Morning Glory

that's it... well...maybe one more...not as focused as I had hoped but
the wind lifted up off the waters and the blossom was quivering... 
If I had a skirt so soft and gently hued I'd twirl in it for sure....round and round.

Glory...Morning Glory...

Tangled up in Time : Memory, Loss and Hope Make History -dedicated to 9/11/2001

A Memory offered in Memorium of the Lives Lost and Changed by September 11, 2001

I stopped in the town of Benicia the other day. Popping in there once in a while helps remind me of the child I was before I took my first hard blow.  I never lived in Benicia, but my younger brothers and I were, without our older brothers or parents, once left to stay a few nights with family friends. 

Benicia, California

 Until I was five years old, I had lived in the city, San Francisco,where I couldn't go anywhere without escort. Then I lived in a wonderful valley where I became well versed in the creek that marked the back of our property, the blackberry patches and apple trees in the empty lots, the uppermost climbable limbs of the buckeye trees that grew strongest at the west edge of the valley, the rocky bluffs and caves of the grassy hills between us and Muir Beach on the Pacific Ocean.  I was happy in Tamalpias Valley to roam around on my own.  As often as not I had a book with me.  What more could a kid want?

Visiting the town of Benicia in 1962 I found  no lack of nature to explore and the parents temporarily  in charge of us were content to let us wander about freely.  School had been out for ten days and  I had just finished seventh grade.  The little town was, back in the early 1960s, poor and small, already diminished from what it had been, but for me the small scale of the streets and houses made everything feel accessible. Life felt so available. I ran here and there, a miniature tourist, content to wander from the muddy flats and back up the streets of the town that hadn't yet had its hundredth birthday.

The history of Benicia is one of  greatness passing through and as quickly moving on. Benicia was   established by three men. The year was 1874.  Dr. Robert Semple, who was a newsman from Kentucky, a Bear Flag revolter and a politician and Thomas Larkin, the first United States Consul to California, a traveler, storekeeper, a trader and man of Monterey renown.  Together these two bought land from Comandante General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo who asked that the town be called Francisca after his wife, Francisca Benicia Carillo de Vallejo.  But Yerba Buena had just become San Francisco and claimed the name. Francisca could not be used.  The lady's middle name would have to suffice.  

After the cities of Vallejo and San Jose,  Benicia was chosen to be the third capitol of California and reigned as such for 379 days, from February 11, 1853 to February 25, 1854.  Around that time the founders had a falling out and went their separate ways leaving the town to create its own destiny. 

Inland waterways are an opportunity for confluence. It was at Benicia in the 1860's  that Pony Express Riders who had missed their connection on the Sacramento River Delta steamers could  ferry across the waters blocking their trail. In the 1870's  a leg of the transcontinental Central Pacific Railroad established a major railroad ferry across the Carquinez Strait from Benicia to Port Costa.  Benicia became home to the largest ferries in the world, transporting entire trains across the inland waters of the San Francisco Bay.

It was in Benicia  in 1901, where the world's first long-distance power line was stretched across the Carquinez Straits.  When wheat was the big crop, it was stored in Benicia, but when railroad bridges replaced ferries and the early 1900 wheat crops declined, Benicia declined too, mouldering without economic purpose on the back waters of the bay.

 Not until World War II,  did the little town grow again when it served as a military arsenal. The war boom economy doubled  the population quickly to 7,000 residents.  The arsenal closed in the 1960s.  Later in that decade, oil refineries were built northeast of the town's residences. Eventually, as more bridges were built connecting the bay area's various ports and towns by roads, the little town of no longer as important trains and ferries became what all towns near big cities are destined to become, a  bedroom for 28,000 locals and commuters and a weekend diversion destination for city dwellers. 

But that is not the town that was back in those few days of my summer vacation.  Then it was just a  small modest town with no great current boons, but the confluence of its waterways and flying birds, its child  friendly streets, cushioned me with hospitality while hope and longing opened in me in the first bright days of the summer of my thirteenth year.

  

And then on the third afternoon of our visit, my father and older brothers returned unexpectedly. I blindly ran to the murky waters that day in disbelief, wanting to shake off as dream or lie what we'd 

been told. Our mother had died.

Here I am tangling my history up with the early history of this little town. I don't often tell my story. I know for everyone its often a  struggle to keep clear angles of perspective in this life. I make an effort to pay attention to current events and history.  So I've reminded myself, with a little history lesson of a few of the events that have come and gone and shaped this town, of some perspective, and yet it's true that even at my age, as I briefly walked about the edges of Benicia the other day, what I can see best is what had once  happened there to me. I can't even hear the name of the town and not remember, palpably receiving that first wrenching.

How true might this be for those who lost family and friends in New York, Pennsylvania, the Pentagon. Today is September 11, 2010, the anniversary of a great tragedy of terror and the loss of many lives.  So many people heard that day or the next,  how they would have to go on in  their world carrying love lost; heard that they had entered a forever- changed- reality.  At some level, we all did, didn't we?

I offer this tangled memory of mine in  memoriam with my personal acknowledgement of how deeply the loss of loved ones is, how enduring our losses are.

