conversation, and the three of them parted and went to their own homes.

The next day came and Jacob tried to get out of it, but Tom wouldn’t let him and the three of them left school and headed toward old Duncan’s place.  They were very careful to make sure that no one saw them climbing the old stone wall to get into the cemetery.  It was early in the year, and dusk was already swiftly approaching.

“I still don’t think it’s right,” Jacob said.

“Oh, shut up,” came Tom’s swift reply, and they continued on to the mausoleum, looking over their shoulders constantly.  Tom had brought a hammer because he thought they might have to smash a rusted lock off the door, but when they got there, they turned the handle easily.

“I can’t go in,” Jacob said.  “I just don’t think this is right.  You two can go in and I won’t tell on you, but I can’t do this.”  No amount of threatening or jeering from Tom would dissuade Jacob, so he and Eddie entered and shut the door behind them.  Jacob sat down by a tree near the door and just bit his nails.

It was dark inside, but Tom had brought a good-sized end of a candle and some matches.  He said his parents would never miss them.  He lit the candle and the two of them adjusted their eyes to the musty old room.  There were a few tombs inside, but neither of them was interested in reading them.  Eddie was shaking like a leaf and Tom was scared too, although he put a good front up.  There were three doors before them, and the one on the far right had a “No Trespassing” sign on it.

“That’s the one,” Tom said, pointing at it.  “I just know it.”  The other two doors looked dusty and rusted, but Eddie had to admit that the door that had the sign looked like it had been used, and recently too.  They walked toward it, pushed it open easily, and went inside.

But they were not prepared for what they saw.  The room was lit with several candles and sitting at a rickety old table was old Duncan himself.  Except he wasn’t very old; he seemed rather young to them.

“Didn’t you see the signs?” Duncan asked.

“Wh--what signs?” Eddie murmured.

“Why, the signs outside my front gate that say ‘No Trespassing’!” Duncan laughed hollowly.

“We saw ‘em,” Tom said belligerently, trying to sound braver than he felt.

“Oh, good,” Duncan said.  “They are getting a bit worn out, and I thought maybe you hadn’t seen them.  But it seems as though you have, and yet you came anyway!  Welcome, welcome!”

Tom and Eddie looked at each other nervously but said nothing.

“Yes, yes!  I really am Duncan,” Duncan continued.  “And this old mausoleum really is my house!” he laughed.  “But then, you knew that!” he smiled--a very odd smile, indeed.  “Would you like to see the jewels, Tom?”  That perked Tom up a bit, and he said he would like to see them.

“And how about Isabeau?  Would you like to see her, Eddie?  She’s still wearing that beautiful gold locket, the one with the picture of the boy she loved.”  Eddie just stared at Duncan with his mouth open, but Tom had advanced a bit closer and so he followed.  He noticed that Tom had tightened his grip on the hammer until his knuckles were white and his hand shook.

“It’s just in here, then,” said Duncan and pointed to a door to his left.  “Come!  Come!  It has been so long since I’ve had guests!”  He opened the door, went in, and then closed it most of the way, leaving just a crack open.  Eddie and Tom stared at each other again, not saying a word.  Eddie shook his head a tiny bit and nodded toward the exit, but Tom motioned to the door Duncan had gone in.  “We’ll just look for a bit,” he whispered in Eddie’s ear, and so the two of them went in and shut the door behind them.

Duncan was nowhere to be found, but there was a filthy old table in front of them that appeared to have rusted old pieces of some sort of metal on it.  There was only one candle lit in the room so it was hard to see, and the two of them walked toward the table.

“Oh shit!  That’s dried blood on that table!!!” Eddie yelled.  At the same moment, they heard a sound behind them and he and Tom whirled around quickly.  Duncan had two rusty implements, one in each hand, which he thrust forward with tremendously ferocious strength, his eyes gleaming madly in the candlelight!  Tom and Eddie both just let out a surprised cough and fell.  “Much work to do with guests,” Duncan whispered to himself.

Outside, Jacob still sat nervously by the tree.  It was starting to get dark and he wanted to leave so badly, but he was afraid to abandon his friends inside.  The door to the mausoleum creaked open and someone stepped out.  It was hard to make out whether it was Eddie or Tom in the dwindling light, and Jacob squinted to get a better view but he didn’t have to squint long.  The person came straight toward him, but it wasn’t Eddie or Tom.

