The Golden Apples of the Sun

The rain has arrived, welcome enough, though it was difficult not to be mesmerized during our recent string of stunningly bright and balmy days. I wasn’t thinking much about apples during that stretch, but the golden leaves of the Norway maples seemed to be squealing with indwelling delight. Or maybe that was just me.

The yellow branches, scattered amid the surrounding green and red, veritably glowed as they caught the afternoon sun from behind, softening and redirecting it out from the shadows of the woods behind.

Hilary and I had our dinners on the deck all week, and we also took to the tennis court on three successive days. It was fun, but it might have been a mistake in light of the aches and pains it produced, thighs and hips creaking and groaning. But once again, maybe that was just me.

Then again, I suppose such things are connected: the sun, the leaves, the body, and me.  When we’re out on the court, the yellow ball, the blue sky, the movement, the stroke also have a part to play, as does the opponent. But Hilary is less an opponent than a fellow-conspirator. We spent most of our time simply warming up, and we seldom last more than half an hour on the court.  It’s my great delight to report that almost invariably it’s Hilary who finally says, “Shall we play a few games?”

On our way home we sometimes stop at the public library. It’s on the way. On a recent visit the annual Friends of the Library Sale was in progress. I left the room with a meagre haul: Keith Jarrett playing The Well-Tempered Clavier on the harpsicord, two CDs of renaissance liturgical music (Palestrina and Victoria), and an unopened CD of folk music by the Klezmatics. 

I also scored a slim paperback of Kierkegaard’s Journals (the slimmer the better, I say), an anthology of Robert Bly’s more obscure poems called Like the New Moon, I Will Live My Life, and a history of British landscape painting called Spirit of Place that weighed a ton.

These nuts will soon be squirreled away on the selves amid many others to nourish us through the long winter months.  

On the day the clouds arrived, we decided to drive north to Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. A few ducks and shorebirds had been reported, and you never know. To our surprise, the sheet of stratus clouds that was blanketing the city hadn't gotten quite that far, and the sun was perking up the landscape bigtime.

Meanwhile, small groups of sandhill cranes--three or seven or ten--were passing in the distance or directly overhead, their grotesque but appealing croaks as evocative as their lanky bent-in-the-middle flight motion. 

Hundreds of red-winged blackbirds (or were they Brewer's blackbirds?) were rustling in the cattails. But it was the leaves, and the sky, and the shape of the land, that stole the show.

    

Why Does Anything Exist?

Amid the daily ebb and flow of emails—personal, political, editorial, conversational—a title line occasionally stands out. I got one just the other day from EarthSky News:

Why does anything exist?

Now there’s an interesting question. The text of the article was also interesting, though it didn’t begin to answer the question. The question it addressed was a different one, namely, Why, in the micro-seconds after the Big Bang, didn’t the matter and anti-matter created by that cosmic event annihilate each other, leaving no residue behind? The answer, in brief, was the decoupled heavy neutrino.

We’re not going to proceed further down that path, because it “begs” the original question. The Big Band would never have taken place in a vacuum. Something must have existed prior to that explosion. We don’t need to ask ourselves what. Let’s return to the really big question: why?

It’s impossible for us to conjure a universe in which nothing exists, but even to try brings forth an eerie and vaguely unpleasant frisson. And foreign words come in handy when dealing with things we will never understand. (Then again, perhaps there’s something nonsensical about applying a concept from a foreign language to a cosmic event that could never have taken place and calling it “handy.” A hammer is handy. A Swiss Army knife can be very handy.)

The key element in this mind-boggling inquiry is Why. That word can have no meaning outside the context of a universe filled with intention. Many actions lack intention; they occur naturally and can often be predicted. They do not involve an agent. Then again, action and intention often dovetail so completely that why questions don’t arise. Why did you go to the grocery store? Because the cupboard was bare.

Some why questions are designed to expose a hitherto mysterious agent: Why did the basement flood? Because the rubber hose to the washer, which is sixty years old, sprung a leak. Some probe the origins of a seemingly incomprehensible action by a known and generally predictable agent. Why did you suddenly get rid of those New Yorker’s that you’ve been collecting and storing in the attic for decades? What was your motive? What was your intention?

I would argue that the concept of intention carries with it the notion of the ideal, especially if we tone it down a bit by acknowledging that it refers to the desire for a better universe, but not necessarily a perfect universe. Another way to put this would be simply to acknowledge that our notion of a perfect universe will always be far from perfect itself.

