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the path back is the path forward

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trees are like that. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“the symbolism – and the substantive significance – of planting a tree has universal power in every culture and every society on earth, and it is a way for individual men, women and children to participate in creating solutions for the environmental crisis.” (al gore)

breck is as tall as halfway up to the peak of the garage now. it feels as if you could quite possibly sit in an adirondack chair – with time on your hands – and watch it grow…bits of branch reaching, reaching, leaf buds and then leaves unfurling and then more branch reaching, reaching and more leaf buds and more unfurling leaves. and it keeps going, despite the weather: storms and wind and hail and threatening conditions, despite it all. we love this quaking aspen.

breck, as i have mentioned, is the only tree i have ever – personally – purchased and planted.

we have had saplings planted on independence pass in honor of our mountain girl’s thirtieth birthday, we have had trees planted in memory of a cousin who loved the outdoors. but neither of us has had the opportunity to plant our own tree in our own yard – before breck.

because our shy-of-a-century-old maple has fallen, we will have another chance to pick out a tree – we hope two – to go in that parkway space between the sidewalk and the street. there is a reforestation program in our city that assumes part of the cost so that there are trees lining the streets of the city. it dates way back to the early 1900s when our ‘hood near the lake initially was planted with elegant elm trees, which, a couple decades later fell to disease. our maple had been steadily shading our home since the time of replanting. we will honor its beautiful and steadfast life by planting another tree – or two.

in the meanwhile, i’ve been whispering to the other trees here. the old – very tall – pine that is green about half-way ’round, its other branches shaded from the sun by neighboring trees, the spruce that stands in the opposite corner of the backyard. and the maples that are on the other side of the fence – they are enormous trees, towering over our backyard and our home. my whispers are for them to be stalwart, grounded, steady, flexible as we experience more and more extreme weather events…to stay standing all in one piece.

we have seen in recent days the dismantling – the decimation – of all kinds of laws as they pertain to climate change, all kinds of laws as they pertain to national forests, all kinds of laws as they pertain to national parks, all kinds of laws as they pertain to clean water, clean air, clean agriculture, all kinds of laws as they pertain to food growth safety, all kinds of laws as they pertain to livestock welfare, all kinds of laws as they pertain to renewable energy, all kinds of laws as they pertain to pollution, all kinds of laws as they pertain to science, all kinds of laws as they pertain to medical research….and all kinds of laws as they pertain to aggressive deregulation and expansion of timber production, regardless of any historic conservation or environmental protections. need i go on?

it is a heartless, short-sighted, ignorant set of ideals that annihilates, ravages, and diminishes the collective intellect of researchers, environmentalists, conservationists, scientists and that annihilates, ravages, diminishes and trashes the ecosystems of mother earth.

preservation is a much bigger word than demolition.

it feels like an honor – with substantive symbolism – to plant a tree in our yard – and to know that we will likely not be here to see it tower above our old house, to know that it will sustain through time – like trees do, to know that it will both breathe and generate clean air, to know that it will remember that we carefully chose it, we nurtured it, and we trusted it to stand fearlessly in the face of all change and any challenge.

because trees are like that.

“happy the man to whom every tree is a friend.” (john muir)

*****

TRANSIENCE © 2010 kerri sherwood

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convergence. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

i could get lost in just gazing at this spot where greens converge. i find myself breathing deeply, taking it in, appreciating how utterly extraordinary the nuance, how textural, how life-affirming.

it has been a week. with multi-layered challenges, personal and nationwide.

in the middle of the week, neck spasms – which i had in february for the first time in my life – and which sent me to the emergency room – returned with a vengeance. to say that i was laying awake all night, fearful of the way these manifested in my shoulders, my jaw, my chest, my neck, would be an understatement. it was downright scary. and so painful – even for someone with a relatively high pain threshold.

when it finally slightly eased up for a bit in the morning – after a long, sleepless night – i was exhausted and overcome with how it must be for people who are in chronic pain. the chronic pain of disease, of life-altering treatment plans, of hunger and thirst and of not-enough, of homelessness, of psychological and emotional scars, of addiction, of deep, all-consuming worry. thinking of others always puts one’s own pain in perspective.

for a bit of time – the bit when the spasms did not refer to all these other parts of my upper body – i could breathe more deeply. and so i went outside to our deck and little potting stand – to look at new growth, to soak in the colors green.

in wednesday’s news there was much headlining about a quiet interview that the speaker of the house had on a tiny radio station in his home state. and, in that interview, he revealed the intention of this administration – to fix (read: gut) medicaid, medicare and social security in an effort to free up money so that this government might be able to make a dent in the country’s trillions of dollars of debt which is – clearly – attributed to mountains of tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.

