Large Fierce Mammal

Be careful with your imagined entitlements. They might not be shared.

Tonight’s Dark Sentiment is dedicated to one who I once long observed habituating himself to a toxic level of self-entitlement until circumstances unconnected with near-death experiences reined him in. Notwithstanding what put the brakes on, I also observed that he never knew how close he came.

Bloodletting

By LFM

No tick to show intended harm,
No eyebrow raised to sound alarm,
Each gesture made conceals intent
While never meaning what is meant.

Unlooked for as the stooping Owl,
Unseen as fair o’ershadows foul,
Alluring glance, enthralling wit,
The die is cast, the warrant’s writ.

From yielding flesh the final stroke
May fall mid-laugh at some odd joke,
Unwanted touch, desires fanned,
The path is laid to ends long planned.

Grow not desires of rightful due
From confidence of prideful thew.
What prize be there to win or lose
Is hers who deals the stroke to choose.

It appears another bastard already came to it. (Source: HERE)

Today’s title is one of my favourite situational sentiments, whether spoken aloud or as part of my internal dialog, and I find it useful in one form or another on a semi-regular basis. People hearing it tend to fall into distinct categories, which is at once unsurprising and annoying, because that is something one should make a serious effort never to do:

• They completely miss that the word “burn” has replaced “cross” and react as though I’ve spoken traditionally,
• They believe that I have misspoken and either silently accept what I “clearly meant” in place of what was clearly said, or worse, have the temerity to correct me in that way people do when they hear me speak another favourite, “God help us, every one.”
• They get that something just happened that they don’t understand and so react as though what they’ve just heard is the funniest thing ever said to them, which in many cases it probably is.

Fortunately, enough vitality remains in the herd to offer up a small but still satisfying demographic who clearly receive the message as intended, whatever that may be at the time. This minuscule subset of the greater whole I view as satisfying because, as you will come to learn about society, one can never go wrong with low expectations (which I would add are not anywhere close to the same thing as underestimation, but I digress).

These cognitive pitfalls that can arise from exposure to a perverse rephrasing of an otherwise familiar turn of phrase are a reaction to its novel departure from the familiar in a manner comparable to an encounter with anything else unusual or unexpected, of any size, in any place and time. Most people will miss it entirely and simply go on with their day, others will notice and either choose to ignore it or rebrand its significance as deserving of little to no further consideration or attention on their part, and those sufficiently aroused to not only notice but attempt to correct its nonconformity soon find themselves engaged in a futile attempt to get the pesky square peg back into a round hole it never came out of in the first place. (more…)

Titled The Uninvited Guest, all who come here know that for some, the door is always open.

Welcome back Goode Survivor to this, our dozenth season of Dark Sentiments! As usual, we meet tonight under a cloud of existential uncertainty, and what of it? We all know the ultimate in packing light is to simply bring the best of yourself, and besides, isn’t this what we’ve been preparing and training ourselves for all this time we haven’t been dead?

I must tell you however that this season will be a temporary departure from our customary Dark Sentiments format wherein a sentiment appeared here nightly for each of the 31 days of October. Rather, and due to the all consuming demands of moving the LFM place of residence lock, stock, barrel, and Fortress of Solitude, our further utterances for this 12th Season will appear here on 8, 15, 22, 29, and 31 October 2021. Please stay tuned!

So now, let’s begin the revelries with this ditty of greeting to you all.

The Dozenth Greeting

By LFM

This season marks the nexus of twelve months we’ve walked afield,
Welcome back Goode Traveller, there’s much to be revealed.
The harvest sun sets early so the story fire is lit.
Fear not the looming shadows, just come find your place and sit.

Apologies from usuals have come in through the day,
They all had pressing need to pick up washing on the way.
And thus the empty places where those usuals would be —
They’d laundry bills to settle with les Lavandières de Nuit.

Let’s revel in the darkness for a while, just you and me,
We’ll need our wits about us, here’s dark chocolate with your tea.
Though our loins be rightly girded, here we’ll draw no blade or gun,
But the sword of wit and wisdom we’ll unsheathe before we’re done.