The universe is full of agents and intentions. Whether the universe itself has an intention is a different story.  I was intending to conclude this little blog with a few lines from the Vedas, those poetic/metaphysical utterances from the dim recesses of recorded history. It would have been suggestive, and apt. But just now I was reminded of a far more recent remark made by Sidney Lambrecht, a now-largely forgotten philosopher and professor at Columbia: “Nature is a lush welter of teleological profusion. Man faces the moral task of organizing as best he can what nature offers with total disregard of centrality.”

Why is there anything? So we can make it better.

Itasca in Evening Light

Itasca State Park attracts half a million visitors a year, but it's also big—33 thousand acres—which makes it easy for visitors to “get away from it all” if they know where in the park to go, and when. Hilary and I spent a few days there recently and were richly rewarded.

A defining event of our last visit took place when we pulled out of the driveway, leaving the tent behind. This time, we snagged a last-minute room before we left in the four-season suites, a modern complex just up the hill from Douglas Lodge with a small kitchen, stripped-log furnishings, and faux-Northwoods decor. There isn’t much of a view out the window, but when you’ve been stomping through the woods all day, who cares?

The trip north through Little Falls and Wadena has become so routine (though Menagha and Sebeka are wonderfully droll) that we decided to add a small detour to our route. After the traditional stop at Morey’s Fish House in Motley for fresh walleye and herring in horseradish sauce, we continued west on Highway 10 past New York Mills to Frazee, where Wannigan Regional Park opened recently, directly adjacent to the high school football field?!?

It’s a small park—a few miles square—though the locals have big plans for extending and developing it. It consists of a river, a covered bridge, and a few short walking and biking trails across a harmonious arrangement of woods and open fields. We’d been fighting a strong headwind all the way north, and it took some effort just to assay the lovely scene while standing in the parking lot.

One added feature, and the likely reason there were five cars in the lot when we arrived, is the larger-than-life-sized wooden statue of a troll that’s been built in the woods down by the river by a Thomas Dambo,  a Danish sculptor and self-proclaimed garbage-artist. He and his team have crafted quite a few such figures in the region, and around the world, out of recycled materials. Many people enjoy hunting them out. I don’t.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of fairy tales. I have quite a few volumes from the Pantheon Folklore Library—French, Arab, Irish, Swedish, Japanese, Native American, Victorian, Provençal—not to mention the classic works by Grimm, Andersen, Perrault, Marguerite de Navarre, and the Neapolitan pioneer Basile.

Trolls have their place in some of these worlds, like genies, kitsune, memegwesiwag, and leprechauns. But trolls are usually small, malevolent, creatures, also elusive. A twenty-foot wooden statue of a troll, resting in broad daylight under a tree, doesn’t seem much like a troll to me.

We took a tour through the reserve on our bicycles, and made a detour on foot through the woods to pay obeisance to the wooden giant. A half-hour later we were eating lunch a few miles down the road at a lakeside café in Detroit Lakes called Hub 41.  It was voted “best new restaurant in Minnesota” by Lake Time Magazine (which I’ve never heard of.) The view of the big lake from the patio was nice; the food was satisfactory. The most notable thing about the place was the decor.

From there it was back east on Highway 34 to Itasca, where the angled afternoon sun streaked through the dappled woods and lakes along the south entrance to the park.

We stopped by the campground office to pick up our key. The woman in line in front of us had a license plate from New York. “I’ve been camping out for a month,” she said, “I need a room with a bathtub.” She held up her left arm; it was in a cast.

Once we’d hauled our stuff into our suite, we got some dinner fixing together and headed down to the lakeside picnic area. We had the place to ourselves. Evening had arrived, and we sat at a picnic table a few feet from shore eating a cold supper while we listened to U of MN biology students (I guess) far out on the lake chatting as they kayaked toward the headwaters. “Yes, but maybe the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. Maybe we need to return to …”

It reminded me of my days as a camp counselor, of childhood evenings in Oklahoma playing kick the can, and also of something my mother told me one evening at the family cabin on Lake Vermilion about Carl Jung’s belief that the crepuscular hour was a “liminal threshold” where the ego's defenses dropped and the "unconscious" opened the soul. 

That may be true. But it’s the sound of distant, youthful voices in excited conversation that seals the uncanny emotional power of the moment.

