Unabridged

Posted: October 4, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent, Farming off the Farm, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

In my childhood, pride of place was given to a Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, second edition (c) 1966.  The massive book laid open, upon a bookstand that my Mother built, in the family room always beside the dinner table.  Quick and easy reference was close at hand.  

At 2,129 pages, plus addenda, the Webster’s weighs in at approximately 13 pounds, begins with “a” (first letter of the Roman and English alphabet: from the Greek alpha, a borrowing from the Phoenician) and ends with “zythum” (a malt beverage brewed by ancient Egyptians).  The masterpiece is “based upon the broad foundations laid down by Noah Webster.”  Such informed my childhood.  

My frugal Mother, born in the Depression, bought groceries strictly on a budget, and received S&H Green Stamps for every purchase.  We saved those stamps, compiled them into books, then drove to Glenview, Illinois to redeem same.  The dictionary was purchased with Green Stamps, a day of victory, that I recall vividly, still.  

Of the Silent Generation, she and millions of her peers diligently saved the Green Stamps.  The Sperry & Hutchinson Company was founded in 1896 and operated until the 1980s, when consumerism became the vogue and frugality faded.  But over 90 years the Beinecke family made a fortune, and funded the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale.  In Greenwich, Connecticut, their 66-acre estate is now for sale for the first time, at an asking price of $35 Million, after more than four generations in the family.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/16/realestate/beinecke-estate-greenwich.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

In my childhood home, words reigned supreme.  My Father was a wordsmith, an Irish extrovert, who knew not the difference between a hammer or a screwdriver, but most certainly knew his nouns and verbs; subjects and objects; gerundives, gerunds, and participles; how to compose a sentence, how to frame his thoughts.  When advertising came of age he worked as a Mad Man; known as the “Grocery Guru” his specialty was food merchandising.  His gift of words allowed him to travel the world, holding meetings in Munich, giving speeches in Sydney; he commuted to his Manhattan office for lunch then flew home for dinner.  He was published in multiple periodicals, and monthly in “Advertising Age,” then an upstart, which has become the standard bearer of the trade.  After his death, my Mother continued the column for two years, writing “Consumer’s Viewpoint” telling the “Big Boys and Fat Cats” what she thought of their products.  

And always, in our home, the Webster’s stood as stanchion, a ready reference, near at hand.  

Last year my Mother sold the family home, and we emptied its rooms.  Saving the dictionary was high on my list.  I stored it at my sister’s, and then in August hauled it back home to Maine, along with sculptures my Mother had made.  It was something of a cruel and unusual ask to have my children carry the tome through TSA at O’Hare Airport, but that I did.  To my mind that task sealed their fate to the written word.  Such is their origin story.  

Growing up in the digital age of Google, my children may disregard the heavy analog hard copy book, a dull relic from the distant past.  But long may it last on their bookshelves, and my hope is that it will endure as a reminder of their lineage.  Languages change over time, such is their nature, but the story of the English language, derived from the German and Latin, and our ability to use words to frame our thoughts is an enduring aspect of our mind’s capacity to understand.  I remain steadfast that there is a mysterious link between grammar and the mind.  

A hard copy dictionary, then, is a bastion of that tradition.  And for my children to understand same, is to know of their past.  And so this Unabridged Dictionary is an heirloom of the highest regard here in our home.  Purchased through frugality, cherished over many years.  

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Note: Kudos and thanks to Babs, of whom I say the apple fell not far from the tree. By kind permission of, I borrowed her phrase “…meetings in Munich, speeches in Sydney…”. And she provided the family room photo with dictionary and stand ever the sentry, the rear guard. Many thanks! 🥰

The Curve of Consciousness

Posted: September 27, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: consciousness | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist with a sterling gift for writing, in English, clear sentences on complex ideas.  In “Seven Brief Lessons on Physics” he traces the arc of modern physics from Isaac Newton’s 1687 straight mechanical worldview where bodies move through space and time passes uniformly to the now confirmed existence of quarks and, in 2013, the discovery of the Higgs boson, a fundamental sub-atomic particle; the most basic building blocks of a curvilinear universe.

Einstein’s milestone 1919 insight was that “the gravitational field is not diffused through space; the gravitational field is that space itself….Space is no longer something distinct from matter – it is one of the “material” components of the world.  An entity that undulates, flexes, curves, twists.  The whole of space can expand and contract.”

Max Planck had a radical idea that energy was not a continuous flow, but instead was “quanta,” or packets, a/k/a small building blocks.  Einstein, again, cracked the code, in his 1905 annus mirabilis papers when he wrote, “…the energy of a light ray spreading out from a point source is not continuously distributed over an increasing space but consists of a finite number of “energy quanta” which are localized at points of space, which move without dividing, and which can only be produced and absorbed as complete units.”  

Einstein’s idea was rejected as sheer nonsense, until 1925 when a group of physicists in Copenhagen, lead by Niels Bohr, worked out the mathematical equations behind the theory.  

