Alexandersmap

    Author: nhcarmichael

    • Hiking Mount Tecumseh on a Foggy Night

      It seemed like a good idea at the time is a beginning statement that might indicate more adventure than bargained for.  And so it was that I hiked solo up Mount Tecumseh at 6:30 PM on a random Thursday, with noble intent to meet the Comet Neowise halfway by climbing a relatively easy mountain and looking at the stars.  Except that the stars were hidden in overcast, and the stakes of a solo hike ratchet up when it gets dark on a steep and wet trail.  But I had a plan B for the descent all the while, which turned out to be an epic adventure of its own.

      Mount Tecumseh is a relatively small mountain that was recently demoted from an official 4000 footer to a just short of greatness 3997 foot.  The mountain is named for the Shawnee Chief who unified tribes against settlement in the Great Lakes region and fought against America in the War of 1812.  There’s no logical connection between Tecumseh and New Hampshire that I’ve seen, but I can respect his name more than some others I’ve come across hiking.  I’ve hiked it before and remembered it as a relatively easy hike save for a steep mile of the trail known as the staircase.  This made hiking the trail as it was getting dark less concerning for me.  But the last time was in winter when Tecumseh’s famous staircase is softened by a heavy snow blanket.

      The ascent was easier than I thought it would be, which bodes well for the trend in my overall fitness level I suppose.  I arrived at the summit at 8 PM with plenty of light to see the view, if the clouds hadn’t dropped down to start blanketing the mountain anyway.  I changed into a long sleeve shirt and began my descent quickly after arriving.  I knew I had a challenging descent to deal with if I chose to hike down the Tecumseh Trail, though I had the gear necessary for a hike in the dark.  But there was that fog to consider, which makes a headlamp beam about as effective as your high beams in your car in fog.  I decided to hike as long as it was safe to do so without using the headlamp.  And after considering the Tecumseh Trail made the decision to hike the Sosman Trail on the descent.  I’ve hiked this one before and knew it was relatively easy for a descent, partially following the ski trail for Waterville Valley.

      But here’s where the story takes a twist.  The fog and darkness made it very difficult to mark the trail, and I lost it in the swirling mist at the summit of the ski lift.  And so I said my first WTF of the night, looked at the ski trail sloping down and decided to just walk down that instead.  I kept to the green trails, which are a combination of gravel road and grassy meadow in the summer.  Skiing down a slope and hiking down are very different things, and I found it slow going.  At one point I spooked a couple of large birds roosting in a tree – likely those turkey I’d been wondering about earlier in the week, and it startled me enough that I thought I might just expire right then and there.  But that would’ve been too easy.  I uttered another WTF and kept descending.

      After walking for what seemed like hours I reached the middle chair lifts at the ski area and looked down to see the lights of the ski lodge depressingly far away.  I said another WTF and made the fateful decision to follow the chair lifts down instead of the gravel access road that would add a lot of time to the hike.  And I discovered just how tall the meadow becomes on the walk down.  By now it was completely dark and I used the beam to illuminate every step and the hiking poles to probe for gopher holes and other hazards.  Eventually I made it down to the base and glanced around at just how lonely a ski area looks at 9:30 on a foggy summer night.  I arrived at my car, used the beam to check for ticks and headed home.  Not your average Thursday night.

      Lessons learned on this one.  Hiking solo in the dark wasn’t the best idea I ever had.  Even though I knew the trails I was hiking, they always look different in the dark, and especially when there’s fog.  I would’ve been better off descending the Tecumseh Trail.  Even if it was slow going its clearly defined and I would have arrived at roughly the same time as taking the Sosman Trail.  The point of this hike was to see the night sky, and I might have been better off just bagging the hike when I saw the overcast at the summit.  But I don’t panic when I hit WTF moments, I assess.  There were things that could have gone wrong but I took it slow and easy and got back safely.  I’m glad I hiked it, and all the extra drama of darkness and fog and overgrown ski trails made it memorable, if slightly reckless (but calculated reckless). Another 4000 footer completed, and a story to tell.

    • Collecting Daily Microadventures

      I heard a Rolf Potts podcast interview with Alastair Humphreys during a long walk around town.  I listen to podcasts when walking on loud roads because I can never fully immerse myself in nature when heavy objects traveling at terminal velocity are close enough to know the deodorant of choice of the driver.  Of course, I always keep an eye on the driver and the relative distance between their passenger mirror and my rib cage.  But a podcast gives me something else to think about during this regular dance on the narrow shoulders of New Hampshire roads.

