Milt Greek's Blog: The River of Life - Posts Tagged "fall"
Emotional nourishment as the days darken
Slowly responding to the growing night, the temperatures of late summer are cooling. The days are noticeably shorter and the summer crops are passing into fall. While tomatoes and corn are still present, long-lasting storage crops—potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squashes, pumpkins, onions and others—are filling the rows at the produce auction and our Farmers Market. In a blessing of nature, the early spring crops of berries and asparagus are fragile and quickly make way for later harvests, but the harvests of late summer and fall keep well in unheated cellars and can provide food for us during the cold, dark months of winter.
Preparing for the changing season is a way of life for people who live close to the Earth. I recall a fall equinox gathering decades ago where we sat in a circle on a grassy field in the declining light and a woman encouraged us to think of the animals of the woods while they faced bitter cold, darkness and hunger in the upcoming months. The ebbing light was a reminder of the dark times to come and the importance of preparing for them.
For our autumn equinox meal, we will have a dinner of local late summer crops—including late season heirloom corn, tomatoes, and apple tart for dessert— and open a robust porter that goes with the cooler weather. We hope to share the meal with friends—a couple who run a microbrewery and have two young children. As part of their business and family life, they seek local sourcing and sustainability and have been part of the food club for years. They have had success and outgrown their house on our street and are moving to a larger home for themselves and their children. On the next day, we plan to can tomatoes bought at the auction for use during the approaching fall and winter. It is a time of reflection on good fortune and preparation for the time to come.
In the larger human world, the strife and strains of conflict and hostility continue as always, with the structures built by money-chasers, violent men and puritans doling out winners and losers for all sides. Emotions run high and blame and accusations of the worst in ones enemies are commonplace. In the millennia of patriarchy, spiritual corruption has been commonplace and hierarchies have protected men from the consequences of their acts. Reading the laws of the past is shocking and sometimes horrifying; acts that we now consider crimes have often been a privilege of those with power-over-others. Sadly, the tragedies of our modern history are not new.
Common people like myself are often encouraged to support “our” side and think the worst of our neighbors who have other views and traditions, even though we all share both virtues and failings, as all people I know do. The question in the darkening days is not only about the larger world but also about preserving ourselves in our personal world. No matter the short-term outcome, the problems and crises of our unbalanced and chaotic human world will continue. Self-preservation is a central part of life; ignoring our need for it brings suffering not only to us, but also to all who love us.
For our lives to work, we need to care for our own emotional and physical needs. This is especially true during stressful times and extremely important for sensitive people. Near the beginning of Source for Sensitive People, it says to “Begin all growth by nourishing yourself.”
Some of the suggestions for caring for ourselves include:
“Start the day with 20-30 minutes doing something you enjoy
“Build exercise into your daily life (example: walk to work)
“Laugh every day (example: watch comedies on TV and the internet)
“Have quiet time to seek inner peace
“Do something special at least once a month
“Celebrate life whenever possible (examples: birthdays, holidays, anniversaries)
“Take time off from focusing on stressful events in your life and the outside world.”
It can be very hard to care for ourselves when we are preoccupied with stressful events and responsibilities around us and in the outside world. Though it is not our tendency, the more stressful the outside world and our lives are, the more important it is that we take time off from those stresses and strains and celebrate the good things in our personal life.
Taking time off from the media, including news fasts, and doing something enjoyable—listening to pleasant music, walking in a natural area, visiting with a good friend, or enjoying a healthy meal—is the best way to make it possible for you to help others by caring for yourself. A key focus for our lives must be the needs of the people we love and ourselves. If we care for those we love and ourselves in our daily life, we can create a stable center from which we can influence the world around us for the better. That center needs nourishing most of all as the days darken.
Preparing for the changing season is a way of life for people who live close to the Earth. I recall a fall equinox gathering decades ago where we sat in a circle on a grassy field in the declining light and a woman encouraged us to think of the animals of the woods while they faced bitter cold, darkness and hunger in the upcoming months. The ebbing light was a reminder of the dark times to come and the importance of preparing for them.
For our autumn equinox meal, we will have a dinner of local late summer crops—including late season heirloom corn, tomatoes, and apple tart for dessert— and open a robust porter that goes with the cooler weather. We hope to share the meal with friends—a couple who run a microbrewery and have two young children. As part of their business and family life, they seek local sourcing and sustainability and have been part of the food club for years. They have had success and outgrown their house on our street and are moving to a larger home for themselves and their children. On the next day, we plan to can tomatoes bought at the auction for use during the approaching fall and winter. It is a time of reflection on good fortune and preparation for the time to come.
In the larger human world, the strife and strains of conflict and hostility continue as always, with the structures built by money-chasers, violent men and puritans doling out winners and losers for all sides. Emotions run high and blame and accusations of the worst in ones enemies are commonplace. In the millennia of patriarchy, spiritual corruption has been commonplace and hierarchies have protected men from the consequences of their acts. Reading the laws of the past is shocking and sometimes horrifying; acts that we now consider crimes have often been a privilege of those with power-over-others. Sadly, the tragedies of our modern history are not new.
Common people like myself are often encouraged to support “our” side and think the worst of our neighbors who have other views and traditions, even though we all share both virtues and failings, as all people I know do. The question in the darkening days is not only about the larger world but also about preserving ourselves in our personal world. No matter the short-term outcome, the problems and crises of our unbalanced and chaotic human world will continue. Self-preservation is a central part of life; ignoring our need for it brings suffering not only to us, but also to all who love us.
For our lives to work, we need to care for our own emotional and physical needs. This is especially true during stressful times and extremely important for sensitive people. Near the beginning of Source for Sensitive People, it says to “Begin all growth by nourishing yourself.”
Some of the suggestions for caring for ourselves include:
“Start the day with 20-30 minutes doing something you enjoy
“Build exercise into your daily life (example: walk to work)
“Laugh every day (example: watch comedies on TV and the internet)
“Have quiet time to seek inner peace
“Do something special at least once a month
“Celebrate life whenever possible (examples: birthdays, holidays, anniversaries)
“Take time off from focusing on stressful events in your life and the outside world.”
It can be very hard to care for ourselves when we are preoccupied with stressful events and responsibilities around us and in the outside world. Though it is not our tendency, the more stressful the outside world and our lives are, the more important it is that we take time off from those stresses and strains and celebrate the good things in our personal life.
Taking time off from the media, including news fasts, and doing something enjoyable—listening to pleasant music, walking in a natural area, visiting with a good friend, or enjoying a healthy meal—is the best way to make it possible for you to help others by caring for yourself. A key focus for our lives must be the needs of the people we love and ourselves. If we care for those we love and ourselves in our daily life, we can create a stable center from which we can influence the world around us for the better. That center needs nourishing most of all as the days darken.
Entering the Cold Darkness
After a long and hot beginning of fall, the temperatures recently dropped. Frost thickly covers the grass each morning and leaves are beginning to change to yellow and red, several weeks behind the natural rhythms of our climate. My wife has observed that in the last few years, the seasons have been getting later, with fall, winter, spring and summer all beginning and ending later than normally. A few days ago, we saw yards with crocuses, the early spring flower, blooming, creating a strange beauty out of sync with the natural cycles of the year.
Still, fall crops are being harvested and we will go to the last produce auction of the season soon, seeking potatoes, winter squashes, beets, turnips, cabbages and daikon radishes if available. We have already canned over two dozen quarts of Roma Tomatoes and in our unheated basement an authentic German crock given to us by a friend has a hot and sour Korean Kim Chi aging in it for the winter. A Rye Stout is fermenting in pales for opening in mid-winter and the grapes we harvested and froze in September are thawing, to be made into wine for next fall.
As the Earth cools and the plants fall into a deep sleep for winter, humanity recognizes the season with traditional holidays. All Hallows Eve, the Day of the Dead, Samhain, and Halloween, among others, mark the beginning of the season of cold darkness and scarcity, a season where animals like us often face death more directly than the robust seasons of spring and summer. In my own family, mid-winter marks the anniversaries of five deaths in my immediate family in the past two dozen years, a reminder that for mortal bodies, the cold darkness takes a toll that is very real and, in many ways, an inevitable part of the joys of a full family life. Each in their own way, the seasonal holidays of mid-fall commemorate the season of death and recognizes our gateway into the unknown darkness. As the Earth sleeps and enrichens itself with the compost of fallen plants and leaves, we animals contend with hardships we do not wish to face.
In the past few years, a wave of deaths, injuries and sickness swept over our web of life with a power and affect like never before. In our personal knowledge of family and friends, extended families lost over two dozen loved ones, including my own dear mother-in-law and her brother within days of each other, with another immediate family member suffering a severe injury and a lasting health crisis. Parents, grandparents, older siblings, friends and tragically a young child all were taken from our web of life and many other illnesses and health crises occurred. I had seen waves of death and misfortune before, but the enormity of the losses were shocking, shaking our personal web of life and changing families and friends deeply.
Then, gradually, the wave subsided in our personal web of life. People who had fallen ill or suffered injury began recoveries. Mourning did not cease, but was lessened by happier times. The wave of deaths and injuries was replaced by a slowly growing wave of healing, pregnancies and births. Babies and young children began to take the place of those we had lost and we found ourselves once again renewing our lives and love of others while still feeling the loss of those who has passed.
As the Earth falls asleep and the scarcity of the coming season renews the season of death for animals, the Earth composts the season’s growth, fertilizing the ground in preparation for the renewal of next spring. In the larger human world, many are distracted by the political challenges, with sensitive people and other traditionally powerless people feeling threatened. What the media dominated by white males calls identity politics is really the politics of traditional power-over, with inequalities of traditional society challenged by the growing strength of women, people of color and other traditionally oppressed people.
The history of the United States is largely the telling of the struggle between the forces of traditional power-over against the growing democratization of society, with our own Apartheid system ending with a finally democratic government in the mid-1960s through the passage of the Voters Rights Act. Recognizing that their numbers are dwindling, the people who adhere to traditional power-over relationships are more desperate to retain their privilege, making their flaws more apparent for a younger generation of more liberated people. Just as the winter composts to make the ground more fertile, I sincerely believe that the challenges of these times will be followed by a greater awakening.