“I wonder if you’d do me a favor, Jacob?” the young man asked.  His clothes looked wet and slick in the dying light.  Jacob just stared at him.

“There are several ‘No Trespassing’ signs behind the old shed in back of the mausoleum.  You’ll find a hammer and nails in there.  I wonder if you’d get the signs and nail them up for me around the walls surrounding my house?” Duncan said.

Jacob jumped up but still just stared at him with his mouth open.

“I’m very busy entertaining right now.  Otherwise, I’d do it myself.”

Jacob nodded and started to back away, unable to breathe.

“Oh, and take this, too,” Duncan said, and he handed Jacob the gold locket.  “There’s a picture of a handsome young man in there who was also named Jacob, just like you.  It’s one of my favorite names.  Keep it close to you so you’ll always remember me.”

Jacob barely nodded.  He shoved the locket in his pants pocket and ran to the shed.  He knew that he had better keep his mouth shut and his wits about him.  He fumbled around in the last of the dying light and found the boarded signs, hammer, and nails.  Then he ran out with them without looking back and headed toward the cemetery wall.  He knew his friends were dead.  Tears were streaming from his eyes, and as if moving in a dream, he went wildly from one tree to another, nailing up the signs haphazardly, crazily.

He ran home with the hammer still in his hand, slipped quietly in the back door, and went up to his room.  He hid the hammer in the bottom of the back of his closet and then sat down on his bed with one candle lit, shaking from head to foot.  He knew he should tell someone.  He knew he should scream, do something.  He put his hand in his pocket and drew out the locket.  On the right side was a faded old picture of a handsome young man.  On the left side was a folded piece of paper.  He pulled the paper out and opened it up.  The only thing written on it was his own address.

“No trespassing,” he whispered to himself.  “There will be no trespassing.”

February 23, 2015 - Mind Over Matter

“I wish I were magic!” we would say, not realizing what we were asking for.  We were just children, and children see the entire world as magical.  We would wave our magic wands (a stick found on the ground) and make our wishes known.  Then we would stare at whatever we were trying to magic and wait to see the transformation, which we rarely saw.  Maybe we didn’t wish hard enough, we’d tell ourselves.  Maybe we didn’t stare at the thing hard enough.  Maybe we didn’t have the right magic words.  Maybe our stick-wand was a dud.  Then we’d run off and play something else, bored with the hard labor of fruitless magic.

But we didn’t know.  Watching this leaf crawl across the snowy field, completely at the mercy of the wind, I was reminded of childhood games from long ago.  “Abracadabra!” and the leaf crawls across the yard.  The wind blows this way and that, taking the leaf along for the ride.  The immobile leaf is now mobile, thanks to the wind.  Although now “dead,” it still carries latent energy from the tree.

The immobile leaf cannot receive the command.

There are other things in our world that function but cannot move.  Take, for example, yeast in bread dough.  Yeast is alive and consumes the starches of the bread dough around it, giving off gas, alcohol, and other fermentation byproducts.  But it cannot move on its own, and once it has consumed all of the starch around it, it goes dormant.  Unless we come along and flatten and stretch the dough out, thereby moving it to new territory where it can continue its magic of fermentation.  But it cannot continue without us.

That’s a big “abracadabra” right there, and most people don’t even know it.  The yeast does the transformation, but only under our directive.  The leaf on the snowy field lies immobile until the wind blows or until I go out and pick it up and move it.  That is the real magic right there.  That is mind over matter.  The leaf is not the matter in question; my hand is.

What I mean to say is, no wand was ever needed when we were children (or now, for that matter).  No magic words are necessary.  No mumbo-jumbo.  We have a mind (in addition to a brain) that can perform all kinds of magic.  Hold up your left hand and look at it.  Make it into a fist.  Now open it.  Repeat--fist and open.  That is mind over matter.  Your mind tells your body to do something, and your body does it.  Your mind tells your body to pick something up, to build something, to create something--and your body does it.

In case you think that’s not a big deal, you might want to think again.  We are a privileged species on this Earth, capable of doing almost anything--from the mundane to the mystical--for any reason or for no reason at all.  All we need to do is to say it to ourselves.  Open your hand.  Close your hand.  Fetch that leaf.  Make that bread.  Spin that wool.  Build that house.  Pass that law.  Build that plane so that you can fly, even though the human body is incapable of flight on its own.

