Slow and Steady

Happy Birthday, Jack

When I awoke this morning on the planet Earth, the specific little piece where I've lately enjoyed sustenance and support had an average kinetic energy expressed as 26 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, or, that is, according to how most of the planet Earth perceives of such things, minus 3 degrees Celsius.  The only time there had been so little kinetic energy dancing around was the night I arrived, when snow coated the ground.

I enjoyed virtual company of eleven people from various environments, circumstances, surroundings, climates and ranges of kinetic energy measurements.  Then we watched a video performance about identity, did writing, reading and conversing about all the diverse aspects of our being that form who we are, and then made some attempt at describing ourselves.

Next, we read from Henry Beston, the naturalist who lived a year on Cape Cod and produced splendid prose to evoke his spiritual experience of what is provided by the Earth.  Afterward, I read them a few poems and prayers from Earth Prayers.

Soon I was watching the sun on the mountains and listening to the waters and wind in the trees, thankful to be enjoying nature after such a cold morning inside, and all the more thankful I have enough warm clothing to spend time surrounded with pine, which provides heat as I write

Thankful for life, love and liberty, all whose energy I have and those which I love liberating

Writing, reading, learning

I am listening with nature, seeing, believing, tasting scents, embracing love of being, knowledge freeing, with a story about quality awe in all its glory, sensational creations, recreational energy vibrations, spreading joy, developing one's bright imagination, kindness and bravery indeed our salvation, one Earth, one nation

Making Piles

Thankful for warmth

Being here is a privilege

I can't thank you enough, John Prine.

 

You are the first artist I can remember hearing.

I hope you're whistling and fishing in heaven.

Visions

I am blessed to wake up in the morning with some energy, and I immediately know that light is shining awesome vision into my space.  My bedroom is cold, so I must admit that I spend ten minutes after the first alarm simply enjoying the fact I exist in a warm bed, although I can feel the bite of the cold air on my face.  Then another wake up call, in the form of a mellow acoustic song, excuse enough to enjoy several more minutes of warmth.  Then I grab my layers of clothes and make the dash to the bathroom, although today, I don't dash, because the light is so spectacular on the water, filling the entire room with a bright glow.  The green of the pine trees is accentuated by the first blue sky I've seen in days amidst all this gray.  When I arrive at the shower, I get some relief because there's a small baseboard heater and some insulation in this room, as opposed to all the other rooms which are simply wood.

Next, after the shower, I start a fire which I'd made the day before, then breakfast.  I open up my laptop and start the day's class, which begins with a French woman and a Japanese woman.  In the first week of class we discussed the difference between luxuries and necessities.  Usually, when I come up here, having a fire in a fireplace is a luxury, especially coming from a small room in New York City.  But now that I am living here a couple months before anyone would normally visit, keeping a spark going on the logs has become a real necessity.  There have been three large challenges since I've been up here: dealing with the mental effects of the news (just like everyone else), dealing with solitude (mostly like everyone else), and finally, trying to stay warm (like many parts of the world for half the year, but not for most people I know).  Even so, I feel very blessed to be here.

The students and I converse about what we did the past few days.  The strange thing is that when I used to ask students what they did on weekends, it wasn't uncommon to hear the answer that they didn't do anything, stayed inside, and watched Netflix or YouTube.  Now they're unhappy they can't go anywhere, and yes, we all need the idea of options even if we don't often take advantage of them.  In normal times this is where I would have told them they were in New York City and had all these great choices for activities, many of them free, and all they had to do was move their body.  Now it's like, "Yes, of course you stayed inside and watched television," although I secretly hope someone will say, "I read a wonderful book."  Occasionally there's the, "I was courageous and went to the grocery store" because that's the only socially responsible brave story they can tell at the moment.

Eventually we are joined by a young Korean man, Turkish man, a couple of young Japanese men, an older Korean man, a Brazilian man and a Spanish man.  It's strange that classes used to have more females than males, but this specific class has an overwhelming ratio in favor of males.  I've taught many classes which were mostly women, but rarely the opposite.  Interestingly, the women still show up first and are the most eager to get started on their lessons so they can improve their skills.

Our book always has interesting topics, like imagination, solutions, and working together.  Today didn't disappoint.  Visions and visionaries.  People who imagine how to improve our world by manifesting their sphere of influence in reality to match love's ideas that love put into their hearts and minds.

This specific visionary helped build a school for his impoverished village.  When I was able to physically be in a class with other human beings, on the good days I would tell myself to take a moment and just let it all sink in, just how amazing it was that I got to do something like that, let alone get some money for my efforts.  On the harder days, I tried to recall the good times and remind myself that I wouldn't always be doing something like this, and how I would later look back on all the special moments and be amazed I ever got to meet so many people from such varied experiences, backgrounds and stories, and how I should value the experience while I was in it.

