The Art of Labor

At times it seems that the art of physical work has been forgotten. It does not seem to be thought of, even in the negative sense, as in, "that work is for simple people who are not smart enough to get better work."  Though it feels culturally forgotten, it is not gone.

I think about that great cultural amnesia, and feel  pain about it,  because there is real joy and beauty in work that is shaped by the realities of the earth. In learning how to live within the rhythms and hymns of the earth, we learn the art of stillness; the challenging art of attention to reality. What you believe will happen matters little, when it differs from the reality of what actually is happening. It is only from that quiet, still, attentive place that we truly work with the earth, instead of trying to change and control it. We wrap our days around the rhythms of the earth, and live in the happy cradle of the earth- where all things will become balanced, where more time will always come, where  real rest will happen at the end of each day, and each year is marked with what we have learned, not what we have failed at, or done wrong. We are lifted and carried by the energy that awakens the world, and we rest with the darkness that tells all living things to sleep. 

The play of children gives way to the work of adults, and we put down our head and pull upon ourselves a weight that no one can gracefully bear.  But the more I  consider, the more I believe the reality of play and joy, that  we are so sure of as children, is the real one. Why should we not play when we work? Why should we not feel joy within our bodies as we interact with the alive world that we inhabit? Why should the way the world is put together ever stop fascinating us? In learning something well, you realize only that you know so little, and that we have this precious medium of time to feel and know this endlessly expanding place.  Calvin Luther Martin, author of The Way of the Human Being, wrote tenderly, and very well about this. Here he writes about a story teller- a man Native to the Arctic:

" The old man would speak of a world bristling and crackling with power, the power of origination and deepest formation, which cared for everything- took care of everything- even human beings. The earth, he said, is not a place to fear. The problem was that adults had lost their nerve, lost faith in the marrow of it all. Children, he believed, still hold the mighty secret of trust. It was the lesson of the child to the adult: absolute trust. Once trust began percolating back into the soul again, humans would behold the liberating of those colossal earthly powers that now lay silent under the spell of our bad faith. The earth would be alive again and human beings would stop living lives of waiting, stop living in the curse of time and history, to live instead in the still point of beauty."
 

Making Strawberry Wine

Strawberry Wine is arguably one of the most wonderful possible things that one could invite into life. The taste of the strawberries is beautifully preserved. Just the smell of it reminds every cell of your body that, even in the coldest, most bitter parts of the year, summer will come again.  It reminds you that soon, you will run around and play outside, with bare sleeves and tan skin, and the air will again carry the warm scent of roses. It is full and luscious in body, and dense with scent in the nose. The beauty of strawberry wine is a relationship that you develop- you can not be given or buy the fullness of strawberry wine. For it to be fully salient you must experience strawberries, and summer, and love it, and love it so much that you save the memory in your body, and strawberry wine is the key. I can not recommend highly  enough to make your own- on the most profound level- make it your own- what ever the summer means to you, whatever strawberries mean to you- make it your own, sweet memory, and make strawberry wine to unlock it whenever you might need it. And, I mean- you know you need it....so while it seems like an indulgence, it is, in fact, completely necessary.

Labor of Love

Spring comes on slowly up here, and the rush hasn't quite started yet.  Maine gives you a number of opportunities throughout the year to reflect- times when you need to know not to jump the gun. Its still to cool to plant, and you must keep your head about you on the warm days. There are a lot of old timey ways to know when to get started- " don't fish *such and such* until the leaves on the * such and such*  are as big as a mouse ear."  Or by how amorous the birds appear to be or certain tender flowers that grow wild, but only when the soil warms to their liking, so you know that its warm enough for a cucumber.

Why farm? Why know these thing when you can eat as easily without knowing them?  Just go buy some food and gobble it up, go about your day because we all have to work to keep up, and theres only so much time.

To me, the reason is this-  Time spent watching and participating in the natural order of things has a similar effect of becoming good friends with a person- you understand them better, and as you understand them, you love them.  Maybe not everyone feels that, but in my experience it has been true. 

It is a beautiful relationship; that we eat from the land we live on, land sustains us, offers the beauty of life each spring, and the gift of food.  If a person was to do this for us: feed us, exist beautifully so that we may enjoy her presence, provide wood for our homes, we would consider them to be so valuable to our lives and we would never think of doing something to hurt that relationship. For some reason, because the entity which does this for us is not human, we cannot accept it as gracefully.  To live closely to the earth requires work, but the work is for your own freedom and nothing else. When you plow, plant and harvest; your  labor, and power within the land has provided you with that food.  When you go to a big store and buy tomatoes in the dead of winter which were grown in South America, your labor still has provided you that food ( in the form of money) , but the opportunity to commune with the raw power that makes a seed into food, and makes life on this earth possible, is gone.  

Japan

The news had been reading like a science fiction novel from the 1950's.  This has made me feel as if adjectives have not yet been invented to describe what we are watching unfold, and what the people of Japan are experiencing.
The images of Japan show the rage and strength of this earth. If nothing else could do it, I hope that we have been humbled. The natural order that we live within can not be reversed. We can not outsmart our environment.  We have to understand it, and respect it, and live within the boundary of what is earthly sane.

