THE WEATHERMAKERS

THE WEATHERMAKERS

I cannot place exactly what has led me to sit down on this evening to document this tale of local music lore as the warm May sun sinks into the periwinkle sky and the neighbor’s pooch barks at sqwonking geese in a cacaphonic sequence that seems to echo across the vinyl-sided houses spanning yonder space and time. There is no sign of a dark cloud in sight but I’ve found it is best not to question these things and just begin to type and see where it leads and hope the tent stakes are firmly in the ground and that the rain fly is attached so it all doesn’t sail away into the sky once the atmosphere reaches the breaking point for storms to erupt. I’m way too opinionated on what I think is great music to be a music journalist, but I’ll give this a try anyway for the posterity of mankind if nothing else. As a witness to these events I feel that it’s my duty to tell this story as it may very well lead to a new field of music-manifestational science. I always seem to gravitate my respects towards the genuine artists that don’t really pander to an audience or fit a specific genre. Pure creativity is a rare commodity and it takes great courage to delve into the arts of what might be labeled as strange to some and cutting edge to those with more foresight. I’d go so far as to say a certain amount of fearless alchemy is required to harness those cathartic energies and manifest a psychic weather front such as I’ve been fortunate enough to witness by a local Indianapolis band on a fateful NYE approximately 3.45 solar rotations from the present moment that you’re finding yourself embedded within right now.

This story begins in South America…well not really, but I work with a feller whose wife is from Peru and since it’s a place I’d love to visit, full of ancient history and cool old temples, I like to hear his stories about adventuring there. Sometimes I hear a little too much and feel like he’s got me “in the cuffs”..you know that feeling we all get when talking with a person at work and you really need to work but they insist on seeing it through to the conclusion of their Neverending Story. This feller always gets hung up on talking about eating guinea pigs and how delicious they are…well, anyway… I did catch an interesting story before Falcor swooped down to carry my mind off to Fantasia. He told me about a festival in the Andean mountains of Peru called Takanakuy. It’s where the mountain folk get together once a year and just hash out all their differences by having a big fight. I’m not talking about curses, slaps and scratches….I mean these sturdy mountain tribes beat the living shit outta one another as a catharsis and then hug it out and party and go about their separate lives. It’s actually a little ingenious when you think about it. Nowadays, people seem to go to ridiculous extremes one way or another….either with passive aggressive violence like internet trolling behind a keyboard or way too far the other way with mass shootings. Mankind has violent tendencies and these mountain folk fully recognize and don’t shy from it and opt instead to get it out of their system once a year and then go off to live in peace.

I’m sure you’re wondering what in the tar this has to do with an Indianapolis rock band. Well, my friends…I need to back up the satellite van and check the radar for today’s historical weather data. I’ve known the members of Midwest Contraband for more than a handful of years and even had the distinct honor to open for them on a few occasions and I’m also the feller with the backwoods southern drawl voice-over on “Kohl Bustout”: a track among many great ones off their album Debut. Johnny and Shawna gave me some fresh dill from their garden the day I recorded that voice-over and I subsequently left it in Stephen Darbro’s car. That much I strangely recall as well as trying several different voicing before it seemed that my regular goofy southern drawl would be sufficient for the track.

The band consists of members Matt, Stephen, Johnny and Shawna. They’re true ambassadors of coolness and kindness in my humble opinion and their music is the official soundtrack of operating the backhoe at Fort Benjamin Harison State Park. I let my boss borrow their Debut album and he LOVED it. I walked up behind him one time when he was tearing the hell out of honeysuckle and knocking down trees and could hear “DJ Gunpowder” blasting out of his Bluetooth ear cans when he stopped to wipe sweat off his head and throttled the engine down.

I went and listened to them rehearse one time several years ago in one of the member’s attic and it was truly inspiring. They are a fusion of so many influences and as a person who likes song lyrics, I’m always turning around and around the often open-ended mad-lib like interpretations and sometimes puzzled by the meanings and how they change for me when I hear them at different times. Anyways…most musician folks around Indy know these peoples and their coolness and great musicianship and how they’ve done lots for charities like Pitbull Rescues and such. They seem to have an appeal that reaches the younger generations as well. My niece and nephew dig their music!

At any rate, I recall years ago living in Texas and watching airplanes actually create weather systems during times of drought by seeding clouds. It was amazing to witness. I seem to suffer from a lot of musical droughts and hit walls often with my own styles and writing so in another layer of appreciation I’ve always seemed to find something new and refreshing in this band’s music….but I had no idea what kind of psychic weather alchemy was truly at work until that fateful NYE night 3.47 (updated) solar rotations from right now.

Megan and I lead pretty quiet lives anymore. It’s exciting to us when one of the flowers outside blooms or one of the cats doesn’t barf in the floor after dinner or scoots ass across the carpet. Most of the time I’m in bed by 7 or 8pm like the old man I’m quickly becoming and fast asleep after eating some oatmeal and watching the PBS Newshour. That particular NYE though we thought we’d go out and live a little like kids again… maybe stay up a little late and see Johnny’s band….drink a Sprite… It had been a little while since I’d gotten myself peeled outta the house to hear some live music and we were elated to be invited to the Thompson House to hear Midwest Contraband. It turned out to be a highly entertaining evening! Midwest Contraband was great…they played Kohl Bustout, which was very surreal to hear my own voice, and Darbro and Shawna did a dueling round with their Korg Machines. Megan and I were diggin’ it! We started to notice some fellers from the next band getting a little restless and at one point we saw a drumstick fly across the bar. It was clear that the storm clouds were brewing over the horizon. Midwest Contraband played their title song…about how they employ the Trojan Horse method at their live shows…and then I think they went into a song with lyrics describing a fight at a roller rink. I can recall the lyrics at one point were….”FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”…and something like…”you get loose, you get uptight…you get on with it”

Now, I’m not one to believe that immediate psychical manifestation is possible but this band was seeding the storm clouds of a cathartic fight in the traditions of the Peruvian festival “Takanakuy”. Their intentions were not to manifest violence in any form, I’m quite sure, but even powers for good ends come to a tipping point where the steam must be released among the tribes. It was maybe a song or two later, that some shirts came off and bodies were tumbling over tables. Midwest Contraband kept on playing through the entire throwdown. It was amazing! I ducked Megan under a table and we couldn’t help but laugh and feel very exhilarated and alive and the music continued on! How could it not….if the band stopped playing, then the impetus for such a cathartic brawl would only be elevated to the point of drawing more attention to it. The gods of kick-ass would surely be dissatisfied. So with the clouds seeded, they brought the thunder as some punches were thrown and bare-chested bodies pile driven to the concrete floor.