The world of quantum mechanics is not predictable, can only be spoken of in terms of probabilities.  Roselli describes this as “…very far from the mechanical world of Newton…the world [of quantum mechanics] is a continuous, restless swarming of things, a continuous coming to light and disappearance of ephemeral entities.  A set of vibrations, as in the switched-on hippie world of the 1960s.  A world of happenings, not of things.”  

In the year of our Lord 2024, physics teaches us that, “There is no longer space that “contains” the world, and there is no longer time “in which” events occur.  There are only elementary processes wherein quanta of space and matter continually interact with one another.  The illusion of space and time that continues around us is a blurred vision of this swarming of elementary processes.”

I present this as background to an idea that just as space time is a curved dynamic field, so too, by analogy, is human consciousness; in the years going forward our ideas of relationships and fundamental rights may flower in unforeseen dimensions.  The “straight and narrow” ethics of Augustine, Calvin and Cotton Mather – to name just a few – may become antiquated just as Greek myth now is seen as mere child’s play.  

Whether history repeats or rhymes, the fact is that we have been here before.  Augustine of Hippo, the towering Church Father, wrote circa 400, “…it is not necessary to probe into the nature of things, as was done by those whom the Greeks called physici…It is enough for the Christian to believe that the only cause of all created things, whether heavenly or earthly, whether visible or invisible, is the goodness of the Creator, the one true God; and that nothing exists but Himself that does not derive its existence from Him.”  The Dark Ages followed when the Western Roman Empire fell, trade became stagnant, the Black Plague ravaged the land, scientific thought was discouraged.  

Come the sixteenth century, a Polish mathematician calculated the rotations of the planets, and confirmed that the Sun, in fact, is the center of our galaxy.  The mathematician, also a Catholic Canon, was savvy and prefaced his work “To The Most Holy Lord, Pope Paul III” begging indulgence, “How I came to dare to conceive such motion of the Earth, contrary to the received opinion of the Mathematicians and indeed contrary to the impression of the senses, is what your Holiness will rather expect to hear.  So I should like your Holiness to know that I was induced to think of a method of computing the motions of the spheres by nothing else than the knowledge of the Mathematicians are inconsistent in these investigations.”  Copernicus endeavored only to check the mathematics but his “Book of Revolutions” changed the course of history.  

Galileo, equally brilliant, more bold and less savvy, championed and then scientifically proved the Copernican heliocentrism, for which he was tried by the Roman Inquisition and found “vehemently suspect of heresy.”  Galileo is called the father of observational astronomy, classical physics, the scientific method and modern science.  Popes Paul III and V are mere footnotes in history.  

The flowering of Renaissance humanism was in full swing in those times, and consider the intellectual and cultural advances concurrent with the scientific revolution: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael were active in their studios; Erasmus and Descartes were thinking; Shakespeare and John Milton wrote epic poems and plays; Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton advanced scientific thought.  Whether science was the cause or effect, the fact is that the breadth of thought – what I call consciousness – expanded wildly during this period.  

So what then might our “curve of consciousness” bring?  Consider these contemporary facts:  

  • Science has proven that trees communicate and share rescources among themselves via the underground  “mycorrhizal network” transferring water, nitrogen, carbon and other minerals; the stronger helping the weaker to survive.  Peter Wohlleben has called this network “the woodwide web” allowing trees to communicate.  
  • Researchers at MIT and other universities are beginning to use Artificial Intelligence to decode the language of humpback whales “with a confidence level of 96 percent.”
  • In 2008 the Republic of Ecuador drafted and approved a new constitution recognizing the rights of nature and ecosystems, making them legally enforceable.  The preamble states: “RECOGNIZING our age-old roots, wrought by women and men from various peoples, CELEBRATING nature, the Pacha Mama (Mother Earth), of which we are a part and which is vital to our existence, INVOKING the name of God and recognizing our diverse forms of religion and spirituality, CALLING UPON the wisdom of all the cultures that enrich us as a society, AS HEIRS to social liberation struggles against all forms of domination and colonialism AND with a profound commitment to the present and to the future, Hereby decide to build…”

To my mind the coming flowering of consciousness will celebrate unity in diversity. Anthropocentrism may give way to an acceptance that all life is one.  Genesis 1:26 where “…God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” would seem a shibboleth soon to fall, perhaps replaced and finally embraced by Romans 13:10 “Love your neighbor as yourself.  Love does no harm to a neighbor.  Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

To all of this, I quote Martin Luther King, “…Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last.”  

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The radiant reds and orange of summer subside, while brown and sienna now dominate the garden. Beans are ripening. We move closer to the Solstice.

Joy of Aging

Posted: September 20, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Farming off the Farm, Permaculture & Home Renovation, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , | 1 Comment

In my limited experience, there is a joy in aging.  Certainly not the aching joints or onset of arthritis, but in the relaxed confidence, an acceptance of self.  Well beyond the age of peer pressure, I have concern neither about my haircut, nor the shoes that I wear, all of which are quite liberating.  

