sweet potato black bean chili was on the menu, so we went to the hanging basket in the stairwell to get a couple sweet potatoes.
lo and behold, one of our sweet potatoes had sweet pink tendrils growing, growing. we giggled as we recalled last year’s pink-tendril-adorned sweet potatoes and how we planted them in big planters and they took over the world.
because the world could use a good takeover, we decided to plant our little catalyst and watch goodness grow and spread and blanket every single everything.
it didn’t take but a few short days and, already, this sweet sweet has leaves.
i have to say – it gives me hope.
nature – despite all the contrarians out there who don’t care about it – will prevail. and deep down – underneath all the evil intent and the scripted corruption and the yuck that is distressing those of us with moral centers – there will be goodness.
the sweet potato will vine. the tomatoes will ripen. the trees will turn in autumn. the hummingbirds will migrate. stars will explode with light and galaxy dust will scatter. there will be symphonies of sound in the woods and by the shore. love and compassion, empathy and altruism will roll in on the tide.
sometimes – in the stats of this blog – i can see older posts someone has read but which i have forgotten. today one of those came up.
it is a blogpost from the very beginning of january 2024 called the place by the big trees. it is as relevant today – maybe even more so – than it was back a couple years ago:
i spent much of last year looking back. way back. way past up-close. way way back – way way past the smallest of trees on the horizon. it was necessary and painful and shocking and mighty tedious.
“… the mind clings to the road it knows / rushing through crossroads / sticking like lint to the familiar…” (mary oliver)
…
and there it all is. raw.
and you can see it. and your brain tries to stop you from seeing it. both. so you sit with it – laden – burdened – in the retrospect of it all – connecting the dots, sometimes nodding your head in sudden understanding, sometimes eyes wide, horrified at it all.
it is surreal. you are back there. you can feel it. but you know – that in merely a blink – you can be where you are right now…where you are really.
and suddenly, you are at a crossroads. you must choose between replacing the lint – tamping it back down and turning your face away from it – or recognizing it as a shield, pulling it all out – this ancient insulation – discarding it and then staring at what’s left – what is now feeling air and space and attention.
“trauma creates change you don’t choose. healing is about creating change you do choose.” (michelle rosenthal)
and then, after some time – some processing, some sorting, some meaning-making, some swearing, much courage, sheer survival – you glance at all the baggage laying next to you – and you pick up only that which you wish to carry.”
we hadn’t been on our loop in the woods lately. we haven’t been on it since. but that day we took some much-needed time to go to that place, to hike and be silent, to talk it all through, to go sort, to ground.
these two black-eyed susans weren’t the only black-eyed susans in the brush trailside. but these two were separate, they were not in a stand of flowers. instead, they were standing – in all their glory – alone, faces to the sun.
and they made me think of us – me and d – standing – as we all do, as we all find ourselves – alone together – faces to the sun – in the middle of the middle of all the stuff.
and again, in the middle of the middle, maybe like you in the middle of some middle, we once again process, we make meaning, we swear and cry and drum up a bit more courage and we choose.
and we once again dispense of any lint that clings to what-would-be-safe, what would be mute – soundless, what would insulate us from looking at it all, recognizing the burden of it all, honoring the gravitas.
and we turn our faces to the sun – our choice the crossroad – feeling the air and the space and the raw.
the sowthistle can’t help but stand in all the phases of its life at the same time.
and i wonder what wisdom it can impart by doing just that – standing simultaneously in bud through flower through feathery seed into senescence.
being able to see the stage that is next, the stage that was before, the stage that was the beginning, the stage that will be the end – perhaps this is perspective-arranging, perhaps it zeros one in – on what is right now.
i wonder if the sowthistle thinks about any of this. does it base any of its thistling decisions on this omnipresent view of the arc of life, on the conglomerate-rock plant approach – or does it just live, detached from stressing, disconnected from the mindset of striding through stages upon which it has little impact?
and what about us? what if we could see our whole life right in front of us? what if we knew – from beginning to end – how it would all shake out?
