To Begin Again

Happy Solstice!  Heard my husband say that to someone on the phone today and it made me smile.  We pictured this person's face on the other end of the phone trying to place that one in the context of the "Happy Holidays" we all hear this time of year.  Technically speaking, celebrating the solstice is something that goes back to when humans first started paying attention to the fact that, instead of getting shorter, the days started getting longer again.  Imagine what that must have been like for the first people who realized that the days were growing ever shorter and colder....slowly approaching the end when there will be nothing but cold and darkness.  But then, to have the pendulum slowly swing the other way? Salvation!

How frightening, to have been those first people to make the connection that the days were getting progressively shorter and darker.  I can imagine that there was probably the same sections of society that we have today: a) the doubters - "It's all a myth! This darkness thing doesn't really happen!" b) the extremists "It's dark! We are all going to die!"  c) the deists - "Pray to avoid the vengeance of god!", d) the apathetic - "Who cares that it is dark" and e) the scientist - "Wow!  I wonder why and how can I figure this out?"   All I can say is that I am very happy for the scientists who persevered and figured this mystery out. Can you imagine the news headlines with today's media if we didn't have this understanding of the axial tilt of the planet?

 In the same token, how cool to have been that first person to figure out that, because of how the earth is angled, it changes our seasons and how much light we get each day. Talk about an incredible eureka moment, but chances are very good that the first people who brought the topic up were stoned to death for being heretics to whatever god was most prevalent in the culture at the time. Of course this is all speculation because there is no record of this being written down.  There are however, standing stones and other temples that were presumed to be built in response to this natural phenomenon.  I did a quick search on Google - how is it that we ever survived without this tool? Back when we actually  had to know things or look things up....anyway, did a quick search with the phrase, 'map of the origins of religion' and stumbled upon this cool website. I had a hunch (and it appears to be relatively accurate) that most modern religions developed in areas along the equator.  This makes relative sense, if you think about it.  The equators are the least affected by the solstices and equinox  so the magic of nature is lost on them, hence encouraging them to come up with their own mystical understanding for the universe (which mainly involve humans - i.e. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism)  The northern countries (and the southern too, for that matter) were heavy into nature worship - why?....because it is incredible!  You see first hand everyday how the changes in the axial tilt of the earth in this infinite cosmos can affect very small things - the migration of birds and animals, the growth of plants, insect cycles, weather patterns.....  The sense of wonder contained within our own planet, much less this universe, is staggering.  While there are many friends and family members of mine that practice a formal religion, and I appreciate their beliefs and hope they all celebrate happy holidays, I can honestly say that I myself am caught up in the mystery of all that exists around me - from the smallest atom to the enormity of the universe.  Einstein of course, says it best, " The scientists' religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveal an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection."

Welcome light, come back in, let us start this year again.

A Grandma's Comfort

These are weird, scary days.  I know that the holiday seasons are upon us, but it seems more likely that the Mayans were perhaps right after all.  I was shopping yesterday and the holiday atmosphere was muted with the tragedy that has overwhelmed us all.  It seems wrong to be anticipating joy and happiness at this time of year when so many others are devastated.  I find myself at times with an overflowing heart and tears spilling over. The endless cycles of "why?" and "what now?" play themselves out again and again in my brain with no ready answers or even suggestions for a way forward in this messed up world.

I am at a loss.  What is a person to do against such reckless hate? The problems are complex and the answers will likely be even more so. But thanks to my husband and some mite-infested straw, I at least found some comfort, a quiet anchor in a violent sea.....my grandmother's afghan.

I have a few afghans that were knitted and crocheted by my grandmothers.  Both of them crocheted one during the second World War using bits and pieces of yarn that they had around so they are hodge-podge collections of different colored yarns.  They did it to keep themselves busy while they worried about loved ones overseas and in harm's way.  My maternal grandma once told me that as long as she kept working on that blanket, then she felt like everyone was going to be okay.  This blanket chanced to come out of the closet the other night because Keith had happened to sit in the straw with our little pigs and only later realized that he was extremely itchy. With a little deductive reasoning, he determined that it must have been from the straw that was with the pigs.  Unfortunately, he had happened to sit on our bed while wearing those pants and the itching issue spread, thus necessitating the entire removal of all sheets and blankets to the wash.

Old farmhouses in winter can get pretty chilly at night when the fire goes out, so I needed a warm blanket or two and Grandma's was on top.  It is a little long and rather narrow, but it would work to keep our feet warm, I thought.  However, as I threw that afghan out onto the bed and felt the weight and heft of it, I was instantly reminded of Grandma.  She put all her love and released all her anxieties into that blanket and it still continues to provide comfort and warmth. I crawled under it and pulled it up over me and for the first time in days, felt safe.

So what does one do in the face of such reckless hate and constant worry?...small things, apparently...small kindnesses, small steps - and one stitch at a time we attempt to create, either metaphorically or literally, a warm, comforting blanket that one day perhaps, our own descendants can climb under and feel safe - if only until they too can find their own small steps forward.