Meanwhile the seasonal cycle continues, the Earth slumbers and nourishes itself, walking into the dark underworld and reincarnating in the new life of next spring. We continue to prepare for winter with harvests of long-lasting storage crops and canning, freezing and fermenting food for the coming season of scarcity. We await, with great anticipation, the births of more new lives into the circle of our friends and family and prepare for the joyful, exhausting work of the season of renewal and new life. For those who prepare for the cold darkness, it can be a time of nestling in, introspection and the warmth of a happy home. In these hard times, I wish the same for all the Earth.
Still, fall crops are being harvested and we will go to the last produce auction of the season soon, seeking potatoes, winter squashes, beets, turnips, cabbages and daikon radishes if available. We have already canned over two dozen quarts of Roma Tomatoes and in our unheated basement an authentic German crock given to us by a friend has a hot and sour Korean Kim Chi aging in it for the winter. A Rye Stout is fermenting in pales for opening in mid-winter and the grapes we harvested and froze in September are thawing, to be made into wine for next fall.
As the Earth cools and the plants fall into a deep sleep for winter, humanity recognizes the season with traditional holidays. All Hallows Eve, the Day of the Dead, Samhain, and Halloween, among others, mark the beginning of the season of cold darkness and scarcity, a season where animals like us often face death more directly than the robust seasons of spring and summer. In my own family, mid-winter marks the anniversaries of five deaths in my immediate family in the past two dozen years, a reminder that for mortal bodies, the cold darkness takes a toll that is very real and, in many ways, an inevitable part of the joys of a full family life. Each in their own way, the seasonal holidays of mid-fall commemorate the season of death and recognizes our gateway into the unknown darkness. As the Earth sleeps and enrichens itself with the compost of fallen plants and leaves, we animals contend with hardships we do not wish to face.
In the past few years, a wave of deaths, injuries and sickness swept over our web of life with a power and affect like never before. In our personal knowledge of family and friends, extended families lost over two dozen loved ones, including my own dear mother-in-law and her brother within days of each other, with another immediate family member suffering a severe injury and a lasting health crisis. Parents, grandparents, older siblings, friends and tragically a young child all were taken from our web of life and many other illnesses and health crises occurred. I had seen waves of death and misfortune before, but the enormity of the losses were shocking, shaking our personal web of life and changing families and friends deeply.
Then, gradually, the wave subsided in our personal web of life. People who had fallen ill or suffered injury began recoveries. Mourning did not cease, but was lessened by happier times. The wave of deaths and injuries was replaced by a slowly growing wave of healing, pregnancies and births. Babies and young children began to take the place of those we had lost and we found ourselves once again renewing our lives and love of others while still feeling the loss of those who has passed.
As the Earth falls asleep and the scarcity of the coming season renews the season of death for animals, the Earth composts the season’s growth, fertilizing the ground in preparation for the renewal of next spring. In the larger human world, many are distracted by the political challenges, with sensitive people and other traditionally powerless people feeling threatened. What the media dominated by white males calls identity politics is really the politics of traditional power-over, with inequalities of traditional society challenged by the growing strength of women, people of color and other traditionally oppressed people.
The history of the United States is largely the telling of the struggle between the forces of traditional power-over against the growing democratization of society, with our own Apartheid system ending with a finally democratic government in the mid-1960s through the passage of the Voters Rights Act. Recognizing that their numbers are dwindling, the people who adhere to traditional power-over relationships are more desperate to retain their privilege, making their flaws more apparent for a younger generation of more liberated people. Just as the winter composts to make the ground more fertile, I sincerely believe that the challenges of these times will be followed by a greater awakening.
Meanwhile the seasonal cycle continues, the Earth slumbers and nourishes itself, walking into the dark underworld and reincarnating in the new life of next spring. We continue to prepare for winter with harvests of long-lasting storage crops and canning, freezing and fermenting food for the coming season of scarcity. We await, with great anticipation, the births of more new lives into the circle of our friends and family and prepare for the joyful, exhausting work of the season of renewal and new life. For those who prepare for the cold darkness, it can be a time of nestling in, introspection and the warmth of a happy home. In these hard times, I wish the same for all the Earth.
Finding Peace and Joy in a Sanctuary
The growing dark night has brought a near-wintry cold, including a brief snow shower that covered the ground and remaining crops. Temperatures have mainly been in the 40s and 50s for highs with frosty nights in the 20s and 30s. The gardens have had most of their crops harvested, with winter root crops like parsnips, turnips and sunchoke left in the soil to be harvested in the next months. Growers of corn and beans have harvested their crops; Anabaptist (Amish) growers have gathered their corn stalks into pyramidal sheaves, left in the fields for animals to graze on during winter pasture and return the nutrients to the precious soil.
In the cold frosts the leaves from most trees have fallen, to rot and replenish the soil in the dark nights of winter. In our climate, the damp, cold, rotting stillness of winter is an essential time of rest and nourishment of the most basic elements of life—the ground that is the basis for all life.
Knowing that a cold snap was on its way, I harvested the last of the Arugula from the garden, a tangy treat of greens that both begins and ends our growing season. A few days later, I was surprised by the snow that accompanied the cold days and decided to gather the last of our Lacinato kale, a very hearty dark green that had ice and snow on some of the leaves. I shook most of the ice off the kale and stored the cold leaves in our refrigerator for a few days to allow them to recover from the shock of transitioning from freezing cold to the luxurious warm of our heated home. I removed stems, froze a large bag of kale leaves for use in winter soups, and turned the rest into Pesto Toscano, using garlic, cheese and olive oil to create a savory paste. Like the leaves, I froze the pesto for future use.
As the fall weather continued, a large flock of Cedar Waxwings flew into our yard and gorged themselves on red berries from the honeysuckle bush in our front yard. For several years, the large shrub’s berries remained on the branches through fall into winter, left uneaten by the surrounding animals and birds. This year, however, the Cedar Waxwings discovered the bountiful crop and delighted themselves in a feeding frenzy. As always with the produce of nature, simply by plants offering up the gift of life, animals and others discover the gift, digest the fruit and pass the seed on elsewhere in partnerships of life the spread the range of both plants and animals. It is an affirmation of the power and wisdom of good works to bring forth life simply by offering themselves to the abundant Earth.
In the slower times of late fall, with our food club ending its season in October, I turned to reviewing notes for the next book I intend to publish, Fulfillment. Feeling daunted by the title itself, I looked through the notes and found that my younger self had left me important advice for my present workaday life. Rather than focusing on outward achievements, the book begins with the importance of creating a sanctuary and living fully within it, thereby strengthening my life through inner peace and joy.
In the past few years, the hubbub of my life, accompanied by the normal dramas and hardships of mortal life, has taken me far from my own sanctuary. My time at home and with my loved ones have been spent with a pre-occupation not with the joys we can share but with worries and frustrations in the human world around us. I had let challenges from the outside world into our lives, rather than seeking to protect that sanctuary from those same challenges.
Following the advice of my younger self, who apparently had insight for me to learn from, I began to practice having sanctuary time in my home. I woke each morning and listened to pleasant music while I had tea and breakfast. I paused after coming home from the day’s work before engaging with my dear wife, so that I can shake off the frustrations and worries of the day and connect with her. After a couple of weeks of doing this, I decided to enter into a news fast, having decided that I knew enough about the outside world.
After a month of practicing my sanctuary time, I began to feel true ease. Rather than pondering the frustrations of the moment, I found myself enjoying plans about the food I would cook for a meal, or making notes about gardening, brewing beer, and our family life. In doing so, I emptied my mind of the clutter of problems outside our home and found peace and joy waiting for me to celebrate.
While sounding indulgent to many, the sanctuary time I am practicing and enjoying is much more than selfish hedonism. The time and place of the sanctuary gives me strength to be a better person in my family and my personal world, to take stock of what I can and cannot do, and to strengthen my spirit. It is my experience that as I gain peace, joy and insight, I can be a better, more effective person.
Whatever I have to offer is strengthened by the sanctuary I seek. Taking time to truly feel the joys of life gives me deep gratitude for all our good fortune in this hard and wonderful world. That, in and of itself, makes me a better person, a better husband and stepfather, and a better member of our community.
In the cold frosts the leaves from most trees have fallen, to rot and replenish the soil in the dark nights of winter. In our climate, the damp, cold, rotting stillness of winter is an essential time of rest and nourishment of the most basic elements of life—the ground that is the basis for all life.
Knowing that a cold snap was on its way, I harvested the last of the Arugula from the garden, a tangy treat of greens that both begins and ends our growing season. A few days later, I was surprised by the snow that accompanied the cold days and decided to gather the last of our Lacinato kale, a very hearty dark green that had ice and snow on some of the leaves. I shook most of the ice off the kale and stored the cold leaves in our refrigerator for a few days to allow them to recover from the shock of transitioning from freezing cold to the luxurious warm of our heated home. I removed stems, froze a large bag of kale leaves for use in winter soups, and turned the rest into Pesto Toscano, using garlic, cheese and olive oil to create a savory paste. Like the leaves, I froze the pesto for future use.
As the fall weather continued, a large flock of Cedar Waxwings flew into our yard and gorged themselves on red berries from the honeysuckle bush in our front yard. For several years, the large shrub’s berries remained on the branches through fall into winter, left uneaten by the surrounding animals and birds. This year, however, the Cedar Waxwings discovered the bountiful crop and delighted themselves in a feeding frenzy. As always with the produce of nature, simply by plants offering up the gift of life, animals and others discover the gift, digest the fruit and pass the seed on elsewhere in partnerships of life the spread the range of both plants and animals. It is an affirmation of the power and wisdom of good works to bring forth life simply by offering themselves to the abundant Earth.
In the slower times of late fall, with our food club ending its season in October, I turned to reviewing notes for the next book I intend to publish, Fulfillment. Feeling daunted by the title itself, I looked through the notes and found that my younger self had left me important advice for my present workaday life. Rather than focusing on outward achievements, the book begins with the importance of creating a sanctuary and living fully within it, thereby strengthening my life through inner peace and joy.