The cliche of the “Cranky Uncle” is but one example.  At the Thanksgiving table, he lets loose in too blunt a manner which may be simply that he has achieved, at last, a “devil may care” attitude, a sense that time is of the essence. The accuracy of his information tends to be of little concern, to himself at least. The “Cranky Uncle,” in fact, is so ubiquitous that it has become the name of an app that “builds resilience against misinformation.”  https://crankyuncle.com/

If the “Cranky Uncle” is the dark side of anger, then the uplift of mirth was expressed by Jenny Jones, the British poet, in her famous work, “Warning: when I am an old woman I shall wear purple.”  Her poem was twice voted Britain’s best-loved poem, and she was described as “one of Britain’s best loved poets.”  Her words were proof that we can age with grace and wit, a singular independence.  We would do well to follow her lead.  

These thoughts come to mind because the “silver tsunami” has begun with over 10,000 people per day now turning age 65.  By 2030 more than 73 million Baby Boomers will be over age 65, a demographic shift of unparalleled scale.  

I am a Baby Boomer, born at its tail end.  I therefore feel eligible to opine that we have skimmed the cream, and the world we leave to our children’s children, is, I fear, darkened by the shadow of our deeds. 

Early in the Boomer era, an active idealism rose: civil rights, voting rights, environmental protections, the Clean Water Act, a woman’s right to choose, and protests against endless wars of the Empire. 

As a young boy, I went one night to my long-haired neighbors, to help paint cars for a convoy to a Vietnam War/anti-Nixon protest.  I loved it, all of it, the idealism and sense of community (among some but certainly not all).  

By 1980, when the Boomers’ careers had begun the zeitgeist changed; capitalism roared into vogue, taxes were cut, deregulation began.  The success of the Boomers seems unparalleled:

  • In 1967 the movie “The Graduate” contained the prophetic line, “Plastics…there is a great future in plastics.”  Fifty-seven years later every person on the planet ingests about 5 grams of microplastic every week  – the equivalent of a credit card – eaten every week, every year by every person, all 8.1 billion of us, with no end in sight.  More than likely, the quantity will increase.  
  • In our insatiable quest for red meat, more than 185 million acres of the Amazon River basin have been clear cut since 1978; food production accounts for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and takes up half of the planet’s habitable surface.  A diet that includes beef has 10 times the climate impact of a plant-based diet.
  • The “fast fashion” industry is responsible for over 20% of global water pollution while producing 100 billion garments per year, of which 92 million tons end up in landfills, the equivalent of one semi truck of waste every second, every day.  The average consumer throws away 81.5 pounds of clothes every year.
  • The richest one-fifth of the world’s population possess 80 times the income of the poorest one-fifth, and the richest one-fifth uses over 86% of the world’s resources.  In America, the top 0.1% average wealth is $1.52 billion USD per household.
  • From 1979 to 2022 wages grew 32.9% for the bottom 90%, 171.7% for the top 1%, and 344.4% for the top 0.1% of the USA population.  
  • More than 99 million people now face emergency levels of hunger, while more than 1.1 million people are in the grips of catastrophic hunger.  
  • Baby boomers will bequest a total of $72.6 trillion in assets through 2045.

The transfer of assets is defined in financial terms but represents essentially a set of values which will govern how those funds will be used. If we think of $72 trillion as a lever, with values as its fulcrum, then Archimedes comes to mind: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”  Change is still possible.  

Another poet wrote “This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.”  We might replace “bang” with “boom” while “whimper” could yet become “win.”  This is a matter of some urgency as the silver tsunami rolls on.  

I am a parent now, raising children coming of age.  My approach here is to be forthright about what we have done and with what they must deal; I value honesty more than politeness, and future generations should be clear sighted, to act with compassion and a commitment to social justice.  A certain non-conformance may be required, and to that end the “Warning” of Jenny Jones, indeed pertains:

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick flowers in other people’s gardens

And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

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The thrum of summer has quieted, the Supermoon Full Moon Lunar Eclipse passed on Tuesday, cool nights of autumn descend: Pole beans ripen, Winter squash come to its full, Brussel Sprouts fatten, Poblanos produce still, Tomatoes remain abundant, the Cucumbers are spent, while Tithonia still shouts “look at me!!!” We will plant garlic come November.

The Grandest Cataract in New England

Posted: September 12, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Art & Healing, Portfolio - David's work, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Rumford Falls, Maine is situated where the Concord, Ellis, and Swift rivers converge into the Androscoggin River, which form the watershed of the Western Maine mountains. At the Falls, called the “the grandest cataract in New England,” the Androscoggin drops a total of 176 feet over a sheer wall of granite.  

In our pre-industrial age, indigenous peoples gathered there to hunt, fish and trade furs from the Lakes Region of Maine.  In 1882, history forever changed when industrialist Hugh Chisholm grasped the Falls’ potential for the manufacture of paper.

