MOON GAZING

Last night we observed a rare, ‘Super Blood Moon’ eclipse. It was way-cool, watching the earth’s shadow creep across a moon-so-bright, I had to squint to look straight into it. Under the full shadow, it had in fact a reddish cast. Last night was also the night I met my 19 yr-old granddaughter's man, if you will. I didn’t ask but I presume that John is older than she is, like 25 or 26, has a reliable job, his own home and seems to be alright. I concede to the nature of grandparents when sizing up potential mates for their grand kids; nobody is quite good enough. We watched the lunar eclipse at his place. While watching the moon and seeing the kids, acting more like an old married couple than kids, I thought about a series of novels I read back in the 1970’s, 'The Kent Family Chronicles.' It was the ongoing saga of one man’s journey and by extension, his descendants as they stumbled and plunged through American history. From one generation to the next, through 13 volumes, beginning before the American revolution and spanning World War 2; I was dragged through historically correct times with one Kent or another. It was a good read with historical details that filled in lots of holes in the story of our country. 

As much as it entertained and informed, what lingers from that experience is something I discovered in me rather than what I was reading. A realization kept reoccurring, in every succeeding generation. Whether or not that particular Kent descendant was noble or corrupt, powerful or not, loved or hated; the patriarch, Philip Kent from the first episode was no longer a part of the story. The unfolding odyssey and its characters had little or no correlation to the trials and triumphs of their predecessors. What Jakes did was to introduce characters as children who would assume major roles in later episodes. Then, his task was to slip them into the historical setting as current events required. Each new character fit a new, different story that would stand alone, without the Kent legacy. The Kent legacy as it turns out was simply the unfolding, regardless of where it was going, it had noting to do with what Philip Kent loved or hated, what he did or did not do. 

I think one’s life experience is analogous to a very long string of beads, and any particular bead on the string by nature of its size or color or texture can change the course of its story. Simple things like an innocent kiss or being caught in the rain or losing your keys; they can mark a change in direction that completely changes the story. Our stories all begin at birth but conditions surrounding that event can range from one extreme to another. Still that is the starting point, the backstory has already been established and we have no control over that part. But from then on, our beads are arranged by what we do and by the cards life deals you. It sets the new stage, in the present and we have a new role, with our own lines. Shakespeare knew as well as anyone, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.”  Even though our lines are born in our mouths, in the moment, they are not always of our choosing. Between our entrance and exit, life propels us. We get a few chances to choose our lot and pursue a noble purpose but mostly we simply move in a direction that favors pleasure and avoids pain. 

Moon watching the other night, we observed all the good manners and mutual respect. We are nice people, what else? But I drove away thinking about Philip Kent. What, and when did he think about his part in the way his grandchildren aspired and believed, if at all. Still his story was no longer The Story. When he phased out they would have been stringing beads of their own for a long time and his story would be no more than the stuff of, ‘Trivial Pursuit'. Imagine actors, fighting, trying to convince writers to keep their story at the front, even after they exit, rather than the ones coming up the pipe. That isn’t how it works. In Shakespeare’s time, in Philip Kent’s time, in my time, The Story is the one that has action and a future waiting to unfold. So my impression of the new ‘Man’ is nothing more, nothing less than an old man’s take on what is really none of his business; a footnote on a filed away, forgotten page. If her ‘Man’ fits the stereotype of a classic, Knee-jerk Redneck who trusts polarized talk-radio and FOX News for his world view; not my choice but then who am I to object? I’m just the has been whose story is winding down. I take a little comfort in Shakespeare’s line, “. . . in his time one man plays many parts.” Maybe one of us will change. I do trust Gibran when it comes to wisdom and it was Gibran who wrote about children; that they are life’s longing for itself, though they come through us they belong not to us. He said that we can peer through the window into their future but we can’t go there with them. Whatever happens, happens but those beads are on a different string. My string of beads is my story, the one I live and I’m still threading beads as best I can. All I hope for, for my grandchildren, is that when they grow old they can be grateful that life has given them a good ride. 

