Wild Apples

My Autumn Tree

My Autumn Tree

by Sue Petrovski

I looked beneath the bark
And color,
A mockery in beauty
Of my aging life.
Played out in golds and bronze.

This old crone of a tree
With its ugly, bony limbs,
Yet filling my world
With the shimmer of burnished bronze;
Sharing my sunlight toward the end of day.

This tree grown from weed?
That reaches now toward heaven
With limbs that downward
Bend and twist; a crooked wreck
But beautiful in an unseen way.

A gnarled copy of my own
Ripened image.
Sowen, as I
In unremarkable soil
From roots of
Unreknown birthright.

Noble only in its color
And stature and task;
To provide shade and shadow -
Doing only as bidden
By genus and phylum.

But more. I lived that tree.
My heart’s joy is in
It’s yearly blessing
As it aches and stretches toward the sky,
Yet readily performs
Its charge on earth.

Who needed more of
An Aging tree - or man
Than what has been given:
Purely, beautifully,
In a grand and honest style?

What did it owe
Besides the valient fact
That it looked beyond the edge;
Moving and flowing with
The tides of life.

It was there.

Farewell, Ice

Today Spring was here in her full glory, and in every direction tis a time to rejoice. But, before we leave pale winter behind, check out this thought on those things that divide us. Let us go into the Spring more awestruck by our diversity, and united in our desire to preserve those differences.

From the journal of Henry David Thoreau, February 1841:

"I tread in the tracks of the fox which has gone before me by some hours, or which perhaps I have started, with such a tiptoe of expectation as if I were on the trail of the Sprit itself which resides in these woods, and expected soon to catch it in its lair.

The snow falls on no two trees alike, but the forms it assumes are as various as those of the twigs and leaves which receives it. They are, as it were, predetermined by the genius of the tree. So one divine spirit descends alike on all, but bears a peculiar fruit in each. The divinity subsides on all men, as the snowflakes settle on the fields and ledges and takes the form of the various clefts and surfaces on which it lodges....I look under the lids of time."

Farewell, Ice

Things Of Great Value

A good friend brought this speech by Edward R Murrow in February, 1946 to my attention. After reading it, I knew that it America, today, and tomorrow, needs to consider what Murrow said sixty years ago. Please feel free to share this.

"About nine years ago, being persuaded that war was inevitable, I came
here to live. Now I am going home and the BBC have asked this reporter
to remember. This might go on for a week, but I must try to speak of
those things that are riveted upon my memory not because they are
important or profound but because they represent things of great value
which I shall be taking back with me.

I believe that I have learned the most important thing that has
happened in Britain during the last six years. It was not, I think, the
demonstration of physical courage, that has been a cheap commodity in
this war. Many people of many nations were brave under the bombs.

I doubt that the most important thing was Dunkirk or the Battle of
Britain, El Alamein or Stalingrad. Not even the landings in Normandy or
the great blows struck by British and American bombers. Historians may
decide that any one of those events was decisive, but I am persuaded
that the most important thing that happened in Britain was that this
nation chose to win or lose this war under the established rules of
parliamentary procedure. It feared Naziism, but did not choose to
imitate it. The government was given dictatorial power, but it was used
with restraint, and the House of Commons was ever vigilant. Do you
remember that while London was being bombed in the daylight, the House
devoted two days to discussing conditions under which enemy aliens were
detained on the Isle of Man? Though Britain fell, there were to be no
concentration camps here.

Do you remember that two days after Italy declared war an Italian
citizen convicted of murder in the lower court appealed successfully to
the highest court in the land and the original verdict was set aside?
There was still law in the land regardless of race, nationality or
hatred. Representative government, equality before the law survived.

Future generations who bother to read the official record of
proceedings in the House of Commons will discover that British armies
retreated from many places, but that there was no retreat from the
principles for which your ancestors fought. The record is massive
evidence of the flexibility and toughness of the principles you
profess.

It will, I think, inspire and lift men's hearts long after the names of
most of the great sea and land engagements have been forgotten. It was
your answer to the question that was asked all around the world in the
decades before that Sunday in September of 1939. The question was,
"What has happened to the soul of Britain?" Your answer was conclusive
and I have been privileged to see an entire people give the reply to
tyranny that their history demanded of them."

( Edward R. Murrow - Feb. 1946.)

A Glimpse At the Sealed Book

"I stop my habitual thinking, as if the plough had suddenly run deeper
in its furrow through the crust of the world. How can I go on, who have
just stepped over such a bottomless skylight in the bog of my life.
Suddenly old Time winked at me, -- Ah, you know me, you rogue, -- and
news had come that IT was well. That ancient universe is in such
capital health, I think undoubtedly it will never die. Heal yourselves,
doctors; by God, I live.

