“The Fox”….a poem

This event happened a few weeks ago. I wrote and posted this poem, then yanked it. I think I did because it needed some work, as most poems do, but here it is again, in a little better shape.

Right now I am listening to Sandhill Cranes circling above, their cries like racous rain falling to earth. Smaller flocks are flying to join this huge central flock and their cries are getting louder as they grow. This main flock of birds are circling like their GPS is broken, but I think they are waiting for everyone to join. It is a marvel to watch, this celestial miracle of nature.

Lady Nyo

The Fox

Yanked from sleep
By a scream
Wrapping around the belly,
Fueled by some instinct of
Long buried ancestors.

Bolting upright
Knowing without knowing
A terrible slaughter was tearing
The soft night apart.
I had heard that sound before.

Coming fully awake,
heart pounding through my chest
I listened again, and there!
The vocals of a hen attacked
By something stealing through
The soft night, waiting beyond
The edge of sleep.

Three dogs have I
City dogs, though with
The blood of once-fierce hounds.
Not one of them would
Run out to do battle.
Grabbing the collar of the
Biggest, he turned and bit me-
He was no fool.
There was danger
In that dark night-
He was doing his best
To avoid it.

Stupid hounds!
I’ll face the monsters
Out there myself!
And switching on the porch light
I saw the dark flight of something
Fly across my yard and vision,
Take a sharp left and disappear
Into the night where porch light met
A dismal darkness.

Running to the chicken coop,
Found a young hen, a pile of feathers
Mounded around her, still alive
Clucking mournfully.
How do you comfort a tail- less hen
At dawn, with a crescent moon
Throwing feeble light upon the ground of slaughter?

I’ve raised hens for enough years
To know they are merciless to the injured.
But the events of the night
Had stunned their own instincts
And she burrowed amongst them,
They crowding around, covering with feathers and warmth,
Rocked out of their slumber
Clucking out warnings to further attackers:
Let the night and its beasts hear their rage!

In the morning I asked my neighbor
Once a south-Georgia farm boy what to do.
His answer was bloodier than
The attack of this young fox,
For young he must be,
Not to kill his prey on first strike.

“Spread poison in the kudzu,
Here, I’ll lend you a shotgun-
Fox be vermin and bred for no good.”

There is something mystical
In a fox who dares to live in a city.
Or desperate.
Birthed in the kudzu growing
From the leveling of a small forest
Sheltered in one-foot wide drainpipes,
Feeding on rats and rabbits
With a taste for chicken from time to time.

No.
I’ll lock up my chickens
Let a dog prowl the fence,
And leave off the
Modern methods of slaughter.

There must be a balance in nature
As it struggles to right itself
To bypass concrete and the destruction
Of habitat by mankind.
There will be a balance
And I will stand with the foxes.

Oh, it is a marvel and a mystery!
For every species is the center of its universe,
If only for him.

We are connected by a fine thread to all else,
Our survival depends upon this,
Yet our eyes are blinded to the truth
And something in the proclamation
Of “Inheriting the Earth”
Lies and trips us up,
And we are no more shepherds
Of these species than wolves
In human skin.

The world is what it is,
With its own rules of hunger, survival,
We just a cog in this great Mandala,
And most of us attempt to bypass
These laws of nature, still clothed with
Dead dreams of conquerors.

And some of us know this deep in our bones.

We are blind to the beauty of life
That we are not alone.
The tragedy would be if we were,
And we deny our connection to what we now proclaim “vermin”,
Believing for some bad reason this makes us more human.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2012

“The Fox”

Young Red Fox, nationalgeographic.com

This happened last week, and brought forth the poem. The event made me think deeply where we stand with the other species who share the world.

Lady Nyo

Yanked from sleep
By a scream
Wrapping around the belly,
Fueled by some instinct,
Long buried thread of ancestors.
Bolting upright
Knowing without knowing
A terrible slaughter was tearing
The soft night apart.

I had heard that sound before.

Coming fully awake,
heart pounding through my chest
I listened again, and there!
The vocals of a hen attacked
By something stealing through
The soft night, waiting beyond
The edge of sleep.