don’t we, though? sort of?
don’t we know that we will somehow travel through these stages – the beginning, the middle, the end – that we will somehow grow and change and celebrate and grieve and jump and hang back and be active and sedentary, brilliantly productive and passively idle, bowled over and resilient, profoundly angst-filled and radically happy, loving and beloved, young and – hopefully – old.
is the sowthistle consistently sanguine, glass-half-full, amazed at simply living?
as we hiked by this bit of meadow, sowthistle wild on the side of the trail, i was struck by the all-in-one-frame of thistle – all its life cycle – a life arc in one tiny space of dirt.
and in the way that nature reminds us – all the time – i was immediately aware of my own life arc, my own mysterious timeline.
and mary oliver whispered – once again – this time from the tangle of buds and flowers and seeds – because she can never ask this enough – “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
the clouds parted for a tiny bit of sun, the tiniest bit.
it seemed well-deserved after a week punctuated with heavy. it seemed well-deserved after the torrential rains that were the bookends of the last six days.
and there, in the middle of grey skies and uncertainty, was the smidgiest smidge of blue – a bit of an inhale, a few moments to catch our breath, to recover – before setting off to continue on the route.
there. there was the chance to stoke up, to firmly plant our feet, to focus our attention on what we need, to rest – before we look onward, before we discern what is ahead, before we take another step.
the day became inky black. we spent a lot of time in the basement, tornado sirens blaring, the skies ominous.
we put backpacks with important stuff and a few clothes into the basement, because, well, you just don’t know. d carried dogga down the steps and we had flashlights and a lantern handy.
rain fell in buckets – torrential – unstoppable. we mopped up in the basement, laying out old towels to direct the flow of water into the floor drains.
we could hear it whipping around above us from the basement. the alert came for baseball-sized hail. we hoped they were wrong, maybe overestimating a bit. they alerted fierce winds and we hoped the trees out back would be steadfast.
and from social media online in the basement, we knew that other parts of our state were being devastated by these winds, by a callous tornado.
once we are down there, it takes a lot for me to want to come out of the basement. i am most definitely more afraid of storms now than i ever had been. but the storms are worse, they are more damaging, they are unrelenting. that is clear to me.
when – finally – the sky began to clear – the day had mostly gone by. and even though the sun tinged the clouds in pink lemonade – and it was beautiful – i know, that for people who suffered in the storm – this storm or any other kind of assaulting storm – it was not much solace.
our treasured tree had been shorn but its main trunk and some branches remained after the city arborists cleaned it up post-storm that split and felled it.
now they were back.
i knew as soon as i saw the trucks pull up that this was the day. this was the day that i would say my final goodbye to this beautiful tree, the guardian of shade in our front yard, the stalwart maple next to our driveway’s apron. this was the day i would whisper – once again – “you didn’t do anything wrong. you did everything right,” to the tree that pre-dated our family here by at least four decades and still grew up with our children. this was the day i knew would be hard. last goodbyes are like that.
they showed up around 11 and, even with a lunch break, they were deft and efficient and the last big piece of sturdy trunk was lifted into the bed of the dump truck at 1:15. they raked and blew some of the sawdust off the driveway, got in their trucks and, before 2 or so, drove away.
when i brought them bottles of water i asked them, “do you guys get attached to trees, too?” they all said, “no” and i wonder if that’s because they aren’t thready or sentimental or if that’s because we are only talking about trees or if that’s because it is their livelihood to trim and take down trees. any way you look at it, they knew that i was really sad – and they were actually quite kind about it.
the guy on the lift had a giant chainsaw. there was one more big branch to remove from the trunk – a big branch whose upper branches they had already trimmed. this branch arced upward from the main trunk, up toward our house. it had been the branch responsible for shading our front garden, the branch that towered over much of the yard, that shielded the daylilies from too much sun, that held a bit of a flat space where it met the center trunk – a perch for weary critters. this was the branch on which the kids would grasp to try and swing up into the tree. this was the branch i saw the best when i rocked babies in the nursery and gazed out the window. this was the branch i looked out upon – in all seasons – from my studio – composing, practicing, answering the muse. this big branch was central – a sturdy, steadfast piece of a long-beloved tree.
