March 9, 2016 - Queen of an Island

There are thousands of islands, some tiny and some not so very, dotting the coastline of Maine.  A good number of them are uninhabited.  Some sport a handful of trees and others a tiny forest.  Each island has its own micro ecosystem.  Many of the smaller islands are completely reliant on rain for freshwater.  The larger islands have underground sources as well as rain.  The birds freely fly back and forth from island to island, giving a comparatively cosmopolitan feel to otherwise excruciatingly wild places.

Islands, islands everywhere.

Some islands in Maine are for sale.  You could buy an island.  It’s amazing that you can still do that these days, but then, Maine is an amazing place.  Imagine owning your own little piece of land, surrounded entirely by the ocean.  It would be like a tiny continent.  As sovereign of your newly-acquired kingdom, it would be your job to create a sustainable community that flourishes and grows.  It would be your job to make laws and enforce rules.  There’s just something about being on a piece of land, surrounded by water and cut off from immediate access to the rest of the world, that confers instant noblesse oblige.

If I were Queen of an island, I would insist that all inhabitants greet the sun each day as it rises and also the moon when it rises because both of these heavenly bodies would have so much to do with our little ecosystem.  As much as possible, I would want us to provide our own food through gardening, animal raising, and fishing.  There would be many holidays with large feasts, and everyone would sit and eat together.  If we all broke bread together, we would be more apt to be friends, I think.

We would live completely on the barter system.  Song, music, arts, and crafts would be traded for food and material goods, and vice versa.  There would be no clocks, but we wouldn’t need anything beyond the timing of the sun and moon anyhow.  We would have no need for electronic gadgets or devices that dull the senses and stifle the mind.  People would be responsible for themselves.  Good deeds would be encouraged, and kindness would be expected.  Healers would be appreciated, and the barter system would pay them.  And storytellers?  Well, they would be most esteemed, their tales weaving magic and entertainment for all as only storytellers can do.

I am not Queen . . . yet.  But tomorrow is another day.

March 8, 2016 - By Myself

I was there all by myself.  It’s far enough out that there are no sounds of cars driving anywhere, no sound of industry.  There’s no hum of electricity and no din of machinery.  There are no stores and no houses and no people.  It’s just the rocks and the ocean.

I sat down for a while and did nothing.  It’s very quiet here except for the surf that comes in relentlessly against the shore, but that’s a good sound.  Sometimes a large wave will hit and draw my attention, but by the time I look, it has vanished.  But I trust that it was there.

Waiting for the bells.

Far off in the distance--somewhere--is the sound of bells.  I don’t know where they come from because the water plays tricks on my ears and the sound is wafted about here and there.  There’s no way of knowing the origin.  It’s a distant sound, a low clanking or a deep gong.  Every so often, the sound of a large chain rubbing against itself can be heard.  Again, I don’t know where the sounds are coming from.  Certainly, there’s nothing here to see.  Except for the ocean.

It can’t be described as anything other than “ghostly.”  I often wonder about that.  About the ghosts who must inhabit these shores.  The bells I hear are the old bells, not the new-fangled horns or sirens.  They’re the old bells from a long time ago.  You can’t hear them right away.  You have to be sitting for a long time.  But they always come, clank clanking in the background, competing with the gulls. 

And that’s all there is, really.  Sometimes, that’s all there is.

March 7, 2016 - The More Things Change . . .

If you park your car in a place where it is unlawful to do so, one of two things will happen.  It will either be towed and impounded at your expense, or a “boot” will be put on one of the wheels and you will have to pay a fee to have it removed.  Either way, you must pay for your negligence.

But you have heard the old saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same?  Here is one of a handful of “cattle pounds” still left standing in Maine.  It was built in 1818 by John Tyler, who was paid $50 to do so.  The Town of Pownal commissioned him to build it in 1817, just nine years after the town’s incorporation.  It seems a pound was already necessary by then.

Cattle pound, Pownal, Maine.

