October 31, 2015 - Hallowe'en

What is this thing called Halloween that we have celebrated for hundreds, probably for thousands, of years?  “Hallow,” means holy, and “E’en,” which is short for “efne” or even, means evening.  Holy Evening.  Hallowe’en.

Really, it was just a harvest festival, the origins of which are lost in time.  There are those who will say it is attributed to this idea or that, to this religion or that, but in actuality, who can really say for sure?  Over hundreds and hundreds of years, many cultures have contributed to what we now know as Hallowe’en.  We do know that it is definitely related to the harvest and to the end of the growing season.  And the end of the growing season also means death, so it is related to death.

The end is near.  Time to celebrate!

I don’t think death meant the same thing to ancient people as it does to us today, and frankly, I think I like their definition better.  Death always comes at the end of life, of any kind of life (there’s no escaping it), and it is not something to be afraid of but something to celebrate.  It is the fulfillment of the obligations of life.  It is the doorway into the next world, and that’s something to celebrate!

I think for ancient civilizations, death was only a dream.  It’s still only a dream if you pay attention.  The dead cross from one realm into another.  The harvest crosses from one state of being into another--quite literally into us.  It’s only natural to think of those who have died and associate them with the death of vegetation at this time of year.  So a great harvest festival was had, and it was a holy day because the harvest ensured the continuity of life and because loved ones who had passed on were remembered.

The costumes--the ghosts and witches and monsters--and masks are not meant to frighten people but to frighten away any negative thoughts or ideas.  They’re meant to scare away the fear of death, not death itself.  They’re meant to scare away those who would use the fear of death, and as long as you know this, you needn’t be afraid but instead can join in. 

They say the veil between the worlds is very thin now, and our dead loved ones can come and visit us on this night.  So light a candle in remembrance of them and to guide them.  Set a place at the table with a glass of wine or their favorite drink.  Perhaps they will impart some wisdom to you from the otherworld.  It’s a nice custom, setting a place for someone who has passed on.  It’s a way to let them know they’re still remembered and to let the living know that someday a place will be set for them as well.

And while you’re setting a place at the table and pouring some wine, bob for apples, go trick-or-treating, carve a Jack-o’-lantern, tell ghost stories, eat candy apples, and gaze into a mirror in a dark room to see the face of your future husband.  Write your name backwards and read it that way three times at the stroke of midnight in order to turn invisible.  Throw some salt over your left shoulder if you go out.  Get into the spirit of things!  It only comes once a year.  Such a pity.

October 30, 2015 - The New Meadows River

Not much happened along the New Meadows River today, and it’s my understanding that not much happened there yesterday, either.  If this trend keeps up, and I see no reason why it shouldn’t, it’s very likely that tomorrow not much will happen along the New Meadows River.  Again.

Busy on the New Meadows River.

There are those who would beg to differ with me, though, and rightly so.  For instance, the fluff on the river reeds that contains the seeds got a little fluffier.  Some of the seeds blew away and are busy planting themselves as I write.  They’ll be next year’s crop.  The last of the cattails burst open.  A great many beautiful and colored leaves flew off the trees.  The water just seemed to swallow them up greedily.  The marsh grasses turned even yellower.  The last of the wading birds left.  Also, the wind was quite fierce.

Someone left a little boat hidden behind the reeds.  It’s not a big deal, and no one knows it’s there anyway besides me and whomever it belongs to.  It will still be there when he comes back.  There’s not much chance of it being taken.  Actually, there’s no chance of it being taken at all, which is why it’s there.

It might be sunny tomorrow.  But maybe it won’t be.  You never do know along the New Meadows River.  It keeps you on your toes.

October 29, 2015 - Where Is The King?

Oh, no, not at all. You won’t find the pretty yellows or oranges or reds of autumn here.  The time for that is over.  The time for making merry and pretending that the bounty will never end is done.  There are no dancers left, and even the wallflowers have slunk away.  The band is gone.  The hall is empty.  The party is over.

Except for the mist.

This is how it begins.  This is how it ends.  The creeping mist touches everything now, shrouding life in a thick fog, mummifying the King.  And we don’t see much of him anymore, do we?  Where has he gone?  Where is the King?  The land is crying out for him, but the cry is in vain.  Where is the light?