The Schoolcraft Trail

We spent several hours the next morning in the vicinity of the headwaters, most of it on the Schoolcraft Trail, which follows the western shore of the lake. Small waves of warblers were working the woods along the trail. Most were juveniles or had lost their mating plumage and were hard to identify, but we did recognize a blackburnian, a black-and-white, a chestnut-sided, a Nashville, a golden-winged, a pine, a black-throated green, and a few other species.

On our way back to the car we ran into a couple heading out to the point. The man was wearing a floppy leather hat of the Buffalo Springfield variety and a tee shirt from the Winnipeg Folk Festival. “Are you from Canada?” I asked him. “

No, we’re from Cold Spring, just south of St. John’s. I sued to be an electrician at the university there.”

Hilary and I attended one of the first Winnipeg festivals, back in 1975. They last attend in 2018, just before Covid hit. “We couldn’t believe it! They had rap in the mix!”

Hilary mentioned St. John’s resident potter, Richard Bresnahan, and the woman piped up: “They’re going to light the wood kiln on October 14 at 4 p.m. It’s open to the public, and very ceremonial. You should come.”

“But I like to go a few days later, at night” the man added, “when the kiln is really hot and the flames are shooting up from the chimney toward the sky.”

Back at the parking lot, we ran into a ranger and we caught his attention.

“I’ve got a question for you,” I said.

“I’m not the guy to ask,” he said, “I’m in security.”

“That’s perfect,” I said. “The last section of the trail has been closed for years now. Why?”

“They made some archeological finds out there and they don’t want people disturbing the site before they get a chance to dig.”

“Well, we just want to go out and enjoy the view …”

“You’re not the kind of people they’re worried about,” he said.

So we went back down the trail, climbed through the brush alongside the barricade, and continued a quarter-mile to the point to enjoy the wonderful view across the lake toward Schoolcraft Island and the pristine wooded shoreline of the scientific and natural area beyond.  

Tinges of Autumn

And aren’t they grand! Who knew (or remembered) that cool morning air could feel so good.

Our weekend commenced with a Friday morning trip to the downtown farmers’ market. Such color! Such hubbub! We contented ourselves with a few spectacular tomatoes, two long and massive leeks, a huge clump of kale, and a cardboard tray of oversized zucchini and summer squash.

One teenaged kid was unloading ears of corn from the back of a pickup truck by the armload onto his table.

“Think you’re going to sell all that?” I said.

“Yeah,” he replied blasély, and went back to work.

I asked the guy with the zucchini if he’d do a three-for-ten deal. “No. I work too hard,” he replied.

We had a few friends over for a late afternoon meal on the deck consisting of kale salad and a simplified version of cassoulet in which the duck and sausage are replaced by a few slices of bacon to go along with the chicken, cannellini beans, squash, and leeks.

Almost by chance, we kept to the southern French theme with the wines: a Saint-Véran, a Vacqueyras, and an obscure white from the Costiéres-de-Nîme.  

The air was cool, the dappled evening light was beautiful coming in through the trees, and the chipmunks were plunking. One red-eyed vireo passed by and lingered to examine the white berries on the dogwood shrubs along the deck. For a moment we thought it might be a warbler heading south!

The next morning, hardly fazed by the food and wine, we loaded our bikes on the car and drove up to Elm Creek Regional Park, which has the finest bike trails in the metro area—at least for the kind of recreational biking we do. 

It’s a nice mix of hills and flats, woods and fields, marshes and lakes, with relatively few cyclists and nary a dwelling in sight along its 20-mile length.

Another thing I like about it: there are so many twists and turns and so few recognizable landmarks that you seldom know quite where you are or how far you still have to go.

Catbirds meowed and squawked from the woods, peewees pined, goldfinches chuckled. We passed fields of goldenrod and black-eyed Susans. The sumac is not quite turning red, but a few plums are ripening on the trees.

Back home, Hilary diced a few of our market tomatoes and raided the garden for a handful of basil to put together a topping for bruschetta. She added some drizzled olive oil, salt, a minced clove of garlic, or two; that’s all it takes.

The tomatoes were moist and red and absolutely flavorless. The vine-on tomatoes at Trader Joe’s are far better. But the ensemble tasted good heaped onto pieces of toast. The mild afternoon heat was already on the wane.

 And one of our resident owls started to hoot again. Everyone likes it cool.

