August 10, 2015 - Amanita!

[This is a fairy tale, and in no way does the author imply or suggest that you ever nibble on an Amanita as they can be poisonous.  Leave them for the fairies.]

There once was a small group of fairies that were completely orange.  They would often gaze in a mirror at themselves because they adored the color orange and believed that they were the most beautiful of all fairies.  They never wasted a chance to tell all the other fairies of the forest just how beautiful they were.  They never wasted a chance to try to make the other fairies jealous.  After all, they reasoned, they were orange, and what fairy would not want to be orange?

The trouble is there were a lot more fairies in the forest who were not orange, and what’s more, they had no desire to be orange.  They were all getting very tired of hearing about how ugly they were and how beautiful the orange fairies were.  Of course, this was all told to them by the orange fairies, so you might imagine there was a bit of bias in the telling.  In any event, they had all decided that they’d had enough of the bragging from the orange fairies.

Eventually, an argument between the groups of fairies broke out with the orange fairies screaming horrible insults at the other fairies, and the other fairies hurtling acorns back at the orange fairies.  It was a terrible ruckus, and through it all the orange fairies kept chanting over and over about how beautiful they were and how ugly all the other fairies in the land were.  On and on it went until every creature of the forest had to block its ears just to have any peace.

Amanita muscaria (fly agaric).

Now it happened that a peapod pixie was nearby, trying to take a nap when the fight broke out.  He tried to block his ears, but as you know, peapod pixies have very sensitive ears and nothing he did would help at all.  At last he crept out from under his leaf, and while all the fairies were screaming and yelling at one another, he tossed a beautiful gold goblet right into the middle of the area with the most fighting.  At once, all of the fairies were silent as they stared at the stunning gold goblet.  Then in a very loud and booming voice he said, “Only the kindest may drink from this goblet!”  Of course no one knew where the voice came from because peapod pixies are so tiny that no one pays them any mind.

All eyes were on the gold goblet.  Each group wanted the goblet for themselves, but no group wanted to engage in serious warfare to get it because warfare between fairies can last several centuries at least and sometimes an eon.  Finally, an old and plain fairy came forward from the group of regular woodland fairies and he said, “Let us all go back to our homes and decide upon the best gift for one another.  In three days’ time, whichever side gives the gift that is kindest and truly from the heart gets to keep the goblet.”

The fairies all agreed upon this, and the woodland forest fairies all left together talking about what might be the best gift.  Some said a fairy harp that played heavenly music on its own.  Others said a fairy cow that never stopped giving sweet milk.  Still others talked about forging a beautiful sword with an enchanted hilt that could protect its owner from any assault that man might make.  And off they all went in deep conversation.

The peapod pixie smiled to himself and was about to go back to his leaf for his nap when he overheard the orange fairies talking.  “Let us make a beautiful bowl and fill it to the brim with the sweetest-tasting wine they have ever had, but let this wine be laced with a potion that will turn them all into toads!”  All of the orange fairies laughed at this and delighted in the chance to rid themselves once and for all of the other woodland fairies.

Now, the peapod pixie was quite angry at this, and that takes some doing as anyone who knows peapod pixies can tell you.  All he wanted was his nap, and now the orange fairies were planning the demise of all the others.  This would never do.  He had hoped to begin an era of kindness and giving among the fairies, not treachery, and so he decided on what he would do in three days’ time.  Then he settled down under his leaf for a long nap.

Sure enough in three days’ time, all of the fairies met at the spot where the beautiful gold goblet still stood.  The regular woodland fairies presented their gift first.  It was a pretty little cow that they had enchanted to give the sweetest milk whenever desired.  As you know, fairies love milk and this why we leave saucers of it outside for them at certain times of the year.  The orange fairies were skeptical, but the woodland fairies insisted they try the milk.  True to their word, it was the sweetest and best milk the orange fairies had ever tasted.  They were beside themselves with greed and lustily drank milk for a very long time.

