December 2021
Books read:
- It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again by Julia Cameron
- The Overstory by Richard Powers
- The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
- Tao Te Ching: A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell
- Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Trails walked:
- St. Mary’s Glacier and James Peak near Idaho Springs (Dec 2nd)
- Green Mountain big loop near Boulder (Dec 8th)
- Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge in Commerce City (Dec 16th)
- Left Hand Creek Greenway in Longmont (Dec 27th)
Song(s) of the month – Hard Drive and Crosshairs by Cassandra Jenkins
Scientist Spotlight – Suzanne Simard, forest ecologist
December Summary: We’ve come to the end of another year. Covid didn’t end in 2021 like many of us hoped, and it actually got worse. My aunt passed away this year from covid (I wrote THIS article in the local paper about her). Now the predictions are that it ends in 2023, or maybe never really ends but becomes endemic and we’ll just get annual covid shots like annual flu shots (well, at least those people who believe in such crazy ideas as medical science will). Our country, and much of the world, remains hopelessly divided with no resolution in sight. This division is based on ideologies exacerbated by certain media and social media outlets for monetary or ideological reasons. Government action on climate change worldwide continues to be weak and insufficient even as the impacts of climate change continue to be strong and sufficient.
So how do we
maintain a positive outlook and retain hope in these times? It’s becoming more and more difficult for
many people as we’ve seen with the decrease in mental health the past two years (I read about a term, languishing, which is not quite depression, but is not healthy).
I provided some suggestions on retaining hope in last month’s blog, but this month I wanted to
just list a few things that bring me hope and happiness:
- The look on my 2-year-old grandson’s face when he’s finally solved the puzzle of buckling and unbuckling all the things that seem to constrain him in his young life
- The way the wind clears the air and moves the trees (we had 100 mph winds this month on the front range…I don’t mean THAT wind)
- The ease with which young kids can make friends (us adults could use some lessons on this)
- The way trees send their energy to the ground in the fall and then bring it back up in the spring
- Young people calling out older people for their lack of progress on climate change
- Watching squirrels tease our ever-hopeful dog when he chases them
- The patience of hawks waiting in trees for their dinner
- Elderly people planting trees even though they will never enjoy their shade
- Listening to a great song that brings chills every time you hear it (like River by Joni Mitchell)
- Reading a great book that opens up new pathways in your brain
- The determination and creativity of great teachers (especially these past two years)
- The seeming inexhaustibility of the doctors and nurses treating covid patients
- Listening to stories of an elderly couple who have lived the most interesting lives
Scientist Spotlight: Suzanne Simard
– One of the characters in Richard Powers’ incredible book Overstory, which I reviewed this month, was based on Suzanne Simard. Simard is a professor of Forest Ecology at The University of British Columbia and author of Finding the Mother Tree. From her website: “Suzanne is known for her work on how trees interact and communicate using below-ground fungal networks, which has led to the recognition that forests have hub trees, or Mother Trees, which are large, highly connected trees that play an important role in the flow of information and resources in a forest. Her current research investigates how these complex relationships contribute to forest resiliency, adaptability and recovery and has far-reaching implications for how to manage and heal forests from human impacts, including climate change.”
She has a TED
talk that will probably change the way you think about trees and forests. You can view that 18-minute talk HERE. And speaking of TED, if you’ve seen the excellent
Apple TV series Ted Lasso, in Season 2, Episode 11, Coach Beard says: "You
know, we used to believe that trees competed with each other for light. Suzanne
Simard’s field work challenged that perception, and we now realize that the
forest is a socialist community. Trees work in harmony to share the
sunlight." I love Coach Beard. Another interesting pop
culture reference to Simard’s work is that she influenced the Tree of Souls in
James Cameron’s film Avatar.
Like the
character in Overstory, Simard had to overcome criticism of her work and
personal attacks on her integrity. She
was fired from her forestry job because her research didn’t coincide with the
company’s views on trees. But her
research was solid and she’s been proven correct over the years. What that means for forest conservation is
still a mixed bag, as is practically any work that intersects the environment
and business as usual.