   

Winona Beethoven Overnight

Winona has been holding a midsummer Beethoven Festival annually for almost two decades now, with world-class performers and a wide array of classical ensembles, styles, and programs. After reading about the event for years—often after the fact—we finally committed ourselves this year to an evening of Beethoven quartets performed by the Ariel String Quartet.

It wasn’t the most auspicious moment to embark on an overnight getaway to Winona. Temperatures were in the 90s and forest fires in the BWCA had sent the air quality index to dangerous heights. The smell of stale smoke was everywhere, and the Minneapolis skyline had been reduced to a vague dystopian silhouette.

We went anyway. We’d already booked the tickets and the motel. And there was reason for hope. The forecast mentioned the possibility of rain, which would wash some of the smoke away, and the NW wind might just shush the nasty stuff east into Wisconsin.

We left town at 1:30. There was water on the roads in Red Wing. The air had improved. Patches of blue sky appeared. Clouds took shape.

It rained heavily while we were checking into our motel on the outskirts of Winona. (Good timing.) We dressed for the concert (summer casual) and headed down into the city a few minutes later, looking for a place to grab a bite to eat. Hilary was scrolling the possibilities on Trip Advisor and happened on Sapori di Sicilia, which described itself as a “panificio : pasticceria.” A bakery and pastry shop?

It was only three blocks away. We parked right in front of the steps leading up to the place. Downtown Winona is full of half-decrepit storefronts, but this place seemed to be housed in a repurposed bank. Modern. Large tiles on the floor. Bakery cases half-full of tasty-looking morsels.

A closer look at the menu on the wall behind the cash register suggested that we’d come to the right place: truffle fries, falafel fritters, capicola panini. aglio e olio, gnocchi. And six or seven house wines at $ 6-8/glass.

Everything tastes better in an oversized bowl.

We ordered a Greek salad and pasta carbonara, took a table by the window, and settled in to watch the passing scene. The chairs were remarkably comfortable. Hilary had a great view of a group of seven elderly women engaged in animated conversation. A book club? University professors discussing some upcoming candidate for tenure? Or were they all headed to the Beethoven festival later that evening?

We nursed our orders, passing them back and forth across the table, happy to be inside watching the weather improve through the window. At one point I went up to the counter to get two glasses of water and said to the young woman behind the register, apropos of nothing, “This image on your menu looks like it came from Crete.”

“Well, it happens to be in the center of the Sicilian flag,” she replied, cracking a hint of a smile.

The concert took place at a theater on the campus of St. Mary’s University, tucked into the wooded bluffs a five-minute drive up the hill from our motel. The night wasn’t cool, but it was no longer unpleasantly hot, and the air had improved so greatly that Hilary spotted the crescent moon peeking through a rift in the clouds. People were milling around on the terrace in front of the concert hall, and it seemed the only thing missing was the sharp report of a passing nighthawk.

The concert itself was deeply expressive and thoroughly engaging: Beethoven—early, middle, and late. Works like these don’t carry you along like a breeze, they draw you in like a compelling argument, and the Ariel Quartet offered a flawless exercise in emotional logic and probing intensity. The first half of the program ran 90 minutes. The single piece after intermission was a mere twenty-two. The balance seemed perfect.

I was impressed. I had never heard of the Ariel Quartet prior to coming upon them in the festival schedule, though they’ve been playing together for almost thirty years. But I’m sure these musicians are less concerned with impressing people than with fully exposing the challenge, the anguish, and the beauty of Beethoven’s imagery.

The next morning, after a "light breakfast" at the motel, we returned to our new favorite Sicilian cafe stop to sample the bakery goods. The same young woman was behind the country, and when she brought us our coffee we learned a bit about the owner's background.

From there it was across the river to Trempealeau NWR, where we drove the nine-mile gravel circuit, stopping hear and there to take a walk or get a better view of a bird. The sky was clear and the humidity had dropped, though not by much. 

We spotted four or five indigo buntings along the way--they like to sit in the open at the tops of trees, displaying their iridescent feathers--but most of the birds were sheltering in the shadows of the vegetation. We heard warbling vireos, common yellow-throats, great-crested flycatchers, Eastern towhees, robins, pewees, yellow-bellied woodpeckers, catbirds--the usual suspects. Hilary spotted a few pelicans drifting out in the river. A beaver swam by. Perhaps our best sighting was of a red-headed woodpecker disappearing into the underbrush. 