At last it was time for the orange fairies to give their gift, and they brought forward the beautiful bowl filled with sweet wine.  “One taste of this intoxicating wine, and you will never be the same!” they said.  Of course, this was true but not in the way the woodland fairies thought.  They all came forward to sample the wine, and as they did so, the peapod pixie created a brilliant flash of lightning and yelled the magic word, “Amanita!”  While all the fairies gazed at the lightning, he quickly switched the poisoned wine in the bowl with the delicious wine he had placed in the gold goblet.

So the woodland fairies came forward and all drank the wine from the beautiful bowl.  They could not stop exclaiming at how wonderful and amazing this wine truly was!  Over and over they sang the praises of the orange fairies and their skill at wine-making.  All along, the orange fairies giggled to themselves at how gullible the woodland fairies were and how they couldn’t wait to see them all turned into toads.

Finally, the old and plain fairy, who had suggested they all make the best gift they could, came forward.  “Truly, your gift is the best,” he said, “and we are very grateful.  Surely, this gold goblet belongs to you.”  All of the woodland fairies cheered and agreed.  All of the orange fairies smiled and laughed as they approached the gold goblet.

Each orange fairy drank his fill of the sweet and voluptuous wine in the goblet.  They drank and drank and drank until they could drink no more.  While the orange fairies were drinking their victory wine from the gold goblet, the woodland fairies were drinking their gifted wine from the beautiful bowl.  Things got loud and cheerful as they often do when fairies are drinking wine, so none of the woodland fairies noticed for quite some time that a change had occurred.  At last they decided to take a break.

Imagine their surprise when they turned around and saw the forest floor peppered with strange orange mushrooms with warty white spots on top!  No one could deny that these mushrooms were beautiful to look at, yes, enchanting, in fact.  They were fat and fleshy and looked delectable.  None of them had seen mushrooms like this before, so while they all wanted to eat them, they were a bit cautious.  At last one of them decided to try a mushroom.

He took a bite.  It had a strange flavor to it, not particularly pleasant, but he ate the rest of it anyway.  Within a few minutes, however, he felt very nauseous.  In fact, he felt extremely nauseous, and it was a terrible feeling, but eventually that passed.  Then he felt very odd.  It was as if he heard a voice inside of his own head, and he could talk to this voice and it would answer back.  So he asked it all kinds of difficult questions and received all kinds of answers.  Eventually, that faded too.  Then he felt a bit odd and saw colors in a strange way and heard sounds that he had never heard before.  He felt very disoriented for a while.  Finally, it all passed, and when it finished he described it to all the other fairies.

They listened very well and realized that these were truly magic mushrooms they had found.  They decided to be very careful and cautious with these mushrooms, using them sparingly in ritualistic ways.  They gathered them and dried them and put them away in secret spots.

Oddly enough, they never saw the orange fairies again.  I can honestly say that no one was so very upset about that in any event.  Each year, however, they noticed that the strange orange mushrooms would appear for a few months all over the forest floor.  They decided to call them “Amanitas” after the strange word they had heard with the flash of lightning at the gathering.  They decided it was a good word.

And that is why to this very day, you will see Amanitas all over the forest floor at this time of year.  You will also notice that many of the mushrooms will have a nibble taken out of them here and there.  Those are fairy nibbles, and not far from nibbled Amanitas, you can usually find a peapod pixie fast asleep under a leaf.  If you nibble on an Amanita, don’t be surprised if the peapod pixie jumps up on your shoulder for a chat.

[This is a fairy tale, and in no way does the author imply or suggest that you ever nibble on an Amanita as they can be poisonous.  Leave them for the fairies.]