the big claws swung around to hold this branch as the arborist began to cut through the dense maple. it took a surprisingly short time for the chainsaw to make its way through – and then the big branch let go of its tree and it swung freely, held by the claw.
and then you could see it.
right where the branch had met the trunk – right where the branch separated from the tree and the very last offshoot from this very old tree trunk was gone – was a heart.
our daughter sent a text message which read, “i recommend not going outside today.”
the air quality indexes (indices) in our general area – stretching from milwaukee down to chicago – were off the charts. smoke from wildfires in northern minnesota and canada had arrived – on top of heat indexes (indices) well over 100 degrees. it was a bit much.
i could – now – go off about climate change denial, the denial of global warming, the denial that humans are responsible for the extreme weather pattern changes, the denial that sustainable energy is clean energy, the denial that wind, geothermal, water, solar power are all positive innovations that make a generative difference in caring for our mother earth.
i could – now – go off about those perpetuating the destruction that is caused by fossil fuels, propping up cohorts with unthinkably large investments in coal, gas and oil, stripping protected lands of protection to mine and drill and clear-cut, ignoring conservation efforts and wildlife habitats, unburdening the current administration from anything conscience-driven relative to the relationship between humanity and our mother earth.
our daughter lives in the high mountains of colorado where no matter which way you turn it is a stunning view. just standing still in this grand, glorious space makes you feel rejuvenated.
in last weeks, she, too, has been dealing with the intense hazards of fire and smoke. she is a healthy and strong young woman, adept at all manner of high-mountain-raging-whitewater-river-red-rock adventures and challenges. but in these past weeks, it made her sick to just be outside.
i cannot imagine what this means for wildlife. i cannot imagine what this means for health-compromised people. i cannot imagine what this means for older folks or small children, for infants. i cannot imagine what this means for the next generations on our mother earth.
it doesn’t take an expert to know that we must get proactive, that we must guard for the future, that we must push back on the absolutely irresponsible.
unless, of course, we don’t want to go outside anymore.
three million acres is no small thing. three million acres that were protected. three million acres that were grand staircase-escalante and bears ears national monuments. three million acres now open for business.
gluttony is alive and well in this nation.
it’s absolutely sickening.
and the dragon in the sky roared – fire coming from its mouth. because “these remarkable curiosities [ ] have required all the cunning skill of nature thousands of years to prepare.” (the house committee on public lands – circa 1871)
and it brings me back to this, to which i have arrived before: reverence.
they have no reverence.
and today – a few days before you will read this – the land around the boundary waters is on fire. photographs depict enormous infernos. it is all burning up.
and in colorado – fossil-fuel-fueled-climate-change wildfire in beautiful forests and on mountains and racing across open land.
and alaska and utah and florida and the pacific northwest and the southwest and the northeast and…
and major flooding in missouri, in texas.
and the mid-atlantic east coast and the southeast and the northeast and…
and cyclospora making its way into the food and water of americans across the nation. no lettuce and no berries and no produce and…
and people – on their way to work – executed by government officials who – mistakenly – identified them as targets.
and war.
and insane announcements eliminating medical research.
and social programs.
and voting rights.
and the decimation of wildlife protections.
and military spending way, way, way over the top.
and public adoration of brutal authoritarian figures by this administration.
and heartless sycophants, a conscience-less cheering squad, a team dedicated to the destruction of democracy.
and all manner of evil intentions.
no wonder there is a dragon in the sky. i can’t imagine how pissed the universe is.
we are equal grape jelly opportunity suppliers (egjos, for those of you who like acronyms). though our dedication to grape jelly is – supposedly – for the orioles and house finches, house sparrows and hungry potbellied squirrels are enthusiastic fans. and i mean, who can blame them? they are opportunistic foragers so all’s fair game.
