March 13, 2015 - The Mist

Now things begin to look “otherworldly” again, and why shouldn’t they?  They are.  That’s what it amounts to:  Another world.  The mist is everywhere now, like a thick primordial soup.  One world is giving way to another.  Is it giving way peacefully?  I doubt it, although it may seem that way to some people.  Soon we will hear the horrible cracking and booming of the ice on the ponds and rivers as it cracks open in agony and slams against the shores and banks.  And where will our peace be then?

This mist hides so much.  It’s a game of smoke and mirrors, where thieves run back and forth from one realm to another.  A tiny island looms in the shadows of the fog.  Can you see it in the picture?  Is it surrounded by water or ice?  Is it safe to try to make it to the island, or will it lure a person or craft to its demise?  We cannot have lighthouses everywhere, after all.  What’s your gamble?  Will you head out to the island in the mist?

The will-o’-the-wisp usually haunts us in warmer weather, but I think it will make an exception for the days of the mist.

A tiny island in the mist.

March 11, 2015 - The First Fog

I woke up to the first fog of the year, and it was a message to me, as it always is.  Change is in the air now for certain.  It’s in the very air we breathe; there can be no doubt.  The mists are rising again.  The Great Alchemist stole into my yard last night and began the transmutation afresh, and when I woke up, it was all around me.  I reached out for the Philosopher’s Stone.

Things come and go and come back again in the mists, and this is what they are doing now.  The great shift has begun once again.  The Magnum Opus continues.  Spring is upon us.

The first fog.

March 10, 2015 - A Diamond in the Rough

People come to live in Maine for all kinds of reasons.  Some people come because they are tired of the crowds and noise and dirt in their own hometown.  When they get to Maine, they relax at first with the silence and open space and fresh air, but pretty soon all of that begins to bug them.  Where are all the stores?  Where are all the malls?  Where are all the cinemas?  There are some of those things in Maine, of course, but not like what most people are used to, and so they leave.

Some people come because they are tired of the hustle, bustle, and crime of their own hometown.  They want a simpler life, and when they get here, at first they relax into the simplicity of everyday routine and a quiet life.  But soon enough, they get antsy.  Where are the theatres?  Where is Broadway?  Where are all the ethnic cuisines?  We have tiny pockets of these things here and there, but not much, and so they leave.

Some people "get it."

Some people come for clean air, clean water, and abundant wildlife, which they don’t have in their hometown.  When they get here, they are amazed and delighted with the stark beauty and woods and waters teeming with animals.  But after a while when their eyes have adjusted to the beauty, they don’t see it anymore.  Where is the entertainment?  Why is there nothing to do here?  Why are hunting and fishing still so popular here?  Shouldn’t we band together and make legislation to outlaw them?  Eventually, they become downcast, and so they leave.

Some people come because they have bought into the media’s fantasy of Maine.  White picket fences everywhere.  Neighbors full of love and hospitality.  A surprising amount of sophistication.  Opportunity everywhere.  Farming communities.  And while we have all of those things, often they must be created by each person in one way or another, and farmers are busy people.  Transplants soon learn that we don’t sit on our porches sipping coffee all day, that work in agriculture can be back-breaking, and that the locals are often suspicious of their motives, and so eventually they leave.

And why are locals so suspicious of the motives of transplants?  Are the locals just mean?  Far from it.  But it can be taxing when someone comes to live in your area and tells you how you ought to change this or you ought to change that.  They tell you how you don’t have enough culture or industry or good food.  They tell you that you don’t have enough education and that you ought to be mighty impressed with their education.  They don’t like direct democracy, as many towns have instead of representative democracy.  So they start grumbling, and when they grumble, they miss out on some real beauty, including the people of Maine.

But some people--some people--“get it.”  Some people come because their hearts have been searching for a very long time.  Some people come because their souls are bare and empty and they need to fill them up again.  Some people come and embrace the quiet, the solitude, the wildlife, the emptiness, the occasional loneliness, the bitter cold and the snow and the ice . . .  And they love it all.  They come because their journey is finally over, because they know that life is all about simply living, just living each day.  Life is about breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Life is about friends and flowers.  Life is about communion with the soil and the other elements around you.  Life is about hard work.  Life is about self-sufficiency and independence.  Some people know a diamond in the rough when they see it.

