Tag: Life

GETTING FLOCKED

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 8 Comments
Don't mock these humble birds. They're great fundraisers, as I remarked in a post the other day. Now he's the rest of the story, the one I thought I'd published long ago ... but hadn't.
Don’t mock these humble birds. They’re great fundraisers, as I remarked in a post the other day. Now here’s the rest of the story, the one I thought I’d published long ago … but hadn’t.

At a party one night in our Smoking Garden, a friend was telling about a fundraiser her church youth group had done back in Massachusetts.

“That’s a great idea,” I said. After all, she was a United Church of Christ pastor with all kinds of connections. “UCC,” for short.

Next thing I knew, a big sign and box appeared in our Quaker meetinghouse, warning Friends to buy flamingo insurance. This is New Hampshire, remember, not Florida.

One night after our party, our renowned sculptor Jane and her husband had come home to find her flock of pink flamingos missing from their yard and garden, but a sign stood in their place: “They needed to be quarantined.”

Uh-huh. I was as baffled as anyone that Sunday as we entered the meetinghouse and faced that big sign and its box of warning.

Here’s how it worked: you could donate any amount for insurance, but if someone else trumped that figure by offering more, you could still get flocked. And if you were flocked, there would be an envelope for another donation for their removal. In other words, you could get hit coming and going.

Then the plastic birds – and wooden cutouts – began appearing in Friends’ lawns. Folks living in apartments weren’t immune, either: the birds showed up strung around balconies or in the backseats of cars left unlocked or wrapped around cars that had been locked.

For the most part, it was great fun – even for the police officers called out to investigate rustling sounds in the night. We had no idea who was in on it, and nobody from our Smoking Garden party guest list was looking guilty.

When we were hit, one of our neighbors laughed and explained why she knew we hadn’t selected the birds as permanent decor: “You’re too organic.”

(Ouch!)

The Sunday morning the operation came out in the open, a guest to Meeting told me, “We did the same thing, down in Connecticut.”

“UCC?” I countered.

“Yes, how’d you know.”

“Just a lucky guess.”

So it had been the Meeting’s kids who were keeping the secret, along with a couple of very, very discrete adults. The money we raised went to the Heifer Project. Our children had to decide what kind of animals they’d send to the Third World – something big, like a cow, or something smaller, like a lot of chickens? And then they took a field trip to the project’s New England farm to check out all the options.

It’s a much better story than the one about my ex-wife’s two birds – the ones a friend of hers stole from my yard after the separation.

 Flocked

 our Lady of Pink Flamingos keeps taunting
“Have you been flocked?”

where’s it going, our summer of plastic flamingos?

 poem copyright 2014 by Jnana Hodson

THE YEAR 1980

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The earth itself is set to erupt.

~*~

Thunder pealed again, and everybody packed up. Outside, Roddy and Erik danced in the eerie dusk. A soft drumming in trees sounded like drizzle, but instead of water, powder fell. Everyone appeared amazed, even elated. Weren’t we fortunate to have a volcano blow up in our face! Then Jaya recalled history: “Oh, Pompeii! Will guides conduct tours here, showing the world exactly how we victims perished? Is this the way our world will end?” Something gripped her, insisting they get home or die in the effort. She dragged Erik, protesting, to the car and raced through the grit. Autos in front of them were invisible, even their taillights, until Jaya was almost atop them. The ink blot overhead closed in on the far horizon, sealing off the last natural light. Plunging through this tar-paper snowfall on a route they knew so well, Jaya recalled the many times she had joked about being able to drive it blindfolded.

Promise~*~

To learn more about my novel, go to my page at Smashwords.com.

FUN-DRAISING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Looked up as I drove by a big green lawn the other day and saw it was dotted with pink. A bright pink unlike any flowers we grow in these parts.

Then I smiled, realized the house had just been flocked – there was even a note stuck on a stick.

In a flash, even at a distance (this was the kind of place that has a small pond between the house and the highway), I sensed the two dozen flamingos were all uniform, likely brand-new, unlike the motley band we “quarantined” for our own use all too many years ago now. Why, ours even multiplied in the course of their service – some of the dads were making new ones from plywood, rather than plastic.

Flocked, you ask? Oh, I was sure I’d told that story, somewhere.

 

LEGACY FROM THE ’60S AND ’70S

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

One of the lingering questions asks, “Just what happened to the hippies in the end? Where did they all go?”