CONNECTING DOTS

I listened to a radio interview toady, a middle age lady who is a Lutheran minister. What set her apart was that she was a spiky haired, heavily tattooed, former alcoholic, stand up comic who swore like a truck driver and defied convention. After completing a 12 step sobriety program she followed an interest in theology, went to seminary and came out the other end an ordained minister. Mainline clergy were slow to approve but none of them could fault anything about her academic preparation. Her new purpose was to serve her people; addicts, drag queens, LGBT and others who were down and struggling in Denver, CO. 

What struck me about the conversation was her view on Faith. She thought it a gift; that you can not acquire it of your own initiative, that praying for it is a waste of time. She quoted Martin Luther, the namesake of her church and I thought of the movie, ‘Angels & Demons’ when the cleric asks Tom Hanks if he believes in God. Hanks reply, “Faith is a gift I have yet to receive.” We all have hopes (wanna-be Faith) and behave as we must but Luther said that Faith is the intersection between what we believe and what God moves us to do. Thus follows his premise, “Faith without works is dead.” God’s moving us is the gift. It underscores the Calvinist principle of predestination. Theologians have massaged and twisted that little problem so thoroughly that now they can have it both ways. 

I have resorted to connecting-the-dots without the benefit/burden of religion. For much of my life I trusted religion to be the dot-connector but I no longer pour water down that hole. I use what I understand via logic and reason. I trust critical analysis. Then I accept that there is a breech between what can be calculated and what can not. We know that emotion/feelings move us at a deeper level than does knowledge. “Passion drives and logic follows.” David Hume, 19th century, Scottish philosopher resisted this conclusion for decades but in the end, had to accept it. Modern research has corroborated his thoughts in a much more timely process. Joseph Campbell said that ‘God’ is the metaphor we use for the mystery in our lives; what we can’t deny but don’t understand. In the end I try to find balance and go with what feels right, knowing that everything changes. A fundamental flaw with Western Religion is the need for absolute, universal truths, which is not so bad in itself but they want it right now and that’s a problem. As truth evolves we update our knowledge base and move a step closer to the elusive absolute. It takes time. A human lifetime may seem long when viewed from within but it’s just a blink, a single frame in a very long movie. We get neither the credit nor the satisfaction of knowing who-done-it.

The tattooed, lady minister was a good interview and it made me think. I hope the radio station wrote her a nice check. My gut feeling is that her Faith would pass Martin Luther’s test; without works it doesn’t float. Her purpose is to nurture her flock and God is her instrument. My evangelical counterparts believe that pleasing God is their purpose and to be his instrument, all they have to do is believe. I cannot escape the tug of my culture or the myth it sprang from but I can resist it. I know beau coups more than my forebears  about where the sun goes when it sets. Watching the sun sink behind a familiar lighthouse, I feel much the same as Ferdinand Magelland must have felt on some unexplored shore but I look for truth to Campbell and Sagan who did the math first. 

TREE HUGGER

In the summers of 2009 & ’10 I was an ‘In Park Volunteer’ at Kenai Fjords National Park. My job was Interpretation; I was one of the folks who led guided hikes, presented educational programs and reminded visitors of park rules. The only difference between my job and the Smokey Bear Rangers was the color of our uniforms and the pay. One day on a trail near the visitor’s center a man with a foreign accent motioned to me. His English was rough but his message was clear. He did not like the United States or Americans particularly but he loved our National Parks. He said they were the one thing that we got right, that the rest of the world looks to us to see how National Parks should be done. I agreed with him on the parks and thanked him for his input. Our National Parks rock. 

A century back, when the idea was just beginning to manifest itself at Yosemite and Grand Canyon, corporations coveted them. The Santa Fe Railroad built a rail connection and a 5 star hotel on the south rim of Grand Canyon. They envisioned it as their private, prototype theme park. Thank goodness it didn’t play out that way. The mission of National Park Service is abbreviated to the three P’s; Preserve and Protect our national treasures and only then, facilitate the public’s Pleasure. At about the same time, Congressman William Kent, from California, purchased 600 acres north of San Francisco. His intent was to protect old growth redwoods from loggers saws and from development. Developers threatened to use laws of ‘Eminent Domain’ to gain control over the valley but Kent sidestepped their scheme by donating the land to the government, making it a federal possession rather than private. President Teddy Roosevelt declared the land a National Monument, insuring its protection. They named the patch of redwoods for John Muir, the leading environmental activist of his time. In this case Kent and Roosevelt got it right. Today, you can walk the boardwalk under those giants or hike hillside trails that let you look through the canopy. All you have to do is go, do it. 