   

The Heavenly Regions

Bright sun, a moderate breeze, and temperatures in the low sixties. These are the conditions that prevail in the heavenly regions, I suspect, and last weekend we were blessed with the same regime here in town. After rejecting three or four more exotic cycling options, Hilary and I decided to pump up the tires and make the time-honored, but often overlooked, trip around the Lakes.

What lakes? Bde Maka Ska, Harriet, and Isles, of course, a few minutes’ drive down the parkway from our house.

We got an early start. The air was sharp, and traffic on the bike paths was moderate. We were soaring.

It’s become fashionable to describe such episodes as “being in the present.” More than a few books have been written celebrating that level of innocent awareness, and offering advice about how to reach and sustain it.

I have no advice to give. I’m tempted to argue that such a concept is inappropriate to the occasion. At the least, it seems to suggest that our recollections of the past are filled with remorse, our anticipation of the future fraught with anxiety. That’s not necessarily true.

We used to live much closer to these lakes, and throughout our leisurely tour I was pleasantly reminded of people and events from the past. The recollections added an emotional depth to the visually spectacular scene. I was reminded of the years when our friends Greg and Betty lived in a condo across Bryant Park from us. As we locked our bikes and took a stroll through Harriet Gardens, I was reminded that the bedding plants near the fountains were once set off by a trim row of buckthorn hedges!

The tennis courts at Beard’s Pleasance reminded me of matches with an old friend interrupted again and again by snippets of conversation about food, films, and travel. We passed my cousin’s house, where we all used to sit on the shady porch as the morning heated up. And at one point, on the west side of Lake Harriet, I was reminded of a party I went to in the mid-1970s in an upstairs apartment before Hilary and I had even met.

On our way back to the car, we sat on a bench overlooking Bde MaKa Ska, trying to pick out a good place for lunch. Yum? No. Niviya Thai Kitchen? It’s gone downhill. Hazelwood? Too suburban. Convention Grill? Might work.

In the end, as we often do, we went home and cooked up something new, in this case a pasta salad with corn and cherry tomatoes from a recent recipe in the Times. Not bad. (But might not be a “keeper.”)

*   *   *

The next morning was equally brilliant but far more blustery. We drove down to the farmers’ market to pick up some parsley and a few discounted zinnias. Did some planting back home.

But the real highlight of the day came later, when we once again drove into town to attend a concert by Lux String Quartet being given at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in association with a traveling exhibit called Violins of Hope. The display consisted of six or seven Plexiglas cases holding a selection of violins that had been owned by Jews who died in concentration camps during WW II.  

This is serious stuff, and it might almost have seemed a bit morbid, except for the subtlety and zeal with which the members of Lux worked through their program, and also the verve with which each of the four performers announced a piece and also described what it was like to play an instrument from the venerable collection.

As an added twist, the performance consisted of isolated movements from several compositions—Grieg, Shostakovich, Kodaly, and, best of all, the first movement of Ravel’s String Quartet, one of my favorites. Taking them out of their broader musical environment seemed to refresh them.

And as chance would have it, we ran into five of our friends at the concert. But is that really chance? They all live near the Lakes, and three of the five are musicians.

After the concert I ran into composer David Evan Thomas in the hall where the instruments were on exhibit. I told him the tale of the LP of Ravel’s Quartet that I had in college, a Nonesuch recording with a pink hot-air balloon on the cover. He agreed that Nonesuch album covers could be outrageous.

“You should write something for the Lux,” I said.

He cleared his throat and replied, modestly, “Well, they premiered my second string quartet.”

Oh. I didn’t know.

 

   

A Cool Breeze after a Hot Night

A cool breeze after a hot night is a godsend. More than that, it’s a delight. Such a remark brings up the question of whether a delight is more, or less, than a godsend.  I would say more, but I don’t want to take up the question now. It would spoil the delight.

This morning my delight was compounded by the character of the task I’d gone outside to perform. It was the most pleasurable of all gardening tasks: to divide plants we already have and rearrange them in the garden. It’s good for the garden, good for the plants … and it’s free!

Earlier this spring, as usual, I cut back quite a bit on our buckthorn forest. I suppose we should have removed it entirely a long time ago, but it has never produced berries, and it served a purpose: it supported the grape vines that emerged, year in and year out, from its shadows.

This spring I did an especially good job of entwining last year’s vines through the arch of the garden gate, looking forward to an effect similar to the faux-arbors in old-fashioned Italian restaurants. (Vescio’s. Mama Rosa’s. Mama D’s. Where have they gone?)

