July 7, 2018 - The Sign of Sirius

The beginning was pure bliss.  There were sun-warmed rocks to sit upon and a lush green carpet had spread everywhere.  There were birds singing and the hypnotic scent of thousands of different flowers in the air.  It was a time of new possibilities.  The mornings showed shimmery mists floating in the brilliant, golden rays.  The growing ember was welcome.  Thus the Sun King announced his arrival, and the people bowed before him.  Not one head was raised.

Then it became sultry.  Waves of warmth washed over everything, and the Earth exploded in response.  Everywhere growth was lush and heavy and brimming with almost sinful abundance.  The mornings were warm and welcome.  The comforting warm breezes released the fear of cold, and the people relaxed into the bounty of the summer.  Every voice was raised in praise, singing songs of peace and prosperity.  The inner growth kept pace with the outer growth, and the people relaxed into the land of plenty.

At battle.

But all things must change; that is the nature of existence.  When the people were distracted, bright Sirius began to climb daily into the early morning sky before the Sun King arrived to hold his court.  And he was brilliant!  Yes, beautiful!  The people saw him and wondered at this shining star in the morning heavens, and this news found its way to the palace of the Sun King, who became jealous of Sirius.  With a heavy hand, he fanned the flames in an attempt to bring more to his people, and the land began to wilt and weep.

Sirius whispered in the ear of the Sun King and reminded him of the Lord of Winter, that ancient foe the King had destroyed so long ago. 

“I have seen his sentries in the deep woods,” he whispered, “keeping watch over the Gate.  You have not vanquished him.  He lives still.”

The King thought about his old enemy.  He must be destroyed completely.  Enraged, the Sun King sent every battalion he had to secure the land, and he, himself, set out to mark the Earth once and for all.  So the fire began in earnest.  Everywhere he went, he blazed with heat and brilliance.  Beautiful, to be sure, but harsh and unforgiving as well.  The land continued to wilt, and dry tear tracks stained her face.  But still he came, with vengeance and jealousy and fury.  He marked his possessions heavily, and the people were burdened exceedingly, sighing in the undying heat.

Yet still Sirius whispered in the early morning sky, laughing at the Sun King and coveting his people.  For forty days he ruled the morning heavens, and the winds began to listen to him and swirl about angrily.  They sought out the vast reserves of their brother, the Ocean, and a secret counsel was held.  The decision was made, and it was time for the storms.

They came as light rains at first but soon picked up pace in the Ocean along the edges of the land.  Sometimes they would come inland, and the scorched Earth would gratefully accept their bounty.  The old battle had begun again, and the Sun King’s soldiers were everywhere.  The people averted their gaze, but at night they hoarded the water from the storms and danced in the moonlight.  Wanted signs were posted:  Dead or Alive, the enemy.  The King combed the land up and down, peering into every crevice, searching for the joy that was slipping through his own fingers.

And deep in the Underworld the Lord of Winter smiled on his icy throne, his map of the battlefield before him.  He pulled sparkling diamonds out of the Earth around him and placed them in different configurations upon the field.  The shape of a dog appeared among the diamonds, and he knew this would keep Demeter very, very busy for quite some time, while the Maiden of the Springtime, Persephone, searched in vain for her King. 

The pendulum swings, always.  At its farthest point it turns and looks back, and seeing its own reflection in the mirror, it falls in love.  How could I have left you?  The descent begins again.  The tides turn sharply and howl like a dog in the night, baying at the moon.

July 2, 2018 - An Agreement

This little chipmunk will never know about the world in which mankind lives.  For him, the entire world is a small section of the woods where he lives and gathers food and sleeps.  He will live in this wooded area and he will die in this wooded area, and he will never know that anything else ever existed.

Part of the Promise.

He will never know about money or employment.  He will work to gather his food—yes, but he will never know about “employment” as we know it.  He is employed by the life force to simply be, and he spends his time in practicality maintaining that life.  He will never know about wars or propaganda.  He will suffer no tension or worry or anxiety.  He knows nothing about impressing others or about one’s station in life.  He will never get an education beyond what his mother taught him and what he was born with naturally.  For him, the world is a set of trees and greenery and birds and food.

When about three summers and winters have passed, he will die.  There will be no funeral and no mourning, no grave to mark his prior existence.  There will be nothing but the woods and more chipmunks and birds and trees and food.  If he could speak for a moment, he might say that a short life lived in tune with nature at the expense of no one else, and with abundance and peace and quiet intention, was worth every moment and preferable to anything else.