We watched the rest of their set and left with a great memory. I mean no ill-will or harm to those fellers who brawled it out. Much like the sturdy Peruvian folk from the Andean Mountains, they likely felt at least a little better from indulging their tendencies that night. I seek nothing to gain from it….but I really would like to see this band play at Machu Picchu sometime. I’d even Sherpa up some of their gear on a burro. I think it’d be a great venue for them among the quartz stone but rest assured I’d be electrically insulated from the storm-filled skies with thick rubber soles and Megan and I would wait with school kids in the lunchroom like anticipation for the sacrimental unsheathing of the shirts and the festival of ass-kicking to commence and then halt abruptly from exhaustion in that high altitude Andean mountain air.

BLUE ANGELS

I was certain at one early point that these bright barn swallows with forked tails were out to do me in. I’d seen the Alfred Hitchcock movie BIRDS when I was younger so when these avian beauties began circling closely and dive bombing my person while I was mowing it was with pre-concluded certitude that my mistaken beliefs led me to assume only nefarious intentions. After careful observation and less personalized consideration it became clear that my actions of mowing grass were kicking up insects like moths and small grasshoppers from the dark thatch lying against the ground and these barn swallows were feeding from my wake.

It seems lately that things are more uncertain than ever, but in reality life has always been uncertain. We generally bury that uncertainty beneath a lot of layers like thatched grass that blocks the sunlight because our minds don’t rest well with uncertainty. We do a lot of things to avoid opening to uncertainty or numbing off to it even though there are beautiful things beneath it and that resistance
creates a lot of suffering. We give away our conciousness, our awareness and our life force so often to the darkness and it strengthens and magnifies it. Turning away from this deeply engrained way of giving attention to the darkness isn’t changed by memes or done in an hour or a week. It takes a long life of hard work and soldiering on and persistence, but a person can be benefited in the here and now by these small shifts…not storing up treasures in heaven to be enjoyed at a later time.

These blue angels seem delighted every time they hear my lawn mower motor fire up in the morning. I’m always amazed to see their deft maneuverability at changing direction mid- flight and it reminds me of the related analogy of mindfulness and the two wings of clear-seeing or pure awareness and compassion or love and it brings me some happiness to work symbiotically with this amazing flight team provided compliments of the nature within and without.

MORNING STORMS

There’s something really calming about sitting in the dark during an early morning storm. Lots of times the prettiest sunrises happen just after a nice morning storm, when the clouds open their lids with multiple hues of violet, blue and orange. I felt myself smile and laugh this morning as brief flashes of lightning reached my eyelids. I recall working really hard on a lengthy retreat at increasing the pointed concentration of the mind. In this particular tradition it is done by becoming aware of bare respiration over a very extended period of time, usually several days. This particular extended course employed the first week devoted to respiration. The mind flails and fights against it a lot, but with repeated practice and returning to the observation of breathing without feeling defeated by distractions, it gets easier and easier. I took a vow of noble silence and that excluded me from speaking with anyone other than the teacher or course manager. There’s lots of benefits to this, since conversation is a way to give the mind fodder but also a big reason is students won’t share their experiences with each other day to day, leaving some feeling more defeated if they don’t have the same “progress” as others. Comparison is a real adversary to growth. By observing respiration, the awareness that is usually scattered in a thousand different directions becomes more and more concentrated and then the area of observation is narrowed further and further until you can detect just the tiniest movements of soft respiration passing under the nostrils. After several days of this, the mind calms WAY down and time stretches out but usually only after lots of internal aggravations and storms and old memories surface and old conflicts, old affinities. Increasing concentration becomes the critical first step and foundation for dealing with those things that come up to the surface. The stronger and more stable a person’s concentration on bare respiration the deeper into the highly reactive subconscious a person can penetrate without becoming rattled or shaken by the thunder. Well, I’d been through this all before and it was all too familiar territory and I remembered quickly after a few days of breathing observation how tricky the mind can be so I’d doubled my resolve. There’s a huge trench in my particular mind of feeling continuously defeated and depressed and down on myself so it felt like a “here we go again” when those reactions surfaced and that internal narrator said, “you’re no good a this, and who do you think you are?” I decided after days of flailing, I’d just observe it without falling into the trap of believing it. It got easier, then harder, then easier again, then even harder until I found myself so craving a distraction from the storms that I would sit in my assigned room and read my toothpaste tube before closing my eyes and trying again, and again and again. I scheduled an interview with my teacher and she laughed in her light-hearted manner really hard and told me to try and detach myself from those personalized feelings of defeat and keep trying and see if I could stay focused for a few minutes, and then keep trying to increase that over and over and try to cultivate interest and patience each time that I felt like a failure rather than striving so hard. I’ve got a whole lot of pain inside and it pushed me to bear down hard and not work as skillfully as I should through emotional upheavals, but eventually, my concentration became more and more stable and I could sit for a couple hours with good stable focus and no distraction. It’s an amazing experience to have the wheels in the mind stop for even a moment, but it’s not the end of the work, just the beginning actually. I started to gain confidence in my ability to concentrate deeply and I remember hearing the bell ring for a group meditation and finding my seat in the hall, next to my friend Nikita. I closed my eyes and quickly noticed brilliant flashes of white light after a few minutes of deep concentration. “Oh wow! Amazing…I thought, and just as soon as my sense of self got attached to the experience…it vanished and just darkness again. I would have these random and prolonged bursts of brilliant light and then they’d go away and I noticed I was craving that experience, and soon as I’d have a desire for it to continue it just disappeared. I’d go from elated to defeated as quickly as a light switch turns on and off and just as dependently upon those conditions. I don’t suffer from delusions of grandeur and certainly didn’t feel like I was going to dissolve into the light and become “enlightened”, but I’d read enough about different methods of meditation that I knew many (especially ones from India) put an extremely high level of importance on the visual manifestation of lights. According to many traditions, it’s a great sign of progress, so like a fool, I hinged the measurement of my progress on the appearance and disappearance of these lights. It was akin to riding a rollercoaster. After a few days, I’d decided to tell my teacher. I think the small ego part wanted to tell her about this experience, thinking she’d be proud of me and share in my elation, so recognizing this, I’d kept this game of playing with lights to myself a little while longer until the attached ego dissolved and I recognized it was actually making me pretty miserable. She laughed really hard again when I told her, and explained that the meditation instructions were to observe ONLY respiration and nothing else. “Just ignore them and focus, this will help you in the long run.” It is something I truly have grown to love about this ancient practice. Always based in practicality and not delusion or illusion. No miracles, just work hard, stay with the truth of your own experience, not because some wise person says so. I continued with the course and the lights came and went, and I’d learned how to extract myself from that particular rollercoaster of seeking. I don’t know if seeing lights during meditation is anything more than just a physiological response to deepened concentration. It doesn’t matter because it’s not the aim. It became so clear to me that so often in life I’ve sought after extraordinary experience when I could just deepen my concentration and heighten my awareness of the moment to moment extraordinary experience of being alive, of breathing, tasting food, listening to birds or a moving piece of music. I’ve glossed over so many extraordinary things by filtering them out as everyday, common or ordinary. Even with truly extraordinary things, that pattern of the mind can prevent it from sinking in deep by constantly leaning forward and out of the present moment. I don’t often attain that same deep concentration with my practice at home, but it doesn’t matter. My goal isn’t enlightenment in the sense people might think of it, but to not suffer so much. When we suffer, we blindly react and share our misery with those around us and with the world. Playing games with lights hasn’t helped me one bit in the practical matters of handling the day to day struggles of life but I’m trying to learn a lot more each day about how to laugh with the lightning and remain still through the thunder.