I can't remember how I first found out about this artist…I think I had read an article on the best music of 2021. Her new album, An Overview on Phenomenal Nature has been categorized as “psyche-folk” which I guess is a pretty good categorization. I wouldn’t normally be struck by this music, but this struck me. Maybe because I first listened to it after my Green Mountain Big Loop hike in which I had an encounter with a young woman in crisis. On Jenkins’ website she says this about the album: "If Phenomenal Nature has a unifying theme, it’s the power of presence, the joy of walking in a world in constant flux and opening oneself to change." Maybe that’s why I like this album, because it somehow brings out the way I feel when I’m out in nature. I picked two songs from the album.
The first is called Hard Drive and here’s
Pitchfork’s review: “In the elegant and
kaleidoscopic 'Hard Drive,' New York songwriter Cassandra Jenkins lets us in on
a series of conversations. There’s a security guard with a Queens accent, a
bookkeeper at an inn in California, a driving instructor named Darryl, and a psychic
with gemstone eyes at a friend’s birthday party. They all seem to want Jenkins
to relax her mind and open her heart to the world around her…Plenty of
songwriters can present with confidence the hard lessons they’ve learned; it is
rare to hear someone so masterfully document the long, lonely journey of trying
to get there.”
Hard Drive - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW8XoovSlsM
The other song I
picked is Crosshairs, which has the following lines:
To fall apart
In the arms of someone entirely strange to me
It's Never Too Late to Begin Again by Julia Cameron -
Julia Cameron has an interesting history. She married and divorced film maker Martin Scorsese (with whom she has a daughter), has written books, plays, and films; and she’s taught filmmaking, writing, and creative unblocking. She rescued herself out of drug and alcohol addiction and began teaching people how to unlock their creativity. This teaching resulted in her breakout self-help book in 1992 titled The Artist’s Way. Twelve-week programs were established based on the teachings in this book. It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again is sort of an update to these teachings targeted to people entering their retirement years. I put this book on my reading list around the time that I retired, which is when it was published, but never got around to reading it until now. It’s meant to be used as a tool for a twelve-week program to help unlock the creativity inside you, but I read it in a week, with a plan to eventually try the program. I enjoyed the many quotes she sprinkled throughout the book. The four main tools she provides all make perfect sense to me, some of which I already practice, but not all. They are:
Morning Pages – on paper (not your computer or smartphone), write 3 pages of notes every morning. These can be any stream of conscious thoughts you have about any topic, and they are meant to be kept private, like a diary. These will “clear the psychic debris standing between us and the day ahead. Done consistently, they will alter the trajectory of our lives.”
Artist Dates – Every week, go on a date with only yourself for at least one hour. Do something that interests or entrances you, like visiting a museum or library or going shopping.
Walks – Go on walks by yourself (no dog, no spouse, no child) for at least 20 minutes at least twice a week just to notice things surrounding you.
Build your memoir – Each week, write what you can recall about specific times in your life, starting with your earliest memories. She provides good questions to help spur your memory.
She sums up these tools as follows: "Writing, you are led forward. Taking Artist Dates, you are inspired. Walking, you are connected to a limitless spiritual resource. Revisiting your memoir, you connect to, and learn from, your former self. Often, buried dreams are the calling cards of a true identity."
Her premise is that we all have some form of creativity inside us, waiting to burst out. Many of us have spent entire careers doing work that helped to pay the bills or seemed sensible, but which may have stifled creativity or held you back from doing what you’ve always wanted to do. She points out that now that you’re retired, there are no more excuses. You have the time, so why not use it to try and make your retirement as fulfilling as possible.
Her program seems solid, and she presents several examples of people who’ve used her tools, many very reluctantly at first. I think all of us can identify with some of the examples and stories provided. I was a bit put off by her mentioning too many times that she’s written over 40 books…ok, ok, you’ve written 40 books – that seems like too many to have a lot of quality built in. But, yay for you. I will give her tools a shot sometime soon and possibly report back on my results. No promises….I’ve got a blog to write, a grandchild to babysit, and a bunch of other fun stuff I already enjoy doing.
