Lower-Class

I've spent a significant amount of my time these past three years in researching my family history, which includes studying American history. How could it not? Many books have helped me along the way, some of which I've noted previously, and here's another one that rakes the muck from one's eyes: White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg.

BRILLIANT. RIVETING. DISTURBING.

Now, granted, every author has their own agenda when writing a book, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, because each of us is seated within the context of our own lives and culture. That should go without saying, but it seems to be a missing piece of modern dialogue ... so I say it upfront. Nevertheless, I found Isenberg's White Trash riveting.

Using class as the lens through which to view American history opens up an important perspective regarding the society we live in now. It's easy to say "oh, sure, we all know that the poor have been and are looked down upon" but this book brings the reality home in a more visceral and disturbing way. We need to see and FEEL the shadow side of our own history if we want to continue evolving our society for the betterment of all humans, all life.

Most of us were taught the pretty image of the first colonists in Virginia and Massachusetts, those seeking religious freedom or increased fortune. And, yes, they comprised a portion of the early population, although some statistics reveal them as less than fifty percent of settlers. The rest? They represented "England's opportunity to thin out its prisons and siphon off thousands; here was an outlet for the unwanted, a way to remove vagrants and beggars, to be rid of London's eyesore population." These were children as well as adults. The indentured masses were fodder, most of their offspring filled the same niche.

I'm an American mutt with a solid 350-years of ancestral footprints embedded in the soil of this continent. My roots go deep, the bones of thousands of my ancestors are buried here, their blood spilled across the land as they toiled, migrated, gave birth, fought, and died. Many of those ancestors are the ones that the elites and upper-classes would have referred to as white trash, rubbish, rednecks, hillbillies, and more. As time and settlement expanded, I would guess they were often like the individual who "though coarse and ragged in his dress and manners ... at times described as hospitable and generous, someone who invited weary travelers into his humble cabin. Yet his more favorable cast rarely lasted after the woods were cut down and settled towns and farms appeared. As civilization approached, the backwoodsman was expected to lay down roots, purchase land, and adjust his savage ways to polite society--or move on." Unfortunately, many of these woods-families couldn't afford to buy the few acres they had been living on, barely getting by. I can imagine this is one of the reasons my ancestors came to Missouri when it was opened up to homesteading in the early 19th century -- it was their chance to own land, even if some of it was thick woods on rocky ground suitable only for subsistence farming.

For hundreds of years, if one didn't own land or property, you were inferior. As Isenberg sums it up: "The British colonial imprint was never really erased either. The 'yeoman' was a British class, reflecting the well-established English practice of equating moral worth to cultivation of the soil." How is that reflected in our so-called modern society?

This book provides a wealth of insight about the American class system that has been present from the beginning and still exists, whether we want to see it or not. Surely we can do better.

Equality and Paradox

One of the things I find great about British moral philosopher Mary Midgley’s books (so far) is that, although each focuses upon a topic to consider philosophically, the concepts and principles used can be widely applied. Take, for example, the book Animals and Why They Matter (1983).

In the chapter “Equality and Outer Darkness,” Midgley states in subsection “2 The Problem of Extent” that, “the notion of equality is a tool for rectifying injustices within a given group, not for widening that group or deciding how it ought to treat those outside it. As is often necessary for reform, it works on a limited scale.” (P. 67) This notion of “within a certain group” is what caught my attention. Midgley writes at length about the different groups and their objectives for reform, including the political difficulties if the social contract circle is expanded too much — which is when the movement can easily fall apart. 

Extension links to the comments in subsection “6 The Difficulty of Looking Downwards,” which point to a more linear view, rather than a circular one of inner and outer group. Midgley calls this the Paradox of One-Way Equality and states that, “inequalities above one’s own level tend to be visible: those below it to be hidden,” which reveals a “real conceptual difficulty.” This principle was “at work throughout the liberation movements of the sixties; each group of oppressed people, on sighting another, tended at once to see it as a distracting competitor, not as a friend and ally,” and, unfortunately, we can find this across history and in our present time, revealed in many examples.

Most of us are, I think, now aware of these propensities. Nevertheless, continued reflection and awareness is called for because it creeps in when we aren’t looking. Aren’t some of these difficult principles what we see happening right now as the various activist groups clash?

Midgley ends the chapter by stating that, “when a privileged group tries to consider extensions of privilege, quite special difficulties arise about being sharp-sighted. The notion that one has already drawn a correct and final line at which such extensions must end cannot be trusted at all.” Thus, I find myself asking: how are we being obtuse? How can we address our moral concerns amicably?

