Sweetness of Living

Native life in the barren Arctic is a constant battle to survive. To the Inuits who live there, the brutal struggle to stay alive is balanced by the sweetness of living. A long life is never assumed, not even an additional year. There was gratefulness for what each day provided. For them, it was not enough to survive if they did not also find something to celebrate.

My great grandparents felt the same way, I think. Life was hard when they moved to Wisconsin in the late 1800s and created a farm in the prairie wilderness. Yet the physical life and the fresh food they grew helped them live long lives.

The Wilderness is Home

(The top of Yosemite Creek as it goes over the falls.)

This is where it began. In the snow. My journey in Yosemite began in the snow one winter. And I could not believe that such a place could exist.

I grew up in the woods, on the rolling hills and lakes of Wisconsin, reading the words of John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Sigurd Olson. When I moved to the Bay Area in California, and the urban landscape of endless buildings and highways, I lost touch with the outdoors. 

Yosemite Tree Notes

This week, forest fires are burning in Yosemite and threatening groves of giant sequoias.

In the late 1800s Sir Joseph Hooker said he had never seen a coniferous forest that rivaled the Sierra's because of the grandeur of its individual trees and the number of its species. 

The Ahwahnechee and their ancestors lived in Yosemite Valley for hundreds of years. Acorns from black oaks made up 60 percent of their food.

The prime growing area for the ponderosa pine is in the Sierra.

Until Every Land

(photo of a statue of Saint Francis)

“Until Every Land is Covered by Tranquility,” my short essay on a peace demonstration, was published this week at Mindful Matter. (You can read it at: http://hlst.ee/1N0wx1L)

That it was a protest against nuclear weapons in Berkeley, California is not unusual. That it was peaceful is affirming. That it was led by seminarians and faculty from nine Protestant and Catholic seminaries is notable because too often religion is silent on matters of ethics when society is for the status quo.

The demonstration took place in 1980, which is halfway between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and where we sit today. This year, on the 70^th anniversary, there was another protest. This means that politicians and the military still like their big, bad toys, like easy answers instead of lasting ones, that our work continues, and that we still don’t trust them to tell us the truth.

What touched my heart about our protest in 1980 was the presence of Japanese nuns of the Buddhist Lotus Sutra sect. One of their traditions is to beat on drums softly at protests as a way of sharing the peace in their hearts with others.