It’s a complex question, of course, which in turn leads to a range of possible answers.

One of them, though, would say that hippies never actually went away, not entirely.

Yes, many donned business suits or the like and were submerged into the broader economy. I’m hoping that as retirement hits, many of them will return to their idealistic and communal roots, especially in the face of the financial realities of living on Social Security, shrinking pensions, and meager investments.

Many others, though, despite their more conventional attire these days, have focused on a particular strand of the hippie legacy.

Among them:

  • Peace and nonviolence witness.
  • Racial and sexual equality.
  • Environmental and “green” concerns.
  • Back-to-the-earth living, including organic farming, natural foods, and vegan.
  • Alternative economics, including sustainability, co-ops, and nonprofits.
  • Music and the arts, often including folk traditions.
  • Healthy exercise, from hiking and camping to bicycling and cross-country skiing to contradancing and yoga.
  • Educational reform, including charter schools and homeschooling.
  • Spirituality, including meditation and chanting or Spirit-infused Christianity.
  • Boho fashion.

You can add to the list. While I touch on many of these as they were unfolding in my Hippie Trails novels, there’s no way I could capture everything, much less discuss the current incarnations.  For example, every time we see a Prius, just think: it’s what the Bug was back then.

I’m curious, though, about which ways you find the hippie experience echoing in your own life. What issues and themes are you continuing? And which ones do you miss? I bet you’re still wearing those blue jeans, too … most likely without the bib.

Me? It starts with being Quaker. And stretches through much of my work as a poet and author. Or even my focus when I was still in the newsroon.

THE SHORT VERSION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

Asked for a short theology, I’m likely to reply I’ve come to the conclusion God has a different way for us, individually and as a society, to be living.

It’s the story I see evolving in the Bible, for one thing. And in much of the history since.

It’s not hierarchy-based, for starters, and something quite different from nations, with their armies, as we know them.

We get a hint of it in the suggestion of the Jubilee, the redistribution of wealth every 50 years for the entire populace.

Maybe you’re already sensing I don’t draw a distinction between here and eternity, not the way Augustine did. It’s the “Kingdom Come, on Earth as it is in Heaven,” as Christians pray.

The long version, of course, is where all the details come into play.

RETURNING TO THE MONET WINDOW

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

The window I long viewed from my seat on the facing bench in the meetinghouse may also be regarded as an icon or mandala – a piece of art to facilitate the practice of spiritual focus and release. As an image used to settle a person into meditation, the window is hardly static. I’d settle in and close my eyes, as usual. At some point, though, I’d open them, softly, gaze around the room and then the window. Where is my heart today, truly? Where are my emotions? Let my thoughts still, for now. One looks out, to look within.

I recall another Friend, Randy Kezar, who once proposed photographing the view from another window in the room. His concept was to shoot the same scene from the same spot, at the same hour every Sunday for a full year. The record would show the small wooded slope blooming and in fullness, autumn color, snowfall and melting. Sunny days and rain. Glimpses of the city cemetery beyond.

On most Sundays after that, I would ask myself which artist best related to the scene framed before me. It turned out to be quite a collection.

And then there was that one April morning when I realized the visual quality of the air itself had changed. We’d crossed out of winter and into the light that accompanies summer. In the coffee hour afterward, a former TV producer told me of the ways his cameraman had to have the film adjusted to accommodate for this change every spring and again every autumn.

Just as telling was that one morning in May when I was struck by the hues of green and blue in the window and saw what resembled a Monet painting. While this was not a reference many of the earlier Friends in the room would have acknowledged or accepted, it definitely was one I could … along with most of the others present that day. The view in that color continued for three weeks but has never returned quite the same.

If I watch my own window hoping for a return of the Monet experience, I can too easily miss what’s present.

ESSENTIAL HELPERS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Asked what I consider the most essential tool for the yard and garden, I’d answer “my wheelbarrow.” A six-cubic foot wheelbarrow. Even more than my heavy-duty loppers.

100_8378

It’s not just because we have gardens on either side of the house, either. I use it to move newly delivered firewood as well as shrubbery cuttings. Compost. Harvests. As well as trash. Building and filling the raised beds for square-foot gardening. Spreading seaweed and mulch. The list goes on. And on.

It even serves as a platform for working. Or, in the past, for giving the kids rides.

GOOD TOOLS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Seeing a yuppie neighbor tackle another home project was always amusing. You could tell by the shiny new brand-name tools in the driveway. Always the he-man approved brands, at that. All for a 15-minute or half-hour job.