August 9, 2015 - Leaning Against Old Oaks

I went for a walk in town today to pick a few things up.  I much prefer being out in the woods, but there were a few things I had to get, so it was unavoidable.  It was early in the morning before the heat of the day, and I parked my car several blocks away, thinking maybe I’d get a quiet walk in before the hustle and bustle of the day began.  As I walked, thinking and planning, I found myself going down some side streets I hadn’t been down in a very long time.  I wasn’t sure why I veered off the main road; I only knew my feet went in a different direction than the store I needed to visit.

I found myself on a back side street that doesn’t get much traffic.  Something about it seemed familiar as I walked, but I was lost in my thoughts thinking about what I needed to get done today.  I stopped dead in my tracks, though, when I saw the old house.  There it was, just as I remembered it all those years ago.  This must have been why I veered off the main road in the first place, but I didn’t realize it until I was there.  I hung back across the street by the old oak tree and just looked at the house.

Be careful when you lean against an old oak.

About a quarter of a century earlier I had been in that house.  I had an old friend who lived there.  She invited me over for dinner one day, and there was another friend there as well, so it was a threesome.  We had such a good time spent in conversation and much giggling!  My friend was making little catnip toys for Christmas for all of her friends who had cats.  They were basically a tiny square of fabric sewn into a pillow shape and stuffed tightly with catnip.  All three of us were hand sewing the little pillows and chatting and laughing.  We ordered a vegetarian pizza with artichokes on it because one of the gals was a vegetarian.  I was worried I wouldn’t like a pizza without pepperoni, but it was very good!  I’m sure the company helped.

We laughed and talked and worked and ate for a long time, discussing all the complexities of the day, sharing gossip, and plotting the revolution.  It was a magical evening of fun and friendship, and as it got dark outside, my friend turned on little strings of lights that were wound all around the windows.  I went to one of the windows to look outside, and I was surrounded by twinkling little lights everywhere that just seemed to make the night even more fun.  It felt like we were all in an enchanted kingdom, and I had a blissful evening.

Maybe we were in an enchanted kingdom back then.  Today I stood across the street, leaning against the old oak and thinking about that night of friendship and frivolity.  I tried to picture my younger self inside the house, walking to one of the windows and looking out and seeing my older self leaning against the oak, peering at the house.  What would my younger self had thought?  I tried so hard to picture it, maybe trying to make it come true.  Could the younger me have ever had a clue what a quarter of a century can do to a person?  Probably not.  What direction might she have taken had she seen the face of her older self?

I watched the house for a while, thinking about the people from the past.  One of the women there that night all those years ago is already dead.  The other lives very, very far away on the other side of the earth.  And me?  I’m still here, leaning against old oak trees, looking for lost dreams, and thinking about ghosts.

August 8, 2015 - Sailors

Been thinking a lot about sailboats.  They’re not good for anything without the wind, are they?  Nope.  They’re rather long and narrow and not as pretty as many other boats when the sail is down.  Ah . . . but when the sail is up and the wind is caught, then they shine, don’t they?  What makes a sailboat “go”?  The wind, of course, and that’s something completely out of your control.  Well, not completely.  You do need a wind, but how you use the sheet to trim the sail shows your skill and experience level.

Full of potential, but nothing is happening.

And this is what I’ve been thinking about:  what makes things go.  What is the wind the lifts our sails--in the figurative sense?  For each of us it’s different.  For me, it’s inspiration to write a particular piece.  For others it might be a project idea, a job well done, a feeling of love and adoration, an intense desire for an outcome, etc.  But there’s always something that fuels us, and that something begins like the wind, which means its beginning is beyond our control.  Inspiration, love, adoration, desire, etc., are things you cannot consciously “dial up” and cause to happen.  They just  . . . happen.  We could write volumes about where they come from, but suffice it to say that we are not the original authors.

So now you’ve got your inspiration, idea, desire, etc., now you have the motivation, now you have your wind.  Now you’ve got the power!  But what you do with that wind, that power, in the sail of your heart will determine your happiness.  It is not the wind that sails the sailboat, it is the sailor.  Knowing when to make adjustments and knowing when to increase tension or ease it will make for a successful trip.  It’s the same with us, and this knowledge only comes from failure, trying again, succeeding sometimes, and experience married to time.  But nothing ever happens if the sailor doesn’t sail.