Three dogs have I
City dogs, though with
The blood of once-fierce hounds.
Not one of them would
Run out to do battle.
Grabbing the collar of the
Biggest, he turned and bit me-
He was no fool.
There was danger
In that dark night-
He was doing his best
To avoid it.

Stupid hounds!
I’ll face the monsters
Out there myself!
Flipping on the porch light
I saw the dark flight of something
Fly across my yard and vision,
Take a sharp left and disappear
Into the night where porch light met
A dismal darkness.

Running to the chicken coop,
Found a young hen, a pile of feathers
Mounded around her, still alive
Clucking mournfully.
How do you comfort a tail- less hen
At dawn, with a crescent moon
Throwing feeble light upon the ground of slaughter?

I’ve raised hens for enough years
To know they are merciless to the injured.
But the events of the night
Had stunned their own instincts
And she burrowed amongst them,
They crowding around, covering with feathers and warmth,
Rocked out of their slumber
Clucking out warnings to further attackers:
Let the night and its beasts hear their rage!

In the morning I asked my neighbor
Once a south-Georgia farm boy what to do.
His answer was bloodier than
The attack of this young fox,
For young he must be,
Not to kill his prey on first strike.

“Spread poison in the kudzu,
Here, I’ll lend you a shotgun-
Fox be vermin and bred for no good.”

There is something mystical
In a fox who dares to live in a city.
Or desperate.
Birthed in the kudzu growing
From the leveling of a small forest
Sheltered in one-foot wide drainpipes,
Feeding on rats and rabbits
With a taste for chicken from time to time.

No.
I’ll lock up my chickens
Let a dog prowl the fence,
And leave off the
Modern methods of slaughter.

There must be a balance in nature
As it struggles to right itself
To bypass concrete and destruction
Of habitat by mankind.
There will be a balance
And I will stand with the foxes
Oh, it is a marvel and a mystery!
For every species is the center of its universe,
If only for him.

We are connected by a fine thread to all else,
Our survival depends upon this,
Yet our eyes are blinded to the truth
And something in the proclamation
Of “Inheriting the Earth”
Lies and trips us up,
And we are no more shepherds
Of these species than wolves
In human skin.

The world is what it is,
With its own rules of hunger, survival,
We just a cog in this great Mandala,
And most of us attempt to bypass
These laws of nature, still clothed with
Dead dreams of conquerors.

And some of us know this deep in our bones.

We are blind to the beauty of life
That we are not alone.
The tragedy would be if we were,
And we deny our connection to what we now proclaim “vermin”,
Believing for some bad reason this makes us more human.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2012

Atlanta Beltline and Repairing the Ecology in the Inner City

Atlantans know all about the Atlanta Beltline.  Anyone else interested can Google  for more information.

Very recently we were given…or actually Adair Park, a historical area was given an installation of tires-as-art.

What sometimes looks good on paper is an abomination in reality. This is an example of such a thing.  At least to those who live there or see it as they travel outside their neighborhood.

Of course this  opinion is driven by the reality that we live around dumped tires….bastards coming from other areas (not to excuse the local dumpers)  dump tires and other garbage on our ‘hidden’ streets…and those not so hidden.  So when an installation (the pix are here on the blog, and they are too grim to repost) of tires is put up…it grates on nerves and other parts of residents.

I won’t go into the politics of what happened here, but so many of the art installations were a ‘go’ from the Beltline.  This wasn’t.

However, in talking with residents of Adair Park today, we threw around the idea of repairing the ecology in some way…perhaps addressing the ecology of this borderline industrial area.

Beehives.

The site is perfect for this…out of the way of people, houses…and there is an important reason behind this proposal.

According to documents, 80% of our pollenators have died off mostly due to the beemite virus.  Scientists who write about these things are predicting in a few years we could see world-wide famine because of this.  Google Spain’s present issues and you will see some of the problems.

But it’s not just Spain.  It’s very much here.

I have a small orchard on my city lot.  Had 12 fruit trees, now reduced to 6.  For the past 4 years, regardless of fertilization, they haven’t been doing well.  No fruit…or little fruit.

That’s because there are no bees.  Honey bees used to be plentiful, but now?  You rarely see one.