I love trees in the first place; you don’t have to sell me on the idea. I am a ‘Tree Hugger’ of the 1st degree, literally. As a biology teacher, one of my favorite lessons was leaf collection and identification. At some point you have to hug them if you intend to climb very high and I been climbing from an early age. Then again, the name implies a smug if not condescending slur against anyone who favors balance and preservation in natural habitats as opposed to their profitable exploitation. I am predisposed to that view as well. Concern for the Spotted Owl and Rainbow Darters blocked logging operations and hydroelectric development a few decades back. Those who stood to profit from development were outraged and thus coined the insult. I am not insulted. Not that those creatures are all that important in and of themselves but they do act as the ‘Canary in the mine. . .’ to signal dangerous, undetected changes in the system. The health and well being of coal mine canaries was certainly high on their list of priorities but that wasn't about the bird; it was about coal miners and ultimately, profit. 

I’ve been to Muir Woods before and I was there recently with people I care deeply about. Just to be present with trees who were alive, casting their own huge shadows when Genghis Kahn was plundering Persia and England's King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede; it gives me pause. We walked the valley floor then hiked the hillsides. We ate lunch in the shade of giant redwoods and watched people of many nationalities, speaking their own languages, all wide eyed and smiling. Money mongers can flourish in a vacuum, wherever there are other addicts playing their game, but they can do it without destroying our irreplaceable, natural treasures. I’m hugging trees, everywhere I go and it gives me great pleasure.  

FRUIT HANGS HEAVY ON THE VINE

It’s interesting how we stumble through life, believing the hype, thinking we are the captains of our own destiny. I think we are like chicken in the pen who peck the ground wherever they please and lay an egg when they feel like it. I am on the road now, going on three weeks and I am roughly where I thought I”d be but the bumps and turns have lives of their own; they are what I live for. The other day we stopped at Lime Kiln Beach, on the Coast Hwy just a little south of Big Sur, California. It’s a special place for my daughter and me; we camped here in ’89. We walked again in the salt-&-pepper sand and took photographs but the tide was coming in; the only safe venue was to stand at the boundary between hot-dry and cool-wet sand, letting the runout from crashing surf spill over our toes. Rip tides and undertow would make short work of any careless wader. 

I was taking photos of ocean spray and pelicans when Sarah noticed birds circling about a quarter mile out. She saw the telltale blow, then the breach; humpbacks were feeding. People were stopped up and down the highway at all the turnouts, standing on the cliffs, watching them feed on schools of sardines. We watched from the beach. They swim in circles around the school, crowding the small fish into giant ‘meatballs’. Then two or three whales dive down and come up the funnel with mouths open, breaching the surface with hundreds of pounds of fish for their effort. We watched again and again, until our time grew short and we had to move on up the coast. We were on our way north, to San Francisco while the whales are headed south to Baja for the winter. I watched humpbacks feeding in ’09 & ’10 off the coast of Alaska; who knows, maybe the same pod. The more we learn about whales and their seagoing relatives the more we have to accept that we are not the only thinking, communicating, cooperating, rational creatures to share creation. 

At the same time, on the road, I’ve been listening to good music. Kate Wolf was a song writer from the 70’s & 80’s with a wonderful talent, who died too young.  But before she died she left us with ‘Here In California’, a song loaded with metaphor. Not just about taking your time falling in love but also about living in the moment and finding the joy, whenever and wherever it rises up to meet us; it spoke to me of loving whales from a distance, of awe for the power of the sea and surf and taking comfort in its cool, wet sand. 

‘. . . fruit hangs heavy on the vine,

There ain’t no gold, I thought I’d warn you,

and the hills turn brown in the summertime.’