If he could speak for a moment, he might say that, but it is doubtful he would waste his words on what he has already clearly displayed from birth to death.  It is a tradeoff that animals have made, an agreement forged in antiquity, from which they have never deviated.  Keeping the ancient pact without regret or remorse or fear in a tiny section of the woods in Maine.

June 23, 2018 - Strawberry Lessons

It is a busy time of year.  I am working very hard trying to capture the Spirit and put it in a jar.  I am making medicinal tinctures and oils and salves.  I am dehydrating many different herbs for cooking and tea.  The strawberry jam season has begun, and after picking for hours in the hot sun, I find myself back in a hot kitchen making strawberry jam.  Then it will be raspberry jam, blueberry jam, blackberry jam, and a mixture of all of those later on.  And of course, I’ll be fermenting food soon as well.

But right now, it is strawberry jam.  I love strawberries so much.  They have such a unique and wonderful flavor, and they are only here for a few weeks.  Then they are gone for another year.  So quickly and crazily, I gather the strawberries and make jams and syrups and dehydrated fruit rolls.  It is hard work, but it is worth it in the many months to come.  In January when the ice is encroaching and the snow is deep and cold, I will open what I call “sunshine in a jar”—strawberry jam.

Ruby red life.

I got to thinking about all of this while I was in the hot sun yesterday picking and picking strawberries.  The sun was hot.  The insects were buzzing and threatening.  I was sweating, and my hands were all sticky and red.  But I kept on picking.  Faster and faster I picked.  My back was hurting, and when I could not lean over anymore, I got on my knees and crawled through the patch.  Then my knees started to hurt.  But I kept on picking.

Because I have a secret.  It is a lesson I learned long ago, and it has never failed me.  You gather what you can, while you can.  You work hard and you save for a rainy day.  You seize abundance as soon as it is offered, and you never delay.  And when you do this, you will always have plenty—and not just “a lot,” but the best there is to have.  Courtesy of yourself (and Mother Nature, of course).

There is hidden wealth in a jar of strawberry jam, in a quart of strawberry syrup.  There is stored sunshine, captured energy waiting to change form yet again as it endlessly winds itself throughout the Universe.  The deep red color strikes a primitive cord in us.  It whispers, “I am alive.”  I consume the jam.  The Spirit is found.

Some will say it is too much work.  There are other things to do, better things.  Why bother?  The modern age brings us strawberries all year long in the supermarket.  I am not sure what those hard reddish/yellowish things in the supermarket are, but they are not strawberries.  And there is no Spirit in them either.  The life force has long since left, if it was ever there in the first place.

You see, I make the strawberry jam not only because the flavor and sustenance is outstanding, but because I want to work for it, because then I am connected to it from start to finish.  It is not a substance that just magically appeared before me.  It started as a seed, then a small plant, then flowers, and finally berries.  Then there was hot work in the sun and hot work in the kitchen.  (Note that a circuit has been completed.  Ears, hear.)

And all of this fills me with so much appreciation and gratitude for what the Earth offers us, if we are smart enough to take it, strong enough to capture it, and brave enough to believe in it.  There are so many lessons out in the fields and in our own kitchens.  Every day we are given the opportunity to participate in the real journey.  Every day brings us a chance to come home again.

June 16, 2018 - Simply Live

The biggest thing we have to do in life—our responsibility, actually—is to simply live.  So often that gets overlooked because where is the fun in that?  So many people are looking for the “next big thing” to do or experience.  It is an addiction.  It is a dream, like chasing a rainbow.  People are always after it, but they rarely ever really find it, that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  And even if they do happen to find it, the question then becomes, what now?

The problem has always been what to do with one’s time.  Mankind has invented many things to fill up the hours.  First and foremost, there are our “jobs,” those things we do to make money to buy the things we would have done for ourselves had we not spent our time working our jobs.  I do not mean to say that we ought to quit our employment.  Most of us cannot at this point anyway because of the way our society is set up, and that is not necessarily a bad thing because most people end up in trouble when they have too much time on their hands.  But it is undeniable that our jobs do intentionally use up a lot of time each day.

Water lily simplicity.

What to do with one’s time?  If we sleep for eight hours and work for eight hours, that leaves us with eight hours for everything else in our day.  This causes a bit of a panic inside for many people because they have been told they must do something exciting and worthwhile with their time.  Something fun.  Something “over the top.”  Something big.  And very often it has to be bigger and better than what the neighbors are doing.  It just has to.

And so you will see people chasing the “good times,” the definition of which continually changes thanks to our corporate advertisers and propaganda.  Like the rainbow, the good times shimmer beautifully in the sky, promising us the pot of gold . . . if we just go a little further, if we just venture one more mile, if we just give up a little more time and a little more money (which is another word for time).