I've been alone up here for thirteen days.  It was an abrupt change.  When the news picked up steam at first, I thought I would just be teaching from my apartment and riding it out for a few weeks, taking occasional walks to the river and going to the grocery store once every two weeks, having already stocked up on the bare necessities.  Then the news kept getting more and more intense, but most importantly, I learned at the last minute that when classes went online, I would only be teaching one class, not two, meaning that my hours had, just like that, been cut in half.  Obviously many millions of other people have gotten worse news since, with their hours being closer to zero.  That possibility is still on the horizon, depending on how we weather this storm, but if I even make it to the end of the month, I figure I can sustain myself through the summer without going on unemployment.  That is only because, due to my hereditary privileges, which, according to my parents, I have made ample investment in with my love, time, effort, muscle and sweat, I am able to live in a cabin rent free as long as need be... that is, until perhaps the winter.  I have always wanted to live up here for a full "season" (spring, summer, fall), and although nothing is completely planned in any sense, I could see myself staying here for the duration.  I want to write a new book, and organize, review and edit my previous works.  That's why, when I heard that I wouldn't be able to afford April rent on time (I'd already spent a lot on food and supplies) and would likely have difficulty affording May, I remembered just how long I'd dreamed of leaving my apartment, and sometimes even the city, and going up to the country for a very long while.  The hard part was packing everything I had in just four days, trying to somehow sleep after reading the news and still seeing so many people in the streets, and simply hoping that there wouldn't be any new travel restrictions for New Yorkers before I could move.  The main obstacle was that there wasn't any running water where I was going, and that my beloved folks wouldn't be able to hook it up for a couple days because it was going to snow and be in the low 20's at night until March 24.  Normally I would help them do such things in May, but since they are in their 60's, there was no way I was going to share a living space with them straight up from the island of Manhattan, the most crowded place in the country.

The drive up was bittersweet, and I arrived after midnight on Wednesday, March 25. I haven't even walked off the property since.  I planned a two week quarantine before I went anywhere.  I haven't hiked, I haven't been to the grocery store or gas station or anywhere.  Eventually I will indulge my greatest joy, canoeing, but the water is a deadly temperature right now.  When I was 26 I was crazy enough to get in a kayak in early March, launch out over the snow and ice lining the shore, and slide onto the calm waters, paddling around for ten minutes because a yellow super moon had just risen behind the mountains, but now I'm older and more sensible and therefore less fun (still lots of fun, just less so).  If any neighbors suspect that New York City guy of having come up here to make things harder for them, they can see that my car hasn't moved an inch since March 25, and if they've seen me, they must have been walking by or noticed me on the shore, breathing above the water.

Viewing the water during class makes me so happy, but even more joyous when I can take a break and walk to the shore and see the light sparkling on the great plane of blue.  Pairs of ducks do that thing where they fly about three inches above the water at intense speeds, and I wonder why they suddenly decided to get up and go, and if they needed to, and maybe they're just showing off.  An invisible force makes the pine needles dance here and there, and the mountains on the other side of the water have white snow on top.  I have ascended many peaks on that side, even once with snow on top.  There is a town at the base of those mountains, a town where one of the greatest improvisational bands in universal existence got their start, but now, more importantly, where a brave senator resides.  I will watch an interview with him after I cook lunch, which involves plenty of vegetables and beans, our greatest magic helpers.  The host and the courageous senator who would like to lead our country as the 46th president (happy 4/6, everyone!) are discussing health and how the government system should give people more necessary help than they have been, and the host mentions we all also need more personal responsibility when it comes to eating healthier and eating less than we do as a nation.  I feel so blessed to have clean drinking water and to have enough healthy food to eat.

One of the first few days I was sitting by the fire and it was raining outside, and the waves were crashing on the shore, and the wind was howling through the trees, and I noticed a small book shelf and the title Blue Zones Solutions by Dan Buettner. My mother had lent it to me along with some other books years ago, but I never got around to it, so that's why it was already up here when I got here.  I never read it and gave it back to her.  I was vaguely aware of the principles and had read some other books on similar topics.  Basically, Buettner figures out where people live the longest lives and the happiest lives, and tries to see how we can apply their lessons to our society.  Although I hadn't read the book, I have remembered the main culinary takeaway: if you could pick one food that is commonly consumed by societies with surpluses of centenarians, it would be, yes, beans.  Magic beans... if only, as a society, we could (mostly) trade our cows for beans.  Then maybe some beanstalks would grow, taking us to heavenly tunes and beautiful birds with golden eggs so that Happy Valley could earn the name once more.

Will that brave senator from my grandparents' hearts' lake lead us and shine the light back on happy valleys?  Tonight I'm going to continue watching West Wing, and the next episode is titled "Inauguration," so maybe that's a sign... or just magical thinking.  I will vote for whomever the Democrats choose to go against the Republican, because we need people who actually believe in the power of government to bring light to the valley, so long as those people have a healthy acceptance of human freedom's inherent ability to complement ordered power in bringing about love's will leading us to awe, making us more generous.  Which reminds me of music and books.