BARN DOOR

I heard someone say that the universe fulfills impersonal desires and that the greatest inclination of man is to do good work. Sometimes people enter our lives that have such a profound impact on how we view the world and the dynamic forces within it, that I can’t help but wonder if there truly is a natural law at work. Enter Dave Brown, retired Airforce mechanic, 20 year laborer for Fort Harrison and proud conservative. I felt an immediate sense that I was going to have a difficult time getting along with Dave. On the surface, he’s stubborn as a mule, has lots of loud and proud opinions and many are kind of insensitive or misplaced in my ultimately insignificant opinion about how things should be, brings in Rush Limbaugh magazines to share articles with me about what morons liberals are, you get the idea. That first summer, we’d tangle a little in debate but it was fruitless…he’d talk over me and I’d shutdown and tune him out. Slowly over time, we’ve developed a working relationship and I’d go so far as to call it a very strong and authentic brotherly friendship built on mutual respect for one another that transcends our political ideals. We get lots of shit done together and I’ve come to see all the genuine good in Dave over the past few years, like his generosity for bringing in lots of food for pitch-ins, gifts for the white elephant exchange at Christmas, his uncanny ability to fix things and his ingenuity at building
structures from whatever we got and his benevolent spirit with donating the unclaimed lost and found clothes and shoes to his church and the love he demonstrates by taking care of his elderly father. He’s what I call a Steady-Freddy, the admirable combination of attributes found in a person who has the same demeanor each day, and his is consistently one of working hard and feeling pretty secure with who he is regardless of who he is around.

I really developed a strong bromance with Dave last year when we put up tents at the governor’s mansion. There were lots of people there, trying to make impressions but Dave and the rest of us labor-focused guys were just trying to get a job done and leave with our sweat and dirt as we were told was a necessity before the party began and honored guests arrived. Many chiefs were telling we Indians how and where the tent should go up, and Dave called them morons and told them the reality of how it was going to be that day. It was amazing and I’ll never forget that experience. We were told by the governor’s assistant that the tent had to be moved onto the courtyard even though it was already assembled and erected, and we should take special care to not stomp the Nodding Onions in full bloom with bright purple globes whence moving it the excruciating 60 onto the courtyard.This was going to require us all to lift the tent legs above the 3 foot tall patch of flowers. Dave told them they were stupid and when a Chief cried out “Oh No…the flowers…watch out!” Dave replied…”No one needs to get a broken fuggin’ back to save some flowers” and proceeded to stomp his steel toed boots right through the patch and drop the tent and it’s 600 pounds of weight atop them. It was a whole cluster of an ordeal. I still grin at the memory of insubordination and the difference between thought, opinion and action taken by the individuals doing the heavy lifting.

We had to leave and then come back to disassemble the tent the following evening once all the proper guests had left and the govenor told the chiefs how they enjoyed the tent on the courtyard and sat outside and had a beer during the rainstorm. The govenor mentioned how he’d like for us to come put that tent on other occasions. When that message was relayed to Dave, his sarcastic reply of the negatory was “The fugg we will!” I could’ve hugged that man. We have not been back to erect a tent since. It doesn’t matter who Dave is around, he’s still the same person…Steady Freddy. It’s a thing of beauty to me! What a merit!