In the past few years, the hubbub of my life, accompanied by the normal dramas and hardships of mortal life, has taken me far from my own sanctuary. My time at home and with my loved ones have been spent with a pre-occupation not with the joys we can share but with worries and frustrations in the human world around us. I had let challenges from the outside world into our lives, rather than seeking to protect that sanctuary from those same challenges.
Following the advice of my younger self, who apparently had insight for me to learn from, I began to practice having sanctuary time in my home. I woke each morning and listened to pleasant music while I had tea and breakfast. I paused after coming home from the day’s work before engaging with my dear wife, so that I can shake off the frustrations and worries of the day and connect with her. After a couple of weeks of doing this, I decided to enter into a news fast, having decided that I knew enough about the outside world.
After a month of practicing my sanctuary time, I began to feel true ease. Rather than pondering the frustrations of the moment, I found myself enjoying plans about the food I would cook for a meal, or making notes about gardening, brewing beer, and our family life. In doing so, I emptied my mind of the clutter of problems outside our home and found peace and joy waiting for me to celebrate.
While sounding indulgent to many, the sanctuary time I am practicing and enjoying is much more than selfish hedonism. The time and place of the sanctuary gives me strength to be a better person in my family and my personal world, to take stock of what I can and cannot do, and to strengthen my spirit. It is my experience that as I gain peace, joy and insight, I can be a better, more effective person.
Whatever I have to offer is strengthened by the sanctuary I seek. Taking time to truly feel the joys of life gives me deep gratitude for all our good fortune in this hard and wonderful world. That, in and of itself, makes me a better person, a better husband and stepfather, and a better member of our community.
Acting with Faith During the Season of Cold Darkness
As the rapidly fading sunlight has brought long nights of darkness, the Earth has begun to fall asleep. Late autumn flowers, including yellow, purple and white Mums, fuchsia and purple Morning Glories and golden and red Marigolds, bloom in the fading light, with bees and other insects scrambling for the last harvest of sweet nectar before the cold darkness overtakes the light. Meanwhile, leaves and seed pods lay on the ground, to decay during the coming winter and renew life in the seemingly distant spring. We have gathered the last of our herbs of lemon balm and oregano and hung them to dry and stored potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, beets, onions, and garlic in preparation for the season of need. Using filling from a pumpkin in our garden, we have made a couple of seasonal pies, celebrating the abundance that remains.
The dark, cold night of Halloween, marked by ghosts, goblins and scares mixed with treats, is a time that we ritually prepare for going inward while the Earth sleeps. For animals like us, the cold darkness of winter is a time of scarcity, hardship, and death. Food, warmth, and other crucial aspects of life will be in short supply. This winter, as we go within our homes, many people feel especially threatened. The pandemic that has ravaged the human world continues with even greater vigor and the Halloween rituals reminding us that the season of death is approaching are especially meaningful now. At the same time, our country undergoes another election, continuing to divide our communities into deeply opposing camps with both sides fearing the dangerous, amoral other who are fellow citizens of a supposedly United States.
While the near future, and the future for of generations to come, is uncertain at best and dangerously challenging at worst, I am reflecting on my choice this year to act on faith more than in past years. Acting on faith means knowing that I am on a path, with moral and spiritual goals that I need to maintain. If a storm blows up during an ocean voyage, it would do me little good to permanently change my destination. The coming challenges is certainly a storm that threatens many people and our faith that our world will sustain us.
I have the benefit of age and experience to temper my expectations. In my late fifties, I have already undergone some of the worst things that I will have to endure. I spent a year absolutely convinced that I was condemned for all of eternity without hope of redemption. I spent another year with clinical depression so deep that the pain was more than emotional, it was felt in my physical body. These times have long past. More recently, I have experienced the death of my dearly beloved mother and the death of my dearly beloved mother-in-law. All these soul-withering times have come and gone and I reflect, as a person in this hard and wonderful world, that I am one of the luckiest and most fortunate people I know. So many people go through far worse and have not been nearly as lucky as I have been.
Despite this, I have failed to be who I should be as a decent human being and a loving family member and friend many times, especially when I was younger and still sometimes recently, including a few days ago. For all my own good fortune, I cannot point to a single instance that makes me a better person than many others I know; rather, I am certain that I have been a moral failure more than once, yet I have been given the opportunity to be a better person, to seek amends to the best of my ability, and to contribute in a positive way to those I love and those around me. These gifts, opportunities and good fortune helps strengthen my faith and my commitment to stay on the course of good works and social and economic justice while doing as little harm as I possibly can.
While I have been on this life journey for decades, the day-to-day is equally important and in the last few years I have meditated and prayed only a little, while my temperamental nature has grown. Prayer and meditation, especially in this dark, inward season, can provide a daily means to increase my own calm and improve the way that I treat those around me. If I am to hope for the love I have for others to be returned to me, it is important for me to act with love towards them. During this time of suffering and uncertainty, it is more important than ever that I calm my worries of the moment and I find ways to act with consideration first and foremost to those around me.
Acting on faith is calling the strength, in the certainty of future suffering and loss, to do what I can to make the future better for all the future generations and all people and lives. And, with this commitment, to celebrate the good fortune I have, living in a web of life where the Covenant of Good Works holds sway. My good fortunate calls me to act to help others whose do not have such privileges, and to care for the future of all children in this coming time of darkness and loss.
The 11th step of the 12th steps speaks of seeking through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with the Deity as I understand that Deity, praying only for knowledge of the Deity’s will for us and the strength to carry that out. As someone raised with a healthy skepticism about spirituality, I have to say I don’t know if a Deity or an afterlife exists—if so, I know my own feeble mind existing for a tiny moment in eternity cannot possible fathom such an entity. But I do witness a spiritual world in my daily life, and I know that in communion with that mysterious spirit I can find strength and a sense of the best path to follow.
I observe a spiritual world in my daily life and am witness to the improvements made in the world through loving and peaceful spiritual movements, such as the women’s suffrage campaign, the Indian independence movement led by Mohandas Gandhi, the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the liberation of South Africa led by Nelson Mandala, and the example and strength of the Tibetan people led by the Dalai Lama. These multitudes of people, peacefully and courageously acting on faith, have sent out waves of light and liberation that have touched me personally and, through their sacrifices, made my world and me better. I and many others can call on this strength to commit to our spiritual journeys for peace and justice, to make this mortal world better for those we love and all children of the world.
The dark, cold night of Halloween, marked by ghosts, goblins and scares mixed with treats, is a time that we ritually prepare for going inward while the Earth sleeps. For animals like us, the cold darkness of winter is a time of scarcity, hardship, and death. Food, warmth, and other crucial aspects of life will be in short supply. This winter, as we go within our homes, many people feel especially threatened. The pandemic that has ravaged the human world continues with even greater vigor and the Halloween rituals reminding us that the season of death is approaching are especially meaningful now. At the same time, our country undergoes another election, continuing to divide our communities into deeply opposing camps with both sides fearing the dangerous, amoral other who are fellow citizens of a supposedly United States.
While the near future, and the future for of generations to come, is uncertain at best and dangerously challenging at worst, I am reflecting on my choice this year to act on faith more than in past years. Acting on faith means knowing that I am on a path, with moral and spiritual goals that I need to maintain. If a storm blows up during an ocean voyage, it would do me little good to permanently change my destination. The coming challenges is certainly a storm that threatens many people and our faith that our world will sustain us.
I have the benefit of age and experience to temper my expectations. In my late fifties, I have already undergone some of the worst things that I will have to endure. I spent a year absolutely convinced that I was condemned for all of eternity without hope of redemption. I spent another year with clinical depression so deep that the pain was more than emotional, it was felt in my physical body. These times have long past. More recently, I have experienced the death of my dearly beloved mother and the death of my dearly beloved mother-in-law. All these soul-withering times have come and gone and I reflect, as a person in this hard and wonderful world, that I am one of the luckiest and most fortunate people I know. So many people go through far worse and have not been nearly as lucky as I have been.
Despite this, I have failed to be who I should be as a decent human being and a loving family member and friend many times, especially when I was younger and still sometimes recently, including a few days ago. For all my own good fortune, I cannot point to a single instance that makes me a better person than many others I know; rather, I am certain that I have been a moral failure more than once, yet I have been given the opportunity to be a better person, to seek amends to the best of my ability, and to contribute in a positive way to those I love and those around me. These gifts, opportunities and good fortune helps strengthen my faith and my commitment to stay on the course of good works and social and economic justice while doing as little harm as I possibly can.
While I have been on this life journey for decades, the day-to-day is equally important and in the last few years I have meditated and prayed only a little, while my temperamental nature has grown. Prayer and meditation, especially in this dark, inward season, can provide a daily means to increase my own calm and improve the way that I treat those around me. If I am to hope for the love I have for others to be returned to me, it is important for me to act with love towards them. During this time of suffering and uncertainty, it is more important than ever that I calm my worries of the moment and I find ways to act with consideration first and foremost to those around me.
Acting on faith is calling the strength, in the certainty of future suffering and loss, to do what I can to make the future better for all the future generations and all people and lives. And, with this commitment, to celebrate the good fortune I have, living in a web of life where the Covenant of Good Works holds sway. My good fortunate calls me to act to help others whose do not have such privileges, and to care for the future of all children in this coming time of darkness and loss.
The 11th step of the 12th steps speaks of seeking through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with the Deity as I understand that Deity, praying only for knowledge of the Deity’s will for us and the strength to carry that out. As someone raised with a healthy skepticism about spirituality, I have to say I don’t know if a Deity or an afterlife exists—if so, I know my own feeble mind existing for a tiny moment in eternity cannot possible fathom such an entity. But I do witness a spiritual world in my daily life, and I know that in communion with that mysterious spirit I can find strength and a sense of the best path to follow.
I observe a spiritual world in my daily life and am witness to the improvements made in the world through loving and peaceful spiritual movements, such as the women’s suffrage campaign, the Indian independence movement led by Mohandas Gandhi, the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the liberation of South Africa led by Nelson Mandala, and the example and strength of the Tibetan people led by the Dalai Lama. These multitudes of people, peacefully and courageously acting on faith, have sent out waves of light and liberation that have touched me personally and, through their sacrifices, made my world and me better. I and many others can call on this strength to commit to our spiritual journeys for peace and justice, to make this mortal world better for those we love and all children of the world.