Of course, these days most sailboats have an engine or at least an outboard motor to help maneuver them through harbors that are much more crowded than they used to be.  It takes a skilled sailor to pull into a slip and stop on a dime without an engine, but it can still be done.  For us and our own hearts, there are no engines or outboard motors.  We have no choice but to be skilled sailors capable of breezing through tight quarters and catching the wind for the ride of our lives.

August 7, 2015 - Living on the Water

I think people who live along the water--lakes, rivers, oceans--tend to live a slower-paced life.  Check any community located directly on the water and tell me if it isn’t true.  The further you get away from water, the quicker the pace of life becomes.  I swear it’s true, and this makes me wonder why it’s so.  I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s the water itself that slows people down.

Water is life.

 

In ancient times, everyone had to live near water because they all needed a direct water source, but as man became more sophisticated, he was able to find water in other ways.  He built aqueducts and brought the water much further out from the original source.  This allowed his tiny river towns to grow into large cities.  Crops could be grown and irrigated much further away from the original water source, and more food meant more people.  And more people meant more taxes and power.  Ancient Rome mastered the aqueduct with engineering marvels and then proceeded to conquer the world.

But as cities grow, they get large and busy.  The water is shipped in via aqueducts or pipes, and no one really thinks about it much anymore.  We just turn the tap on now and out it comes, so we don’t really appreciate it.  When you don’t actually look at the water supply, you lose an important connection.  Water is life.  Plentiful water or lack of it has shaped entire civilizations and always will.

Perhaps busy people get that way because they don’t have any beautiful bodies of water to stop and gaze upon.  Why would anyone want to rush by a beautiful river or lake?  They wouldn’t.  They’d stop and look out across the waves.  They’d take in that certain smell of a fresh body of water.  They’d walk along the shore, skip stones on the surface, and perhaps chat or fish.  But they certainly wouldn’t be rushing.  This is one of the many hidden miracles of water.  It says, “What’s your hurry?” to the passerby, who never has an adequate response.

August 6, 2015 - Land

No, the wealth of this nation or any nation has never been in the banks.  The wealth of this nation is not money, and it’s not gold or silver either.  It’s not easy to see that because we “see” what money, gold, and silver can “buy,” and so we say they’re wealth and we’d like to have some, please.  But these things are just representations, like a map is of territory or a deed is of property.  The map and the deed are just pieces of paper that represent something, but they are not the actual thing they represent.  It’s the same with money.

Land is the only thing that has any true and lasting value.

The only real wealth is land.  Land is where people live and move and have their being and then die.  Land is where all of the activity takes place.  It’s where the countries have marked themselves out, and then the cities, towns, and villages within the countries.  It’s where the businesses exist and where the raw materials come from for those businesses.  Land is everything.  Land is where the animals are found.  Land is where the farms are planted, and farms are where we get our food.  Land is the most important thing in the world because it’s the only thing that stands the test of time.

And if you know this, really know it, you can never be poor.  “Not so,” you say, “because if I don’t have the money to pay my mortgage or rent, then I’ll be homeless and then I’ll be poor.”  So, it’s money that keeps you living in your home?  And what is money?  It’s paper that represents labor performed.  And what is labor?  Labor is energy.  Therefore, money is a representation of energy spent, and it can be traded for the things you need or want, which in turn, represent energy spent by other people in various endeavors.

But the energy belongs to you, right?  Before you trade it for the paper, that is.  So if you can direct that energy in other ways toward building the life you want instead of in accumulating paper, perhaps you could continue to live and not be “homeless.”  How should you properly direct your energy?  Now that is the real question, and you can bet the answer involves land.