At 2 pm I had a private student, a classical musician from Colombia who is writing a thesis.  When I asked her Friday if she'd heard of Japanese pianist Hiromi Uehara or her occasional counterpart, Colombian harpist Edmar Castaneda, she hadn't.  When I asked her today what she'd been up to, she said she'd been listening to Hiromi all morning.  Edmar was great as well, but oh, Hiromi, she's a superstar, just... wow!  I've recommended many musicians and writers to people I hope they will inspire, but it's rare that you find spirits who can truly appreciate such Elysian sophistication.  Her world, which sounded pretty bright already, is that much brighter thanks to humans sharing knowledge of various joys with each other.

With respect to books, I have read, from cover to cover, one book since I've arrived here.  Although I've been working on The Best American Essays of the Century compiled by Joyce Carol Oates, and sampling various prayers from Earth Prayers and Life Prayers, and opening such classics as Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth and Pathways to Bliss or Paulo Coehlo's The Alchemist, the only book I've read start to finish is a special little one my father lent me some time in the past decade.  I really can't remember if it was five or ten years ago.  It seemed to speak to my father's experiences as a younger wildlife biologist, and now it arrives at the right time in my story line.

Henry Beston's The Outermost House commences:

"My house completed, and tried and not found wanting by a first Cape Cod year, I went there to spend a fortnight in September.  The fortnight ending, I lingered on, and as the year lengthened into autumn, the beauty and mystery of this earth and outer sea so possessed and held me that I could not go.  The world to-day is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot.  In my world of beach and dune these elemental presences lived and had their being, and under their arch there moved an incomparable pageant of nature and the year."

I read those words and couldn't believe that such a book has just been sitting on top of the other books in my shelf, right next to my bed, on the side of the shelf closest to my bed, for years upon years, often while I slept nearby.  I am awake now (it's hard not to be in such a cold place), and thoroughly enjoyed reading this naturalist's account of life near the waters.  My shore is composed of rocks instead of sand, pine trees instead of dunes, and a few neighbors instead of nobody, but it still speaks to my soul, especially since I haven't been allowed to get close to another human.  In fact, Beston writes a lot about how much he visited the market and fishermen and the coast guard and how necessary they were to maintain his happiness.  I've had my class and friends and family in video screen form.  That said, it isn't the same as touch...

On Thursday my class read an excellent Atlantic article by MIT professor Alan Lightman about how we can use this change in routine to reconnect with our inner selves through peaceful contemplation of what truly matters and who we really are.  As the video from the class's textbook was about the value of meditation in relieving stress while promoting relaxation, I figured it was on topic.  Saturday was the first day in a while when it was warm enough (49 degrees) to go sit by a placid lake without fierce winds and simply relax, so I spent roughly half the time simply sitting and listening, observing, breathing, and being thankful, and the other half reading a book about a 1920's spiritual descendant of Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau and John Muir doing pretty much the same.  On Saturday night, I enjoyed the following for the first time since the snow-covered night I'd arrived:

"Night is very beautiful on this great beach.  It is the true other half of the day's tremendous wheel; no lights without meaning stab or trouble it; it is beauty, it is fulfillment, it is rest.  Thin clouds float in these heavens, islands of obscurity in a splendour of space and stars: the Milky Way bridges earth and ocean; the beach resolves itself into a unity of form, its summer lagoons, its slopes and uplands merging; against the western sky and the falling bow of sun rise the silent and superb undulations of the dunes... Learn to reverence night and to put away the vulgar fear of it, for, with the banishment of night from the experience of man, there vanishes as well a religious emotion, a poetic mood, which gives depth to the adventure of humanity.  By day, space is one with the earth and with man--it is his sun that is shining, his clouds that are floating past; at night, space is his no more.  When the great earth, abandoning day, rolls up the deeps of the heavens and the universe, a new door opens for the human spirit, and there are few so clownish that some awareness of the mystery of being does not touch them as they gaze... the spirit of man is, during it, ennobled by a genuine moment of emotional dignity, and poetry makes its own both the human spirit and experience."

The next night, I could see the moon reflecting the sun's light, and the water picking up the moon's baton as the light travels on and on, bringing vision to all who gaze upon.

When we wrapped up the day's class, I asked the students whom they considered visionaries.  There were the usual technologists and inventors, with some political leaders and a woman who shaped modern dance.  I was most surprised when the middle-aged Korean prosecutor named Henry David Thoreau, because of his writings at Walden Pond.  He admired his ability to steep himself in nature and to put words to his observations of beauty which transcends our media.

I am thankful the light shines from the heavens on this day.  On most days, I have needed to keep the fire going inside, tending its flames so that light doesn't disappear, and continues providing all of us willing to see visions of grace

Tending a light