Chisholm first built a railroad, then a mill for his Oxford Paper Company, which grew to become the founding asset of International Paper Company, the corporate behemoth, still active today.  A Utopian, he also built planned community housing for the workers in his mills, which housing became a model for the nation.  Chisholm hired architects to build great buildings in Rumford, those architects also having designed the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan, and the Copley Plaza in Boston.   At its peak, in the 1930s, Rumford held its own with Manhattan, but today it has fallen deeply into the abyss.  

Rumford, and the surrounding River Valley towns of Maine, are known nationally as “Cancer Valley” given the incredibly high rates of cancer among its mill-working inhabitants.  Four out of five children are food insecure, while Rumford has the highest special education population in the state of Maine.  The opioid crisis has run rampant, and Rumford’s rate of crime is now the highest in Maine.  

Rumford Falls is but one, among many cities, ravaged by the flight of capitalist money, ever in pursuit of profit.  The New York Times recently reported, “Milwaukee was once known as the ‘machine shop of the world.’ In the 1950s, nearly 60 percent of the city’s adult population worked in manufacturing….  By 2021, Milwaukee had lost more than 80 percent of its manufacturing jobs (barely 5 percent of those that remained were unionized), and it had the second-highest poverty rate of any large American city….  Between 1997 and 2020, more than 90,000 factories closed, partly as a result of NAFTA and similar agreements.”

Last Sunday, I was in Rumford Falls helping on a Public Art project.  Although the politics of free trade is vitally important, my work focused upon the power of art, the agency of making, and the process of civic discourse; how does a community rebuild once the rivers of cash flow have dried up? 

A real estate developer recently purchased Rumford’s old mill building for the price of $1 USD, and she has received a grant from the Department of Agriculture to put solar panels on top of the mill, and another from the National Parks Foundation “historic preservation” fund with the condition of “community engagement.”  The developer promptly called Chris Miller, and asked, “I have the building, and a chain link fence out front.  Can you do something of civic engagement?”  Chris pondered the problem.  

He decided to ask the citizens of Rumford what their desired future might be?  Adults declined to respond, but a classroom of 3rd grade students enthusiastically spoke up.  Chris’ question was “If you lent your hand, if you had your say, what would Rumford’s future gain?  If you wore a hat that said “Civic Leader,” what might Rumford’s future feature?  Would you champion a cause, plant more flowers, have a parade or build a tower?  Would you open a business to meet a need?  Would you captain a brand new industry?  Would you start a club or paint a mural?  Would you build a park in honor of a hometown hero?”

The 8- and 9-year old students offered fantastical ideas: a skyscraper, an amusement park, an IKEA water park, trains running upside down.  Gathering their bold ideas, Chris set them down graphically in the style of a picture postcard, then printed on vinyl adhesive which he affixed to seven 4×8 sheets of 1/2” masonite.  My role was minimal, priming and painting the boards and helping Chris hang them upon the chain link fence.

His design links to Rumford’s past, given that Hugh Chisholm made his first fortune printing picture postcards, holding the monopoly contract with the United States Postal Service to print all of the picture postcards sold in United States post offices at the turn of the 19th century.  The Rumford Mill produced all those postcards, as it grew into its peak production years.  

The children of today very likely could become the leaders of our future.  Rumford’s native son, Edmund Muskie, was born there in 1914 and then wrote and championed both the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act in the 1970s.  His political leanings have been demonized by many industrialists, but one has to wonder how his Rumford childhood shaped his environmental thoughts.    

Restoration, it seems, is the work of our times.  The task in Rumford is how to build a new economic base, to clean up after decades of toxic waste, and to heal generations of families whose lives have been shaped by the working conditions at the Mill and power plant on the Androscoggin River.  Chris’ “picture postcards” are but one very small step, but Rumford’s task of recovery does move forward.  

Sea Monsters a/k/a Carousel Cosmos

Posted: September 6, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Art & Healing, Child Centered Activities, Gallery - Visual, Portfolio - David's work | Tags: , | 2 Comments

In April 2023 I had the pleasure of making Sea Monsters for a public art display in Portland’s West End.  Chris Miller, the polymath maker, received the commission and hired me to help build seven creatures which likely could have lived on Portland’s Peninsula over the past 250-million years, give or take a few millennia, or even “just last Tuesday.”

“Carousel Cosmos” is the official title and the seven creatures are a Polar Bear, Humpback Whale, Saber Toothed Cat, Walrus, Rhyncosaur (an extinct herbivorous Triassic archosauromorph reptile), Dragon, Crenatocetus (an extinct genus of protocetid early whale).  

Chris wrote, “They are dragons, lions, bears and sea monsters, the usual suspects in the greatest bedtime stories of all time. They have many names in many languages. They’ve made cameos as constellations that might be older than writing, older than the first cities, or the wheel. Some are mythological, some are just misunderstood. They invite you to explore the cosmos starting right here, on a journey to greater understanding.”