I was also reminded at the water's edge the other day by these lovely little mallards sunning on a log amongst relics of Benicia's past, that there is One who does have all his little ducks in a row. 

We need not grieve as ones without hope. 

Springs Pour Forth...the Trees are Well Watered

A Sunday walk in redwoods on a creek brought deep remembrances of childhood terrain...pilgrims, xenoi though we be....there are some places that are more deeply kindred than others and speak of home.

Children's stories often tell the the tale of babes lost in the woods...but for some of us we ~find~in the woods, learn to listen,where water sings on rocks and carves wood and stone ...

The quiet collects in shady pools...may it cling to us, follow us, back into people realms where we lay our hands to work of many kinds.  I recently heard a musican suggest that music is a chance to sit quietly, to be able, under the guise of enjoyment, to think on important things in life.  An artist spoke to me recently of people needing art to see things that speak inner realities, the known but unknown, the hidden but accessible if...

we want to see, listen,seek, find, be found.

He makes springs pour water into the ravines;

it flows between the mountains. 

They give water to all the beasts of the field;

the wild donkeys quench their thirst.

The birds of the air nest by the waters;

they sing among the branches. 

He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;

the earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work.

Psalm 104:10-13 NIV

A joyous Monday to you.

~~~ 

Infrastructure ~ Preparedness ~ Lessons from Haiti

July 11, 2010   For the past 6 months I've been reading the blog of a young woman in her twenties, Rhyan, who was working with orphaned and needy babies in Haiti before the January 12, 2010  7.0 earthquake hit 10 miles outside Port au Prince.


Rhyan asks:

"What does it even mean to be an American? To someone born into this world maybe not much. I’m sure we have moments of breakthrough where we really see how blessed we are but for the most part we don’t recognize the honor that it is. To you and to someone who hasn’t always known this life it means so much more."

She's right.  I look around.
I have beans

that  I soaked overnight in refrigeration

while I was sleeping in a bed.
The beans are cooking on a gas stove. 

I am sitting in a chair.

My shod feet are on a flat wooden floor. 

There are strawberries ripening in the garden and chard bolting.
I have pets...
I have electricity and access to multiple communication technologies.
My car sits out front
and there is gasoline in it
and the road, busy with travelers looking for summer fun,
 is smooth and safe

and even when there is trouble help comes rather quickly. 

Rhyan writes:

"I have had situations when I walk down the streets in Haiti and a woman tries to give me her child. “Are you American?” She asks and when I respond she thrusts her infant into my arms. She begs me to take him to this place she has heard of, this place that had so much to offer. "

This is a young American writing...she's "out there."




July 17,2010   The news stories that came out on the six month mark of the earthquake seemed to indicate that NGO's, non governmental organizations, have been able to do the most in  Haiti, especially those that were already on the ground.  But the needs that exist have hardly been touched.  The news pictures of the tents lined in the median strip of a road really got me.  Unimaginable.


What can I do? PICK a group that is doing something in Haiti that I feel I can trust and support it as able. If you know someone involved consider supporting them.  Maybe you know an active church group, a specific orphanage or you might prefer a widely known group like Doctors with Borders, World Vision, World Relief or Red Cross.


We remember extra blankets in our cupboards that we are willing to send out when cold hits, but there is often no way to get them to those in need once the blizzard blows. Giving works best if it is in place before the great needs hit. The folks who gave to Shelter Box before the earthquake hit on January 12th are the ones who sent those wonderful supplies into that fray.   In January, touched by the needs of Haiti, I gave to Shelter Box.  I wanted to send the tents and shovels and emergency supplies right into that mess we were all watching televised.   On  the 2nd of  July I received a letter stating that "my shelter box" will soon be deployed and I can go on line and via the assigned box number  track where the box goes. Maybe the disaster this box will go to hasn't happened yet. 


Many of the on-going troubles in Haiti exist because life was "hard" before the earthquake and now loss, need, and complications to survival are greatly multiplied.


It's all about  infrastructure...the basics that allow things to happen: roads to get where you need to go, safe water supply, sewer systems, power supply, communication grids, emergency response.  These are the   basic physical and organizational structures that allow us to get on with our days in a organized society.
But we best not take all these wonders for granted...


So be prepared yourself  ...and give now.

Fine Art in Carmel and a dabbler too with Solzhenitsyn quote

There is an artist in town... 

I know that Blagojce had a show in Los Angeles and Chicago this year, and last December he opened a Fine Art Gallery for a time in Sun Valley, Ketchum, Idaho....but he is most often in Carmel, California where he currently has some of his work on display and his easel up.

 It is wonderful to stop by and see a painting progessing

and wonder how many hours into the night did he paint?

Warning: my homage, but ~not art ~ about to appear below...but I had fun playing with the paint program on my computer to frame a quote from Russian novelist, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

 "It is the artist who realizes there is a supreme force above him and works gladly away as a small apprentice under God's heaven." 

You can visit Blago and see more of his art on line at this link: Blagojce 

It's a wonderful web page.

In Search of a Bottom Line Ethic of "Good Fences"

In search of that really bottom line almost everyone could see and agree upon as an ethic of boundaries…I woke thinking of the conflicts that abound on our round spinning world.