The birds of prey are circling above.  Something has fallen into the water, but no ripple is made.  No movement.  Everything is still.  Except for the mist, as it winds in and around every manifestation, making me wonder if anything was ever really there.  I must have been dreaming.  Surely, I dreamt it all.  There was no bright King, no green Queen, no brilliant colors.  No animals tiptoed to the shore to drink.  No insects buzzed around.  No birds sang to the heavens.  It has always been gray and misty.

Now it comes upon us all.  Now is the time to begin the lament.  The mourners come to the shore now.  The banshee wails.

October 28, 2015 - Bring Me October!

We are past our peak in foliage, but a good amount still remains and makes the countryside beautiful.  The next storm should knock most of it out.  That’s a storm I do not look forward to, but I know it must come.  When it does, the house will shake from the ferocity, and in the morning, all the colors will be gone.  The ground will be littered with them.  Then they will quickly turn to brown and then gray.  And we will forget again.

Bring me October, the end.

It’s strange to think that the yellow and orange in the leaves is always there but cannot be seen because of the green of the chlorophyll.  Every ride taken in the countryside in the summer contains these beautiful orange and yellow leaves, but they cannot be seen because of the overpowering green.  Every glance at the countryside contains brilliant splashes of phenomenal color, but we cannot see it because of the green.  We see only the color of lush growth and bounty, the color green.  Yet secretly hidden within that bounty are the dramatic colors of demise.

But how I yearn for the fall each year!  I can scarcely wait for my beloved October to come along and bring me the demise.  I can scarcely wait for the beautiful end.  My eyes are relieved, finally, from the monotony of green.  (I conveniently forget how much I longed for the green in the early spring.)  Enough growth, enough lushness, enough bounty.  Enough, I say!

Bring me the sorrow of October.  Bring me the colors of demise.  Let me wallow in the destruction of everything.  Bring me the brown, and then bring me the gray.  Then cover me with a white blanket and let me sleep.

October 27, 2015 - The Mighty Oak

If I were an oak tree, I would choose to be unique among trees.  When springtime came, I’d stay barren while the buds on the other trees were swelling and bursting.  When the other trees had leafed out lush and green and glorious, I would begin my awakening.  I wouldn’t worry that no one was watching me because they were too busy watching the impossibly lush maple trees.  Maples seem to need more attention anyhow, but I’d be fine on the sidelines, slowly swelling into a very deep and dark and powerful green.

The oak on the old Muddy River.

If I were an oak tree, I’d take my time growing so that the wood of my trunk would become very strong and hard.  When delicate birches were crashing around me and splitting in half at the trunk because of an ice storm, I would weather the monstrous cold as if I were on a tropical island.  My tough wood could certainly withstand a paltry -20F temperature, and easily more than that.  While other trees were bowing their heads to the Lord of Winter, I would not wince or move at all.

And because I’d have chosen to grow so slowly and so strongly as an oak, I would easily live to be many hundreds of years old, perhaps even a thousand.  I would see civilizations come and go, from birth to death, whole countries whirling into being and whirling out again while I dig my roots in deep at the old river.

If I were an oak tree, I would be much too busy fortifying my boundaries to give sweet sap in the spring like the maples do.  I wouldn’t give the heavy resins that the quick-growing, soft-wooded fir trees do.  My bark would be rock hard, not peeling and papery like the birches.  I wouldn’t succumb to the blight as the chestnuts do.  I wouldn’t put up with the constant animal raids that the fruit trees deal with.  I would stand firm and alone.

I would have none of the foolishness of the other trees.  I would grow tall and strong and quiet.  In the fall, when the maple trees were giving their brilliant but all too brief display, I would patiently wait, green and quiet.  Then when the reeds were turning to yellow and brown and the maples had finished their garish theatrical play, I would slowly turn my leaves to a deep and dark red, in a reminder to all that I am the King of the forest.  I am the lifeblood of the land, and anything fashioned from me by only the bravest of carpenters is impenetrable.  I am a force to be reckoned with; I cannot be conquered.  I am the Mighty Oak.

October 26, 2015 - Jack-o'-Lantern Trim Your Light

When I was young, in late October we sang this song over and over until All Saints’ Day came on November 1.  I have never been able to find it anywhere on the internet until tonight when I put it in Google.  I found just one site that was not there last year, and there was no explanation as to the words, so I am sticking with mine being of older internet origin.  Again I ask if anyone knows the origin of this song.  If so, please do let me know because it’s a magic song.