There is no other creature on the Earth capable of creating, building, doing, destroying, moving, etc., the way humankind is.  The magic was never in the stick.  It’s in the performance, the carrying out of the intention.  You are the magic, so guard it well.  Pay attention to your thoughts and your actions, for there are surely “others” out there who are paying a great deal of attention to what you think and what you do, and they would be only too happy to have you continue to believe that you have no power.  Guard your thoughts:  make sure they’re your own.

February 22, 2015 - Waiting For Spring

I’m waiting for the cock to crow at dawn, waiting for the arrow to point not in a certain direction but to a certain time.  All eyes keep looking toward the east for the rising sun and that infinitesimal climb in angle.  The ewes are lambing now, always a sign that the time is near.  The chickens are giving another egg or so here and there.  In another few weeks the sap will be running, and the sugar shacks will be producing that wonderful amber liquid.

The animals and countryside seem to know a secret that the people have forgotten.  Perhaps it because everyone is so weary now.  Faces are long and tempers are short.  “I’ve had enough!  I’ve had enough!” everyone says.  Those who live in cities and large towns are especially morose because they cannot see the signs of the approaching season.  They can’t feel the rhythm changing yet.  It will come on them suddenly during what we call “fool’s weather,” when they will run outside without coats and promptly become ill.

But I see the changes.  I know she is coming.  I’m waiting for the cock to crow at dawn.  Time is still on my side.

Pointing toward spring.

February 21, 2015 - Mallards

Two pairs of mallards relax right at the edge of the ice on the Androscoggin River.  They form pairs in October or November and stay together until the female lays her eggs in spring.  After that, the males leave and wait for the moult, which starts in June.  The females lay a clutch of about 10 eggs, and it takes about four weeks for them to hatch.  It’s a difficult time for the females because so many critters love to eat those eggs.

In the many years I’ve been watching them, I’ve noticed that the females are very protective.  They form a tight group with other females, and the little ducklings all get put together in a pile.  They look like little corks floating in the water.  In fact, every spring I always say, “Where are the baby corks??  Have they popped up yet??”  I love watching those tiny little things bob up and down in the water.  Of course, we never end up with nearly as many as we start with, but it’s fun to try to count them.

Two breeding pairs of mallards.

One time a little baby got caught by my dock and some surrounding rocks and couldn’t get out, or at least that’s what I thought.  I ran down and grabbed it and dove into my car to follow the ducks who were already well on their way down the cove.  I ran to the shore a couple of times, each time having missed them by just a minute.  Finally, I drove far enough that when I ran down to the shore, I met up with the ducks.  (And I just want to say it’s not easy to drive with a baby duck squirming in your hand.)  I called to them and then put the baby in the water, but it swam all strange and looked very weird.  They swam away from it.

It was then that I realized they had abandoned the little duckling because it wasn’t in good shape.  It wasn’t going to make it.  I didn’t have anywhere to keep a duckling, and I think my chickens would have devoured it, so I had to leave the poor little thing there.  That was a lesson learned a long time ago, and I’ve never gone after another abandoned baby.  Nature does seem cruel at times, but I know she only does it to keep animals thriving.

I shall watch the mallards and all the other ducks again this spring as I do every spring.  It wouldn’t be spring without the ducks and the little corks floating by.  Seeing these two pairs together makes me think spring can’t be too far away.

February 20, 2015 - The First Thing

Standing on a bridge, I began to wonder about the relationships of things to other things.  How do we decide what something is without comparing it to something else?  The answer is, we don’t.  Everything becomes what it is in terms of how it relates to everything else.  For example, we can know what hot is because we can compare it to cold.  If everything were always hot, we would have no word for it.  But since everything is not always hot, we have reference points we can compare “hot” to in order to give it a definition.  And once we have those two points--hot and cold--we have an infinite variety of points in between, and each of those points get their meaning because of their comparison to the two original points.

So, two things are needed.  Each “thing” defines the other thing by being its opposite, or if not its opposite, at least by being “other.”  If we only had the emotion of love, it would simply “be” and we might not even be aware of it, but because we have hate, we have two points.  Then in between those two points run a gamut of other emotions as they relate to the two primary emotions on that particular line.

