“Things have ends and beginnings…” ~ Ezra Pound
My friend Doug and I often talk about the spiritual implications of divides, those lines you can trace on a map that define the location of watersheds (One the map pictured here, the divide is the outline of the colored in area). Once you get a rough sketch of them in your mind, it changes the way you travel through the landscape. This evening for instance, our group traveled on RT 17 back and forth over a divide that separates the Delaware and the Susquehanna River watersheds. While we slipped over that ridge on the highway, my mind drifted down the very different paths water might take from that hilltop to reach the ocean.
Which brings me to the sense of temporal divides and the annual turning of the calendar. I will stumble writing 2009 when it’s time to pull out the checkbook for the next few times. Then there will be a period of a few weeks where each time I go to write the date, hesitation will proceed each mark, at least until it becomes a habit of acceptance. The point is…after a few locating experiences, the water begins to flow in a new direction.
I always look with anticipation as to where the flow of the next year will take me. More then plans, lists, or resolutions, my sincere intention is to remain open to the unexpected opportunities that will cross my path throughout the upcoming year.
Wishing you good flow in the coming year, and thanks for reading Catskill Cottage Seed.
A feature in Ranger Rick magazine on geocaching captured my son’s imagination. His wish for a GPS (thanks @rargiros) came true this Christmas, and since the temperatures climbed over forty degrees yesterday, we headed off on our first satellite guided adventure.
Crystal Lake is part of the NY State Forest Preserve about two and a half miles from our place. In the summer the blueberries abound and the primitive campsites surrounding the lake (great for swimming) get regular use. It’s pretty quiet up there in winter.
Our journey was full of surprises. After heading in the wrong direction (I mistakenly reset the coordinates), we traveled through heavy brambles, skirted a semi frozen swamp, and then zeroed in on the pine tree where the cache was supposedly hidden, only to face the disappointment that it wasn’t to be found. We then faced two real life challenges. Emotionally, the disappointment took away his six year old will to continue hiking as he knew the going back out through the brambles would be rough. The light was fading fast and if we dallied, we would be hiking in the dark.
I kicked into a high spirited talk of encouragement that lasted all the way back to the car, pointing out a variety of obstacles, the sunset, the tracks of wild animals, previous landmarks which showed our progress…anything I could come up with to carry the burden of our predicament. Yes, we prevailed. No, not really that dramatic, but just enough to expand his sense of his capability. And for me, that’s the goal.
“Dad, I didn’t know brambles grew that thick! Pretty wild, right?” Yes Ben…pretty wild.
At the turning of the year it’s time to think seeds. First there’s the literal kind we put in the ground when the soil warms up. Even though that seems quite far away, the catalogs are here about me and together as a family we made our choices for next year’s gardens. My son is launching into Tom Thumb Popcorn for his new crop in ‘09. Judith selected a white eggplant, I’m interested in trying melon. Each year we’ve been trying to add one crop. This year we are making a jump; we’re each adding one.
Then there are the figurative seeds, the kind referred to in this blog title. I’m thinking here of those disbursements of energy that may or may not add up to much. It’s been my experience that knowing where you want to direct your energy in the upcoming year, and remaining focused on those three places (five, if your adventurous?) helps assure a bountiful yield. I’ve spent years just casting my energy about haphazardly with limited success. Now I try to remain both focused and open to the unexpected. One thing is for sure: knowing what I want to cultivate is key to seeing it realized.
How do you approach the coming year?
image via zerflin
An Interview with Benjamin Jancewicz. This email interview grew out of a comment to a post on this blog, where Mr. Jancewicz noted his concerns over a statement by Carl Jung concerning the Naskapi tribe of Northern Canada.
CCSeed: Would you consider my invitation to guest post on these issues, clarifying the point you made and even expanding it if you wish? While I believe the insight and demonstration of the inner companion is a helpful teaching tool, I in no way meant any disrespect with my ignorance.
Jancewicz: While I respect Jung as a philosopher; he glazed over a lot of different cultures, making broad statements about them. One of the cultures he talked about was the Naskapi tribe; a tribe I grew up with. They’re a tiny tribe in Northern Quebec, so it’s pretty easy to talk about them without much argument. The most damaging assumption Jung made with regards to these people, however, was the idea that they were “cultureless” because they were nomadic; or that they couldn’t come up with organized, artistic or sociological thought because they had to constantly hunt to survive. Jung and other philosophers and theologians often used bits of the Naskapi worldview to support their various theories. I don’t mind this at all… the Naskapi world view is something that has kept me grounded myself, though I now live down in the United States. I just wish he hadn’t tried to morph them into something they weren’t.
CCSeed: What was your childhood like with the Naskapi tribe? How were you introduced to the spiritual principles and myths of the culture?
Jancewicz: Childhood was never boring, I will say that. I moved to the village (called Kawawachikamach) when I was 5. My parents, Bill and Norma Jean Jancewicz, are Bible translators with Wycliffe. The Naskapi had been asking for a copy of the Bible in their language for a long time (since missionaries had contacted them back in the 1800’s with the Hudson’s Bay Company). My father would often go out and visit the elders in the village, notepad and tape recorder in hand, listening to them and learning the language, with me tagging along. He wanted to make sure the he went further than just a literal translation, and got the meaning of the biblical stories translated into concept the Naskapi were familiar with. He purchased a number of books on the Naskapi (there are only a few of them) and studied them, comparing them to what the elders were telling him directly. In order to get different words, we would often go out hunting with them, and inevitably, they would talk about various aspects of the way of life of the Naskapi, both current and in times past.
CCSeed: What aspects of their culture that you observed remain vivid in your memory and shape how you live your life today?
Jancewicz: I can remember feeling as though the Mista-Peo awoke within me at one point. I had been out walking in the woods, a couple miles from my parents cabin. As remote as Schefferville, my hometown, was… everyone had a cabin out by a vast lake that was even more remote; a full days drive from the town.
My father and I had spent most of the day talking with Joe Guanish, an elder, who had come to visit us at our cabin. It was the middle of summer and quite warm, and I had gone out exploring. I found an ancient caribou herd-trail, and had followed it for several miles, when I came to a clearing in the thicket. The same came through the trees, and I felt as if something had awakend in me. And there really wasn’t a question for me who it was; it was as if another part of my personality had been trying to talk to me for a very long time, and now finally had a chance to get my attention. It was as if he and Chamindo (God) were talking at once; as if the Mista-Peo understood things that God was trying to teach me, and was trying to get me to understand them.
When I was out hunting with Tommy Einish, another hunter, he once asked me to stand very still, and pointed into the woods. I didn’t see anything at first. Tommy told me to look deeper. Slowly, I began to see something… and then an eye blinked. A ptarmigan (northern pheasant) was sitting midway up one of the spruce trees directly in front of us, but was so well camouflaged it was almost impossible to see. Almost.
Standing in the woods, miles from anyone, I began to see everything. It’s as if suddenly I’d wiped my eyes after a long night’s sleep, and could see again. Everything was more vivid, more intense… and infinitely more peaceful.
Living down in the States, I’ve found that there are a million things to pay attention to at once, and it seems like attention to God and the Mista-Peo are the first to get ignored. Dreams get dimmer, and I find I get more irratable and melancholy. It’s lonely, not hearing from the Mista-Peo and feeling disconnected from God. Once in a while, I’ll escape into a nearby forest and just get back in touch. It helps me to keep focused on things that are really important.
Soccer Practice
Summertime
Thinking like a publisher...pluck?
Probing some "what if's?"
