Thought of the day

After spending a whole day at Parkrose's inservice, I have some decidedly back-to-school thoughts. Here's today's:

"There are times when it becomes impossible for me to teach. No matter where I look I see only God, wearing so many masks, playing in so many forms. Who is the teacher then? Who is to be taught?" -- Swami Prabhavanda

Mountain Justice

A friend recently sent me an outraged email about the Bush administration's stance on Mountaintop Removal. She was in shock and had some choice things to say about Shrub.

Now, I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone but I've thought there was something wrong with that boy for a long time now...I remember the grim feeling I'd get watching him campaigning for office back in '99 on CNN, and my general blanket disapproval which stems from the fact that I am still convinced that he needed to frequent an Adult Literacy Class prior to running our country into the ground, but I digress...

Although I am frequently outraged, I wish I could say that I'm surprised by anything he and his cronies do, (short of announcing his resignation, I'll withhold any sort of shock regarding his actions). The Bush Administration's official energy policy (which would best be referred to as an official Air Pollution Policy) relies heavily on increased extraction of existing domestic resources (natural gas and coal), rather than any serious commitment to renewable energy initiatives.

This is why, of course that someone got the bright idea of building a huge LNG facility in the Puget Sound area (a rather beautiful stretch of the Columbia river), and why mountain top removal mining is waged against some of the poorest Appalachian communities in the United States (fabulous examples of environmental racism against those who are least able to defend themselves=poor people in rural areas).

The people who live in these areas and who are fighting these battles to save their communities, remind me somewhat of the Nigerian tribespeople who are locked in guerilla warfare against some of the largest oil companies on the planet (albeit less extreme here in the sense that nobody's been shot as far as I know). Both are protracted struggles of the David and Goliath variety...in all of these instances poor people in rural areas are exploited by the rich and powerful who decidedly do not have their bests interests at heart.

As I have said, George Bush and Friends don't give a rat's ass about the environment because in conservation there's no clear personal economic reward for them as individuals (or at least they are unable to perceive it). No doubt if we stood together and looked at the mountains in West Virginia, we would actually see very different things because of where our hearts are set. The politicians involved in this administration are clearly unaware of the seven generations philosophical orientation towards life. They and all who share their views--sad to say, but perhaps the majority of the Baby Boomer generation--are all banking on the fact they'll be dead and gone when the shit hits the fan.

We of course (all of the subsequent generations) will still be here living with the aftermath of their greed. And as a teacher, I regret that the kids we teach will be stuck with the very worst of it. And that my friends is why I care the most.

going to seattle

Quote of the day: "Everything always works out in the end. If it hasn't worked out, it's not the end."

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the franticness last-minute-pacing of this whole undertaking, but maybe I just need to chill and not worry about it. After all, there are more ways to be in this world than those I tend to prefer, and I need to learn to let go of some things.

Teeny the Mouse [道のねずみ]

Teeny the Mouse (aka Way of the Mouse)

Normally, most days are pretty uneventful, and today didn’t seem likely to break the mold. I was in downtown Portland, standing under the shade of some trees on the busy corner of Market and 4th , resigning myself to a long wait for the bus. To kill the time, I had been conversing with an oddly talkative and opinionated elderly woman, when suddenly I saw a subtle movement over by the landscaping near the parking garage.

At first I thought I was imagining things, but then I saw it again--a tiny little gray mouse skittered from one clump of ornamental grasses to another. How curious. Living in a clump of ornamental bamboo right by the bus stop was a tiny little grey mouse. Teeny, the mouse was no bigger than the blade of a bamboo leaf and could easily be mistaken for a small grey stone. Only the subtlest twitch of his nose gave him away as he was stealthily creeping around in the leaves, just out of sight of the people walking by.

I told the woman that I had just seen a mouse and she became rather curious and began looking around for it. At first I thought she was afraid, as people often are, but she was not fearful, but eager. Delighted by my discovery of the mouse, she begged me to show her where it was. Having decided that she wasn’t likely to harm it, I pointed out where it was hiding, and she quickly began hunting in her handbag, and with triumph, whipped out a package of sunflower seeds and tossed a few towards the bamboo where the mouse was hiding just out of sight.


To her absolute delight and my amusement, Teeny came out and picked up the sunflower seeds, bringing them back to the safety of the knee-high bamboo forest. I could see him in the shadows, peering out of the protective embrace of the bamboo leaves. When the coast was clear, he would scurry out and pick up another one, running back each time another pedestrian passed by. We stood there for several minutes captivated by Teeny’s antics. As my companion left to get on another bus, it struck me how much she had in common with the mouse.