so. their goal? take away from the most vulnerable and the eldest in order to further bankroll the gluttony.

it is hard to wrap your head around this kind of whoring of humanity. the word “disgusted” barely touches it.

again, i say, there is no reverence. they have reverence for nothing.

i wonder what our communities, our states, our nation, our world will look like once they have eliminated all that is good, all that is natural, all that is lawful, all that is compassionate, all that is life-giving or life-affirming. what will be left after the land and the natural resources and the regular folk and the goodness are decimated?

as i stood and looked at our tiny vegetable and herb garden, i was filled by the beauty, wrapped in the essence of green, and a sense of balance was restored in me.

though the spasms started up again, this is not about my neck spasms. when they re-started, i felt slightly more equipped to deal with them, carrying into the pain the knowledge that they would – in time – ease up.

but for some, there is no easing up. there is only long-term pain, without ceasing.

there are people intentionally hunted down for their ethnicity, people intentionally taken off rolls for food assistance, medical assistance, housing assistance. people removed from jobs of science and education and journalism so that the country ceases progressive forward-movement and so that the only narrative going forth is vile, self-serving propaganda. there are people targeted by the brandishing of bigotry. there are people whose chronic pain – no matter what it is – no matter the umbrella under which it falls – seem a nuisance to this administration, an administration without a heart or a conscience or any sense of reverence for anything other than self and money and retribution.

were i to be given a choice – live acknowledging simplicities – like the nuance of green OR live inside the insanity of always-wanting-needing-hoarding of moremoremore – i would go with cherishing the tomato plants and herbs and lavender and licorice plant every time.

i would go with the convergence of green, the convergence of goodness, the convergence of growth, the nuance of breath, the affirmation of life, living and reverence for it all.

*****

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it has the heart of… [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

the question “when does it cease being a peony?” never occurs to me. because it never ceases being a peony. it is intrinsic, even as its extrinsic identity falls – petal by petal – to the ground.

the storms came. and wind and heavy rain. and the peonies bowed to them. the blooms were large – triumphant pink – but couldn’t withstand and, though some blossoms remained intact, many began to lose their velvet petals as the deluge let up and the sun came out.

there was not a peony on that entire plant, though, that was not still a beautiful peony. even with pistil exposed, with stamen missing, with wrinkled or missing petals. through the storm – and after – it remained – drumroll – a peony.

the storm has been brewing. apparently, there is more to the storm than i understood – as i now realize that there has been much in the history of our country i did not learn – so much was about teaching to the test we missed the dualistic humanity of the narrative. the story is not so innocent; the intentions are not so magnanimous. there is much malevolence in the story of this country and current events are mimicking the evil of earlier times.

but the democracy has been in place now for two hundred and fifty years.

yet, devastatingly, we celebrate america’s birthday just as we are watching the takedown of america’s freedoms, laws, its very constitution.

when does it cease being a democracy?

that question had never before occurred to me with such a sense of urgency. until now.

now i am worried.

the peony is a peony any and all times because it has the heart of a peony. it is nothing else. it hasn’t been anything else. it won’t be anything else.

but what about these united states?

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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what about? [kerri’s blog on flawed wednesday]

it isn’t hard.

it isn’t hard to clean and fill the birdbath so that the birds in the area can count on a drink of fresh, clean water.

it isn’t hard to clean and fill the birdfeeders – or the hummingbird feeder – or the oriole feeder – so that, if necessary, the birds in the area can count on accessible, clean food.

it isn’t hard to sweep the driveway and clear off the seedshells on the top of barney so that the birds in the area aren’t sickened by wet, moldy seed or bits of bread that have become sodden and mildewed.

it just isn’t hard.

but neither is it hard to be concerned – to wrap your heart around – those people in our country who are hungry, who do not have enough food, enough clean water, who are suffering from hunger-related or poor food issues.

yet, the government of this country – the administration that is gluttonous even beyond our imagination – has eliminated millions of dollars funding yet another source of food for the hungry, for the downtrodden, those who can ill afford food yet face peril without it.

i am truly sick of it.

what is so hard about this?

ours is a government in charge of a large country filled with people of phenomenal potential – yet they are limiting the most basic element of need for those very people – so that they might fund a garish ballroom and its associated bunker, an ill-intentioned war and its apparently-coveted weapons of mass destruction, vanity projects, payola to criminals pardoned by a narcissistic hand, wildly expansive tax cuts for the wealthiest, crude corruption never before witnessed on such a cavalier, widescale plane, the slicing and dicing of healthcare, education, global health, medical research, climate change programs that actually help people, mass deportation sans conscience, and the elimination of lawful rights of people who fall under the machete of bigotry.

but, you say, what about the people…how does this government view the everyday, everysingleperson people?