Acting with Faith During the Season of Cold Darkness
As the rapidly fading sunlight has brought long nights of darkness, the Earth has begun to fall asleep. Late autumn flowers, including yellow, purple and white Mums, fuchsia and purple Morning Glories and golden and red Marigolds, bloom in the fading light, with bees and other insects scrambling for the last harvest of sweet nectar before the cold darkness overtakes the light. Meanwhile, leaves and seed pods lay on the ground, to decay during the coming winter and renew life in the seemingly distant spring. We have gathered the last of our herbs of lemon balm and oregano and hung them to dry and stored potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, beets, onions, and garlic in preparation for the season of need. Using filling from a pumpkin in our garden, we have made a couple of seasonal pies, celebrating the abundance that remains.
The dark, cold night of Halloween, marked by ghosts, goblins and scares mixed with treats, is a time that we ritually prepare for going inward while the Earth sleeps. For animals like us, the cold darkness of winter is a time of scarcity, hardship, and death. Food, warmth, and other crucial aspects of life will be in short supply. This winter, as we go within our homes, many people feel especially threatened. The pandemic that has ravaged the human world continues with even greater vigor and the Halloween rituals reminding us that the season of death is approaching are especially meaningful now. At the same time, our country undergoes another election, continuing to divide our communities into deeply opposing camps with both sides fearing the dangerous, amoral other who are fellow citizens of a supposedly United States.
While the near future, and the future for of generations to come, is uncertain at best and dangerously challenging at worst, I am reflecting on my choice this year to act on faith more than in past years. Acting on faith means knowing that I am on a path, with moral and spiritual goals that I need to maintain. If a storm blows up during an ocean voyage, it would do me little good to permanently change my destination. The coming challenges is certainly a storm that threatens many people and our faith that our world will sustain us.
I have the benefit of age and experience to temper my expectations. In my late fifties, I have already undergone some of the worst things that I will have to endure. I spent a year absolutely convinced that I was condemned for all of eternity without hope of redemption. I spent another year with clinical depression so deep that the pain was more than emotional, it was felt in my physical body. These times have long past. More recently, I have experienced the death of my dearly beloved mother and the death of my dearly beloved mother-in-law. All these soul-withering times have come and gone and I reflect, as a person in this hard and wonderful world, that I am one of the luckiest and most fortunate people I know. So many people go through far worse and have not been nearly as lucky as I have been.
Despite this, I have failed to be who I should be as a decent human being and a loving family member and friend many times, especially when I was younger and still sometimes recently, including a few days ago. For all my own good fortune, I cannot point to a single instance that makes me a better person than many others I know; rather, I am certain that I have been a moral failure more than once, yet I have been given the opportunity to be a better person, to seek amends to the best of my ability, and to contribute in a positive way to those I love and those around me. These gifts, opportunities and good fortune helps strengthen my faith and my commitment to stay on the course of good works and social and economic justice while doing as little harm as I possibly can.
While I have been on this life journey for decades, the day-to-day is equally important and in the last few years I have meditated and prayed only a little, while my temperamental nature has grown. Prayer and meditation, especially in this dark, inward season, can provide a daily means to increase my own calm and improve the way that I treat those around me. If I am to hope for the love I have for others to be returned to me, it is important for me to act with love towards them. During this time of suffering and uncertainty, it is more important than ever that I calm my worries of the moment and I find ways to act with consideration first and foremost to those around me.
Acting on faith is calling the strength, in the certainty of future suffering and loss, to do what I can to make the future better for all the future generations and all people and lives. And, with this commitment, to celebrate the good fortune I have, living in a web of life where the Covenant of Good Works holds sway. My good fortunate calls me to act to help others whose do not have such privileges, and to care for the future of all children in this coming time of darkness and loss.
The 11th step of the 12th steps speaks of seeking through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with the Deity as I understand that Deity, praying only for knowledge of the Deity’s will for us and the strength to carry that out. As someone raised with a healthy skepticism about spirituality, I have to say I don’t know if a Deity or an afterlife exists—if so, I know my own feeble mind existing for a tiny moment in eternity cannot possible fathom such an entity. But I do witness a spiritual world in my daily life, and I know that in communion with that mysterious spirit I can find strength and a sense of the best path to follow.
I observe a spiritual world in my daily life and am witness to the improvements made in the world through loving and peaceful spiritual movements, such as the women’s suffrage campaign, the Indian independence movement led by Mohandas Gandhi, the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the liberation of South Africa led by Nelson Mandala, and the example and strength of the Tibetan people led by the Dalai Lama. These multitudes of people, peacefully and courageously acting on faith, have sent out waves of light and liberation that have touched me personally and, through their sacrifices, made my world and me better. I and many others can call on this strength to commit to our spiritual journeys for peace and justice, to make this mortal world better for those we love and all children of the world.
The dark, cold night of Halloween, marked by ghosts, goblins and scares mixed with treats, is a time that we ritually prepare for going inward while the Earth sleeps. For animals like us, the cold darkness of winter is a time of scarcity, hardship, and death. Food, warmth, and other crucial aspects of life will be in short supply. This winter, as we go within our homes, many people feel especially threatened. The pandemic that has ravaged the human world continues with even greater vigor and the Halloween rituals reminding us that the season of death is approaching are especially meaningful now. At the same time, our country undergoes another election, continuing to divide our communities into deeply opposing camps with both sides fearing the dangerous, amoral other who are fellow citizens of a supposedly United States.
While the near future, and the future for of generations to come, is uncertain at best and dangerously challenging at worst, I am reflecting on my choice this year to act on faith more than in past years. Acting on faith means knowing that I am on a path, with moral and spiritual goals that I need to maintain. If a storm blows up during an ocean voyage, it would do me little good to permanently change my destination. The coming challenges is certainly a storm that threatens many people and our faith that our world will sustain us.
I have the benefit of age and experience to temper my expectations. In my late fifties, I have already undergone some of the worst things that I will have to endure. I spent a year absolutely convinced that I was condemned for all of eternity without hope of redemption. I spent another year with clinical depression so deep that the pain was more than emotional, it was felt in my physical body. These times have long past. More recently, I have experienced the death of my dearly beloved mother and the death of my dearly beloved mother-in-law. All these soul-withering times have come and gone and I reflect, as a person in this hard and wonderful world, that I am one of the luckiest and most fortunate people I know. So many people go through far worse and have not been nearly as lucky as I have been.
Despite this, I have failed to be who I should be as a decent human being and a loving family member and friend many times, especially when I was younger and still sometimes recently, including a few days ago. For all my own good fortune, I cannot point to a single instance that makes me a better person than many others I know; rather, I am certain that I have been a moral failure more than once, yet I have been given the opportunity to be a better person, to seek amends to the best of my ability, and to contribute in a positive way to those I love and those around me. These gifts, opportunities and good fortune helps strengthen my faith and my commitment to stay on the course of good works and social and economic justice while doing as little harm as I possibly can.
While I have been on this life journey for decades, the day-to-day is equally important and in the last few years I have meditated and prayed only a little, while my temperamental nature has grown. Prayer and meditation, especially in this dark, inward season, can provide a daily means to increase my own calm and improve the way that I treat those around me. If I am to hope for the love I have for others to be returned to me, it is important for me to act with love towards them. During this time of suffering and uncertainty, it is more important than ever that I calm my worries of the moment and I find ways to act with consideration first and foremost to those around me.
Acting on faith is calling the strength, in the certainty of future suffering and loss, to do what I can to make the future better for all the future generations and all people and lives. And, with this commitment, to celebrate the good fortune I have, living in a web of life where the Covenant of Good Works holds sway. My good fortunate calls me to act to help others whose do not have such privileges, and to care for the future of all children in this coming time of darkness and loss.
The 11th step of the 12th steps speaks of seeking through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with the Deity as I understand that Deity, praying only for knowledge of the Deity’s will for us and the strength to carry that out. As someone raised with a healthy skepticism about spirituality, I have to say I don’t know if a Deity or an afterlife exists—if so, I know my own feeble mind existing for a tiny moment in eternity cannot possible fathom such an entity. But I do witness a spiritual world in my daily life, and I know that in communion with that mysterious spirit I can find strength and a sense of the best path to follow.
I observe a spiritual world in my daily life and am witness to the improvements made in the world through loving and peaceful spiritual movements, such as the women’s suffrage campaign, the Indian independence movement led by Mohandas Gandhi, the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the liberation of South Africa led by Nelson Mandala, and the example and strength of the Tibetan people led by the Dalai Lama. These multitudes of people, peacefully and courageously acting on faith, have sent out waves of light and liberation that have touched me personally and, through their sacrifices, made my world and me better. I and many others can call on this strength to commit to our spiritual journeys for peace and justice, to make this mortal world better for those we love and all children of the world.
Patriarchal Fiction and Earthly Realism
The rapidly diminishing sunlight has cooled the days and nights, with leaves beginning to fall onto the still warm ground. As we drive our granddaughter and witness the falling leaves, we say to her, “The nights are getting longer and the Earth is getting sleepy.” She repeats, “The nights are getting longer and the days are getting shorter!” again and again in a chorus confirming that at her young age she understands the changing season.
My wife and I have repeated our annual tradition of driving to a seventy-five-year-old family-owned orchard an hour north of us and harvested over 80 pounds of concord grapes to turn into wine. After returning with our abundant harvest, processing the grapes into buckets and placing them in the freezer of friends, we opened last year’s wine for the first time and shared it with our friends. This year, to my disappointment and my wife’s happiness, the wine is sweeter than past years, making it more a dessert wine and less of the fruit-forward slightly sweet wine we’ve had in past years.
The frequent rain of this year has brought forth more mushrooms than in past years, including ringless honey mushrooms that have a reputation for causing upset stomachs for some people. Looking at advice from experienced mushroom hunters, I selected only younger mushrooms, removed the stems, and cooked them for nearly an hour to make a mushroom ragu with garlic and onions, Marsala cooking wine, and vegetable stock, mixed with cream and asiago cheese. Much to our delight, the experiment worked well and we enjoyed a full and delicious meal.