Fleet of the third Frobisher expedition leaving Irish coast – 1578 — Watercolour by Gordon Miller

In this sixth and final breeze from the Winds of Change, we’re going to spool up the Irish pennants left dangling by what we’ve blown past you so far.

You will recall that I opened the first episode of this series with a quote from the Esteemed Master At Arms James Albert (Jim) Keating that I would like to revisit today:

” … The novice sorcerer is shaped (formed) through working with the wind. Sky arts of various kinds. Getting in touch with the wind and allowing it to know you is important. Just be there. Clarification: There is the wind as an element of weather. Then there is the wind as we speak of. A wild animal found only in wild places. Invisible to the eye this animal is, it seems to be ‘wind’, but it is not. It feels different. Yes, you feel it. This is the WIND that you SEEK on your quest for power. This wind carries immense amount of power and once you learn to work with it the effects are immediate. The thunder beings are related to this wind. They too will witness your schooling in the wild places. You will not always have a guide-teacher. Get used to being alone in body and mind. The path you seek leaves the weak worries of the common man and of mankind itself far behind ….” ~ Places, Power, and MAAJAK; Chapter 13 — Warriors, Wind and Time; by James A. Keating

Jim packed a lot of punch into that brief paragraph. Opaque and meaningless to some, obvious Truth to others. A tantalizing waft of familiarity — even epiphany — to a few.

Lo these many days have I taken pains to curate what would be related in this summary of experience, and categorize each into an entertaining, neat, and easily digestible package. In this there was method to my madness, for such events do not lend themselves to such neat pigeon holing as this. In Truth, what can be pigeon holed is what will fit into a Pigeon’s hole, and this isn’t that.

Each one of these stories is hemmed in by one common limitation — my choice to draw memories of lived events from assorted intervals in my life, and use the written English language to impart them to an audience predominantly schooled to believe that every Truth can be teased out of Nature using the tools of scientific rigour. That everything can be quantified and then only by the “qualified”.

In one of our wide ranging, far too infrequent, hours long telephone yarns a little while back, Jim told me about admonishments he has received from First Nations Friends and Elders over the long years it has taken for him to enjoy the “overnight success” he has today, warning him not to think so much like a white man. We talked of Frogs.

The white man may observe the Frog in its habitat and document what he sees, but who seeks to understand the Frog may also take it out of its environment, kill it, dissect it, see what it has in its stomach, what organs it has, how they are formed and connected, and compare to others of similar kind. Only after it has been thoroughly analyzed and quantified within an ordered structure of “understanding” will it be declared “understood”, but as a frog, not a Frog, because that level of True Understanding comes from a grasp of Meaning and Context. This is not to discount the value of Science, but to remind you that unlike the cheese in the famous song, it cannot stand alone. Everything can’t be quantified into Meaning, and moreover there is no need for it to be unless your world is a Hollywood movie where nothing can be taken as it is and every character needs a backstory.

So getting back to the tales you’ve read in these Winds of Change, I posit that no one is better qualified to use them to toy with and teach you Goode Reader than I, for what more qualification does one need than that of being the foremost, accept no substitutes, living authority on oneself?

Notwithstanding how the Other affected me at those times and places in my life these accounts reflect, and how my senses and mind interpreted events both in the moment and in hindsight at a remove in time, none of this is “story” in the sense of having a beginning, middle, and end. It was all open ended from the start, and will be so until my own story ends which, being immortal, isn’t going to happen. So there you have it, and don’t let that bother you, because as Jim said,

“The path you seek leaves the weak worries of the common man and of mankind itself far behind ….”

I have always found that for some subjects more clarity can be wrought from verse than the most eloquent essay, and with that in mind let me leave you with this. Enjoy, and think on whether you resemble this remark.

Wind’s Not Always Wind My Boy

By LFM

As rising tide will lift all ships,
The wind may fill all sails,
In harness to great enterprise,
And easement of travails.

A wind may blow to good or ill,
To fortune or damnation,
And call it Fate or will of God,
It blows no explanation.

But wind’s not always wind my boy,
As every sailor knows,
And there are days the one you get’s
The Other kind that blows.