We have got to buy that luxury car or that large expensive home we cannot afford.  We have got to go on that trip to Europe and put it on credit.  We have got to buy a better bottle of wine, a better cut of steak, a silk jacket, a fur coat, a crystal vase . . .  Because we deserve it, right?  Have we not worked hard for it?  Spent a lot of time to get the money for it?  Should we not have the “good things” in life?

Of course, there truly are good things in life, certain events that really are bigger than ordinary everyday living, and of course, we do anticipate them longingly and look back on them with rapture.  There is nothing wrong with that at all.  That is a good thing.  An old black and white polaroid photo of a wedding couple.  The deed for our first little home.  A diamond ring and a promise.  A new baby.  Yes, these are all good things.

The problem is that many people want more and more “good” things, big things, exciting things, unusual things.  They chase them down hungrily, but as soon as they get them, they want the next big thing.  Now what do I do?  Now where should I go?  Now what should I buy?  So often, people finally achieve a goal (usually just an expensive purchase) and find themselves feeling hollow and empty.  Somehow the pot of gold was moved while they were busy chasing it. 

People have been told to think there always has to be something “big” happening because there are only eight hours in each day after our sleep and employment obligation, and many of those hours must be spent on mundane things.  Preparing food, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, doing the laundry . . . this is why you find so many people living in squalor who know better because they do not want to “waste” those precious few hours they have cooking and cleaning.  They tell themselves the chores will always be there waiting for them later.  Indeed, they will.

You will notice in the truly good things I mentioned above—the wedding, the deed, the promise, the baby, etc.—none of them involve anything too commercial, anything too outrageous, anything too glamorous.  Yes, everything costs time and money, but there is nothing in that list that requires you to keep up with the Joneses.  In fact, all of those things are just part of simple living, which is really all we have to do with the time given us.

Actually, it is the only thing we have to do with the time given us:  Simply live.  Realize that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but there are dishes in the sink that must be washed.  Realize that there is no true status to be obtained by getting a luxury automobile, but there is a lawn that must be mowed so the backyard can be enjoyed.  Realize that there is no lasting happiness in constant jet-setting, but there is a child who wants you to read a book to him before he goes to bed.

Because really that is all there is, just plain living, and plain living involves work and chores and whining children and barking dogs and endless laundry and dirty dishes.  What to do with one’s time?  Simply live.  Put your house and your life in order by handling your responsibilities and doing your simple chores, and magically you find that your mind slips into order as well.  A hidden reward for your hard work.

Yes, our lives are dotted with little golden gems we tuck away into our memories.  The old photo of everyone together at Thanksgiving dinner.  The first day of school.  The first bike.  The best dog.  The new house.  The prolific garden.  These are the true pots of gold, and they are scattered sparsely throughout our lives.  But in between all of these golden gems is dishes and scrubbing, washing and cooking, mowing and digging, and kissing a bumped head.

This is what you do with the time allotted you, the time that is so precious and so short, and heaven help you if you cannot see that.  Heaven help you if you hand away your precious time chasing deliberately-placed, lack-luster rainbows, which evaporate into nothing.

May 24, 2018 - The New Oak

THE NEW OAK

Shimmering in the sunlight

the bright green leaves

a new red oak

to be king someday

but for now

a baby

sprung from an acorn

a hard little prison

a secret seed

filled with wishes and longing

and bursting

a responsibility now

to give forth thousands of more acorns

for the next thousand years

the duty of the king

the secret of the prison

the magic of the seed.

May 14, 2018 - The Invisible Hand

It is about patterns.  They are everywhere, and they make up the fabric of our lives.  Indeed, they make up the fabric of the Universe.  Without patterns, there is nothing but chaos, and chaos means death.  If there is a definition for “evil,” it must be chaos—complete disorder and disruption and loss of the precious patterns.  Without order, there can be no life, for life follows a very certain set of strict rules and patterns, and it never deviates from these rules and patterns.  Never.  They are fundamental to growth, and growth is life.

There are many patterns that are easily identifiable because they are complex and present elaborate evidence to our eyes.  Who could deny the stunning beauty and order of a spiral seashell, the head of a sunflower, or the deep red color of a cardinal’s feathers?  Their order and discipline speak to the secret part of our soul that craves union with Final Form, the part of us that longs for the Archetypical world.  But that’s easy.  Anyone can spot that if they open their eyes because patterns bring pleasure, whether they are seen or felt.

The signature of the wind.

