“My little town. A bowl, a refuge, a cacophony of change. As they all are; as they are destined to be. We can’t hold on too tightly to any idea of what they were, or what we would like them to be. It’s Vermont today, not tomorrow, nor centuries past. Yet living within the walls of echoing history, here we are. The crumbling foundations of aging barns, once fully functional edifices created for survival, are going down. We no longer seem to need our sheep, our milkers, our back 40 dwellers. Or do we. The future is uncertain, for traditional, human, planetary folk. We have tried to save it, and will continue to fight for our verdant pieces of workable land. Not because we are expecting to starve if we don’t, but because we might need something in our back pocket depending ... or just because our ill-at-ease sub-conscious says: stand your ground. We will, stand our ground. Some of us, anyway. It’s been worked into our nature, by what is rampant in the current culture, and disfiguring to our soul. Maybe age has something to say, after all. That we’ve watched when we didn’t know we were watching, and been thrown a curve ball, and a massive shift from our copasetic normal. No bombs here, yet, no dire extinctions beyond a disturbing, niggling nervousness, that robs us of a solid night’s sleep, and often, of familiar, companionable porch nights, and neighborly chit chat. It can be hard to parse the feelings, and know what’s been doing what to whom. Our skies are odd, our weather not quite right, our schools seem fraught with doctrine, and not the free places where children once played, and tumbled and were picked up, and soothed. As I make my rounds, as an itinerant gardening specialist, I get to look longer, harder, maybe, at the disparity between what we dream, & what we are able to fund. The formula seems harsh. On any given day, on any given property, I long to create more beauty, and can see it like I see my own reflection, in the still waters of a puddle. This is surely a job better suited for a time when labor, and art, could invade like a conquering army, with armfuls of roses, and kind words, and dogged will to help anyone in need of love. This however, is not our reality. The best of us are struggling, the worst of us are flush. And where this axiom is overturned, even then, come obstacles, preventing the full expression of what we are built for. Okay, but, rainbows still shimmer, seeming to sanctify the dirt, unconcerned with who interprets heavenly colors as good, or born of chemical interference. Who’s to know? Certainly, we will be the last, & the least informed. Which is the main feature, in this faltering Kali Yuga; suggesting that one must pull up a faith that is deeper than knowing. It’s a moment by moment assessment that leans into the intelligent design uniquely wired into our biology. So let’s not screw it up. I vow to stop feeling guilty for pulling over on the side of the road, to just pause, and sit ... in places that are fluttering at the gold coast of revelation. These slow, methodical gut punches are not on the schedule. Not on anyone’s schedule, and maybe that’s a clue that we need to go off course. Follow leads, & roads, and tangents we didn’t really take seriously before. Because, now, unfortunately, the whole world depends on us: doing just that.”