      Potts and Humphreys captured my imagination during my dance with the drivers with a discussion of microadventures.  Microadventures is Humphreys’ term, but the pursuit of adventures isn’t a new concept.  I’ve been doing many of the things he lists on his site already, and think of them as exclamation points on a day of living on this planet.  But impressively he does take it to another level.  This well-made video explains the concept, or do a deeper dive on his web site (I felt a bit of web site envy visiting his site, and it once again prompted me to up my alexandersmap.com game.  You can see my ongoing progress on the site).  There are many microadventures available for the able and willing, I could get in my car and drive to the White Mountains for a hike, or drive to a waterfall for a shower under bracingly cold water, or camp out on a sleepy beach for sunrise.  But I wanted something close to home and on a somewhat smaller scale as a nod to the spirit of microadventuring.

      And so it was that I found myself getting in my car with a camera and tripod and driving a couple of miles away from home to an entirely different world: the soccer fields my kids once competed on, which last night transformed into a dark and mysterious upside down world with vaguely familiar fences and sheds providing anchors of bearing.  I was challenged by three separate people to go out and see the Comet Neowise, dancing just below the Big Dipper just after sunset.  It seems people have noticed my affinity for the stars over the years.  I’ve silently been plotting a viewing all along, but the weather proved frustratingly unreliable for comet gazing.  Last night was a micro adventure of comet hunting, confirming that my Nikon Coolpix B500 camera wasn’t up to the task (or more likely its owner), and learning from the experience.  Perhaps I’ll get that evasive picture tonight or in the next few days before Neowise travels on for another thousand generations, or maybe I’ll just bring the binoculars out and just view it.  Plenty of better photographers are taking stunning photos of Neowise already.   My micro adventure wasn’t for a picture anyway, but for the experience of trying something new right in my own town.  It was me alone in a dark field, strange noises in the forest beyond, constellations and planets spinning above and satellites zipping past.  Memorable even without a digital image to post on social media.

      Here’s the thing: we get caught up in the big bucket list stuff.  Hiking the Appalachian Trail, sailing across the ocean, hiking to Machu Picchu, visits to Amsterdam, Paris, London and a hundred other great cities.  Heck, even hiking the 48 NH 4000 footers in my home state requires time investment and planning on a larger scale than a simple microadventure.  Life should be full of the great exclamation points that a bucket list offers, but lifetimes are made up of a collection of days.  Why not downsize the scale of the adventure and do something interesting today?  So when someone asks you tomorrow what you did last night, you aren’t replaying the same old soundtrack of streaming Netflix series or watching YouTube videos of other people’s adventures.  Yesterday, in between the traditional fare of a random Wednesday, I began my day with a plunge in the pool at 6 AM and ended it with a hunt for Comet Neowise until past my bedtime.  So a memorable yesterday, if only for the endcaps.  So what shall today bring?

       

    • Everything Flows

      Everything Flows

      “Wu-wei is the understanding that energy is gravity, and thus that brush writing, or dancing, or judo, or sailing, or pottery, or even sculpture is following patterns in the flow of liquid.”
      “Panta rhei—everything flows, and therefore the understanding of water is the understanding of life. Fire is water falling upwards.”
      – Alan Watts, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown

      I’m a novice when it comes to Chinese philosophy – Taoism – and perhaps I should have spent more time previously in pursuit of a better understanding.  But in a way I was following my own flow in a different direction.  Or better put, I was following a parallel stream with gardening, hiking and time on the water.  Eventually experience leads you to the same conclusions, even if you don’t understand Chinese characters and the rituals that lead you to the stream.  I’m not sure yet how deeply I’ll be swimming into this stream, but find it familiar and natural.  I believe that’s the whole point.

