These slate skies are familiar, in a strange
illogical way; here, there are mountains,
no sea in sight, and though mists appear
like fog, it is high desert with rivers running
through forested landscapes, their waters
unreliable as winter ocean waves in Hawaii
or storms crashing upon boulders on the rugged
coast of Maine, though the danger here is that
these waters run nearly dry this time of year,
not that they will whip themselves into currents
that, to the unaware, can and do take lives
of lobstermen and surfers, alike;
Rains come to this dry landscape,
made fertile only through great effort,
time and patience giving rise to grasses rich
enough to provision livestock who, in turn, feed
many others in that final incarnation within
styrofoam and plastic covered containers scooped
up in supermarkets rather than on the farm;
When my girls were growing up, I would drive
from Maine's woods and waters to the wide-open
fields to the west where farm families would offer
raw unpasteurized milk and butter, along
with freshly butchered meat, a practice
eventually made illegal by laws enacted
by greedy corporations spreading falsehoods
about the purity of these products
and something was lost in the circle of life,
the understanding of where our food comes from,
the sweat and toil it takes to wake up early
to milk dairy cows, the reverence or lack
thereof in the ending of a life meant to salve
appetites of others, the recycling of manure
to fertilize fields in which we later picked
strawberries, scooped up sweet corn, pumpkins
and other produce our own small plot and my lack
of skill would prohibit for a time;
And now here we are, eight billion and counting,
a planet in crisis and our own species learning
that we must rediscover the old, sustainable ways
of doing things if we are to survive and thrive
amidst too much urban sprawl, corporate corruption
and political greed; we must take back our power
to provide for ourselves and our communities
as we once again discover joy in simplicity
whilst tending to this precious planet and her
flora and fauna as if humans were part
of the web of life, as if we actually belonged.
My flower gardens still provide me absolute bliss.
Hear, hear! Beautiful garden, Bela, nature is our great solace.
She sure is! Thanks, Eliza! ❤️
Dear Bela,
I concur with Eliza. What lovely flower gardens you have managed to produce! My eyes are feasting on their beauty!
Considering the subject matter of your post and that September has just passed, I would like to resonate with your post as follows:
https://soundeagle.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/hello-september-with-floral-greetings-from-soundeagle.jpg
The image is also my way of bidding farewell to a most special September, the reasons of which are detailed in one of my most recent posts entitled “🌤️🌾 A September to Remember: Greeting Post-Pandemic and Post-Elizabethan Age 👑🏰 with Sapphires, Asters, Poems and Songs 💎🌼📜🎶“.
Wishing you a wonderful October and an even greener thumb!
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle
Thanks so much for your kind words and the lovely digital photo! You truly are gifted. 🙏🌎💕
Dear Bela,
You are very welcome. There are even more floral images in my said post entitled “🌤️🌾 A September to Remember: Greeting Post-Pandemic and Post-Elizabethan Age 👑🏰 with Sapphires, Asters, Poems and Songs 💎🌼📜🎶“. For your convenience, the link is:
https://soundeagle.wordpress.com/2022/09/30/a-september-to-remember-greeting-post-pandemic-and-post-elizabethan-age-with-sapphires-asters-poems-and-songs/
I look forward to your perusing my said post and welcome your input and feedback there, as I am certainly very keen and curious about what you will make of my said post.
Thank you once again for your pertinent and cogently written post showcasing your gardening prowess and your sense of belonging that you have felt in the floral paradise. Well done!
I like growing variegated plants, and would like to confess that like you, I am also keenly interested in botany and gardening, for I have been a keen gardener. You are very welcome to take a good look at my four horticulture websites containing a great deal of information available to you as follows. Simply append the usual dot wordpress dot com to the end of the following words to visit the corresponding websites:
queenslandorchid
queenslandbegonia
pottedplantsociety
rhsq
May you find the rest of 2022 very much to your liking and highly conducive to your gardening, writing, reading, thinking and blogging whatever topics that appeal to your intellectual exploration, artistic output, creative flair and spiritual vision!
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle
Thank you so much, dear one. I will, in time, peruse said websites. It has been months since I have literally carved out enough time from landscaping and gardening to participate in my WordPress community once again. So forgive me if I don’t respond as quickly as you might expect. Our lifestyle involves a lot of preparation for winter.