I stood and watched the mouse for several more minutes until finally my bus came. With a sense of regret, I pulled myself back into the world of human concerns, and got onboard. While watching Teeny the mouse scurrying around in his tiny microcosm, always within sight of the tiny clump of bamboo no higher than my knee, I realized that I had been watching a living example of Kichom’s “edges”.

The world of Teeny the mouse was a world of edges: There was the protective edge of the bamboo, where he hid from the moving legs of the giants who went by on the sidewalk. The function of this edge is obviously protection and safety [安全 Anzen]. Then there were other the edges (around and between some rocks, and other ornamental grass clumps) which were paths [道 Do], as Teeny came out of his bamboo home, he hugged the edges of the landscape features, as he rustled around in and around fallen leaves, looking for food. These edges functioned as roads/pathways (which loosely translates into Japanese as [道Do], and can have all of the following meanings: one’s way, street/road/path, vocation/calling, direction, focus, manner of, habit, orientation, etc.

In the end, I realized I had been watching, not just Teeny the mouse, but ultimately had observed “The Way of the Mouse.” 道のねずみ


P.S.

I was intrigued to discovered that the word edge, translates into Japanese as 縁 which has a host of meanings including: Fuchi 縁 【ふち】 (surrounding) edge, Heri 縁 【へり】 edge, tip, margin; Yukari 縁 【ゆかり】 related to a place; an affinity or connection; Yosuga 縁 【よすが】 means, e.g., of living, Ateji 縁; 江に(ateji) 【えん(縁); えにし(縁); えに(縁; 江に); え(縁)】 (1) fate; destiny (a mysterious force that binds two people together); (2) relationship (e.g., between two people); bond; link; connection; (3) family ties; affinity; (4) (えん only) opportunity; chance (to meet someone and start a relationship)

Vanishing Bees, afterthought 神隠しの蜜蜂...修正

神隠しの蜜蜂...修正 (Vanishing Bees), an afterthought:

At Sauvie Island, I stood in a field full of flowers in the late afternoon: sunflowers, zinnias, gladiolus, cosmos, you name it. The crickets were humming away and there were birds mobbing the sunflowers, boisterous and happy, eating the seeds from the heavily laden heads. There were bumblebees everywhere gathering pollen, but only a few solitary honeybees to be found.

I was sad to see that even here, where there ought to be tons of bees, alas that there are so few.

the Mystery of the Vanishing Bees

"Today bees are telling us something, and we need to listen."-Paul Sheehan

The mysterious vanishing honeybees is a thread of conversation that keeps weaving itself into the conversations I've had with diverse people all year. At least once every couple of weeks, someone new will remark on the phenomenon of vanishing bees. The other day it was my own mother who said something to the effect that she hadn't seen bees working over the clover in ages.

Thinking about my own front yard (which is mostly clover), I realized it's exactly the same story here. I haven't had to watch where I've stepped in the yard for ages...there just aren't any bees to accidently tread upon. On my usual rambles about the neighborhood, I see many things, but definitely few (if any) honeybees. This past spring, the neighbor's appletree bloomed in eerie silence, its sweet blossoms unvisited by the familiar humming of bees (who usually greatly relish such things as apple blossoms). The lavender goes unvisited, flowers go ignored...the only insect pollinators I've seen at all are a few bumblebees, and a couple of varieties of flies and small wasps . In this neighborhood, there are many backyard fruit trees...and the persistent lack of bees has dire consequences for their productive future.

As urban dwellers, most of us do not notice bees. They are not on our radars and not something we typically notice or think about in the frantic pace of our daily lives. Yet the truth is that everyone needs bees, more than they can imagine. Most of us, if we think of bees at all, we think of honey (which for many of us is something marvelously sweet and sticky that comes in a plastic bottle that sits on a shelf near jellies and jams at the grocery store). For many of us, this is perhaps our only point of awareness of the lives and doings of bees. "What is known is that the commercial honey industry in the US is in distress." Although there are many species of bees and wasps that are pollinators, for agricultural purposes, we have historically relied on a single species introduced from Europe - Apis mellifera, (Western Honeybee) the western honey bee and all of its numerous subspecies.
"This species is a crucial pollinator in the commercial production of apples, blueberries, cranberries, cherries, cucumbers, watermelons, pumpkins, almonds and other crops". From my own experience, I can assure you that you cannot expect any degree of fruit set from the Cucurbitaceae family without the presence of bees.
As a point of reference, a more complete list of potentially affected crops is the Pollination Handbook at beeculture.com. As a person who eats food, this greatly concerns me (and should concern you) because most of modern agriculture is dependent on bee pollinated crops. The consequences for our food supply will be rather severe if things continue along these lines.