I think this large area owned by the Beltline would do well with a row of beehives….plants planted in large containers….Hey! they could use some of their precious tires!!! and a bench away from the hives…could be a great educational tool for the local children.

I was stung yesterday by a wasp, and believe me….it wouldn’t take much to make children respectful of bees.

Plus, they make honey. And the kudzu fields around there and the track side plants, Queen Anne’s Lace, Scottish Thistles and many wild flowers would suppliment any planted flowers.

We have the East Point Beekeepers Association close to Atlanta who are friendly, informative and helpful.  Perhaps they could guide the Beltline folk in this venture.  Perhaps our local carpenters can build the hives.

I think also that many of us gardeners could volunteer plants.

It’s a thought, and a better one than the God-Awful dirty tires.

But it’s an ecological statement and perhaps its time has come for this industrial part of Atlanta.

I emailed the Director of Design (Art stuff) Fred Yolaris of the Beltline with this proposal we neighbors talked about this morning.

It’s sure a better idea than what historic Adair Park was given, and it would involve the communities in the proposal.

But we will see.  It really depends on how much the Beltline wants to listen to the possibilites here.

Lady Nyo

Earth Day, 2010

Peach Blossoms in the garden this spring.

I posted this short entry last Earth Day, but it seems to hold up for this Earth Day, so I’m running it again.  The apple tree died, so I planted a dogwood.  Less apples, but a beautiful tree nonetheless

We get forgetful or jaded, but my son, at 21, asked me to write something on Earth Day this morning.

I have been around a relatively long time, and do, vaguely….remember the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970.  In those years I have forgotten the origin and history but some things stick or become part of the conduct of our daily life.

(NPR just started playing Copeland’s “Appalachian Spring”. Can there be a better theme song for Earth Day?  An American composer who was steeped in the beauty of the New England environment.)

The 60’s had cheap gas and acid rain.  Perhaps it was a hard slog to get the attention of the public as to what was happening to the environment.  The eco movement was barely born, only in isolated concerns.

Perhaps the first ‘wake up’ call was Rachel Carson’s  “Silent Spring” published in 1962.  A wake up call indeed, for she writes about a world without birds, killed off by common pesticides and chemical agents.

People started to wake up.

Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson had been concerned about the environment for a while, and in 1962 proposed some ideas to then-President Kennedy.  But things didn’t go very far.

Senator Nelson pursued with his ideas, and had two young staffers to work on a proposed Earth Day.  He picked April 22 because he thought it would be embraced by college students, then a key element for social change, with SDS and SNCC and many campus organizations. It was past Easter and Passover, and on a weekday, it would not be disturbing the weekend activities of students.  Exams would have been over.

Spring was the season of the Earth’s rebirth and our environment needed a rebirth.

The moon walk of 1968 also helped the world’s consciousness with pix of the Earth, a big blue marble, being broadcast back from the moon.

Twenty million people participated in the first Earth Day, 1970. As Senator Nelson said:  “Earth Day organized itself”.  No one was prepared for the mass embracing of this first Earth Day.

In NYC, 5th Avenue was closed to traffic and people picknicked on the sidewalks. In Indiana, women dressed as witches threw birth control pills at gathered spectators.  In Virginia students handed out bags of dirt, symbolizing “The Good Earth”.

The then Nixon administration had no comment on the celebration of 20,000,000 people in this  country.  But within 3 months after this first Earth Day, Nixon signed in the EPA, the Clean Wather Act, the Pesticide Controll Act and other legislation.  Someone up there was noticing the mass appeal of Earth Day.

We vary in our consciousness and intent since then.  other legislation have come into law, but perhaps what is the legacy of that first Earth Day in 1970 is a tremendous national consciousness about our environment.  The ecological movement was born from then and the fruits are ripening each year.

Sometimes it seems a drop in the proverbial bucket, as we read of species disappearing every day and issues of rainforest/global warming/ other ecological concerns.

Our consciusness is ragged, and our attention spans are, too.  However, the Green Movement gathers strength and conviction and each of us has become more aware of our ‘footprint’ and also what we can daily do.  Recycling, birthed from that first few years after 1970, and composting are things we can do easily from our homes.  There are many magazines and sources to educate us now where before the ‘green movement’ was marginalized.