      Google the term “go with the flow” and you’ll see various points of origin, from Marcus Aurelius to William Shakespeare.  I wrote a post a while back about the river as an analogy of timelessness.  So to now tap into the stream of consciousness that is Alan Watts and dipping a toe into the waters of Taoism isn’t unnatural.  Unnatural is commuting to the same place every day, sliding into a cubicle and staring at a screen for hours, working through lunch to prove you’re a team player and willing to pay the price to get ahead.  Intuitively I knew I had to get out of that world as soon as possible and delighted in the exit strategy provided by my employer at the time.  I used a phrase back in my rowing days to describe the lifestyle I’d found myself in with coaching and doing odd jobs to sustain my pursuits: It was an “attractive rut”.  Enjoyable enough to keep doing it indefinitely, but limiting enough to recognize that you needed to do more in life.  Attractive rut also summed up my time working 50 hours per week in an office environment.  Great money, but soul-crushing in the end.

      Career shifts, sabbaticals, graduations, divorce, moving across borders to new places and the like are all forms of state changes. Fire is water falling upwards.  Transformation of our former self into something new, as dried wood transforms to fuel for fire then ash and finally back to the earth to begin again as something entirely different.  But transformation happens in every moment along the way from birth to death.  The question for each of us is how true to our path we remain along the way (I’m reminded of splitting wood, and how some pieces are all knotted and stubbornly resist the swing of the axe.  Difficult and unnatural, but they’re consumed by the flame just the same in the end).  This concept of transformation isn’t exclusive to Taoism:

      “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” — Genesis 3:19

      We’re inherently different people day-by-day as experience molds us and events steer us just as water swirls around rocks in a stream.  We’re watching the world around us swirl around the pandemic and social unrest and transform who we are and will be downstream, and I recognize that I’m also transforming.  And so it is.  Life is a dance, and we’re all finding our way across the page one way or another, following patterns in the flow of liquid and making our small ripple in the endless stream of time.  There’s nothing unnatural about Tao, for it is inherently the natural path of life.  What’s unnatural is resisting the flow and diverting yourself towards pursuits that don’t align with who you are.  One of the beautiful things about life is discovering your own flow and releasing the resistance to following it.

       

    • Missing Poultry and Other Such Thoughts

      I woke up thinking about missing turkeys.  This isn’t a normal occurrence.  I dwelled on the question; Where do the turkeys go in summer?  They made a point of being very present for winter and spring, but seemingly go on vacation all summer.  Sure you might still see one now and then on the side of the road, but it seems lost and disgruntled, wondering where the rest of the family went without her.  There’s always that one oddball in the family.  But then again, some just might view me that way (I hope so: “normal” is boring).

      When the mind is alive and vibrant and most of all open the world pours willingly in.  It might have been trying all along, but sometimes your senses are too dulled to pay much attention.  I’m paying attention.  Perhaps too much attention.  Almost certainly too much attention.  Wondering about such abstract, random things as where the poultry that swarmed the neighborhood went, and what might have prompted them to go there.  Clearly turkey have their own version of The Great Wildebeest Migration that happens in Tanzania, or the Monarch butterfly migration across North America to hang out in Mexico for the winter.  And let’s not forget the Humpback Whale migration in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as they swim from the colder waters of the north to the Caribbean or Hawaiian waters, respectively.  There are many more examples, often driven by the search for food and water and of course mating (There’s always mating involved when you go to the tropics).

      So what’s the deal with turkeys?

      According to the National Wild Turkey Federation (who knew?) “the annual home range of wild turkeys varies from 370 to 1,360 acres”.  The county I live in has approximately 695 square miles of land, which equates to almost 445,000 acres of land for roaming turkeys.  And that’s assuming they don’t all cross over into bordering Massachusetts.  That’s a lot of alula room for a flock of turkeys.  All I’m sure of is that they aren’t in my neighborhood at the moment.  And I guess I’m good with that.  Just let them know I was thinking of them.  Enough that I had to look up alula.

      All of this turkey talk is just my vibrant mind (no really, stick with me on this) wondering at the world around me.  I view getting out of your own head as a good thing, and thinking of things other than yourself as a noble path.  And so it is that I’m spending time this Tuesday talking turkey.  Which brings me to alliteration… 

       

    • Cloud-Hidden, Somewhere on the Mount

      “I asked the boy beneath the pines.
      He said, “The Master’s gone alone
      Herb-picking somewhere on the mount,
      Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.”
      – Chia Tao

      Inevitably I had to arrive at Alan Watts.  I’ve circled around his work for some time, and finally landed on Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown, which is as much personal journal as philosophical work.  And so it was that I lingered on these lines from Chia Tao that open Watts’ book.  I thought about my hike yesterday, cloud-hidden myself, with my whereabouts largely unknown on a solo hike.  It seemed appropriate to borrow this translation for my own observations.  For yesterday’s post was all nuts and bolts detail on hiking Mount Garfield, but it didn’t convey much about hiking solo largely in solitude.