Jack-o’-Lantern, trim your light!

Fairies come and dance tonight!

Tripping, skipping on the green!

Merry be our Hallowe’en!

How we loved this song!  We sang it over and over, up an octave and down an octave and then up an octave again.  Each time we sang the verse, our excitement mounted, and it was especially fun to sing it at night when many coincidental things would happen.

Caught red-handed on their way to see him!

That is precisely what I was doing just after twilight when I found these fellows all rushing off to a party, their finest hats upon their heads.  I stopped them in their tracks to ask them where the party was, but they refused to tell me.  I had the advantage, you see.  I had a very bright flashlight, and they do not like such bright lights at all, especially at night.  So I persisted in asking them and in shining the light directly on them.

That might not have been such a good idea.  No, not at all.  Because I could have sworn I heard the Jack-o’-lantern song somewhere off in the woods, getting a bit louder and louder still as the singers came closer and closer.  I kept my light very bright and rushed off, begging their pardon.  I forgot how well the song worked.  Merry be our Hallowe’en, indeed!

October 25, 2015 - A Secret Dream

And here in the secret clearing stands the even more secret homestead, visible only from a rocky outcrop I know of, and even then I have to use the full zoom lens to see it.  It’s not spying, not really.  I do like to come and look at it though, secretly.  Hidden.  I like to admire it.  It’s a rare view into a private dream that shaped reality according to its own design.  There’s safety here and privacy.  It’s a place to lay down your burdens.

A dream within a dream.

Off in the distance, barely visible unless you magnify the photo greatly, a lone horse crops the grass of the dreamworld.  To him, this is the only world, and he doesn’t know about the outside world, the one occupied by you and me.  He thinks the whole world consists of the sweet secluded meadow in which he grazes.  And this is a good thing.  Let’s have one creature on Earth who rests securely and safely in her bounty.  If we can have one creature who lives moment by moment in the beauty of nature, we can know that somewhere hope still lives.

Out in the woods at a higher elevation, I sit on a sun-warmed rock and I dream about a dream, but it’s somebody else’s dream.  It’s a dream once-removed, so it has been filtered through the sieve of two fantasies, and one of them does not belong to me.  It is a dream I am borrowing.  Perhaps I am a watcher after all.  A spy.  A stalker.  That is what makes it so deliciously enticing, and of course, it means that it will be forever out of my grasp.  But I can love from afar.  Love can be one-sided.

October 24, 2015 - Adventure

Feeling like a hobo, singing to myself, and hiking on down the tracks.  Thinking of a world much different than today’s world, where men carved their way through the wilderness and built a country, when human ingenuity was unlimited.  Walking through a time warp to a different day, when travel was on the rails and not in individual cars, and men and women still conducted themselves as such.

I'm on my way.

The leaves are changing color, a symbol of dying.  Is that a sign?  Have the rails died?  Are real adventure and the American experience gone for good?  Is adventure now neatly packaged into ridiculously unbelievable movies that give people false beliefs while oozing propaganda into their frontal lobes?  Anyway, I hope not.  Did you ever get that feeling that you want to hop on the caboose and find some real American adventure?  I sure do.  Don’t forget:  The leaves will be green again come spring, so if they’re a sign, it’s a good sign.

Adventure is perennial.  It keeps coming back.  You just can’t stop the American Dream.

October 23, 2015 - The Old Boneyard Tree

Out in the old boneyard, the sun slants low in the sky and the old tree casts its shadow strangely, reaching for the graves with bony fingers.  It’s as if a hand is held out, beckoning the tombstones to come and be gathered up.  The old tree collects the graves for a special display.  He picks them up and places them here and there, and then he picks them up and replaces them again and again, unable to decide which way is more becoming for a final resting place.  It’s a macabre designing of the outward symbols of death, and the old tree is a master at it.

The old sentinel of the Gate.

The shadows play tricks on unsuspecting visitors to the boneyard.  They are never consistent, but instead creep this way and that in a random fashion.  At night, when there is no sun, the shadows are still there and are even deeper.  Night shadows have a special darkness that cannot be penetrated by light.  They hide by day and slip out at twilight, when the painful rays of the sun are safely doused.  They move restlessly all about the yard, and the old tree plucks them up if they try to escape and throws them back to their tombs.  His fingers are long and cold, and so far he has kept them all in the graveyard.  He is old but he is a vigilant guard.