A cattle pound was used to hold stray livestock (sheep, pigs, cattle, geese, etc.) that had gotten away from negligent owners who did not keep their property boundaries or animal pens in good condition.  Usually, the stray animal would wander on to someone else’s property and cause damage or eat crops.  The owner of the property on which the animals had strayed was called the “impounder.”  He would bring the animal to the pound where it would be kept until it was claimed by its owner.

In the meantime, the animal had to be fed and watered, and this was done by the pound-keeper, also known as the “tallyman” because he collected the fee from the animal’s owner.  The fee included damages done to the property of the impounder as well as food and care given to the animal by the pound-keeper.  If the owner didn’t claim the animal within a reasonable amount of time, it was sold to cover the costs of the impounder and the tallyman.

Good stone walls or sturdy wooden fences properly kept could go a long way in keeping an animal on its owner’s property.  Well-kept animal pens could do the same thing with much less material than enclosing an entire homestead.  But it was and is the responsibility of the owner to keep his property where it belongs.

And the more things change, the more they stay the same.  “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.” - Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, Les Guêpes, 1849.

March 6, 2016 - Seize the Moment

Frozen in its tracks, another seasonal waterfall is made temporarily lifeless by the cold.  We have no snow left (for now), but the cold of the nights is still very real.  The warm sun during the days causes the melting, but as the water reaches the shaded areas, it freezes solid once again.  Then night comes and everything is made hard as steel.

A moment frozen in time.

It’s only a temporary waterfall anyhow, one that comes and goes at the whims of the weather and is not a permanent feature of the landscape.  With the ground still frozen solid, the water finds a seemingly hard surface to run over.  But it’s all so transient, subject to the sun.  Once the ground thaws, the water will seep away and no one will know that this waterfall ever existed at all.

The forests are always shifting.  They move, however slowly.  They dance to a rhythm we cannot hear.  Things come into existence, live out their time, and then disappear without anyone ever knowing about them, but it happens just the same, whether we know or not.  This photo is only a moment in time, and that moment will never come again.  If I were to go back to the same spot tomorrow, I highly doubt it would look the same.

We’re told to seize the day.  Forget about the day.  The day is eternal.  Seize the moment; that’s where the action is.

March 5, 2016 - Fly Away

Like little fairy wings, really.  These delicate tree ears grow out of an old tree stump.  Some tree ears are hard and gnarly and imposing, but not these.  These are delicate ears, like wispy little wings, like thin little flower petals.  Around and around the stump they go in their own perfect pattern.  Sometimes it seems logical; other times it’s just a joyful abandoning of all pretense as the little petals dash around the stump and chase one another.

The tiny wings of magic.

But there’s a reason for it all.  It was an invitation, you see.  Long ago, this tree sat proudly in the forest, majestic in height and impressive in girth.  He had every reason to be proud, and he was proud, but he also carried a secret longing.  The birds of the forest would nest in his branches, and all day long he would listen to their beautiful songs.  They would come and go, flying back and forth.  They would leave for the winter and come back with exotic tales to tell in the spring.

And the tree would listen to them all.  He would listen and he would long for the adventures of the birds.  When they flew off into a brisk current, he would watch with starry eyes.  When they glided back and forth on unseen waves, graceful and peaceful, he would feel those same waves in his leaves and imagine that he, too, was a bird gently gliding.  The older he got, the more he thought and wished and pined to fly off into the sunrise as his little bird friends did.

Now as I have told you all, there is still magic left in the forests of Maine, and a magic forest has its own set of rules that are quite different from a forest controlled by man.  The wishes, the hopes, the intentions, the desires of this magnificent tree were so powerful and so full of longing that a great willing was heard throughout the forest.  This kind of willing cannot be ignored if it contains all of the proper elements:  Longing, desire, love, hope, and purity. 

Pureness of heart is especially important, for no dark thought of jealousy or envy must be held in the heart of the one who wills.  Jealousy and envy turn desire into anger and resentment.  But there was no jealousy or envy in the heart of the great tree, only love for his little birds.  Love and longing and hope.