Middle Path Philosophy

Isn't it fun when we find a kindred spirit? Someone who speaks our thoughts with more clarity or eloquence than we can ourselves? Sometimes I feel quite alone walking what feels like the middle path in life, peeking into the more polarized landscapes on either side with curiosity as well as puzzlement, and often more than a little frustration. I felt less isolated this week while reading The Owl of Minerva, the memoir (though really more of a delightful, albeit brief autobiography) by philosopher Mary Midgley.

I've never read much philosophy, often finding it to be over my head and difficult to comprehend, but from the little I've seen so far, Midgley's books are purposely written for non-academics and I might just be able to glean some wisdom from them. This will be helped along by having read her memoir, I think, which provides a marvelous scaffold from which to view her work.

Midgley was born in 1919, with her first book published in 1978, and her latest book published in 2014. Her memoir came out in 2005 and gives a savvy, often witty, account of her life and how she wandered naturally into philosophy, what she points out is defined via its Greek origin as "love of wisdom." Where she differs from other philosophers is her aversion to reductionism or the abstract, instead she prefers a far more practical Big Picture approach -- and one imbued with embodied compassion.

In her memoir, Midgley comments on some of her favorite teachers. One of those was a history teacher and Midgley said about her that:

"She also reached back often into the past to show how the strange things that seemed to be happening now could have become possible -- what people had meant by acting in this way, what states of mind had shaped our world. This way of getting at the meaning of the present by looking at the past has remained central to me. It is just as useful for understanding thought as it is for understanding action."

How many of us have had such marvelous mind-broadening teachers?

I found myself regularly smiling, delighting in Midgley's British sense of humor as she interwove her personal experiences -- a father who was a vicar, going to a girls' boarding school, attending Oxford from 1938-42 -- with philosophical views, and the history of education before, during, and after World War II. From the distance of half a century, Midgley reviewed her past and kept me captivated all the way through the book. She stands firmly in the camp of context, that all of us present our own unique views and "individual value systems" in all that we do -- we can't help it ... and we shouldn't try to:

"Personality is not an irrelevance to thought, an obstacle to philosophical enquiry. It is an essential element in the solutions offered. All thinking is a human activity, radically linked to feeling and action. ... The impartiality that we have to aim at is not impersonality but simply the avoidance of irrelevant bias."

"In philosophy, rationalists are the people who keep trying to refine and complete that half-framed order, hoping to build it into a clear, universal system. Empiricists are the ones who keep saying, 'No, that won't do. Things are a bit more complicated than that.' This dialectic is unending. Both things are needed; both can be done together."

As to her subtle humor, for example (I wish I had marked more of her humorous anecdotes and comments, but I didn't), during the war she says of a friend that:

"She also took me to visit the home of her mother and aunts, a classic clamjamfrey of elderly ladies and cats with the cats mainly in charge ...."

Midgley addresses often her frustrations with the way that philosophy is addressed in university:

"Showing-off is indeed a feature of many kinds of life and of course it is often a harmless one. But that is no reason why it should be allowed to take them over. Any situation where a lot of young men are competing to form a dominance hierarchy, will produce cock-fights. But -- as Plato pointed out already -- these fights are not part of its essence; they are distractions from it. They interfere with philosophical work. 'Tough-minded' is much too polite a word to use for people who go to a meeting, not in order to understand what someone is saying but in order to catch him or her out by picking holes in it. ... In any case, the practice of bullying one's students ... is not a sport at all; it's a vice."

Mary Midgley was and is a remarkable woman. She raised three sons before writing her first book in her fifties, and points out that not only did she choose to put her children and home life first, but that she thinks it turned out far better that way because then she had lots of personal experience to apply to her philosophy. Not that she didn't keep her toes in the waters; her husband was a teacher/philosopher as well, and as Midgley's sons got older, she slowly began writing more, teaching, lecturing, and doing broadcasts. The latest interview I found was one from March 2015 HERE, where it said:

"She is, she says, still writing: currently working on an afterword for a book about her philosophy and also on a talk she will give next month at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, when she is awarded The Edinburgh Medal for her contributions to the 'wellbeing of humanity'."

I'm reading her books in order -- other than having enjoyed her memoir first -- and will no doubt write more blog posts as I follow her through those thirty years.

1978 Beast and Man

1981 Heart and Mind

1983 Animals and Why They Matter

1984 Wickedness

1985 Evolution as a religion

1989 Wisdom Information and Wonder

1992 Science as Salvation

1994 The Ethical Primate

1996 Utopias Dolphins and Computers

2000 Science and Poetry

2003 The Myths we Live by

2005 The Owl of Minerva 

2007 Earthy Realism

2010 The Solitary Self: Darwin

2014 Are you an illusion?

Unkempt

I wrote elsewhere a while back about my distress over my neighbor "mowing the woods" in front of my property because he thought it looked messy -- we live in a semi-rural neighborhood, it's why I fell in love with the place, it's supposed to appear chaotic and wildly gorgeous! Not only that, but the "messiness" is inherent in promoting a healthier environment:

"The industrialized eye, accustomed to suburban lawns and controlled gardens, generally sees such diverse, visually complex plant communities as chaotic. There appears to be no order or control, only wild, random growth. Regardless, plant communities have spent some 500 million years learning their craft; there is a reason for how they are structured. The more visually complex a plant community, the better it can respond to ecosystem demands and stressors. All ecosystems are dynamic over time in their drive to preserve this kind of 'wildness.' A suburban landscape, not continually forced into an orderly shape, will 'relax.' It will begin rearranging, reassembling, itself immediately; it will begin to look rather unkempt." ... "Disease outbreaks and heavily destructive insect infestations are extremely rare in these kinds of lumpy, visually complex, 'unkempt' ecosystems." ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner in The Lost Language of Plants

I have also been seen as messy or unkempt, especially once I passed my mid-thirties. Maybe that's part of why I protect the messiness of the woods; I feel it as kindred, as part of me.

Words and Meaning

I'm still waiting for the sacred to imbue my writing the way it used to ... before the desert and the monster in my mind scared my heart so. Sacred. Scared. Same letters but switch two of them and, oh, what a difference. So it has been with great delight that I sense the wellspring rising and meaning beginning to emerge through my private writing.

"To the alert person, a golden thread may emerge from any ordinary thing and open a doorway into the metaphysical background of the world. ... Writers follow the threads by writing down, as concretely as they can, what they are experiencing, what they are feeling, what they are seeing, hearing, sensing. Robert Bly describes this, brilliantly, as 'following the tiny impulses through the meadow of language.' It must be done slowly. Carefully. Feeling your way."

This is a different kind of writing than what we usually see in fiction, though even there it can sometimes startle us with its shimmering. I'm going to step into that meadow, with reverence, and open to its sensations and follow the golden threads.

___________
Quote from Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm, the chapter "Following Golden Threads," by Stephen Harrod Buhner.

What if ... ?

I've been reading a variety of books on plant intelligence, from conventional science to innovative experiments to holistic perspectives to sacred intuition, and yesterday's reading--the chapter titled "The Function of Psychotropics in the Ecosystem" from Stephen Harrod Buhner's book Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming of Earth--led me to a few "what if" questions that I decided to share.

our volunteer patch of
Philadelphia Fleabane

What if ... one of the ways that people in power began to control others was to deny them the ability to empathically connect with plants, animals, and even other humans by limiting their access to psychotropics? (Studies have shown that "serotonergic neurognostics generate, or perhaps more accurately, regenerate, the natural childlike feelings of empathy, the direct experience of the personhood of the [human and] nonhuman other, by altering sensory gating in important ways.")

What if ... some of the visions of prophets and/or spiritual leaders were a result of plant-assisted journeying (as with current indigenous shamans)?

What if ... one of the reasons for our current drug epidemic is that some people intuit (on a level they aren't aware of) that we need to find our way back to the connective, inter-related oneness of all life? That the so-called escape it provides from our modern society is also part of a journey or return to holistic functionality?

Buhner's book is itself profoundly mind-opening and I highly recommend it. This last of his books is a 500-page tome that I have explored slowly, every chapter gradually leading into the next one -- a beautiful journey.

When Robin Wall Kimmerer (botanist and author of the delightful book Gathering Moss) spoke with Krista Tippett of On Being, she commented that, "science asks us to learn about organisms; traditional knowledge asks us to learn from them." This is a sensational way of bridging the gaps between conventional science, indigenous wisdom, and sacred connection with Gaia.

Some people choose lifestyles that naturally lead them into learning from the earth, from Gaia. Even then, however, their sense of the aliveness of every Being around them can gradually become rigid. We don't have to imbibe psychotropics to alter consciousness, though. Remember daydreaming? Remember pretending? Recall the last time you read a thoroughly engrossing novel or were swept away by a piece of music? That altered your consciousness, because you allowed the meanings, feelings and sensations access (sensory gating). We can do this naturally. We can reconnect with Earth when we offer ourselves the space to do so. Creatives are an obvious example, one that any of us can mirror and then become.

POV to Systems

I was struck how appropriate the following quote could be when applied to other systems besides organ systems (and plant systems, which is the focus of the book); for instance, consider its potential for understanding cultural, political, social, or religious systems, not to mention simply other personalities, and how we can relate to them.

"The closer the reality of the organ system is to your normal point of view, the easier it will be to experience its reality. The farther away it is, the more disturbing it will be. Experientially assuming an extremely different orientation will in itself teach you about the narrowness of your normal point of view. The resistance you have to this new and very different perspective is information about how and how much you cling to your normal perceptions." ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants

The book Secret Teachings of Plants is profoundly moving; I highly recommend it!