ZOROASTER

My daughter Sarah and I just finished an eight day raft float through the Grand Canyon. I can report on the two of us with detailed accuracy but to write about the canyon, you really can’t do that. It defies language; anything you say comes out either trite or cliche, inadequate at best, just words. I made the trip in 1992 with a National Science Foundation program at Norther Arizona University so I had some experience but the ride then was as much about collecting research data on the canyon corridor as it was about adventure. I understood the harsh conditions and what the ‘ditch’ can do to your psyche, day after day after day. As we enjoyed the float together all I could do was enjoy and watch Sarah progress through that learning curve. 

We both took lots of photographs and the plan is for me to take her journal notes and assemble a book about our Grand Canyon adventure. In 1997 I told her we would raft the Grand as a graduation present and it’s taken eighteen years to get our calendars and assets aligned but this is the year. There were twenty one people in the party, two boats with giant, inflatable pontoons, three boatmen (gender bias considered, Rachel was considered a boatman) and the head man’s eleven year old son. 

Without falling into the cliche trap I’ll say this; floating the Grand isn’t for everyone but everyone should be so lucky. Conditions are extreme. After the second day you are in a state of combined exhaustion and awe, day after day after day. Righteous believers see God in every bend of the river while heretics see the nature of nature, and they sit together in the splash and the wind and heat and the sand and agree without reservation that it is truly wonderful. Hiking the side canyons and trails involve steep climbs with scrambles over rock formations and tight-roping narrow ledges. At the top you usually have only a few minutes to take in the beauty and catch your breath, then the hike back down is always as difficult as the climb up. The going up burns your thighs while the coming down beats knees and feet into submission. The potential for disaster is in every step you take but you knew that before you started.

I must admit that I am a bit of a thief. In ’92 we all understood that it is against the rules to pick up archeological, geological artifacts but if you are a science educator and plan to use them in your classes, there is a wink-wink, nod-nod and they look the other way. This year I made sure my daughter got a little piece of Zoroaster Granite from the deepest depth of the canyon. Basement rock exposed there is dated at 1.2 billion years, some of the oldest rock on the planet that you can put your hands on. Vishnu Schist is equally old, usually layered on top of the granite. The schist cracks and fractures allowing molten granite to fill the gaps from below. In the deep granite gorges of the canyon you can see lighter colored bands and fingers of granite streaking up out of the water, up the black walls of Vishnu Schist and you try to get your head around the idea of a billion years.

We both have this trip under out belt now, both hoping we can come back again someday. I know that my days for hiking the really, really difficult trails are behind me but I’ve done them and I can live with that. I will be happy to play in the warm run off water pools and take photos of lizards and butterflies. Younger folks can stretch themselves, proving they are equal to the ancient people who made those climbs daily but we know we will never be equal to them. This was their normal and we have a hotel room and a hot shower reserved for the end of the week. 

CUR

Something about self awareness, the understanding that I am uniquely me, that my molecules are programmed like no other person, that my thoughts are mine alone. Self aware, I come to the grim truth that I am trapped inside my own head. My siblings and cohorts, anybody, everyone; we can rub shoulders, make eye contact and tell our story but it all comes out in words and phrases that require interpretation. We make sense from story by measuring it against our own story, the one we experienced first hand, that does not need words. I can write a book about the way I feel when I smell cherry blossoms and when someone betrays my trust but all you get are words. Language is a driving force in our evolution but it has limitations. Words can not express completely, exactly how I feel or the way I perceive a late summer sunset on Lake Michigan. We can come close but in the end it’s as much about the listener as the teller. I glean as much as possible from your words but then you are trapped within your mind as surely as I am trapped inside of mine. 

Whether or not you think about or even sense that level of isolation; it exists. I believe we have evolved mind sets that help us ease the anxiety that mars self awareness. That’s how evolution works. For some of my friends, this would be the segue to God, religion and our need to defuse that fear but I rode that goat as long and as far as I could. It’s another human construct, an extrapolation of identity. Abraham Maslow was a 20th Century Psychologist who framed what is universally accepted in his, ‘Hierarchy of Needs’. He surmised that in order to address higher level needs, fundamental needs must be satisfied first. First are biological needs, air, then security needs, safety, and then to belonging. Humans are social, always have been. We can’t survive as a species living independently. From the family unit to the clan, to tribe and nation, we band together. Our survival is intrinsically tethered to the need to belong, to be loved, appreciated and valued. 

