The Day After ...

The Day After* ... I heard of Trump's victory, it still takes some getting used to. I couldn't believe the first time that America could elect Donald Trump, far less could I believe they elected him a second time eight years later, with an increased majority, and a deadly insurrection in between. But as Arlo Guthrie said in his wonderfully absurd Motorcycle (Significance of the Pickle) Song in far more innocent times and on nothing to do with politics - except policing politics, perhaps, 'That's America.' It is what it is.

But I want to look beyond Trump, because like each of us, he's not going to live forever. 

Walking back from the bus this evening, I remembered my first job after journalism school back in 1987: working for a development NGO and reading about the problems of pollution, poverty, inequality and pernicious politics (what's changed? - only the level of intensity). I sensed then we were in the declining years of the American-Western empire. Just like the Roman Empire, it would die in the death throes of arrogance, over-reach, super-affluence (while spurning its own outcast poor) and interior moral decay. Ok, probably over-stated, but it's what I sensed as parallels. 

During Trump's first reign, I posted a rhetorical question on Facebook wondering if all the prejudiced arrogance of a nation could be personifed in one person - without naming anyone.

One of the sad ironies of this second term is that I have a sister - living in the States for years - who is defiantly against him, and spoke bluntly about 'fascists' in America, long before Trump ever declared himself interested in being Ruler; and another sister here in NZ, who thought he'd be good for the country. Devisive - not only 'over there'.

I want to end this 'top of my head' random blog with a somewhat 'un-American activity' (well, the theme is, not the activity): a poem penned a long time ago; and a few words from U2 on the transience of temporal, worldly power (... And kingdoms rise / And kingdoms fall / But you go on / And on ...).

Interestingly - or prophetically? - the poem comes from a section entitled 'End Times' in a yet-to-be published book of my poetry. It may come out before the curtain falls ...

 

When the credits roll

When the credits roll 

on the last American sit-com, 

the stars will still shine 

and the moon will rise

clear and perfect and brilliant

above the far distant horizon.

(* title of a 1983 film about the aftermath of a full-blown nuclear war)

 

Elevating the humble pumpkin

Another random day in the garden: adding to new compost bins constructed in the centre of the backyard (so the compost doesn't feed the willows at the back); elevating our pumpkins so they don't rot on the ground as they ripen; harvesting a few tomatoes (best EVER season) and Jerusalem artichokes; and clearing twisty taupata branches from around the nikau palm.

I have written before about 'remembering through plants'. The nikau reminds me of my Mum, partly because it arrived here as a large seedling from Karaveer (our former family home), and because Mum used to tell us that, as a child, she used to slide down bush slopes round Auckland on dead nikau palm fronds - the end that falls from the trunk forming a large bowl that a child can sit in. We never did that when we were young.

The regenerating nikau at Karaveer gradually recaptured the top end of the few acres of bush we had. They are slow-growing: it took perhaps 20 years (after we fenced off the bush) for them to be a feature at the top end. This one at the back of our property is now a decent size 6-7 years.The large spear-like centre is actually a new frond on its way.

As for the pumpkins - they remind me of my Dad: his most productive pumpkin plants grew straight out of the compost bin. Mine are much more humble - a half-dozen or so growing from a triangular patch I sowed from seed just before Christmas. Now, one is nearly ripe for the picking. I just hope the others ripen before it gets too cold and the sunshine fades away.

Thumbs up for random acts of gardening

What I like best about my type of gardening is scavenging for free goodies to sustain an earthy lifestyle. Today I raked up three bags full of cut grass on the wide plain beyond our place before you reach the river. Left by the Council mower, it provides an almost unlimited supply to feed into a new compost heap I am building.

Interestingly, I got the thumbs up from an elderly Asian woman walking with three others. I don't know if she was giving the thumbs up for someone doing their own gardening, for clearing up our vast 'backyard' of unwanted grass, or whether she was just saying hello. It doesn't matter - I'll take the thumbs up for what must seem like a bizarre activity to many people. Shame that most of the grass just goes to feed the grass growing back quicker before the next mowing.