Here
are some lines and quotes that I enjoyed:
Often, when we say that it is “too late” for us to begin something, what we are really saying is that we aren’t willing to be a beginner. But when we are willing to dip our toe in even just a little, we are rewarded with a sense of youthful wonder.
There
is a saying that “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical,” meaning that when
emotions are overwhelming, they may not be fully relevant to the present
situation.
It’s
never too late to be what you might have been – George Eliot
Cherishing
our past enriches our present
Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you’re alive, it isn’t. – Lauren Bacall
When
we make lists of what we love, we remember who we are.
One
of the fruits of aging is wisdom. We
know how to handle situations that once baffled us. We have discernment. Sharing our hard-earned knowledge is one of
the joys of aging.
The
ego doesn’t want us to be a humble beginner.
The ego wants us to be an expert.
This demand often freezes us and keeps us from pursuing new interests.
There
is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being
superior to your former self. – Ernest Hemmingway
Whatever
you think you can do, or believe you can do, begin it. Because action has magic, grace, and power in
it. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The
universe is full of magic things patiently waiting for our sense to grow
sharper. – Eden Phillpotts
Supporting
our children through supporting their children, we build a bridge of generosity
and healing. And we may find it all
quite fun.
A
grandparent’s patience often seems to be a match for the grandchild’s energy.
The
person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing
it. – Chinese Proverb
St. Mary's Glacier and James Peak -
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| Ice fishers on St. Mary's Lake |
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| St. Mary's Lake from the start of the snowfield (aka glacier) |
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| Looking up the steep, wind swept snowfield |
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| James and Kingston Peaks from just above the snowfield |
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| Ice carved by the wind and sun |
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| Frozen lakes below James Peak |
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| Different viewpoint |
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| Looking down from the top of the snowfield |
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| Looking back up |
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| A longer view |
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| A later in the day view of St. Mary's Lake |
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| St. Mary's Lake |
The Overstory by Richard Powers –
Awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, this is Powers’ 12th novel in his 30 plus years of writing. It also won the William Dean Howells Medal in 2020 which is awarded every five years by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the most distinguished American novel. It’s deserving of all these accolades and more. I’m a fairly slow reader, but I plowed through the 500 pages in less than a week without even noticing that I was reading. I’ve read some great books this year, but this one rises to the top, along with Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Both novels have one thing in common: A deep reverence for the natural world.
The
Overstory follows the lives of nine people whose stories intersect in extraordinary
ways. A common theme among the characters
is the importance of trees in their lives (trees planted for them as kids, or
falling out of a tree, or being saved by falling in a tree, or studying trees,
or photographing the family farm tree each month for generations). Along the way Powers provides fascinating
facts about trees around the world such as trees that bleed, trees that have
sex once in their life and then die in order to provide sunlight to their offspring,
trees that spew seeds at 160 miles per hour, and the death of the American
Chestnut tree. The characters’ stories
range from environmental protestors to a Silicon Valley programmer designing a
computer game that creates a new world, to a psychologist trying to understand
why some people act for important causes and others don’t, to a young scientist
who discovers that trees communicate with other trees and animals, and to a man
whose life story resembles that of Forest Gump.
A review in the Atlantic called it
“darkly optimistic”; the dark part being the future prospects of humans and the
optimistic part being the future prospects of trees. It’s why, when I talk about solving climate
change, I don’t say it’s to save the planet because the planet will be fine; we
need to deal with climate change to save us.
Here are some of the “too many great ones to post” lines from the book:
Dad, I would very much like to plunge off the edge of commonsense existence, at your expense, and become certifiably unemployable. “Dad? I need to go to art school.”