I am glad that you, too, garden and grow flowers. Back when my kids were young, I only really had time to plant food. It is a luxury I truly enjoy, being able to focus on growing beautiful things, not that zucchini, lettuce and tomatoes lack beauty! 😂
Anyhow, blessings on the day. Take good care. 🙏❤️
Exactly. It’s not that long ago we knew how to live with the land. My grandparents did. But now…(k)
Yes. And now we must learn how to again. At least IMHO. 😘
Maine enacted a food sovereignty law, the nation’s first of its kind, in 2017. That law allows local governments to OK small food producers selling directly to customers on site. Last November Maine voters passed the nation’s first “right to food” constitutional amendment. A statewide referendum asked voters if they favored an amendment to the Maine Constitution “to declare that all individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being.” The proposed amendment was the result of effort by members of the state’s food sovereignty movement to empower local communities to have more of a say in the future of the food supply.
More recently the topic of concern is PFAS (man-made chemicals that are widespread and persistent in the environment). Spreading industrial sludge and ashes on land to add nutrients and organic matter to enhance soils has been a practice in Maine. The sludge, when applied to farmland, contains PFAS substances which can enter soil and water, and be taken up by the crops grown on the field, and also into the animals eating those crops. There’s a new generation of small family farms trying to make a go at organic farming only to learn that their soils were contaminated with “forever chemicals.” It’s sad. Ill advised short-cuts lead to long-standing problems.
Mary Lee! How delightful to hear from you, it’s been a while. On my part for sure. I am pleased to hear of these measures happening in that sweet state of Maine. I realize I can never have what once was on any level, some of that a good thing, some of it leaves me wistful and longing, yet we can certainly move forward with some integrity and inclusion. I had no idea anybody spread industrial sludge on soil, it sounds revolting. And the poor small farmers who purchased land where this has occurred. But you know, I have read about some truly ingenious and inventive ways of dealing with some seemingly insurmountable environmental problems we all face if humans are going to continue living upon this earth. Many of these ideas are coming from young whiz kids. And then the issue is funding the research and executing the plans. I know many scientists have sold out in favor of governments providing them with labs and funding to do their work. Which is sad, nondisclosure agreements preventing wider and necessary dissemination of research. We need these ideas and we need them yesterday. Mushroom derivatives that actually consume plastic, for example. Plasma research.
Anyhow, thanks for informing readers of these forward changes. We all need to know positive steps Can be taken with enough action sprinkled with political will. Take good care! 🙏💕
This is so thoughtfully written, Bela. Absolutely loved the last line, ‘as if we actually belonged’ – it perfectly sums up your poem so well. Greed and ignorance are making this place worse to live in, and so many of us get caught up in the chase of urbanisation. Not that urbanisation is bad, it probably has resulted in each of us reveling in comfort and at times forgetting about true value.
It is lovely back in the day you would get food from the source, and lovely that you and your girls got to pick food and fruit in the fields. It sounded so simple, and maybe we need to rediscover simplicity amidst the tangled mess we are in.
‘Belonging’ is such a complex concept and it’s something that fascinates me. We can belong to communities around us and then there’s belonging towards the wider collective, like the world we live in. I feel sometimes you may never feel like you belong but you can always connect with each other. And in such a world where we are different, maybe it is connection and a desire to work towards a better planet that can bring us together.
Hope you are doing well, Bela 😊💕
Aloha Mabel, I always love hearing from you. You always have such a unique perspective and offer thoughts that I contemplate and learn from.
I have never lived in a city, though many have known nothing else. I can see their usefulness, for sure, in housing and providing for masses of people. Not everyone can live as we do, or there would be nowhere for the bulk of humanity to reside. I have seen some really cool pictures of rooftop gardens and other ways in which cities can both be sustainable, as well as places of refuge, dare I say.
You always explore the most interesting topics, and since you mentioned it, I would love to see you expand on the subject of belonging if you are so moved. You make a point in stating many of us might not ever feel as though we belong. I went through most of my life feeling this way, until quite recently actually. For me, I need a purpose in helping in some way. Recently our tribe, so to speak, has begun to gather here in northern New Mexico. We have lived here two years, and now suddenly people are coming out of the woodwork. Building community is some thing I have yet to explore, and I am nearly 70. I had experienced this a bit when I had my restaurant back in the latter part of the 1980s. So I can’t say I never had it. But it is been a long time anyway. So I look forward to seeing what we can all create in the way of “New Earth.” Many speak of this these days, A parallel reality where we collaborate instead of compel, where decisions are made based on the good of all rather than top down and control. Astrologically speaking, it is the Aquarian age future that we are already exploring. I love the concept, as I had never understood many forms of exclusion, from religious fervor to racism. anyhow, I certainly could go on and on!