At first it looks and smells the same,
But some will come to learn
This wind’s addressed to you alone,
Not whom it may concern.

The why of it’s not always clear,
Nor ever comes to be,
But what is known is once you’re found,
The Other looks for thee.

Alone in deepest wilderness,
Apart in city throng,
Who tread a Wilder way to which
No common men belong.

These are the ones the Other picks,
To toy with and to teach,
To all the rest it’s, “Just the wind,”
Forever out of reach.

Well, not exactly. (Calling the Wind, by Julia Maddalina, part of the “Tales from Temerant” series.)

Welcome again oh thou band of disheveled desperadoes to this, our lectern in the Den of Desolation where to “break wind” holds an entirely different meaning.

As you will no doubt recall from our last installment of this breezy ballyhoo, we are here today to examine the Other in its third form of manifestation, specifically, “It arises out of stillness to deliver a message that is swift, clear, and commonly open to interpretation,” and in a manner not unlike our treatment of the first kind in Winds of Change — Part the Third — A Leaf in the Face Beats a Tree on the Head, the tales I have for you today will reveal the Other in two shades.

Let us begin with a shade darker and lighten up from there, shall we?

It was in the Summer of my nineteenth year and I had driven the family van from Lunenburg to a farm in the community of Blockhouse, Nova Scotia, to deliver a piece of tack to my sister who had a summer position there leading trail rides for tourists. It was a hot windless day under a blue sky dotted with pure white cotton ball tufts of cumulus and I was standing next to the van talking to my sister and the farm owner when the characteristic sound of a massive inhalation presaged what soon transpired.

To set the scene, the farm’s driveway was no more than 100 meters by well maintained dirt road from the highway between the towns of Mahone Bay and Bridgewater, nestled in trees and situated against a wooded hill. Across the dirt road was another rural property with a large yard where all the neighbourhood kids seemed to play, and the road continued on through undeveloped woodland, eventually petering out into a goat track before swinging left and improving before intersecting with another main drag. Approaching from the highway, the farm was on the right, and reaching its driveway required passing by a tangled wall of old and neglected hedge marking the property line that didn’t reach the ground anymore in most places, and towered raggedly in varying degrees of health to between 8 and 10 feet in a pretense of privacy.

The sound of inhalation was accompanied by a literally hair raising breeze that seemed to rise straight out of the ground, both where we were standing and well into the surrounding foliage where branches suddenly fanned the air and several leaves took flight. I remember someone remarking how welcome the breeze was in offsetting the heat of the day when all ambient sound abruptly zeroes in on the part of the dirt road that was on the other side of the hedge. What happened then was a cacophony of rushing wind, rising road dust, raised adult voices, and screaming children. All heads turned toward the road in time to see a whirling brown cloud that towered over the hedge travelling at a walking pace from the direction of the highway. By the time it had neared the end of the farm driveway, the dust it contained had been joined by a random uprising of yard toys, lawn chairs, and random forest debris, that rained down everywhere including two cars parked at the house across the road and over the hedge not far from where I was standing. The rushing wind overlayed on the racket of hard objects hitting other hard objects was astonishingly loud, but not enough to drown out the sudden upwelling of swearing male voices, screaming women, and the high pitched squeal of the little girl who came into sight spinning like a doll in a dryer above the top of the hedge.

I started running toward her, knowing she would be too high to reach by the time I got there with the distance I had to travel. As I ran, the dust devil and its cargo moved fully into view at the end of the farm’s driveway, and then another young man, previously unseen behind the hedge, appeared airborne from my left, wrapped his arms around one of the girl’s legs, and tore her from its grasp, both falling to the road where they skidded to a stop with the sudden arrest of forward speed. Still running, I was able to change direction and was first to reach them. They were both bruised and a little bloodied in spots, but no bones were broken and the little girl was at more risk of being smothered by her mother than any lingering aftereffects.

Beyond us, the whirlwind continued along the road unopposed before veering off to the right into the woods where it rapidly died in a hail of evergreen branches and twigs.