One really must visit the installation, but at the least you can visit them online: http://npdworkshop.com/carousel-cosmos

We built the creatures using a “stack laminate” process just as carousel horses have been built since 1799:  layers of 8/4 ash (2” thick) were stacked then glued to create the three-dimensional form, which we then carved and painted.  With as many as nine layers per creature, Chris used computer modeling software to draw the final shape, then “deconstruct” it to show the shape of each successive layer. 

The son of a carpenter, Chris studied sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, and then architecture at MIT.  His vision is a unique combination of those three influences.  

The word “genius” normally is defined in terms of sheer intellectual horsepower – Newton and Einstein, the commonplace exemplars – but a more insightful meaning is in the derivation of the word, from Latin, which means “guiding spirit.”  

For having walked the hallowed halls among the MIT Masters, Chris has retained the childlike wonder of growing up amidst the flora and fauna, woods and water of Fifty Lakes, Crow Wing County, Minnesota.  His sterling genius guided him not only to conceive, design and build, but also to write this summary of the Carousel Cosmos:

“This carousel is inspired by kindness, adventure, outer space, bedtime stories, dinosaurs and ice cream. It’s inspired by the Western Promenade’s endless views, spectacular sunsets and contemplative atmosphere. It spins the way that the earth spins when the sun sets, in a place where trolleys used to stop, in a small picturesque city with a school community that speaks more than sixty different languages.”

Lest anyone think my statements are grandiose rather than grounded, I submit this photo as Exhibit A:

Climb aboard! Let’s go for a spin!!

Seedless Champagne Grapes and Suicide

Posted: August 30, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent | Tags: , | 2 Comments

Recently a friend left home grown blackberries on our porch.  To another neighbor, that day, I delivered home grown peaches and wild seedless champagne grapes.  Life in South Portland would seem idyllic.  

Year-to-date in Sopo there have been zero murders but there have been, to my knowledge, 5 suicides and 1 attempted suicide: 3 were school-aged youths; 2 were parents of children, whom my daughter oversaw as a Rec Camp Counselor; 1 was my daughter’s age-group peer, whose suicide attempt failed.  

February: a 19-year old, recent graduate of the local high school, a counselor in the elementary afterschool program, worked his Friday shift, then drove south to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  As Aurora pulled dusk across the sky, in his truck he sat, sent a final text to his family, then reached for his newly purchased shotgun.  

April: a boy named Angel, age 16, a straight-A student at the high school, “an independent young man who enjoyed his job at Burger King” rode his bike into the woods.  His phone was left on the ground, but kept transmitting via Snapchat’s location app.  My daughter, his classmate, was aware of this, as were all her peers, and told us that he had gone missing.  A dark night followed, when come morning we learned this young boy had left his bike and phone and taken a rope deeper into the woods.  

June: Two children, both age 8, campers at the South Portland Summer Rec Camp had lives ripped by suicide.  One girl’s mother committed suicide while another’s uncle took his life.

July:  A young boy, age 18, who worked as a Summer Rec Camp Counselor, attempted but failed, to take his life.  For one week he was in Maine Medical Hospital.  

August:  A 14-year old eighth-grade graduate, with “striking blue-green eyes and charming grin [that] made everyone melt,” #6 on the South Portland Little League Majors team, MVP of our All Stars, he took his life.  His brothers’, Mother and Father’s lives ripped now asunder.  

We gathered this evening at his “celebration of life” where our collective grief and despair mocked the word “celebration.”  Social conventions keep not up-to-date with the epidemic in these times.  

His classmates, young boys, were well dressed, as though waiting for school pictures, some wore their athletic jerseys.  The photos on display were those of a toddler and elementary school student, so brief was his life.  

The line was long and snaked around the Funeral Home, hundred’s having turned out in his memory, all of us stunned, grasping for air.  Like Dante’s “9 Circles of Hell” we wound closer into the building, then entered the parlor where the pine casket was closed.  Deepest into the void, we stood in a cratering emptiness.  

We are bereft.  There are no words, no answers, so many unanswered questions.  Repeatedly now we have come together in these most searing of “celebrations.”  

In talking with neighbors, the usual suspects of cause are technology and social media.  Statistics support that, but pandora’s box having been opened, we cannot go back again to an earlier easier time.  My wife and I, instead, have been talking about emotional intelligence and mental health.  

Mental Health America defines Emotional Intelligence as “…the ability to manage both your own emotions and understand the emotions of people around you. There are five key elements to EI: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.”  This definition seems clear and cogent.  

To the CDC, “Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices.”  To my mind, this definition is vague and leaves me wanting.  

The Superintendent of South Portland Schools wrote to me, “in short order we must pivot to broader community work. On the district side, these efforts will be led by our new Director of Mental and Behavioral Health who will start on September 9.”  