March 9, 2015 - The Twisted Old Pitch Pine

The graceful white pine might be the official Maine state tree, but it’s the gnarled and twisted old pitch pine that ought to hold that title.  There’s no grace in the pitch pine, no beauty to be found.  There’s no trademark statuesque appearance and no landscape enhancement with the old pitch pine.  It’s just a twisted, gnarled, grumpy, tattered old tree--and that’s why it’s perfect!

The pitch pine (Pinus rigida) is native to eastern North America and can thrive in dry, acidic soils as well as swampy lowlands.  It can deal with very poor conditions.  The needles are terribly prickly and twisted, and the pinecones have horrible sharp thorns on them!  I have gashed my hand on them many times by accident.  It has the really weird ability to resprout from “epicormic shoots” when the bark is damaged, especially by fire, and it’s common to see tiny little shoots coming out from all over the main trunk or branches.  Many people like to use it for bonsai training because of this feature, and it is this very gift of the pitch pine that makes it such a tough survivor when other pines would have died.

Sharp, thorny pinecones of the pitch pine.

The pitch pine is slow-growing and crooked, and it has a high resin content that helps to preserve it from decay.  In the past, this feature made it very suitable for railroad ties and mine timbers.  It’s not used as often these days, and because of its often twisted trunk, it’s hard to find pitch pine of “high quality” lumber.  However, when it is found, it can fetch a very high price.

So why do I think that the horrible old pitch pine ought to be the Maine state tree instead of the beautiful white pine?  Simple.  Because the pitch pine is a survivor, a thriver.  The pitch pine is an opportunist.  The pitch pine is stubborn and resilient.  The pitch pine is adaptable and smart and knows its way around many difficulties.  The pitch pine is unconcerned with looks and appearances and ego.  It has its own terrible beauty and proudly displays it.

Now, those are qualities that I like!  Those are qualities of resilience, determination, and success.  Those are the qualities of a tough northern state that can be very cold and difficult to live in at times.  Those are qualities I look for not only in the place I live but in the people with whom I associate.  I should be very proud, indeed, if someone were to call me a grumpy old pitch pine.  It would mean that I'm as resourceful and wily as this tough old tree, which to my way of thinking is the real Maine state tree.

March 8, 2015 - The Spiral

The unending spiral of this shell I found on the beach today whispered “infinity” to me.  Any direction you go on the spiral takes you onward and onward.  It’s no wonder that the ancients used the spiral, especially the triple spiral, as a symbol on the stones near their important places, possibly ritualistic in nature.  These symbols date back several thousand years and are as poignant today as they were back then.

The spiral doesn’t end.  It can’t end, even if it wanted to.  It appears to have a beginning, but that is not true.  It just goes inward to a point where the human eye cannot go beyond, and so it is said to have a beginning, but that beginning is for our eyes only and not for all of reality.

The spiral.

When we think of infinity, if we can think of it at all, we often think of it as starting at a point and moving outward . . . forever.  But that isn’t infinity, is it?  If it has a starting point, then it’s finite--even if we can’t see the end--and it means that there was something before the start.  And that’s not infinity.  The truth is that infinity is everything.  It’s everything that ever was, is, and will be--all at the same time.  There’s no starting point and no ending point.  It’s just everything, and it’s human beings who perceive things in a linear fashion on a timeline because that’s the only way we can make sense of it with our limited brains.  But that doesn’t mean that’s how it is.  It just means that’s how we think it is.

The spiral is everything.  We see it in the formation of galaxies, in the phyllotaxis of plants, in the Fibonacci numbers as they approach the golden ratio, and even in the double helix of DNA.

All around this shell is sand made up of former shells and other former living things, now crushed and unrecognizable.  This shell heads for the same fate in the never-ending spiral dance of life.

March 7, 2015 - Trees

I was lying down in a snowbank, looking upward at the sky, and the trees made a bare canopy above.  In the summer, it would be a shady area because of all the leaves.  But in the winter, it’s bare and stark.  It occurred to me as I was daydreaming that the trunks and branches and twigs of the trees looked like some sort of cardiovascular system.  There were arteries and veins and tiny little blood vessels stretching everywhere, reaching every spot of the sky.  Each part was so important to the health of the whole.

I decided that this is what trees can do.

A complex cardiovascular system.

March 5, 2015 - The Bones of Maine

We’ve had a bit of warmth the last couple of days, and the temperature even went as high as 35 degrees.  It sure has been a long time since I’ve felt 35 degrees.  It felt so warm and balmy that I just had to do some extra walking and breathe in all of that fresh air.