and what about the american goldfinch?

they clearly could care less.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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to survive. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

this reminds me of the song lyrics: “what goes up must come down/spinnin wheel gotta go round/talkin ’bout your troubles is a crying sin/ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel spin….” (david clayton-thomas). spinning wheel is a late 60s song – popular by blood, sweat and tears.

john denver’s quote is likely from ten to twenty years later: “things go up and down. if you can survive the down it will come back.”

both encourage holding on for the long haul – which is precisely what we need right now. to survive.

though as i write this, i am pondering the wisdom in simply riding a painted pony and letting the spinning wheel spin. we need something different now. inaction in these times is not survival. it is how a democracy perishes.

it is a bit like the recent flippant current-administration quote “just sit back and relax. it will all work out well in the end – it always does.”

for who?

that makes my skin crawl.

every single day the new news astonishes us and, yeah, doesn’t astonish us. it’s always more of the same – gluttony, cruelty, bigotry, corruption – exhibited and acted on by people in positions for which they have no credentials but for sycophantic loyalty.

sitting back and relaxing because it will be well in the end is merely complicity. it’s going down with the ship without even trying. to go down and to not come back.

the words “it will work out well” are suspect. they are the cavalier words of a dictator. and, in a twist of twists, these are the words – the recommendation – of the leader of the free world.

is this really where two hundred fifty years has brought us?

*****

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braided days. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

“in contrast to our frenetic, saturated lives, the earth offers a calming stillness. movement and growth in nature takes time. … there is something in our clay nature that needs to continually experience this ancient, outer ease of the world. it helps us remember who we are and why we are here.” (john o’donohue)

this must be what’s missing. as we get besieged with new news – all pretty horrible, the stuff of gluttony, haughty entitlement and bigotry truly beyond belief – i have wondered what it is in these people that is missing, what it is in these people that doesn’t grok the evanescence of life, what it is in these people that drives them to push for – or cheer for – a world without natural beauty, a world that seems twisted, that convolutes nature – botoxing faces and bodies, annihilating parks and resources, canyons and forests, waterways, wildlife, wildflowers that will never bloom.

if you never stand in nature – still – never even for a moment in the tiny – or vast – space just outside wherever it is you hang your hat, you miss the air that swirls around you, the recognition of another-day, the exquisite velvet softness of a peony petal in the growth stage of a bloom when it has just begun to open.

how can you carry that – the grace, the scent, the unbelievable creation of peony pink – and be anything but awed? how can you watch the play of light on tight buds opening before your very eyes and consider your self-serving dystopian game more important? how can you ignore the explosions of color, the frequencies of sound, the vibrations under your feet and all around your body even when you are still? how can your gaze glance over beauty and not have any pondering about who you are and how you – a humble minute being of clay and stardust – fit in with all the rest? how can you breathe air – feeling the world in your lungs – and be unconcerned about the air and the world future generations will breathe? what is missing in these people?

“when you take the time to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you. moments of beauty begin to braid your days.” (john o’donohue)

reverence.

it’s reverence that is missing.

*****

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too. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

“hidden in plain sight.”

this is practically too relevant to even write about. too obvious. too painful. too cavalier. too pompous. too arrogant. too irresponsible. too destructive. too, well, hidden in plain sight.

and you probably think i’m referring to the current corruption that is the current chaos that is this country.

but i’m not. not at this moment, in this writing.

though – i must say – in THAT vein – the current corruption that is the current chaos that is this country – it is waaaay too relevant, too obvious, too painful to even begin to write about as well.

it’s widespread, this horrific hidden-in-plain-sight stuff.

suffice it to say – when an institution/organization/government chooses to behave sans-truth sans-culpability sans-transparency-of-intention sans-acknowledgement that literally-everyone-can-see-what-is-going-on, it is most definitely an intentional kick-in-the-teeth we-freaking-don’t-care act of skanky dereliction.

too relevant. too obvious. too painful.

in plain sight.

*****

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wear your heart on your leaf. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

early in spring, the markings on jumpseed in the underbrush look like hearts. they capture my attention because, well, hearts.

as jumpseed matures, it is said that these markings either fade or disappear entirely. so, no more wearing its heart on its sleeve…so to speak.

before settling in to write today we watched three john denver videos – of his song for you, his song the wings that fly us home and his annie’s song. we leaned back against a stack of pillows, snugged under a quilt on what has been a rainy day so far, linked arms and listened.

i am married to a man who is not afraid of weeping. he is not afraid of the tears that come to his eyes as he sees or hears something beautiful. he is not afraid to feel or show how he is feeling. his heart is emblazoned on his outer leaves. and i hope that no amount of maturing will change that.