While standing in line at the celebration, we spoke with Lee Anne Dodge, the soul-affirming Director of SOPO Unite, a high-school based “coalition bringing together all sectors of the community–parents, school staff, police, healthcare, businesses, youth serving organizations, civic organizations and faith based organizations….and promote resilience in our community.”  Lee Anne told us that she will meet this week with the CDC to discuss how to broaden their response to community needs.  

Andrew Forsthoefel, the Restorative Practices Systems Specialist of Cumberland County, leads a circle of parents meeting to listen and give voice, coming together to navigate these challenging times.  I have reached out to him and our dialogue will deepen into the fall.  

We the people.  For better or worse.  Until death do us part.

It is my hope that we can weave a new narrative of outreach and empathy, forming circles of hope, to support and save our children, while this black plague of suicide ravages our communities.  

Indeed, now the only way out is through.

Quercus Virginianus

Posted: August 28, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Art & Healing, Chronicles of a First Time Parent | 1 Comment

Quercus Virginianus, the Live Oak tree, is synonymous to the Deep South’s mystique as are Faulkner’s gothic novels.  Gothic, indeed, is the architecture of the trees: a circumference up to 35 feet, height up to 70 feet, limbs stretching outward more than 100 feet from the trunk, Spanish Moss tendrils hang to gather nutrients from the wind, rain and sunlight. 

A woodworker once told me that in South Carolina a law remains on the books that if two lovers stand beneath a Live Oak tree and exchange vows of their love, then the tree as their witness legally binds the marriage.  I cannot prove the fact, but certainly believe its core truth.  

Live Oak trees live up to one thousand years.  The story is told that in 1771, Étienne de Boré, on his estate which became Audubon Park in New Orleans, planted a Live Oak tree in honor of his bride.  At 35 feet in circumference the tree arguably could be closer to 300-years old, known as the “Tree of Life” although officially registered as the Etienne de Boré Oak.  Etienne de Boré became the first mayor of New Orleans in 1803. 

On 28 August 2004 I travelled to Audubon Park to stand beneath the Tree of Life with a soulful strong woman.  In true DIY fashion, we wrote our own vows.  A Notary Public friend officiated, his wife served as witness (Louisiana is less liberal than South Carolina, at least in terms of trees’ legal standing).  We were short one witness, technically, but a woman in black, a total stranger, silently walked up and touched the tree during our exchange of vows, so legally wed we were 28 August in the Tree of Life cathedral. 

My vows spoke of “alchemy and the daily renewal.”  The traditional “for better or worse” was a given, as I was then a co-defendant in a lawsuit concerning Trust Asset Management and fiduciary duty in United States Federal Court, Northern District of Illinois.  My betrothed stood beside me then, she stands beside me now. 

2004: on 30 July I was haled into Federal court, where District Judge Matthew Kennelley “granted in part and denied in part” a Summary Judgment on my behalf. My back was against the wall.  On 28 August with backs against the Tree of Life, my fiancé and I exchanged vows, and then rings.  Next we went to the drive-through daiquiri stand.  Later that night we marched in the Second Line of a mid-season Mardi Gras parade.  Viva la life of New Orleans!!

Back in Chicago, by autumn of 2004, the lawsuit was settled. The banker from Lichtenstein went to prison.  Our union endures. That alone matters.  

Twenty years later, we remain together in the light. We raise two bright beautiful children; our life’s work, to be sure.  Ours is a remarkable home amidst a wildly creative community, in a place of exquisite beauty, the rocky coast of Maine, on Gaia, circling the sun.  My wife holds our family’s center and some day our childrens’ children may say “My Grandfather married one strong soulful woman.”

When Tears Become Bullets

Posted: August 22, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent, consciousness, Permaculture & Home Renovation, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

In 2001, I met and soon moved in with a remarkable young woman, an art therapist, who had worked with young children at Byrd Elementary School at Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing project, as well as in the Robert Taylor Homes and Cook County Hospital.  Working with inner-city boys, she was driven to thread the emotional needle, to help them move forward.  

In that studio apartment, on her bookshelf, was ”Real Boys” written by William Pollock, PhD about “the myths of boyhood,” how our society shapes boys to become men.  I tried repeatedly to crack that cover but could not.  It cut too close to my core.

I quote now the four core tenets of what Pollock called “the Boy Code”:

“The sturdy oak: Men should be stoic, stable, and independent. A man never never shows weakness…boys are not to share pain or grieve openly. 

Give ‘em hell: This is the stance of some of our sports coaches, of roles played by John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Bruce Lee, a stance based on a false self, of extreme daring, bravado, and attraction to violence. 

The “big wheel”:  This is the imperative men and boys feel to achieve status, dominance, and power. Or, understood another way, the “big wheel refers to the way in which boys and men are taught to avoid shame at all costs, to wear the mask of coolness, to act as though everything is under control….