Many of us have noticed that there seems to be a relative absence of bees. Outside of urban areas, the absence is even more striking. "Bees are not just disappearing in large numbers, they are vanishing. Entire colonies of honey bees have been deserting freshly made honey and newly hatched eggs, leaving behind no bodies, no signs of struggle, no evidence of the usual insect predators. Hundreds of apiarists have been coming upon scenes similar to the boat found drifting in open water, with food on the table, no signs of distress, no lifeboat missing, and no occupants...The recent phenomenon of the missing bees has been given a name: colony collapse disorder".

"Today bees are telling us something, and we need to listen."

At first I thought it was eerie, but now quite frankly, I find the disappearance of bees rather alarming. I remember one of the many joys of spending long days out in the garden was watching them with amusement as they hummed, doing their pollination chores, bouncing from flower to flower. I always as a habit, let the brassicas go to seed, not out of laziness, but knowing how well bees love their yellow spikes of flowers. One year I let the leeks go to seed, refusing to let anyone pull them up to make space for other things...why? Because I noticed that the bees absolutely loved their beautiful purple flowers. It is my humble belief that there are certain things one should always leave behind as a gift to the bees that do so much of the work of ensuring the growth of our food.

"When bees began to disappear from the landscape - and in America and Europe they are disappearing in their billions - it is an alarm signal." Bees play a critical role in our environment, and like taking a pulse, are indicators of the overall state of physical health in the kingdom of plants. Like Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, bees are a wakeup call from a world that is badly out of balance and one that is becoming moreso all the time.

In November of 2006, David Hackenberg, commercial beekeeper in Pennsylvania was one of the first people to raise a public alarm about the disappearance of bees:

"...One of Pennsylvania's biggest commercial beekeepers, Dave Hackenberg, of Lewisburg, Union County, found in mid-November he had lost about half of the 2,700 colonies he manages...'What the consumer does not realize is that one of every three bites of what they eat is pollinated by honeybees,' Hackenberg said. 'We'd be back to eating nothing but corn and potatoes without bees.'" (Forget the spy mystery -- what's killing the bees?, Rick Willis, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Saturday, December 9, 2006)

"As soon as he went public, other beekeepers from around the US began reporting the same experience. Although there are many diseases and pests that typically afflict honey bees, these did not seem to be suffering from any of these specifically...but rather a whole spectrum of viruses. Like people living with HIV, once their immune system becomes weaker they come down with full-blown AIDS, and can be brought down by any number of obscure ailments. The bees tend to be infected with every known bee virus, plus new pathogens never seen before." When the bees become this stressed, they just give up.

Doug Somerville: "In Australia is that we rely very heavily on native flora, especially eucalyptus, for our honey production, whereas they [the US] rely extremely heavily on agricultural crops. That means their bees’ interface with chemicals is much heavier." It has been long known that the use of agricultural chemicals is particularly harmful to bees. Given the rapidly decreasing decline of the bee population, it is high time for anyone still using chemical-intensive non-organic growing practices to really reconsider the merits of doing so (assuming all the other arguments aren't convincing enough in and of themselves). After all, are all of you really planning on going out and hand-pollinating all of your crops? I should think not. This is also a particularly good argument for eliminating the use of herbicides and pesticides in our residential landscapes and planting more native plants which do not need as much "chemical intervention" to sustain. Native perennial plants are an importance source of nectar and pollen for bees, and they often fill the gap when annual agricultural crop plants are not flowering. (An example of a plant with an off-season flowering schedule is ivy, which blooms in the wintertime). Many shrubs and plants bloom at times other than summer and provide both visual interest as well as a critical food source for bees.

"It should be no surprise, then, if the underlying cause of colony collapse disorder proves to be the same environmental evil that has already caused so much damage to the food chain - the systemic use of chemicals - which compounds the loss of biodiversity caused by factory farming."

Here in the US, wild honey bees were once much more common and diverse. If you get bored, you can read descriptions of gathering wild honey in Foxfire. Now apiculture (the keeping of bees) is dominated by the reliance on a single introduced species, brought over from Europe. Since they have essentially replaced many of the native honey bees, and if their population continues to decline, there won't be any other major pollinator to step in and cross-pollinate our crops. Because our agricultural systems are locked into a relationship of mutual codepedence, the loss of one dictates the loss of both.