All around the grounds, the residents witness the Earth as she finally begins to slip into her season of death, and not a moment too soon.  The colors are always too much for them, but the gray of winter is quite soothing with a frozen timeless beauty.  Soon the noise and disruptions the hot sun brings will fade away, and there will be peace again.  The deep white blanket of ice will hide many of the comings and goings of the shades, but the old tree stands guard, ever watchful at the Gate.

October 22, 2015 - Time Shift

Even when I was little--really little--I would look down at the footprints I made in the mud or dirt and think about them.  I would wonder how many people throughout history had stepped in the exact same spot and left an exact same print as I had.  It couldn’t be a footprint in a slightly different direction.  It had to be exactly the same, and it had to be the same size, too, come to think of it.

Then I would retrace my steps back to the beginning and try to walk in the exact same spots I had just walked so I could deepen the exact same prints.  All along while carefully walking, I would pretend that I was a person from the past.  Sometimes I would think of a Native American from perhaps a couple of hundred years ago.  Sometimes I would go farther back than that.  Sometimes I would go all the way back to prehistory.  Then I would imagine the person from another time walking the same path as me and leaving the same footprints.  And I wondered if they thought of the future, and if so, were they thinking of me?

A well-traveled river.

I told my mother about it.  Poor woman.  I don’t think she quite knew what to do with me.  I asked her if she did the same thing, if she thought about people from other ages walking in the identical places she now walked and if she wondered what they might be thinking and doing.  She said no, and I thought that was an extremely odd response.  When I asked her why not, she just shook her head.

But I still think about the people, even now when I am not so young anymore.  I still wonder who walked the paths I now walk.  I still wonder what their exact thoughts might have been when they stepped on the exact spot I presently occupy.  I still wonder if they might have thought of me.  I still wonder what would happen if I were somehow able to find an untouched footprint from hundreds of years ago and step on to it full force.

When I look at this river, I can’t help but wonder how many rafts and canoes and small boats have gone by in the exact same places.  It’s no different than the footprints, really.  Sometimes I see them all out there at once, and oddly enough, it’s not crowded at all.  They’re coming and going and dressed very strangely.  I stand on the bridge and watch them all, trying to catch their eye.  Occasionally, one will do an odd tilt of the head and look up to where I am standing.  The bridge does not exist in their time, but they are looking right at me, and I know that they know I’m here.  Just as I know they’re there.

October 21, 2015 - Upon Further Reflection

Upon further reflection, I will stand quietly and listen to the birds and animals around me rather than hop in a car and go for a ride to “leaf peep.”  I will stay very still and make no sound.  I will move as little as possible, and I will just wait.  I will wait and I will watch.  When my presence is forgotten, I will see the pond come to life.

A perfect reflection.

Upon further reflection, I will respect the nature around me, and that includes the predators.  I will allow them to stalk and kill their prey because that is their nature, and they need to eat, too.  I will allow the prey to be caught or to be lucky, as the case may be.  I will not interfere with the natural cycle.

Upon further reflection, I will watch the sun rise in the morning and travel across the pond water, as reflected in the sky.  Or is that the other way around?  I will marvel at the mirror before me and know that a perfect record is being kept somewhere.  Somehow and somewhere in someway, a perfect record is kept of everything that is ever done, including what we ourselves do.  And it does not matter if we are alone; the record is still kept.  Our hearts reflect our intentions perfectly.

And so, upon further reflection, I will work without lust of result.  I will unfailingly do my best so that one day when I look into the mirror, as we all must finally do at some point, I will see that I have done well.

October 20, 2015 - Party's End

The hills look like frosted cakes, awash with delicious icing and dotted with gumdrops.  And even though more and more of the trees are becoming bare, the band continues to play and the party goes on.  In the far background the cows still enjoy the meadows and feast on the seeds, a delicacy which fattens them up and gets them ready for the cold.

The party is winding down.

The factory farms cheat nature by feeding a great deal of grain to the animals to make them very fat all at once, much fatter than they would normally become.  Nature’s way is to provide the seeds slowly at first as they ripen in the fall so that the cows can deal with the adjustment in digestion.  Too many seeds at once can cause serious gastric distress.  A gradual increase makes it much easier on the cows.  Then they fatten naturally in the fall and use the extra weight to help them get through the winter.