A Mountain Utopia

There's little doubt that my naive impression of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado as a sanctuary has been partially influenced by the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton, along with the classic black and white film based upon that story. I can't help but believe that paradise on earth is possible when I recall the breathtaking scenery provided by the many roads I've driven and trails I've hiked in the Rockies; the Mystery evoked runs deep.

big stock.com

Early in the story of Lost Horizon, when the frenetic young protege named Mallinson (portrayed as Conway's brother in the movie version) is railing against the circumstances they're in, Conway responds:

"If you'd had all the experiences I've had, you'd know that there are times in life when the most comfortable thing is to do nothing at all. Things happen to you and you just let them happen. The War was rather like that. One is fortunate if, as on this occasion, a touch of novelty seasons the unpleasantness."

When Mallinson then responds that, "You're too confoundedly philosophic for me. That wasn't your mood during the trouble at Baskul," Conway replies:

"Of course not, because then there was a chance that I could alter events by my own actions. But now, for the moment at least, there's no such chance. We're here because we're here, if you want a reason. I've usually found it a soothing one."

Who of us hasn't found ourselves in that kind of a situation at one time or another? How did we handle it? What did we do? When I was Mallinson's age (at twenty-something), I confess that I often reacted as poorly as he does throughout Lost Horizon. I'm grateful that my innate temperament led me toward introspection and, as I've aged, I've become a lot more like Conway.

When Conway sees Shangri-La, shortly after his above comments to Mallinson, I'm right there with him in astonished awe.

I don't recall when I first read and/or viewed Lost Horizon but with every re-reading over the years, I yearn less for the fantasy and instead find myself creating a personal paradise, first within my heart and mind, and then outwardly to hearth and home. I have more patience with my own discomforts or mistakes, and with the circumstances beyond my control whether they be people or events. Even reading the novel now, considering our current American political situation, I feel somehow comforted. My gratitude, and the desire to assuage someone else's anxiety brings me spiraling back to Shangri-La, a fantasy template for my own novel's imaginary town of Chantilly Lace.

On Not Knowing

I follow the moving and evocative Brain Pickings, and today's post is one I am compelled to share. Both the reflection on Inspiration, and the reference to how damaging Certainty can be, spoke to me in Maria Popova's How Our Certitudes Keep Us Small and the Generative Power of Not Knowing, using Polish Poet and Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska's words as a doorway. Beautiful!

Meanwhile, back at the homestead, hubby and I spent the weekend outdoors cleaning away massive amounts of dead leaves and tidying up the neglected beds with an eye toward where to settle new plants in a couple weeks. Because our house is on a steep, rocky hillside, and surrounded by wild, tangly woods -- which I do totally love; once the trees leaf out, three sides of the house are snuggled in a green nest -- our challenge is to find resilient, hardy plants that thrive on limited sunshine.

At the end of an earlier post HERE, I had included photos from the back deck, that were from August and January. Below is one from this past weekend (taken from same spot); I delight in how our view continues to change through the seasons in our new home. While the trees are still bare from winter's hibernation, the fields across the bottoms have become verdant and magnificent, rather than brown.

April 2017

Healing Our Wild Hearts

During this past year, I've often struggled to have faith that humans are worthy of the gifts of our magnificent planet and universe. The vicious comments to and about other people, from all points of view and all sides of the political conversation (if one can even call it a conversation, which I doubt), have triggered my tendencies toward melancholy and misanthropy. And, if it weren't bad enough that we treat each other badly, we destroy other species and the planet that provides so abundantly for us.

Winter in the Ozarks

Whenever I could manage it, I have always chosen to live "in the country," whether that was our new home here in the southwest Missouri Ozarks, or in the woods of Maine, or the mountains of Colorado. Even these areas, though not wild, retain enough residual wildness to soothe my soul when I am unable to visit true wilderness areas.

I worry that this next administration of our government will harm our environment even more than we've already done, by prioritizing short-term gains over long-term losses. I would like to think that humans can control our greed so that we do as little harm as possible to others and our planet, but, sadly, most people when given free rein will think short-sightedly only about themselves, whether farmers or corporations or the average worker buying as much stuff as they possibly can.

Winter Woods in Maine

If we further allow our country to invade, harvest, and destroy even our wild places -- national parks, forests, and refuges -- our souls, the wild magic within each of us, whether we know it is there or not, will die along with our resources. There have been multitudes of books and movies about what could happen, yet many of us see them as entertainment rather than warnings, pretending they couldn't possibly happen.

I may not visit those wild places very often, but I am deeply comforted knowing they are there -- for their own sake as part of the Divine Whole, but also in case I need them. If they disappear, where will we go to heal? Where will our hearts be able to feel a sanctuary of natural wilderness even if we cannot see it with our eyes?