      There’s a part of me that wants to knock off the 48 New Hampshire 4000 footers as a solo hiker.  Not because I’m anti-social, but because I feel the mountains differently when I’m alone with them.  Perhaps I’m more attuned to the ripple of water and the breeze in the trees, but mostly I’m more attuned with myself.  Slipping or tripping on a solo hike feels more consequential than it does when you’re with hiking buddies.  Sure there are other hikers on the trails, especially on a 4000 footer, but if you’re injured you’re relying on the goodwill of strangers and blowing up their own moment with the mountain.  Who wants that memory of your last hike?  I’d just as soon take the extra millisecond to be especially sure of footing.  To that end, I find hiking poles to be especially valued on a solo hike for the reassurance they provide on the descent.  It took me years to conclude that there was any value at all in hiking poles.  Now I find them invaluable.  I was reminded of their worth when I slipped on a hidden muddy root on my descent yesterday and my right pole bore the weight of my slide, keeping me from a hard fall and now shows evidence of bearing the brunt of the force in the form of a slightly bent shaft.  Thanks for your sacrifice, friend.

      The summit of Mount Garfield is a knob of granite with an old fire tower foundation set into it.  I arrived at the summit feeling a bit like a character in that Chia Tao poem.  Cloud hidden and whereabouts unknown.  There’s something about being alone in swirling clouds that is otherworldly.  I’ve felt this before, most notably when the fog rolled in as I stood alone on North Head at Signal Hill in St. John’s, Newfoundland.  My time on the summit lacked the drama of foghorns waking up to blare warnings to all that would hear, but made up for it with wind gusts that implied a threat of their own.  Normally the summit is a place to linger, but the mountain suggested I should move along.  When you’re on the mountain listen to the mountain.

      “The solitary is as necessary to our common sanity as wilderness, as the forest where no one goes, as the waterfall in a canyon, which no one has ever seen or heard. We do not see our hearts…” – Alan Watts, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown

      I’m not sure what I’d do if the rest of the world woke up early.  I suppose I’d go for long walks alone in the woods, or quietly slip a kayak into the bay or a river, or some such pursuit of solitude.  But the world tends to sleep in, or otherwise keep to itself, and so must I in the early hours.  Hiking offers a measure of solitude, even when you’re with others.  For who doesn’t listen to the mountain when they hike?  Sadly I’ve come across such people – loud talkers you hear from a mile away, or worse, people who play a soundtrack through their phone speakers as they tackle the trail like they’re on a treadmill at the gym.  There are people who never hear, because they never really listen.  I choose to listen.

      The morning after such a hike is filled with reminders: muscle kinks and soreness that grumble, memories of moments of lightness and wonder, gear to store away after a night of drying.  This is the afterglow of time on a trail, and some of that glow stays with you for a lifetime.  I still wonder at moments spent hiking from the Colorado River up Havasu Creek to the lower falls, or watching a meteor shower late in the night on Old Speck Mountain in Maine with college friends.  Hiking doesn’t always fill you with wonder, but it generally puts you in the neighborhood.  The rest is up to you.

       

    • Hiking Mount Garfield

      As U.S. Presidents go, James Garfield is barely remembered, but he seemed like a decent guy.  He fought for the Union primarily to eradicate slavery, and is the only President to be elected from a seat on the House of Representatives.  So he should be viewed favorably and as an American success story.  Unfortunately, his tenure as President lasted a mere six months, as he fell victim to an assassination attempt, dying a few months after being shot from complications.  That you and I don’t remember much about Garfield has as much to do with his short and tragic life more than any flaw in his character  His mother Eliza was born in New Hampshire, so it seems fitting that there’s a mountain named after him.  This morning I climbed that mountain.