Therefore, we know what hot is because we know what cold is, and vice versa.  We know what love is because we know what hate is.  We know what high is because we know what low is.  And so on.  We know what light is because we know what darkness is.  We know what full is because we know what empty is . . .

Galls and their reflections.

But I got thinking.  What if we had something that couldn’t be compared to anything else?  How would we know what to call it?  How could we define it?  How could we discuss it or think about it?  The answer is, we couldn’t, at least not in this already-formed world.  Anything new that comes into this world, anything new that gets “thought up,” has an infinite variety of things that already exist to which it can be compared, and therefore, it can be defined, named, discussed, and thought about.

Still, there had to be a first thing, because if there weren’t, then any other “thing” that came along would have nothing to which it could be compared.  So, the first thing was just a thing that was “out there,” but it had no name, no definition, no understanding.  It just was.  But then there came along a second thing, and once that happened, everything exploded.  When the second thing came along, the first thing had something it could be compared to, and vice versa.  Each could be defined in relation to the other.  Each now had properties that the other did not, and once these properties were compared and established, an infinite number of sub-properties grew in between the two primal things, and so everything was born.

Where did the second thing come from?  I think it was just the first thing looking at its own reflection in its own mind.  I think it fell in love with itself, and the second thing was born.  That is what I think happened.  Once it began to consider another, then “otherness” was born.

So, in the beginning there was just one thing.  It was infinite but impotent and unknowable.  Then a second thing came along.  It was finite but a catalyst and a definer.  Then the third thing came along, and that was any point in between the first two.  That was us.  We were the third thing.  We discovered what we were by looking at the first thing and imitating the second.

But these galls flying over the river, with their reflections being even more beautiful and defined than their actuality, do not care about such things.  It is enough simply to be.

February 19, 2015 - Bald Eagles

Every now and then, I’ll find a bald eagle on the banks of a river or the shore of the ocean.  This one has been hanging out for a while.  The eating is good around here, with plenty of trout, bass, and landlocked salmon.  There are also plenty of small bird species to hunt as well, such as gulls and ducks.  I’ve seen this eagle almost every day now for a week, and I think he has set up camp here.  I don’t blame him.  An eagle perched on the shoreline like this is specifically looking for a meal.  There were at least 50 gulls and 50 ducks not far from him, keeping a wary eye.  I think this fellow was looking for a good fish dinner, though.

If you’ve never seen a bald eagle catch a fish, I can tell you it’s quite a sight to see.  They have very good eyesight, and when they spot a fish in the water, they swoop down from a very high height and snatch it right out of the water with their talons!  It all happens very fast.  Other times, they’ll perch on a river bank just like this one is doing, searching the waters.  They try not to get too wet when they fish, though.  Waterlogged feathers weigh them down, and if they get too wet, they’ll go somewhere to dry off for a while.

A bald eagle on a river bank.

Bald eagles don’t have the pure white head and tail until they’re of reproductive age at five years old, so I know this one has been around for a while.  I’ll continue to monitor the area when I can to see if there’s a mate.  The female is always larger than the male, so I don’t really know if this is a female or male, but hopefully I’ll find out soon enough.  Often, bald eagles will begin nest building and mating in February, much earlier than many other birds.  Since this is a sexually mature adult, there may be another bald eagle present, if not now then soon.  Maybe with some good luck, we’ll have little eaglets soon!

Of course, I say this all with a bit of wariness as well.  I’ve had more than one chicken of mine stolen by bald eagles and golden eagles.  Fish is usually their preferred food, but it seems like nothing in the world can resist a chicken dinner.

February 18, 2015 - The Jewels of Winter

There are jewels all around us every day in every season.  They sparkle and gleam when the light shines upon them in certain ways.  Each season brings its own secret wealth and beauty, and each season’s wealth is fickle and fleeting.  The jewels of winter lie mainly in the ice.  They form in perfect crystalline structures, guided by the motion of water that has been frozen in time.

In this picture you see the bejeweled edge of a river, like a diamond necklace on the throat of a beautiful woman.  Her long-flowing white dress cascades about her, with a train that covers the land.  She is the bride of the Lord of Winter.  Her jewels gleam as individual perfect little beads, hanging on a fringed edge.