Summer in the Rocky Mountains

I was blessed to grow up visiting these wilderness places each summer; they became a part of me, places I always knew were out there healing us through their vital existence. Further, I was blessed that these visits were journeys across our amazing America, from sea to ocean, from mountains to deserts--these were road trips. The insightful naturalist and author Terry Tempest Williams writes about this eloquently in her latest book, The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks:

     To be an American once meant unending possibility, and the land reflected that possibility. Always the next bend--the next ridge--the mountain range descending into the depth of canyons carved by water an wind and time.
     Now, we say we have too little time, not enough time for road trips. We used to visit our national parks most often by car. Families took time and experienced the gradual approach to the park being visited. Anticipation was part of the journey as was the wildness of a family spending time together for hours and days, traversing the states. Today we arrive by plane. We miss the trek across the vast expanse of this nation. I sometimes wonder whether these special landscapes now appear as "pop-up parks," a spot of entertainment and commerce instead of an unfolding geography.

This past weekend, I pulled out some books by an author I used to enjoy but had yet to read her four most recent novels. I had paused in reading her books because I felt like she went into a darker mental space than I cared to visit anymore; Nevada Barr writes about the intersection of wilderness (national parks) with humans-gone-wrong in her mystery series. I found myself wanting to read her stories now, though, for the very reason that her protagonist somehow always finds her way through to the other side, to where she still has faith in beauty and love and how wildness can help us to heal.

I wish more people would travel, would make space in their lives for experiencing the wonders of our natural, wild places. Unlike our ancestors once thought, the beauty and resources of our world are finite and we need to treasure them. Many people forget that our bodies and minds careen into the wastelands without the nourishment provided through our souls, our wild and divine hearts that are revitalized through our connection to our sacred earth.

Grand Canyon

Don't Ignore Oppression or Violence

I am grateful and deeply honored to have my piece "Ignoring Isn't The Same As Ignorance" published by Feminism and Religion. Many wise women post their thoughts there, and I appreciate every single one of them for sharing their ideas and insights, love and frustration, support and encouragement. May we all be at peace and live into loving voices.

Two Wise Visitors

When will it end?

I’ve been trying to read This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust but it’s tough. She puts the people front and center, and the text is grippingly realistic as she uses quotes from those soldiers who were there … and died or who never “came back”. I’m reading it because I want to understand the lingering effects all that suffering and blood in the soil has had upon our nation — and pour those emotions and patterns into a manuscript I’m working on. 

So while I’ve been reading, there has been (in the TV series Parenthood) a story-thread about a young soldier coming home from several tours in Afghanistan that has broken my heart. War is war, and as the character in the series tries to find a way to live in the “real world” again, I can’t help but reflect upon the Civil War soldiers who wrote to their loved ones of their pain and suffering, of everyone dying around them, of being far from home and being required to kill other people.

I had gruesome nightmares a few nights ago, I couldn’t seem to get away from them; no matter how often I woke up, they returned as soon as I fell asleep. I can hardly imagine the nightmares endured by soldiers when they are awake and asleep.

In the Civil War, soldiers tried many ways to manage the horrors they experienced, from focusing upon their own dying to religious succor to blocking all emotions and becoming killing machines. Faust says that, “As the intensity of this war and the size of its death tolls mounted in the months and years that followed, vengeance came to play an ever more important role, joining principles of duty and self-defense in legitimating violence.” When will this madness end? When will all humans realize the toll enough to stop the killing, the violence, the warfare? How can we release our fear and need for vengeance? One author said that war is a result of impatience, a result of wanting our own way so badly that we are willing to kill to get it.

I believe one way toward stopping the violence is to hold ourselves to the grief instead of the celebration, to the suffering and loss instead of the “victory.” Not all the time, not to the exclusion of the other joys in life, of course not. But when we think of “war” maybe keeping the losses everyone experiences at the forefront of our thoughts, maybe reflecting upon the suffering instead of becoming impatient with the “other” would be more prohibitive. I lament the sacrifices made by soldiers and their loved ones, even while I honor them — but we have to stop killing.

“Battle was, as a North Carolina soldier ruefully put it, ‘majestic murder.’ The carnage was not a natural disaster but a man-made one, the product of human choice and agency.”

Here is another view on "The Other Side of War" -- the writer's poem is so profound in its simplicity.

Politics, History, and Soul Recovery

What does soul recovery have to do with politics and history? A tremendous amount during our current election year when all of us are concerned about not only the candidates and the process, but also about citizen reactions and over-reactions to what is before us. Where is our dignity, integrity, and compassion? Where is our intelligence? Where is the shadow? Our hearts and minds need to work in tandem toward good for everyone, that’s part of what nourishes and lifts up our souls. But we cannot force the soul to be as we wish. Thomas Moore in Care of the Soul says: 

“Soul is the font of who we are, and yet it is far beyond our capacity to devise and to control. We can cultivate, tend, enjoy, and participate in the things of the soul, but we can’t outwit it or manage it or shape it to the designs of a willful ego.”