What a contrast to the beat-up weapons used by the professionals I knew! Or even the more skilled neighbors.

Pay attention and you can find a lot of good stuff at yard sales, including aluminum ladders and fold-down sawhorses.

But sometimes, it just pays to pay more for quality. My favorite garden spade demonstrates this perfectly. Purchased at a local greenhouse-and-nursery, the metal from the tines extends up and around the shaft, rather than being jammed into its end. There’s no separation while forking, unlike the cheaper models, the ones we still have but rarely use. No, those are just too frustrating. I’m sticking with my better designed favorite.

Here's my favorite. The forks are cast as a single piece with the sleeve that fits over the handle.
Here’s my favorite. The forks are cast as a single piece with the sleeve that fits over the handle.
In the less expensive model, the forks are jammed straight into the handle. Over time, however, they pull out while you're using them, leaving you frustrated and saying things you shouldn't.
In the less expensive model, the forks are jammed straight into the handle. Over time, however, they pull out while you’re using them, leaving you frustrated and saying things you shouldn’t.

 

 

MEETING WITH HISTORY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

Some have observed that Friends look to their history more than most other denominations do. They say a group that lacks dogma, creed, or liturgy will by necessity rely on its tradition for its guideline and authoritative reference. Well, maybe so. After all, to function as a Society of Friends, we need a common language that enables us to convey our diverse experiences, insights, desires, and needs in ways that knit us together. English Quaker Caroline E. Stephen (1835-1909) was amazed that any group of mystics could actually operate together at all, yet Friends do – and have. Eventually, I think, that functioning becomes part of the attraction early Quakers, especially, extend to us.

While much can be learned by exploring the history of Friends, there’s even more to be gleaned by uncovering a historic Friend who resonates especially with YOU. Sometimes these appear in the published journals, which relate inward and outward journeys through life (a gem may pop up in the middle of an otherwise tedious stretch of travel). Other times, they’re in memorial minutes, letters, or tracts. Sometimes, the words of an obscure Friend begins a lifetime dialogue. Ask around meeting, and there will be many suggestions. Or simply delve into the meeting library (the leatherbound collection holds many surprises, too).

In my experience, I can say that in actively invoking these ancestors, we cross a point where they’re no longer quaint (that nostalgic view of the smiling Quaker Oats man or people in some country meetinghouse) but instead astonishingly revolutionary. Their struggles and discoveries may suddenly speak to our own, even if what erupts is a loud argument – like the one Lewis Benson and John Curtis had in the mid-20th century before concluding that George Fox meant exactly what he was saying, scriptural citations and all. To speak of walking cheerfully in the face of brutal oppression and imprisonment is startling – and a starting point for transformation. It’s beneficial, too, when we discover we don’t need to constantly reinvent the wheel in our practice of faith, but also disconcerting when we realize how much of the work they began remains for us to continue. At least they stand ready to help us.

HIERARCHY OF WEEDS

~ Jnana Hodson

There’s an abundance of stealth maples, of course. Should we want the yard to revert to maple forest, we’d leave them untouched. Otherwise, they’ll overrun – and overshadow – everything we intend to garden. This is New England. Our yard has too little open, full sunlight as it is. Just ask my wife.

Each spring, we get thousands of these maple sprouts as they race to establish themselves around our yard and garden. Often, they pop up in the middle of plants you want, where they like to hide until it's too late, so eradicating the maples early is essential.
Each spring, we get thousands of these maple sprouts as they race to establish themselves around our yard and garden. Often, they pop up in the middle of plants you want, where they like to hide until it’s too late, so eradicating the maples early is essential.

Unless one is a truly dedicated weeder, a triage sets in: aim at the most damaging species and go after it, rather than everything at once. Thus, the maple seedlings, before they establish deep roots that are impossible to pull up. Or concentrate on specific beds each year: the asparagus and ferns, for instance.

There’s a list of common invasive species. We have them all.

Others that are welcome, within limit: honeysuckle, on the cyclone fence; mint, at the back, for mojitos and iced tea. Maybe even poison ivy, tolerated to ward off pedestrians or to establish boundary.

Dandelions (tooth of the lion) are no longer a weed now but daily greens for our rabbits and our own table, at least at the beginning of the season. After that requires vigilance.

The wild rose hips are becoming another matter altogether.