It’s amazing how quickly the snow can shrink up, even with just a day or two of warmth.  As I was out and about, I came across some of the bones of Maine that had been exposed by the warm temperatures.  It’s easy to forget about the bones, especially in the winter when you can’t see them, but there they were, popping out here and there from their snow blanket.

When the land masses all slammed together a few hundred million years ago and formed “Pangaea,” the supercontinent, the area that is now Maine was smashed and plowed by a huge land mass, pushing up all kinds of rock and creating mountains.  Then Pangaea split and continental drift occurred.  Eventually we ended up with what we have today.  Those cliffs and mountains and jagged shores of Maine are the bones of the Earth.  The bones are not as evident everywhere in the U.S., but here in Maine, they are completely exposed.

I’m used to seeing the bones everywhere I go.  I don’t really think about them until they’re no longer there due to the thick snow blanket.  Then the snow begins to melt, and it’s as if I’m seeing the bones again for the first time.  Maine is a “raw” state, and what you see is what you get.  We’ll have more snow yet before it’s all said and done for this winter, but now that I’ve seen the bones, I can confidently say that winter’s days are numbered.

The Bones of Maine.

March 4, 2015 - In Our Image

It is not enough for us that we simply live and breathe.  We are animals, but we are more than animals.  We are creators.  We fashion things with our hands to reflect our thoughts, our feelings, our concepts.  We take objects and mold them and make them speak for us.  We make them into images of our ideas of ourself.  Paint, clay, snow--it doesn’t matter what--we take it and make it into an object.  We are unique among the animals in that way.  No other creature does this.

Some of us can fashion things that are so lifelike, it takes the breath away.  Others of us have much cruder skills, but we still fashion things.  We make images of animals and fish, birds and plants, people and even aliens--ideas of what we think aliens might look like.  It doesn’t matter what:  we fashion it.  We make it feverishly because we cannot stop.  We are creators because we know no other thing.

We are imitators because we are imitations.  We make what we are.  An imitation is a reflection, a likeness, of something actual.  But we are not that “first thing.”  We are not the actual thing.  We are the likeness of it, the image in the water, the reflection.  The shadow cannot do anything that the body does not do, and the light behind the body knows this to be true.  We are the fashioned things of the fashioner.

From the hands of the sculptor.

March 3, 2015 - The Earth is Free

Most people don’t know it, but the Earth is free.  Mankind is the only creature that pays money to live on this Earth.  No other creature--plant or animal--does this.  No other creature asks permission to be born.  No other creature wonders whether it should or should not reproduce, whether or not it can afford to do so.  No other creature comes into this world on trial to see whether or not it “deserves” a living.  No other creature saves its money so it can die properly.  Only humans do this.

Animals build houses from the materials they find.  They forage for food and usually find enough to eat.  They eat when they’re hungry and sleep when they’re tired.  They don’t build elaborate social systems where one group of creatures considers itself to be better or more deserving than another group.  Sometimes they do vie for limited resources, but they take what they need and do not hoard what little there might be.  They would never starve another creature out of spite or envy or cruelty.  That honor is reserved for human beings.

Animals usually don’t live as long as we do.  When they get sick, they have no doctor to go to, no hospital to help them.  They either heal or they die.  They often spend a good portion of their day foraging for food, and when they’re not doing that, they’re trying to avoid being food for something else.  They have to deal with all the natural elements as they come.  There’s no sitting in front of a cozy fire for them.

Born free.

But they’re free.  It’s a trade-off, but they’re free.  No one tells them what they must eat and how they must eat it.  No one tells them when they may or may not sleep.  They have no “busy work” to keep them occupied, exhausted, and impotent.  They don’t have to tow the line.  They have nothing to prove.  There is no mockery and no jealousy.  They simply live.  The only time they ever have problems outside of where they are on the food chain is when they encounter human beings.

The Earth is free.  It has always been free and always will be.  It is free to us, too, if we choose to open our eyes and see that.  One person can’t shake his or her fist at society and demand changes, demand that people come to their senses.  But a very large group of people can do this.  Someday every person will walk out of their house or their shop or their school and stand in the street.  They’ll simply say, “We’re not going to do this anymore.  We’re just not.”  There they’ll stay--in the street, looking at one another, maybe for the first time.

And that huge wheel that turns endlessly in the sky, the imaginary one planted there by humans, will come to a screeching halt.  There will be no less work or cares for people, but they will be free, the way they were when they were born.  The jobs they do will be done for themselves and their immediate communities, for their own lives and their own comfort.

It is a dream I have.