Our ego generally drives our political views, unless we consciously invite soul to participate in the continued development of our country. We live in a democratic republic, not in a “pure” or “direct” democracy (or it’s not intended to be one), because originally safeguards were established by the Founding Fathers so that we wouldn’t become either a “mobocracy” or be taken over by tyranny. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t evolve our country and government; everything changes, that’s the nature of living. Plus, those who set up our original government could not foresee how the world has changed, and they were limited to their past and to their own cultural context. However, we need to be as consciously aware as possible to not let ourselves venture into the extremes, which is where we seem to be headed.

That said, when we look at our two-hundred-plus governmental history, we can see the pendulum swing back and forth between conservative and liberal control, indicating that, frustrating as it can be at times, dire as it can appear during certain periods, our system does appear to be working so that no single entity completely takes over our country. But we still have to remain cautious and alert and participate in the process; we need to engage in civil conversation and the process using our hearts and our minds, passion and pragmatism.

One thing I’ve been trying hard to do these past six months is read across the spectrum of liberal and conservative publications; I can’t expand my heart, mind, and, yes, my soul without a greater understanding about views different than mine. I asked conservative friends and family for recommendations on writers who share their views, but few responded. Left on my own, Google has been helpful in pointing me toward publications;^⁠ for instance, universities often share lists on this topic.^⁠ The Wall Street Journal is usually listed as a conservative publication, especially in its editorial section, so I read that one daily. However, in a recent New York magazine (not on a list, but probably liberal) article by Andrew Sullivan titled “Democracies end when they are too democratic”^⁠, the author provides an interesting summary of perspectives on democracy influenced by Plato’s Republic and reflections upon the establishment of American government. Within this framework, Sullivan provides his interpretation of the perfect national storm that has led to the rise of Trump. It’s a fascinating piece and one I highly recommend (the complete article can be read online).

The soul traverses both worldly and spiritual realms, allowing us to journey toward wholeness. Thomas Moore, in Care of the Soul, says: 

“To some extent, care of the soul asks us to open our hearts wider than they have ever been before, softening the judging and moralism that may have characterized our attitudes and behavior for years. Moralism is one of the most effective shields against the soul, protecting [deflecting] us from its intricacy. There is nothing more revealing, and maybe nothing more healing, than to reconsider our moralistic attitudes and find how much soul has been hidden behind its doors. People seem to be afraid that if they reflect on their moral principles they might lose their ethical sensitivity altogether. But that is a defensive approach to morality. As we deal with the soul’s complexity, morality can deepen and drop its simplicity, becoming at the same time both more demanding and more flexible.”^⁠

Hope

Looking for an emotional antidote to a recent book I read, the perfect palliative publication was waiting for me. I love synchronicity!

The book needing mitigation was Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill by Jessica Stern. Don’t get me wrong, this is an excellent book. It was definitely a worthwhile pursuit toward understanding its topic, and I highly recommend it. There is a lengthy cogent review^⁠ of the book at the New York Times, but what I appreciated the most was how Stern didn’t focus exclusively upon religion per se. Rather, she delved into the psychology as well; she wanted to understand “how people who claim to be motivated by religious principles come to kill innocent people in the service of ideas.” For instance, she looked at the aspects of alienation, humiliation, demographics, history, and territory. Stern addressed how these particularities contribute to transforming people into religious militants (Christian, Jewish, and Muslim). Nevertheless, when I finished reading, I felt compelled to find a pick-me-up. I needed to wash off the despair and angst provoked by the book.

One of the many books on my end table was Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities. I had discovered this one via the blog Brain Pickings,^⁠ but had not yet started reading. HOPE. It’s easy to see why my hand reached for this one, and I wasn’t disappointed. Solnit writes that: 

“Hope doesn’t mean denying these realities [terrorism, war, inequality, rampant capitalism, climate change, etc.]. It means facing them and addressing them by remembering what else the twenty-first century has brought, including the movements, heroes, and shifts in consciousness that address these things now.” 

Solnit provides an exceptional long view of movements in history, many we might have overlooked or forgotten if we keep our eyes locked into tunnel vision. She’s an activist and hope, for her, holds a different perspective than it might for you or me. Solnit states: 

“Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. … It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand.” 

Yes, her book was exactly what I needed. It is a slim volume that reminds and refreshes and returns me to calm, but with an added spark of, yes, hope.

Maria Popova provides a beautiful essay about Hope in the Dark utilizing more inspirational quotes; I encourage you to explore her offerings. She has been a wonderful resource for me to dive into a wide variety of works!