Wishing you all the best, my friend, and I look forward to reading whatever you write. I have been so busy with my landscape and the greenhouse that I haven’t come up for air in months. The impending winter will give me time to be a little more involved in things like my WordPress community. Looking forward to it. Blessings to you, dear Mabel. 🙏🌎💓
Likewise, always love hearing from you and your wise thoughts, Bela. you too have a very unique perspective and your writing is something I reflect on. There are ups and downs to cities and any other place, and I guess it really depends on one’s preferences on where they prefer to reside and what’s important and meaningful to them.
I am definitely wanting to expand on the subject of belonging, especially in my book. I think you hit the nail on the head there when you say, ‘You make a point in stating many of us might not ever feel as though we belong’. We all probably have felt like we don’t belong in one way or another – and also belonging. It is wonderful that you have found community after all this while, a journey from your restaurant days to these ultimately wise years. Building and connecting contribute towards belonging, keeping in mind some kinds of belonging are more transient than others. I don’t know how much you are into astrology but I am and so nice to hear you mention the age of Aquarius. Though there’s debate on when it actually is, it really does feel like we are in it or headed towards.
Hope you get some time to yourself these upcoming coming months, and get to write too. Wishing you well, Bela 🙏💕
Thank you so much, my friend. I tried to send you several links to exceptional astrologers I listen to regularly on YouTube, but WordPress doesn’t seem to want to allow that sharing.
I am so glad you are in my life. Wishing you well and all your endeavors, most especially writing, in which you greatly excel. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on almost any topic! Blessings, Mabel. 🙏❤️
That is so strange. Maybe there are some gremlins out there. Thank you so much, Bela. I have noted your email and will reach out to you later this weekend. And yes, please remove your email from this thread. It is a good idea to do that.
So glad we have connected. Looking forward to chatting with you 🙏❤️
😘
Very nice! And very true.
The worse things get the more I think the Amish have the better way. But damn if I could let go of air conditioning and enough electricty to run a computer.
Yes, we don’t need ac, have a forest full of wood for heat, and sometimes i think i could live without computers. But after 25 years of lugging water uphill all winter and doing dishes and clothes by hand, i sure do appreciate dishwashers and washers and dryers! And refrigerators of course!
All this being said, I cannot believe there is no way that everybody in the world cannot have a sustainable way of living that is comfortable and safe. I’m going to hold that Aquarian vision as long as possible! And I’m not joking, I really do believe it is possible. Though our numbers make it challenging and greed needs to go out the window. So we shall see! Thanks for taking the time to read and comment, shell. ❤️
Yes! Take our power to provide for ourselves and take care of the land and each other. So many of us have lost our way and have no idea how far we are from the simple reality of interdependent living. Thank you for this Bela. 💐🙏🏼💛
And thank you for all you do, Val, in providing conscious community in your corner of the world! 🙏💓
🥰
Loved your descriptive words here Bela ..Appreciation for our environment and for our land, and how that land is worked, farmed and harvested… We truly live in a land of plenty.. But sadly we have been manipulated into learning we are in Lack..
It’s sad to witness wholesome holistic, ways of being being made illegal, and yet I wonder how many realise the additives being put into our processed foods are in fact many banned substances.. and poisons…
The clear mountain waters no longer pure, as so many pollutants now flow from sky and ground, running into those oceans you once saw daily..
But I hold hope… Because many like you and I and others are listening to our inner hearts and the calling to reconnect back to those roots of growing our own food and yes.. Its hard work, especially as we are no longer in our prime, But the rewards and the blessings of planting and harvesting while working with our Earth Mother are so fulfilling as we work together in creating life..
I am putting together Hopefully a garden post over the weekend… fingers crossed… ( I have been promising myself to do this for several weeks now, but the photos are now uploaded so I am half way there lol ) And within it, its lovely our allotments has formed a new committee and we are branching out in many ways and I see so much potential for communities to come together and grow their own food.. So exciting times as we change our ways of Be-ing and Belonging Bela..
Much love your way my dear friend… Enjoy those ripening Tomatoes .. <3 <3 <3 HUGS your way. <3