i am fortunate to be a mush married to a mush. it doesn’t take much to touch us, to really drive home something sentimental, to get lost in the wistful, to recognize goodness and wonder, to feel yearning for kindness in the world, to fight tears.

i feel – in these times – that we are walking with a perennial lump in our throats, a deep sadness that rises with each new report of corruption, of cruelty, of destruction, of extremism, of degrading of peoples, of the administration’s intentional divorcing of this country’s constitution. our own fear and disappointment – added to the utter chaos in this land and globally – make a kind of despondency close at hand. “unbearable,” a friend wrote about the news. yes. truly unbearable.

it helps in some ways to talk about it though we are finding fewer and fewer people who really want to talk about it. i’m not sure why that is. silence – or the lack of conversation – does not make it go away. centering only on other things can feel like looking through rose-colored glasses – a bit of pollyanna-ing. for me, the sharing of worries or frustrations or fears seems authentic and feels like a way to support each other through these times.

but not every plant wears its heart on its leaf.

though…in these times…wearing your heart on your sleeve – even just a bit – a heartbroken heart watching the decimation of our nation – may be the thing that can bind us together. and talking-it-out might gird us all with the fiery grit we need to push back, to reclaim goodness here and everywhere.

“…and the spirit fills the darkness of the heavens/it fills the endless yearning of the soul/it lives within a star too far to dream of/it lives within each part and is the whole/it’s the fire and the wings that fly us home.”

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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the beach helps. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

yes. there is something about it, isn’t there?

the crisply-combed perfect-sand beach. just waiting for feet, for flip-flops, for a wrangly dog, for a gleeful child overladen with pails and shovels to burst onto its clean canvas and send sand flying.

but in the meanwhile, pristine, ordered.

walking along our lake we come upon the freshly-manicured beach. the orderliness makes us stop, stare, breathe.

just ahhh…

because there is nothing orderly in the world right now.

and so, the beach helps.

it reminds us that – yes, indeedy – things CAN be orderly, things can be measured, things can be cleaned up and returned to a center of discipline, tidy, with a sense of equilibrium.

in the case of the beach, there is a big tractor that restores it, a big rake pulled along behind, grooming it to almost perfection. the rake can sift out the garbage, bits and pieces of life that people have left behind, trinkets or detritus strewn about sans conscience. the sand is sifted, loosened, de-debris-ed, flattened and smoothed. when it is finished – this amazing transformation reveals the even look of a perfect beach, waiting for its next sunny days, its people, laughter in its waves, love-filled picnics under beach umbrellas, serene naps on beach blankets, life.

i wonder what could possibly serve as the beach cleaner of our times…what could possibly sift out the hubris, the corruption, the cruelty, the bigotry, what could possibly restore the sanity of this nation, what could possibly transform this country back to order, to the wethepeople it was meant to be, waiting for its next sunny days, its people, its laughter, its love, its serenity, its life.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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surviving creepy and invasive. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

the snow on the mountain groundcover creeps under the fence. it tries to take over the ornamental grasses, winds its way around our peonies, fills in spaces we didn’t necessarily need filled in. it’s invasive dressed in pretty. it has even given the wild geranium a run for its money. fortunately, the geranium – particularly under barney – has survived the overbearing groundcover and its sweet pink flowers are getting ready to bloom now.

i saw a post the other day that was a gut-punch. the words on the post read: “it’s illegal to feed wildlife at national parks because they get dependent on handouts and forget how to survive. it kinda sounds familiar, doesn’t it?‘ the photograph with the post was depicting minority moms and children in line with shopping bags and grocery pushcarts.

it literally made me ill. because it was posted by a neighbor with a comment that read, “hmmmm.” just despicable. and downright hard to believe that there are people who really feel that way. haughty. sickening. overbearing. uncaring. bigoted.

creepy and invasive.

that kind of bullshit post enrages me. it’s unconscionable. the hatred is just exhausting. how dare he/they be so righteous, so pompous, so entitled? with clearly no heart at all – no empathy – no love-one-another in their soul, no we-are-our-brother’s/sister’s-keeper. the judgment and demeaning attitude.

i could go on.

but i won’t.

because i am hoping that most of us in this country will be like the intrepid wild geranium. that we will bloom despite the invasive stuff that purports to be pretty.

that we will be able to spread goodness and kindness and compassion.

that we can possibly be the nation we were destined to become in a world that needs the caring interdependence of all people.

that we aren’t dreadful people who believe despicable things and then share those extreme racist views with the world, hoping for “likes”.

snow on the mountain is “incredibly invasive and will spread indefinitely if not restrained.”

*****

sorry about the language. but sometimes it fits. 🤷‍♀️

*****

PULLING WEEDS © 2010 kerri sherwood

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