The photos hide everything: the twenties that do not roar for the Hoels. The Depression that costs them two hundred acres and sends half the family to Chicago….The barn that burns to the ground one night to the screams of helpless animals. The dozens of joyous weddings, christenings, and graduations. The half dozen adulteries. The two divorces sad enough to silence songbirds. ..The lawsuit between cousins. The three surprise pregnancies…The handiwork of heroin and Agent Orange that comes home with nephews from 'Nam. The hushed-up incest, the lingering alcoholism, a daughter’s elopement with the high school English teacher. The cancers (breast, colon, lung), the heart disease, the degloving of a worker’s fist in a grain auger, the car death of a cousin’s child on prom night…The dispersal of retirees to Arizona and Texas. The generations of grudge, courage, forbearance, and surprise generosity: everything a human being might call the story happens outside his photos’ frame.
“Best time to plant a tree? Twenty years ago.” “Yep. And you always said the next best time was now,” “Wrong. Next best time, nineteen years ago.”
Three
hundred years growing. Three hundred
years holding. Three hundred years
dying. Oak.
Vietnam and the Stanford Prison experiment: He doesn’t want to live in a world where some twenty-year-olds die so that other twenty-year-olds can study psychology and write about f…ed-up experiments.
If you carved your name four feet high in the bark of a beech tree, how high would it be after half a century? She loves the answer to that last one: Four feet. Still four feet. Always four feet, however high the beech tree grows. She’ll love that answer still, half a century later.
Eastern
Kentucky University turns her into someone else. Patricia blooms like something southern
facing.
The
work isn’t glamorous. It consists of
taping numbered plastic bags over the ends of branches, then collecting them at
measured intervals. She does this over
and over, dumbly and mutely, hour by hour, while the world around her rages
with assassination, race riot, and jungle warfare.
She has followed back roads from Las Vegas, capital of clueless sinners, towards Salt Lake, capital of cunning saints.
She was dead. In those seconds while she had no pulse, large, powerful, but desperate shapes beckoned to her. They showed her something, pleading with her. But the moment she came back to life, everything vanished.
People
have sex with strangers. People marry strangers.
People spend half a century in bed together and wind up strangers at the end.
Now
his life has a luxury he’s never had: a destination, and someone to head there
with.
“I’ve never been part of a public protest. I can’t imagine who wouldn’t join this one.” “Lumberjacks. Libertarians. People who believe in human destiny. People who need decks and shingles.”
Before
it dies, a Douglas fir, half a millennium old, will send its storehouse of
chemicals back down into its roots and out through its fungal partners,
donating its riches to the community pool in a last will and testament.
She remembers the Buddha’s words: A tree is a wondrous thing that shelters, feeds, and protects all living things. It even offers shade to the axmen who destroy it.
Her
grandparents in Shanghai, in their Sunday finest, holding up the photo of
American girls they would never meet.
She’s years younger than he is, but decades more certain.
“The
best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”
Fulfillment
Centers across several continents. His employers
won't stop until everyone is fulfilled.
Civilized
yards are all alike. Every wild yard is
wild in its own way (this was written while the couple was reading Anna
Karenina – brilliant)
We’re cashing in a billion years of planetary savings bonds and blowing it on assorted bling. And what Douglas Pavlicek wants to know is why this is so easy to see when you’re by yourself in a cabin on a hillside, and almost impossible to believe once you step out of the house and join several billion folks doubling down on the status quo.
Dependable
Dennis. Seventy-two, and as capable of amazement as a little kid.
No one sees trees. We see fruit, we see nuts, we see wood, we see shade. We see ornaments or pretty fall foliage. Obstacles blocking the road or wrecking the ski slope. Dark, threatening places that must be cleared. We see branches about to crush our roof. We see a cash crop. But trees—trees are invisible…. When you feel good after a walk in the woods, it may be that certain species are bribing you. So many wonder drugs have come from trees, and we haven’t yet scratched the surface of the offerings.
He finds a shady spot—an increasingly popular sport, worldwide.
His hand goes out, gesturing toward the conifers. “It amazes me how much they say, when you let them. They’re not that hard to hear.” The man chuckles. “we’ve been trying to tell you that since 1492.”
