Fishing is dangerous, hard work, done in all seasons and kinds of weather. It’s also an inescapable source of livelihood for many families along the Maine coast.
Remembering those lost in the waters
Tag: Inspiration
Science in the mirror of religion
Eternity?
What’s beyond the Big Bang!
Jessica’s eagle
Just looking ahead
Sunset years?
The stars beyond!
~*~
It really is a hint of eternity.
You might also want to check out some of the photos I’m posting at my blog As Light Is Sown.
Enjoy life to the fullest when we can.
Terrain can be mountainous without stunning heights
Somehow, much of Downeast Maine feels mountainous, even without the loft. The highest points in Washington County, for instance, are Lead Mountain, at 1,479 feet elevation in Beddington, and Pleasant Mountain, 1,373 feet, in Devereaux Township, mere foothills in some other places I’ve lived. Yet the terrain has steep slopes that still challenge motor traffic, as well crests that offer long views of seemingly unending forest.
In that way, it has a lot in common with the Allegheny range in Pennsylvania or neighboring West Virginia, which touts itself as the Mountain State.
The elevations here can be misleading, since much of the landscape is only 20 or 30 miles from the ocean. The town of Wesley, for example, population 98 or so, occupies a highland reaching only 226 feet above sea level, but that’s also a windswept blueberry barren with far horizons. The drifting snow piling up on State Route 9 there can be treacherous, as I learned the hard way.
The highway itself sometimes runs along ridges as long as it can before dropping to a streambed below and then climbing to the next crest. I’m struck to see the next landmark cell-phone tower on my route not off in the distance in front of me but rather far to my right or left with a chasm and lake in-between.
Much of the land is boulders and exposed bedrock rather than rich loam.
There are reasons, then, those hills are named mountains. Pay heed.
An orange is an orange is an orange orange
The mystics and traditions I’ve encountered are anything but airy-fairy. In fact, they can be pretty down-to-earth and practical, based on personal experience and testing rather than empty speculation or dogma.
As George Fox said at the beginning of the Quaker movement, “This I knew experimentally.” That is, by first-hand experience including trial and error. Or as was said a few years later, “Some of the best barns in Rhode Island were designed during Quaker Meeting,” during quiet meditation.
Never underestimate the importance of the disciplined circle of fellow practitioners, either. Anyone who says “I’m spiritual, not religious,” but lacks that communal base is headed for trouble.
I learned that 50 years ago in a yoga ashram – see my novel Yoga Bootcamp for unorthodox examples of how it works – and have seen it in other traditions since, especially my Quaker circles.
One of my favorite stories comes via fellow blogger Tru-Queer, who relayed the incident this way:
A Tibetan lama and a famous Korean Zen master in the Rinzai school were to have a debate.
The Tibetan lama sat meditating, counting his mala. The Zen master produced an orange from his robes and asked the lama, “What is this?” It was a famous koan. Waiting for a response, the lama continued meditating. The Zen master asked again, “What is this?”
The Tibetan lama spoke with his translator for a moment, who said, “Do they not have oranges where he is from?”
~*~
I suppose I should explain that a koan is a kind of mental puzzle intended to push a student beyond rational thought. Zen is essentially black-and-white ascetic, while Tibetan Buddhism is full of colorful esoteric teaching and drama. Yet here the roles are reversed, in a great joke.
But it doesn’t end there. When’s the last time you really looked at an orange? How many varieties can you identify, much less their differences in uses or subtle flavors? Does your recognition that it’s “an orange” put a stop to regarding it fully? That is, when’s the last time you had an “OH WOW!” moment with something so seemingly commonplace.
Gertrude Stein was aiming at something similar with her “A rose is a rose is a rose,” which blows open when you learn she was also speaking of a friend named Rose and not just the metaphors associated with a specific flower that somehow too often gets lost in the entire equation.
So just how do we live full of wonder – a state a Friend hailed as the Holy Now?
I’d say having dear ones who share it with you does help. Even if they’re Zen Buddhists.
No, it’s not all flat, either
In my novel Nearly Canaan, Joshua and Jaya meet in a railroad crossing known as Prairie Depot. And in my newest release, The Secret Side of Jaya, she returns there in a magical sort of vein.
Yes, Prairie Depot is somewhere in the Midwest. But the region itself is hardly as homogeneous as many portray it.
~*~
- Defined: The region is generally comprised of 12 states – Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. I question the inclusion of Missouri, which was a slave-holding state and thus Southern, but others try to add Oklahoma. Population 65 million.
- Breadbasket of the world: Wheat, corn, and oats are major crops, along with soybeans and sugar beets. Beef, dairy, and hog production are also huge. The fields run on for miles. And Wisconsin is the nation’s leading producer of cranberries.
- Major cities: Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Des Moines, Omaha, Columbus, and Indianapolis head the list.
- Mall of America: The 400 stores, waterpark, and aquarium in Bloomington, Minnesota, are deemed one of the most popular tourist magnets in the country, drawing 35 million visitors a year.
- Heartland: The geographic center of North America is in Ruby, North Dakota.
- A taste for the oddball: Cawker City, Kansas, is home to the world’s biggest ball of twine. Ten feet in diameter.
- Linked by rail: The Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska, is the world’s largest railroad yard. It’s eight miles long and up to two miles wide, with 301 sets of rails.
- Horses and buggies: More Amish live in Ohio than in any other state. In 2015, there were 69,255. And Iowa has a significant number, too – about 7,000.
- Cowboy country: Much of what we consider cowboy-and-Indian out west actually took place in Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. And sharpshooter Annie Oakley was raised by a Quaker family in Ohio.
- It’s not really homogenous: Each state is different, starting with the economy, religious mix, ethnic origins and culture, and amount of annual precipitation. Even the parts of a state can vary widely along these lines. Much of the eastern half of the region is heavily industrial, with steel and auto making at the fore, while other parts are intensively agricultural. There are further breakouts like the Great Lakes region or the Great Plains. And it’s not all flat, either.
~*~
What are your impressions of this part of the country?
Our glorious dawn is much more than just sunrise
Except on overcast or stormy mornings, the early light of day in Eastport is amazing. Campobello Island in Canada blocks the first rays of the rising sun from striking us directly. Instead, the beam is deflected from the ocean into the air to become an ethereal rosy radiance, sometimes against a dark bank of clouds hovering off over the neighboring Fundy islands. And then, with that doubly-illuminated sky mirrored in the two-mile-wide channel separating Eastport from Campobello, the overhead color spreads out below as well.
When the sun itself finally swells into view, the blaze is nearly blinding, winter or summer.
Note to self: Keep sunglasses at hand.
Blessings, all
As the sign in front of an Aroostook County church advised:
When temptation knocks,
let Jesus open the door.
~*~
Yes, I had to laugh.
It all starts with the events being remembered today.
The quote also flips the quotation from Revelation, which I recall with its association with an illustration on my grandparents’ dining room wall, where he’s knocking at a thick wooden door. Maybe that’s a symbol of our own hearts, too many days … closed, hard, and dark.
Today, let him enter, in spirit, and dine with you and those you love most dearly.
May you be spared all temptations in this blessed day.
In my dreams
Just because I watch the stars doesn’t mean I trust them.
We had foxes at the bird feeder and viewed them as they slinked off into the woods, akin to Garrison Hill, and next to it was a bear.
I was a championship swimmer and a symphony violinist not actually competing or performing but enjoying the status.
At the airplane crash scene as a reporter, I helped put bodies in valet bags.