Yesterday, Dave and I put up a replacement barn door that we built together last winter. It took us all day and there was lots of cursing at inanimate objects involved, as usual. Our superficial opinions and ideas have been shed and our friendship has deepened with each task we complete together. I don’t get caught up at all anymore on Dave’s politics and he still voices them often enough and it works the other way that he doesn’t see me as a lazy liberal meditator with socialist views. We’ve significantly changed each other’s ideas on a much deeper level than politics..and we work really well together. I’ve got that same hope for the divisive world we’re living in. No doubt in November, we’ll both go exercise our civic duty, most likely in opposite directions, maybe voice complaints about chiefs wanting to move the tents and be stuck like most Americans, doing the heavy lifting then go about another day and go about our lives and work together because there is no shortage of things to fix and build stronger around here and no shortage of good to discover in one another and time and energy is wasted on insults and empty virtue signals. Work smarter, not harder. The world is divided into people who think they’re right but the change and shift to see the deeper essence of other individuals may start as a tiny crack and requires a hefty push from within to free ourselves from the gravity of our limited selves and opinions and beliefs; just like the physics of opening an old barn door, but soon enough with effort, that gap widens big enough to drive out the heavy equipment and get the real labor done as a united team together with the common goal of doing good work.

OL’ LONESOME; THE LIBERATION OF A TANGLED BULL

Here amidst the yellow primrose days of late summer I think of the years I spent in Texas where it was quite common to see men and women walking around in the stockyards of Fort Worth decked to the nines with the full regalia of western wear…certainly looking the part if only for a night on the town.  It’s merely the airing of an opinion, but I believe it’s fair to state that there are very few genuine cowboys left in America today. I’ll chance to propose another opinion, in that it doesn’t take the donning of a Stetson hat or pointed boots or spurs or chaps or the singing of highly produced corny lyrics or shoulder to hand sleeves of tattoos to be a cowboy.  To me it’s more defining characteristics are the ones tested and tempered through experience; toughness, ruggedness, a sense of justice and a giant heart with a care for the land and it’s creatures, perhaps the ability to throw a lasso and maybe even crack a mean bull whip along with a “Don’t fence me in” outlook.  Perhaps the most important is the depth of soul conditioned through the long and arduous dealings with a solitary species inherent within the life of all true cowboys.  The ability to become familiar and friendly with a state of being called “Lonesome”.

I’d never call myself a cowboy, maybe a cow hand at a time or two, but there was a brief moment in my young life when it seemed like an amazing prospect.   I’d seen some cool westerns and watched The Three Amigos, Tombstone and City Slickers and that seemed to be the generic concept of cowboy I grew up with.  

When I was a kid, I was tasked with the chore of bottle feeding the calves first thing in the morning.  It involved mixing up a dry milk powder into large bottles and attempting to hold them still while they ate.  It’s not easy to do and a willingness to be completely covered in calf slobber is a prerequisite for the job.  They are amazing creatures, full of free spirit and head butting one another, and frolicking and playing just like any other small child and also extremely stubborn.  My sisters and I made a few attempts to ride dad’s first cow; a blind holstein named Charlie, but failure to effectively swing onto a rope above his back while he ate and the fear of a powerful kick from his hind legs had us hanging up our hats before the rodeo bell rang.

When the males come of age, many cows become steers through the act of castration.  Dad taught me the 3 different methods for testicle removal: crimping, cutting or banding.  Those males chosen to sire future generations remain intact and are known as bulls.  We only raised a few holsteins at a time on dad’s small farm, but I remember getting really attached to them.  We all did.  I suppose with any creature you raise and bottle feed and name after characters on The Waltons, you’re bound to form strong attachments.  My grandad raised some cattle too and in my heart and mind I’ll always think of him as perhaps the first cowboy I knew in my early life.  He wore a John Deere hat most of the time and really liked reading Larry Mcmurtry westerns like Lonesome Dove.  He was a very humble and kind man and I think about him every time I drive a tractor at work.

When I first started college I had the dream of becoming a Veterinarian and worked for the best Animal Doc in Lawrence County – Dr. Gary VanWinkle.  He was really generous with his time, friendship and willingness to teach me all about the profession he loved and was so gifted at.  There were many instances that he’d pick me up and take me on emergency farm visits or to help de-horn dairy cows.  I grew from those experiences and in more ways than just the development of a strong stomach.  Dr. VanWinkle taught me how to turn around a calf in the womb if it is facing the wrong direction before a delivery.  I’ll never forget the strange feeling of forcing an entire arm, all the way up to my shoulder into the backside of a cow and feeling around for baby cow legs, just like Billy Crystal in the aforementioned movie.  

It seems I’ve dragged along the beginning of this story out enough and caught my bits and pieces on adding irrelevant autobiographical context, so I’ll pick back up with where I’m driving the primary narrative and hope you might forgive my stragglers too content with the grazing of overly trampled pastures.  I grow tired and weary of my own bull shit.

These days of late summer with the sun sagging a little heavier in the sky and refracting a different kind of light seems to be mirrored in the hearts of us all.  This year, with the uncertainty of so many things drooping low it seems that we’re all feeling a new breed of lonesome and that melancholy tug and pull of a wandering soul. Maybe I’m not so alone with my lonesomeness and sagging spirits.  Perhaps that cowboy within all of us knows just how to break through fences and free ourselves from those inherent snags and hang-ups and drive us onward to greener pastures.  

Our frequent destination for laughs and good times with great peoples is surrounding the dinner table at Megan’s childhood home in the farm country outside Sullivan Indiana.  The occasion for any visit is showcased by a big feed of amazing home cooking from Megan’s very lively, hilarious and animated mother.  Suzie is the life blood of that family and there is nothing pretentious or off the subject for conversation.  Shock and awe is Suzie’s social technique for keeping the laughs rolling and Megan’s dad has his hands full with maintaining the illusion of control and throwing out strategic distractions as skillfully as he can crack a bull whip.  Chuck is a great guy and is the heart of their family.    Megan had told me that her dad always wanted to be a cowboy, but his destiny was to be a crop farmer and that seems to be where his heart is too.  He reminds me a lot of my grandad and can rig up and fix anything and similarly loves old westerns and shows like Gunsmoke and Bonanza.