Roots, Vines, and Religious Liberty

As I settle into our new home in the southwestern Missouri Ozarks, I’m embraced by trees and vines and roots, by bloodlines and history, by two hundred years of cellular community. Do the trees protect or isolate? Do the vines support or choke? Do the roots nourish or taint? How does any of this help me become stronger and more compassionate? 

I turn to the wisdom of nature and the beauty of landscape for messages of growth and healing. I step into new communities and listen with my heart. I invite the past to share its journey through story. 

I’m reading like mad, as usual, and one of my absolute favorite books has been Founding Faith: How Our Founding Fathers Forged a Radical New Approach to Religious Liberty by Steven Waldman.* Founding Faith is a gorgeous distillation of America’s process toward religious freedom, and a good reminder for all of us right now not to persecute a religion because of extremists within it. Founding Faith is one of those books that, if I were one to highlight pivotal phrases or “ah-ha!” moments, would be a text of almost exclusive yellow markings. This means I find it nearly impossible to narrow my focus and provide only a few quotes, so the blurb from the back of the book will have to suffice in wetting your appetite: 

“The culture wars have distorted the dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Many activists on the right maintain that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation.” Many on the left contend that the First Amendment was designed to boldly separate church and state. Neither of these claims is true, argues Beliefnet.com editor in chief Steven Waldman. With refreshing objectivity, Waldman narrates the real story of how our nation’s Founders forged a new approach to religious liberty. 

Founding Faith vividly describes the religious development of five Founders. Benjamin Franklin melded the Puritan theology of his youth and the Enlightenment philosophy of his adulthood. John Adams’s pungent views on religion stoked his revolutionary fervor and shaped his political strategy. George Washington came to view religious tolerance as a military necessity. Thomas Jefferson pursued a dramatic quest to “rescue” Jesus, in part by editing the Bible. Finally, it was James Madison who crafted an integrated vision of how to prevent tyranny while encouraging religious vibrancy.”

 This book is one that I wish everyone would read; with excellent information (massive amounts of footnotes and extensive bibliography to follow up on any details) and beautiful flow to the writing and layout (resulting in a fast read), it also provides common ground for people to meet each other in conversation. 

An acquaintance on Facebook recently told me, after a brief chat clearly showed our political differences of opinion, that we needed to stop before the dialogue could damage our friendship. A few years ago, I would have agreed wholeheartedly with that comment. But now, I find myself wondering if that’s where our political system has gone haywire? Is that part of what has led to such tremendous polarization? If friends and family cannot participate in civil conversation, and respect each other across and through our differences, how can we expect politicians to do so?

The seasons change, the wheel of life turns, and new visions emerge within and without … below are two photos from nearly the same angle and location on our deck, yet the view is so different. Time and awareness can change everything.

August 2015

January 2016

__________

*I bought Founding Faith after listening to “Liberating the Founders,” an interview with Waldman by On Being with Krista Tippett. If you don’t have time to listen to the hour-long podcast, even just skimming the transcript is a delight. 

Writing for Shimmer

I often wander down side paths and find unexpected delights. Especially in reading and writing.

Now that I've finished writing Desert Fire: Befriending the Monster in my Mind*, I'm looking forward to immersing myself again in my novel. However, I've taken a side path in its creation because I found it starting to shimmer with touches of magic. I probably ought to have known that I couldn't write a novel without bits of mysticism or fantasy.

When I was listening to Krista Tippett's conversation with Maria Tatar, for a second time I might add, I realized that a soft voice was whispering to me from a barely visible trail leading into a thicket off the main path that is my manuscript. Is this why I haven't been able to finish it? There was some sparkle missing?

The dialogue between Tippett and Tatar was "The Great Cauldron of Story: Why Fairy Tales Are for Adults Again." (give it a listen, or read the transcript -- I'm sure you'll enjoy it!) Their chat led me to consider not only my interest in adult stories (books, movies, TV) of fantasy and fairy tales but also into my dimly recalled childhood. Unfortunately, while I remember having a passion for reading and books since before I started school, my poor memory leaves a vast vacancy of details. The rare foggy peeks into my early childhood seem to guide me toward Wind in the Willows and, as I wrote about earlier, to Little Burnt-Face. How could I resolve this loss or revive some missing memories?

I have decided to explore children's literature. See if perhaps I could revive some childhood memories and, even if not, create a new association with or appreciation for the stories that I'm sure had an impact upon me -- even if I don't recall the experience. My first step was to buy Maria Tatar's Enchanted Hunters: the power of stories in childhood. Marvelous book! I enjoyed how she wove together the histories of oral storytelling with that of children's literature, and presented a wide range of authors and tales. In addition, she addressed how we think that children may be understanding and using stories differently than adults do, and how the writing itself varies.

I'm going to tip-toe into classic children's literature and see what happens. Maybe my child-self will allow me to wander in wonder for a while … and allow some magic to flow freely through my writing.

