Monday, November 11, 2024

A perspective shift

This Honeysuckle vine just can't give up. She always flowers early, and is the last to give up in the winter. A metaphor? Maybe. But maybe just a distraction toward beauty too. And persistence.

The world has not ended, and time is slowly slowly working its on-with-it magic. Or maybe it's just putting some distance between the acute pain and the chronic.

It is again unseasonably warm today, reminding of me how much we have already lost. But I also have a bunch of glazing to do, a meeting to get an agenda out on, and planning for gatherings of friends. There have been some wonderful essays circulating in this internet universe. I'll share a couple that have been sent to me by friends.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=BaCEtZnXWdY 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/11/opinion/against-panic-a-survival-kit.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ZE4.qsMQ.qHU8bgK38DjG&smid=url-share 

 

And here's one of Jasper and I on a fall day at The Quarry's Dock. 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kessJOCGGTw

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

All the leaves are brown. . .

. . . and the sky is gray. Remember that song? Well here we are. Just before a pivotal moment in history, trying to stay positive. Isn't it just realistic to think that we will make a choice that will lead us to curb Climate Change, reinforce the rights of all of us (women, people with more pigment in their skin,) find solutions to all of the very tough problems that face us?

Maybe that's asking too much.

But the sky IS gray today. The leaves have faded to brown, though most of them here are oak leaves, which are mostly brown in the fall anyway.


 

The next day. So much can change in a day. It was over quickly. While I'd like to suspect a rigged election, it just isn't hard to believe that the American people are this ignorant. Or is it racist and misogynistic? Nope. Ignorance wins. But as it was 75F today on November 6 in the middle of Maine, we can expect a huge increase in climate disasters, species extinctions (maybe our own), and civilization collapse. I have long felt that we were seeing the slow implosion of our civilizations via the lost of trust in our institutions. This will just hasten it. It fills me with despair, but my pragmatic self assures me that civilizations rise and fall as a matter of course. We just happen to be in this one. What now? We support each other, as a friend said. Or perhaps follow my daughter's suggestion. Today the jam, tomorrow the revolution.