In the quiet time, newspapers still on the ground outside the gate, computers still dark for the night, I scribbled thoughts not only of physical boundaries, heated political boundaries - the Middle East, the boundary between the United States and Mexico - but also boundaries in nature, species boundaries, genetic boundaries. I recently saw videos of experiments now common in research fields, the extraction of the genetic material of a cell or an egg of one species being replaced or combined with genetic information from another.

I thought of seeds I encounter everyday, the sesame seeds on the crust of my morning toast and the kale seeds I just planted in my garden. Seeds are astounding blueprints. Is it wise to alter the very nature of things wild? Will altered seeds, their altered plant forms alter all their neighbors? Will originals be lost?

Nation to nation neighborliness has grown so complicated, but then so can garden variety neighbor relations. If your neighbor lets tall strong thistles grow along his border, you too will have thistles and you will either have to entertain them or labor to weed and scour them out. If you poison the thistles, your poison will drift into the air and the water and the soil, yours and your neighbor’s.
At times we resort, rather than working out these dilemmas where unique boundaries and communicative cooperation are needed, to dishonoring our neighbors and spreading complaints abroad.

“Look at that neighbor, he doesn’t even clean his land of thistles,” says one man.
“Look at my neighbor, he denudes the land of all that is wild with poisons,” says another.

Of course the most important place we usually need to look is at ourselves.

An old saying is often summarized as “good fences make good neighbors…”

Exploring the origin of the phrase in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs I found the first noted reference to be from a 1640 letter written by an E. Rodgers in the “Winthrop Papers.” “…a good fence helpeth to keep peace between neighbors; but let us take heed that we make not a high stone wall, to keep us from meeting.” So while the fence is seen as vehicle to help keep peace, once clarity of boundary is defined, there is an emphasis on meeting across the fence on positive terms.

In Modern Chivalry, 1815, H.H. Brackenridge is quoted: “ I was always with him (Jefferson) in his apprehension of John Bull…Good fences restrain fence breaking beasts, and …preserve good neighborhoods.”

This version emphasizes the dangers that good fences can protect us from and that the need for boundaries and clarity is very real in this world where beasts of many species do indeed roam.

Robert Frost wrote “Mending Walls” in 1914. In this famous poem, he describes how hunters have dismantled the fences and how he and his neighbor walk the boundaries of their adjoining land together in the springtime mending stonewall fences to contain their respective cows and protect their crops and gardens. Frost knows he needs fences but as he lifts and rebalances the stones he also longs for openness, earth without a boundary. Perhaps the fence does not need to be continuous: “My apple trees will never get across and eat the cones under his pines.” Not meeting the same opinion in his neighbor, as Frost watches his neighbor lift another stone in place Frost imagines him as “an old-stone savage armed.” Frost too has armed himself. He is armed with words; judging his neighbor for fencing all his land, as less sophisticated and thinking than he is. As the neighbor continues the line of the fence he repeats what Frost now calls “his Father’s” saying, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Our fathers’ sayings might be a way to reference traditions, culture; even the laws that represent what G. K. Chesterton called “ the democracy of the dead.”

"Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead." Chesterton goes on to say: "Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father." Orthodoxy, Chapt 4 "The Ethics of Elfland."Page 48 Doubleday Image

Frost apparently didn’t fight with his neighbor about the fence; he went home and wrote a poem about it. In his poem, he reveals an internal dilemma. He knows that he himself, a self he perhaps imagines as having little in common with the stone-age, a self unarmed and perhaps even a self free of his and other fathers’ precepts, this self still needs some fences, some boundaries. It is a dilemma.
A dilemma, by nature presents competing needs, horned alternatives, which are perhaps best met when there are two clauses in answer. Often times people breathe both clauses but join them with a “but.”

If one says, “We need to communicate but we need to maintain strong boundaries.” is it not different from saying, “We need to communicate and we need to maintain strong boundaries.”?

We do need strong fences and neighborly kindness.

Boundaries exist; they are part of a hierarchy found in the most primal realms of life. As a family therapist, my model for boundaries in relationships came to me from the biology classes of my youth and university days.

A living cell is a working model of boundaries. A cell wall is defined as a semi-permeable discerning membrane. A healthy cell wall can let what is needed in and release that which is no longer viable. Families are healthy when they flexibly both shelter and expose vulnerable members to experience. Dynamic tensions, such as the balance between rights and responsibilities are paramount in development of competence and integrity.

Discernment in a cell is a process of maintaining equilibrium. Stable laws govern the passage of molecules through the cell barrier and the concentration of solvents in the cell interior, unless damaged by trauma, physical or chemical.

Every house has a door, and every good fence a gate; every land has laws as to how people may come and go and what rights and responsibilities we bear to each other.
As it is written in Psalm 85:10: Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed [each other].
Some realities cannot be separated, and some realities should not be teased apart. Boundaries in the ideal bear these merged qualities. “…a good fence helpeth to keep peace between neighbors; but let us take heed that we make not a high stone wall, to keep us from meeting.”

Rights have Responsibilities... A Vote for Voting and Thanks