Not being unschooled in meteorology at that point in my life, I had immediately recognized what I was looking at, albeit in short lived disbelief, was a dust devil as such things are not uncommon in Nova Scotia, but most generally in open spaces completely unlike where I was. But the conditions were otherwise favourable, and the official consensus was that it was born of heated air rising above the pavement of the nearby highway, and triggered when the wake turbulence of a large truck, or two even smaller vehicles going opposite directions, passed by the intersection with the dirt road adding energy to the twirl. That certainly fits the science, and all makes sense if you can’t sleep at night without an explanation for everything you witnessed during the day, but what furrowed my own brow was that a phenomenon of rarity in my particular part of Nova Scotia sprang to life in proximity to a location I rarely went, at a time when I happened to be there, in a manner guaranteed to involve me as more than a simple observer who just happened in the right place at the right time.

So do I think this was about me? Yes, of course! It might have also been about other people who were there, for example at this remove I would dearly love to speak with the little girl and her rescuer about the experience and how their lives went after the fact, but I don’t believe I “just happened” to be there.

What was the message? I don’t know. I may never know as most would ask, within the context of a “teachable moment” if that can even be applied to such things. But I have since had another experience that fit a remarkably similar template, chronicled in Covey Island Shenanigans — What Do You Tell a Man With Two Black Eyes? which you should either read or reread as the shoe fits. The message got a lot clearer after that.

Now, the lighter side.

In the Winter of 1980 I conditionally relented to the pestering of a friend (Bruce) I met on the first day of my first university year when at the whim of residence management we became surprise roommates. How we met is offered purely to establish the background of our relationship and probably isn’t in any other respect relevant to the narrative. At any rate, after four years of living together in close confines under the stresses of student life, I knew him to be personable enough not to kill him on the trail. He was green as grass, slightly out of shape and soft of sole, but as we say here in Canada, oooh jeeze, he was eager! Knowing my bent for solitary days long wilderness jaunts, he wanted desperately to be taught a thing or two in that regard so, with the proviso that he acquire some basic personal kit from the very specific list provided, commit to learning proficiency in its use, and achieve the necessary physical conditioning before the planned departure date, his Mentor would escort him on a three day march through the Nova Scotia woodlands in the Spring of 1981, at the height of the Blackfly season.

To avoid carrying too great a load, we had broken the trip down to three legs with camouflaged caches of canned food prepositioned at two intermediate way points, and dried foodstuffs carried with us as a hedge against the Dread Prophet Murphy. The caches were where we would camp for the night, and as a further weight saving measure, we would sleep “under the stars” unless the often persnickety Spring weather declared against us. As it turned out, Nature smiled upon the endeavour, her nocturnal kiss leaving but the tips of our hair frozen in the dawn.

Travelling on foot in most inland parts of this province is, and in our case was, characterized by a cycle of up the hill, down the hill, through the swamp (possibly ford the stream), up the hill … aaaand repeat to your destination. Water levels are generally high in the Spring so the swamps are REALLY swampy, and all this ambient wetness calls for diligent sock management or the entire enterprise will devolve into lameness. At any given time then, we travelled with the socks on our feet either wet or soon to be so, a damp pair hanging off our packs to dry, and another two stowed inside awaiting rotation into service.

On the first day, the sun was warm with no wind other than that created by the passage of one’s body through it. The Blackflies were glorious in their ravenous multitude, but stymied in their swarming as long as forward motion was maintained. Stopping to change socks though, now that was another problem, for even slathered with our body weight in DEET, the Blackfly onslaught was relentless. You see, unlike Mosquitoes who will veer off at the scent of DEET, for Blackflies it’s a contact repellent so they will swarm and alight, but quickly lift off and then return a half second and a half inch further on in search of the tiniest nontoxic landing zone just big enough to stick a hungry proboscis through.

And so it was that it was my turn to sit down on a rock in the still, dead, fly laden air to change my socks while Bruce, my companion, took the initiative of fanning me ineffectually with a Spruce frond in an effort to keep the flies off. After a couple of passes that came a little too close to knocking my glasses off I told him to go fan himself,  and then I looked at the sky and made a loud request —

“Can we have a little wind over hear?”

