Difficult problems without tidy answers available

Inspired by the art of Charley Harper, Chris Sanders, and Harriet Torpey

I think our media, TV & social, have conditioned us to expect neat, tidy answers to any problems that arise. Every popular sitcom or TV drama or blockbuster movie ends with a solution that leaves us feeling morally satisfied. (Advertising, too!) That’s not how real life goes, but we are so conditioned to this comfortable pattern that it feels unfair or ineffective to contemplate a real-life challenge without assuming there is a tidy solution out there to be found, if only we talk to the right people and study the right things. This conditioning is also dangerous when it tricks us into feeling that we have actually experienced, contemplated and resolved difficult challenges - which in turn numbs us the next time we encounter that challenge.

Below, two essays that have dominated my thoughts lately.

The Profound Loneliness of Being Climate Aware

I read through several of the links suggested by the author, none of which led to feelings of comfort. (Well, there are journaling workshops & 10 step programs…)

This quote stuck with me - from Sid Smith, a speaker in one of the linked videos: “My purpose is … to leave you feeling optimistic about the dawn of a new human future. But we can’t get to the dawn until we’ve gone through the dark night. And it doesn’t help us if we go chasing after the fading light of the day that’s coming to an end.”

What to Do with Climate Emotions

A candid, honest essay. The headline caught my attention because it seems like everyone I talk to “nowadays” is feeling anxious, confused, untethered, grieving about - everything. It’s not a feel-good article, per se, in that it doesn’t offer clarity or “the solution” - but sometimes it’s helpful just to hear others articulate words that ring so true.

A few excerpts that struck me:

“In the West, they’re just endlessly processing, going to therapy for their emotions, going to the parks that we don’t have and thinking about the earth, and journaling about it,” ... “People say this new generation has ‘eco-anxiety,’ that they’re worried about the future, and I’m, like, ‘Dude, we’re worried about today.’ ” The [teenage] sisters recounted scenes from the night Typhoon Ulysses struck, in November, 2020 [in the Philippines]. ... “When you’re seeing, live, you’re people drowning—that’s not climate anxiety,” Isabella said. “We were watching people screaming in the rising water, looking for their kids. We were crying. You do have to process those emotions, but, in the moment, you don’t have time. You’re in survival mode. ...” Natasha added that Westerners always seemed to be looking for a linear course of action, “to figure out how to feel, then figure out how to act, then act. But here, we just act, and we feel things during, we feel things after, and then we act again.”

“Lankard, who is now in his sixties, has a thirteen-year-old daughter, and I asked him how having a child had affected the way he thought about climate change. Lankard told me that, when he held his daughter for the first time, he realized that the decades of activism behind him had been driven by anger and frustration, by a sense of having been injured. He grasped then that his emotional motivation would be different. He would do the work in front of him because of the love he has for his daughter, who reminds him, simply by being here, that there is no way around the future.”

____________

What can I do? If there is not one idea that reconciles everything in “one fell swoop”, one most important action, is it worth pursuing smaller ideas with partial solutions? How can I become a “good” ancestor? I often have visions of the “future people” living on the land we are currently stewarding. I see them collected in certain areas for certain reasons. One activity that we have begun is growing more food, planting more trees, with hope that the seeds and trees will survive beyond our time here and feed those future people or other future beings. (And there I go, feeling I cannot share a messy thought without wrapping it up with a tidier thought)

Relationships

Trying to articulate a recent contemplation…

Being in relationship with another is NOT implicitly about

- sharing experiences & creating memories while we can, or embracing cozy nostalgia (though those moments may happen)
- “give & take” interactions, mutual enlightenment, reciprocal edification

- affirmation, endorsement, approval

- returning a favor, a debt owed, or “paying it forward”

- 1:1 balance, eye for an eye

Sometimes it’s about assisting the other person, holding them, being a source of comfort, security, guidance, when they cannot help themselves. Perhaps their only reaction is an air of peace about them, not even a quiet smile. 

Especially at the end of life. We come into this world not knowing what the heck is going on, and often the humans around us who help us through don’t know either. And still, we have all been through it (lol), and many have written about it or shared knowledge of their experiences - yet somehow that doesn’t make it any easier. It strikes me that the same thing happens at the end of life. We don’t know what’s coming, and often the the humans around us who help us through don’t know either, despite all the writing and shared accounts. We all do the best we can.

A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life.

Flare

Mary Oliver

1.

Welcome to the silly, comforting poem.

It is not the sunrise,


which is a red rinse,


which is flaring all over the eastern sky;

it is not the rain falling out of the purse of God;

it is not the blue helmet of the sky afterward,

or the trees, or the beetle burrowing into the earth;

it is not the mockingbird who, in his own cadence,


will go on sizzling and clapping


from the branches of the catalpa that are thick with blossoms,


   that are billowing and shining,


      that are shaking in the wind.

2.

    You still recall, sometimes, the old barn on your great-grandfather’s farm, a place you visited once, and went into, all alone, while the grownups sat and talked in the house.

    It was empty, or almost. Wisps of hay covered the floor, and some wasps sang at the windows, and maybe there was a strange fluttering bird high above, disturbed, hoo-ing a little and staring down from a messy ledge with wild, binocular eyes.

    Mostly, though, it smelled of milk, and the patience of animals; the give-offs of the body were still in the air, a vague ammonia, not unpleasant.

    Mostly, though, it was restful and secret, the roof high up and arched, the boards unpainted and plain.