Then idle Time ran gadding by
And left me with Eternity alone;
I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the verge of sight, --

I see, smell, taste, hear, feel, that everlasting Something to which we
are allied, at once our maker, our abode, our destiny, our very Selves;
the one historic truth, the most remarkable fact which can become the
distinct and uninvited subject of our thought, the actual glory of the
universe; the only fact which a human being cannot avoid recognizing,
or in some way forget or dispense with."


from:
A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers
Henry David Thoreau

When we look with that other eye, when we carefully examine each moment of our lives, when we fear to take a breath for fear of missing that magic moment when life opens and shows us the grandeur, at that moment we know the joy of life. 

Einstein and Thoreau could have talked with intellectual abandon about their insights and intuitions.  Einstein wrote: 

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves… Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the singlehearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. "

Let the mystery of the eternity of life and the sealed book of time surround you in this season.

The Cutting Edge of Thought

"The Test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.  One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack Up

Thoreau said it a bit differently, "If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career."  Chapter 2, Walden

We have all had to deal with those who have trouble seeing more than a single surface at a time.  Black is black and white is white.  Sad them!  I remember many times in my life when. all of a sudden, another side or slice of a thought or idea was thrown in my face, unwanted and untried. With due diligence and practice, we can face the cimeter ourselves, but at other times some other mind is needed to jolt our view of the complicated nature of the true and the beautiful.

Life teaches us that sometimes we have to speak harshly to ourselves, saying, "Grow up.  See a bit further, look a bit longer. Think another thought" Contradiction allows us to see the beyond.  It opens us to a confounding world of the possible, not the probable.  It makes the accepted questionable and the questionable possible.  Life begins to have more meaning as our vision adjusts to a bigger sky.

The Highest Good

The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.

In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.

~ Tao Te Ching ~

Lest We Forget

Dwight Eisenhower was a military man of the first rank. In charge of the Western Front and designer of
the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, he, nonetheless, was an enemy of war. He counseled mightily against a government controled by military minds and was ever aware of the danger of war. He understood the adrenaline rush for man to rush to judgement but was practical enough to know that a nation has other priorities for its resources. Lest we forget.

Every gun that's made,
every warship launched,
every rocket fired
signifies a theft
from those who hunger
and are not fed
and those cold
and not clothed.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower, United States General, WWII

The Small Way of Doing Things

So much of our thinking is analogy that we can almost think we’ve done that which we’ve only contemplated.  I think and speak sadly of “carnage in war” and almost feel as though I had drawn a sword and saved a human life.  I can voice a thousand “They oughtas…” and consider myself righteous and above reproach.  I shake my head in sadness at what is happening in the Middle East but what good is that?

Then I ask myself, “To whom did you give a coat yesterday?”  Or, who smiled because of you? And the plate seems empty.  No meat, potatoes and gravy. All talk.  Any ‘holier than thou' thought that I might pen here is worth zip unless I then incorporate it into my life.

John T. Williams wrote a neat little, easily read, book called Pooh and the Philosophers reminding us of the world of Bare Truth in this Bear’s world. 

The existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel wrote, “The dynamic element in my philosophy, taken as a whole, can be seen as an obstinate and untiring battle against the spirit of abstraction.”

When Christopher Robin is preparing for the Expotition to the North Pole, he tells Pooh,

”And we must bring Provisions.”

“Bring what?”

“Things to eat.”

“Oh!” said Pooh happily.  “I thought you said Provisions.”

Pooh is not big on discussing generalities.  His forte’ is in the ability to do particular acts of kindness to particular friends of the forest.  He searches diligently for Eeyore’s tail and even offers Piglet a place to live when Piglet gives his house away. 

”We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean.  But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.  I do not agree with the big way of doing things.”  Mother Teresa

The Toe of the Shoe

”Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock -- that is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things. They will continually thrust their own low roof, with its narrow skylight, between you and the sky, when it is the unobstructed heavens you would view. Get out of the way with your cobwebs; wash your windows, I say!”

                                                        - Henry David Thoreau

The other day I was preparing to purchase a pair of shoes off the internet, and before I made my choice I clicked on the little box that said, "Front view, side view, sole view, instep view and toe view." Not only that, but the shoe would automatically change colors as it turned so that one might really get the best view of said shoe.

A modern miracle? Not really: reading Thoreau provides somewhat the same experience. He will show us something like “common sense” from this view, that view, upside and downside, until, unless we are really careful observers we miss some of total picture. This complexity and multifaceted consideration of all objective and subjective thought is probably true of all human thought. For instance, Hofstadter in Godel,Escher,Bach contemplates artificial language and says,

"A 'program' which could produce brilliant music would have to wander around the world on its own, fighting its way through the maze of life and feeling every moment of it. It would have to understand the joy and loneliness of a chilly night wind, the longing for a cherished hand, the inaccessibility of a distant town, the heartbreak and regeneration after a human death."

Isn't it a delight? What a versatile, multifaceted miracle is the human brain! Sad that many see only the toe of the shoe. This, it seems to me, was part of the prescience that motivated Thoreau and part of what he desired for all of us.

