240819 cows foxes dragons dinosaurs

August 19, 2024

The cows belong to the farmer at our corner. They are brought up to graze from time to time. They are taken down the road to Rain's farm, too. Community.

The smoke map does not show the green mountains' true situation. The smoke settles into the valleys for many days it seems. We have not properly seen the distant windmills to the south in over a week. being higher up here, we may be out of the worst, but across the Missisquoi valley at about our level the haze sits unmoving.

Even the dragon, (the hill above the barn), is hazy, and all the mountains beyond him gone.

*****

I have been drawn into the material world of poverty and want, of the rich living on the toils of the poor, of the power in wealth. This, even as I benefit from wealth and power, to live here, to eat, to have a car, a phone, a computer. I am weighed down with the sadness of so much of humanity living difficult lives, even more by the loved ones whose struggles I watch, knowing that money would solve every challenge. Selfishly I wish that I myself had the money to sort out the frustrations in our own lives. Less selfish is wanting so much to help those I love live more easily. For shame, since there are millions who have no roof, no water, no food, no medicine. Ah, I am caught in this web.

I have to turn, for sanity, to the world outside the dollar, to the currencies of kindness, love, and nature. There is breathing, and a dog. There is fruit on the black raspberry bushes and the blueberry bushes, and a fox in the morning coming by the wise witch to sniff for apples. There is a sky full of stars. Trees and flowers, leaf and blossom, rain falls and at night an owl calls.

How does one climb out of the depression that is poverty, then? (Whatever the need...) I will return to the prayers and rituals, the work that needs doing, the creative, the natural world, music. I will seek out the magic in the small and the infinite, eat well, exercise, and most importantly, I can offer love and kindness to those around me. I have had enough of wallowing in my self-pity. I must return to magic. It is like focussing a camera or microscope to take in a different depth of field.

The rainstorm sweeps across the hills, the rain a curtain drawn, while in the west there is a patch of sunny blue.

There are dragons in the sky:

And a prehistoric whale:

*****

I have been out to see the stars the last few nights. There is the infinity, and we are the small things. Fox plays in the ridge stream. A dinosaur approaches. It has been a delight to reconnect with my grandson.