Now is the time to really pay attention. By now it should be apparent that "business as usual" doesn't cut it. We've pushed nature about as far as it can be pushed and frankly things are desperately out of balance. Agriculture, if it intends to survive into the 21st century and beyond really needs to return to a place of harmony with the earth which gave it life in the first place. We used to have a much better understanding of how to live on earth recieve its abundance with an attitude of gratitude and humility. To the extent that we have moved away from the understanding of mutuality into this present mindset of dominance, a false sense of superiority over nature and linear thinking (which in agriculture is expressed by planting monocultures of the same crop, having severe subsequent pest infestations, then chosing to eradicate said pest by spraying, then having worse problems the following year...etc.) we have failed both the earth, and ultimately betrayed ourselves. In the process we have poisoned ourselves for so long that we are biting the proverbial hand that feeds us. One of the casualties of our blind stupidity of course is the humble honeybee, an almost invisible player whose presence is one of the sources of our greatest strength as a species in our long historical quest to survive on the planet earth by feeding ourselves.

Sections in Quotations come from: Eerie Saga of the Vanishing Bees
by Paul Sheehan, Sunday, August 19, 2007 Sydney Morning Herald/Australia
Of further reading interest is:
Elizabeth Kolbert, Field Notes From a Catastrophe.

tour de fat

Well once again, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, it's that magical time again, time for the Tour de Fat and the annual ultrafundressupsilly bike parade.

Sadly, other than wearing my loudest pair of pants, I didn't really dress up this year--couldn't get inspired by fasion, but that in no way detracts from my enjoyment of a good bike parade. We had a great time. Word on the street was there were 800 people in the parade. No idea if that was true, but it was more people than I ever recall seeing during previous years, so it felt true.

All the usual merriment ensued afterward.

stalking crows

Lately the crows around here have been desperately trying to tell me something. At first I was a bit afraid when I first realized that they were indeed trying to get my attention. I immediately assumed there was some negative reason why they were "stalking me"...I decided to look into it.

"For a period of several months, I regularly received crow feathers; I stumbled across them in various places almost weekly for several months...I found myself paying particularly close attention to them once they started leaving me feathers...It was a transformational time for me..."
by EtherealFire, May 21, 2005

I'm experiencing essentially the same thing that EtherealFire describes. I can't hardly leave the house without recieving some sort of message from the crows. It really doesn't matter where I go, the messages are there waiting for me and I don't have to put much effort into finding them. Perhaps because I've been a bit dense or resistant they've got to go to these extremes to capture my attention and make me listen.

I realized crows are highly intelligent psychic messengers and are associated with the element of ether or spirit 氣. I also came to the realization that this is the month of Obon お盆, and thus an obvious time to be receiving crow dispatches from the spirit world. So perhaps these are communications from 祖先の霊.

So now having immersed myself in symbolic representation all summer, I'm trying to work out the symbolic meanings of the messages I seemed to be finding everywhere and as best as I can, trying to unravel the symbols all around me that keep clamoring for my attention.

spammy weirdness storytime

Ever notice that spam has some really weird subject lines sometimes? Some folks decided to do a Spam poetry reading last year with some of these fine pieces of electronic random text babble over at the Roots Brewing Company.

While I won't subject you to anything like that, I'll try to use some of this randomness as inspirationg for today's stream of consciousness writing adventure which is losely based on real events.

On my left, there were big electrostatic generators howling madly behind the trail that wound behind an industrial strip. Just on the other side of abandoned apple orchards and sprawling blackberry reclamations, someone in a uniform reached over and switched on parallel with electrolytic condenser; I heard its mechanical grinding whirling and scraping through the trees. An odd scent lingered in the air, not one that was pleasant. On the rusty corrugated tin side of the building, there were numerous neotribal messages in spray paint. They appeared mysteriously vague and although I was sure they held secret meanings, I could not decode them. One proclaimed loudly in blaze orange: "There is no such thing as multiple inheritence". Another said, "If I don't see him soon, I shall pass out." I pondered them briefly sure they meant something, but my reverie was interrupted.

Suddenly, two kids came around the corner on bikes from the opposite direction, seeminly out of nowhere. One of them grasped the tail of the horse which I suppose is what kids that age tend to do. His companion was holding a plastic bottle containing some trapped life form that no doubt was the subject of current interest. He looked at the wallchart of sentient beings and said, "The last object that was rotated or dragged remains the current selection". Aha! Perhaps they are behind these mysterious messages. I tried to play it cool. I ventured a guess, "So an object can only be an...", but it was too late, they were speeding off heading back the way they came.

"All the possibilities...", I mumbled to myself, as I watched them go.

bag fulla hazelnuts

I had no intention of picking hazelnuts (Corylus avellana) this morning as I did not remember that there were any along the route to the site where I picked the black currants, but lo and behold, there were a few growing there.