      Mount Garfield is known for the view from the summit.  There would be no view this morning, as rain and low cloud cover announced from the start that this wouldn’t be one of those days when you could see for miles.  I decided to hike it anyway, and to do it solo. The Garfield Trail is a relatively easy hike, and I was able to get to the summit in 2 1/2 hours.  As a wet hike, the Garfield Trail leaves a lot to be desired.  You feel like you’re hiking in a stream in stretches, and on the verge of getting bogged down in mud in some others.  But it’s a classic New Hampshire hike, with a cathedral of mature trees lining the ridge in the first third of the hike, and rocks for much of the rest of the way.  This is the type of hiking I’ve grown up with, and I quickly settled into my rhythm for the climb up.  For all its wetness, there were no bugs for the duration.

      Beginning at 7:30, I found little company on the trails.  I passed one father and daughter pair early on, and was in turn passed by a woman who flew past me after the first hour of hiking.  I’ve long checked my ego at the door when it comes to my pacing on hikes, and when I go solo I’m very deliberate with footing.  I’d see her again as she flew down the mountain at almost the same pace.  And that was it for company on the ascent.  It seemed most people were saving Garfield for a sunny day.  But the descent proved me wrong, with a steady parade of hikers streaming past me, most wondering about the view at the summit.  Not much of one, I’d tell them, but even as I spoke those words the day was beginning to change, with sunlight burning through the cloud cover and warming up the forest.  I was grateful for having done the ascent in the cool rain, even if the view didn’t cooperate.

      Mount Garfield is considered one of the easier climbs of the 48 4000 footers, but with that big payoff of a magnificent view waiting for you on a clear day.  If I wasn’t pursuing the 48, I might have saved this hike for better day, but I don’t view it as a waste at all.  20,000 steps later, I’d finished another 4000 footer and began my drive back home.  Garfield is a mountain I’ll do again a few times, certainly in autumn but also in winter when it becomes a longer hike as they close the gate on the access road.  Maybe my timing wasn’t good for a view, but it was an excellent 4 1/2 hour round trip anyway.  I’ve got my second notch on the 48 (I started over again from the beginning this year, since I rarely logged hikes previous to pursuing this goal) 4000 footers, and I got a decent workout in before lunchtime.  I’d call that a great success.

      A side benefit of hiking the 48 is learning more about the people the mountains are named for.  Other than knowing he was President and that he’d been assassinated, I didn’t know much about James Garfield until I chose this hike.  I’m glad I took the time to look back on his life a bit.  He only lived to aged 49, but managed to accomplish quite a bit in that time.  He was a classic rags to riches story with a life cut short too soon.  The White Mountains are dotted with more famous Presidents, but that doesn’t make Garfield a bit player.  Just a guy who ran out of time before he could do more.  I think he’s had a lot of company in that club.  A good reminder to get busy already, time waits for no one. And with that in mind I’m considering a peak bag for my next hike, which involves summiting multiple peaks in one day’s hike. I have another couple of former Presidents in mind for that one.

       

    • What’s a More Soulful Way to Live?

      “What’s a more soulful way to live?  What’s a way that I can benefit from the dynamism and prosperity of American society without having to play by these rules that keep us in a holding pattern?” – Rolf Potts, from his Deviate podcast

      Leave it to Rolf Potts to ask the question.  The question that drives much of what I write about, and seek in travel and reading and gardening and hiking and in lingering solitude in the early light of dawn and the spaces in between notes and in the eyes of kindred spirits.  What’s a more soulful way to live?  And this is the path I live my life on.  Travel might not be as readily available in this moment, but it will return in time.  In the meantime there’s this living thing to do, and why not make it a dance instead of a holding pattern?

       The world is alive around us. I see it in the trees as the wind swirls the leaves and branches bounce in delightful prances. In the leaves and flower buds earnestly unfolding and reaching for the light. I hear it in the birdsong and buzz of pollinators and I feel it in the dampness of the earth after a night of rain. And we are alive as well, at least for now. Shouldn’t we dance while the music’s still playing?

      I’m very good at creating to-do lists. Projects to complete, places to go, bucket lists of experiences and other such compilations. The question, what’s a more soulful way to live? is a useful lens for planning the future, but I find it as valuable as an earnest sounding board for the moment. How do I highlight this moment in time soulfully? How do I fill my remaining days with a more soulful life? Both questions have value. Life is best lived in the moment, but with a realistic eye on where you’ll be tomorrow, should it arrive.

