The Burning Bush

Thankfully, I took these pictures before Hurricane Sandy's winds hit us yesterday.  Now the branches are totally bare.  This beauty showed itself all around the area and especially in my back yard.

Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus)

It is not native to the U.S. and is invasive to wooded areas, but has long been used as an ornamental shrub.  I'm sure it's because of its stunning, bright red beauty!

Of course, its common name comes from the Bible story of Moses and the Burning Bush.  As a child I was so enthralled with that story because it taught me about how amazing God must be to speak through a bush and make a bush burn and not be consumed!  I was in awe.  As an adult, it still intrigues me for other reasons as well.

In that story, God calls Moses by name.  Such a powerful thing, to be "called by name."  When someone calls me by name I feel seen, acknowledged, connected since my name is such an integral part of me.  One's name is so sacred; as in the African tradition described in the book Roots where the child's name is not spoken until it is whispered to the child and the child presented to God.

I also love how God tells Moses to take off his shoes/sandals "for the place where you stand is holy ground."  So many societies and traditions show reverence for a place or person by removing their footwear.  I wish I could show reverence for every inch of the earth by going barefoot always, and though that is simply not practical, I take every opportunity to tread gently, barefooted on lush carpets of mosses.  And these "burning bushes" at MorningStar remind me too that all the earth is sacred ground.  (Thank you, Elise, for turning dead sumacs into sacred art.  Thank you, Julie, for the vision and implementation with others to gather 135+ acres of hunters' land into a sacred space called MorningStar and for your commitment to see it through these 32 years.)

Thank you that this is not a current picture.

And lastly I love the power of this story of God calling, commissioning Moses to do God's work in the world.  Moses was scared and sure he wasn't enough and who would believe him if he said God sent him, and besides, "I am slow of speech and tongue" but not enough to stop arguing with God to send someone else. So wonderfully human is his response.  So like mine too often. And yet in the end (after some negotiating and concessions on God's part) Moses says yes; not graciously, not wholeheartedly, not without reservations and certainly not without a fight, but still "yes."

Yeay, Moses!  If you can do it, so can I!

Cuban Missile Crisis + 50 years

I've never been much of a history buff, but now that so much of my life is history, I've become more interested!

Russian submarine B-59          US Navy photo

I was 10 years old, beginning 5th grade, when the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in late October 1962.  I don't remember it as a specific event or President Kennedy's address to the nation, but I sure remember practicing "duck and cover" at school.  The fire alarm would sound, but not the solid drone that meant to line up in silence and proceed from the building.  No, it would go off in short bursts of horribly loud noise, and we climbed under our desks, sat crosslegged with our head in our lap and our hands over our heads.  Nobody told us that this would do absolutely nothing to protect us from the expected fireball or radiation poisoning from a nuclear bomb.  I suppose it made the adults and children alike feel like we were doing something to protect ourselves.

It was 50 years ago this week that things were coming to a head.  I didn't know that we were one action away from nuclear annihilation numerous times that week.  I didn't know the US had maddened the Soviets by putting missiles in Turkey.  I didn't know what it meant for Cuba to be a pawn to both Russia and the US.  But I do wonder how those events shaped my psyche.  How much of my attitude toward life and death and what I can and cannot control was formed under that desk at school?  What feeling sense did I absorb from the adults who knew more about what was happening?

I am grateful to 3 men and countless other unnamed men and women for saving my life that week and life as we know it on this planet.  President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev each listened to the meaning under the others' the words.  Each said "no" to their respective military advisers when told repeatedly that this incident or that action demanded that they release a nuclear warhead.  And a third man also "saved the world" that week.  The commander of the flotilla of 4 submarines from Russia, Vasili Arkhipov, prevented the launch of a nuclear tipped torpedo from submarine B-59 by refusing his consent even though two other officers were in agreement to fire it.  He knew the power and destruction he was being asked to release.  He had been exposed in an earlier submarine nuclear accident that killed many of his comrades.  He also would eventually die of complications of radiation poisoning from that accident.

The farsighted, sober "no"s of these three was a more powerful action than unleashing nuclear bombs one country upon another to the ultimate destruction of all.  I am grateful to be reminded of the power of "no" when it comes from the deepest part of my soul.  Thank you John, Nikita, Vasili and others.  I'm grateful for these extra 50 years.

I'd love to hear from those older than I as to what they remember and how it affected them.

R. I. P.

Here lies Garlic...

With the Rainbow Chard tucked in for the winter, the next event was planting garlic.  This year I discovered that my garden has eastern subterranean termites!  (Reticulitermes flavipes)  Here's more info if you want it, but just reading it make me itch!  http://ohioline.osu.edu/b1209/index.html

                                      
And they delight in eating the papery covering on garlic bulbs; hopefully not my log cabin.  In July, my daughter, Karen, helped me harvest and de-bug the garlic.  What a YUCKY job!  But the cloves were intact and usable, if small.  For that, and Karen's help, I am grateful!