And with love and longing and hope, anything can be accomplished.  So, unbeknownst to him, his desire--his great intention--was heard in the magic of the forest.  Once a desire like this is heard, it cannot be ignored, and the fairies set to work to help the great tree reach his goal. 

This is where we came in above.  The transformation is nearly complete.  The great tree is in the final stages of “un-becoming,” and as he “un-becomes,” he sprouts his tiny little, petal-shaped wings.  These wings--these delicate little catchers of the winds of hope--will know how to catch magic’s current in the air.  Then when the “un-becoming” is complete, the tree will be too.

And then he will simply fly away.

March 4, 2016 - On Holy Ground

ON HOLY GROUND

Yes, let’s gather in the yard

on holy ground

that freezes just as cold

warms just as easily

greens just a prettily

as the unholy ground.

Let’s be surrounded by the woods

abutting holy ground

with leaves just as green

pine needles just as sharp

woodland animals just as quick

as the unholy ground.

Let’s meet together at last

free of our final form

striving, then, for the oneness

that we fought against

the wholeness that we were

but were too blind to see

that cares not for the holy

or the unholy

but strives instead

for peace alone.

On holy ground.

March 3, 2016 - Cedar Shingles

Each cedar shingle on this old house was made by hand.  When the shingles were new, they were light brown in color.  Now, just like human hair, they have aged to an old silver-grey hue.  Even so, a good many of them, grey or not, still survive intact.

I know a man who makes cedar shingles, or “shakes” as he calls them, by hand.  He still makes them exactly as they’ve always been made.  He uses a “froe” (a metal wedge/blade), lines it up with the end of the bolt of wood, and drives it straight down with a big wooden mallet.  And suddenly a shake appears, sliced straight down from the wood, tapering just a bit.  Of course, he makes it look easy, like there’s nothing to it.

Old silver shakes.

He sits outback of his house and makes lots and lots of shakes every day.  When he first started, he did so because he was building his own home and didn’t like what shingle manufacturers had to offer.  So he decided to make his own.  He taught himself how to do it through trial and error, and eventually he became quite good at it.  He made plenty of shakes to cover his house and was very pleased.

And he thought that was the end of it, but it wasn’t.  Other people also became very pleased with his work.  Anyone who saw his house knew this man had shakes that no one else had, at least no one else in modern times.  They wanted shakes like that for their own building projects, but when they asked him where he got them, they found out no one was selling them because they were handmade.  They left saddened.

Not all of them left, though.  A husband and wife asked him if he’d be willing to make enough shakes for a new home they were building.  He was very busy with other projects, but the new homeowners were persistent.  Eventually, he agreed and they paid him well and everyone was happy.

But now there were two homes in the area with unique handmade shakes.  “Where did you get those shakes?” became the question people started asking, and they were directed to the quiet man who sits outback of his house and makes them.  More orders for shakes were placed.  At first the man was exasperated, but he soon realized what an opportunity this was, the more so because he had never set out to make shakes for other people in the first place.  In a short time, though, he had quit the job he was working and found himself outback of his house, cutting shakes all day long.  He went from being very poor to not very poor at all in a very short time.

It’s the wood, though.  He loves the wood and the patterns he finds inside a tree.  He loves the smell of freshly cut shakes.  He loves working with simple hand tools, taking his time cutting pretty shakes.  He tells me he sits and thinks a lot while he’s out there cutting them.  He has conversations with the wood about this knot and that, about this idea and that, about this turn in life and that.

He’s still a very quiet man and doesn’t like it when a lot of people come around.  He deals with one customer and one order at a time, and there are people lined up far into the future, waiting for the handmade shakes.  Oh, they could buy shakes anywhere, but not like the ones this man makes.  They’re unique, with each shake having its own personality.  When put together, they make a beautiful building that will last long into the future.