How tempting they are to a jewel thief!  The shimmering crystal is more than the thief can bear.  Day and night he thinks of nothing else but the bejeweled bride of the Lord of Winter.  He plans his heist to occur in broad daylight, scheming to walk in and take the jewels right out from under the noses of the revelers.  His plan goes off like clockwork.  He enters the ballroom where the couple is dancing, and when he steps upon the floor, his brilliant sunlight illuminates the entire affair.

Then as the gleaming sun-thief shines and warms the party, one by one he steals each jewel from the Lady, beguiling her with duplicitous smiles and leaving with the fortune of winter’s jewels transformed.

The bejeweled necklace of the bride.

February 17, 2015 - The Bridge

A young man walked up to a bridge on a cold winter’s day.  He made sure there was no one around to see what he was going to do.  No one at home knew where he was.  No one would miss him.  He had no commitments.  No one was paying attention to an old swing bridge over icy waters.  He was all alone.  It was perfect.  He walked out toward the middle of the bridge with one thought in mind:  This is the end.

It was very cold out, and the snow was packed deeply on the foot bridge.  Ice hung everywhere.  Somehow it seemed fitting to him that the end should be this way.  It should be cold and lifeless and quiet.  He should be surrounded by ice when he died.  After all, he had been surrounded by the coldness and ice from other people his entire life, so it only seemed right that the coldness should follow him to his icy grave.  As if in response to these thoughts, the wind began to whip up in a ghostly frenzy, and it hollered and moaned past his ears.  He drew his collar up around his neck for warmth.

That's it, then, he thought as he reached the very center of the bridge.  Enough.  But as he was about to jump, he thought he heard a voice just behind him.

The bridge to there and back.

“Where are you going?”

He snapped his head around quickly, but there was no one there.  He felt very uneasy, thinking he must surely be going mad.  But that's what must happen, he thought, when you're heading toward death.  He turned back to his task.

“I said, where are you going??”  This time he knew for sure he had heard a voice, but when he turned around, no one was there.  One last conversation, he thought.

“It’s lucky for you that you chose the exact center of my bridge to stop,” said the voice.  “Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this chat.  But when you’re in the very center, you see, you are neither here nor there.  You’re not on one side and you’re not on the other.  You aren’t anywhere, really, but in the middle.”

“It’s alright with me if you don’t want to show yourself,” the young man said.

“I am what you see,” said the voice.  “I am the bridge.”

“Whatever.”

“So, where are you going?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” said the young man through tears.  “I’m here to end my life.  I can’t take anymore.  I just can’t take one more minute.”

“But you’re on a bridge, and bridges take people places.  They get people from one side to the other side, a side they might not have been able to get to had it not been for a bridge.”

“I’m going straight down,” the young man sighed.

“So it would seem,” said the bridge.

The man stood in silence for a minute or so, the wind howling around him.

“So how many people have you brought to where I’m going?” the man asked.

“Ah!  You mean not one side of the bridge or the other side of the bridge, but the third unseen destination, the one on every bridge?”
“Yes.  That’s what I mean.”
“Well, I was built in 1892,” said the bridge, “So I have seen many people come and go over these past 120 years or so.”
“I’ll bet.”

“Most of them just go from one side of the river to the other.  But there are plenty who have gone where you’re going.”
“So you’re used to it, then,” said the man.

“It doesn’t happen every day, but I am familiar with it.  Well, as far as I can be, which isn’t very far.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.  The wind seemed to whip around from every direction, and the young man shivered.

“Well, bridges bring people from one place to another,” said the bridge.  “Bridges connect things.  Bridges make paths where there weren’t paths.  Bridges bring things closer.  And if things operate the way they’re supposed to, it’s a two-way path:  People come and they go, back and forth, back and forth.  But where you’re going, no one ever comes back.”

“Maybe they don’t want to come back,” said the man.

“No one ever?  Not even once?”

“Why should they?” the man retorted.  “Life is hell!  I wouldn’t come back either!”

“No, you definitely won’t come back, but I don’t think it has anything to do with wanting to come back or not.  See, with the regular parts of the bridge, I have very strong feet on both sides.  I’m firmly planted.  I can see on both sides.  I can see where I begin and I can see where I end.  But with the destination you're interested in, I have no feet over there.  I can’t see into it.  I can’t feel the other side.  I can’t tell where it begins or where it ends.  It’s like I go just up to this gray wall or cloud, and what’s behind it, I haven’t a clue.”