Life
will cook; the seas will rise. The planet’s
lungs will be ripped out. And the law
will let this happen, because harm was never imminent enough. Imminent, at the speed of people, is too late. The law must judge imminent at the speed of
trees.
I created this loop by stitching together 12 (!) different trails in the Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks recreation area. You probably won’t find it on AllTrails. I ended up walking 11 miles with 3,000 plus feet of aggregate elevation gain. The day was cool and windy, and I found myself layering and unlayering several times as I gained and lost elevation. The day started and ended in the NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) parking lot which I like because parking is free, unlike other trailheads in the region. Typical of the Boulder area I saw as many trail runners as trail walkers, maybe 12 of each until I got to the popular Mesa trail near the end. Bear Canyon was the first trail, and I was on this for around 3.5 miles, including the new section that has been rerouted to save some of the canyon’s riparian area. There is still trail construction going on here. Next, I headed north on the Green Bear trail and it was here that I started getting great views of the snow capped Rockies to the west. I climbed up the West Ridge trail to summit Green Mountain with it’s view of the Rockies and the Plains and had my lunch. Then it was a very steep downhill on the EM Greenman, Saddle Rock, and Amphitheater trails. I wound my way around several different trails in the Chautauqua Park area towards the north end of the Mesa Trail which eventually took me back to the NCAR parking lot.
An
interesting event happened to me on the Bluebell Baird section of the hike. I was wandering along in the woods wondering
if I was gonna make it back to the car before dark when a young woman passed my
way. I asked her how she was and instead
of the usual, “fine and you?” response, I got “I’m actually having a very hard
time right now.” My first cynical thought was, uh oh, she wants money, which I’m ashamed to admit. But as we talked, I discovered that she had
just come out of a bad relationship and needed to vent her feelings to someone,
anyone, preferably a kindly old gentleman walking in the woods. We talked for several minutes about
relationships and healing and at the end she gave me a sad smile and asked for
a hug, which I gladly provided. She
thanked me with a namaste bow and went on her way. I hope she is ok. She seemed very kind, but fragile in the moment. As I
finished my hike in the dark, I thought about chance encounters and the impact
you might have on someone’s life just by being in the right place at the right
time. So many good things can be gained
just by taking a walk.
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| View of the Flatirons from near the trailhead |
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| Flatiron rock formations from Bear Canyon |
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| Trail construction to re-route Bear Canyon trail around riparian area |
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| First views of the snow capped Rockies |
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| View from the Green Mountain summit |
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| Views from the summit |
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| Expansive views of the Front Range toward Lyons |
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| Steep sections of trail |
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| Dead tree view |
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| Views |
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| Interesting red rock formations |
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| Views of Boulder |
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| Probably safer to use the trail on the right... |
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| Sun setting on Boulder |
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| Sun setting on the Front Range |
The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson -
One of my college buddies, who’s an epidemiologist told me that the 1854 cholera outbreak in London, which was this book's topic, was the beginning of modern-day epidemiology. Ghost Map is a very interesting read, especially if you stop reading before the author’s confounding conclusions. The story begins by describing some of the various 19th century professions required in a city of 2 million people without a waste management plan. There were:
Bone-pickers: foraging for carcasses, human and animal to sell to bone-boilers
Pure-finders: collectors of dog feces (colloquially called “pure”) to sell to tanners who used the “pure” to rid leather goods of the lime used to remove animal hair
Toshers: wading through the river Thames’ low tide collecting metal and other valuables
Mud-larks: mainly children scavenging what the toshers didn’t want, like lumps of coal and scraps of wood
Sewer-hunters: slogging through the flowing waste of the city for valuables
Night-soil men: removing the “night soil” from overflowing cesspools in buildings.
His descriptions of these jobs and their necessity is incredible. You may have heard of some of these occupations if you’ve read any of Charles Dickens’ novels. Johnson even quotes many sections of Dickens’ novels to help with the description of London during the mid-19th century.