Hazelnuts are one of the blessings of living in this part of Oregon. Aside from walnuts, they are the most successful nut tree you can hope to grow here (although lately I've been seeing a resurgence of interest in growing chestnuts and chinkapins nuts). Typically, you see hazelnuts, (tons of them!) growing on farms down by Salem and around the Willamette Valley, but there's nothing to stop you from growing them in other places. They are an attractive small deciduous tree, (most are the size of large shrubs) and often can be found growing together in small thickets. When they aren't full of nuts, they can be identified by their ovate leaves, which remind me a bit of Witch Hazel (Hamamelis) (which also produces edible seeds). Like many other well-adapted plants, they do well in the poor, dry soils that make up many parts of this state, can take full sun or part shade, do well in places that can't be irrigated (dry sites), can be used as a barrier plant, and can be used as landscaping features in naturalistic areas like trails and parks.

I began to notice that it was that time of year again. The blue jays were absolutely mobbing the hazelnut trees out by Powell Butte, so I decided if I was going to pick some I better get about it. If the jays don't get them first, the squirrels surely will later.

Like most nuts, when still on the tree, they look absolutely nothing like those nuts they're hustling in the store. On the tree, they're usually hiding under the leaves, near the ends of branches, covered by a rather distinctive looking husk, that only become noticeable towards the end of summer when they begin falling out of the tree onto the ground. Be cautious when picking them, the outer husk and leaves have little irritating hairs (especially the husk). You can usually pry them off the branches bare-handed but I do not recommend removing them from their husks without gloves...I've learned this the hard way.

A tree has grow for a good bit before it will start producing any quantity of nuts, but if you find one or two good-sized mature trees (10 ft and over), you can usually easily find enough nuts to gather for the winter, while respectfully leaving some for the wildlife to enjoy as well.

stalking Ribes nigrum

After speeding past them on my bike the other day, I decided to go back and fill up on some black currants.

In Portland, at least, currants are easy to find. Currants are frequently used as landscaping plants in Oregon as they are a mid-size slow growing shrub that is highly tolerant of less-than-perfect situations and are perfectly fine with no additional watering in the summer. It is my opinion that in this bioregion, they would make a good home/garden plant to use as a shrub bordering a sidewalk or street as they are not a needy plant. Other worthy features besides their berries are their attractive lobed palmate leaves, the racemes of pinkish flowers in the spring, and don't tend to be messy. Trimet has a good stand of them planted at 158th & Merlo by the park and ride, and you'll often see them growing on the edge of the woods here.

Ripening in late July through August and even into September, they can often be found in rather accessible public spaces and are very easy to identify which makes them relatively safe to pick for beginning foragers.

Aside from making possibly the best wine ever, they are very high in vitamin C. On a rather intriguing note: "In addition to the high levels of vitamin C, studies have also shown concentrated blackcurrant to be an effective Monoamine oxidase inhibitor" (Bormann, et al. 1991.) For more medicinal info on Ribes nigrum, go here.

So I was quite pleased to have a cool cloudy morning free to ride my bike over to a good spot where I could pick them to my heart's content. A process that requires much in the way of patience, I filled up a quart container with plump black berries before going to hang out in the park.

In the next part of my tale, I'll be talking about hazelnuts...

small bites

time capsule 8/15/07

Current mood :: giddy, enthusiastic, grateful. I feel like I'm about 5 years old. It's a good feeling after being stressed out for months.
Current music :: i'm humming my own song today. it sounds like a cross between the humming of powerlines and the heart beat of drums made out of plastic buckets.
Current taste :: navratan korma and a rocket pop.
Current clothes :: the "california" shirt with some pants from the 70's and some flip flops. Definitely not career wear. Way too hot for this ensemble, actually.
Current annoyance :: that summer's almost over, and that I totally missed Japanese Plum Season.
Current smells :: the particular scent of the 3rd floor in the Ed Building, diesel exhaust, windfall apples laying in the road fermenting, lavender.
Current thing I ought to be doing :: just about anything else really.
Current windows open :: a million...I'm at school.
Current books :: Samurai's Garden, the current Harry Potter, and Return of Yin
Current hate :: construction. It's loud, dusty, and makes navigation really confusing. On the plus side there's always something interesting going on.
Last thing you Bought :: a rocket pop.
...Ate :: a rocket pop dripping on my chin, making my lips turn blue with every lick. you can't help but feel like you're 5 years old when you eat popsicles on hot summer days.
...Drank :: green tea with redwood
...Read :: Return of Yin
The most embarrassing CD in your collection? :: almost everything i listen to could be described as "embarrasing" and I'm okay with that.
You ate for breakfast? :: an apple fritter from the Christian Bakery on 72nd St.

get together

Today i combined a good long bike ride with a gathering with a couple of friends. We hung and talked over some strategies for combining sustainability with teaching. Later we walked around the neighborhood, and went to the nearby park.