August 5, 2015 - Mushroom Faeries

There has been a lot of rain this year, and that, combined with darkness in the forest, makes for a lot of mushrooms.  Some years are mushroomier than others, and this is definitely a mushroomy kind of year.  Everywhere I turn, I see them.  They are not plants and they are not animals, although they have more in common with animals than they do with plants.  They have their own “kingdom” in biology, and the study of them is called mycology.

A secret denizen of the forest.

Perhaps the mycologists should do some reading of the old faerie tales, for they abound with stories of mushrooms.  In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a tale of a faerie that didn’t include a mushroom somewhere.  The opening scene in Disney’s “Snow White” movie shows red Amanitas, a mushroom known for its psychoactive properties in a compound called “muscimol.”  But anyone watching the “Snow White” movie could have told you that.  As soon as you see the bright red mushrooms speckled with white, you know you are dealing with something out of the ordinary waking world.  And so Snow White runs to escape the huntsman and falls . . . and falls . . . and falls . . . downward into the Underworld, where she meets seven dwarves (or faeries), and many magical things happen to her.

And do you know the Russian faerie tale of Sivka-Burka and Ivan the Fool?  Ivan is not nearly as fine as his two elder brothers, and he is always collecting mushrooms in the forest.  His brothers mock him for it, but he has a magic horse, Sivka-Burka, given to him by his dead father because he was the only one who obeyed his father’s wishes upon the old man’s death.  The magic horse can transform Ivan into a handsome young man when Ivan crawls into its right ear and out of its left, which sounds like a psychedelic experience to me.  Throughout his adventures, Ivan keeps collecting his mushrooms, and eventually he wins the Tzar’s daughter.

They’re strange things, mushrooms are.  The mycologists have no idea what they’re dealing with in mushrooms.  Anyone who has read my blog at all knows how fascinated I am with these creatures of the woods.  They seem to bring out the faerie in me.

Dark woods, quiet woods, spooky woods I see,

Mushrooms, mushrooms, peering out at me.

Tall faeries, short faeries, green faeries three,

Mushrooms, mushrooms, dance around me.

August 4, 2015 - The Scent of Rain

I love when a storm first starts to roll in and that certain scent hits the air.  Not everyone can smell it.  If you say, “I smell rain” to most people, they’ll look at you a bit oddly.  But I can definitely smell it, and it changes as it comes closer.  It gets that heady, intoxicating scent to it.  Oh, yes, it’s definitely going to rain.

It starts with a musky kind of scent, and the air feels different, too, more alive somehow.  There’s a tingling sensation on the skin.  Even the pores on my face can sense that water is coming.  As the storm gets closer, the scent gets stronger.  Things start to smell very “earthy.”  My eyes start to feel different, too, and I don’t blink quite as much.  Perhaps they know that moisture is on its way.

There's a storm rolling in.

Then the wind starts blowing and the trees all turn their leaves upward so they can catch as much rain as possible when it falls.  The temperature drops and an anticipation lingers in the air.  The scent is beautiful and almost overwhelming.  Then we’re waiting and waiting and waiting . . . and suddenly, bam!  The skies open up and the water pours forth!  The trees start wildly dancing, and a collective, “Ahhh!” can be heard from all of nature.

Afterward, everything is greener, and not just because it has been watered but because it has also been washed.  All the dust of the day (or several days) is washed away, and everything looks brand new and pure.  The plant life plumps up, and when the flowers recover, their color is even more brilliant.  The animals and the insects and the people all sigh with contentment.

Then it’s over and the cycle begins again.

August 3, 2015 - Island Fantasy

“I will not be ignored,” says the tiny island.  Even though its land mass is so small, it proudly wields its own little microclimate.  There’s a large tree, two medium-sized trees, several large bushes, and a small tree off to the left on the far side that may or may not make it.  There are rocks with indentations that hold rainwater and lots of different weeds and grasses.  Ducks come to visit and camp out, and frogs like it, too.  A variety of birds have nests in the large tree, and they come back to them year after year.  It’s a tiny little kingdom.