Everything is the way it should be.  The party cake will disappear soon, and the decorations will come down.  It will be as bittersweet as it was when you were a child and a birthday party was over.  Everything was so festive!  The anticipation of games and food and presents was so exciting.  Then it was all done and the music stopped playing and the colorful streamers were all removed.  The balloons were given out or deflated.  The garlands were folded up and put away again.  The few party hats and horns that were left were already broken.  Then the house was put back to normal and vacuumed and made quiet once again.

October 19, 2015 - The Blue Thief

The blue is dripping out of the hydrangeas now.  They have sprung a leak and it can’t be fixed.  I’ve tried to tape it, but it didn’t work.  I’ve tried glue and packing them with sand and soldering them, but it hasn’t worked.  The blue is still dripping out, and there’s very little left.  I thought I might save some for myself, horde it for hard times, but I was wrong.  A thief has come in the night and stolen the blue.  He has beaten me to it.

Stolen by the thief . . . the blue.

While I was busy fretting over the blue, the green was also compromised.  The thief saw that I was busy with the blue, and he had a great amount of time to steal the green, which he did so in huge portions.  Like an exhausted firefighter, I’ve run from one area to another putting out fires, and while I’ve been gone, the area I just paid attention to has gotten raided once again by the thief.

You won’t find him, no matter how hard you try, and believe me, I’ve tried.  You could set up a camera to watch all night, and you’ll never see a thing.  Yet in the morning, you will find that the thief has struck once again.  Yet again, he has stolen more of the blue and green in the night.  Once again, he has violated a sacred trust.

But there is another side to it.  The thief tells a different story.  He says that he is not a thief.  He says that he made a bargain with the hydrangeas, and they did not keep their side of the bargain.  He says that the deal was for a certain amount of energy, although he will not tell me how much, and he says that for a while the hydrangeas kept to their part of the deal.  But then they became lazy, he says.  They stopped fulfilling their part of the bargain.  Each day they gave less and less until he could let it slip no longer.  The thief says he is only taking what is rightfully his.

He has not told me what his part of the bargain was.  He has not said what he bartered in return for the energy.  I asked the hydrangeas, and they turned their tired heads to the sun but said nothing.  That is not an answer, although I suspect that the hydrangeas were not the only ones to welsh on the deal.  It doesn’t matter now.  It’s too late, and the blue is dripping everywhere.  Tomorrow the rain will wash the last few drops away that the thief has left behind, and then the debt will be repaid.  Whatever it was, it will be done and over, and there’s no turning back now.

October 18, 2015 - An Endangered Species

Fall has come to the Head of Tide in Topsham.  The old Cathance River dam looks older and older to me each year.  I’m waiting for it to crumble, but today is not that day.  The dam separates the tidal portion of the river from the freshwater portion.  The waterfall marks the exact spot of separation, and right now it looks darn puny.  Don’t let it fool you, though.  I’ve seen it absolutely raging at times, and I wouldn’t want to be caught in it.

Head of Tide on the old Cathance River.

There are rare and endangered species here, especially on the intertidal mudflats, which you can see off in the distance.  I am also one of those rare and endangered species.  I haven’t seen many out there like me.  A rare animal, I prefer the outdoors to the indoors.  That device called “television” does not exist in my den, and therefore does not disrupt my life with its high frequency vibrations.  A creature of habit, I cannot be wooed by material things, and I don’t “do” retail therapy.  I don’t eat packaged food.  My clothes are very plain and old, and I do not own a “smart phone.”  I have a dumb one, but I usually forget to bring it with me anyhow.  Then there’s the issue of actually charging it, which is a whole “nother” thing.

I suppose I will crumble someday just like the old dam, and when I do, I hope for the sake of the reader that an old curmudgeon takes my place and continues to capture the real Maine.  But today is not that day, and so I soldier on.

October 17, 2015 - Under The Orange Umbrella

UNDER THE ORANGE UMBRELLA

Under the orange umbrella

with busy squirrels

and tired bees

there is shelter still.

Wispy white clouds

floating by like creamsicles

mixing with the orange

a sweet treat for the bees.

The squirrels stash their nuts

and cats wait to pounce

on songbirds devouring seeds

happy in the fleeting remnants

their home now flying piece by piece

into the wind.

