Heresy

I popped popcorn to get ready for the viewing of the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” I’m not sure of the reason that I did it; but I think it was to make the viewing of a difficult film easier.

In the end, the movie wasn’t as hard to watch as I imagined.

I had spent the afternoon with the book, and the movie followed the text exactly. It’s true; with 70 million tons of greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere every day, our world is heating up. There is a direct correlation with the increases of carbon emissions and the increases of the temperature of the earth. The ice caps are melting; glaciers are smaller than they have ever been; the world’s water supply is diminishing and the effects of all of this will be devastating on every population on earth.

Not surprisingly, news reports are now linking the genocide in Darfur with shrinking water resources. We can definiately expect more turbulent weather, more experiences like Hurricane Katrina.

It’s all dire news; and that is what I expected from the movie. But I wasn't prepared to be in awe at Al Gore’s persistence in presenting his slide show over 1,000 times and his ability to deal with the reality that our Congressional leaders and our administration take a less than an aggressive stance toward this known catastrophe.

It is heartening to see one man, inspired by a truth that he knows, be consistently clear in a simple message. "We need to act now. We need to reduce our footprint on this earth. We need to be proactive in protecting our way of life."

And we need to be pointedly clear: Our way of life is respectful of the interdependent web of life of which we are all a part. Anything less than that is, quite simply, heresy: a distortion of what we all believe to be so.

At this time when the news is depressing and activists have to make movies in order to get the public's attention, I was caught unexpectedly by one man's sense of hope and purpose.

Weeding

I pull high grass from the front right flowerbed. It’s a large half circle space that measures about 16 feet at its diameter. Planted with bee balm, some mint, black-eyed susans and primrose, it’s been neglected for the last three years, as all gardening energy went into the main vegetable garden.

But with the weeds pretty much under control there, I have set my sights on reducing the amount of tangle in the front. The left side was easy to do as the whole thing was taken over by grass and nothing was planted there. That side is mulched and I await the flowerings of the large zinnias planted there now.

Not willing to strip the right side of all its plantings, I pull at the grass in a rather haphazard way. Grass is insidious, with roots extending in all directions, and I learned years ago that to be rid of it you have to virtually sift the earth clean of all roots.

So what do I think I will accomplish by simply pulling the high grass out? It’s a question that I ponder as I do the work. And I have sort of settled on the idea that I am altering the weed/plant balance. While not getting out all of the roots, I am getting some, and no grass shoots will be able to go to seed. The remaining plants will get all of the sunshine and all of water and hopefully will grow stronger and fuller because of it.

I extrapolate on this concept in terms of what I consider the state of the world, and the overwhelming and debilitating nature of the world news. Can I be content to alter the balance in terms of the behavior that I can control? Will a cheerful and open disposition extended to all reduce the tangle and allow other thoughts to grow?

Perhaps it’s like the front flowerbed. With intentions to continue to pull grass and loosen and improve the soil on a more or less ongoing basis, I liken it to a spiritual journey: a discipline and an experiment where I have no real expectation on the outcome.

I put energy into my belief that little moves will make a difference and that I can cultivate the plants of my choosing. I celebrate the flowerbed as it becomes less dense. And in accepting the limitation of my methodology, I find a measure of satisfaction in the outcome.

Back to the Garden

The rain has driven me out of the garden just as I finish planting cilantro seeds into the back left raised bed with the basil. I had aspired to get the lettuce and the beet seeds planted as well.

Stephen is replacing the stone, which has lined the beds for some nine years now, with wood. He thinks that the wood will help us keep the weeds down. We try a different tack toward weed control this year, mulching with wet newspaper as we plant. I carefully rip the old editions of The River Reporter into three-inch strips and lay them between the cilantro rows.

With the peppers, I lined the entire bed with newspaper, and then cut holes for the plants. It was tedious and easier to lay strips around the basil. I am covering the wet newspaper with hay so that it does not dry out and blow about. There a sense that we must hold in the little moisture in the ground as sustenance for the plants, and to cut down on the need for watering as our own water supply seems fragile.

I have a sense that the whole world is fragile. And even as I hold this sorrowful thought, it is balanced with the sure knowledge and trust that the cilantro seeds, in some seven to twenty-one days from now, will sprout forth with life.

I bless them as I poke them into the warm earth, thanking them for their future of seasoning our daily food.

There's no place like home

All of my boxes have made their way across the United States. I integrate them into my house as I integrate myself back to the Upper Delaware.

It’s good to be home. It’s pleasant to not carry a set of keys to get from floor to floor as it was in the dorm. I enjoy looking out onto green and listening to the birds.

Stephen and I are making our way through the meals that he had set aside throughout the winter, freezing a bit of them for me to taste. The pulled pork chili that he entered into the Lake Wallenpaupack Chili Off, while not a winner that March afternoon, was a delicious treat this May. The lentil soup with chipotle pepper was a nice combination of smoky, robust and hot. Our lives mirror those culinary experiments in the freezer, individually formed and revealing themselves with each passing day.

I’m not sure of his schedule yet, or mine.

For now I drift a bit, working on weddings and child dedications and keeping up with the usual editing work. I take a daily walk down my country road. Yesterday I sought the advice of the oak tree by the cabin in the woods. I have stood beneath that tree for some years now and asked for its wisdom.

In forming the question about my future endeavors I was reminded, “when you weather a storm, you weather a storm.” In perfect tree logic, we are what we are. We do what we do.

It is a joy to be home.