On one visit, Susie asked if we noticed anything strange about the large bull statue standing in front of Boot City on highway 41.  Never one to pass on a lengthy stare at a pair of bull testicles, Suzie went on to explain what a disgrace to the statue it was that the artist settled on the odd and inaccurate shape of those testicles which were made from a pair of bowling pins.  She’d never in her life seen a pair of bull testicles so misshapen and so carried on with great description about that bulls poor bingle-bangles.  We all laughed and in a rare moment when the conversation began to droop, I asked Chuck if he’d had any new adventures with “Lonesome’.  

Lonesome is the given name of an old bull that is not content to reside within the failing fences of Bill Bell’s adjacent property, just south of Rinehart Organic Farm & Pastures.
He quite prefers the tasty clovers and grasses of Rinehart land.  As recounted in many tales, Chuck and Susie would be sitting down to dinner and look out the window and see Ol’ Lonesome grazing around in their yard and pastures.  Bill Bell is a livestock farmer of a certain age and has difficulty keeping fences repaired and Ol’ Lonesome longs to be free and unfettered by the bothersome constraints of fencing and property boundaries. Megan’s brother lives in a home he and his wife built just down the road and Ol’ Lonesome likes to roam there and eat their flowers and trample through their garden.  Being a great neighbor and natural cowboy, Chuck is frequently the man who saddles up his three-wheeler and wrangles Lonesome back to his enclosure on Bill Bell’s property or at least greatly assists in the wrangle up. There has even been instances where the local police had to “depututize” Chuck you could say and dispatch him to assist with getting Lonesome back home to Bill Bell’s farm.

The Lonesome story that stands out the most to me is when Ol’ Lonesome busted loose from his fences and ended up in a field, or near a treeline.  I can only recall the crux of the story was that this old bull would not budge.  They all stood around and all the old tricks for moving the bull along were of no use.  Lonesome just stood there and looked around.  After some time of frustration then observation, the hangup revealed itself to someone.  I may be wrong but I seem to think it was likely Suzie who figured it out first.  Perhaps it was someone else but it makes the most sense to me that Megan’s mom was the one who noticed that Bill Bell’s bull had his bingle-bangles tangled up in the fork of a shrub or small tree.  Pull, pushing or trying to scare Ol’ Lonesome along proved useless and likely painful.  His days of saggin’ and draggin’ finally led to a great snaggin’!  

On one hand, you gotta admire the old bull for having the balls to break outta the boundaries that fenced him in, but eventually it became the very thing that snagged him up.  I’m not entirely certain how Ol’ Lonesome was freed, as I was laughing too hard to retain the rest of the story but I’m sure it took a genuine cowboy to grab Ol’ Lonesome by the balls and move him along.  There seems to be days where I feel a kinship to Lonesome, but I do know if I allow my spirits to sag and drag for too long, I’ll find myself eventually snagged and at a painful standstill just like Mr. Bell’s bull.  

Lonesome is a state of being that seems to break through the fences of daily life for us all, especially lately and even when we’re not alone.  I guess it takes some real balls to deal with it wisely and even make friends with it but also a little awareness of what’s drooping low and dragging along the ground beneath us. Maybe it takes the spirit of a true cowboy…the American version of a shepherd. You can push and pull and crack a whip, but when Lonesome is stuck he’s a pretty stubborn creature that’s hard to budge and it takes a lot of courage, strength and self-honesty to reach down below and free ourselves of those inevitable hang-ups and snags on our journey toward brighter days and greener pastures.

NAVIGATING THE GREAT RIVER IN A CARDBOARD BOX OF DARKNESS

A question of self inquiry came into my head this morning. “Where does my sense of self-worth lie?” Lots of pain and emptiness rose up to the surface as I think of all the ways I’ve looked externally for it. There’s a certain event horizon that lies at the edge of the proverbial “Pit of the Void”. I think ancient christianity calls it “The Dark Night of the Soul” and treated the internal torture with more external torture. I think lots still practice this with huge heaps of guilting and shaming. Something does lie beyond it though.

The constituents of modern neuroscience probably can explain some of it with a quick depletion of neurochemicals like serotonin and dopamine or their rapid reuptake in the synapses of the brain. I don’t take the shortcuts of alcohol or drugs to deal with these painful experiences because lots of even more painful experiences taught me that it will only aggravate, prolong and delay this transient experience and cause vast rippling effects. Some days it feels like I’m awkwardly paddling myself down the great river of life in a wet cardboard box, about to sink with the bottom falling out any moment. It can be a rather lonely and treacherous existence. I know others experience it too.

I’m learning not to look at these upswells of profound emptiness as a curse or attach an identity with it. For lots of individuals, you can sense a very deep amount of shame to even be associated with an individual who feels things deeply. The digital world is no substitute or refuge for the real one. The world appears so shallow lately, but maybe that’s my own projections.
It’s not all for nothing though
.
I really like reflecting on the line from Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Uses of Sorrow”

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”

I think great streams and rivers of this inner sorrow ebb and flow through nearly everyone. Positive affirmations are pretty powerless against it. In some individuals, pockets of sorrow form deeply and swirl like you see when looking down from a bridge into a flooded river. Those swirls can feel like hangups or obstacles to overcome and you might feel as if the whole of the river is pushing against you and moving onward, but in actuality it’s a powerful opportunity to explore the depths of the waters and flow onward from a deeper place. The surface waters of our existence evaporate and take quite a beating against the rocks and dams. It’s all on it’s way to somewhere. I’m grateful for this box of darkness and invite it inside with friendliness and detached interest whenever it arrives. It’s teaching me how to dive more deeply, whether it be in the easy shallow streams or the mighty and flooded great rivers.

SOMEWHERE’S ARRIVAL

SOMEWHERE’S ARRIVAL
I woke up this morning with eyes rolling forward out from the inky darkness that lies behind the projection screen of my vision, and made my way on to somewhere

I started my truck and drove onto the highway and joined a mass of commuters filling the dilated arteries of the highway, all of us like microscopic ships on a vast ocean of directed wills, all on our way to somewhere

The sun, perfectly timed this day it’s ascent into the sky and cast both light and shadow on the land as it was on it’s way to somewhere

A fellow commuter cut me off to reach an exit lane, on his way somewhere and laid a harsh hand on his horn emitting a soundwave on it’s way somewhere.