“No sissy stuff:” Perhaps the most traumatizing and dangerous injunction thrust on boys and men is the literal gender straight jacket that prohibits boys from expressing feelings or urges seen as “feminine” – dependence, warmth, empathy.”

In short, big boys don’t cry.  When I was young, my father – who lived to seize the brass ring, to slay the dragon, to climb the mountain, then died young – he repeatedly told me, “David, you can get used to hanging if you have to.”  My football coaches always rhymed “no pain, no gain!”  I fault neither my Father nor the coaches, as they only passed on what they had been taught.  About all this, Pollock cautioned, “when boys cannot cry, their tears become bullets.”

Bullets, of course, can be metaphorical, and but one example would be the Wall Street “Masters of the Universe” among whom “might is right” with finance a zero sum game of domination, power and control.  Consider hedge funds buying up the foreclosed housing stock and then raising rents, in the midst of a housing shortage.  Or private equity buying medical practices, to maximize profits at the expense of patient care. 

The first rule of the Boy Code is that we don’t talk about the Boy Code.  I violate masculinity in writing this meditation upon raising a daughter and son in a culture where hypermasculinity is the norm.  I speak here not of the male gender but the masculine traits, as taught.  

Jackson Katz, a male pioneer in women’s studies, has written a book titled “Man Enough?” about the “Politics of Presidential Masculinity.”  Presidential campaigns are described “…as the center stage of an ongoing national debate about manhood, a kind of quadrennial referendum on what type of man—or one day, woman—embodies not only our ideological beliefs, but our very identity as a nation….how fears of appearing weak and vulnerable end up shaping candidates’ actual policy positions…”

I write here neither to praise nor denigrate any candidate. My concern is our culture of dominance.  In this time of hypermasculinity, where we demonize “other,” be they immigrants, the extreme right, the “marxist” left, Neo-nazis, ad infinitum, I am compelled to ask what if the problem is not “them” but us?  It is so easy to point and blame “them” but infinitely more challenging to say it is our system of beliefs, self-reinforcing, which perpetuate cycles of violence, a culture of dominance rather than compassion. 

Jackson Katz gave a TED Talk titled “Violence against women – it’s a men’s issue.”  He makes the subtly persuasive point that rational self interest in a patriarchal society becomes a self-reinforcing system of belief; there is no conspiracy but a self interest in maintaining the status quo rather than embracing change.  By analogy, Newton’s First Law of Motion here pertains, that a system of domination will persist until it is acted upon by an external force strong enough to bring change.  https://www.ted.com/talks/jackson_katz_violence_against_women_it_s_a_men_s_issue?subtitle=en

“It takes a village” becomes my curse.  In our home we raise children to value empathy, compassion and emotional intelligence, but the world into which they go – are schooled, coached and policed – there predominates the hypermasculine.  How do we raise our children to be compassionate when their peers practice dominance?  “Gentle as a dove, wise as a serpent,” comes to mind. 

As a child, I would read the Sunday comics seated below my Father, while he devoured the business news.  Pogo, the political satire, ran in those comics, with its theme “We have met the enemy, and He is us.”  More than fifty years have passed and some demonize the “Deep State” or “them” but I ask, what if Pogo really was right?  What then, if we ourselves are the problem?

An honest awareness seems a necessary starting point in a new dialogue. 

* * * * * * * * *

Here at an art farm Bacchus has arrived bearing wild seedless Champagne grapes. Jimmy Nardello Italian Frying Peppers are abundant. Tomatoes exceed our capacity to use. Pole beans flower, to attract hummingbirds. Butternut squash grow on the vine. Peaches are ripe for the picking. We bring bushels of produce to the Food Cupboard.

School of Sharks

Posted: August 16, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Child Centered Activities, Gallery - Visual, Portfolio - David's work | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

One year ago, summer of 2023, I worked on painting a ceiling mural at the new South Portland Middle School.  Chris Miller, a polymath maker, very good friend and father of two young boys had received a commission and needed help.  I gladly answered the call.  

His design originally called for a pod of humpback whales in silhouette painted on the ceiling of the school’s central corridor.  The Principal held a vote and the students selected “Sharks” as the new school’s mascot, and so a last minute change was called for.  Chris complied and the whales became sharks, swimming overhead.  http://npdworkshop.com/pod-cosmos

In designing the mural he envisioned the school of sharks swimming in outer space, then he mapped the sharks onto the central corridor ceiling, from the point of view of a fifth grade child, standing at the school’s entrance.  His goal was to capture awe and wonder, with distortion a part of the design.  The technique he used is called anamorphosis, which he described as follows:

“Anamorphosis is an optical illusion by which an image appears distorted but becomes clear when viewed from a key viewpoint, unique angle or through a particular lens. I want my kids and their classmates to learn to listen to people who have different perspectives and espouse different beliefs. I want them to be curious, open and inquiring- to strive for agreement and consensus through informed discussion.

