AncienTrails

Violence

Lughnasa                             Waxing Artemis Moon

The Woolly discussion topic tonight is violence.  I have tried to write out where I stand in what follows.  It is an unsatisfying position, full of weasel words and difficult choices, but I can see no other that makes sense in this, not at all one of the best possible, worlds.

Violence.  It seems to be everywhere.  Wars.  Homes.  Schools.  McDonald’s. On TV.  In video games.  In books we read.  Graphic novels.  Movies.  In the past, check any history book.  In the future.  Read any Rand report.  And that’s just the most common, banal kind, trauma inflicted by another through physical force.

In seminary, in a course called Constructive Theology, a more subtle analysis of violence got introduced.  In a society of plenty, when millions go hungry or without housing or medical care or decent education, that, too, is an act of violence.  In a world of plenty, when billions go hungry or without housing or medical care or decent education, well, you get the point.  Certain kinds of psychological behavior, whether between spouses or parents and children, violently disrupts the human developmental process or can crush another.

There is, too, the often blatant, but sometimes subtle violence of racism, sexism, any situation in which people in power judge another person or a whole group of people on the basis of secondary characteristics like skin color, gender, sexual preference.

The most extreme examples of violence that occurred in Stalin’s USSR, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Hitler’s German, Rwanda, Bosnia/Serbia and Armenia are, sad to say, only this last century’s examples of a pervasive human tendency to eliminate the other, the one who makes us uncomfortable, the one who reminds us too much of the dark side of ourselves.

Violence then, is not an aberration, it is a common human response, a way of expressing power or dominance, of enforcing prejudice, of maintaining political rule, of holding on to hordes of cash or weapons or countries.  It is also a tool to defeat oppressors, to defend family and property and to maintain the safety of a town, city, state or nation.

In my case I’ve come up against violence:  in the struggle for civil rights, in the war against the Vietnam War, in a world before a woman’s right to choose how to handle her own body, like many Americans post 9/11.  When I was younger, I would say, “Join the Army.  Visit foreign lands.  Meet exotic people and kill them.” or “They don’t call it murder if you kill by the thousands and the sounds of trumpets with banners flying.”

Even back then, though, I was against the Vietnam War, not war.  It was the wrong war, against the wrong people, for the wrong reason, at the wrong time.  I could point however to WWII as a war whose rationale seemed justified, a just war.  I was not then, nor am I now, a pacifist.  Knowing what I know now would I have fought in WWII. Yes.  Knowing what I know now would have fought in Vietnam or Iraq?  No.  Afghanistan?  Yes.  At least at first.  The current situation has more complex dynamics.

When Joseph joined the Air Force, I struggled with it as a generally peace oriented person, but when he told me he wanted to defend the country that had given him so much, I understood.  I agree that a principle role of government is to protect our nation against its enemies foreign and domestic.  An Air Force, a Navy, an Army, a military in other words, is necessary to that mission. It would be hypocritical for me to pretend my own son could not participate.  Would I prefer he had chosen something else?  Yes, for my own purposes.  But, for his, which is, in the final analysis, what counts, he made the right choice and I agree with it.

What I’m trying to say here is that violence has its place in our world. It may be, most often is, a place we deplore, but it would be naive to ignore state-sponsored violence or the violence of organized terrorist organizations and just hope they will go away.

So, our approach to violence as an issue must be nuanced.  Though the NRA seem like loose cannons (pardon the metaphor), I do agree with one aspect of their rationale.  We must be prepared to defend our freedom and, as Thomas Jefferson enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, it is possible the enemy of our freedom might be the state.  Even the US Government.

It happens.  Witness the colonies and England.  Witness India and England.  Witness the satellite states of the USSR.  Witness the Albanians in the Bosnia/Serbia conflict.  Witness Israel.  Witness Bolivar in South America.  Witness the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.  Witness China against Japan in era of the Nanjing massacre.  The Irish against the English.  The Native peoples of this and many other lands against those who came to visit and decided to stay.  Witness the Kurds inside Iraq.  This is not an isolated story and the only answer for those of us who would not live under someone else’s heel is to pay the price: vigilance and willingness to fight.