One day, I hope this vast flat ground 'sleeping in the sun' may feed large expanses of corn, or wheat or grain of some other sort. It may need a richer, organic base to do so; but it would be a lot more productive and useful than large expanses of grass for petrol-driven mowers to level every few weeks.

It doesn't even see locals playing football or cricket, or flying a kite.

Signs and wonders - chasing rainbows

While I was cycling home from work today, a rainbow formed over Wellington's eastern hills as the sun headed to the horizon.

I stopped on Petone foreshore to gather sea debris - small bits of driftwood - from the tideline, to use in a natural pathway at home. From there, the rainbow 'landed' at Petone Wharf (closed for repairs) at one end, and up the valley, behind one of Petone's few tall buildings, at the other end. As it grew brighter, I hopped on my bike and pedalled off. I felt there was something hopeful and positive about heading towards it, knowing I'd never make it, nor find the elusive 'pot of gold' at the end of it.

The archway seemed to narrow down as I approached it, but when I got to Petone Wharf, it had - as if by magic - moved elusively into the distance. It occurred to me that chasing ideals, such as a world of justice and peace, or working for the establishment of 'God's kingdom on earth' (whatever that means) is a bit like chasing rainbows: you have an ideal, you strive for it, you head towards it. But you never quite get there, at least not in this life. And the life hereafter: well that's up to God, as is the true nature of Heaven compared to what we envision it to be.

Rainbows also speak to me of another form of hope - a hope that God will never again flood the earth as he did in Noah's day. Don't get me wrong - I don't necessarily believe in the absolute literal truth of the Noah story, though it may have some basis in an historical event (Read this article for a perspective.). In our time of long-term sea level rise arising from climate change, rainbows still remind me of God's promise, in Genesis 9: 14-15:

When I gather the clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds, I shall recall the covenant between myself and you and every living creature, in a word all living things, and never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all living things.

Call me naive (and my kids are playing Matilda's 'When I Grow Up' as I write by the way), but what gets me about these words is that God's covenant is with 'you and every living creature'. It's a God who cares and is compassionate for 'all living things' on this planet.

Rainbows have often appeared at significant times to speak to me of God's restoration of the earth - but also our part in cooperating in that work.

Yes, I believe the science about climate change and our complicity in it. I also believe that "nothing is impossible to God" ((Luke 1:37), and in our ability - with God's help - to change our ways, both individually and collectively. As Jeremiah 26:3 says, "Perhaps they will listen and each turn from his evil way: if so, I shall relent and not bring the disaster on them which I intend because of their misdeeds."

We need to care for the earth and each other, and share the goods. On that note, I leave you with U2's "Crumbs from your Table".

...You speak of signs and wonders
But I need something other
I would believe if I was able
But I'm waiting on the crumbs from your table ...

Blessing and curse at the beach

Down at the beach today collecting mulch - and seaweed this time - washed up by sea - it's always a fun experience: I just love this free stuff that is so abundant. BUT - this time, a few days after a storm, loads of little bits of plastic - and decomposed aluminium cans. NOT fun. There seemed to be an unusual lot of small pieces of plastic, like bits of cellophane wrappers from round cigarette packets and stuff like that. I reckon it had been mainly washed down stormwater drains, into the Hutt River, out to sea, then rolled back in on the tide.That's what brings in the good stuff - the mulch washed down out of forests, etc, into the ocean, then back on the tide.

Shame it has to get mixed in with all this unnecessary, human-created packaging and discards. Bring on the plastic-free revolution I say! Ok, I know I'm part of it - currently, but not forever. This month, there are a few more voices pushing the plastic-free, zero-waste revolution. Bring it on.This from one of my daughter's friends: two minutes a day on her efforts to go plastic-free in July. This is just the beginning:

The Accidental Gardener

Collecting mulch from Petone foreshore today, I met a lady who said that she'd been collecting it for years and putting it on her garden - it was brilliant, she said. Especially good for camellias. She'd just sold her house, so was glad that today that she could walk on by and think "Oh, I don't need to get that anymore."