“The mural’s key image will appear completely clear and undistorted from just one point of view. Someone just under five feet tall would see it, if they stood just inside the corridor with their back to the wall between the two lobby doors. From other viewpoints and as students travel down the length of the corridor, these silhouettes will appear increasingly stretched, and distorted to varying degrees of abstraction.

“The root of the word cosmopolitanism is Cosmos. It’s an ancient Greek concept of the universe as a well-ordered system. It presumes that all things can in theory, be made clear. I want my kids and their classmates to be relentless in search of both questions and answers. I also want them to cultivate a sense of wonder, though childhood, adolescence and into adulthood.”

These ideas carried the day, and Chris was awarded the commission.  In Maine the “Percent for Art” law provides for art in public buildings, by setting aside one percent of the construction budget to purchase original works of art for new or renovated buildings receiving state funds.  Some may say this is progressive waste, but I say it is arch-conservative, given that art predates agriculture and mark-making on cave ceilings shows that art is at the core of humankind’s quest for meaning. Maine has simply acknowledged same.

The Middle School budget was $69 Million, so art was heavy on the docket.  The architects were so taken with his idea that they moved his mural onto the central corridor of the school, where every child every day will pass among the building entrance, the library, cafeteria and gym.  Pride of place indeed.   

Chris handled the design and layout.  I handled the brush.  It was a marvelous project with which to be involved.  Best of all, how often in life do you get the chance to write to your Mother: “Michelangelo ain’t got nothing on me!!  I am painting a ceiling mural in the new SoPo Middle School!!”

Saturday on the Street

Posted: August 9, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Art & Healing, Farming off the Farm, Permaculture & Home Renovation, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , | 3 Comments

In 1830, in South Portland (known then as Cape Elizabeth) a New England farmhouse was built and its barn completed by 1848.  The town’s population was 1,696 people and only six families lived on the street where the farm was located.  The farm most certainly had significant acreage.  

In 1999, South Portland’s population had grown to 23,324, and the last remaining farmland surrounding this farmhouse was sold off to make a development of six homes.  In modern times developers put their road wherever best suits their plan but in 1830 the builders sited the home thoughtfully, based upon the sun’s path; they needed to maximize the solar gain as a heat source.  The home’s location then determined where went the developer’s road and the old front yard was paved to put in a street named in honor of the developer’s daughter.  The home, which we purchased in 2012, was left with a smaller, but still full sun front yard, enough space to garden and grow food and fruits.  

We have felt guided here in creating a healing space.  Neighbors have brought wounded birds into our garden, tucking them under the plants, as a place to heal.  Young Mothers bring their infants to gaze and we gift them vine ripened tomatoes.  We grow less as a matter of sustenance and more as a gift to be given, to be shared.  

Saturday on our street was very active.  Art work arrived from Chicago, from our dear friend Laurie LeBreton, a sculptor whose work combines handmade paper and mixed media.  She explains, “I work to access something beyond our concrete world and to find meaning and comfort as I do so. Recent themes have included healing, refuge and ritual.”  If yard placards tend to promote politics, Laurie’s speak to art and healing.  We embraced Laurie’s generosity and eagerly put them on our side of the street.  https://www.laurielebreton.net/

Also on Saturday, very large gooseneck trailers arrived to unload massive paving equipment, parked on the other side of the street.  A dialectic began between the mechanized and the natural.  If our “Orwellian” week was a “heavy equipment summer camp,” then this week has been about “massive paving equipment and road grinding at night.”  My son was over-the-moon delighted.  On Sunday night the City began grinding streets here, and the equipment has moved to several other jobs in town.  Nightly we have driven to see them work.  

Also on Saturday our work on the invasive Norway Maples continued.  Our friend Nate arrived, a journeyman carpenter, master of many trades, and he brought tools for tree work.  Nate taught my son how to use a come along, how to sharpen a chain saw, and to use the Phythagorean Theorem to calculate where the tree would fall.  My son put on his work boots and got busy.

Norway Maples are not native to America.  They were brought here first in 1756, by a nurseryman in Philadelphia, and became popular as an ideal street tree.  During the 1970s when the Dutch Elm Disease decimated the urban canopy, the Norway Maples became ever more prominent, but the trees promote a monoculture and grow rapidly, spreading seeds by the wind.  They shade out competition.  Because they grow fast, their wood grain is long, not tight, and they easily sheer and crack in heavy weather, which has become increasingly more prominent here in Southern Maine.    

Two years ago, during a late autumn wind storm, a Norway Maple, with 8” trunk, split and fell onto our swimming pool.  Thankfully we were able to repair the pool.  Last winter, a much larger Maple, 18” diameter, splintered and fell into the neighbors yard.  It leaned precipitously, and my intuition told me not to DIY but to get help.  

Nate used the “come along” – a sort of ratchet winch – to direct the tree away from the neighbors yard and to his designated spot. My son worked the come along, tightening the line by cranking to pull the tree down, as Nate cut into the trunk.

It took a village but the tree is felled, and we have firewood for our winter.  

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