Should violence be our first resort?  No.  No.  No.  Preemptive war, as the Bush administration not only supported but engaged in Iraq, is the path to tyranny, if it is not in fact tyranny ipso facto.  Should violence be our second resort?  No.  No.  Violence should only be part of our political or personal agenda when diplomacy has failed or real peril confronts us.

As to interpersonal violence, it seems in all but the most unusual cases, that talk is not only preferable but necessary.

I would characterize my position as one which holds out for the full range of responses to threatening behavior, but intends to use only the least harmful method possible in each particular instance.  This recognizes that in some situations the least harmful method may be to deploy violent acts against another intending the same.  Not desirable, no, but then neither is subjugation or death at the hands of another.

Photo, Photo On The Wall

Lughnasa                                        New (Artemis) Moon

Sometimes thing go as planned.  Sometimes not.  The session with David Little (curator of photography) this morning did not go as planned.  For whatever reason we had an hour to spare, wandering the wonderful Bergman exhibition as Bill Bomash teased out clues to the stories behind the photographs.  A young girl, wanting to talk about her experience, joined the group and added her observations.  Who’s to say that was wasted time?

David Little comes out of a museum educators background and has a real feel for what is useful to docents.  He showed some new acquisitions including a surprise by Ansel Adam, a surrealist shot of a scissors and thread.  We also wandered into the 55 degree refrigerator, larger than a large meat locker, where the MIA stores it’s 11,500 photographs.  Cool, man.

He also talked about how he makes curatorial decisions, relationships with dealers and photographers, in particular as it relates to borrowing objects.  In the contemporary art and photography realm shows need relevance and he finds working with dealers and photographers much more expeditious than working with museums where the decision turn around for a loan can take as much as a year.

He and Liz Armstrong, the new contemporary arts curator, have a commitment to collecting and exhibiting work being made now and in the recent past.  The two of them, as well as Kaywin Feldman, have brought a fresh energy and verve to the whole museum and I, for one, am glad.  Not that the old museum was bad, it wasn’t, but the new folks have juiced things up, creating new ways to view and understand art.

We finished up with David Little over lunch.  He promised to get us some bibliography and to develop more in depth photography ed as new exhibitions are hung.  A good event with the timing slightly off.  The quality of the contact with David was high.  Thanks, Lisa.

Kate and I had a guy, Glenn, come up tonight and give us a presentation and bid on creating a water feature by the patio.  He seems to know his stuff and have a sensible plan to give us what we want.

Been fighting this same damned virus I had a month or so ago.  Kate says having clusters of illnesses is not unusual in that the body can retain a reservoir of the virus or bacteria.  Your body builds up antibodies and knocks it out at some point.  At least this time I have not had the pink eye or the ear infection.

Bee Diary Supplemental

Summer                                     Full Grandchildren Moon

Kate’s made the woodenware for Artemis Hives.  Dave Schroeder suggested we mark each piece with the year made.  As we start eliminating frames and hive boxes on a five year cycle, we’ve got the record right on the box.  This year, with no marks, will be 2010.  Next year she’ll start marking them year by year.

Kate and I have been investigating honey extracting equipment.  It’s not cheap, but it’s not break the bank expensive either.  We have to have a certain level of equipment to get from honey supers to bottled honey, most of which will go in canning jars, but some will go in fancy jars as gifts or to sell at a farmer’s market.  This is the next to last phase of beekeeping and one still new to me.  The last phase of beekeeping comes after the honey extraction.  The colonies will need inspection for varroa mites and nosema before late fall.  Doing this stuff is also new to me, but I have to learn at some point.

(this is one unit we’re considering right now.)

We had a designer come out to discuss a water feature for our patio area.  He showed us some brochures, talked with us a bit and recommended a pondless solution.  Sounds great to me.  Once you’ve had a swimming pool, you know the hassle pond maintenance brings in its trail.  This one has a pump and running water filtered through sand and rock.  It’s not cheap, however, so we’ll have to decide.

Roasting a chicken.  Brenda Langton suggested some meat, chicken or lamb or turkey, made at the beginning of the week, serving as a meal entre, then as sandwich or salad fixings, finally boiled in a soup.  It’s a nice, straightforward way to plan a week, easy, too.