A few seconds after the sound of my words died away, over the sound of files buzzing in our ears, came what was by then for me a familiar sound of inhalation , and then a strong steady wind that swept the flies away and brought us blessed relief.

My friend was flabbergasted, and I am happy to report that the rest of the trip was blessed with a breeze as long as the sun was up to stir the pot.

The Other came to my call adding its dose of mirth to a traveller’s travails, and I say mirth because it was in the spirit of grim humour that I uttered it, and in so doing, the effect was not unlike the way having married well and thereby walking with the Woman of my dreams at my side makes me appear more potent than even I believe I am,

As a final note of advice before we end today, don’t try this at home. See you Saturday for our poetic Epilogue.

The Sun and The Wind — My experience resembled the Aesop Fable only in the Wind part, with the Sun merely an interested bystander.

Welcome back Goode Reader to our bald hilltop where the Winds of Change hold sway, and though we seek here for enlightenment, no lamp of knowledge, as most know the meaning of the term, can stay lit for long. Ah, well. No bother, for it’s still story time, and I can spin a yarn with the best of ’em, no matter how dark it gets.

Last time I related two tales in which my experience of the Other fell to the greatest degree into that described in the first of what I have found to be its three most common manifestations:

My own experience and studies have so far led me to conclude that, to a greater or lesser degree depending upon the seeker’s receptiveness and ability to grasp patterns, the Other may choose to make itself known in three very obvious ways:

1. Superimposed upon or “riding with” existing wind conditions so that its presence and purpose isn’t recognized until a very specific outcome separates design from the mere vagaries of weather;
2. Ready and waiting so that, at first, it is mistaken for existing wind conditions until its purpose is realized; or
3. It arises out of stillness to deliver a message that is swift, clear, and commonly open to interpretation.

Join me today we will move on to manifestations of the second kind.

Returning once again to Halifax, Nova Scotia, the first time I experienced the phenomenon I am about to describe, or probably more accurately the first time I recognized it, was in the Winter of my first year at university. I walked pretty much everywhere back then both in an effort to learn my way around the city, and as a requirement for maintaining my treasured status as an impoverished student. On this day I made the pilgrimage from my residence building on the Dalhousie campus to the Bayers Road Shopping Center, a nearly 8 and a half kilometer (5 and a quarter mile) round trip, for reasons I no longer recall. My outward route appears below and strongly resembles my return trip because I took the same route back (something I don’t recommend and no longer do for reasons long aforesaid). (more…)

Wind of Lights, Ellysiumn (Click to enlarge. Source: Deviantart)

Welcome back Goode Reader to this third Winds of Change episode where, as promised, it’s story time!

You will recall that I closed our previous gathering with the request that you, “Consider this the sound of a long, deep, indrawn breath before the blast, and meditate upon the wording of that until next time,” and today you will learn the significance of that.

My own experience and studies have so far led me to conclude that, to a greater or lesser degree depending upon the seeker’s receptiveness and ability to grasp patterns, the Other may choose to make itself known in three very obvious ways:

1. Superimposed upon or “riding with” existing wind conditions so that its presence and purpose isn’t recognized until a very specific outcome separates design from the mere vagaries of weather;
2. Ready and waiting so that, at first, it is mistaken for existing wind conditions until its purpose is realized; or
3. It arises out of stillness to deliver a message that is swift, clear, and commonly open to interpretation.

Notwithstanding how it comes upon you, the Other may choose to deliver its very personal touch in a continuum of ways ranging from slapstick to life threatening, each as clear as a big wet leaf square in the face, and as I am wont to say, that reminds me of a story … several actually, so sit back now oh windblown and weary Traveller and open your mind. Let us begin with manifestations of the first kind listed above, and look at one of those slapstick moments. (more…)

Written in Wind, Miguel Santos (Click to enlarge. Source: Deviantart)

When last we met, I introduced Master At Arms Jim Keating’s excellent new book, Places, Power, and MAAJAK (MAAJAK pronounced “Magick”), and most particularly its 13th Chapter treatment of wind; both as an element of weather, and a different animal one may come to meet that superficially shares some traits of Natural wind but is something else entirely. For purposes of our discussions here, I will simply call it the Other.