At the auction and farmer’s market, abundant fall crops are filling the rows and stalls. Apples, cider, pumpkins, squash, and others are joining late season tomatoes, eggplant, cabbage, potatoes, peppers, corn, and onions. We have emptied a small crock of caraway-garlic sauerkraut and filled it two days later with more shredded cabbage, garlic, caraway seed, and salt. Within a day, the sound of fermenting cabbage bubbled through the watery airlock that seals the crock, beginning the process of preserving some of the gifts of the season of abundance.
The salt of the Earth, a long-repeated phrase, in Biblical terms referred to virtuous people who caused the urban human god to withhold his malevolence and preserve the Earth. Only through learning the role of salt in preserving food did I realize the full meaning of the phrase. Meanwhile, for millennia, followers of urban human gods have wondered if in this generation the salt would fail and the “creation” of Earth would be destroyed. Civilizations have risen and fallen, dynasties collapsed, and empires have arisen through tyrannical brute force, only to fall through the reliable return of the brutal energy they have sent out. Yet the Earthly river of life has continued, preserved from the hardships of the human world.
In my own, infinitesimal life, the human world has consumed my time in the last two years, with college work focusing my attention on the news of the day. Returning to daily reading of news outlets after decades of distance and long-term news fasts, I am struck by the reality that I recognized decades ago: human history has been and the current world are run by pathological madmen constantly unleashing their evil on common people, leaving few alternatives.
In the decades between then and now, however, I have become witness to the harmonious, sustainable perpetuation of life on the Earth. Spending long hours in the woods, witnessing the beauty and joy of each slowly passing day, I experienced bliss. Embedding myself in the flow of Earthly life into future eons through spending day after day in bringing forth life in my family and the community around us, I again experienced a bliss that had been waiting, patiently, for me to drink in like ambrosia.
In the intervening years, I have become very eccentric. My distaste for the culture of the urban human god reached a point of intolerance, causing me to ignore most human fictional works and entertainment and only wanting to focus on realistic portrayals of life This has included my leaving the room when my dear wife would watch all sorts of TV shows and movies, despite them featuring women in lead roles. I would explain to my wife that because of my experience of hallucinations and delusions years ago, I only wanted to focus on what I knew to be real, not fiction. Not even if my wife’s choices included fiction focused mainly on fantasies of idealized women’s relationships.
Realism, I insisted, was found in the impartial, detailed, and harsh reality of history, which my wife and I defined long ago as “the exponential growth of human stupidity.” In returning to the day-to-day news of the human world created by the urban male god, I see that growth continues. Our species has stumbled into the evolutionary dead end of large-scale warfare, bringing about a process of selection of societies that has made the evil of patriarchy exacerbated by vast populations controlled by corrupt hierarchies. Many common people have begun to recognize that our species is at a dead-end; the tyrants at the top of the hierarchies have yet to face the reality that while they cannot destroy the Earth their own actions will bring their ambitions—and possibly all people—to a bitter, permanent end.
In seeing once again this patriarchal insanity, I realized that is it in fact patriarchs that live in a fictional world of their own delusional non-creation. It is the Earth that provides realism to our lives, represented by the daily life of women and some men in families perpetuating life through eons and by the natural communities that provide all life with abundance of food, shelter, water, air, beauty, and bliss.
In our short-sighted lives, each of us wonder what the next day will bring and what may lie in the distant future for our individual and group lives. On the one hand, I am certain that we will all die. The hope we hold is that the human children of this world will pass long after the elders that I travel with. To that extent, devoting ourselves to the daily acts of bringing forth life—ranging from caring for children to gardening to planting trees to working for sustainable communities to helping people in need—is the best hope for the innocent children my granddaughter plays with. In that way, we can experience the blissful acts of helping preserve the human world like salt preserving food as the soon-to-fail ambitions of patriarchal fiction parades past us in dramas of daily news.
My wife and I have repeated our annual tradition of driving to a seventy-five-year-old family-owned orchard an hour north of us and harvested over 80 pounds of concord grapes to turn into wine. After returning with our abundant harvest, processing the grapes into buckets and placing them in the freezer of friends, we opened last year’s wine for the first time and shared it with our friends. This year, to my disappointment and my wife’s happiness, the wine is sweeter than past years, making it more a dessert wine and less of the fruit-forward slightly sweet wine we’ve had in past years.
The frequent rain of this year has brought forth more mushrooms than in past years, including ringless honey mushrooms that have a reputation for causing upset stomachs for some people. Looking at advice from experienced mushroom hunters, I selected only younger mushrooms, removed the stems, and cooked them for nearly an hour to make a mushroom ragu with garlic and onions, Marsala cooking wine, and vegetable stock, mixed with cream and asiago cheese. Much to our delight, the experiment worked well and we enjoyed a full and delicious meal.
At the auction and farmer’s market, abundant fall crops are filling the rows and stalls. Apples, cider, pumpkins, squash, and others are joining late season tomatoes, eggplant, cabbage, potatoes, peppers, corn, and onions. We have emptied a small crock of caraway-garlic sauerkraut and filled it two days later with more shredded cabbage, garlic, caraway seed, and salt. Within a day, the sound of fermenting cabbage bubbled through the watery airlock that seals the crock, beginning the process of preserving some of the gifts of the season of abundance.
The salt of the Earth, a long-repeated phrase, in Biblical terms referred to virtuous people who caused the urban human god to withhold his malevolence and preserve the Earth. Only through learning the role of salt in preserving food did I realize the full meaning of the phrase. Meanwhile, for millennia, followers of urban human gods have wondered if in this generation the salt would fail and the “creation” of Earth would be destroyed. Civilizations have risen and fallen, dynasties collapsed, and empires have arisen through tyrannical brute force, only to fall through the reliable return of the brutal energy they have sent out. Yet the Earthly river of life has continued, preserved from the hardships of the human world.
In my own, infinitesimal life, the human world has consumed my time in the last two years, with college work focusing my attention on the news of the day. Returning to daily reading of news outlets after decades of distance and long-term news fasts, I am struck by the reality that I recognized decades ago: human history has been and the current world are run by pathological madmen constantly unleashing their evil on common people, leaving few alternatives.
In the decades between then and now, however, I have become witness to the harmonious, sustainable perpetuation of life on the Earth. Spending long hours in the woods, witnessing the beauty and joy of each slowly passing day, I experienced bliss. Embedding myself in the flow of Earthly life into future eons through spending day after day in bringing forth life in my family and the community around us, I again experienced a bliss that had been waiting, patiently, for me to drink in like ambrosia.
In the intervening years, I have become very eccentric. My distaste for the culture of the urban human god reached a point of intolerance, causing me to ignore most human fictional works and entertainment and only wanting to focus on realistic portrayals of life This has included my leaving the room when my dear wife would watch all sorts of TV shows and movies, despite them featuring women in lead roles. I would explain to my wife that because of my experience of hallucinations and delusions years ago, I only wanted to focus on what I knew to be real, not fiction. Not even if my wife’s choices included fiction focused mainly on fantasies of idealized women’s relationships.
Realism, I insisted, was found in the impartial, detailed, and harsh reality of history, which my wife and I defined long ago as “the exponential growth of human stupidity.” In returning to the day-to-day news of the human world created by the urban male god, I see that growth continues. Our species has stumbled into the evolutionary dead end of large-scale warfare, bringing about a process of selection of societies that has made the evil of patriarchy exacerbated by vast populations controlled by corrupt hierarchies. Many common people have begun to recognize that our species is at a dead-end; the tyrants at the top of the hierarchies have yet to face the reality that while they cannot destroy the Earth their own actions will bring their ambitions—and possibly all people—to a bitter, permanent end.
In seeing once again this patriarchal insanity, I realized that is it in fact patriarchs that live in a fictional world of their own delusional non-creation. It is the Earth that provides realism to our lives, represented by the daily life of women and some men in families perpetuating life through eons and by the natural communities that provide all life with abundance of food, shelter, water, air, beauty, and bliss.
In our short-sighted lives, each of us wonder what the next day will bring and what may lie in the distant future for our individual and group lives. On the one hand, I am certain that we will all die. The hope we hold is that the human children of this world will pass long after the elders that I travel with. To that extent, devoting ourselves to the daily acts of bringing forth life—ranging from caring for children to gardening to planting trees to working for sustainable communities to helping people in need—is the best hope for the innocent children my granddaughter plays with. In that way, we can experience the blissful acts of helping preserve the human world like salt preserving food as the soon-to-fail ambitions of patriarchal fiction parades past us in dramas of daily news.
Reclaiming Love in Our Daily Lives
As the sunlight rapidly disappears from our daily lives, the cold nights bring patches of frost and while my breath forms mist in the cool air during my walk to work. With the coldness, the leaves of some trees are changing into red, yellow, and orange showing as spots of color among the still green hillsides.
As we enter the Halloween season, the cooling days and diminishing light reminds us that the Earth is falling asleep. In the long, slow dusk, the raspy songs of a few remaining insects call out for mates prior to ending their very short lives in the hardships of the coming cold darkness. The ghosts and goblins that are the childhood stories harbor the approaching season of death for animals like us.
At the farmers market and produce auction, fall harvests are still abundant with mums, pumpkins, and eggplants, along with tomatoes, potatoes, onions, winter squash, and other crops suitable for storage. With the fleeting abundance soon to become the barren ground offering scant food for hungry animals, the harvest season is marked by animals like us storing food. A squirrel diligently ate on and off for ten days a small pumpkin on our porch until it finally could gorge itself on the seeds at the pumpkin’s center. Meanwhile, overpopulated deer in our neighborhood are showing their ribs as they scrounge for food. Without efficient predators like wolves and many more coyotes, the deer overeat the green world around them, like gluttonous humans consuming the Earth.
The fall weather has allowed my wife and I perfect weather for hosting get togethers on our patio. Despite the beautiful weather, during a recent visit with a friend, the conversation turned to patriarchy, war, and women that helped me clarify for my understanding of the past and present human world.