Julie had a great harvest of garlic this year from her garden, and generously offered one of her beds to me for next year. So from this year's abundance we have about 60 plants each bedded down for next year. Thanks for the space, Julie!  Rest In Peace through the winter, Dear Garlic, and we will see you in spring.  YUM! 

Rainbow Chard

Ooops!  I missed my goal of blogging once a week for no reason other than dawdling.  I had these pictures ready, and the idea in my head, but...

I picked the last of my Swiss Chard this week, and it is almost already all eaten.  I love it in vegetarian spaghetti, in Amanda's Black Bean, Squash, and Swiss Chard chili, and also just sauteed in coconut oil with onions and garlic with just a little lemon and salt. Just ask if you want any recipes.

So, goodbye to fresh from the garden Swiss chard.  :-(   I am so grateful for all you've given me of yourself this summer!  If we are what we eat, I am more colorful because of you!

Last spring I experienced significant jealousy when I saw that Julie had fresh kale and chard from her cold frame ready to pick in March that lasted until this year's crop was ready to harvest.  She had simply left the plants from the year before, and the winter was mild enough that they survived to produce in spring.  So on the last warm day we had, I decided I had little to loose to spend a half hour to enclose my plants for the winter in hopes of fresh chard next spring.  "Hope springs eternal..."

Sleep tight, Sweet Rainbow Chard.  See you in Spring, I hope!

The Road to MorningStar

The colors this autumn have just been so vibrant.  And the changes are occurring quickly.  I took these pictures yesterday.

The road to MorningStar is now paved in gold!  And red and orange and brown and green and yellow and...

The wind we had yesterday took down many of the leaves that had just turned color.  And today?  Today it is snowing!  Flurries, yes, right now, it is snowing!

It all makes me smile!

One Singular Sensation

It's been a very tough growing season for apples here.  In fact, most trees in my region were completely bare.  Considering all the variables that need to be in place to produce any fruit, I consider every one a miracle. We had record high temperatures very early.  Buds popped and promptly froze a week later.  So I was delighted to see a total of 6 apples developing on my tree.  Well, 6 became 3 as the tree let go of what wasn't viable.  And 3 became 1 thanks to some combination of birds, deer, and hungry local opossums, raccoons, porcupines, and/or skunks.  So yesterday, anticipating the coming drop in temperatures, I went out to the tree to pick this one singular sensation!

It was so high up on the tree that I had to drive my pickup truck in under the tree and stand on the roof of the cab to reach it.  It was only one apple, but oh, so worth it!

I have no idea what variety of apple this tree produces; it was many owners before me who planted the tree, but I love the taste of the apples: tangy, sweet/tart.  And I like the texture of crisp, yet not too hard.  I always cherish and save these exclusively for eating.

So this year, I am truly grateful for this one apple.  And also grateful that I had the foresight to can quarts and quarts of applesauce last year when every variety of apple was extremely abundant, especially the old wild tree nearby that occasionally gives generous amounts of applesauce apples freely to anyone willing to offer the time and energy to pick them.

The Moving Finger

 I wanted to post this in honor of Katelyn's two and a half birthday, but missed by a day.

"The moving finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."

- Verse 51 from Edward FitzGerald's translation of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

I'll get to the quote in a minute.  This very odd picture is of my granddaughter, Katelyn's, hand print on my very filthy mirror.  Sadly, I'm exposing the truth of how little I clean house thoroughly.  Katelyn visited 3 months ago!  But the miraculous thing is that I never saw this hand print until now because it is of course very low on the mirror, and until this time of year, the sun doesn't hit the mirror in the morning in such a way as to reveal it.  Cool, right?  What a heart warming surprise!

Well, now I have a dilemma: wash it off, wash all around it, or just leave the whole mirror dirty.  Well, since I won't see her again until Thanksgiving, I won't wash it off.  Now that I know it's there, I notice it every time I look in that mirror.  It makes me smile every day.

It was a sort of free association when I saw the hand print that made the quote on the moving finger emerge from the depths of my brain.  I've always liked this quote.  When I ponder it, this is what emerges:  What happens in life, happens.  Bad things and good things happen to good people and not-so-good people alike. Trying to be the holiest person, the most perfect person, the most intelligent or likeable person will not save me from the occurrences of life.  And though tears are a thoroughly appropriate response to painful or sad happenings in my life, and often totally necessary for my emotional health, they do not change the actuality of the incident itself.  Still, as I release the emotions, I may be graced with the ability to transform my relationship to the incident and come to accept it with all the aspects it brings to my life: pain, joy, sadness, growth, anger, loneliness, belonging, humility, compassion.  What is, is, and I get to choose what I do with it.

Of course, I could have titled this "The Invisible Hand", but then you would get to read my ponderings on Adam Smith's economic principles... Maybe another time.  ;-)

The Ghosts of Summer Past

And now it is thoroughly Autumn.  And there are ghosts that appear in the gardens on cold nights.

Being brave enough to confront those ghosts and peek under their sheets reveals hidden treasures.

Oh, to eek out one or two more weeks of homegrown veggies...