The joyous chatter of chickadees
draws my gaze and I smile
watching their play
hopping and flitting from the downed limbs
left by the last wind storm
to the still leafy cottonwood branches above
I suspect the birds will be gone
if I leave to get a camera
but I figure it’s worth a try
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Alas, I was right
My camera catches a different scene
reminding me of the seemingly impossible
challenges of these times
I am not sure if the scene
is best captured in color or black and white
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I remember the dreams
of the neighbor who once lived there
to help low income elders
shared when I helped her cut brush
Her dreams held hostage by a parasitic bank
and at best put on hold through foreclosure
There are times like today
as the first real snow is falling
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that offer me a few moments to wonder
“When does adversity spark resilience?”
“And when does it crush the spirit of hope instead?”
Perhaps it requires making the decision anew
to hold onto our dreams anyway
each time we are faced
with a seemingly impossible challenge?
Sometimes it feels like a lesson
that will take more than one lifetime to learn
A golden moment when I got home after meeting with my class – Saturday, October 19, 2019
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help one keep balanced
when life presents
too many responsibilities
to complete
before the winter snows
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Preparing to process a bounty of carrots
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Harvesting gardens and preserving food
Celebrating joyous family events
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Celebrating My Daughter’s Birthday – October 18, 2019
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Grading student papers in ways
that build knowledge and confidence
providing encouragement for all
to continue on the path
of life-long learning
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Please know that I appreciate all of my virtual friends. I apologize for missing your recent blog posts and failing to reply to comments in a timely fashion. Despite rising early many days and going to bed in the wee morning hours, I am having a hard time finishing everything that needs to be done. I honestly can’t remember a busier time. The list of assignments that need to be graded keeps growing each day while gallons of carrots await processing in bags and containers that leave little space in my refrigerator even though I have given many away to neighbors and friends.
Maybe I’ll have some time to catch up between semesters… In the meantime, on this rainy, blustery day, I send my best wishes and hope you all experience golden moments, too.
The curse of being born between cultures is to always enter each new setting to discover the enduring discomfort of being an outsider. Finally, I have learned to be grateful for the freedom that role confers, even though my spirit longs to connect with people as easily as it does with dragonflies, birds, trees, and bumblebees bending flowers as they feed.
I feel the imminent danger we all face, yet I remember a saying from Lao Tzu that seems to be true to me – “the way to do is to be.”
I have no answers for others, but decades ago I was blessed by the example of Sister Lorita, my college adviser and botany professor. She humbly endured being mocked by many of her privileged students. One day, she shared her secret with me.
“It doesn’t matter what people think of me if they learn to see the wonder of life in a blade of grass.”
Every morning and most evenings, I sit outside on my little porch looking toward the western sky. I observe and listen to the nature around me – both “natural” and human. Some of what I see and hear touches my heart with wonder, while other sights and sounds weigh heavy on my spirit. Both inspire me to honestly reflect on the things I do that add to the threats for all life. And I try to do better. But it’s hard to do it alone.
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Sunset – October 9, 2017
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Still, I try to do better. I plant and tend gardens, spend time with my daughter and grandchildren when their busy schedules allow, and teach part time. I try to raise the awareness of my grandchildren and the students I work with in gentle ways, creating a space for them to learn to be present and inquisitive, to question what they have learned in the past, and to think critically about what they encounter in the present.
It’s impossible for me to know if anything I say or do will make a positive difference in their lives, but teaching by example has made a difference in mine. It’s helped me learn to live with fewer and fewer immutable answers and many more questions which I may never be able to answer with certainty.
Gichi-ode’ Akiing (Ojibwe for “A Grand Heart Place”), Duluth, Minnesota – October 28, 2019
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Walking in two worlds
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remembering
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and honoring
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what is really important
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“Ojibwe and non-Natives alike, rich and poor, Democrats and Republicans, are all governed by the great leveler—nature. If we befoul our water, we poison ourselves”(Mary Annette Pember, 2016, September 15)
For more information about the Protect Our Water (Stop Enbridge Line 3) Demonstration in Duluth, Minnesota on September 28, 2019, you can visit the following links:
Water has always been so important in my life. Perhaps the time of my birth on the cusp of Pisces (two fish swimming in opposite directions) and Aquarius (the water-bearer) presaged my sense of wonder and connection to water.
As Nichols (2014, p. xiii) observes,
“One of the many possible ways to describe life would be as a series of encounters with various bodies of water. Time spent in, on, under, or near water interspersed with the periods thinking about where, when, and how to reach it next.”
My life has been blessed by positive connections to water. As a child of two profoundly different cultures, my safe places were the brook and pond near my New Jersey home, and the interconnected lakes I visited in summers on the Ojibwe reservation where my mother was born in northern Wisconsin. Summers also meant trips to the Atlantic Ocean where I learned how to gather clams with my toes, and camping by Lake Welch in the Ramapo Mountains of New York State. The Allegheny River provided solace during my high school years in northwestern Pennsylvania, and Lake Michigan did likewise during my early college years in Chicago, Illinois. Now, I live near the southwestern shore of Lake Superior to be closer to my daughter and grandchildren who are drawn to the water as well.