You will recall that I quoted Jim in his apt reference to the Other as, “… A wild animal found only in wild places …” that ” … seems to be ‘wind’, but it is not …” and that, “… It feels different ….”, and replied to that quite accurate assessment by saying that, “My experience with the Other mirrors this, with but a few slight divergences in manifestation ….”

Indulge me as I clarify these aforesaid mirrorings and divergences.

As you will learn from our progress through this topic, I have more than entry level experience both with wind, and the Other. I have spent many days of my Life in places that may be accurately called Wild in the sense of being free from anything other than historical attempts at human tampering, are physically remote from any human habitation, or both. Yet you will discover, Goode Reader, that many of the tales I will be relating as we ride these Winds of Change together played out in places where people were nearby and numerous. This does not in any way contradict Jim’s words because as any serious student of the Way of the Wild will know or at least come to learn, while one may yearn to be immersed in a wild place in the physical sense, the rest of the time it is carried within the Seeker. Mountaintop, deepest Forest, mid-Ocean, or inner City — the venue matters not. If the Seeker is worthy, the search for a Wild place will not need to go beyond his or her own skin.

I have previously written and spoken extensively about worthiness and its fundamental role in what comes to be revealed as one goes abroad in the world. In some recent correspondence we exchanged, Jim encapsulated this beautifully when he wrote:

“One of the first precepts is that ‘The vessel must be worthy of what it is to contain’ – otherwise the experience is rather depleted and never has a chance to ‘set up’ – or properly cure over time into a true enlightenment.”

For many, what is placed before them and what comes to be revealed, are not the same and will only come to be realized as Convergent for those attuned to “… the mini-miracles, the odd synchronicity and sublime messages that walking this new path brings to us.” This may be simplified as “context” — or “the clarity of distance” where it may be said that the significance of an occurrence suddenly gelled only after enough water had passed under the bridge. “If I knew then what I know now,” in the vulgar tongue.

It is the realization of such a Convergence — that for something to have happened requires you to have been part of a previously unseen sequence of events that brought you to a particular place and time, notwithstanding any seemingly self-imposed starts, stops, speed ups, slow downs, bathroom breaks, work stoppages, or any other delay effected by “free will” along the way — that is the common epiphany for the newly attuned, and the point from which the difference between this and simple coincidence starts to become obvious.

This may seem like a lot o’ philosophizin’ ahead of getting to “the point”, and to that I will say that these are not trivial matters, for the distinctions between coincidence, Convergence, and Direct Attention must be understood if we are to tune in the Other and sort it from the background noise. In fact, everything you have been reading so far is a big part of “the point”. Nevertheless, rest assured Goode Reader that your indulgence will be rewarded, for my legendary style of storytelling in the service of enlightenment will be resplendent at our next meeting when I promise to sprinkle a healthy dose of its brain droppings upon your eager heads.

Consider this the sound of a long, deep, indrawn breath before the blast, and meditate upon the wording of that until next time.

Storm…., by Dinosz (Click to enlarge. Source: Deviantart)

” … The novice sorcerer is shaped (formed) through working with the wind. Sky arts of various kinds. Getting in touch with the wind and allowing it to know you is important. Just be there. Clarification: There is the wind as an element of weather. Then there is the wind as we speak of. A wild animal found only in wild places. Invisible to the eye this animal is, it seems to be ‘wind’, but it is not. It feels different. Yes, you feel it. This is the WIND that you SEEK on your quest for power. This wind carries immense amount of power and once you learn to work with it the effects are immediate. The thunder beings are related to this wind. They too will witness your schooling in the wild places. You will not always have a guide-teacher. Get used to being alone in body and mind.  The path you seek leaves the weak worries of the common man and of mankind itself far behind ….” ~ Places, Power, and MAAJAK; Chapter 13 — Warriors, Wind and Time; by James A. Keating

Thus spake the Esteemed Master At Arms James Albert Keating in his latest book, Places, Power, and MAAJAK (MAAJAK pronounced “Magick”). I will offer up a full review of that Truly magickal romp in due course, but it is Chapter 13, titled Warriors, Wind and Time, and most particularly its subsection dealing with The Wind to which I will direct my, and your, attentions today. While it certainly isn’t my intention to steal the wind from Jim’s sails, his words brought to mind some experiences of my own that I feel inspired to relate.