I planted an apple tree this morning, bought for this purpose to celebrate Earth Day, 2009.  A very small drop in the sea, but an attempt towards mindfulness for the future.

Lady Nyo

Some thoughts on revisiting Voluntary Simplicity

My husband and I have been reading Duane Elgin’s “Voluntary Simplicity” together.  We have been bouncing ideas off each other as  we read, and what our life together has become.

Part of the attraction before marriage was  we  had some of the same interests:  ecology, small farming, intensive gardening, permaculture, pioneering, green technology like solar and wind, and the general issue of  ‘living in harmony with Nature’.

Not at all different from many of the people of our age, generation.  However, these are mostly ‘external’ issues….things you do or embrace.

We got caught up in the usual ‘prosperity’ issues over the years: as you make more money, or at least a ‘comfortable’ income, you apply to the consumer ideal and ‘growth’  can be measured in gadgets, convenience and clutter.  Case in point, my husband has built houses, and this house has been the recipient of his abilities.  We now have 12 rooms and some of them are rarely used, except to pass through and some are just storage for clutter.  What happened?  Well, this was an outwardly expression of some inward detours, but not the worse of the whole issue.

“Growth” is one thing; “Inner Growth” is something else.  And that is what we are struggling with right now.

These inner growth issues are the engine that drives this approach to VS for us:  we have to reconnect to those aspects of inner growth that will allow the fuller blooming of VS.  Right now we are discussing issues of faith, spirituality, seeking, family, relationships with others, and in particular, friends.  How do we nourish our family and our friends, in particular attend to the needs of others and at the same time attend to our family?

Time is an element that we can rearrange to have ‘enough’ only by shifting the things we already do now.  It’s an issue of what IS important in light of a particular philosophy, and what isn’t.  It takes some effort and a lot of mental change.  Fred and I have to consider  our son who is supportive of some of these philosophical concepts, but also has his own interests.  He’s into most forms of technology, and a big part of it seems to be around computers.  But again, the most important issues are internal, not external.

Perhaps an important issue  outside our ‘inner growth’ considerations, is that we have little  (so far) support for VS in our community.  Well, perhaps I am speaking before further research because  this was the condition before this recent economic situation.  But VS is not poverty by any means.  It’s very much bound up with an appreciation of beauty and things of real value.  Perhaps having time to pursue interests that were beyond possibilities because you were chasing a standard that encompassed all your time and energies and resources, well, with a change in perspective, other things become possible.  And perhaps these things are definitely of more ‘value’.

We struggle to come out of the hypnosis of the culture of affluence.  We struggle to discern those things of personal value and worth keeping and those which are really clutter or of little future value. But these only address material possessions.  We are looking deeper:  we are testing those things that insulated us from discomforts while maximizing our personal pleasures.  Life has been lived by most of us as a constant process of pushing away discomfort and grabbing at those things (or acquiring them) that give usually immediate pleasure.  This seems shallow and shortsighted, in fact, there are great lessons in some discomforts, and we already understand the transitory nature of some immediate pleasures.  They glitter and don’t last.

So, we are struggling towards a better understanding as to the inners of VS for us, and it’s not a ‘one size fits all’.   It’s a very personal balance for us, and will look very different from others approach to similar issues.

We really are excited right now, because though the issues are enormous,  a bit overwhelming, we see this as something we can work on together, build and sculpt together, for a new and in part, different life.  Lighter, cleaner, more focused, more balanced, and with more time freed up ….ultimately, to serve others.

Best, we are doing it together, and this has the greatest value, even in the short term.

I’ll write more down the road on what we are finding and what we are applying through VS and other issues.

Lady Nyo

Voluntary Simplicity, ecology and changing the patterns of our lives.

I have been thinking of a lot of issues, some not new, some dropped for other things, and some that will not stay down.  We can get detoured in life by personal issues, and we can lose the bigger picture.

Sometimes aging helps as we try to refocus our eyes, energies towards something that means more than what we see around us and what we are doing.  We live in the West surrounded with material abundance and a lot of spiritual confusion.  We can hide our behavior within the confines of Orthodox or Liberal religions, but that is a shell.  The true mark of a person is our relationship to the rest of the world, perhaps where we step out of the comfort or the boundaries of what we know and open ourselves to things alien and unknown.  Our experiences and influences should be challenged and growth is only possible when we do so.

