Alexandersmap

    Blog

    • 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.

    • The Compass and the Torch

      “Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
      With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
      Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
      A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
      Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
      Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
      Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
      The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

      “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
      With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
      Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
      The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
      Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
      I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
      – Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus 

      There’s an interesting connection between Emma Lazarus and Henry David Thoreau.  It seems that Emma visited Ralph Waldo Emerson at his home in Concord, Massachusetts in 1876, and met the poet William Ellery Channing while visiting.  Channing was a close friend of Thoreau, and apparently never really got over the death of Thoreau 14 years prior to Lazarus’ visit to Concord.  He proved to be a tough nut to crack, but succumbed to Lazarus as he learned she was an admirer of Thoreau’s.  Channing gave her a personal tour of Thoreau’s Concord, from Walden Pond to the place he was born, and when she was leaving Concord he gave her an incredible gift; Thoreau’s compass.  I admit, that’s a breathtaking gift to me, the compass of Henry David Thoreau, the surveyor of lands and spiritual guide to generations.

      Lazarus, like Thoreau, would live a short life, succumbing to what is believed to be lymphoma at the age of 38.  But like Thoreau she lives on in words of significance created during her short tenure on earth.  Her most famous poem is The New Colossus, which was written to raise funds for the base of the Statue of Liberty, and is forever associated with Lady Liberty.  I’ve read it many times, but find new meaning in it with each reading.

      A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
      Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
      Mother of Exiles.

      When you absorb The New Colossus, you recognize the folly of Trump, the Tea Party and the undercurrent of white privilege that’s always been there but is recoiling under an uncomfortable spotlight.  The Founding Fathers might have been complicated in how they lived their own lives, but the ideas behind the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were bigger than their lives.  The century after would see a nation boiling inside, putting the words to the ultimate test again and again culminating in the Civil War and Reconstruction, the settlement of the continent and the sweeping aside of Native Americans, much of the wildlife and the very land itself.  Set against this was the rise of Transcendentalism, conservation and preservation.  And all the while the immigrants kept flooding in, fleeing desperation and seeking a new hope in America.  Lazarus represents the open arms of Lady Liberty and America, with no restriction in who might be welcomed when they arrive:

      Give me your tired, your poor,
      Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

      I know people who despair at Trump and the rise of hatred in America.  I take no pleasure in the vile and ugly amongst us.  But I also take the long view, and recognize that American is shifting once again, and the undercurrent of hatred, racism and greed is unwelcome by the vast majority in this country.  I have faith in the process and believe we’ll come out of this year like no other better for having endured.  America is a land of hope, transcendentalism is founded on the belief in the inherent goodness of people.  Emma Lazarus corresponding with Ralph Waldo Emerson and eventually visiting him shows her own interest in his thoughts and opinions.  When I read The New Colossus I think of Thoreau’s compass that was handed to Lazarus by Channing and the direct link that created between them.  I wonder if she glanced at the compass while writing The New Colossus and found the right words to say.  Words that still show us the way forward, towards our true north as a country.

    • What We Know

      Two nights in a row I was stumped by the sound of birds in the neighborhood.  The first was my old friend the Carolina Wren, making a call that sounded different enough that I didn’t believe it was what it turned out to be.  The second was a Northern Flicker, which I don’t recall hearing in the 21 years I’ve lived in this house.  More likely than not I just hadn’t paid enough attention and they’ve been calling to me in vain for years.  Either way, it reminded me once again of what I don’t know.

      The more the mind opens up to the world, the more we realize what we don’t know about it.  In general I can tell you a thing or two about many things, but I can’t tell you everything about anything, including myself.  Subject matter experts, as the name infers, tend to dive deep into specific subject matter.  I’m more of an informed generalist myself, seeking to learn and understand many things and being proficient enough to fill in the blanks with the help of those who know the way.

      People who demonstrate that they know everything about one thing are eagerly embraced by those who seek to understand the way forward.  On the other hand, People who say that they know everything about everything raise eyebrows and are only followed by zealots.  Who really has it all figured out anyway?  Here’s a hint, it’s not the guy who tells the world he knows everything, no matter what their title is. But it’s also not the subject matter expert.  We know what we know, and work through the rest the best we can.

      We’ve all learned a lot during this ongoing pandemic.  Things we didn’t know about ourselves, about others we thought we knew pretty well, about the way the world works, about what we can live without and can’t live without.  None of us would do a pandemic all over again, but we might miss the simplicity of day-to-day social isolation when its over.  What we thought we knew about pandemics and politics and racial injustice and the people we have known for years is not what we know now.  And it promises to be different again tomorrow.

      “There is only one real knowledge: that which helps us to be free. Every other type of knowledge is mere amusement.” – Vishnu Purana

      I read two page-turner novels over the weekend.  Blew through them in no time. Yes, it was mere amusement, but it was also a nice change of pace from the usual stack of books that I try to tackle.  I try to sprinkle in fun with learning, and reading is fun until you make it a chore.  Reading philosophy, history, poetry and biographies inform and mould the mind in new ways.  But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  What we know shouldn’t make us boring and one-dimensional.  What we know should lead us to explore our assumptions more, engage with others more, debate and learn from them, and above all keep moving closer to the truth and freedom hidden just from view.  The learning path is one minor miracle of discovery after another, at least it is when the student is eagerly peaking around the corner at every bend.  I feel I’ve reached that point in my own learning.  I hope that knowledge quest continues until the end.  I’d like to think it will.

       

      Originally posted 6 July 2020