My steps forward? I contemplated them at length while curled under Grandma's blanket - I will write and speak, as often and as much as necessary to help move the dialogue in this country forward to a more civil one, if possible.  The alternative is to simply do nothing, and clearly that has not worked out well for any of us ...especially those families in Connecticut.  I think it is time to make changes, find common ground, and work toward mending the moral fabric of our age.  I know that I look back on the time that my grandparents had to struggle through and I respect them for what they had to do....for what they had to survive.  I can only hope that, some day, my own grandchildren will be able to sit awhile with their thoughts of me and feel comforted that I had the determination to make a difference and the belief that, if I only keep working on it, we will all be alright.

Keepers of the Bees

I attended the seasonal meeting of the Iowa Beekeepers meeting last night.  Once every three months, this group of like-minded people join together to discuss the issues relevant to the life of a bee.  This group is an agriculturally minded group - dedicated to crops that their tiny flying armies live off of and help to grow with their pollination. They are as much, or more, a fundamental part of the agriculture industry than even the corn and soybean growers associations, but much less widely known or recognized.  What is different about this group of  farmers is that you will never see an industrial agriculture company among its ranks - no Monsanto, no Cargill, no Roundup.  In fact, to even bring up those words leads to a certain amount of snarling, leers, and mumbled expletives from the members of this group because they know all too well the havoc that industrial agriculture wreaks upon the life of their hives.

These keepers are the touchstone of the agriculture industry. They see what is happening to the natural world around us because they deal with it directly in the lives of the bees that they safeguard and keep. They are the miners that hold onto the canary and warn the other miners when the canary dies and the mine is no longer safe. They are not razzle-dazzled by the agribusinesses with their fancy commercials and shiny, glossy magazine ads for chemicals and GMO seeds, because they see all too clearly the consequences of such things first hand.   It is one thing to be a farmer and grow a crop - relying blindly on the pollinators that you may see but often don't acknowledge as being the direct cause for the fruit and vegetables that grow on the vine, but when those pollinators disappear so do the apples, cherries, blackberries, blueberries, watermelons, pears, peaches, almonds, and countless other crops.  When I see people in general acting so blasé about the effects of corporate agriculture on the tiny keystone insects that make that agriculture even possible in the first place, it has me deeply worried.

But here is what worries me the most....the bee keepers are disappearing as well.

I enjoy going to these meetings, but they distress me.  The average age of these keepers is easily somewhere in the mid 70's.  I am, quite easily, the youngest person there. At last night's meeting there was a sympathy card being passed around for one of the members that had just passed away at the age of 84.  Another one of the keepers, Charlie, received the honor of being recognized for keeping bees for the last 50 years! He has been keeping them longer than I have been alive, and appeared to be willing an able to do it for at least another few years which is a good thing because I really don't know what is going to happen when these quiet, thoughtful, nature-loving people depart this world for the clover field in the sky.  That is not to say that bees can't survive on their own, because they can, but we are loosing the people that monitor them closely and are able to tell the rest of us when the pesticides and chemicals that we love to pour on our fields of monoculture crops have finally broken the back of the tiny winged atlas that holds up the agriculture world.  But, then again, they already have told us....and we fail to listen or to learn.

 Darwin's theories hold true for all biological systems....even man.  Those species that are not smart enough to adapt and learn, get wiped off the face of the earth.  It may take hundreds, if not thousands of years, but it happens none-the-less.  We humans think we have the corner market on survival, but I feel quite certain that the seeds of our own doom have already been sown and continue to prosper under the falsity of capitalism - making a dollar at the expense of everything else and spending less money on cheaply produced goods that we will simply discard and replace with more cheaply made goods. It is an unsustainable practice and yet one from which it is hard to wean.

I looked around the room last night and watched as this group of people shared and discussed things in such a civil manner - even the disagreements were cordial.  There were discussions of wood peckers eating into hives and squirrels damaging the boxes that contain the frames.  They analyzed the best ways to get rid of mites without chemicals - apple cider vinegar and powdered sugar were the clear favorites.  Quiet, soft spoken, accepting of the ebbs and flows that nature throws at a person, schooled in the process of trying something and then adapting it as necessary to fit your needs and knowing full well that next year it may need to be adapted again.  So much knowledge, patience and time was tucked into that one meeting room last night, and the thought of that wealth of information slowly dispersing one sympathy card at a time made my heart clench.

 I realize that I am something of  a throwback to an earlier age - I look around at my peers and I marvel at their concern for things like flat screen televisions and fancy cups of coffee.  I try to reconcile this generation of "wants and desires" with the generations before us of "hard work and survival" and think that, somewhere, there must be a sustainable mix of the two.  Is it that people just no longer care or is it just that they don't know?  And if they did know, would they care?  I understand the concern that our elders have for my own generation and then I look at the kids today....or rather I look at the tops of their heads as they are busy with their i-phones and texting their friends... and my concern only grows deeper.

Meeting over and coffee poured, this group began the social part of the night which is really more of an extension of the meeting itself, but this time with a cup of coffee in hand.  I made a few rounds asking pointed questions of the keepers that have seemed to have the most success and then headed out to the local store to buy some supplies for my two small, struggling hives of bees under the recommendation of my main mentor, Floyd.  It will be three months before the group convenes again and I left with a hope in my heart that at the next meeting there will be a few more people in their 30's and 40's and not a sympathy card in sight.