Lament for the land . . .

Today is Freya's day. The mailbox fills as we approach “Earth Day”

Today is the 185th anniversary of John Muir's birth. The naturalist was born on this date in 1838 Dunbar, Scotland.

Plants squeal or "cry" when stressed or thirsty. Research suggests "noises" emitted from the plants "were particularly obvious for plants that were stressed by a lack of water or recent cutting." Animals like moths or bats may even be able to hear these "distress cries" at the ultrasonic high pitched frequency, further inducing an awe-like wonder for the way plants and animals interact in our world.

The land’s lament speaks a foundational ecological truth: when one part of creation goes awry, the whole suffers. The land’s grief at what the people have done points to the fundamental reality of our interconnection. Perhaps it is the boundedness of our bodies that makes it so easy to overlook the truth of our connectedness. We appear so discrete, so unitary, but we are not. The fabric that connects all of creation is badly torn: torn by manifold injustices wrought and perpetuated by the exploitative systems in which we live, torn by ideologies of scarcity that teach us to love too narrowly and too little. To mourn is to speak that truth to the lies that prop up the denial on which the status quo depends. – Fr. Richard Rohr

Amid the present ecological crises, we need poets and artists to free themselves and us from the fictive constraints of sterile individuality. We need musicians to sing the songs of every small being. Orpheus asks us all to remember, as he did, that if we believe the stones can dance with our songs, they will dance, that our beliefs can open unexpected doors. The vibrations of every melody continue throughout the universe having emerged from the Orphic world of mycorrhizae and vegetal roots. – Sophie Strand

Rain

A voice is heard.

Bitter weeping
for the children of the earth.

She refuses to be comforted

for her children
because they are no more.

Soothing words and “can’t we all

just get along” are moral outrages

in Creation's distorted face

whose tears fall like acid rain.

— jb 4.21.23

Desire...the future in present tense

On Thor's Day, the 20th of April in 2023

. . .it's high time to legalize cannabis – and end the unjust, racist War on Drugs that has been harming communities for decades.

Every day, at the moment when things get edgy, we can just ask ourselves, “Am I going to practice peace, or am I going to war?” – Pema Chödrön

In most of us there survives an opposing curiosity, a desire to see what’s around the corner. It doesn’t require an epic, round-the-world journey. We merely need go where nobody says we have to go, for no particular reason, where the smells and tastes and the breeze on our faces awaken us from the soporific haze of habit. To practise an enlivening sort of indolence. To drift, to roam, to colour outside the lines a bit. To wander. – Jordan Fisher Smith

The pride of possession of the Truth diminishes; the urge to share the sunshine succeeds it. . .Gratitude is the prevailing attitude at my age. . .[I am] obligated to be a better man than I know how to be. So I’m trying. – Garrison Keillor

"The painting rises from the brushstrokes as a poem rises from the words. The meaning comes later." – Joan Miro, who's birth was on this date in 1893 Barcelona.

The past tense, the future perfect

Somewhere in each of us is an echo

expressive of every time past and future life

we have had and will have.

That past has quite a bit of pain

but enough love to recognize in

that echo of the future that it –

the future – is wholly a construct

of Creation. In the present moment

we co-create what comes next.

By holding on to the past

we bring the pain of our poor choices

and sorrow for all the guilt we carry.

Only by letting go into the unfolding present –

absent tense – can that love

embrace us.

Letting go of all tenses may bring a judgement

to even the minds of our loved ones,

that we have lost ours.

4.20.2023 jb

Eclipsed

It’s Odin’s day, and the mailbox has its usual share of reminders . . .

This week marked the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement hammered out in 1998 after Northern Ireland's thirty years of violence. The agreement was reached after 700 days of brokered talks overseen by former U.S. Senator George Mitchel appointed to the task by then President Bill Clinton.

Today in 1775 The Battles of Lexington and Concord were fought on this date in 1775. “The shot heard 'round the world” began the American Revolutionary War.

“Revolution / Alone can save the earth from hell’s pollution.” – Lord Byron, who died on today's date in 1824.

On today's calendar: a rare solar eclipse.

Come with me into those things that have felt this

despair for so long . . . .

Who have given up, and blame everything on the

government,

And those roads in South Dakota that feel around

in the darkness … – Robert Bly

My sweetie and I hold hands, we’re a part of this enormous tract of goodwill in the middle of Skyscraper National Park. People in South Dakota may imagine New York as a hellhole of violence and corruption, and if this gives them comfort, fine, but we’re here and it’s April and everyone in our sight feels lucky to be here together. — Garrison Keillor