reverse threading

the path back is the path forward


Leave a comment

things enchanting. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

such beauty.

i don’t know who – in our town’s parks department – is responsible for plotting what will be planted in the big urn planters around the city or in the hanging pots or in the gardens…but my hat is off to that person. their grasp of color and texture and how they all juxtapose with each other is exquisite. and it shows in each and every planter and garden.

regardless of who it is – precisely, who is the designer – there are many, many others on crews who spend all their working hours tending these gardens, watering and weeding and deadheading – the zillion little tasks that make a garden look effortlessly stunning.

our city has taken inordinate care of these gardens and planting vessels all through the years, preserving the zen people feel while walking in and amongst the yield of this hard work. we are both proud of these gardens and grateful for them, walking through practically every day, noticing the tiny nuances of change as the seasons move – the late spring planting into summer into fall. the smell of cocoa mulch permeates the garden down by the lake and – between the scent of flowers and cocoa – it is enchanting and heavenly.

eric hanson’s video speaks to the current administration’s shrinking of national monuments bears’ ears and grand staircase-escalante national monuments. no small reduction, these federally protected lands lost 90% of their acreage. this reduction opens these lands up to private exploitation, ignoring the native spiritual and conservation environmental regulations that kept them safe and not accessible to road-building or the deployment of heavy machinery for resource mining. these vulnerable lands are gorgeous, part of the history of these United States, enchanting and inviting, a piece of heaven not only for native peoples but for the entire populace of this nation – which – as the video pointed out – are literally owned by we-the-people.

why it is that the administration would work to eliminate protecting the natural beauty of our country is truly beyond the scope of my imagination. so is the rest of what this administration is doing – i simply cannot comprehend the vile, heinous stuff they are – ruthlessly – enacting.

each day our at-least-3.5-mile walk takes us past our city’s gardens and planters along the harbor channel and inland around the marina. each day we are grateful for the careful attention paid to these places of beauty.

the times i have been in utah’s canyonlands or near any of its wild have spoken to my soul. there is a deep root connection to the earth there, a glorious sense of the freedom that is supposedly the law of this land, and sheer enchantment and wonder at how anything could possibly be so stunning.

again, i say, they-in-this-administration have no reverence. for anything.

and as a person with a finite life – just like all of them – i cannot begin to grok the shortsightedness of that.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

like. subscribe. share. support. comment. – thank you. xoxo

buymeacoffee is a website where you may directly support an artist whose work directly impacts you.


2 Comments

gnarly. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“ooh child, things are gonna get easier

ooh child, things’ll get brighter

ooh child, things are gonna get easier

ooh child, things’ll get brighter

some day, yeah, we’ll put it together and we’ll get it undone

some day when your head is much lighter

some day, yeah, we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun

some day when the world is much brighter…”

(“ooh child” – stan vincent 1970 the five stairsteps)

it is hard for me to avoid. i simply cannot help it. or maybe i just can’t resist the impulse.

we play rummikub every monday and thursday with 20 after we share dinner together. and – every single time – something one of them – d or 20 – says, makes me break into song.

we were talking about the obvious – you know – the state of our country. it was in an unusual fit of optimism. it was right after we talked about bernie sanders and aoc and the pushback of intellectually woke people against authoritarianism etc etc etc (i know you hear that line now – from the king and i – uh-huh, uh-huh – etc etc etc).

it had been a week since we had seen 20 (which is also unusual) and much had happened – on both sides – so there was a lot to talk about.

in that week we had found a different trail. it wound its way through a rural landscape and we enjoyed its newness. and then there was this tree. one sturdy old gnarly oak in the forefront of a blank field. stunning. perhaps a hundred years old. perhaps more. its silhouette against the sky so intense, strikingly gnarly in a good way.

we have such an appreciation for these lands of space through which we hike. we have hiked out east, down south, out west, up north. we’ve hiked in county parks, state parks, national parks. we dream of thru-hiking one day on one of the national trails. we hold these places in high regard, grateful for the glorious beauty, the potential for peacefulness, the celebration of the wild.

and so our conversation of late and of that night – of course – is also about the threat to these places (in addition to all the other gnarly-extremely-twisted corrupt threats of the administration too long to list or even grok in any conscience-based way.) we talked about our new forest preserve hike and we talked about national parks. and it feels sickening inside to think of the decimation of any of this. and all for the wealth of the wealthiest.

in the middle of our rummikub game – me…stuck with gnarly chips – a double of black 13s and a double of 1s and the grasp of the plastic trophy seeming bleak – and in the middle of the accompanying punctuations of news-chaos-of-the-day conversation – it suddenly came to mind, rose to the top.

the song ooh child was written about times of strife.

i started singing.

and hoping.

that some day we – this broken country – will put it together and get it undone. and then we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun – when the world is much brighter.

they rolled their eyes, poking fun at the records spinning in my brain. and, for a few minutes, we all laughed.

and then the lyrics sank in…

…sigh.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

download music from my little corner of iTUNES

 

like. subscribe. share. support. comment. – thank you. xoxo

buymeacoffee is a website where you may directly impact an artist whose work directly impacts you. xoxo