She'd done her garden all organically, and she hoped the young woman who'd bought the house would appreciate it and keep her garden going.

I told her I was a very aspirational, erratic gardener - every year wanting to plan and do things properly. She said in return that that's what gardening was all about - it's a teaching thing. You learn about life. You experiment.

The biggest buzz I get out of gardening is finding useful things to feed it or embellish: the hunter gatherer thing: like mulch from the sea, or a tyre washed up on the beach: that started me on using tyres for growing things. I've just had two potatoes sprout up of their own accord in tyre columns from last year that had potatoes in it - where I obviously did not gather all.

That reminds me of the other biggest buzz I get from gardening: the accidental, when things spring up self-sown and unexpectedly. It's probably the better way, just let things grow up naturally.

Re-membering through plants

'Very occasional' I reflect, as I re-read the blurb about this blog, and see the date of my last post. But if you refer to some of my other blogs, you can see I have been active on other themes too - though some overlap and inter-relate, as any good living should.

In any case, this blog fits clearly in this space, stemming from my latest foray into 'my space' - the 600 square metres (or thereabouts) around our railway cottage in Moera.

My theme of remembering through plants began consciously at first: three trees for each of our daughters planted on our property, then other plants would acquire a significance or start reminding me of people, places or events.

The oldest tree is a Japanese maple, given to us in Taranaki where our youngest daughter spent the first 2½ years of her life. In its first home in a plant pot, we buried our daughter's umbilical cord stump with it - the maple tree was 'her tree' as we carried it round eight other houses before making a home in Moera - and finally planting the tree in a permanent place.

The second tree is a kowhai, rescued as a seedling from the retreat centre (our home and workplace) where my wife carried our second daughter for the first six months of her life. It is a solid tree now, standing in the middle of the fenceline along the roadside.

The third tree is a ngaio, simply transplanted from elsewhere on the property, where our youngest child was born. It is the only one to have our daughter's full placenta buried with it - a Maori practice which we have made our own, for reasons I can't quite specify: it just seemed a good idea.

So each of these trees, in more ways than one, has a connection with the place of 'early origins' of each of our children - and each of them is special.

In a secluded corner of our front garden, we have also planted a fern for each of our daughters. They come from Karaveer - a 5-hectare Northland property that was home to my parents for 35 years, and where we always went to as family each Christmas/New Year holidays. It has since passed out of family hands, but the one hectare or so of bush still bears my father's name as land under QEII covenant. The ferns came from that bush, along with a few other plants, so that part of Karaveer would always grow with us.

Many years earlier, two young macadamia nut trees also came from Karaveer. Each about a foot high then, they now stand about two metres high. They're not producing nuts - I wonder if they ever will. I thought at the time, 'Perhaps with global warming ...', not that I wanted to see that.

At the back, where the more productive garden is, I have an apple tree bought with a garden voucher that friends gave me in honour of my father, who died four years ago. I had always wanted an apple tree here, yet took me 12 years before I got one. The first year, it produced seven apples, and this year 20. Promising. We plan to espalier it against the fence as it grows.

About a year ago, I bought a mandarin tree that grow further down the back, near the compost bin and the gateway to the riverbank. The mandarin reminds me of my mother's father - in his backyard, we as children would always pick off mandarins and toss the peels into the compost. Even now, eating a mandarin reminds me of him - and mown grass on the compost.

There are other plants around that now serve as reminders - cape gooseberry reminds my wife of her grandmother, the scent of alyssum conjures up sweet fragrances of my grandmother's garden, and Jerusalem artichokes bring back the taste of her winter meals.