The
book is really a story about two men who changed how investigations of epidemics
could be used to save lives. John Snow
was a brilliant anesthesiologist who came from a working-class family and
eventually rose to become the anesthesiologist for Queen Victoria. Henry Whitehead was a caring pastor in the Soho
neighborhood where the cholera epidemic took place in 1854. Between the two of them, they not only
discovered ground zero for the outbreak, but they also changed the prominent
medical views of the time about the spread of cholera. At the time everyone believed that cholera
was spread through the air; Snow believed it was spread through drinking water. Nobody believed him, not even Whitehead. But eventually, as Snow developed his Ghost Map
of cholera deaths around the neighborhood and Whitehead visited the families of
the dead and dying, they were able to prove it was one specific well pump that
caused the outbreak. Their investigations
took them to residences far away from the pump where people died; they
discovered that those people liked the water from that specific pump and went
out of their way to use it, instead of the pumps nearest to them. The work of these two men eventually convinced
the city government to remove the offending pump handle even though nobody in
the city government believed their results (but they felt they had to take SOME
action). Most of the surviving residents
were angry that the government removed the pump handle, even though it was for
their own good (sound familiar?). It
took a few years after Snow’s death before the world’s medical community came
to agree with the waterborne theory (which is now a fact and not a theory).
Overall,
it was an interesting look into the everyday lives of Londoners during this
time, along with the medical practices and politics. In the conclusion, the author went on to
elaborate on the migration to large cities, but this all
seemed a bit out of place with the story. It seems he should have written a
separate book on the topic of cities.
In 1942 the US Army acquired 17,000 acres of land north of Denver in what is Commerce City today. They developed a manufacturing facility to create chemical weapons, like mustard gas for use in World War II and napalm for Korea and Vietnam. In the 1950s the army developed the nerve gas, sarin, here for the Cold War and also rocket fuel for the Titan and Delta missile programs. From the 1950s through 1982 Shell Oil leased part of the property for manufacturing agricultural pesticides. Even though contaminated groundwater was discovered in the 1950s (impact to nearby livestock and crops), manufacturing didn’t stop until 1982 (same old story). Several lawsuits later the site was cleaned up in a $2 billion operation by Shell and the US Army in collaboration with the EPA and Colorado Department of Public Health. The area was designated a National Wildlife Refuge in 1992 once nesting bald eagles were discovered in the area. As the cleanup operation continued, more and more acres were turned over to the refuge and by 2010 the cleanup was completed (buildings removed, top 10 inches of soil removed, ground water filtered…). Monitoring of water and air continues to this day. Studies of neighboring communities have so far shown no variance in birth defects or cancer compared to the overall Colorado population.
Based
on what I saw on this day, the cleanup operations are a true success story (corporations
and government will have to continue to work like this together to solve
current major issues like climate change…but with less delay hopefully). Three hundred species of wildlife make their home
here now and I saw lots of them, even on this cool December day. Some of the animals I spotted on my 7.5-mile
meander through the refuge were: burrowing owls, bison, several whitetail and mule deer, juvenile bald eagle, several hawks, terns, gulls, ducks, geese, and so
many small birds that I couldn’t identify.
I think the prize spotting here would be the black footed ferret but I
had no luck on that one. As I wandered
around this prairie I couldn’t help trying to picture what it was like here in
the 1940s as workers filled the factories and the war raged. I also thought a lot about progress and nature
and whether we will ever be able to strike the right balance in solving the
world’s problems. But mostly I thought
about the plants and animals eking out a living here on the prairie in one of
the largest urban wildlife refuges in the world.