The fear of an accident rose up in my chest with a quickened heart beat pumping blood and it’s constituents of adrenaline through my arteries, veins and capillaries….all on it’s way somewhere

I drove into the park and crossed a creek brimming and rushing with the water of recent summer downpours, down from Geist Lake and down Fall Creek…all on it’s way somewhere

I stood in a field of flowers, weeds and shrubs with pants drenched from morning dew and looked at all this life reaching upward with the help of the rain and sun, each one on it’s way to somewhere

I looked towards the west and caught the rare sight of a coy-dog with his snout to the ground and tail tucked and as I walked in his direction…he took off further and further from my sight and away from me, quickened on his way to safety and on his way to somewhere

I found a dead rabbit, lifeless in the field…stopped short by an early arrival along it’s way to somewhere

I gassed up the old army tractor with it’s bushhog and returned to the field beneath the sun and clouds racing in different directions across the sky on their way somewhere

The blades whirled and rotated indiscriminately knocking down thickets and the projectiles and seeds fly beneath the safety chains, to fertile ground and onto stones, pausing for a moment beneath the sun, along their way to somewhere

I passed beneath a grove of walnut trees and near an older lady on a trail with her old dog, who was panting and sniffing as the light filtered through the branches an upon it’s cataract-clouded eyes, on it’s way to somewhere

I stoop to the ground to pick up some trash being blown by the wind and a walnut falls loose and arrives on the top of my head. Arrives with a thud and ache, on it’s way to somewhere

I see the same old lady and her elderly dog with arthritic hips taking a rest beneath a giant old tree where a wedding was held two weeks ago. They both share the exact same smile as they rest and arrive on their way to somewhere

I hear the sounds of warblers making their way through the tree canopy and the soundwave of their song reaches my open ears and arrives on it’s way to somewhere

I see a doe lie down in a meadow among the tall weeds, heavy with dew and refracting the light of the mid-morning sun, each arriving on it’s way to somewhere

As the mystery of the moments unfold, I find myself spilling words onto a page and the familiar sensations of self-hatred arising at the thought of opening myself up again along my arrival to somewhere, and then they pass slowly from my awareness after arriving on the empty shores of somewhere

I conclude the work day and drive onto the freeway with cars and trucks and semis speeding along and see a kind man, help a stranded family push their broken down vehicle to the side of the road, arriving just in time to help… on his way to somewhere

I pass by the familiar site of a homeless man standing with a sign off the exit ramp and a good samaritan pulling up with a handful of sandwiches. and handing them out the window ..random kindness arriving on its way to somewhere

I open the door to the house and see the familiar sight of the cats, slugged-out on the couch and arriving on their way to somewhere?

I eat some food and sit down and stare out the window

at the wind, trees, water and flowers, all reflecting light on it’s way somewhere

and then feel the sensation of paws step into my lap as I close my eyes

and allow myself as many moments it takes to find a smile in the depth of my heart and arrive at the destination of arriving
…along my way to somewhere

OF BONESET, HIBISCUS AND JOE-PYE WEED

Cool weather and crisp mornings bring a taste of the imminent approach of Autumn and are conducive for the hard work that produces the most dramatic results in the changing of the landscape. The past few falls, we’ve worked at clearing heavy brush that surrounded and encircled a small pond in the eastern edge of Hell’s Half Acre. There’s no ability to take a shortcut in this area. Tractors and backhoes cannot access the steep hills leading past Schoen Creek Trail. We cut large and heavy growths of honeysuckle that are likely sixty or seventy years old and painfully drag them up a hill and onto a pile to overwinter and season. If the stumps aren’t cut low enough, they make rather dangerous spears that can trip up and impale the individuals clearing the land or at least hurt them pretty badly. It’s an occupational hazard that requires careful and mindful steps while dragging large brush against gravity and upwards to the pile. Even when avoiding injury we’ll often times snag honeysuckle onto the stumps of previously cut growths.

Mountain bikers and pedestrians in large part voice encouragement and support for the efforts but a fair amount of folks who wrestle with their own discontentment will look at us in our most exhausted states and say …”You know it will just grow back, right?!?!”. Although the invasive brush does grow back with tenacity and resilience, we do employ methods to ensure that it does not return….at least for many years and with continued work. Steve has been doing this physically demanding work for 25 years and Dave has been fixing machines and rigging up things at the park the past 20. These men are two very different species but I’m pretty blessed to know them and learn from them each day out here. They don’t work hard for pats on the back or attaboy’s. I really admire that. They’re great friends and teachers.

I can recall the frustrations I was mentally working through by way of clearing around this pond the past few years. I love this work, but have had to leave over the winter the past few years due to only being an intermittent employee with no benefits and a required 13 week break before returning in the spring so the state wouldn’t have to legally give me benefits. Steve really fought the past couple years to get me a full-time job and he and Dave rearranged their positions in order to open up that space. I interviewed and got offered the job here in the spring but the virus instigated a statewide hiring freeze and I’m still working without benefits, PTO, insurance, hazard pay, no time off if I get sick, etc. I don’t like viewing the world from a transactional lens but I’m a human and those lessons of life not being fair keep resonating through my years as long as I continue personalizing my sorrows. It’s been a particularly difficult situation but one that I’m trying to allow the space of frustrations to exist while building resilience. I’m not sure if they’ll be able to push through my job this year and I face the very real possibility of unemployment in the late winter and with no potential for benefits since I signed a form that states my understanding of the position as intermittent.

I’ve spent lots of time generating the negative emotions of self-pity in my life that I can truly recognize in retrospect as being completely useless but I’m an imperfect human and a really hardworking person and need to clear space to allow for those feelings of frustration. I’m not alone in being drastically effected by the economic outcome of this virus. Somehow, the state managed to push through the hiring of a new DNR director during this freeze and it truly helps to know the governor.