The young man's hands were shaking in frustration and fear.  “Well, part of you must be on the other side, too,” he said, “if you’re leading there.  You can’t just connect to nowhere.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said the bridge.  “If I had a foothold over there, even a tiny one, surely someone over there would have found it, even just once, and come back across.  But no one ever has.  Ever.  It’s a one-way path.”

“Death is pretty final,” the young man murmured.

“Maybe.  Maybe not.  But one thing’s for certain:  When you take the bridge that way, you don’t come back.  Ever.  Where you go when you get there, whatever “there” is, is beyond me.”

The young man stood in silence for a few minutes.  It was getting colder and darker out, and the wind was even fiercer.

“Ready, then?” asked the bridge.

“For what?”

“You’re final destination, of course!  I’m a bridge.  That’s what I do.  I bring people places.  There’s no sense just hanging out in the center.”

“True,” said the young man.

He looked from one side of the bridge to the other.  The side he came from instantly called to mind anger and fighting and rage with his family.  That side brought sorrow and hopelessness and tears.  That side is what brought him to the middle of the bridge today.  The other side of the bridge had a lot of unknown things on it.  He’d been there but not often and never long enough to feel comfortable.  He didn’t have anyplace to stay there and no friends.  He didn’t have a job and didn’t know where he’d get any food.  Those things were all over there, of course, but he didn’t know how he’d go about finding them.

Dusk was upon him and the wind was terribly cold.  The young man looked back and forth from the side he came from to the other unknown side.  The bridge could take him from one side to the other, and back and forth again if he changed his mind.  The bridge offered him choices and gave him connections.  He stepped back from the center edge of the bridge and touched the frozen rail.  Then he walked off silently to where the bridge ended on the other side without saying a word and disappeared into the growing darkness.

The bridge hung in the icy cold wind over the frozen river as night approached.  In the very center just off the bridge, there was a gray cloud.  In the center of that there was a large black hole that turned around and around in a counterclockwise direction.  A chilling voice came out of the center and said, “Mine!”

“Not this time,” said the bridge.

February 16, 2015 - The Damariscotta River

We Mainers like to think of ourselves as having quite a history, being one of the oldest parts of the U.S. first settled in modern times.  We have our historic forts and homes, creepy old graveyards with crumbling headstones, iconic old lighthouses, etc.  We have history here, a long history that many states cannot boast, but our history pales in comparison with the history of the actual land.

Here is a photo of the beautiful Damariscotta River, which has a real history.  Damariscotta is an Abenaki word that means “river of many fishes,” and rightly so.  The 19-mile Damariscotta River starts at the Damariscotta Lake (fed by many tributaries) and makes a quick drop through Damariscotta Mills until it reaches the Salt Bay.  There it becomes a tidal river and flows southward to the Atlantic Ocean.  It is quick-running and breathtaking, even in the winter, and runs through the Town of Damariscotta, settled in about 1640, one of my favorite places in Maine.

The Damariscotta River.

Nowadays, the Damariscotta River is still very important for tourism, cruises, oyster and mussel farming, fishing, clamming, etc.  But this is nothing new for the Damariscotta River.  There are oyster shell middens (dumps) on the banks of the river that are 2,500 years old, a tad older than the oldest Popham Colony settlers from 1607.  The Whaleback midden was the largest of these middens, being about 30 feet deep and one-third a mile long.  It was formed from 200 BC to 1,000 AD with three main layers to it.  Many tribes of prehistoric people used this area as a dump for oyster shells, with the topmost layer being deposited by the Abenaki tribe, which used the Damariscotta River area to fish in the summertime.

Unfortunately, most of the Whaleback midden is gone now, having been processed into chicken feed in the late 1800s by the Damariscotta Shell and Fertilizer Company.  We have learned a lot about the people who used the midden by the remains that are still left, but I can only imagine what artifacts, treasures, and information must have been lost in the harvesting of this midden.  Today it is protected and is now a Maine state historic site with displays and hiking trails.  The next largest midden, the Glidden, is across the Damariscotta River in Newcastle.  It’s now the largest midden in the eastern U.S. north of Georgia.