“As to the traveler a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely only one form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness.”

                                   - Walden, “The Pond in Winter”, HDT.

A Place For All Seasons

Ø      "Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark
corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education
is to turn mirrors into windows." — Sydney J. Harris

   Universities in the United States are undergoing an ongoing attack.  Just as, in feudal times, armies slammed huge boulders against the sturdy walls of Castle Interlochen, today, the ability of the University to remain above the fray is under siege.  Without an understanding of what the function of an institution of higher learning should be, we are doomed to a mediocre educational system for our youth, and without a keen educational system we are doomed to to national mediocrity and leaders unprepared to function in the calidoscope of world opinion. 

The ivy-covered walls of adademia are doomed to be continually attacked from the various forces from without.  This is a given.  We could go way back – back to the round versus flat earth theory, or the radical ideas of Newton, and show the thousands of times society has tried, and often succeeded in influencing what is taught within these walls, but let’s just stay in the century we have just experienced; The amazing 20^th century. 

   How does a democratic society contend with the constant barrage of competing ideas and values from its surrounding society?  Governors of states weigh in and, as recently as this week, our governor Owens insisted that the regents fire our pseudo-Native American professor of ethics at CU.  If they don’t do so, he intimated, there will be repercussions – we know what that is – lowering of state monies etc. etc. etc.  Politicians know how to play rough in order to get their way.  Disregard whether the professor in question deserves to be fired - the question is whether Governor Owens has a right to try to pressure for his release. 

Are such assaults dangerous?  Yes.  Consider the educational demands made and enforced in Nazi Germany. Teachers and administrators were forced to sign pledges of alliegence to the Nazi movement, and by concentrating their influence on a few courses, the National Socialists controlled the education in Germany, turning some of the world’s greatest universities into mere Nodding Dolls.  They pushed for more German History – based on the Prussian idea of Aryan superiority.  Complimenting this historical distortion with biological sciences that “proved” Aryan preeminence and we see the results – young people exposed to only one way of thinking.  In this case, a route that proved dismally wrong. 

Most true educators believe that given a free and open access to information, people are intelligent enough to find their own best ways.  How can a school of higher education do this?  If one looks carefully, you will notice that when we say ‘free and open’ we usually think of our own particular viewpoint.  It is important for future higher education in the US – and the world, for that matter, that we truly believe in ‘free and open’- for all viewpoints.

Consider Nathan M. Pusey, a past president of Harvard University from 1953-1971. Aside from the fact that Pusey opened Harvard to a much larger group of diverse     young people than it had ever known, and established funding for vast projects to maintain the capital investment at Harvard, Pusey, a student of Athenian law, had a bottom-line belief in the university as a place for civil discourse and academic freedom. He was an early and outspoken adversary of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the infamous and often inebriated Senator from Wisconsin. He had come into conflict with McCarthy when he was President at Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin, McCarthy commenting at the time Pusey left for Harvard that Harvard’s loss was Wisconsin’s gain.  Later, McCarthy pressed for dismissal of four members of the faculty at Harvard that he accused of being Communist sympathizers.  Pusey refused him access to the inner workings of the university and said:

Americanism does not mean enforced and circumscribed belief.... Our job is to educate free, independent, and vigorous minds capable of analyzing events, of exercising judgment, of distinguishing facts from propaganda, and truth from half-truths and lies...

He believed this so strongly that a decade later, in April 1969, when students had taken over University Hall to protest the University’s perceived role in the military-industrial complex, he called in the police and state troopers.   He felt the behavior was an affront to the civil discourse basic and necessary to the culture of the university.  Thus, while considered a liberal hero of free education in the 50’s, Pusey made himself a natural target for criticism in the rebellious 70’s .  He often said his choice had been a simple one and if one reads the quote above you will understand Nathan Pusey.  Nathan Pusey meant what he said.

The university must be beyond the reach of ideology, propaganda and the swings of the social and cultural pendulum.  There needs be classicism – a timelessness, if you will – about it’s standards.

Looking at our universities today, there is precious little to recommend them as havens of whole, not half-truths.  Alumni demands and dollars to promote the athletic departments, economic concerns of parents to be sure their child graduates with a “trade” and “able to do something practical”, coupled with federal and state raids on the monies for libraries, research, personnel and capital expenses have left most state supported educational facilities reeling.  Private institutions are not much better unless those paying the tuition are in agreement with the aims of the university and willing to foot the bill.

In other words, unless we begin to support the education of free, independent and vigorous minds, our universities and colleges will continue to turn out Enron clones and bottom-line thinkers.  Our future leaders will concentrate on short-term goals and not be educated to look for , or even recognize, whole truths if they find them.

To quote another favorite American, Barton Rees Pogue, Hoosier Poet, "This century of progress, friends, has set us back a hundred years."  Has it?  I would love to hear some comments on this.