A Day Off = A Day On

Tuesdays are shaping up to be my days off--the weekends are full of farmers market and farm store, and once I get home from Church on Sundays its more fun to work in the garden and chat with visitors than to sit inside by myself.  Tuesdays are perfect--the weekend is done and cleaned up after, and there's no rush to get ready for the next one yet.  Last Tuesday, Brendan and I borrowed the car and went to find the thrift stores in town.  It was over 100 degrees, but we had a picnic anyways.  It was a good day to not be working!  

This Tuesday I was on my own, since Brendan's on a family vacation.  I started off the day slow and lazy, reading in bed and having breakfast in my pajamas on the hammock, and then decided, since it was a lovely day, to get off my butt and have an adventure.  Sue got her bike down from the top of the barn, and pointed me towards the Douglas Trail, and off I went!  

The Trail is lovely, deep and wooded, with farms dotting the way.

I was totally overjoyed when, about 2 miles into my ride, the trail crossed the Zumbro River.  I miss rivers like crazy in this, my first summer away from Camp Amnicon.  It was total bliss--with a dash of nostalgia--to sit on the bank and daydream.

 And I found some marsh marigolds, my favorite wildflower!  They grow all over at Amnicon, and they added to the sense of home. 

There was a nice little perch up on the bridge where I could watch the river go it's way.  I wish I would have brought a field guide for trees or birds or wildflowers!

 Did I mention that it was a glorious day?  

My ride ultimately took me to Pine Island, a cute little town about 8 miles down the trail.  I wandered around a bit, had a muffin in a coffee shop, and decided to head back.  By the time I started home, the wind was whipping up and it felt like rain... and it seems like the uphill stretches are disproportionately arranged for the way back!  Sue called at one point to ask if I wanted a lift, but I persevered and made it back to reward myself with the uber-delicious cinnamon ice-cream I'd made that morning.  

Pilgrims

We're back in Bangalore now after a month on the road. We've had two units: Environment and Livelihood and Religion and Culture. If you're following along on a map, we've been to Orissa (Koraput district), Hyderabad, Andrha Pradesh (Zahirabad district), Delhi, Agra, and Varanasi.

Varanasi (also called Banaras) is one of the oldest living cities anywhere. It's situated on the Ganges and is probably the holiest site in Hinduism. Some people go to Varanasi when they know that death is near, hoping that it will speed their way to enlightenment. The river is lined all day with funeral pyres, pilgrims bathing in the holy water, and the poor washing clothes. When we were there on a sunrise boat-ride, the river was covered in a flock of migratory white birds. Like everything in India, this place is a paradox--both beautiful and horrifying.

Over the course of our week in Banaras, we visited about five Buddhist temples, two hindu temples, and a Catholic cathedral. We met with a Buddhist monk, a Hindu monk, a Jain scholar, and a Catholic sister and priest. We heard the bells in the temple of Durga, stood under an offshoot of the tree under which the Buddha achieved enlightenment, planted where he gave his first sermon, and celebrated an intimate mass for the first Sunday in advent. We bought some sweet t-shirts. We learned a lot of philosophy. We watched many, many episodes of "The Office" on someone's laptop.

I wrote the following poem after seeing the Ganges at sunrise. It incorporates (I realized after I wrote it) elements from almost every philosophy or religion we learned about this week.

Pilgrims

The birds, they say, are migratory.

White handfuls of wing and flight that
fling themselves, baptized,
off the water and against the sun
as it rises like blood to the brain.

They have nothing to lose
in such an action.

They are pilgrims like the rest of us.
They come to the holy water
to drink and to eat, to escape
the cold, to churn their muscles
so that they rise, again and again,
from a watery grave.

They are nothing but bellyfulls of
fish, and feathers pasted on cardboard.
They are caused, created by no one
but themselves and by my eyes.
The birds, they say, are migratory.