I’ve met our new director and shaken his hand at the governor’s mansion a couple years ago and don’t feel any ill will towards him. I was told ours were the 2 jobs that were in limbo and halfway through the process before the hiring freeze. I’ve learned a great deal about my mind’s knee jerk reaction to feel small and insignificant and recognize how a wise relation to those feelings is where true growth can begin. I can’t control so many things in life, but perhaps I can begin to use situations that don’t work out in my favor as the resistance needed to grow.

I’d completely forgotten about the clearing around the pond we’d worked

so hard on the past few years. While brush cutting in the wildflower meadows yesterday, Steve asked if I’d looked around that area for a while. I took a short break, walked over to the pond and found a giant patch of wild hibiscus, Joe-Pye Weed, and Boneset. Beautiful! They say the universe fulfills impersonal desires. In the morning sun, watching these flowers thrive, it seems that life has a way of blooming and growing in amazing ways and in the cleared spaces of yesterday’s hard labor. I’ve got work to do and it feels as if I personalize my grief and frustrations, I’ll stumble and fall on the pointed stumps of the cleared acres of my mind and heart. New green shoots begin to emerge from those stumps and this whole cycle begins again. I’m going to be grateful for the day and make use of this beautiful weather as much as I can because I love this work even when the future seems uncertain. I’m reminded of the wonderful quote by Pema Chodron

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy”

I’m glad to see the blooms from this clearing today, but look around at all the work still yet to do and the potential that lies beneath the shadows and overgrown shrubs in this land I so love, but in reality is not my own.

THE MAN WHO ATE EVERY OTHER DAY

THE MAN WHO ATE EVERY OTHER DAY
Several years ago I worked with a guy named Ernie. We spent lots of time together in an old warehouse on the south side of town sorting through boxes of electronics, many of which met the fate of an industrial grinder. All those cherished iPods, mp3 players, speakers, microphones, old remote controls, plasma TVs, CPUs, keyboards, mouses, phones that couldn’t be lived without; gifts for birthdays, Christmas, etc…all ground up to dust and bits. Those wonderfully magical, modern possessions that cost so much all crushed and obliterated.

We spent even more hours breathing in the toxic dust of those finely ground electronics and sorting out glass and large pieces of plastic from the fast moving conveyor belts with just some music and good conversation to see us through the long days. Neither of us were afraid of hard work and that was taken full advantage of as we made about $9/hr and were exposed to lots of poisons. I was pretty adamant that I’d earn whatever living I needed to in order to get by and had slowly removed myself from the foolish notion of possessing the talents or ruthlessness or self possession to develop any kind of paying career as a musician. It’s never felt like an honest career choice for myself. Lots of experience seems to validate that.

Ernie had a young daughter down in Florida and when I’d give him a ride home, he’d call her up on his phone and talk with her. I got along really well with Ernie. He was humble and down to earth and we shared a good sense of humor together. Giant box trucks would arrive with all kinds of electronics and miscellaneous junk from undisclosed offices and residences and we’d sort and laugh together. One time I saw Ernie’s feet rise up into the air as he dove into a box and surfaced again with a hand full of polaroids. His eyes bugged out real big and I heard him holler….”What in the hell is wrong with people?” He handed me some black and white photos. In the pictures there was clearly a group of individuals taking turns having sex with a horse, and a sign reading “$5 a show nearby”. We both kinda laughed after the initial shock of what we’d seen passed, and just like we were sharing the same brain, began a whole discussion over what a person who really needed it could do with $5. Ernie’s mind quickly went to the McDonald’s value menu and I could tell he was making his lunch plans. In order to get by, pay rent and support his daughter in Florida, Ernie ate every other day. It’s amazing to me that we live in America, a land where $300 iPods are getting crushed up like tin cans, people are paying $5 to watch horse-on-human sex and a man has to decide if today will be the day he treats himself to a meal. I knew Ernie was going to eat on this day and that he hadn’t yesterday by his continued conversation about the different options he had to expend $5 on with the McDonald’s Value Menu.

I didn’t live too far away at the time and usually went home for lunch. I invited Ernie but he’d had his mind set on cheeseburgers and just asked me to drop him off at McDonald’s instead.

When I dropped back by to pick him up after lunch, he had a really upset look on his face. I asked him how his meal was and he said…”Man, I threw it in the trash!” He went on to explain that he’d gone to the counter, ordered his food and right when he turned around, some angry customer shoved their way to the front, hollered lots of profanities about their order being wrong, asked to speak to the manager when the whole thing escalated and the customer hocked and then spit in the employees face. It’s understandable that everyone nearby completely lost their appetite, and even ole’ Ernie who’d not eaten in over 48 hours just threw his cheeseburgers in the trash. The police arrived at McDonald’s and the fate of that hateful assailant and customer was unknown to Ernie or myself.

We went back to work and were assigned the task of unloading some random boxes from the business owners truck. They’d gotten back from a big feed lunch, beers and a round of golf at the nearby country club. Many were long and thin boxes. Out of curiosity, Ernie and I opened one and found a number of assault rifles. They sure looked like the kind that aren’t legal to me. One of the owners 2nd in command just said….”Hey, those are the bosses and then proceeded to take them to the back of the warehouse and put the in a safe. Ernie and I just looked at each other and went about the day.

I gave Ernie a ride home that day and we had to take a detour due to a shooting nearby. We saw a young black guy, probably about Ernie’s age, handcuffed and surrounded by police. Ernie shook his head and lifted up shirt and pointed to some wounds on his abdomen. When he’d lived in Florida, right after his daughter was born, he’d been shot 4 times and left for dead while walking home from work. He almost died in the hospital and was left with a huge medical debt. The assailant stole his wallet and was never charged. According to Ernie, the police didn’t even try. I heard Ernie’s stomach growl real loud and he picked up the phone and called his daughter.

Both of our temp assignments at that shady-assed warehouse ended a few days later and Ernie and I lost track of one another. I’m sure he’s still working as hard as anyone I’ve met and doing whatever he has to get by honestly and with a very real struggle.