Under the orange umbrella.

October 16, 2015 - Shifting

There’s a little roadside stand falling apart and half hidden.  No one has used it in a very long time, and I doubt many people even know it exists.  It was important to someone at some time or another, important enough to build.  It was important to others who came to buy the vegetables sold there, but those people are long gone now.  No one needs the decrepit stand on the side of the road anymore.

They sell corn and tomatoes and squash here.

It’s like the old 1834 Hearse House in Pownal that I wrote about last year.  Little did I know after I took the photo of it, the very next day a crew came by and decided to “fix” it.  All those old beautiful cedar shingles were removed and the building got a “facelift.”  They took the old “Hearse House 1834” sign off, and now it just looks like a new shed.  No one outside of Pownal would know that the old First Parish Church along with its historic graveyard had their very own fancy Hearse House.  That’s progress, I guess.

There are other ones, too.  Today I hiked to an old cabin I used to admire, figuring I’d get some photos of the old place against the fall foliage, but when I got there, the cabin was gone.  All that was left was a couple of rotted old boards.  It used to be such a nice old place.  Granted, it was beyond the point where humans could live in it, but it always reminded me of the history of Maine.  And now it’s gone.

Each time one of the old buildings disappears, I feel like I’ve done a bit of a shift from one universe to another extremely close parallel universe.  In the one universe, the old building still stands.  In the nearby universe, the old building has been removed.  Both universes go along their own tracks.  One keeps the building.  One loses the building.  Perhaps in a third universe, the building never even existed.

But I still have them all in my memory, and they can’t take that away from me.  Not yet, anyway.  I still see the old Hearse House when I drive by it, not the new shed.  I see the old cabin in the woods, just as it always was.  I see the roadside stand filled with vegetables and fruits.  I’m keeping track of them all.  As long as I’m still here, so are they . . . somewhere.  When I’m gone, well, that’s another story.  I will have shifted myself.

October 15, 2015 - The Secret Night

I was struck with the yin/yang of this photo, with the brilliant light off to the left and the deep darkness off to the right.  The sun was low in the sky, and not long after this photo it dipped below the horizon.  When I snapped the picture, I thought it wasn’t going to be any good because all I could see on the right side of the tiny viewing screen was complete blackness.  It was only after I got home that I realized what I had found.

The stealth of the night as it stalks the day.

Perhaps it was complete blackness, but there was just enough light in the background to illuminate what shouldn’t have been illuminated.  The presence of the night was palpable, and it was bearing down upon what was left of the day like a huge rogue wave.  When we’re at that “between time,” the twilight, we are at neither day nor night.  We are poised on a threshold and can go either way:  into the light or into the darkness.  The spinning of the Earth usually makes that decision for us, and off we go blindly to wherever we’re sent.

But isn’t it interesting to know there’s a lot out there that we simply don’t see because we’re so busy chasing the sun disc?  The creatures of the night were on their way to stake their claim of the darkness.  I imagine they did not appreciate my having photographed their territory.  By morning, however, they will have disappeared, gone off chasing the moon in another direction, blinded by the swiftly approaching sun disc and unable to see the world of light.  The land will have flattened out again, the imposing wave of blackness just trees in the distance, and the secret world of the night will have disappeared once again.

October 14, 2015 - Yesterday's Dance

The sun was low in the sky, and it made the trees look like they were on fire.  The entire length of the road was dressed up in its finest party colors.  Each tree competed with the next, trying to win “first place” in the beauty contest.  I was the only “judge” on the road, and I couldn’t possibly give the prize to just one tree.  Each one struck my fancy in a different way and showed a unique beauty.

Today's fleeting finery.

By the time I drive through here again, most of the colors will be gone.  I’ll yell out to the trees and ask them where their party dresses are, and my request will be met with a cold stare from the bones of the woods.  And everywhere, there will be bones.  They will jut out like pointy elbows and knees popping through threadbare fabric.  “Alms for the poor!  Alms for the poor!” will be heard through the forest.

The band will have long since packed up and left.  The dancers will have gone home.  The shiny dance floor will be littered with yesterday’s dirty finery.  I will begin to question whether it happened at all, whether it was all in my imagination.  Long ago, before we had photos to prove that we were at the dance, the only evidence remained in our minds, and that was subject to the ice and snow.  It was all hearsay.  It might never have happened.  It probably didn’t.