      Collectively it feels like we’re all in a holding pattern, but that doesn’t mean we can’t live more deeply. Thoreau showed you don’t have to travel far to explore soulfully. And so it is that the trees dance, the dappled light sparkles on lingering droplets and the world wakes up around me. I find myself a witness in the moment but also a willing participant, alive and grateful for the opportunity at hand.

    • Seeing Our Soul in Things

      Weeks just fly by, we remain in a pandemic, but the writing continues.  The writing must continue.  Some days the words come to me immediately, some days it’s a struggle, but I always attempt to get about 400 words into a legible and hopefully enjoyable blog post.  Prior to writing today I read 10-11 pages of thoughts from long-dead souls before turning back to my own thoughts.  When traveling is limited, there are always books to take you places.  So I went back to 1850’s Switzerland with Amiel’s Journal and 1910 Russia with Leo Tolstoy’s Calendar of Wisdom.  I know what you’re thinking: this guy must be a lot of fun at parties.  But there’s tremendous wealth to be mined from the masters, and these books largely stand the test of time:

      “Common sense is the measure of the possible, it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.” – Henri Frédéric Amiel

      “We are all visionaries, and what we see is our soul in things.” – Henri Frédéric Amiel

      “Do not fear the lack of knowledge, fear false knowledge.  All evil in this world comes from false knowledge.  Knowledge born in argument and discussion is to be doubted.” – Leo Tolstoy

      So these guys, language and cultural barriers aside, might be interesting at a party after all.  I could see myself diving deep into a discussion on the use of common sense in measuring the possible with Amiel, or the rise in false knowledge with Tolstoy.  These guys might not recognize the players of 2020, but they’d surely recognize the character of the players.  Just as we recognize the character of historical figures from the past.  The more things change the more they stay the same.

      Like most books, I didn’t just fall upon Amiel’s Journal and Calendar of Wisdom.  Each was referenced multiple times by other writers I’ve read.  When someone you’ve mined for knowledge and timeless wisdom points you to the source of their own development of thoughts, doesn’t it make sense to go check out that source?  And so it is that reading leads to more reading, which influences my writing, which drives an appetite for more knowledge, which brings us right to this cocktail party with Amiel and Tolstoy and me trying to keep up my end of the conversation.  But the long-dead have infinite patience with rakish amateurs like me (thanks gents).

      So if there’s a take-away from all of this, it’s to do interesting things, and read interesting things, and it will in turn make you more interesting in your writing and at random cocktail parties with dead people.  But seriously, we’re all just participating in the Great Conversation, and skipping from source-to-source collecting a wealth of information and insight that we might, if we’re lucky, develop into a philosophy of our own. Do not fear the lack of knowledge, fear false knowledge.  Go find the truth in that which you observe.  We’re all visionaries, after all, and what we see is our soul in things like the truth.  You’ll know it when you see it.

       

    • Life In Four Native American Quotes

      “When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.” – Chief Aupumut in 1725, Mohican.

      The Chief Aupumut I’ve read about was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and fought in the Revolutionary War as an important ally against the British.  He wrote an extraordinary letter to Thomas Jefferson asking for lands for a reservation in Wisconsin, so that his people wouldn’t have to keep moving further and further until they ran out of land.  He was also known as Hendrick Aupaumut, the Chief of the Muhheconneck Nation.  Given the date, the quote above may have derived from his father.  I’m not really sure, I’m relying on a web site dedicated to quotes from Native Americans.  But it took my breath away whomever the source was.  There’s a fair amount of stoicism in Aupumut’s words, not unexpected, and he challenges all of us to live more boldly in pursuit of our own dreams.  That’s a lot to live up to, living that we might die like a hero going home, but what else is this wild and precious life for if not to reach our potential?

      “What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” – Crowfoot, Chief of the Siksika First Nation, Blackfoot warrior, peacemaker

      Crowfoot died relatively young at 60 from tuberculosis, so there’s wisdom in this quote reminding us of the briefness of life.  We’re all here for a short time, whether 60 years or 100, it’s all just the flash of a firefly in the night.  So why do we waste time on the trivial when time is so precious?  Because we don’t believe the truth before us.  There’s always another tomorrow, always next year, always an I’ll get to it…  until there isn’t.  Do it now.  If ever there was a consistent call from those who came before us its to make the most of this moment, not some future moment.