Seeing What We Really Have Here

Summer                                             Waxing Grandchildren Moon

We are well past midsummer here in the northern latitudes.  The garden’s peak bearing season will commence although we have already had blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, currants, garlic, lettuce, greens, onions, parsnips, beets and sugar snap peas.  Ahead of us are tomatoes, green peppers, potatoes, more greens, onions, beets, lettuce, butternut squash, leeks, wild grapes and carrots plus the odd apple.   Our orchard has a ways to go before it matures.  And I have a ways to go before I can care for the fruit trees in the manner to which they need to become accustomed.

All of which opens up the purpose of this little experiment in permaculture and the tending of perennial flowers and plants.  A long while back I bought three quarter-long horticulture classes from the University of Guelph in London, Ontario.  It took me a while to complete it, maybe a year all told.  The course helped me integrate and deepen what I’d learned by trial and error as I cared for the daffodils, tulips, day-lilies, hosta, croci, roses, trees and shrubs that then constituted our gardens.

In its salad days (ha, ha) the notion involved a root-cellar and the possibility of at least making it part way off the food grid.  Fewer trips to the grocery store, healthier food, old fashioned preservation.  A mix of back-to-the-land and exurban living on our own little hectare.  Last year the notion began to include bee-keeping.  Now called Artemis Hives.

As the reality of the size of our raised beds, the likely peak production of the fruits and vegetables possible has become clear to me, I have a more modest though not substantially different goal.  We will eat meals with fresh produce and fruits during the producing part of the growing season.  We will preserve in various ways honey,  grapes, apples, pears, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, squash, beets, greens and parsnips.  These we will eat during the fallow days that begin as the garden goes into senescence in late August and early September and last through the first lettuce and peas of the next growing season.  We will supplement these with greens grown hydroponically and use the hydroponics to start seeds and create transplants for 2011.

None of this will remove us in any major way from the store bought food chain.  We will not solve or resolve much of our carbon footprint.  But some.  More than most perhaps, but far too little to claim even a modest victory.  So, should we give up?

Not at all.  Why?  Well, there is a richer, deeper lesson here than living wholly off our own land.  That lesson, taught again, day by day and week by week, and again, lies in the rhythm of the plants, the bees, the land and the weather.  An old joke from the 50’s asked, “What do you call people who practice the rhythm method?” (Catholics at the time)  Answer:  “Parents.”  The permaculture and perennial flowers here at Seven Oaks is a rhythm method.  What do you call folks who practice this rhythm method?  Pagans.

Ours is a life that flows in time with the seasonal music of the 45th latitude, the soil on our land, the particularities of the plants we grow, the energy of the bee colonies that work alongside us, the various animal nations that call this place home.  This is the profound lesson of this place.  Seven Oaks is a temple to the movement of heaven and the bees of Artemis Hives are its priestesses.

We Call This Place Home

Summer                                New (Grandchildren) Moon

Outside this morning, finishing my tea on the patio, a hummingbird darted in and out of the lilies, gathering the last bits of nectar, passing on final touches of pollen.  Like the possum from yesterday’s adventure the hummingbird shares this patch of land with us, too.  Possum, groundhogs, gophers, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, deer, hummingbirds, blue jays, goldfinches, red-headed and pileated woodpeckers, a great horned owl, crows, grosbeaks, dogs, mice, skinks, salamanders, garter snakes, garden spiders, wolf spiders, worms, bees, moths, wasps, caterpillars and butterflies and many others, most one-celled or many-celled, I imagine, live here.

They live here as we do,  making a home, finding and preparing food, eating their meals, raising their young, growing to old age, dying.  Our home takes up more space, yes, and our decisions impact the land in dramatic, sometimes even drastic ways, but that we are only one species among hundreds that live here is beyond question.

When we leave, either through death or otherwise, the generations yet unborn of these animals and insects and other life forms will, perhaps, know no difference.  If fact, if the house became abandoned, many of them would find a use for it as shelter, as a place to raise their families, perhaps as a source of food.

All of us, all of us who live here, are only here for a while.  It is so important that we leave this place a better one for all its inhabitants.  If each of us only took this one objective, a prime objective?, to leave our places better for all those who live in them, wouldn’t the world be safe now and into the future?