Unfortunately I got a really painful wasp sting on my foot while I was there. Desperate to stop the stinging so I could keep walking, I tried rubbing some of the copious jewelweed on it. Although I wasn't expecting it to do much (can't hurt, might help), it seemed to help and after only a couple of minutes I felt a whole lot better. (Now there are skeptics that say that jewelweed doesn't really help, but whether it was the plant or a placebo effect, I'll readily admit I sure felt a whole lot better and was able to ride my bike home (several miles)).

Right down the street, there was a wonderful plum tree, so the three of us got giddy as children and raided it. I think we picked about three quarts of plums and they were delicious.

i don't make these things up

Internet Weirdness as of late:

Hackers Deface UN Site:
"Hackers" defaced the United Nations Web site early Sunday with messages accusing the US and Israel of killing children....
IMO great idea fellas, I'm all for critique of the endless war, but I do have to admit that it looks like it was the combined efforts of a couple of 14-year old online chat junkies. Perhaps their "revision" would have lasted longer if they put a bit more editorial effort into it. Besides, who really themself "the worm"???

A funny headline currently at the top of Google News:
Bush's brain goes missing as Karl Rove retires. Seriously, I didn't make this up, but it's a great illustration of syntax in action.

Yet another use for Himalayan blackberries

Aside from making a really lovely wine, I have a new favorite use for Himalayan Blackberries: iced tea. (They really take iced tea to the next level because it's got all that berry flavor and is sweet-sweet enough that unless you're southern, you won't need any additional sugar.) They way I figure, if people can hustle it in bottles in the store for a few dollars, I'd be a fool not to make it myself and save a fortune.

Here's the basic recipe:

4 tea bags, black tea (your choice).
2 qts water, boiled
Handful of blackberries, lightly crushed (to release the juices)
optional a small ammount of sugar or honey (if you need it)
a 4 qt pot
(a strainer, to strain the pulp out)

pour 2 qts of boiling water over the tea bags and lightly crushed berries.
Let this sit for at least 15 minutes (but even longer is better).
Then add additional water (up to two qts) of cold water, mix.
Let stand for awhile to cool down a bit.
Then strain and pour into a pitcher or other container.
Refrigerate and enjoy.

The West Coast Convergence for Climate Action

Friday to Sunday-ish, I'm gonna be out on the road. I'm going with a small group of teacherly types to the The West Coast Convergence for Climate Action which luckily isn't terribly far from Shade Central--ahem--Portland. I'll let you know how it goes...

there and then, here and now

A story of JB's reminds me of one of my favorite pasttimes...

The Federal Plaza Fountain in Memphis:

Back when I lived in Memphis, I would ride my bike down Vance Ave. in the summer to go downtown. After loafing around writing poems, or sitting by the river until the mosquitoes drove me away, I would continue on. I would go riding up the mall towards North Main until I reached the Federal Plaza foutain. I would either cruise through the jets of water on my bike, or hop off and stand there until I was soaked, washing all the sweat of August off, while watching the homeless wash their clothes and dry them on park benches. I would dry off on the way back home working my way back up the hill on my bike to Midtown.

Today was nothing like that of course. I think it might've hit 70 degrees at some point in the afternoon, but all day it was relentlessly cloudy in that Pacific coast sort of way; cool, with a fine mist. I hopped on my bike and rode down the Spring Water Trail heading east towards Powell Butte and hiked up the dirt trails into the stillness of the dark forest of confers. Eventually I came out on Ramona Street and gingerly walked down the steep hill, my arm stinging with nettles that I brushed against, and stopped to graze on some huge plump blackberries before heading back to the barn.

Uprooted Childhoods

"When in doubt, get on a plane and go somewhere. When there, try to learn everything you can about the place and try like anything to be one of them--operating instructions for a travelling human.
What I did not know how to do was stay in one place, make friends that I would grow with, and become part of a community. Looking back, I wonder if I had a choice. This was all I knew." Anora Egan, (Uprooted Childhoods p. 216)

#55

"It is neccessary to develop a strategy that utilizes all the physical conditions and elements that are directly at hand. The best strategy relies upon an unlimited set of responses." 55, 植芝 盛平 Morihei Ueshiba, The Art of Peace

Windy, breezy, cold and cloudy,
Is this Portland, or San Fransisco-I can hardly tell-
Tell these days if it's August, and if I am here,
Or not,