Then and now, the mother and family community is central to the continuing of life through eons of time. From the central community, males would leave to hunt and sometimes protect the others. Like many species, men in our species are more expendable because the laws of fertility dictate that the more women in a community, the more babies will be born. Only a few men are truly needed, so fertility favors men taking lethal risks while women and children are to be safer—which is true in healthy communities embedded in nature, but not in patriarchy.
In the mother and family centered community love is a pre-eminent energy. When I was a teenager decades ago, a girl told me that she thought, “god is love.” When many people speak of their “god” they mean a mysterious, influential energy that acts out of love, creating phenomena we witness in the love of partners, children, families, friends, and others. Natural justice and the Covenant of Good Works are expressions of the energy of love that stems from what goes around coming around. In a very real way, when we experience love with our partners, our family, and others, we are experiencing the presence that people think of as evidence of god.
In prehistory, on the outskirts of these loving communities, males sometimes fought with outsiders over territory. Occasionally, lethal skirmishes like these have been seen in chimpanzees, with males sneaking into the territory of other groups and attacking and killing individuals. But the lethal males did not turn their furor on the families in their communities; love channeled their bloodlust for power-over and violence away from this all important center.
In opposition to the deity of love, the males’ bloodlust for violence and power-over is something of an original sin. But unlike the patriarchal concept of original sin, it is not in everyone, nor in the same degree; particularly, it is more common and in a much greater degree in men than women.
While some human communities like the Mbutu in the Ituri rainforest and the Kung San in the Kalahari, appear to have not practiced war in the millennia before Europeans invaded their lands, as human populations grew, the border skirmishes apparently turned into ongoing battles, with deaths on both sides traumatizing the warriors. In these communities, the men became bullies who invaded and brutalized the sacred and essential mother and family community.
Patriarchy emerged out of the sin of bloodlust, invading and largely destroying the loving community centered on the mother and family. Humanity was taken far from the center of the Earthly river of life as violent patriarchs invaded the Earth to expand their power-over-others.
In our contemporary personal world, many men and some women, also seek power-over others. Some do this directly as bullies who hit their partners and children or who use their money or the glamour of being a man to emotionally or verbally abuse people around them. For sensitive people seeking peaceful, loving harmony, one of the greatest challenges we face is creating boundaries that allow us to build families and communities that exclude these bullies, whether they abuse partners, children, vulnerable minorities, or women.
In abusive families, bullies—parents, older siblings, and others—harm sensitive people and other dependent people. As young adults sensitive people face both remaining quiet about the harm we’ve experienced and entering romantic relationships, friendships, and work relationships that threaten to repeat the harm. Sensitive people, trying to practice compassion and understanding, often fall victim to not creating strong boundaries with bullies, whether they are in our original families or our adult community.
The abuse and harm that has become embedded in families and communities in patriarchy threatens our place in the Earthly river of life. Allowing bullies—whether in our larger world, our community, or our families—into our lives disrupts the loving center of home and family. If lucky, we can successfully escape these traps through strong friends, counselors, and sometimes crisis centers that help us create the boundaries we need.
Taking in these lessons as a grandparent, I am trying to build an empowered, loving relationship for my granddaughter with me. I do this by obeying her wishes, even if it may be part of a game. I ask her when I am leaving, “Can I kiss you on the forehead?”
“Noooo!” she always says.
“Okay,” I reply, “What you say goes. I love you.”
It is crucial to me that she has a relationship with a man and authority figure who from her earliest memories empowers her and makes her as much of an equal as possible. This means less opportunities for me to play with her and be affectionate, but ensures the contact is her choice.
Recently, I was part of her playtime with friends and family in the hollow behind our house. She spent a lot of time with me, holding my hand to go up and down steep stairs and slopes, running to me for safety as she and the other youngsters played chase. At the end of the day, she asked for me to read her Beatrix Potter stories while she laid her head on my shoulder. It was the first time in over a year that I had read her a story and it was the highlight of my week. Her relationship of empowerment with me and others in our family may help her avoid the harm that so many children, women and some men endure in our personal lives. In doing so, she will move closer to the loving center of the river of life that creates spiritual meaning and bliss in our lives.
As we enter the Halloween season, the cooling days and diminishing light reminds us that the Earth is falling asleep. In the long, slow dusk, the raspy songs of a few remaining insects call out for mates prior to ending their very short lives in the hardships of the coming cold darkness. The ghosts and goblins that are the childhood stories harbor the approaching season of death for animals like us.
At the farmers market and produce auction, fall harvests are still abundant with mums, pumpkins, and eggplants, along with tomatoes, potatoes, onions, winter squash, and other crops suitable for storage. With the fleeting abundance soon to become the barren ground offering scant food for hungry animals, the harvest season is marked by animals like us storing food. A squirrel diligently ate on and off for ten days a small pumpkin on our porch until it finally could gorge itself on the seeds at the pumpkin’s center. Meanwhile, overpopulated deer in our neighborhood are showing their ribs as they scrounge for food. Without efficient predators like wolves and many more coyotes, the deer overeat the green world around them, like gluttonous humans consuming the Earth.
The fall weather has allowed my wife and I perfect weather for hosting get togethers on our patio. Despite the beautiful weather, during a recent visit with a friend, the conversation turned to patriarchy, war, and women that helped me clarify for my understanding of the past and present human world.
Then and now, the mother and family community is central to the continuing of life through eons of time. From the central community, males would leave to hunt and sometimes protect the others. Like many species, men in our species are more expendable because the laws of fertility dictate that the more women in a community, the more babies will be born. Only a few men are truly needed, so fertility favors men taking lethal risks while women and children are to be safer—which is true in healthy communities embedded in nature, but not in patriarchy.
In the mother and family centered community love is a pre-eminent energy. When I was a teenager decades ago, a girl told me that she thought, “god is love.” When many people speak of their “god” they mean a mysterious, influential energy that acts out of love, creating phenomena we witness in the love of partners, children, families, friends, and others. Natural justice and the Covenant of Good Works are expressions of the energy of love that stems from what goes around coming around. In a very real way, when we experience love with our partners, our family, and others, we are experiencing the presence that people think of as evidence of god.
In prehistory, on the outskirts of these loving communities, males sometimes fought with outsiders over territory. Occasionally, lethal skirmishes like these have been seen in chimpanzees, with males sneaking into the territory of other groups and attacking and killing individuals. But the lethal males did not turn their furor on the families in their communities; love channeled their bloodlust for power-over and violence away from this all important center.
In opposition to the deity of love, the males’ bloodlust for violence and power-over is something of an original sin. But unlike the patriarchal concept of original sin, it is not in everyone, nor in the same degree; particularly, it is more common and in a much greater degree in men than women.
While some human communities like the Mbutu in the Ituri rainforest and the Kung San in the Kalahari, appear to have not practiced war in the millennia before Europeans invaded their lands, as human populations grew, the border skirmishes apparently turned into ongoing battles, with deaths on both sides traumatizing the warriors. In these communities, the men became bullies who invaded and brutalized the sacred and essential mother and family community.
Patriarchy emerged out of the sin of bloodlust, invading and largely destroying the loving community centered on the mother and family. Humanity was taken far from the center of the Earthly river of life as violent patriarchs invaded the Earth to expand their power-over-others.
In our contemporary personal world, many men and some women, also seek power-over others. Some do this directly as bullies who hit their partners and children or who use their money or the glamour of being a man to emotionally or verbally abuse people around them. For sensitive people seeking peaceful, loving harmony, one of the greatest challenges we face is creating boundaries that allow us to build families and communities that exclude these bullies, whether they abuse partners, children, vulnerable minorities, or women.
In abusive families, bullies—parents, older siblings, and others—harm sensitive people and other dependent people. As young adults sensitive people face both remaining quiet about the harm we’ve experienced and entering romantic relationships, friendships, and work relationships that threaten to repeat the harm. Sensitive people, trying to practice compassion and understanding, often fall victim to not creating strong boundaries with bullies, whether they are in our original families or our adult community.
The abuse and harm that has become embedded in families and communities in patriarchy threatens our place in the Earthly river of life. Allowing bullies—whether in our larger world, our community, or our families—into our lives disrupts the loving center of home and family. If lucky, we can successfully escape these traps through strong friends, counselors, and sometimes crisis centers that help us create the boundaries we need.
Taking in these lessons as a grandparent, I am trying to build an empowered, loving relationship for my granddaughter with me. I do this by obeying her wishes, even if it may be part of a game. I ask her when I am leaving, “Can I kiss you on the forehead?”
“Noooo!” she always says.
“Okay,” I reply, “What you say goes. I love you.”
It is crucial to me that she has a relationship with a man and authority figure who from her earliest memories empowers her and makes her as much of an equal as possible. This means less opportunities for me to play with her and be affectionate, but ensures the contact is her choice.
Recently, I was part of her playtime with friends and family in the hollow behind our house. She spent a lot of time with me, holding my hand to go up and down steep stairs and slopes, running to me for safety as she and the other youngsters played chase. At the end of the day, she asked for me to read her Beatrix Potter stories while she laid her head on my shoulder. It was the first time in over a year that I had read her a story and it was the highlight of my week. Her relationship of empowerment with me and others in our family may help her avoid the harm that so many children, women and some men endure in our personal lives. In doing so, she will move closer to the loving center of the river of life that creates spiritual meaning and bliss in our lives.
The Personal Destiny of Soul Mates
Since the bright, hot days of midsummer of early August, the sun’s rapid descent from the sky has brought early darkness and seasonally cool temperatures. I commonly see the mist of my breath as I walk to work in the early light of the day. The days of abundant harvests are ending, and birds and animals have gone from gorging on feasts of seeds, berries, and nuts to scrambling for the remaining morsels of fall.
Replacing the abundant harvest has been an abundance of golden yellow, lime-green, radiant orange, and deep red leaves, providing a spectacular autumn unmatched for a decade or more. The moist ground, cool temperatures, regular frosts, and absence of heavy fall rains has provided a long and glorious montage of autumn beauty, filling the eyes and hearts with joy even as the cold darkness creeps over the Earth.
The ghosts and goblins of Halloween, marking the entry of the season of death for animals like us, are preparing us unconsciously for the sleeping Earth’s frozen fields, harsh winds, long nights, and hungry animals seeking the scarce food of winter. It is a time of seeking shelter from the encroaching cold nights and blustery days to come, of settling in and settling down for long hours in our homes.