      “All who have died are equal.” – Comanche or Navajo quote (source uncertain)

      Google this quote and you’ll find multiple sources for it.  But generally it comes down to either the Comanche or the Navajo.  I wouldn’t be shocked if they both had a version of the same quote.  All who have died are equal.  And all who live are equal as well, even if treated differently.  I was raised to treat everyone the same, no matter what their skin color or nationality or sexual identity or preference.  But I’ve taken my own identity for granted, not seeing the struggles of those who fight unseen battles with those who weren’t raised the same way.  The world is full of struggles for equality and the respect and dignity of all.  But collectively we can make significant improvements in our lifetimes.

      “When a man moves away from nature his heart becomes hard.” – Navajo Expression

      There are a lot of hardened hearts in the world, removed from nature and seeing the world as asphalt and concrete and electricity.  It’s easy to dismiss climate change and consumer waste as hoaxes when you’re not immersed in nature.  How can you possibly see what you aren’t looking at?  I have seen the plastic washed up on remote beaches, and the oil slicks from spills far away.  I have noticed the shift in seasons and the haze over cities on busy commuter days.  As with equality, we can make significant improvements in our lifetimes, but we can’t wait much longer.  Perhaps a new President and Congress will prove to be the catalyst for change long overdue in the United States.  Perhaps the pandemic has given the world enough of a breather to give us the time to make meaningful change in our collective behavior.  But it always starts with us.

      I linger on the edge of nature often.  Gardening and observing the birds and bees and mammals attracted to the garden.  Hiking and getting out on the water whenever possible.  But I need to plunge deeper into the heart of it, to soften the hardness in my own heart.  We’re all that firefly in the night, with so little time.  How will we use our light?  What are you waiting for?

       

    • To Back Up or Pivot

      Try new things enough and something will go wrong.  The trick is in the recovery.  Yesterday I downloaded a new theme that would work well with Elementor to enhance the look of the blog.  Two minutes after downloading it my site was sending out random posts in Latin.  No, we can’t have that.  I copied my last five days worth of posts and used Jetpack to backup to a different version of my site.  I chose to go back two themes ago, just in case there was anything in the first iteration that triggered the mess that occurred in the second.  As I warned, the blog is a work in progress.  I’m still assessing where to take it from here, but it will continue to evolve.

      Life doesn’t always offer the do-over.  We all find ourselves wishing we’d done something differently, taken the different path, not said that stupid thing, or a thousand other mistakes that proved somewhere between disappointing, embarrassing, disastrous and devastating.  But so long as we avoid plunging too deep into the devastating bucket we’re all human and mistakes happen.  Governors in the United States are facing the real consequences of politics and public pressure over science as they re-open restaurants, bars and beaches and see COVID-19 cases spike.  But so do the rest of us.  We either take it seriously or we risk it all.  No do-overs in a pandemic.

      One troubling thing in our current culture is the tendency of people to judge others by a mistake they made.  Public shaming of people who appear to be doing something horrible or outrageous.  I think of the Covington Catholic High School kids who appeared to be confronting an older protester.  People judged them as thugs until the rest of the video was shown and it became obvious they were just reacting as they passed the man.  I’m sure those kids went through hell, and might still get some hate mail from ignorant people.  The thing is, it’s easy to judge others, it’s a lot harder to look at ourselves and see what we need to work on.

      I quietly deleted the Facebook app again yesterday.  I gave it another three months after deleting it from January to April, and frankly the ratio of angry opinion, shaming of others and political debate remains way higher than the sharing of pictures of family and friends.  Add in all the garbage Facebook is pushing on you and it just doesn’t seem to be a healthy place to hang out.  With the Election coming up in the United States, it’s only going to get worse.  So I pivoted away from Facebook once again.  If anyone wants to know what I’m up to they can find me here.  I make a point of reaching out to others and find I do it more when I don’t rely on Facebook to show me what they’re up to.

      Seeing the need for change is one thing.  Doing something about it is quite another.  Sometimes its as easy as deleting an app or backing up to a different version of your blog, but sometimes it requires a lot more work.  2020 is a year many wish we could have a do-over on.  We can’t have the time back, but we can use it well while we’re living it.  We shouldn’t always move forward, but we also can’t always back up.  Sometimes all we can do is pivot and move in a different direction entirely.  And do the work to make the present a bit better and the future better still.  Here’s to the good days ahead.