Pavement wet with runoff from irrigation,
Puddles on sidewalks,
In spite of the longing absence of rain,
Homeless people play musical benches,
With rude sprinklers in front of the library,

Windfall apples lying in the gutter,
Wandering away in my pockets,
Smelling of spice and honeyed sweetness,
I graze rudely in the raspberries growing by the Catholic Church,
Nibble the sour grapes growing along the fence,
Spreading the seeds like a trail,
Passing along the sidewalk,
Past clusters of green homeless conversations,

Everywhere trees burst out of their troubled pavement longings,
A Wanderer in the land of the dead,
"No I don't have any weed,"
Evading metallic voices and automatic expressions,
The underside of bridges aching with sullen teenagers,
The limp grey river,
The rumbles of construction,
Tourist feet in place of spinning wheels,
The din of the passing train,

Government offices and uniformed guards,
"no i don't have an ID,"
Eyes instead of computer screens,
Shelves of books constantly in motion,
Spreading their secrets shamelessly around town,
"No i don't have my library card,"

Sneaking past gangs of charitable solicitors,
Snaking up the Park Blocks past Abraham Lincoln,
Smokers and beds of roses towards the University,
"How are you doing?",
I ask familiar benches, familiar classmates, the familiar laboratory,
And the secretary who holds all the keys to all the locks,
"I am the person you sent this letter to",
I boldly declare in the Dean's Office,
Before sliding out to catch the ferries,
Who will take me back across the river,

Back to Russian kids on bikes,
Dogs and strollers,
Construction workers singing melodramatic songs in Spanish,
Back to fading flowers and laundry lines,
And dead grass where I practice tai chi until dark

Tom Doty

A public service bulletin recieved:

5 August 2007,
Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Dear Friends,

This is an awkward and challenging letter to write. I'm not comfortable sharing this kind of personal information but I find myself in a difficult situation and I don't know where else to turn. So I am writing to ask for your help.

A week ago I had surgery to remove skin cancer from my forehead. Though the surgery went well, the lab report showed not all of the cancer cells were removed. I need further treatment from a specialist. This needs to be done soon.

As a self-employed artist, and like thousands of others in this country, I have no health insurance. The next treatment will be far more expensive. This has stretched me thinner than I thought possible, and I am asking friends for help. I am days away from losing my home.

In my 26 years as a storyteller I have told a lot of tales and today I decided it was time to share this latest story.

If you would are able to help, you may send a check to me at P.O. Box 3397, Ashland, OR 97520, or you may use a credit card at the following web page....

http://www.dotycoyote.com/support

I hope to have my life back to normal soon. I have performances in the fall and several new books coming into print. Beyond this health challenge, I feel happy and focused in my life and my art, and I am eager to return to the work I am called to do.

I am grateful for any assistance. Thank you for whatever you choose to send my way, be it funds, a prayer or thoughts of wellness. In the spirit of sharing stories, please feel free to forward this e-mail.

Blessings,
Tom

Thomas Doty -- Storyteller, Author, Teacher DOTY & COYOTE: STORIES FROM THE NATIVE WEST

Storyteller in Residence at Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon.

Website: http://www.dotycoyote.com
Phone: (541) 482-3447 / (800) 582-2372
E-Mail: Thomas@DotyCoyote.com
Classic Mail: P.O. Box 3397, Ashland, OR 97520
Online Chat: DotyCoyote (AIM, iChat & Skype)

Today feels like San Francisco

Today's been a quiet day, and that's how I like it.
The most exciting thing that happened to me today was coming around the side of the house with my bike and discovering that the pine tree in the front yard was full of Psaltriparus minimus, (Bushtits), tiny little grey birds (about the same size of finches or chickadees). Yesterday they were in the buddleia (butterfly bush). Today they were in my pine tree, playfully hopping around from branch to branch, chirping away. They are absolutely adorable. I just stood there hanging on to my bike watching them for several minutes until they all flew away.

One of the greatest and most glorious things about NOT being in school right now is reading...or rather, reading exactly what I WANT to read. Right now I am reading Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama. It is a book that I will be teaching with Ms. Ediza to 10th graders at Parkrose High School this fall. It's been seven years since I last read it so it's time to brush up a bit. Last week I read "Pretending to Be Normal" (which is about Aspbergers and in a sense a former student), "Growing up Global" (which is about me), and "Brotherhood of the Wolf" (which is in a sense also about me...I'm Binnsmead in disguise).

Today I think that I am feeling reclusive. I need to call people but I really don't feel like talking. It's too hard to put my scattering thoughts into words that make sense. And even though I've been outside twice, I'd really rather stay home and not have to understand how to navigate being around other people and their conflicting rhythms.