Natural Capital

Summer                                    Waning Strawberry Moon

I’ve not written much about permaculture for a while.  Here’s a one-pager* from our landscapers, Ecological Gardens.   It defines a new term for me:  natural capital.  I’ve since discovered that this is a term with a larger history which I haven’t explored fully, but I like the Ecological Gardens version.

Just imagine the kind of revolution we’d have if each person with land–in the whole world or in a whole city or in a whole county like Anoka County–committed themselves to increasing the natural capital of their land.  It’s a little bit like that old boy scout motto:  Leave your campsite better than you found it.

We could, each one of us, take multiple unique tacks on the notion of natural capital.  Some of us might focus on small commercial crops, others might raise chickens for meat and eggs, still others might band together as neighborhoods and grow crops in tandem, some folks doing one thing, others another and producing a local horticultural economy.

A federal or state program that made low cost loans or outright grants for the establishment of permaculture at the local level makes a lot of sense to me.  Like the 160 acres and a mule of yesteryear.  We need a horticulture and an agriculture that increases the carrying capacity of the earth, helps clean up the rivers, streams and lakes.

*Would you like to:
•   Maintain beautiful self-sustaining gardens organically?
•   Pick fresh, nutrient-dense foods from your own backyard?
•   Create habitat for the nature you love?
•   Build resiliency into your landscape to help fight climate change?

These are all products of natural capital. Our first priority at Ecological Gardens is to help you increase the natural capital of your land. This means assessing the unique combination of resources – sunlight, wind, water, and microclimates – and turning them into productive investments that will yield benefits today and for many years to come.
Soil is the foundation for natural capital in our northern temperate climate. Healthy soil creates a condition for healthy plants, produces nutrient-dense foods for humans and wildlife, reduces water use, and minimizes leaching and runoff. Building healthy soil usually requires an investment since most soils are compacted and chemically treated.
Plants are the primary producers of value on the land. They take up sunlight, water, and nutrients turning them into nutritious foods, medicines, fibers, fuels, oils, and wood. Increasing productivity on your land requires an initial investment since plants of low productivity tend to dominate the landscape.
Your return on investment will vary depending on the size of your land and the configuration of resources but will increase exponentially as plant diversity and abundance grows.

Short-term returns (1-5 years)
•   Lower water bills (up to 30%) for yard and garden care
•   Lower maintenance costs for fertilizers and lawn care products
•   Lower food bills as you begin to harvest food, flowers and medicines
•   Greater wildlife value (bees, birds, and beneficial insects)
•   Greater beauty

Intermediate returns (5-15 years)
•   Lower energy costs for air conditioning and heating by strategically locating trees and vines
•   Lower labor requirements as natural processes begin to work for you
•   Increased property values due to abundance and beauty
•   Increased food security as you provide more of your own food

Long-term returns (15 + years)
•   Lower fuel costs as you begin to harvest your own wood [for larger properties]
•   Increased productivity as your land matures

The 4th

Summer                                        Waning Strawberry Moon

The 4th of July.  A time to think about our country, our home, our sea to shining sea.  Are we in decline?  This chestnut has begun hitting the op ed pages again.  I don’t know, they don’t know.  Only history will tell us.  Does it matter?  Not to me.  We’ll still be Americans, just like the British are still British in spite of the collapse of the empire on which the sun never sat.

Are there major problems within our body politic?  Oh, my, yes.  Does this make our time different from any other time?  Emphatically, no.

Here’s an example from a Frederick Douglass speech quoted in the Star-Tribune today: 

“Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!”

To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.

My subject, then, fellow citizens, is “American Slavery.”"

Does this harmony of misery make us any less accountable for the unemployed, the dying lakes and rivers, the immigrants who would live among us and share this land?   Emphatically, no.

Whether in decline or doggedly ascending the hill to that Bright Shining City so beloved of our forefathers, we must attend the great American ideals of liberty and equality, the twin conceptual mounts on which both our past and our future rest.

And not these only.  We now have before us the Great Work, the demanding and joyful task of creating a human presence on this planet that is benign, not malignant.