Recently these things have come home to me as I find myself dissatisfied with what I see around me and with a yearning to do something ‘more’.  Perhaps all of us are influenced, affected by the current world economic situation. We should be.  Even if we suffer only a small fraction of what is happening, we can not stand aside and continue to ignore or to dismiss that events are world changing and earth shaking.

I believe we stand at a critical juncture.  For a while, it was a time of withdrawal, a time of research, a time exploration into those things of interest, but perhaps ultimately shallow and not supportive of life.  The dualism of our thinking (which pits materialism against spiritualism) must be transcended if we are to be generators of a new world; and there can be no doubt that we need to resolve and reform many things in this world.

It’s not only myself that has been pushed to this realization, but friends from some unexpected places.  Mac the Knife, a writer and practitioner of shibari  (http://ropespringseternal.blogspot.com)  is turning some acreage into biofuel, a three year plan of organics that takes him far afield from what I know of him.  Jimi Tatu of  shibari fame and teaching is also presently working hard on their (his and Sumi’s) little farm.  Other friends are working in intensive organic gardens and turning their efforts to these things because they believe these things are the ‘stuff’ of a better life, a deeper committment to the Earth for better reasons.

Recently I found my old copy of “Voluntary Simplicity” by Duane Elgin.  I sat down to read this book, printed in 1981, and realized how much I didn’t understand when I first read it, (20 years ago), yet it did have a fundamental influence on me and propelled me into Quakerism, (which lasted for 12 years) and ecological issues which lasted longer.  I wrote for major publications on permaculture up until 2005, urban pioneering and intensive gardening, lectured locally a bit, but then put these issues on a back burner of life when other things became of interest.  Still, these issues were deeper and broader than what I was recently experiencing and they never stopped nagging at the edges of my consciousness.

Recently I received a lovely letter from Duane Elgin, encouraging me, thanking me for my passionate poetry in a compassionate life.  I was amazed.  And I thought a bit more about that ‘compassionate life’.  Really, what did my life account for?  And I wondered just how much compassion I really exhibited.

I had to think more on what I was doing.  Some recent influences helped, and a letter from Dr. RK Singh helped lay some of these issues bare.  When we think we are alone in our dismay and confusion, we can get overwhelmed.  When we realize that we are part of the bigger picture of it all, we can take comfort and ask for ideas and glean guidance.

I wrote to RK about my anger concerning religions….all religions, and I received this answer:

“I agree with you, Jane, that no religion is diseased beyond redemption. And it is the followers of religions, and their gurus, that corrupt and debase humanity to the lowest level. We see all around us in India the naked game of what you call “prejudiced rationalization for hatred and contempt” by the right wing political parties and groups, but the silent majority only suffers. I have been UNCOMFORTABLE with institutionalization of faith/religion/ideology as it ultimately corrupts and degrades humanity. Politicalisation of all such groups, without excluding fundamentalists,  in the  name of democracy has ruined the prospect  of living in the environment of  tolerance  and peaceful coexistence. Sometimes I wonder what will happen if the current trends continue for another five to ten years.
I have always thought I am a misfit in this world and have been living a life of helplessness. As I composed the following haiku this morning:

Not a day without
begging gods to solve problems–
faith in helplessness

We like it or not, the game of convenience has been  taking its toll, and willy-nilly, we all have been participants in it.

R K SINGH

RK is writing about religions, he is also hitting at broader issues.  The web and fabric of all of our lives that ideology, religion, politics have impacted.  We can not avoid any of this. He is acutely aware of this.

I hope in future blog entries to write more about the fundamentals of Voluntary Simplicity because that is where I am starting. Well, my husband Fred and I are starting.  We know that we have gone far afield in this issue…and we need to regroup, rethink our lives and go forth with a plan.  With our friends above, and the understanding that we are not alone, at all, that others with consciousness are feeling these same Discomforts,  we can choose to make a difference in our lives and impact the environment around us.

It all is a matter of a further evolution, after all.

Energy of hope

expresses the dynamics,

We roll up our sleeves.

Lady Nyo