Yet there is another pattern, one much subtler and older.  I noticed it many years ago when smiling at the willy-nilly dandelions as they peppered the field here and there in the early spring, spattering the landscape with brilliant yellow light.  He who cannot smile from this sight is poor, indeed.  The simple yellow color meandered around, now here and there, now thick and thin, and then almost absent, only to show up again in rich abundance. 

And I realized that I was looking at the wind.  It was the first time I had ever seen the wind.  Up until then, I had only felt it or heard it, but I had never seen it with my own eyes.  Here, then, was proof of the wind.  For who spread those dandelion seeds in the field in their strange and complex pattern but the wind?  Who dashed now left and right, high and low, bare and thick but the wind?  The wind had taken hold of those tiny, feathery little seeds and placed them precisely where they ought to be, as if they were a signature saying, “I am the Wind.  I was here.  This is my work.”

This is what I believed for years, and every spring I would look for evidence of the wind from the year before and its indelible mark on the field.  But one day it occurred to me that the wind was just a tool being used, for the wind is just one of many forces that disseminates the Master Pattern.  The Great Alchemist reaches out His hand and commands the almost chaotic wind, and out of chaos comes order, out of nothing comes something.  Out of a tiny seed, inert and dead-appearing, springs forth the plant with the pattern of the flower imprinted on its soul.  Not unlike the Universe at all, as it springs forward and reveals the Hand that commands the pattern—the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

We are all dandelions in a field, after all.

May 6, 2018 - Spring in Maine

Spring means something different for people who live in Maine, or anywhere with very cold winters, something very different than it does to those in more moderate climates.  Certainly, I think everyone appreciates spring but some have more of an appreciation, and this appreciation comes from direct and striking contrast.  The colder the winter, the more longed for the spring warmth.  The deeper the snow, the more the secret yearning for the greenery.

Realistically, technically, logically, we all know spring is coming.  We all know it, and we know it because it has always come before after a winter.  Simple experience tells us that.  But there’s just something . . . about a spring in Maine that you won’t find in many other places.  Perhaps it’s because the winter is so difficult and long and dark.  Perhaps it’s because the cold has finally leached all hope out of the people’s hearts.  Perhaps it’s simpler and more basic and is just a sigh of relief from not being swallowed alive by the Season of Death.

Don't you know me?

But whatever it is, it makes spring in Maine that much more special.  When you have not seen greenery for months on end, when you have not seen much sustained sunlight (and what sunlight you have seen could not be enjoyed due to severe cold), when the woods have gone completely silent and nothing is heard but the wail of a lonely and hungry animal, something happens inside your heart.  You don’t give a damn what the calendar promises anymore.  You can only see and feel the snow and the ice and the greyness.  It makes a hole in your soul.

And just when things seem to be at their worst, just when you are absolutely certain that you will perish in this empty landscape, spring comes bounding back in.  And you want to cry!  You want to fall to your knees and kiss the Earth and say, “At last!  At last!  At last!  I see life again!”  The tiniest ray of hope shines from the depth of your soul.

To which the “Spring” responds . . .

“Did you think I would leave you?  Did you think I would abandon you forever?  Don’t you know how much I love you?  Have you no faith in me at all, then?  You are as precious to me as the green of the forest.  You are as beloved to me as the great multitude of birds singing in the canopy of the woods.  You are as special to me as the most exotic and rarest of flowers.  I will never leave you—never.  You will never have to live your life without hope or newness or bountifulness.  I am always here, even when you cannot see me, and I will always come for you—always.  This is my promise to you.  It is a promise I have not broken in over 4 billion years.  I will always come for you.  Rest now and take your ease.”

April 16, 2018 - April

Oh, the long and lonely road of April, with its penetrating frozen rain and sleet.  December I could laugh at.  I could light it up with candles and sweeten it with dreamy confections.  January I could stand beside.  I could march through the invigorating snow, tall and sure.  I could plan out a good year.  February I could bear.  I could see its stark beauty, and although it was severely cold, its elegance was undeniable, its crisp air ever a lesson.  March I could love as the first sign of the abating of the season of death.  In March I had hope.

But April.  The season of new light and hidden joy has long since passed, a happy memory.  The new year and the promises and hope have been tucked away—not forgotten, but tucked away.  The icy severity has been conquered.  The Lord of Winter has retreated, taking his terrible army with him.  The wood fires have blazed and won the battle.  Again.  And the world is poised . . . poised.

But April.  Colorless and grey, stealing into the bones of all living creatures, sapping the strength of all it touches.  The continual shiver of exhausted muscles.  The lackluster landscape, sad and forlorn.  It cannot live and it cannot die.  An eternal cold limbo with bony fingers reaching from the Underworld.  And not even a grave!  Even that would bring some sort of solace, some sort of meaning, implying that at one time there may have been more, demanding grief for what might have been.  But even that has been stolen.