Here are the things make me believe we will continue to rise to these challenges no matter our relative status in the world:  we ended slavery.  we fought and defeated fascism.  we looked at old age poverty and created social security.  we have a statue at what used to be the main entry point for immigrants; it is a statue of liberty and one which says to the world, give us your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.  we have brilliant scientists, great laboratories and universities, students even at this moment learning to be the future leaders that we need.  we have poets, movie makers, authors, critics, musicians, painters and sculptors all ready to help us see what we do not see.  we have neighborhood after neighborhood of people who want only a chance, the same chance many of our ancestors have already had.  we are a people who have won great victories for humanity.  we are a land unparalleled in its ruggedness, its beauty, its flora and fauna, rivers and streams, lakes and forests.

All of these things make me happy and hopeful on this 4th of July.

-

Into the City

Summer Solstice                                   Waxing Strawberry Moon

The Woollies gathered tonight at Charlie Haislet’s place in the Rock Island condos, just north and a bit east of downtown.  We gathered, our numbers shrunk by various summer activities to:  Charlie, Warren, Frank, Scott, Bill, Mark and myself.  The conversation went on as it does, checking in on how folks are, what’s going on, but Charlie turned the conversation toward Father’s day.  It seemed to  me, as I listened, that we have all rooted ourselves in family, our nuclear and extended families, and, further, that as we have grown older, those connections have grown richer and deeper, occupying the central spot in each of our lives that the voice of tradition has suggested they might.

Charlie’s 7th floor (top) condo overlooked downtown; the waxing strawberry moon hung over the glass and stone cityscape, the dying sun reflecting in the mirrored surfaces of the IDS, the Northwest Building and all the modernist architecture there.  I’ve been critical of it as lacking flair and imagination, but tonight, a clear warm summer night, the reflections and the twilight, then the advance of night and the reflections of lights was glorious.  It looked like Oz, as I think of it when I turn on Hwy 610 heading south and see it far away, maybe 15-20 miles.

Before the meeting, I arrived a little early and took advantage of the time to walk through the neighborhood, a now populous community that is no more than 20 years old.  There was a couple with a young boy in a stroller and a dog, a young man with his white shirt half out, tie askew with his dog, a couple with a puppy, all walking, off work and at home.  The buildings were brick, a few old, like the Rock Island and The Creamette, but many new.

Some had iron barred and locked fence doors protecting patios which anyone could easily vault onto from the railing.  There were signs: no walking on the grass, dog waste here, guest parking only, towing $260.00.  The green space that existed had a manicured and distant feel, as if its purpose was to recall, to remind rather thanto be.  The windows had blinds and shutters; thanks to air conditioning almost none were open, so the few people I encountered while walking were all I could see other than tailored walls and well hung windows, the odd bit of decor.  It felt, not empty, but not lively either.

Putting myself there as a resident, I tried to decide if this would work for me.  It has the advantage of being near to the main library, downtown, the shopping around University and Hennepin, the Mississippi and its parks.  There would be neighbors aplenty and the urban feel has a certain up energy to it.

These days, though, when many folks I know have moved or want to move from the burbs into the city, I’d have to say I surprised myself.  It felt too confining, too many neighbors, too many shared walls, too many signs and restrictions.  Too little room to plant, to have dogs run, to exercise a horticultural or apicultural inclination.  It surprised me because I consider myself a city boy, wedded to political work and aesthetic work that require the urban environment for their realization.

I’ve changed.  I’m now an exurban man, grown used to the quiet here, the open space, the land on which we can grow vegetables and flowers, have a bee yard, a honey house and a separate play house for the grandkids.  When I drive by Round Lake, I’ve come home.

The Sublime Gift

Beltane                                       Waning Planting Moon

” Life can’t bring you the sublime gift it has for you until you interrupt your pursuit of a mediocre gift.”

Woolly brother Tom Crane sent this to me.  It took me back to my recent post about Siah Armajani and his personal commitment to staying within his skill set.  When I worked for the church in the now long ago past, I had a boss, Bob Lucas, a good man, who had several sayings he used a lot.  One of them was also similar in spirit, “Don’t major in the minors.”

Stop focusing on the small things you might be able to do well to the exclusion of being challenged by the serious, important matters.  Stop your pursuit of a mediocre gift.   The tendency to judge our worth by the accumulation of things–a he who dies with the best toys wins mentality–presses us to pursue money or status, power, with all of our gifts.  You may be lucky enough, as Kate is, to use your gifts in a pursuit that also makes decent money; on the other hand if  your work life and your heart life don’t match up, you risk spending your valuable work time and energy in pursuit of a mediocre gift, hiding the sublime one from view.