I wasn’t conscious of the importance of water throughout my life a year ago when I decided to focus the research class I teach on the connections between access to clean water and healthy communities. I am grateful that my family and students are helping me continue to learn about the increasing importance of this issue for the future world they will inherit. It is heartening to witness so many people of all ages around the globe awakening and unifying to protect the indispensable resources that are a necessity for all life.
Work Cited:
Wallace J. Nichols (2014). Blue mind: The surprising science that shows how being near, in, on, or under water can make you happier, healthier, more connected, and better at what you do. New York, NY: Back Bay Books.
There are so many things I would like to write about but the truth is, I don’t have time. I am too busy doing something I have always loved to do. Solving puzzles.
It’s a trait that helped me survive jobs in overly politicized competitive bureaucracies. When I worked for state government, it involved mediating conflict in creative, unexpected ways. Like designing a solution for an outdated funding formula for county programs that was overly dependent on ever-shifting demographic data. When working for an inter-tribal agency, it meant figuring out how to exert tribal sovereignty over exploitive university researchers or state administrators who used divide and conquer tactics to create competition among tribes in order to limit funding for necessary services. In academia, it meant learning how to teach the most unpopular courses in ways that engaged students and provided information that would be helpful in a future I might not see.
Figuring out how to keep experimenting with more effective ways to teach research this semester is keeping me busy. Some days, it takes a lot of discipline to sit at my computer all day and into wee morning hours redesigning assignments or grading student papers with comments intended to both encourage and educate.
Interestingly though, doing other types of puzzles helps me transition between different topics, research methodologies, and styles of communicating. I am grateful for free online card games, or the digital jigsaw puzzles I can create with my own photos. (I doubt that the one posted below would be interesting, though.)
Cryptogram Wisdom
Solving cryptograms before I fall asleep helps me let go of any other puzzles that might otherwise keep me awake.
There are puzzles I don’t like to solve, though, that have to do with technology. Sadly, I have to rely on technicians or time. This week, I was locked out of WordPress. Fortunately that challenge was addressed by someone last evening. I don’t need to know who or how or why. I am just grateful that others find it interesting to solve technological puzzles.
All of this is meant as an explanation for my very infrequent visits to blogs these days, including mine. I want to let you know that I value what you all share and will return again as soon as I can. In the meantime, I send my best wishes to all.
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In case anyone is interested, I have typed the cryptogram quotes below:
“One must learn by doing the thing, for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try.” (Aristotle)
“The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.” (Bill Paterson)
“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” (Albert Einstein)
“Love is a medicine for the sickness of the world; a prescription often given, rarely taken.” (Karl Menninger)
… I was working as the deputy director of health and human services for an inter-tribal agency. It was not an easy job for many reasons, primarily because of the enduring legacy of colonialism that continued to impose dominant cultural paradigms on tribal communities and use divide and conquer tactics to foment conflicts between “traditional” and “progressive” tribal factions. Resolving conflict was a central part of my job, and it often put me in the middle of powerful competing interests. At a particularly challenging time, I needed to travel with one of my staff to a conference on worldwide healing for Indigenous people held in Edmonton, Alberta. The conference helped me realize I was not alone. Rediscovering the candle on my bookcase reminded me of the conference’s closing ceremony.
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More than one thousand of us, representing many cultures and nations, stood in a circle within a large auditorium holding hands. Then, one elder walked to the center. She explained that the closing ceremony was intended to remind us that we were not alone. Because we were in a government building, we couldn’t use candles (fire ordinances prevented it), so flashlights would have to do. And then, the lights in the room went out as her flashlight went on in the center of the circle. She signaled to the four directions, highlighting one person from each of the four directions to walk to the center – first the east, then the south, the west, and the north. The representatives were all given a flashlight. As they touched their darkened lights to the elders “candle,” their flashlights were turned on. They were instructed to carry their light to the four directions and light other candles in their part of the circle. The elder explained that it would not be easy to keep the candle fires burning, but if the light went out, people could always return to the center to light them once again…
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The rain I asked for hasn’t come yet but perhaps it will if I keep my focus on weaving life and light into the course despite the technological challenges I will most likely encounter …
Dear Billie, You are in my thoughts today Perhaps it’s because the cup you brought as a gift on your visit to Montana more than a decade ago is holding the coffee I’m drinking on this sunny August afternoon
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I miss you and I know your daughter, my beloved granddaughter, does too I’m not sure if you can see how kind and beautiful she is now I promise to remind her what a thoughtful loving father you were
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I send you thoughts of love and joy May your spirit soar peacefully like the eagle on the gift cup that always reminds me of you a kind and generous young man who was deeply loved by all who had the honor of knowing you in the short time you were here
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A welcoming space for resistance to the forces of oppression and hegemony.
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