I barely go 4 hours without needing a snack most days, but it’s a rare occasion that I sit down to eat without thinking for a moment about my friend Ernie…the man who ate every other day.

ELDERS

One of the most beautiful aspects of walking in a forest is that when seen correctly and in the totality of it’s existence, there isn’t any death, only the rearrangement and transformation of connected life forms into new life forms.  Death in nature only exists as separation from the whole and nothing in the forest is truly separate or independent.  In the natural processes, nature itself takes care of all things perfectly and completely and a balance to all the interdependent beings waxes and wanes in a continuous flux and flow.  The younger life forms are intricately dependent upon the elders.  It’s amazing to behold and impossible to trace the countless dominoes of cause and effect and dependent origination arising in any given moment among the flowers, plants, insects, critters, fungus and trees.  To discount and deny the pain of loss is denying life  itself and seems to be the ultimate test of our love that keeps continuing through time.

I’ve grown a deep love for trees over the past few decades and have a difficult time picking out a favorite species with the vast variety of characteristics exhibited by many.  Some hold very special nostalgic and sentimental places in my heart, like Catalpas with their bean pods that my sisters and I utilized as play currency for childhood games, to cotton woods with their snowing in June release of seeds that pile up like large snow banks on the roadsides and then subsequent early loss of leaves in August heralding in the fall long before other species.  Old trees hold a very special significance for me.  They’ve lived through a great deal and emit a quiet strength and resilience that invokes a sense of inspiration and the light shines through them in unique ways, lost to those who’ve separated themselves from their essence.  All those years of sun, storms, snow, wind and rain culminating and shaping a singular display of life and it’s steadfast connection to all the interdependent life surrounding it.  One of the saddest images in my mind is the common site of a giant, old tree in the middle of a corn field.

I learned in the Indiana Master Naturalist course, that of the 20 million acres of forest that exist in our state, only about 2000 acres of old-growth forest remain intact.  That’s 0.01% of Hoosier forests being old growth.  During the industrial boom of the late 19th and early 20th century lots of old growth forests in our state were cleared for agriculture, housing, facory and urban development.  Once again, my mind falls to a familiar John Prine lyric about our neighboring state to the south, Kentucky in his song “Paradise”

“The coal company came with the world’s largest shovel..

They tortured the timber and took all the land…

And they dug for their coal ’til the land was forsaken…

And wrote it all down as the progress of man.”

I spent a lot of my formative years working in a retirement home and volunteered a lot for my mom who was an activities director when I was young.  My mind pivots to a familiar parallel and paradigm that might offend some folks with fundamental religious views who see their existence as separate and special from the amazing natural world we all woke up from the dark into and find ourselves today.  I hope I don’t hurt anyone with these comparisons to trees and plants and nature, but I just cannot envision this amazing world as a relic or artifact shaped by a creator in the traditional sense that discounts dinosaurs and other scientific truths.  I certainly don’t  condemn anyone’s faith because in doing so would be vastly destructive and harmful to the ecosystem of the collective conscious we all belong to.  Coexistence and mutual respect for one another, and honoring similarities seems to be the most beneficial course for nature’s continued progression on such a diverse planet.  We’re stronger for all our differences and unique ways of understanding the world, even when so much of it will always defy comprehension on a scale that no human mind will ever be able to encircle through thought alone.

Old trees and old growth forests are so important to us, but unlike many other countries that honor their elders, our American society sometimes pulls up our elders from their roots and puts them away into retirement homes, separate and isolated from society where we will not be bothered by them or their care or needs.  What a great disservice to us this truly becomes on the larger scale of time. For some families, this is a choice arrived at after much anguish and often very little alternative.  Some elders do not wish to be a burden and decide for themselves to live in a community of other seniors.  Many are quite happy and fulfilled doing such, but there are many individuals that require significant skilled care that younger people trying to raise young families of their own just aren’t capable of handling with their elder’s best care and interest in mind.  You can tell how heartbreaking it is to those families who really do care and face incredibly difficult choices.

When I worked in medical records at a retirement home, I’d see both ends of that spectrum.  Families that would have no real choice, but would return and visit with their elders frequently and also families that would admit their old folks to the nursing homes and drive away, never to be seen again until the time arrived to collect on the will.

Our elders hold such a significant place in society and like old trees , they’ve often weathered through so much and the bullsh*t superficiality of vain existence really fades from them and the light shines through.  They have so much knowledge and experience to offer and the best of who we are as individuals comes from them and is built upon their shoulders.  We continue to grow where they have left off. I’m terribly guilty of not visiting my grandmother and older folks in my family enough.  I’d probably be a better person for it if I’d make more time to do so.  I’ve never enjoyed playing music more than at retirement homes, where it’s deeply appreciated and never criticized and so many of the things I filter out of my conciousness as every day are extraordinary blessings for folks who’ve lived long lives and weathered many seasons and come to a place of stillness; one that allows for the absorption and appreciation of the small things so often evaporated in the shadeless days of my own vanities.

We have a really great group of young folks working at the park this year.  They’re extremely hardworking, respectful, empathetic and even more so from the storms blowing through society now.  Their formative years of socialization with peers is being crimped and stifled and so many are rising up to the challenge.  They’re facing these unprecedented changes with so much courage and resilience and it’s truly commendable.  I really see the best of society in some of the younger folks I’m blessed to know lately.  In ecology, succession refers to the process of changes in species structures of an ecological community over time.  In the same way that today’s wildflower meadows grow into tomorrow’s old growth forests, I can recognize the same natural processes shaping and growing today’s youth in significant ways.  Many people will grow stronger in beautiful ways from what we’re currently facing.

I hope once we’ve cleared the major hurdles of this virus, to open some more space in my life to give back time to our community of elders.  In that way, through honoring the old growth forest with it’s strength, experience and wisdom we might live on and thrive, like an ancient forest where nothing really dies, it just renews and regenerates into different forms through the long and successive march of time.