By 1875, the once abundant oyster population of the Damariscotta River had disappeared.  Wild populations have been reestablished with the spawn of aquaculture oysters and are doing quite well.  Now we are managing the area in a sustainable manner.  What amazes me is how this area was used for oyster harvesting--and consequently shell dumping, which formed the middens--since prehistoric times, 200 BC., yet there were plenty of oysters and other fish to go around for at least a couple of thousand years.  That plenitude was seriously threatened by the late 1800s, but with a watchful eye, perhaps we can maintain the beauty and abundance of the Damariscotta River.

February 15, 2015 - To Realize

Sometimes I think about words.  Actually, I think about them a lot.  All the time, really.  I think about their origins, their meanings, their uses, their nuances, etc.  It’s what a writer does, and a writer in Maine can often find many quiet places to sit and think.  Those quiet places are where I see the Great Alchemist at work.  They’re how I learned of the Philosopher's Stone.  My words are my interpretations of the world around me.  They become my reality.

I “realize” them, and that’s what got me thinking today.  The dictionary tells us that the primary meaning of the word “realize” is to become aware of a fact or to understand something clearly.  This suggests something outside of us that we may only just have paid attention to, but it suggests something outside of our control.  He realized she was never coming back.  She realized she had missed her chance.  They realized the crop had failed.  Do you realize the risk you’re taking?

A secondary definition of “realize” is to cause something to happen.  This suggests something outside of us that we acquire with several variables that may be beyond our control.  The money helped him to realize his dreams.  With hard work and effort, she finally realized her goal.  They realized quite a profit from their investment.  Can you realize any benefit from all these years of hard work?

A cardinal realizes her breakfast.

But as I looked at the snow and the ice and the frozen world, I wondered if we had gotten that word all wrong.  I started calling it this:  Real-ize, almost as if it were two words, with a slight hesitation between the syllables.  When I started saying it that way, it started to change things in my mind.  It started to become a word of creation, a word that meant I could take something from the unmanifest and make it manifest.  Like the Great Alchemist does.  I wondered if maybe there were a lot more things we could all have in our lives if only we realized that we could real-ize them.

It’s the power of words.  If I don’t real-ize my fear, then I don’t have to be afraid.  If you don’t real-ize your loneliness, then you don’t have to be lonely.  If they don’t real-ize their anger, then they don’t have to be angry.  And so on.  It’s that we can choose what will be real for us and what will be not, simply by accepting or rejecting it.  Once rejected, it cannot be real.  It cannot be real-ized.

Where we get caught up is trying to apply this to what has already occurred (especially in the physical world) instead of the endless potentiality that lies immediately before us and further ahead.  For example, if I were to go out without a coat or gloves into the arctic conditions we’re experiencing here in Maine and then say I refuse to real-ize this cold, it will soon become pretty darn real to me anyhow.

To real-ize means that we are co-creators with the Great Alchemist, and we become co-creators by making conscious choices about everything, constantly.  For example, if you were to lose your job today, you could easily slip into paralyzing fear.  You could real-ize it really fast.  Your mind could jump ahead to imaginary unpaid bills, empty cupboards, clothes with holes, a mortgage unpaid, etc., and you could real-ize fear instantaneously.  From that fear, you could easily be paralyzed and do nothing, and the very things you feared could easily become a reality . . . because you real-ized them.

OR, you could lose your job today and refuse to real-ize fear.  You could refuse to jump into unpleasant thoughts that have not happened yet, and so you could remain mobile and not paralyzed.  From your mobile state, you could make phone calls to creditors to buy some time on payments.  You could sell a few items around your house that you’re not using and get a little cash, which could help fill those cupboards.  Being fed and warm, you could then use the extra time during your day when you would have been at work to find another job.  It could happen right away or it could take some time, but if you went after it, you would get it.  You might have to find an interim job at first before finding the one you really wanted, but you would do it.  You could real-ize a whole new income and possibly a whole new life.

The choices are always there.  I can’t change the weather or my age, my height or my skin color.  But I can change a good 95% of the things in my life by being a co-creator and real-izing them.

That’s what I learned in alchemy today.  The Great Alchemist real-izes the world around us on a daily basis.  We real-ize the world within us on a daily basis as well.  If we stop and pay attention to how she accomplishes her tasks on the outside, we are given a clue as to how we might accomplish our own on the inside.  If we follow her rhythms on the outside and pay attention to her carefully but simply made plans, we can find our rhythms on the inside and create our lives just as carefully yet simply.  Can you real-ize the implications?