Today I look like some kinda poster child for Goths Anonymous. I'm wearning shiny black pants, a black t-shirt with a skull on it. I'd wear sunglasses but it's cloudy. My socks are the only thing fucking up my membership status...I'm wearning rainbow colored toe-socks.
I'm pretty sure that's not allowed.

Today I think I miss several things. I miss my family of course. I miss Eva who I really wish I could see right now. I missed the Hobo Film Festival on Friday because I thought it was on Saturday.
But here's just a little thing from the past that I miss...I miss wandering into the kitchen at Declerye and partaking in the ritual at the shrine of perpetual coffee adoration (somebody there was always fixin' coffee, day or night)...I could count on it, like you can count on rain in Portland, and I'd be sitting around the table shootin' the breeze with whoever was home at the time, or you could find me sitting in my hammock out on the carport watching the cats be cats, and the garden growing outside.

This weekend has gone by too quickly. The weather is strange, more like San Francisco than anything...it's been cool and cloudy which is beyond odd. If I were in Memphis, I'd be sweatin' like mad bein' chased up and down Orange Mound by skeeters. Here it is just quiet and cool...and just wrong.

butterfly bush verses

buddleia butterfly bush,
brown sprays like dead flower bouquets,
replacing purple wands every August,
a grey swarm of tiny birds,
and assorted chicadees descends,
seeking seed hidden like treasure in spent blooms,
limbs bobbing up and down,
with upside-down bird antics,
limbs full of chirps and twitters,
the bush is alive with tiny little birds,
watched by an incredulous robin,
and i

Samurai's Garden

Oh how fabulous, I am beyond thrilled, I might be doing a work sample/student teaching unit around Gail Tsukiyama's book, the Samurai's Garden. Yes!!!
I can finally put some of my college work to good use, and some of my general life experience and interests in teaching. Rock on!

光る泥団子 (hikaru dorodango)

Last week, we were talking about 光る泥団子 (hikaru dorodango) which deeply resonated with me. I suddently remembered when I was living in 沖縄 Japan, I had a serious love affair with the reddish-orange clay that we had for soil. Normally it was hard as a rock, but brittle, the color of rusty iron, but when the rains came, it washed the clay down the hills making it soft as silk, and it became deliciously squishy. I would stand in the torrent of water that ran like a river past the driveway gate and let my toes sink in it's wondrously plastic stickiness.

I would also spend hours upon hours with my neighbor ゆみこ in her backyard hands and feet immersed in clay, making balls of varying sizes. They weren't as sophisticated as dorodango, but we put a lot of time and effort into making them.

I also remember constantly coming home, absolutely covered in mud, arousing the ire of my mother. Yes, children seem to instinctively love dirt (and I would add puddles and sticks to that list after spending a year babysitting Mansoor منصور ).

Most people grow out of this obsession with dirt. Those who can't or don't, often take up farming or the art of ceramics. To this day I still find the texture of clay absolutely satisfying and due to my strong affinity with the earth, and usually can be found with dirt caked under my nails and on my knees.

Sauvie trip

Today was another one of my Sauvie Island trips (they feel like much more of an expedition than they used to, now that I live so much further away). Driving downtown was pretty hectic (it almost always is these days). I'm kinda glad that I couldn't levitate out of bed at the time I had originally suggested (silly me, I forgot about the whole morning rush hour traffic phenomenon).

Still though, that does nothing to allay the utter sense of disorientation that hits when i have to get in a car and drive downtown. It such and odd thing to admit, and I have lived here for 2 years now so there's no excuse, but I still have very little sense for finding things downtown. It's not like it's particularly big, and there's nothing there that defies the well-crafted logic of the grid system, but lord help me I can't ever figure out where I'm supposed to go when I'm down there, and the construction has only made things worse. Not to mention, that my overwhelmingly pedestrian orientation does not translate into any sort of skillful navigation once I hop in a car. It took some serious circling like a wounded vulture before I was able to find 王小姐 on the corner of Hall and I could hardly get back to the Eastside fast enough.

It was a bit disappointing to find out that most of the blueberries were gone. I was only able to pick 2 1/2 qts, when I was really shooting for 4 or so. But I made up for it in peaches, where I filled up a whole flat full of those fuzzy-fleshed juicy bulging orange treasures.

I ended up taking 王小姐 on a side trip to the nature preserve, figuring that 她 should have a chance to see it. In my mind, it would be tragic if 她 spent all this time in Portland and never got to see it because it's a pretty special place (at least to me).