October 13, 2015 - Death Of A Sunflower

In the middle of the splendor stands a dead sunflower, blooms now bowed and blackened with decay.  The glory transpires all around it, but the sunflower is oblivious.  His day has come and gone, and at his height of glory, he was also beautiful.  He was stunning and a glory to behold.  At his zenith, he displayed brilliance and boldness and beauty.  Now he is drying and rotting and all but forgotten.

The sunflower as he falls.

But do not spare your pity for him, for that would only anger and humiliate him as he drifts off into nothingness.  Do not let his last regard be one of sympathy or sorrow.  He knew he would have his day, and he knew he would shrivel and die.  He has carried out his death as splendidly and nobly as he carried out his life.  To not appreciate and love him for his death would be a terrible and ignorant insult.

The splendor all around him, which shines and proclaims the glory of the universe, will also reach its zenith and die in obscurity.  The world doesn’t need us to remind it that life is fleeting.  It is we who need the world to remind us of such things.  So gather the beauty while you can.  Shine and radiate your glory to the four corners of the Earth.  And then bow your head gracefully like the sunflower.  To do otherwise would be to display a misunderstanding of the beauty of un-becoming.

October 12, 2015 - A Recipe For Land

One day in the early times when Mother Nature had gathered her children about her for a harvest feast, a number of them had decided to create mischief.  So they found her recipe box and hid it in some reeds along the river, giggling to themselves and wondering how long it would take for Mother Nature to discover that the box was missing.  As it happened, it did not take long at all because she reached for it to make a spectacular rainbow, only to find that it was gone.

When she glared around at the gathering, she saw the children of Man giggling by the river, and she knew who had taken the box.  But it was a holiday, a feast day, and everyone was in such high spirits that she could not be angry with these simple creatures.  Instead, she good naturedly laughed with them and demanded her recipe box back, which they promptly gave her.  Then she pulled out her recipe for rainbows and created one of such magnificence that it stretched all the way around the world, having no beginning and no end.

First take some large rocks . . .

All of the children clapped with glee at this, and one tiny daughter of Man came forward with a card that she had taken from the box.  She was so very young that she did not realize what she had done was wrong, but the looks on the faces of everyone around her indicated that they did know.  She walked toward Mother Nature and handed her the card and said, “This is your recipe for land,” whereupon Mother Nature snatched the card back instantly.

But the girl was so tiny that she could not remain angry for long.  She only told her never to touch the cards again and then turned to walk away.

“But how do you make the land?” the little girl asked.  Everyone immediately froze and stared in disbelief.  But even more unbelievable was when Mother Nature sat down on a large rock across from the girl to tell her how to make land.  Of course, none of them knew that because the girl had gotten the card and returned it of her own volition, Mother Nature had no choice but to respond.

“Land is a process,” Mother Nature said, “and it is always in the state of being made and being unmade.”

“But how is it made?  In the beginning I mean.  How is it done?” asked the girl.  Everyone gathered around quietly because they realized that one of the Great Secrets was about to be revealed.

“First you start with a very large basin filled with lots of water, and into this you bring many large rocks to sit together and jut out from the water,” Mother Nature said.  “Then you must wait for the water and the rocks to become friends, and this takes a long time.”

“Why does it take so long?”

“Because water is a fickle creature, as you know, and it demands a gift first in order to become friends.”

“And what is that gift?” the girl asked.

Mother Nature sighed.  “It is the gift of itself.  Tiny pieces of the rocks wear away into the water and become a part of it.  When enough have worn away, the water repays the gift with friendship.”

“And then how is the land made?”

“Well,” Mother Nature said, “then the rocks and the water come to an agreement.  The rocks promise to continue to give of themselves to the water, but only if they can continue to grow.  The water agrees because if it does not, the rocks will eventually wear away to nothing, and then it will be all alone again.”

“And then?” asked a little boy who sat beside the girl.

“You are all nosey,” Mother Nature said, but sighed and went on.  “Then the water brings some living things to the rocks and places them there.  The water also asks the air to bring things of life to the rocks as well, and the air obliges because just as the rocks have given of themselves to the water, the water has given of itself to the air, and the air is obliged to the water.”

“So living things come to the rocks?”

“Yes.”

“What do they eat?” asked the little girl.”