For many, the coming time can mark loneliness, despair, and heartbreak, especially if we are isolated in our homes. It is during these long hours that decisions of who, if anyone, we have settled down with are most keenly felt and reflected on. The journey of the heart from childhood to our adult home is often tumultuous and can be filled with desperation, fear, and regret. If we are lucky, our journey brought us into the lives of a deeply kindred spirit who we can nestle in with on the cold, dark nights of fall and winter.
As a young man, I foolishly placed an egoistic pursuit of a career ahead of a committed relationship, learning through trial and loss that it was the love of my heart, not the accomplishment of my career, that I needed to focus on. This mistake is common with men, while in my generation many women balanced their concerns of making a living with finding a partner to share their lives with. This is reflected in discussions ranging from advice columns to questions asked of mystical people: “What do I need to get a better income?” ask the men; “Will I find my soul mate this year?” ask the women.
When I think of Earthly spiritual questions, I think of parallels between social psychology and the contemporary ideas of mystical women. To think mystically, I flip a switch and say to myself, “Let’s say all the lives I know are spirits living many generations of incarnations; how does that view parallel my understanding of social psychology?” In a mystical view, the people we know are part of our soul cluster—our nearby spiritual neighborhood of spirits traveling in repeated incarnations together.
One of the greatest questions is where this lifetime takes us in that cluster—who do I spend my lifetime with and, in our next lifetime together, will the other souls feel love, hate, or be indifferent towards me? These fellow travelers—the other spirits we impact with our lives—will be our most crucial judges when we incarnate with them again. Flipping the switch back to social psychology, how our partners, family, friends, and community feel toward us is central to a happy and harmonious life.
Coming slowly to spiritual thinking, I realized in my forties that I traveled through a series of webs of life—college friends, social circles, groups sharing pastimes, coworkers, neighborhoods, and other groups—and in only some of these did I actually maintain a lasting friendship, date for very long or feel the start of true love. Some in this soul cluster I shared only a momentary connection, some I saw repeatedly on the boundary of my life, and with some I shared long hours in groups of friends or coworkers. In retrospect, there were only two or three women I might have committed a lifetime to, and these, as well as the others, were variations on the theme of whether I would choose someone who would help me be a good life partner or with whom I would repeat the tragedies and trauma of my childhood? Only a few had the potential of being the mystic’s soul mate who I might have settled down with, shared a new family, and risked all I might offer in the fateful, involuntary gamble of falling in love.
From a social psychology point of view, the people in my family and community, the childhood trials and traumas, and the feelings and thoughts that make me a sensitive person all combine to create the attraction to others whether as platonic friends or romantic partners. The all-important question of where I travel in my soul cluster and who might be my soulmate is largely determined by events outside my conscious will. From the spiritual view, all these external factors were choices my soul made prior to birth to guide me to face the ultimate spiritual question—whom shall I deeply be drawn to like a parched desert nomad seeking to quench his thirst in the ambrosia of true love?
This choice—the riskiest emotional chance of our lives—represents one of the most profound aspects of destiny in our mortal lives. It is one of the most important spiritual decisions we make in this lifetime. If there is a spiritual journey in this lifetime that carries past this life’s fleeting mortality, who our journey leads us to and how we treat those we settle down with is the central undertaking of our lives. Do we repeat tragedies from our childhood homes, do we fail to love, do we mistreat our partners, or do we choose partners who mistreat us? Or are we some of the lucky ones who find a soul mate to share a loving home, family, and life with?
For some, life may take them far from their childhood home, only to find the hardship they grew up with echoing in the wintry winds of bitterly cold nights. For others, unseen energies draw us into the right web of life where, without consciously realizing it at first, we join the love of our life.
It is one of the hardest aspects of patriarchy that happy marriages and loving families are rare. The public world turns and twists with many manmade tragedies and distractions from our fateful decisions of who, if anyone, we will settle down with. In the backdrop of ambition and mistaken priorities, young men do not look into this ultimate question often enough: How will I find a lasting love who is good for me and who I return this goodness to?
Were most young men to look into their futures with fearful recognition of the coldness of lonely winter nights and wonder if we will be fortunate enough to meet our soulmate, the underpinnings of patriarchy would collapse like brittle branches heavy with frozen snow. In surrendering our lives to serve the partner and family we love, rather than a cause or ambition, men can receive the most important gift that this lifetime offers: the companionship of a soul mate to light our homes in the cold darkness of the wintry world.
Replacing the abundant harvest has been an abundance of golden yellow, lime-green, radiant orange, and deep red leaves, providing a spectacular autumn unmatched for a decade or more. The moist ground, cool temperatures, regular frosts, and absence of heavy fall rains has provided a long and glorious montage of autumn beauty, filling the eyes and hearts with joy even as the cold darkness creeps over the Earth.
The ghosts and goblins of Halloween, marking the entry of the season of death for animals like us, are preparing us unconsciously for the sleeping Earth’s frozen fields, harsh winds, long nights, and hungry animals seeking the scarce food of winter. It is a time of seeking shelter from the encroaching cold nights and blustery days to come, of settling in and settling down for long hours in our homes.
For many, the coming time can mark loneliness, despair, and heartbreak, especially if we are isolated in our homes. It is during these long hours that decisions of who, if anyone, we have settled down with are most keenly felt and reflected on. The journey of the heart from childhood to our adult home is often tumultuous and can be filled with desperation, fear, and regret. If we are lucky, our journey brought us into the lives of a deeply kindred spirit who we can nestle in with on the cold, dark nights of fall and winter.
As a young man, I foolishly placed an egoistic pursuit of a career ahead of a committed relationship, learning through trial and loss that it was the love of my heart, not the accomplishment of my career, that I needed to focus on. This mistake is common with men, while in my generation many women balanced their concerns of making a living with finding a partner to share their lives with. This is reflected in discussions ranging from advice columns to questions asked of mystical people: “What do I need to get a better income?” ask the men; “Will I find my soul mate this year?” ask the women.
When I think of Earthly spiritual questions, I think of parallels between social psychology and the contemporary ideas of mystical women. To think mystically, I flip a switch and say to myself, “Let’s say all the lives I know are spirits living many generations of incarnations; how does that view parallel my understanding of social psychology?” In a mystical view, the people we know are part of our soul cluster—our nearby spiritual neighborhood of spirits traveling in repeated incarnations together.
One of the greatest questions is where this lifetime takes us in that cluster—who do I spend my lifetime with and, in our next lifetime together, will the other souls feel love, hate, or be indifferent towards me? These fellow travelers—the other spirits we impact with our lives—will be our most crucial judges when we incarnate with them again. Flipping the switch back to social psychology, how our partners, family, friends, and community feel toward us is central to a happy and harmonious life.
Coming slowly to spiritual thinking, I realized in my forties that I traveled through a series of webs of life—college friends, social circles, groups sharing pastimes, coworkers, neighborhoods, and other groups—and in only some of these did I actually maintain a lasting friendship, date for very long or feel the start of true love. Some in this soul cluster I shared only a momentary connection, some I saw repeatedly on the boundary of my life, and with some I shared long hours in groups of friends or coworkers. In retrospect, there were only two or three women I might have committed a lifetime to, and these, as well as the others, were variations on the theme of whether I would choose someone who would help me be a good life partner or with whom I would repeat the tragedies and trauma of my childhood? Only a few had the potential of being the mystic’s soul mate who I might have settled down with, shared a new family, and risked all I might offer in the fateful, involuntary gamble of falling in love.
From a social psychology point of view, the people in my family and community, the childhood trials and traumas, and the feelings and thoughts that make me a sensitive person all combine to create the attraction to others whether as platonic friends or romantic partners. The all-important question of where I travel in my soul cluster and who might be my soulmate is largely determined by events outside my conscious will. From the spiritual view, all these external factors were choices my soul made prior to birth to guide me to face the ultimate spiritual question—whom shall I deeply be drawn to like a parched desert nomad seeking to quench his thirst in the ambrosia of true love?
This choice—the riskiest emotional chance of our lives—represents one of the most profound aspects of destiny in our mortal lives. It is one of the most important spiritual decisions we make in this lifetime. If there is a spiritual journey in this lifetime that carries past this life’s fleeting mortality, who our journey leads us to and how we treat those we settle down with is the central undertaking of our lives. Do we repeat tragedies from our childhood homes, do we fail to love, do we mistreat our partners, or do we choose partners who mistreat us? Or are we some of the lucky ones who find a soul mate to share a loving home, family, and life with?
For some, life may take them far from their childhood home, only to find the hardship they grew up with echoing in the wintry winds of bitterly cold nights. For others, unseen energies draw us into the right web of life where, without consciously realizing it at first, we join the love of our life.
It is one of the hardest aspects of patriarchy that happy marriages and loving families are rare. The public world turns and twists with many manmade tragedies and distractions from our fateful decisions of who, if anyone, we will settle down with. In the backdrop of ambition and mistaken priorities, young men do not look into this ultimate question often enough: How will I find a lasting love who is good for me and who I return this goodness to?
Were most young men to look into their futures with fearful recognition of the coldness of lonely winter nights and wonder if we will be fortunate enough to meet our soulmate, the underpinnings of patriarchy would collapse like brittle branches heavy with frozen snow. In surrendering our lives to serve the partner and family we love, rather than a cause or ambition, men can receive the most important gift that this lifetime offers: the companionship of a soul mate to light our homes in the cold darkness of the wintry world.
Reclaiming Faith in the Return of Good Works
In the long shadows of fleeting sunlight in the days following mid-autumn’s Halloween festivities, we have had seasonal cold weather. There have been moments of snow flurries and light sleet, leaving a dusting atop the fallen leaves. Last week, as I prepared to walk to work, I told my wife and granddaughter that the forecast was for snow mixed with light rain.
“Will the snow stick to the ground?” My granddaughter wondered hopefully in her soft, tremulous voice.
“No,” I replied, “The ground is still too warm.”
Later that day, my wife forwarded a picture texted by my stepdaughter. It was of our granddaughter, smiling joyfully, bundled in a pink winter coat and navy blue snowpants, standing amongst an inch of snow in the yard of her parent’s country home. So much for the all-knowing grandpa and his forecasting skills.