Once met, Maslow says we can recognize the need for esteem and then self actualization but I’m hung up on the belonging. I can be safe and you can be secure but there is no ‘We’ until we identify with each other. There’s no way to feel good about the self until our peers approve. It’s how we fit into our culture. It’s the niche we carve out, or has been reserved for us where we are accepted and valued. We Belong there. Inclusion provides enough commonality that we recognize each other, but we still sniff buts to be sure and mark our territory. ‘Hey, it’s just me and you know I’m alright.’ That is at the bottom of all identity. Sometimes I struggle with identity, wanting to know more about what I am, who I am and what that all means.

I have Cajun friends from the Gulf Coast who know their pedigree and legacy back 14-15 generations. It’s a tight, well defined identity that leaves no doubt about who belongs and who doesn’t. Language, religion, custom, music, cuisine and tradition, they are an uncommon people. I love their culture but it belongs to them; all I can do is look in from the outside and share what they are willing to share. I love them but have no desire to be one of them. To be steeped in that legacy would consume me and I’m not ready to hang on one hook forever. Likewise Native Americans; I have wonderful friends who cling to their aboriginal link, still moving to the rhythm of the drum, honoring the Mystery and the medicine wheel. I lean on them to learn more, to appreciate their connection to Mother Earth but I would not be Native American, for the same reason I don’t want to be Cajun. I could turn to some ideology, some ‘Ism’ to access the ‘We’ but they are not the means to an end as they would suggest, at the end of the day the ideology becomes the end.

Still I feel the tug of a distant, long removed clan or tribe pulling at my need to belong. It comes at me through my feelings which I have little or no control over and to some extent through logic and reason. I like to believe I have the handle on logic and reason but I must challenge my beliefs as much as the things I reject. You have to do that or become one of the sheeple with noses tucked under the next sheep's tail. I realize the way I feel about logic and reason is more powerful than reason itself. Still the question begs, who am I? My pedigree branches off in all directions, so much so that I can’t find a common source. There are British and Celtic threads in the fabric and rumor of some French but looking back over ten generations it leaves a thousand possibilities. 

Molly O’Day was Orange Irish, my great grandmother; loyal to the Crown but Irish none the less. In the family she is remembered as the most fractious, quarrelsome, bat-tempered woman on earth. She singlehandedly drove my grandparents to divorce, leaving my father to be raised by foster parents. I’d say she had at least a distant, removed effect on me and my journey. On my mother’s side, the name Porter is English as can be. Several Porters’ were Presbyterian preachers from New England, Harvard no less. By the time Porter genes got down to her, my mother was the second child of seven, to a ne’er do well rounder and his sickly wife Lottie Wood, just as English. The Stevens’ were Welsh coal miners, by way of Canada in the early 1800’s, matriculated down to Cincinnati, OH, to central Iowa and finally to southwestern Missouri. For the most part they were farmers and store keepers. 

So, how am I obliged to a tradition of sniffing butts and marking territory ? My logical side doesn’t care because that was then and this is now, still the need to belong is waiting for an answer. I don’t have one but when I do it will be about half breeds and nonconformists. Freedom from prejudices of a dead and gone generation is empowering. What has funneled down to me is not the legacy of religion or politics, music or food; I just know that you be there for family; be the push or the pull, the lift up or the sit down they need, when they need. You do the same for your outlaw relations, the ones who slipped in the back door. They’re not like blood, with blood you take what you get. You get to choose your outlaws. I am a mutt, my pedigree doesn’t go anywhere and the tradition that resonates with me is about; breathe in, breathe out, move on. ‘Jimmy Buffett’. Evidently I'm doing alright with identity and the rest of my hierarchy, I've been playing with around here at the top for some time.

