The dead are lined up according to size and type,
as neatly arranged as clothing in a drawer,
records on a shelf,
bullets in a chamber.
A quiescent machine waits to lift them,
its steel mouth clamping one, nipping at mossy skin
and flaccid lichens.
How can human beings, with our arrogance so many orders of magnitude greater than our understanding or our reverence, hope to recreate the intricacies of these familial relations between different types of trees, plants, fungi, and fauna?
I wonder how often the “generals” of forest-product corporations visit the clearcuts and view the devastation for themselves. And if they do, do they perceive their surroundings as the wreckage of an ecosystem or as a lawn that has been mowed, as easily regrown as grass?
One of the most important cultural centers in the ancient world was founded by a dolphin. According to a Homeric Hymn, the creature jumped aboard a ship sailing from Crete and commanded the mariners to build a sanctuary at Delphi. The animal was said to be a manifestation of the Greek god Apollo. Apollo Delphinios.
Suddenly I feel like I’m standing on sacred ground. My sense of kinship with the place expands in the company of cedars, some large enough to barely get my arms around. I press my palms against the taut skin of their trunks. I revel in the scent of sprigs picked up from earth their kind have nourished for lifetimes.
For the rabbi’s first blog entry on the Edge, we’ll go to the daily paper in the area, and respond to the Open Forum letters to the editor section. I hope to make this a regular feature of this blog, as well as muse about myriad other things that crowd my mind and need to get out. Hope you can join me for the ride…
Autumn conjures up hallowed thoughts of education. Scholars conversing under sturdy campus oaks. Visits to libraries late at night, haunted by information.
Yet harvest’s end heralds an older turn from physical to mental labor, one that predates mortarboards and standardized tests. It’s a release of time to reflect on our ways, raid the smokehouse of knowledge, slice into some farm-cured ideas. [Read More]
Last summer, I traveled with my son Tevan to Interlochen, Michigan, where he attended the Interlochen Summer Arts Camp, an amazing conglomeration of over 2000 kids from all over the world, studying music, theater, dance, creative writing, film and visual arts. [Read More]
Where others strolled with their buckets of shells, we were dragging leaf bags along, combing the wrack zone, that line of debris where the tide recedes; where all manner of incongruent sea life coalesces. Steve and I shared a passion we never would with anyone else. Steve knew much about how to work kelp and take advantage of its ability to become as leather when wet, and wooden when dried. I followed through with finished products in my own style. [Read More]
The sloshing of bloody water from the cutting board
proclaims another crimson muscle-bound Chinook
has given life in the beautiful spectacle of
a carefully-guided filet knife only a salty,
wave-beaten man can sheath on a belt by his side.