Mabon and the Harvest Moon
Friday gratefuls: Shadow and Tom’s nylabone. Morning darkness. Hawai’i. Hickam. Honolulu. Diamond Head. Pearl Harbor. Big Island. Kona. Hilo. Volcanoes National Park. Mauna Loa. Kilauea. The Mauna Kea. Waimea. Kauai. Kalalau Trail. Hanalei Bay. Maui. Mama’s Fish House. Haleakala. Lahaina. The Weston. The Pacific. Surfing.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hawai’i with Kate
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei
Week Kavannah: Yesod. Groundedness.
Tarot: paused
One brief shining: Funny how peace can soothe us, make us dance in the streets, as if that long long period of death and destruction existed only to show us how much peace means to us, how much stability and order provide the framework for a rich, calm life. Why can we not remember this before we start a war?
The West: Woke up this morning to find my back door open! Geez. Must have been high winds over night and a not quite closed door. Glad no hyperphagic Bear discovered it. Or, a hungry Mountain Lion. Will make me more vigilant. Shadow Mountain at night. Not a place for open doors.
Been thinking about The West. About becoming a Coloradan. Which happened a few years ago. Not sure I could pinpoint a moment, more like a gradual realization that turning toward the Mountains meant turning towards home.
Becoming a Westerner is different. It has not only a specific and important geographical connotation, but also a mind set, a way of seeing what’s important from a spot that begins, at least for me, at the Front Range where the High Plains fall away and the Rockies begin.
In Indiana and later in Minnesota my attention turned toward the East Coast. To its prominence in U.S. history, its storied Universities, Boston, New York, Washington, D.C. The birthplace of our nation.
When I went to college, I chose Wabash, which styled itself as the Harvard of the Midwest. I wanted, for a long time, to live in New York City or D.C. The ocean I thought about was the Atlantic. Somehow destiny and greatness could only be found by going East.
No longer. While in Minnesota, as Mary, Mark, and eventually my son took up residence in Asia, my gaze began to turn West, toward the Pacific. Toward Asia.
As a result, when Kate and I moved to Colorado, I had already begun to redirect my gaze toward the West, toward that region of the country long associated with escape from the fuss budgets and robber baron capitalists, even from the often ossified social status of the Ivy Leagues. Go West, young man!
It has however only been of late that my inner world has fully shifted from those long years of focus on the East Coast as the region of primary importance for our country. Of course, Harvard and Yale. Still there. D.C. Still the center of U.S. political power. New York City. Still the financial center and the locus of the old world’s art and culture.
But. For me. They are all far away. A distant land of strivers, over achievers. Of people who put success before family, even before the nation. I no longer yearn to find my place in the world of their values.
Today my U.S. has Fourteeners. Mountain Streams. Huge amounts of unsettled land. Mule Deer and Elk. Mountain Lions. It is a U.S. defined more by its topography than its ability to shape the wide world. I wonder why I was ever drawn to the kinds of achievement typified by Ph.D.’s, fat bank accounts, ruling the world.
No, I’ve not replaced my suit with a Stetson, blue jeans, and a Western shirt. Although I might some day. Instead I watch Fog cover Black Mountain. I brake for the Elk Cows and their Calves crossing the highway. I live up high, not only distant from the East in miles, but also in altitude. In attitude.
I’ve abandoned the historic early U.S. for the ages long journey of Rocky Mountains, of their Hills and Valleys. For Wild Neighbors. Want to make policy? Consider them. Support and encourage a melding of humans and their natural environment rather than making the world safe for Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Business, Big Egos.
Come out here to learn the human place in the world. Then write your dissertations, create IPO’s, pass laws.