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| Interpretive sign near the trailhead |
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| Bison are kept in a hug enclosed area with cattle guards |
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| Geese on Lake Mary |
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| One of many bucks I saw on the walk |
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| Interpretative sign about the arsenal |
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| One remaining farmhouse of 200 that were once here |
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| Could be Kansas |
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| Floating deck on Lake Mary |
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| Artsy shot |
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| Artsy shot looking the other direction |
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| Part of the Rocky Mountain Greenway Trail which will eventually go from here to Rocky Mountain National Park |
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| Ladera Lake |
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| Doe on a ridge |
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| Ladera Lake water fowl as sun lowers in the west |
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| Downtown Denver in the background |
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| Hawk patiently awaiting dinner |
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| Tree at sunset |
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| Trees at sunset |
Tao Te Ching is one of the fundamental texts for Taoism and has influenced Confucianism and Buddhism. There is a lot of debate as to its original author and date, although many attribute it to be written by Lao Tzu (old master) who was reportedly a contemporary of Confucius. Some have dated the writing to the 6th century BCE, others to the 4th century BCE. It seems that the view among modern scholars is that this is a compilation of texts from various Chinese philosophers that was compiled in the 2nd century BCE. Regardless of who wrote it or when, the messages in the text still resonate to this day and you have likely seen many of the quotes from the text on various wooden plaques or twitter postings. There are several different translations available; I chose the English translation by poet Stephen Mitchell and here’s what taosurfers.com said about this translation: “Mitchell is married to Byron Katie and folks who dig her work will resonate with the flow of this version. Indeed, while there are times when he takes liberties with the original, he often does so in a way that we find to be totally in keeping with the spirit of Lao Tzu. It’s a bit more on the New Age side of the spectrum, but in the best sense of that description.”
I’m
not going to pretend that I can summarize these teachings in a short blog post. The title translates to something like Book
of the Way of the World, or Book of the Virtuous Way of the World. It provides the reader with a set of principles
to live by. In its 81 verses it talks
about how to live in the world with goodness and integrity. It seems to be presented
as a way to restore harmony and tranquility to a world in disarray (something
we could all use these days it seems).
So, without trying any further to define the Tao on my own, here are
some of the translated lines (along with my commentary on some of them in
parentheses):
Care
about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner. (love this)
Success is as dangerous as failure. (in the wrong hands for sure)
The
Master doesn’t talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say, “Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!” (brilliant management philosophy)
When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born. (hmmm, not sure if this pertains to our country these days, although those that raided the capitol on Jan 6 may be good with this)
What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher? What is a bad man but a good man’s job? If you don’t understand this, you will get lost, however intelligent you are. It is the great secret. (I like this, basically I think it’s saying that our duty is to raise others up)
His
enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself. He doesn’t wish them
personal harm. Nor does he rejoice in victory. How could he rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?
The
Tao can’t be perceived, Smaller than an electron, it contains uncountable
galaxies. (this seems to be part of the idea that we’ll never really know the
Tao)
If powerful men and women could remain centered in the Tao, all things would be in harmony. The world would become a paradise. All people would be at peace, and the law would be written in their hearts. (It seems to me that people who seek power these days wouldn’t necessarily be seekers of the Tao)
Knowing
others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is
strength; mastering yourself is true power.
If
you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. (I love this)
The
soft overcomes the hard. The slow overcomes the fast. Let your workings remain
a mystery. Just show people the results. (Bob Dylan must have read this)
When
there is no desire, all things are at peace. (Ad agencies hate this one)
In
harmony with the Tao, the sky is clear and spacious, the earth is solid and
full, all creatures flourish together, content with the way they are, endlessly
repeating themselves, endlessly renewed. When man interferes with the Tao, the
sky becomes filthy, the earth becomes depleted, the equilibrium crumbles,
creatures become extinct. (2400 years ago was the first prediction of climate change
evidently)
Be
content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize
there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. (great for those of
us with food and shelter)
The
more you know, the less you understand. (I have always believed this to be true
and I would reword it as – people who say they understand everything don’t know
anything)
She
is good to people who are good. She is also good to people who aren’t good.
This is true goodness. (Origin of the Golden Rule?)
When
rich speculators prosper while farmers lose their land; when government
officials spend money on weapons instead of cures; when the upper class is
extravagant and irresponsible while the poor have nowhere to turn— all this is
robbery and chaos. It is not in keeping with the Tao. (This one is for the progressives)
When
taxes are too high, people go hungry. When the government is too intrusive,
people lose their spirit. Act for the people’s benefit. Trust them; leave them
alone. (This one is for the conservatives)
Give
evil nothing to oppose and it will disappear by itself. (a good lesson for
patience)
The
journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath your feet.
Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe. Therefore the Master takes action by letting things take their course. He remains as calm at the end as at the beginning. (I wish I had this on my wall when I was a project manager)
If
you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on
to. (…although I would like to hold onto my 401K…)
Nothing
in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and
inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle
overcomes the rigid. (If you’ve rafted through the Grand Canyon you know this)
Failure is an opportunity. If you blame someone else, there is no end to the blame.
The
following were in the notes after the text, but I liked them:
When
we watch a seventy-year-old hand move, we feel, “Yes, that hand has lived.” All
the bodies it has touched, all the weights it has lifted, all the heads it has
cradled are present in its movement. It is resonant with experience; the
fingers curve with a sense of having been there. Whereas in a child’s hand
there’s a sense of just arriving. The child’s movement is pristine and innocent
and delightful, but a truly supple adult movement is awesome, because all life
is included in it.
A
true philanthropist, like a good parent, brings people to the point where they
can help themselves.
It was cold and windy up in the mountains this week so I decided to finally walk the 3 mile Left Hand Creek Greenway in Longmont, plus an extra mile or so along the Longmont-Boulder (LOBO) trail for a total of around 7 miles. It was in the upper 30s and sunny when I started and lower 40s and sunny when I finished. Five minutes after I got out of the car I spotted a bald eagle flying up into a tree on the other side of St Vrain creek. There was another bald eagle perched in the same tree. The geese in the creek were nervously honking….can a bald eagle kill a Canadian goose? I suppose if it’s hungry enough it can. I’ve walked the 8-mile St Vrain Greenway which traverses Longmont from west to east and I’ve seen the cutoff to Left Hand Creek but hadn’t walked it until today. It starts in the north near Ken Pratt Blvd and Martin Street, where Left Hand Creek empties into the St. Vrain and ends at Hover Street south of Pike where the LOBO trail begins. Left Hand Creek’s source is Left Hand Reservoir up in the Brainard Lake Recreation area near Ward. The St Vrain empties into the South Platte River just northeast of Longmont. The South Platte empties into the Platte River in Nebraska and then empties into the Missouri River near Omaha, where it makes its way into the Mississippi River and then on down to the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans. OK that’s the geography lesson for today.
The
greenway makes its way southeast through a diverse series of neighborhoods, from
apartments and homes in the $300s, to million-dollar homes near Left Hand Creek
Park. It also passes by the interesting
Kanemoto Park with it’s Tower of Compassion in the shape of a Japanese
temple. The park was donated by the Kanemoto
family whose patriarch, Goroku Kanemoto, immigrated from Japan in 1910. Goroku worked on the railroad and in the fields
until he was eventually able to lease some land.
His sons became truck farmers, businessmen and community leaders. The Tower has five levels and each one
represents the meaning of compassion:
Love, Empathy, Understanding, Gratitude of all Things, and Giving
Selflessly of Oneself. It’s a strange
and lovely site to see on a walk through the city.
Past
the park I spotted a Great Blue Heron hanging out in the creek, along with a colorful
male belted kingfisher (there must be small fish in the creek but I didn’t see
any). At the end of the greenway I
walked a bit of the LOBO trail where there is a small farm owned by Boulder
County which leases the land out to local farmers for them to grow fruits and
vegetables for the community. I turned
around and headed back to the car after a really nice afternoon exploring a
different part of beautiful Longmont.
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| Two bald eagles sittin' in a tree.... |
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| Tower of Compassion in Kanemoto Park |
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| Same tower, less artsy view |
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| Trail art |
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| Trail art |
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| Trail art |
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| Great blue heron |
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| Left Hand Creek winding under cottonwoods |
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| Trail art |
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| Start of the LOBO trail to Boulder |
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| Farmland leased from the county to local farmers |
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| Trail art |
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| Creepy face put on tree as trail art.... |
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| Stencil with a social message. I think there are still poor people living here, but it's certainly becoming less affordable |