    You could have stayed there forever, a small child in a corner, on the last raft of hay, dazzled by so much space that seemed empty, but wasn’t.

    Then–you still remember–you felt the rap of hunger–it was noon–and you turned from that twilight dream and hurried back to the house, where the table was set, where an uncle patted you on the shoulder for welcome, and there was your place at the table.

3.

Nothing lasts.


There is a graveyard where everything I am talking about is,


now.

I stood there once, on the green grass, scattering flowers.

4.

Nothing is so delicate or so finely hinged as the wings


of the green moth


against the lantern


against its heat


against the beak of the crow


in the early morning.

Yet the moth has trim, and feistiness, and not a drop


    of self-pity.

Not in this world.

5.

My mother


was the blue wisteria,


my mother


was the mossy stream out behind the house,


my mother, alas, alas,


did not always love her life,


heavier than iron it was


as she carried it in her arms, from room to room,


oh, unforgettable!

I bury her


in a box


in the earth


and turn away.


My father


was a demon of frustrated dreams,


was a breaker of trust,


was a poor, thin boy with bad luck.


He followed God, there being no one else


he could talk to;


he swaggered before God, there being no one else


who would listen.


Listen,


this was his life.


I bury it in the earth.


I sweep the closets.


I leave the house.

6.

I mention them now,


I will not mention them again.

It is not lack of love


nor lack of sorrow.


But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry.

I give them–one, two, three, four–the kiss of courtesy,


    of sweet thanks,


of anger, of good luck in the deep earth.


May they sleep well. May they soften.

But I will not give them the kiss of complicity.


I will not give them the responsibility for my life.

7.

Did you know that the ant has a tongue


with which to gather in all that it can


of sweetness?

Did you know that?

8.

The poem is not the world.


It isn’t even the first page of the world.

But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.


It knows that much.

It wants to open itself,


like the door of a little temple,


so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,


and less yourself than part of everything.

9.

The voice of the child crying out of the mouth of the


    grown woman


is a misery and a disappointment.


The voice of the child howling out of the tall, bearded,


    muscular man


is a misery, and a terror.

10.

Therefore, tell me:


what will engage you?


What will open the dark fields of your mind,


    like a lover


        at first touching?

11.

Anyway,


there was no barn.


No child in the barn.

No uncle no table no kitchen.

Only a long lovely field full of bobolinks.

12.

When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider


the orderliness of the world. Notice


something you have never noticed before,

like the tambourine sound of the snow-cricket


whose pale green body is no longer than your thumb.

Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain,


shaking the water-sparks from its wings.

Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no.


Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,


    like the diligent leaves.

A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world


and the responsibilities of your life.

Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.


Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.

Live with the beetle, and the wind.

This is the dark bread of the poem.


This is the dark and nourishing bread of the poem.

 

“Flare” by Mary Oliver, from The Leaf and the Cloud (Da Capo Press, 2000).

Do it

intrinsic motivation

“If you could get what you supposedly want, but you couldn’t tell anyone about it, would you still want it?” 

— Robin Sloan

(via)

  “In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways. Meritocracy is not only wrong; it’s bad. ... Meritocracy is a false and not very salutary belief. As with any ideology, part of its draw is that it justifies the status quo, explaining why people belong where they happen to be in the social order. It is a well-established psychological principle that people prefer to believe that the world is just.”

— A belief in meritocracy is not only false: it’s bad for you

“The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world;
I am like a snowball - the further I am rolled, the more I gain.”

- Susan B. Anthony

in the end we're all just taller children

Certain songs I come back to again & again.

It's happened: we have the fattest, laziest cat ever

I always thought these words said, "The world is falling down so you might as well crash with me," which is what made me think of this song today. I guess that's not the lyric after all, but that's how this music will always fit for me,

When even the mainstream feels woke.

A few friends shared this song with me a few months back — Every so often it comes to mind again.

Red Brocade
Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952

The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.

Let’s go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.

No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.

I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.

Copyright © by Naomi Shihab Nye.

via

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won't understand

Don't accept that what's happening
Is just a case of others' suffering
Or you'll find that you're joining in
The turning away

It's a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting its shroud
Over all we have known

Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we're all alone
In the dream of the proud

On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord

Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerized as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside

Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away?

Be A Light

Ghostlight Project at BVT






I want to remember that this night happened.

(after the fact, I always wish I’d shot more video of moments like these – but in the moment I worried about annoying others sitting nearby, plus I didn’t want to just experience the whole thing through the camera viewfinder. That annoying clicking sound is something internal that my point-n-shoot camera introduces as I try to adjust functions ...doesn’t even make that sound when I’m using it, but somehow it’s there in the video afterwards. :(

use the + - slider shown at lower right in window above to zoom in/out

Forgot all about this song, but it popped into my head and somehow it works for me today.

One of my first rock albums as a kid: Abacab! I remember being so pleased when I realized during a piano lesson that a-b-a-c-a-b referred to notes on the musical scale. (Now you wanna go back and listen to the whole album, don't you?!)

Road trip to Maine with my sister... Somewhere between here & there:


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Two mothers on rocky ground:

above Garlinghouse Road, Naples

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soft part of a broken egg shell found on the path:

Just as I got myself all nestled down in the frosty grass to get some glittery pictures, my battery died. :(


And I might wish for a better camera, but this is what I got, okay? Don't be such a snob.
I still think it's purrty.