Someday, a couple of hundred years from now, there will be some old homes sitting here and there in a field.  They’ll be covered with old handmade shakes made by my friend that have weathered to a fine silver-grey.  Long after the windows and doors have been all but destroyed and the roof is dangerously bowed, the shakes will still be there.  Someone might drive by with a camera and take a photo of those old cedar shingles as they stand in the late winter sun, waiting for another spring.

March 2, 2016 - Little Carvings

The old red barn seen from the top of Bradbury Mountain in Pownal is one of my recurrent themes in this journal.  It’s one of the places I like to go when I need to think and remember.  I don’t always even know what I’m trying to recall, only that there’s something I need to reach inside and find amid the encroaching confusion.  And the only way to do that is to go and look at the red barn.

At this time of year, there are no leaves blocking the view, and the barn itself appears to be in a large brown field.  The only green is from the pine trees.  But I rather like it this way.  Sure, seeing all the growth of summer and knowing the food stand is down there is reassuring and comforting, but so is the starkness of this season.  It’s a reminder of the strength of the human spirit despite all odds.

A little carving.

From this vantage point, I can see what people have “carved out” for themselves.  There is mainly only the forest to look at, but here and there is a “carving,” and they’re not unpleasant carvings as you might see with a large and sprawling city.  These are tiny carvings, and each carving has its own unique character.  Each carving shows the personality of the man or woman who carved it.  Each carving shows the manifestation of prior intention.

Further off in the background of the photo and somewhat to the left, you can see another carving.  Another person has staked their claim.  As long as you work with your surroundings and not against them, it’s okay to stake a claim.  There’s a difference between ownership and stewardship.  It’s only when we completely displace the natural world and insert a sterile manmade world that we create an eyesore.

Those who work with the fields and their shapes--their dips and hills--know how to take advantage of naturally wet or dry land.  Those who understand the trees can use them for windbreaks or allow more aeration, as the case may be.  Those who know how to work with the water table and not against it will always have plenty of water for their crops.

It comes down to respect and a willingness to listen.  That’s what the owners of these gentle little carvings have mastered.  So when I come up here and look out at my surroundings, that is what I am looking for--respect and a willingness to listen.  I always find it here and I leave with a clearer head, knowing how to deal with whatever my current situation might be.  I remember again what I was looking for, and I clear out the sterile manmade world.

March 1, 2016 - The Labyrinth

I tried to hide behind the post and the trellis.  Can you see my shadow on the left and the shadow of the small shed on the right?  We are overshadowing a labyrinth, which I walked before snapping this photo.  You never know what you will find in Maine, and I am continually surprised by the people here.  This is not located in a big center of town or at a large meeting place.  This is just something someone made, and I happened upon it by accident.

I don’t think anyone was around when I walked the labyrinth.  It took longer than I thought it would; it always does.  At first I kept looking over my shoulder to see if anyone would spot me being me, but no one was there.  If the deer saw me, they said nothing.  But as usual, the labyrinth pulled my mind in and forced me to concentrate only on what I was doing--walking to the center, around and around.

The labyrinth.

The goal is the center and meditation is what gets you there, even though you might think it’s your feet that get you to the center.  It’s an odd thing, the labyrinth.  You begin to walk it, and it appears as though you are going straight to the center.  Suddenly, you find yourself off course, going away from the center.  You find yourself going outward, then back inward, and then back outward yet again.  Each time, though, you spiral a little closer to the center . . . hovering.

It takes patience to get to the center and a willingness to feel hopelessly lost.  Once the center is achieved, of course, there is nowhere to go but back to the beginning.  So we finally end where we began, but we are not the same.  You can choose to walk the labyrinth or you can choose to stand firmly in one spot.  Either way, you end up standing in the same spot.  But he who chooses the labyrinth chooses a hidden rhythm that can be felt thereafter but never seen.

Give me the twisted, winding path of the labyrinth.  Let me lose myself in the pilgrimage designed to help me find myself.