"The world of print, like nature, offers many points of entry to feelings of wonder. When we retire to the fabled armchair or turn on electronic devices such as Kindle (the name is telling), we have the chance to enter story worlds constructed by words and images--a second nature that helps us recapture a sense of wonder. Most children in this country begin reading on their own around the time that the real world begins to lose its magic." 
~ Maria Tatar
________________
* Desert Fire will be available in June.

With Kindly Eyes

Look back on Time, with kindly eyes — 

He doubtless did his best — 

How softly sinks that trembling sun

In Human Nature’s West — 

~ Emily Dickinson (#1478)

We need a more compassionate view of all humans; where the focus is upon small gestures and we see with Kindly Eyes. We need compassion for ourselves, too. 

And yet, I judge myself as harshly as I do others, never putting myself aside from what “we” have done to the world, recognizing my part in the actions of my species: war, violence, projection. We keep repeating in spite of reflection and philosophy and waking up to our responsibilities. This huge unwieldy machine of the over-culture taints my every effort until all I want to do is disappear into folds of paper where possibility emerges. 

I get further behind with every step I take and Time is always cutting me off at the pass, making sure I don’t cross into the other realm. Maybe in my next life will be Peace? That’s something hopeful to consider. On the other hand, if I cannot help us shift our trajectory, if I cannot be part of the solution, will I find my next life a horror? Am I doing my best or hiding? Is solitude equal to my best effort? Am I enough? Am I doing enough? How do I lift up my Self toward a kinder life? Has my writing helped or hindered me or someone else? So many questions. I know nothing. That is my new beginning each time I collapse inward. Ask and open, listen.

Sit right here rest your bones. No one's ever so alone. 

You can take the world down off your shoulders.

I don't know why and how. All I know is here and now.

You can take the world down off your shoulders.

~ Carrie Newcomer (lyrics from “Angels Unaware” on the album Kindred Spirits: A Collection)

Out of the midst of my confusion, a warm little fellow curls up on my lap and my heart fills with love. This. This response of love is what keeps me going. When I feel my heart swell with love, it’s okay. I can get through another day. I say grace.

Little Altars

I'm a stranger here
I'm only passing through
But everyplace I go leaves its own tattoo.
That's how it is laying stone on stone,
Building little altars by the side of the road.

~ lyrics by Carrie Newcomer, from "Writing You a Letter" on the album A Permeable Life

This music, the music of Carrie Newcomer - the mystery and metaphor softly embedded within each song - continues to support me as I edge closer to finishing my latest book, which is a reflection upon my relationship with the Sonoran Desert.

Four Questions

While listening to an interview on one of my favorite podcasts -- OnBeing with Krista Tippett -- four questions mentioned in an interview with Seth Godin immediately aligned with the concept of writing for audience, and how we go about doing that. Narrowing my focus to a particular audience when I'm writing can be grueling, which is why this resonated. Maybe these four questions will give someone else direction or support or a new way into viewing their audience (Godin's prospective customer) as well, so here is the excerpt:

Who is your next customer? You mean that conceptually. Their outlook, hopes, dreams, needs and wants. What is the story he told about himself before he met you? How do you encounter him in a way that he trusts the story you want to tell him about what you have to offer? What changes are you trying to make in him, his life, his story? And then you wrote, start with this before you spend time on tactics, technology, scalability.

born in fields of uncertainty

"Words have a weight to them. How you choose to present them and to whom is a matter of style and choice."

" … I believe my own voice continues to be found wherever I am being present and responding from my heart, moment by moment. My voice is born repeatedly in the fields of uncertainty."

"Earth. Mother. Goddess. In every culture the voice of the Feminine emerges from the land itself. We clothe her as Eve or Isis or Demeter. In the desert, she appears as Changing Woman." 

~ Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice

There is so much I'd like to say about this woman, this author. She holds me breathless ... traversing her stories, treasuring the exquisite expressions felt through her words. When Women Were Birds picks up the story of Terry's mother's journals … the journals I first learned of while reading Refuge.

"A story grows from the inside our … if I begin traveling with an awareness of my own ignorance, trusting my instincts, I can look for my own stories embedded in the landscapes I travel through."

"A story allows us to envision the possibility of things. It draws on the powers of memory and imagination. It awakens us to our surroundings."

"Story is a sacred visualization, a way of echoing experience. There are lessons along the way." 

~ Terry Tempest Williams, Pieces of White Shell

In all of the author's books, Terry's voice is strong and clear, and yet each book is a distinct image. I admire her ability to hold her voice, soft or crisp, no matter the topic. And she is able to balance her story within the context of the alternating story of place, something I aspire to do in a few of my WIPs.

I'm grateful to have come across this author; she is inspirational on many levels.