We are all pilgrims to the river,
and migrants to the world.
We are traveling in skin that
is not our own. We are clay
squeezed by no one's hand.
Our rudimentary minds,
handfuls of muscle,
see birds and river and
self with boundaries
drawn in chalk.

The water
wipes them away, like sin.

He-Oh, Bessay Nehai!

A month on the road sounds like a long time. Some days it feels like it-- like nothing would be nicer than my own space, my own food, my own people. To turn off India. Other days I can't fathom going home, and the snow and and the sidewalks and the giant houses seem all too close. How can I go back and be happy and well-fed and obscenely rich?

But here we are: one month on the road, two weeks back in Bangalore, and then home for Christmas. If you're following along on a map, we're hitting up Orissa (Koraput district), Hyderabad, Medak, Delhi, Agra, and Varanasi. Lots of planes, trains, and automobiles.

One week in and we're spending the weekend in Hyderabad. Last week was Koraput, a hilly rural district dotted with tribal villages. We visited several of them, and even spent the night in one. It was incredible. No advertisements. No trash on the ground. People living in and with the forest, taking from it and giving back. They had a mini-hydro-electric dam which gave them enough energy to run a mill and light their houses but didn't cause much environmental harm at all. They were incredibly kind. I can't explain how beautiful this place was, or the people. I learned to say 'very good' in the tribal language. Bessay Nehai. Yes. Very good.

We had a meeting there on climate change. They told us their story. The people here, who are deeply in tune with the earth's rhythms, noticed that their seasons were changing before they had ever heard the words 'climate change' or 'global warming'. The rainy season here has shrunk and the hot summer has expanded, making agriculture difficult. Wild fruits ripen at different times, and the food is smaller in size and less good to eat than before. Water is less plentiful. The star patterns, which they study to know when to plant and when to celebrate festivals, don't line up with the seasons like they used to. They had been wondering if they were being punished by God for something, that the earth itself is rebelling against them. Slowly, however, they learned that other villages, even other countries, are experiencing the same thing. Now they are worried about how to survive, how their children will survive in future generations. We tel them that they are by no means being punished (except, perhaps, for the actions of others)-- that the way they live in partnership with the earth is admirable, an example for the rest of us. We apologize for the role that we and our culture have contributed to the hardship they are experiencing, and tell them that together we want to try to stop it. And we tell them to keep telling their story—that people like us, too disconnected with the earth to notice these changes, need to hear from them. We need to know that livelihoods are being affected by our consumptive actions now, not just in some distant future. The people of Putsil are innocent in terms of climate-changing behavior, yet they are worried about their survival. Climate change is real, and its urgent. It needs more than our lip-service to change it—it needs our real dedication, our willingness to change our lifestyles, and all the ingenuity we can muster.

Wanna hear something that drives me nuts?

Bottled.

Water.

Now don't get me wrong-- I really love water. I love being hydrated. I love the way that water tastes (even St. Peter water!). I love swimming in water, canoeing on water, and hearing running water first thing when I wake up in the morning.

I love the way that water makes things live.

How many times have you heard this: 60% of the human body is water. We can't live without it.

In Daoism, water is a symbol for the Dao, or 'the way'. It loves humble places. It nourishes all things without trying. It fits into every vessel.

In my personal spiritual journey, water has become a symbol for God--perhaps its because I spent three months living on rivers. A river is always changing, always the same. It can be furious and powerful and dangerous, or broad and sunny and calm. It changes the landscape. Everything nearby draws its life from the river.

We are so blessed to have access to clean drinking water just by turning on a tap. 1.2 billion people in the world are not so blessed. Currently a cholera epidemic is killing hundreds in Zimbabwe--an epidemic that wouldn't exist if clean water were available.

So why do we feel the need to buy and sell bottled water? Why do we trap this essence of life in cheap plastic, which only adds to the pollution problem? In some parts of the world public water sources are being privatized in order to produced bottled water, increasing the need of the poor and oppressed while feeding the consumer culture of the elite.

So...

What are you going to do?