However, a few days ago I noticed that all the grape-vines were dead. That was bad news. I attributed their demise to a fungus that had appeared on the main stalk, Fusicolla merismoides (commonly called "deer vomit fungus"). But as it turns out, that slimy, neon orange goo is harmless.  

The good news was that the buckthorn forest no longer served any useful purpose. So I set about the task of hacking it down, sawing off the stumps and digging out the roots. It was hard work, and I’m well aware that we’ll be pulling out buckthorn sprouts for years to come. But when I was done, we had a fairly large chunk of land—maybe six feet square—to replant however we chose.

We discussed a variety of options and finally concocted a vague plan involving pagoda dogwoods, day lilies, and hostas, all of which we have in abundance, along with a hydrangea that’s been in our “formal” backyard garden even since we moved in, getting smaller every year.

New Grapes

While removing the buckthorn, I noticed that the grapes had reseeded in a few places, and I moved those feeble sprouts to the base of a metal trellis that was leaning against our neighbor’s fence. I also came upon a forsythia that had disappeared into the buckthorns years ago. It's a shapeless specimen, but we'll keep it around until we think of something better. 

I also took pleasure in handling the dead vines. Their sinuous strength is remarkable, and it’s easy to see how useful they would have been for boatmaking, goat-pen fencing, and basketry, back in the days before synthetic materials were invented.  For a split-second I thought about hunting up my copy of John Seymour’s The Forgotten Crafts: a practical guide to traditional skills. But the moment passed.

I have no recollection of what color the day-lilies are that I rescued from under the Amur maples. They never bloomed in that mediocre location. Time will tell. Maybe.

There's plenty of work still to do. But I don't call this work. And we now have a new garden zone tucked behind the volunteer cherry orchard we've been grooming. Delights of gardening! I just might bring a chair out there and enjoy an entirely new perspective on the back yard, 

Excited by What?

Depending on your situation, or your temperament, to be “excited by nothing” might be taken to mean either that a) life has lost its sparkle, or b) you’re excited to greet the day, though you can’t put your finger on any specific reason.

These days I often find myself in the latter state. I might attribute such irrepressible glee to the clear morning light, the bright green vegetation, crabapples coming into bloom, the songs of the kinglets and white-throated sparrows that fill the air as I step out onto the deck—or all four. But the feeling runs deeper than that. Everything seems grand on such mornings, and the question becomes, “What are you going to do about it?”

Do we have to do anything about it? Going for walks, getting together with friends, listening to music, staring off into the underbrush …    

Yesterday morning I trimmed a low-hanging branch from a tree near the fence. I’ve been wanting to do that since last year. While out in the yard I spotted a “pheasant-back” mushroom that had sprung up on a tree stump amid the seas of Virginia waterleaf. A few minutes later I was back inside, googling the species to make sure of the identification. I looked high and low, and found no comment on the order of “not to be confused with the similar and highly poisonous ….”

In the afternoon Hilary and I took a stroll through Eloise Butler wildflower garden. Back home, I noticed we had quite a few red bell peppers in the fridge, and I concocted a plan. I put some early Italian music on the stereo—Landini and friends. It might just as well have been modern Italian folk music, though the harmonic progressions tended toward the pleasantly odd and strange, as if an episode of Father Cadfael were running on the TV in the next room.

I sliced up the peppers, blackened them in the broiler, then proceeded to assemble the dish we call Sicilian Peppers—black olives, anchovies, capers, oregano, onion, garlic, and balsamic vinegar.

Then I harvested the mushroom, brushed it off, and sliced it up. I took a bite, which immediately confirmed the identification: it tasted like watermelon rind. I sauteed the slices in butter, and we enjoyed a light dinner sitting in front of the doors that open out to the deck.

Spiritual Activities

A recent poll by the Pew Research Institute asked people a number of questions about their beliefs and their “spiritual life.” One of them was:

Do you do one or more of the following things for spiritual reasons at least once a week: visit a nature spot, listen to music, exercise, look inward, practice yoga or meditate.

I was surprised at the results, which were broken down by state. Mississippi topped the chart, though only 75 percent of respondents answered the question in the affirmative. New Hampshire came in dead last, at 48 percent. Minnesota ranked tenth from the bottom, at 56 percent.