Processing these events has been hard, and I have been left with only a dull ache, and a sadness that is for all of us.  There are times, when I feel that injustice and violence has been done to our environment, as though it was a passive entity that will be beaten into submission, and all the beautiful wildness of this world that I love will be lost.  I think this is not the case.  Destruction is part of natures identity.  Nuclear disaster is  part of  our races' identity..... but I do not know if this is natural or unnatural, or where to draw these lines.

I listened to a radio broadcast about a man who survived an avalanche. He said that as he rolled down the mountain in what felt like an isolation chamber; the snow pressed in on all sides him, so dense that light could not come through, he felt regret. He had been snowboarding with a group, and the leaders of the group gave two choices; one to keep going up the mountain, and one to go around the other side. Both kept him on the mountain, which was clearly showing signs of avalanche danger.  When he thought it was the end of his life, he realized that he had another choice--- to turn around and go back down. He realized that he had given complete control to these two leaders,  and both were leading the group up a mountain that was threatening to avalanche.  What struck me the most was this sentiment,  which he felt when he thought he would die on the mountain.  "I realized I had no choices left.  I had already made my choices. And they brought me to this."

I don't think we have run out of choices, but we have limited them. I do not think that we will destroy this earth, but I think we have destroyed some of our own happiness.

The Conquest of the Future

Reading Wendell Berry has me thinking about the nature of exploitation, and conquest.  It is interesting to observe that conquest in the physical sense has been mostly completed. There are few places left pristine, unharmed, truly wild, and natural. There are few people who have been not been effected by the onslaught of mechanized modernization, and few landscapes that have been left unaffected.
However, the one arena where the battle is more covert is the future. It is an interesting assumption that   technology must make things better in the future, and somehow can not  do otherwise.  The most undisputed indicators of progress are also the things that seem to be making more people crazy, and creating cyclical modes of thinking wherein future growth is the only way to improve things.  There is this promise made, that sometime, after this growth happens, things will indeed be better. However, for most of the population, that simply isn't true.

Economic development always seems  to mean more of anything, but never does it mean taking the time to do something well. The promise of the future keeps us running towards something that will never arrive, and it is the most slippery promise that any one can make.
 But, that is why it is made . It lends itself very well into confusion that looks like some form of this:
"Are we happier?"
"Well, no. But thats because things can always be better, so lets just keep working and try to get more. "
"But didn't we all agree on this course of action because some how we were promised something that we wanted? "
"Well, lets just try this again and this time it will workout better then the last."

If you break down the mechanics of this loophole, the results can only make you feel as though you have been hoodwinked into believing that something, somewhere, in the future is just waiting to be invented that is going to make your life a lot easier, make you much more attractive, guide you to your true love, help you find your dream job, give you security, or fill in the blank with your own insecurity.
In the meantime, everything, that possibly can provide us any real security; good land, knowledge of how to grow your food, clean water, clean air, close communities to support you with laughter, friendship, love, hope, joy,  healthy children,  honest work, freedom from debtors, all of these things of real, true value are being let go of.  It as if the troubles of one life could be traded in for a life where all our troubles and problems were solved for us by machines and technology. 
Well, that simply isn't true. The beauty and satisfaction of having a real connection in your heart to what you  spend you days doing can not be underestimated. That is the longing  that is so easy to chase, but so hard to identify. It seems once a society is separated from it, the absence leaves such a laceration on the human consciousness that finding our way back seems impossible at times, and these other, false promises seem so attractive.
However, my personal belief is that our reality is, and always will be that we are beautifully united with each other and with the earth in a way that can never be replicated, and can never be lost.

Creating The World We Envision Together

I read the other day that it is a harmless, but childish infatuation to believe that the nature of the world must be becoming more loving, more accepting and that we are becoming more aware of our shared humanity. That may or may not be true, however, I  personally think it doesn't matter. There is no choice but to act as if the world that you want to live in is possible at the time you are living, and to hold onto that hope. I think that no matter how much time passes there will always be great pain, but also things to be very hopeful about. That, as a culture we might reconnect with our past and find ourselves more satisfied and happier, is a hopeful idea, and in the midst of technology and politics, and whatever else, may seem outlandish. But there are many many people who have, despite the challenges, chosen to live out the life they believe to be right for them- one of simplicity, connection, and interdependence.
Everyone, most likely, has their own areas that are challenging, but I think one of the greatest challenges we face, together, is to depend on each other for the things that we need. We may be able to depend on ourselves, to a great extent, but if you want to devote some time each day to art, or music, reading, recreating or anything that is not directly related to basic survival, you need other people. The actual need of them is the strength of communities. Grocery stores, wal-mart, or what have you is always available to replace dependence on your neighbors, but, how much is that relationship worth? And what else is sold?
The vision of vibrant communities does ask for individuals to  depend on others in meaningful ways, not just for company or entertainment, but for basic survival, for food, or for firewood for the winter, or to keep the elders taken care of to the extent you are capable, to show respect to eachother, or to feed another when they hunger, whether their hunger be for food or for kindness, or music or art.  Each person, needing less and less money, and needing eachother more and more is a world that to us is unknown, but seems to be something worth creating.

******
But let there be space in your togetherness
And let the winds of heaven blow between you-
Sing and dance together and be joyous
But let each of you stand alone
Even as the strings of the lute are alone
Thought they quiver with the same music.

Kahlil Gibran