There’s no electricity, running water, or internet, so not many people want to visit it.  This makes it perfect for me.  I have applied for citizenship, which includes a long and grueling process, but I am confident that I will be accepted.  I’ll have to give up my citizenship in the U.S., but it’s a price I’m willing to pay.  After all, how often do we get to have our own little world?

Yes, another one of my island fantasies.  Maine seems to bring them out in me.

A tiny kingdom.

August 2, 2015 - You Gotta Make Your Hay

“Rise and shine!  Rise and shine!  Get up!” my mother would yell.  Every morning, it was the same thing, unless I had already awoken on my own.  Seven days per week, 365 days per year, she would make everyone in the house get up early.  On weekends we were allowed to sleep in but never later than 8:00 a.m., and even that was “pushing it,” she’d say.  You had to get up and start your day, and if you protested saying you didn’t have anything to do, she’d certainly find something for you to do.

She always said, “You gotta make your hay while the sun is shining.”  I used to hate hearing that because she said it so often about everything.  It’s another way of saying “there’s no better time than the present,” or, “don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”  She liked those sayings a lot, too, and frequently said them, much to the disdain of the rest of the household.

Large hay bales waiting to be used.

There’s actually a science to making hay.  The idea is to preserve the nutrients in the grass so that your animals can have enough to eat during the winter, but there’s a lot that can go wrong in the process.  You’ve heard the phrase, “timing is everything”?  With hay making, timing is of paramount importance.  You need the plants to be at the right growth stage, but you also need the weather to be at very favorable conditions.

First you cut the grass down.  Ideally, you want three days of great weather to help dry it out, and you hope and pray that Mother Nature will cooperate.  Cutting your hay very early in the morning on a sunny day usually means that you’ll get at least one good day of sunshine on the cut grass.  Then you have to do what’s calling “tedding.”  This is basically fluffing up the cut grass to help it dry better and get the air and sun in there.  Some people ted twice or even more, but if you ted too much you could shred some of the leaves and lower the quality of your hay.

When the hay is nearly dry, you have to rake it.  This helps to expose any hay on the bottom of the batch that might still be a bit wet.  You have to rake on a hot and sunny day when the dew has burnt off, and you rake the hay into what’s called a windrow, which is a long line of heaped up hay.  Then you let it dry a couple of more hours in the blazing sun.

Here’s where the “science” comes in.  When do you start to bale the hay?  If you bale too soon, you’ll trap in moisture and spoil the hay.  If you wait too long, the leaves will break and crumble, and your hay will be lowered in quality.  This is when you’ll find the oldtimers out in the field touching and feeling the windrows, even smelling them.  Back and forth they’ll go until they’re satisfied that the grass is no longer green but is instead crisp.  Grab a bunch of hay and yank on it.  If it breaks cleanly, it’s ready.  If the bunch can’t be broken, it’s still too green.

Now it’s time to bale the hay, assuming it’s at about 15% moisture.  If it’s over 22% moisture and you store it in a barn, the spoilage and fermentation will heat the bales up and cause them to spontaneously combust.  Now you see how important timing can be.  Some people make round bales with their dry hay and others make them square.  Storing the hay inside a barn is ideal to keep the rain away, but sometimes you’ll see large bales out in a field.  There will be some spoilage around the outside of these bales, which can’t be helped, but if there’s no room for them, there’s no room for them.

But what has all that got to do with my mother?  Or me, for that matter, since I don’t allow anyone in my household to sleep beyond 8 a.m. on a weekend either, and during the week I’m usually up no later than 5:30 a.m.  It means that while conditions are favorable--which pretty much means while you are awake and alive and aware--you get yourself up and you get moving and you get some work done.  Do it while you can.  Do it when it’s needed.  Do it for the sake of doing it.  But whatever you do, get on with it, because procrastination ruins everything.