Mississippians also reported the highest “spiritual well-being,” with 48 percent claiming to have achieved that state. In Minnesota, barely one in three made that claim. We hard-headed Minnesotans did even worse when it comes to “feeling the presence of something beyond this world.” Third from the bottom!

A more careful look at the results brings out a few contradictions, however. When respondents were asked if they believed in a spirit or soul, four fifths in even the most skeptical state, Oregon, answered in the affirmative. Yet only 29 percent of Oregonians believe in “the presence of something beyond this world.”

This contrast highlights the crux of the issue. How can it be that so many people believe in a spirit or soul, yet not feel the presence of something beyond this world?

The obvious answer would be that they consider spirit or soul to be entirely immanent—that is to say, of this world. But wouldn’t that be tantamount to saying that spirit is matter? For myself, when I “look within” and contemplate my own soul, the notion of “matter” never enters my mind. I might think of such things as obligation, exhilaration, promise, or contingency. I might revive the childhood question of why I happen to be me, and not someone else. Any and all of these responses produce a moral frisson that’s both exhilarating and slightly scary.

But if spirit isn’t matter, what is it? Where did it come from, and why have I been saddled with this particular speck of it? (And who is the "I" to which I referred just now?)

The Pew questionnaire wasn’t designed to probe these subtle issues, and right now I’m not in the mood for such things, either. I only wanted to observe that when I read the question with which I started this piece, my reaction was: “Only once a week? I do several of those things almost every day.” Sure. Lucky me. But can I honestly say I do them “for spiritual reasons”? Why else? Spirituality and good feeling aren’t mutually exclusive.  On the contrary, they often work very well together. 

Though I'm not entirely sold on the idea of exercise.

Do you do one or more of the following things for spiritual reasons at least once a week: visit a nature spot, listen to music, exercise, look inward, practice yoga or meditate.

 

Happy Earth Day

It’s been a brief but remarkable string of days. Why? Because the leaves are coming out. Young, bright, and translucent, they glow in the sun. Add to that a gentle breeze, with the temperature hitting that cool, comfortable mid-range, and it makes you want to shout.

Hilary and I drove down to Eloise Butler yesterday at 7:30. No one was there to open the gate, so we took a stroll through the woods, peering down at the ponds and swamps below, then crossed the parkway to the quaking bog. We chatted with a couple of birders, one of whom gave us a tip as to the location of a great-horned owl nest. We couldn’t find it, but little matter.

As the day heated up, we washed the windows, shedding our coats and swapping stocking caps for baseball caps. Later I removed the leaves from the garden. (Is it too early, or too late? I don’t know.) I couldn’t identify some of the plants at first, though they’ve been there for years. Ah, yes. Siberian bugloss, and ligularia. And our pulmonaria is boasting a single pink flower!

Further back in the woods I spotted some white trout-lilies that have been coming up every spring for more than forty years.

As if on cue, the mail carrier came by with “In the Garden,” a twenty-page pamphlet that Steve Kelley has been publishing every spring for I don’t know how long. I enjoyed working with Steve and his wife, Arla, a few years ago, on a collection of essays describing their many years at the helm of Kelley & Kelley Nursery out in Long Lake.

Nodin Press published that book. And as it happens, Earth Day is also Norton Stillman’s birthday. We took Norton out to dinner last week, less as a birthday celebration that as a thank-you for giving me the pleasure of working with him almost daily for the last few decades. We do it every year.

We took him to Vinae, where we ate peppery cucumber salad, creamy boiled cabbage, eggplant puree with purple sticky-rice, and other exotic stuff. The place was hopping. It was fun.

Earth Day is also Eddy Albert’s birthday. You probably know him as the star of Green Acres, a silly comedy that had little to do with environmental issues, I think, though the title is suggestive. But he was also an early, and a staunch, environmentalist. Albert went to Central High School in Minneapolis and the U of MN. (He studied economics.) The fact that Earth Day takes place on his birthday is no coincidence.

Norton is a bit of an environmentalist himself, though I think his greatest contribution along those lines is as the publisher of many fine books related to the outdoors. These include essay collections by Jim Gilbert, Matt Schuth, Steve Kelley, and others; and works by poets too numerous to name, nearly all of whom draw sustenance from the out-of-doors in one way or another.  

But on a day like today, a stroll through the back yard or even a simple glance out the window is as stunning as any poem. The cherry orchard is coming along nicely, there’s a robin in the birdbath, the air is cool, the cardinals are twittering, the sky is blue. And the clouds are white.