This is not an affair without risk.  Twenty years ago I shifted from the ministry which had grown cramped and hypocritical for me to what I thought was my sublime gift, writing.  At least from the perspective of public recognition I have to say it has not manifested itself as my sublime gift.  Instead, it allowed me to push away from the confinement of Christian thought and faith.  A gift in itself for me.  The move away from the ministry also opened a space for what I hunch may be my sublime gift, an intense engagement with the world of plants and animals.

This is the world of the yellow and black garden spider my mother and I watched out our kitchen window over 50+ years ago.  It is the world of flowers and vegetables, soil and trees, dogs and bees, the great wheel and the great work.  It is a world bounded not by political borders but connected through the movement of weather, the migration of the birds and the Monarch butterflies.  It is a world that appears here, on our property, as a particular instance of a global network, the interwoven, interlaced, interdependent web of life and its everyday contact with the its necessary partner, the inanimate.

So, you see, the real message is stop pursuit of the mediocre gift.  After that, the sublime gift life has to offer may then begin to pursue you.

Permaculture and the Natural World

Beltane                          Waxing Planting Moon

I’ve not written about permaculture in a while.  The orchard has clover all over, including in some of the plant guilds, but they seem intact.  It has changed the view from our kitchen, a productive part of our property now sits just outside our windows.  The bees fit in well to the permaculture process because they  fertilize the fruits: apples, pears, cherries, blueberries, currants, quince, gooseberries, raspberries and strawberries.

In a modest sense, given the small number of our fruit producing plants, the bee/fruit blossom connection is a complete one.  The fruit grows in our soil, blooms here, the bee comes, collects nectar and in the process fertilizes the fruit.  The fertilized fruit grows large to encase the fertilized seeds.  The bee returns to the hive, uses the nectar and pollen from the fruit blossoms to feed larvae and make honey.  When we eat the honey, the circle includes us in a direct and intimate way.

In a similar way the plant guilds, selections of plants that complement each other by warding off predatory insects, attracting beneficial insects, setting nitrogen and micronutrients into the soil, also have a circle of benefit that, in turn, helps us produce healthy vegetables for our table.  Our gardens and orchard have a more modest impact on our overall diet than a larger plot could, but the very act of growing and eating at least some of our food makes us more conscious of everything we eat.

There is another strong positive, too, perhaps the most important one of all, at least for me.  By working with plants that have specific needs, specific soil temperatures, water requirements, nutrients, length of growing season, protection from pests Kate and I have to orient our lives to their rhythms.  No matter what we do, a plant needs to be planted when it needs to be planted.  It needs thinning when it needs thinning, pruning when it needs pruning.  When harvest comes, it too must be done in a timely manner or the whole process will have gone for not.

The bees, too, have their cycles of birth, maturation and decline.  To work with bees we have to take them as they are, not as we would wish them to be.  We  work with them according to their ancientrails, ones laid down thousands, even millions of years ago and ones to which we adapt, not the other way around.

This act of submission to what could be called biological imperatives does not, surprisingly, chain us, rather, in that wonderfully contradictory way, it frees us to become an active part in nature’s ongoingness.  We become an active partner rather than a dominator, yet another living thing dancing to the music of cold and heat, wet and dry, light and dark.

Yes, it is, of course true, that we run our air conditioner in the summer and our furnace in the winter.  Yes, we refrigerate some of our food.  We close our doors so that we don’t dance to the buzzing and whirring of insects also part of nature’s minuets, gavottes and tangos.  So, no, we are not pure, but that is in fact the human dilemma. We are part of nature, able to respond to and participate in her rhythms, yet we are also creatures of culture, the complex web we weave to make our home on this planet.

This tension creates an angst we sometimes know only when we stand on a cliff’s edge, look out toward the ocean and see the sun sink below the water’s blue margin.  It is an unresolvable angst, this in but not entirely of nature realm we inhabit.  It is, I would argue, an angst that we must embrace, not push away.  Why?  Because pushing away our delicate problem has created an ecological disaster that just may scour us off the face of mother earth.  That’s a good reason, I think.