we personally don’t have an issue with sparrows and squirrels eating jelly. we just clean the vessel and refill it as needed. watching from the deck or the patio is a joy and those squirrels – well – they are sooo entertaining with antics that challenge world-class acrobats (all while they are also always keeping an eye out for dogga).
opportunistic foragers take what they can get. if welch’s is on the table, then welch’s it is.
in the last few days, few months, couple of years, we have read numerous articles about the government of this nation – you know, the government of the people, by the people, for the people – eliminating all kinds of regulations that protect the people, protect the people’s land, protect the people’s food, protect the people’s water, protect the people’s healthcare, protect the people’s education, protect the people’s social programs, protect the people’s rights, protect the people’s vote, protect the natural resources and wildlife that is part of the land of the people. and why is that? because – in an innocent google – i came across a term that describes them in a polite way: they are opportunistic foragers. they will take whatever upon which they can get their greedy paws.
“…politicians are widely characterized as opportunistic foragers who navigate their environments by adjusting policies, rhetoric, and alliances to maximize power and secure reelection.” (ai)
not cute like pudgy squirrels or innocent like house sparrows, they are robbing our grape jelly and absolutely everything else we-the-people value. the corruption is rampant, the conscience is absent, the constitutional cornerstone of this country is ripping.
the heat index was 106 degrees. it had finally gotten a tad bit cooler and we were lounging – relatively motionless – in the gravity chairs mid-evening. watching the birds busy at the birdbath and the squirrel ecstatic at the barney-buffet, we suddenly were aware of two stunning dragonflies zipping around us and then landing on the piece-o’-our-beloved-tree branch on the deck next to us. just a couple feet away from us, they stuck around for a long time, gently flexing their wings and repositioning but not leaving. it’s like they wanted us to notice they were there.
it was shocking how close they allowed me to get to photograph them…so close that my iphone blurred some of the insect images – the depth of field of the camera instead opting to clear-focus on something further away.
dragonflies – are associated with messages of “transformation, joy and living life to the fullest…are often seen as gentle nudges to release worries and embrace the present moment.” it is also popular that they are “a gentle reminder that guardian angels or loved ones who have passed are watching over you…bringing…comfort…during transitional times.”
good grief, this is a good time – in countless ways – for a connection between heaven and earth.
i’ve been around big water most of my life. the ocean, long island sound, the gulf of mexico, lake michigan. dragonflies are drawn to bodies of water, so it would make sense that i would have had plenty of first-person experiences with dragonflies. clearly they have been around and i have admired their flight nearby. but i can’t point to a moment before when i was as viscerally aware – in a sharing of the same vibration-frequency way.
this time was different.
in a time that is fraught with so many uncertainties, i feel like any nod to reassurance or comfort is worth noticing. i feel like any “omen of power, bravery, transformation” is buoying. i feel like anything that might connect us to greater good is paramount.
the aerial (adult) stage of a dragonfly – the time this beautiful creature flies on these iridescent wings – is typically short — weeks to months long. most of its life is spent in its previous nymph stage, up to five years in the water. once airborne, their wings cannot repair, and high speed flight and other perils of tattered-wing damage blunt their ability to fly.
the dragonfly’s primary goal – their evolutionary goal – is “for the insect to disperse, find a mate and lay eggs near water“. their compound eyes – as many as thirty thousand of photoreceptor cells – take in everything around them and help them have a prey rate of 97%, one of the most successful predators currently on the planet. these fleeting creatures are stunningly impactful, successfully passing on life to their next generation.
we have limited time with the iridescent wings of our own lives. it would seem that we are – indeed – in our aerial phase…the phase of transformation and embracing the present moment. it would seem that our job – no longer nymphs – is to pass on a world that is worthy.
if we merely sit still – silent, timid, withdrawn, inactive, self-focused – it is possible our fragile wings will last a tad bit longer.
but if we fly – bold and brave, eyes wide-open, risking tatters – we will have simultaneously touched the sky – even heaven – and lived on earth.
reverse threading 