To be Truly prepared to Live in the world is to understand and accept complete exposure to it in all its manifestations. No species in Nature, and you may be surprised to learn this includes our own, is naturally predisposed to “master” the elements, nor holds entitlement to live apart from them. Rather, to Thrive is to take your place as a part of them, and to do otherwise as our own species tends to do is an expression of ill advised and contemptuously destructive preference.

Even as a “mere” element of weather, wind is undeniably that most indomitable and capricious of Elements, manifesting moods diverse as soother, mover, overturner, and destroyer of dreams, all rolled into one. With complexions ranging from beautiful to terrible, learning to know it thus will highlight the difference when the Other comes to you.

Yes, to you, because to experience such a thing is to have been noticed. Singled out for attention, however that may come to pass.

“A wild animal found only in wild places. Invisible to the eye this animal is, it seems to be ‘wind’, but it is not. It feels different. Yes, you feel it ….”

My experience with the Other mirrors this, with but a few slight divergences in manifestation as might be expected from the lived realities of two Men a continent apart, but of convergent sensibilities nonetheless.

In my case, and while none of it was forced upon me by any sort of rough handling in my rearing that wasn’t self-inflicted, I had gotten used to, “… being alone in body and mind …” from a very early age, and progressed for quite a while absent any guide or teacher in these matters that I was as yet attuned enough to be aware of.

Growing up in the seaport town of Lunenburg on the south shore of Nova Scotia, I absorbed an awareness of wind as an element of the Natural world that could as easily make a Man’s fortune as his Wife a widow. In the Lunenburg of my youth, it was a rare family that didn’t wear the scars left by the August Gales of 1926 and 1927 that took the lives of 138 Mariners, and still today people telling stories of family lore around Lunenburg County kitchen tables are as likely to refer to a departed loved (or even not so loved) one as “lost in the August gales” as that one of the wars took them, and heads still nod in sympathetic understanding. “Hurricane season” has a special meaning to folks with loved ones at sea.

Soul inspiring, deadly, not to be trifled with — all these describe the Natural element called “wind” as Men have come to know it. Capricious? It may appear so. Untrustworthy? Naturally! These can as well be used to describe wind as any other Force of Nature, but most often spring to lip when outcomes fail to match expectations. This is very wrong headed because as creatures of Nature, we can only expect that She will provide what is needed while caring nothing for what is wanted, and none of it has anything to do with any one of us personally beyond what we ourselves do to better or worsen our chances.

All of this blows off the table when the Other comes, and it becomes all about you. We’ll delve deeper into wind, and not wind, when next we convene.

A bounteous bloom of monotropa uniflora (AKA “Indian Pipe”) in the early July woods of the LFM back 40. (LFM Photo)

The pale monotropa uniflora, “Indian pipe” in the vulgar tongue, has been a point of study here since July of 2019, and I first harvested and tinctured it in the same month of 2020. This is the second year of its gathering, this year including all three LFM Sons, but most particularly #1 Son Viktor, who is nearly 8, has a voracious interest in the plants around him, and wants to learn them all at once. White though it is against the forest loam, it can be surprisingly hard to spot unless you know where it is likely to appear and look there. Viktor learned this quickly and afterward seemed unable NOT to see it!

My studies of Plant Medicine have been characterized by an annually renewed focus on learning everything there is to know about one or, at most two, plant species living within the wild places we Large Fierce Mammals frequent. Building atop what was learned in the previous annual cycle, over time this has permitted a steady and incremental growth of understanding that works for me. It’s not fast, and that’s as it should be, in keeping with the quite appropriate adage attributed to Lao Tzu (whoever he was):

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

There is also, of course, my own long held and deep seated distaste of haste for haste’s sake, clearly shared and best described by Groucho Marx:

“I intend to live forever, or die trying.”

To that end I will remind you, Goode Reader, that there is no surer path to immortality than to infuse the best of yourself into the fruits of your loins, and then let them seek their own from there. (more…)