The Farmers’ Market is providing seasonal food, including apples, cabbage, carrots, garlic, daikon radishes, Brussel sprouts, and late-season broccoli and cauliflower. In addition to an Indian-spiced stir-fry and pumpkin and Dutch apple pies, we have jarred sauerkraut from local cabbage and replaced it in the fermenting crock with a spicy, sour traditional Korean Kim Chi. We have removed the buckets of Concord grapes from the freezer of friends and are letting them slowly thaw before we add sugar, yeast, and a couple of other ingredients to begin fermenting them into wine. Honoring the Earth, year after year, means preparing food in keeping with the season, taking advantage of the abundance that we are gifted to receive in a human world of want.
As I walk home in the long shadows of the season, I have felt a deep loss, an energy pulling me into the ground as if I were a piece of steel and the ground beneath me were a powerful magnet. I feel as a dying leaf pulled to the ground by the irresistible force of gravity. I am experiencing the death of a dream that I had a few years ago, and with it the separation from those I share the dream with.
Leaving my career in computers two and a half years ago, I took a job at an agency working with people like me, thinking I would find like-minded sensitive coworkers working hard to help those in need. In terms of some of the frontline workers and the peer support staff, I did find this, along with clients in need of companionship, support, and understanding. However, I also found many unforced errors and ongoing problems that impacted clients and staff. I was shocked to find that services were wholly inadequate not simply because of lack of funding, but lack of insight on the part of top administrators.
I dutifully reported, again and again, failures in care and urged review and changes in the approach being used by the system. I was met with double-talk, inaction, hostility, and an arrogant insistence that only the top clinicians had the expertise to comment on the agency’s approach. Rather than face the problems, I was told that the clinic was “doing amazing work.” I was repeatedly undercut because I failed to play along with the charade that the clinic practiced “recovery-oriented” care and “continuous process improvement.” Crucially, from a key administrator I faced continual opposition and frequent hostility.
I believe in principles that I consider self-evident from the empirical reality that what goes around comes around. The first, to do good works as much as possible, is thwarted at the agency because so much of the agency’s work fails to actually benefit the clients. While the administrators have good intentions, their work is based on ignoring client outcomes and insisting they are doing great work regardless of results. The second principle, to withdraw from conflict whenever possible, is to minimize the harm I do, even if I believe I am pursuing a worthwhile goal. Most importantly, the stress I was under was impacting my family, and it is my duty to shield them.
On the other hand, I had few alternative paths to follow if I did not work at this agency. If I left the agency my work to complete a Masters in Social Work during the last two and a half years might turn out to be a futile waste of time. I might never be allowed provide therapy to people like me and their families.
In facing this choice, I offered up my angst to my higher power and asked for guidance and strength. The answer was to protect my family and leave at all costs.
After I felt that the peer staff, who had felt threatened by prejudice and insensitivity, were in places of relative safety, I submitted my resignation. In the resignation letter I explained that when I had talked to others who had worked at the agency, a number of frontline workers had indicated that services actually placed clients in potential risk and, given the lack of recovery services provided to people like me, I believed that the risk of services the agency provided outweighed the potential benefits. I could not serve at the agency in these circumstances. I know I am not the first person to leave the agency for this reason.
Leaving behind the clients and coworkers I have grown to respect and know is the spiritual death pulling me into the ground. It is a trial of recognizing that a false dream is ending while separating from people who I deeply wish to stay connected with. It will be the first time I have not been employed for almost 29 years and while I relish spending the holidays with my family, it is a foreign and bewildering reality to not know the next step with concrete certainty.
To my surprise, even before I had formally submitted my letter of resignation, the principles I try to follow offered me a new beginning. I was approached by a woman with the credentials needed to supervise me in therapy for people like me—a necessary step before I have a private practice. Knowing my dilemma, she kindly offered to provide the supervision needed. The woman is a close friend of a woman in our community whose son years ago had experience psychosis and who I had volunteered to help the Mom understand her son and how to work with him.
The principle of doing good works had guided me to do this volunteer work over a decade and a half ago without consideration of a reward. Now, in my time of need, the energy I had offered was offered back to me. I was stunned by the unexpected offer, deeply honored, and filled with growing gratitude. Without this gift, pursuing the dream of providing therapy to people like me might be permanently out of reach; with the gift, the dream was made more likely than if had I stayed and undergone endless conflict and failure.
In the growing darkness of the season, I am looking back on the previous year of discord and suffering while I sought to reclaim many of the things that I had lost due to years of stress in my work life. Though good works are without thought of reward, the events of the past few weeks has helped me reclaim my faith that doing good works, building community, and withdrawing from conflict are all practical parts of Earthly spirituality. They are, for those who seek to follow a path of works, the means to enrich the garden of family and friends that Voltaire’s Candide reminds us we must tend.
“Will the snow stick to the ground?” My granddaughter wondered hopefully in her soft, tremulous voice.
“No,” I replied, “The ground is still too warm.”
Later that day, my wife forwarded a picture texted by my stepdaughter. It was of our granddaughter, smiling joyfully, bundled in a pink winter coat and navy blue snowpants, standing amongst an inch of snow in the yard of her parent’s country home. So much for the all-knowing grandpa and his forecasting skills.
The Farmers’ Market is providing seasonal food, including apples, cabbage, carrots, garlic, daikon radishes, Brussel sprouts, and late-season broccoli and cauliflower. In addition to an Indian-spiced stir-fry and pumpkin and Dutch apple pies, we have jarred sauerkraut from local cabbage and replaced it in the fermenting crock with a spicy, sour traditional Korean Kim Chi. We have removed the buckets of Concord grapes from the freezer of friends and are letting them slowly thaw before we add sugar, yeast, and a couple of other ingredients to begin fermenting them into wine. Honoring the Earth, year after year, means preparing food in keeping with the season, taking advantage of the abundance that we are gifted to receive in a human world of want.
As I walk home in the long shadows of the season, I have felt a deep loss, an energy pulling me into the ground as if I were a piece of steel and the ground beneath me were a powerful magnet. I feel as a dying leaf pulled to the ground by the irresistible force of gravity. I am experiencing the death of a dream that I had a few years ago, and with it the separation from those I share the dream with.
Leaving my career in computers two and a half years ago, I took a job at an agency working with people like me, thinking I would find like-minded sensitive coworkers working hard to help those in need. In terms of some of the frontline workers and the peer support staff, I did find this, along with clients in need of companionship, support, and understanding. However, I also found many unforced errors and ongoing problems that impacted clients and staff. I was shocked to find that services were wholly inadequate not simply because of lack of funding, but lack of insight on the part of top administrators.
I dutifully reported, again and again, failures in care and urged review and changes in the approach being used by the system. I was met with double-talk, inaction, hostility, and an arrogant insistence that only the top clinicians had the expertise to comment on the agency’s approach. Rather than face the problems, I was told that the clinic was “doing amazing work.” I was repeatedly undercut because I failed to play along with the charade that the clinic practiced “recovery-oriented” care and “continuous process improvement.” Crucially, from a key administrator I faced continual opposition and frequent hostility.
I believe in principles that I consider self-evident from the empirical reality that what goes around comes around. The first, to do good works as much as possible, is thwarted at the agency because so much of the agency’s work fails to actually benefit the clients. While the administrators have good intentions, their work is based on ignoring client outcomes and insisting they are doing great work regardless of results. The second principle, to withdraw from conflict whenever possible, is to minimize the harm I do, even if I believe I am pursuing a worthwhile goal. Most importantly, the stress I was under was impacting my family, and it is my duty to shield them.
On the other hand, I had few alternative paths to follow if I did not work at this agency. If I left the agency my work to complete a Masters in Social Work during the last two and a half years might turn out to be a futile waste of time. I might never be allowed provide therapy to people like me and their families.
In facing this choice, I offered up my angst to my higher power and asked for guidance and strength. The answer was to protect my family and leave at all costs.
After I felt that the peer staff, who had felt threatened by prejudice and insensitivity, were in places of relative safety, I submitted my resignation. In the resignation letter I explained that when I had talked to others who had worked at the agency, a number of frontline workers had indicated that services actually placed clients in potential risk and, given the lack of recovery services provided to people like me, I believed that the risk of services the agency provided outweighed the potential benefits. I could not serve at the agency in these circumstances. I know I am not the first person to leave the agency for this reason.
Leaving behind the clients and coworkers I have grown to respect and know is the spiritual death pulling me into the ground. It is a trial of recognizing that a false dream is ending while separating from people who I deeply wish to stay connected with. It will be the first time I have not been employed for almost 29 years and while I relish spending the holidays with my family, it is a foreign and bewildering reality to not know the next step with concrete certainty.
To my surprise, even before I had formally submitted my letter of resignation, the principles I try to follow offered me a new beginning. I was approached by a woman with the credentials needed to supervise me in therapy for people like me—a necessary step before I have a private practice. Knowing my dilemma, she kindly offered to provide the supervision needed. The woman is a close friend of a woman in our community whose son years ago had experience psychosis and who I had volunteered to help the Mom understand her son and how to work with him.
The principle of doing good works had guided me to do this volunteer work over a decade and a half ago without consideration of a reward. Now, in my time of need, the energy I had offered was offered back to me. I was stunned by the unexpected offer, deeply honored, and filled with growing gratitude. Without this gift, pursuing the dream of providing therapy to people like me might be permanently out of reach; with the gift, the dream was made more likely than if had I stayed and undergone endless conflict and failure.
In the growing darkness of the season, I am looking back on the previous year of discord and suffering while I sought to reclaim many of the things that I had lost due to years of stress in my work life. Though good works are without thought of reward, the events of the past few weeks has helped me reclaim my faith that doing good works, building community, and withdrawing from conflict are all practical parts of Earthly spirituality. They are, for those who seek to follow a path of works, the means to enrich the garden of family and friends that Voltaire’s Candide reminds us we must tend.
The River of Life
We are all born into a river of life that has created us from unfathomable generations of life before us and is likely to continue in some form for eons past our own time. Taking part in this Earthly
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