“Why, they eat each other, of course.  All life feeds on life.  That is one of the Great Laws.”

“But where does the land come from?”

“Well,” Mother Nature said, “then the living things make more living things, and some of the living things die.  Then another of the Great Laws is enacted, and the living things dissolve and change form.  And the cycle continues--living, eating, dying, and living again.  And all the while, while the life is dissolving and changing, it is transmuting into land, which brings forth more life.”

“So the people and animals and the plants, they become the land?” asked the little boy.

“Yes, and the land becomes them and they keep trading back and forth.”

“So the land is the life and the life is the land?”

“Exactly!  You are very smart, young man,” Mother Nature said, and she pat him gently on the head.

“But where does the first life come from?” the little girl asked.

Again, Mother Nature sighed.  “You are full of questions, little one.  The first life comes from the Great Alchemist.”

“Where does the Great Alchemist get it from?”

She sighed yet again.  “It comes from the unmanifest.”

“It comes from nothing??” the little girl asked imperiously.

“No.  It comes from before the nothing.  Nothing is still something, because if you can talk about it and think about it, it is still something, even if you call it nothing.  The first life comes from before the nothing.  It comes from the field of all possibilities and all potentiality, and eventually, that is where all life will return.”

“So it is very hard to understand how the Great Alchemist makes the life from the unmanifest,” the little girl said.

“Actually, it is quite easy,” Mother Nature responded, “and it is done carelessly all the time.”  She held out her hand and in it was a pile of tiny seeds.  “These are dead,” she said, “but they are also not dead.  When we add a little water, suddenly they will burst forth with life and growth.  Where did the life come from?” she asked, pointing to a large sunflower.  “That sunflower was certainly not inside this tiny seed.  Where did it come from?  It came from the unmanifest, from before the nothing.  First it wasn’t there, and then suddenly it was there.”

“Will we ever meet the Great Alchemist?” the little girl asked.

“Indeed, you shall, but there is time enough for that in the future.  And if I were you, I wouldn’t go searching, I would wait.  Before you know it, you will meet the Great Alchemist face to face.”

The girl sat and just stared at Mother Nature for a long time.

“And now,” Mother Nature said, “I think you should all enjoy the rainbow I have made and the harvest feast and the big dance.  And if any of you ever dare to touch my recipe box again, I will tan your hides so badly that you will beg to meet the Great Alchemist rather than attempt to ever sit on your bottoms again.”

They all stared wide-eyed at the Green Lady.  Then she walked away without another word, but the little girl saw her stash the recipe box in a pouch under her large skirts, and she wondered what else was in the box.

October 11, 2015 - A Canopy of Gold

A CANOPY OF GOLD

 

A canopy of gold

all the wealth of Nature

given away freely

as if it were nothing.

Storerooms full of gold.

Caves and caches

hidden treasure

secret pirate chests

full of gold

gleaming in the low sun

as if it were nothing

as if gold were dirt.

Beautiful but useless.

What need does she have for riches?

A canopy of gold, of untold wealth, there for the taking.

October 10, 2015 - The Winter Thief

The ferns are all dying now, but just before they die, they will turn to gold.  This is because King Midas has walked through the woods and touched all of his favorite things.  Immediately, they turned to gold overnight.  When I come by this way again, they will have disappeared.  The Winter Thief will have stolen all the gold.  In its place I will find dried and twisted plant material and nothing more.

A visit from King Midas.

But I know the dead plant material is just a ruse.  The gold is still brilliant and shining, hidden somewhere in a cave by the thief.  Throughout the winter, he will look at the gold to remind himself of the sun, which he will sorely miss, having ignored it when he had the chance.  But it will grow colder and colder, and he will need to buy wood for his fire.  He will pay for it in gold, the very gold that he stole from the ferns.  He will be charged a premium price because all the other wood in the forest will be frozen, and it will be too late to chop his own.  When he runs out, he will buy more and more wood, until he has no gold left.

When he hands his last bit of gold over for the wood for his cooking and heating fires, the season will change and the sun will return.  New lush and green ferns will appear, but the thief will not bother to see their beauty.  Instead of appreciating them and the sun when he has the two together, the Winter Thief will lay in wait in the woods for King Midas to come by again, bringing gold to whatever he touches.  It is a delicate balance the thief has struck, paying dearly for the memory of that which is free.