FOUR FEET HIGH & RISING

There is an old, Johnny Cash song about relentless rain and rising flood water; ‘Four Feet High & Rising.’ I liked it then, I like it now. In his liner notes he alluded to a life lesson he learned early about adversity. The flood stressed out the family and the farm with damage to the buildings and loss of crops. But floods have a way of replenishing the land with new sediment and nutrients; they had the best crops ever the next year. ‘Four Feet High & Rising’, the unavoidable metaphor is about growing, coming out on the other end of adversity. The irony here is that the obvious often gives way to the dubious. As much as I like the song, the hook reminds me of crazy days in the army. In 1960-61 I was a parachute rigger assigned to Supply Company, 2/503 Battle Group, Sukiran, Okinawa. There must have been 45-50 riggers, our platoon sergeant’s name was James Crow, from Alabama. Can you believe it, Jim Crow? 

In peacetime you train for war but without an imminent threat, we were a pretty laid back collection. Leadership consisted of leftovers from the Korean conflict and WW2, waiting for the next war to come along. Not much in the way of promotion when there is no fighting. The lower enlisted ranks were draftees and kids who had nothing better to do than a tour in the army. There was an unwritten attitude that went, ‘The incompetent leading the unwilling to do the unnecessary.’ Sergeant First Class Crow, probably 40, on a good day standing tall was a stocky 5’4” with a buzz haircut and beady eyes. He never showed interest in me and I liked it that way. His undivided attention was fixed on looking good in the eyes of our platoon leader, 1st Lieutenant Russell and our company commander, Captain Swank. He wanted very much to get another strip on his sleeve, to make master sergeant. In the privacy of our own company, low rank enlisted called him, ‘Four Feet High & Rising’. 

By the time we got to Okinawa in 1960 we had all been in long enough to know if it was a career option or not. If you considered it, doing a good job wasn’t enough, you had to suck up. Sgt. Crow had a bit of swagger and spoke with an air of self indulging arrogance. I was impressed with two phrases that he used frequently. There I was a barely graduated high schooler with no pretense of academic interest but I listened well. The language you use is a pretty good measure of your smarts. When he didn’t want to approve or disapprove of someone’s something he meant to say, “That’s your prerogative.” But it came out with a raspy Alabama accent, “That’s your pragative.” Pragative, it got to where I could anticipate it. In formation, his captive audience, any time of day, he would give us advice or options and follow with his “pragative” jewel. When he was upset with people who complained or worried about what someone else might do, he used his best, forward leaning, head bobbing put down, with perfect diction; “I could ‘#!!*^#’ care less about . . .” The ‘care less’ was always preceded by an unfettered explicative and every time I wondered, ‘If he could care less, that means he must care to begin with.’ Me, I couldn’t care less, I didn’t care at all. But nobody answered to me and my disposition was of no consequence. 

Forty days before I was scheduled to fly stateside and be separated from the service, Sgt. Crow called me out of formation, shook my hand and announced that I had been promoted to Specialist 4th Class. Then he recommended me for reenlistment. A couple of days later when I reported to the Battle Group reenlistment officer for my pre-separation interview, he noticed that I still had PFC stripes. I side stepped his probes about my intentions to reenlist, saying I hadn't decided  yet and he sent me back to the company. As I walked into the parachute loft Sgt. Crow yelled at me across the room, “Stevens, if you don’t have your rank on your sleeve tomorrow I’ll take it away from you.” Funny how your own news gets home before you do. So I sewed some old Sp4 patches on my sleeves that night. 

That jacket survived years of neglect in one trunk or another, only to resurface when I moved or threw out clothes that no longer served a purpose. I found it again the other day. I can’t say that I couldn’t care less, it served me through the speed bumps and near missis of my youth and I remember the lessons I learned from the incompetent leading the unwilling to do the unnecessary. Five short years later they got their war and their promotions. I was preoccupied with biology and philosophy classes, football practice and with some luck a chance to get in the game on Saturday.

How high’s the water mama,

Four feet high and rising.

Well the rails are washed out north of town,

We’ve got to head for higher ground.

We can’t come back til the water comes down,

Four feet high and rising.