Stolen.  Relentlessly, hopelessly, helplessly, endlessly.  April.

April 15, 2018 - The Kitchen Alchemist

I grew up washing dishes by hand.  The idea of a dishwasher never even entered my mind.  We always washed dishes by hand, and everyone I knew did the same.  It was a chore—usually despised—that simply had to be done at least twice a day every day.  Paper plates never entered the picture.  If they could be gotten, they were far too expensive anyhow.  And what a waste!  One use and tossed into the garbage?  Unheard of.  Absolutely unheard of.

And so day in and day out, we all washed our dishes.  Some of us complained louder than others, and I was one of the complainers.  Oh, how I hated washing dishes!  Surely, there were a dozen other better and more important things I could be doing than washing dishes.  Surely, there were more pressing matters at hand, things of an urgent nature.  Putting these things on hold simply to do dishes was irresponsible, I would say—to anyone who would listen.  But mostly I just grumbled angrily to myself.

Vintage Corning Ware.

Well, time passed as it always does, and one day I got myself a dishwasher—a real dishwasher!  I was so happy, I was beside myself!  I loaded it up with dirty dishes, put in the soap, turned the dial, and the pressed the button.  And the magic began.  A machine washed my dishes for me.  Finally, I thought, my dreams had come true.  No more drudgery with the dishes.  No more toiling over the sink.  I could bake whatever I wanted and not have to worry much about the cleanup.  This was progress.

Or so I thought.  Many years passed, and I went through several dishwashers.  As soon as one broke, I immediately got another because there was no way I was going to wash dishes by hand.  I had better things to do.  Funny thing is, though, I didn’t often do any of those “better” things.  I often relaxed.  Of course, there’s nothing wrong with sitting down and relaxing, especially if you have worked hard all day, but all those “important and urgent” things seemed to fly right out of the window.  I didn’t find myself getting anything more done than I ordinarily already did.

And there was a strange dark side.  The dishwasher had become a hiding place.  Anything unclean was hidden inside it, to be washed at the end of the day (unless I had to run it twice, which sometimes I did).  It made my kitchen appear cleaner than it actually was.  The counters and sink were clean because the dirt was hidden.  If I wanted to use a certain bowl or dish that was dirty, I had to use something else or improvise.  Because once something was stuffed into the hiding place, I could no longer acknowledge it existed until the machine cleaned it again.  A day’s worth of dishes would slowly build up, moldering in the dark and closed space.  In the back of my mind, there was always this feeling of unfinished business.

Then one day something changed.  I walked into my kitchen, and I realized it wasn’t just a place where I did work or fed a crew.  It was a place where I lived, where I spent a great deal of time, where I pondered life.  It was a place where I made plans, calculated the good and bad in my life, built a future.  It was a place where I laughed and cried, a place where I nourished myself and others.  It was a place filled with so much love and living.  How could I have ever thought that it was a place of drudgery?  How could I have been so blind?

What I did then, well, I pulled out the old dish rack and set it up on the counter.  Underneath it I placed a clean white vintage kitchen towel.  I pulled all the dirty dishes out of the dishwasher and put them in the sink, and then I filled up the basin with hot, soapy water.  I washed all the dishes by hand, rinsed them, and put them in the rack.  Then I stood back and watched them gleam in the sunshine that came through the window over the sink.  I did the same thing the next day and the day after that.

I’ve never put a single dish in that dishwasher again.  It sits in my kitchen.  Empty.  Barren.  And somehow my life is fuller now that I’ve been given my chores back, now that I’ve willingly taken them on again.  I do my best thinking while I’m washing dishes, and I might as well confess that I talk out loud to myself all the time while working in the kitchen.  I make plans.  I solve problems.  I come to peace with people and things.  Somehow washing the dirt off the dishes also washes it out of my mind.  Making things clean and orderly—and having nothing dirty and hidden—makes it so much easier to make realistic everyday decisions, and I find I don’t second-guess myself as much as I used to.

Who would have thought that washing dishes could do all of that?  If someone had told me so when I was younger, I would have laughed in their face and rolled my eyes.  I guess I had to learn the value—the deep and abiding value—of ordinary daily chores.  I had to learn to choose them.  I had to learn how to appreciate the meaning of simple things.  I had to learn the wisdom of a structured day. 

I don’t know why I changed and I don’t know how, and I’m not sure it matters.  Very often these days, I find myself singing while washing dishes, and that is good enough for me.