A Year Of Humility (XXXVII): The Salt Of Humility

 Salt is a pretty useful thing.

The history of salt and the virtues thereof have been written on by better minds than I (there is a whole book by Mark Kurlansky:  Salt:  A World History).  And we know what salt does: it preserves, it adds flavour.

I take Isaac of Syria to mean the same thing for humility: it preserves virtue, it brings "flavour" to the virtue by making it fresh and piquant.  The path to it, he suggests, is not nearly as "easy" as mining salt or pulling out of dried beds:  it involves self-reflection, recognition of where we miss the mark, and judging ourselves accordingly.  But, he suggests, the benefits far outweigh the pain of getting there.

But the great thing about gathering the salt of humility?  We need neither mine or seabed; we can simply start by looking in the mirror and seeing ourselves as we truly are - and then changing.

A Walk In The Dark

For most of my life, I have been a walker in the darkness.

I come by this naturally: I have been walking around or home in the dark since middle school likely.  It was a different time of course; such things were hardly considered remarkable in the town I grew up in.  Middle school turned into high school and still I walked.  There were long evenings spent with Uisdean Ruadh and The Director and others as we walked down and around the lanes and parks of our neighborhoods, sometimes walking the railroad tracks the three miles that it took to get to my hometown from my house and back again.

I walk in the mornings as well, but mornings are different.  They are far busier, with runners and walkers and dog walkers out in force. It is not that anything is necessarily wrong with that - it is just that it creates a different vibe.

The evenings, perhaps unsurprisingly, are different:  anytime after 2000 it is only the occasional dog walker and unusual nerd like myself that is out for a stroll.

Things are remarkably quieter as well:  most folks are inside their homes (perhaps use the word "Sensible" here), and most transportation has stopped.  Only the occasional car goes by:  delivery trucks, commuters, garbage trucks - all are gone home for the night.

The biggest difference is sound is simply that there are no birds.  Occasionally in New Home I would hear an owl out on the prowl.  Not here in New Home 2.0 though.  Only the background of the local insect life and frogs hoping for a little night life fill the evening air.

These dark walks were - and are - for me a time of talk and thinking.  Over the years of strolling, be they in person or on the phone with a friend, the great issues of the day and the small ones as well were hashed out - if not to conclusion, at least to an expression of opinions.

Over the years I have walked on roads, lanes, paths, high school tracks, sidewalks, dirt roads.  Different places we have lived had had different features.  The first neighborhood we lived in at New Home had an older mix of homes with older trees and interesting street designs.  The second place we live - where we own our home - is a newer neighborhood.  The trees are not so tall and the new homes behind our house - just rows of sidewalks and yards.

New Home 2.0, as you can hopefully see, is far more interesting.

For years I pictured myself more a creature of the dark than the day - something that a job that starts early tends to wreak havoc with.  I can barely stay up beyond 2200 on a good day anymore; that alarm comes far too early.

Yet I have found that if I fail to walk, it has an impact - on my ability to sleep, on my weight, on my mental health.  I do better if I walk in the dark.

So here is to the walkers in the dark, those hardy souls that inhabit the twilight and early night where the stars and lights shine like the lanterns of the Fairy lands, the sounds are mostly natural, and the only monologues or dialogues are those that you bring with you.

 

Book Review: How To Grow Grain On The Homestead

 (Author's Note:  I have been sufficiently please with the outcome of my series of Essentialism and the kind comments of you, my readers, on that particular idea of a deep dive into a particular book, that I am planning to do it again.  I have a couple of books I am thinking of; I ask for your patience as I work through the next steps.)

The first year I grew grain was in 2005.

It was, as I recall, a combination of Winter Wheat, Emmer Wheat, Jet Barley, and Oats.  The Oats did not take.  Everything else did, and my interest in grain growing was born.  I believe that every year since then, I have at least tried to grow some kind of grain, no matter what my success rate.

Imagine my pleasure to find, in Permies crowdfund benefit package, a new book on growing grain:

Beyond sharing her experiences along with her husband Dan on their blog Five Acres & A Dream, Leigh is an FOTB (Friend Of This Blog) whose comments are regular and always thoughtful.  

As a result, this is probably not going to be a completely neutral review.

This book is a part of a smaller set of volumes which Leigh has written for specific items of the homestead (her book on Ginger, for example, is excellent as well).  I would also be remiss in mentioning that she also has "regular" books (Five Acres & A Dream - The Book and The Sequel).

I will start with the punch line first:  if you are looking for a book to ease you into what I consider the high satisfying world of growing grain, this is a great place to start.

The book covers all the basic questions, supplemented by examples from Leigh and Dan's experience:

- Why you should grow grain
- The basic steps of growing grain:  planting, harvesting, threshing, winnowing. The threshing part is especially interesting, as Leigh shares the six methods they have tried over the years to thresh grain, some of them pretty innovative.

- Grains themselves:  Leigh gives a review of 11 kinds of grains and pseudograins, including planting suggestions, usages, and harvesting/processing suggestions.

At 45 pages and a price tag of $3.99, it is a very reasonable "gateway book" into the wonderful world of grain growing.

Leigh's works are described at Kikobian.  Her longer books are available at all the usual online places.  Her e-publications (including the one listed above) are available via Smashwords.com; her author page is here.  

If you are looking for a "how to start" book that will stay with you as you increase your planting (because of course you will), this book is the best deal anyone could have to an introduction on grain growing.

The Collapse CCIV: Habeas Corpus

 12 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

We had two surprises today.

The first – both a surprise as a blessing – is that Young Xerxes showed up at our house this morning. In snowshoes – garnered from the pairs that Pompeia Paulina had at her house. He brought a day that was both sunny and snowfall free with him, along with a second pair for me.

The second surprise – less welcome – was the news he brought. There was a body in the snow. A body no-one recognized.

Walking in snowshoes is a trick I had largely lost the talent for; at one time, Winter hikes were an occasional thing and having snowshoes was far superior to tramping through snow (to gain wet shoes) with the risk of postholing (sinking up to your knee or thigh) a risk. The picking up of my feet was not so bad after I got going; the fact I continue to look like a duck undoubtedly made for high comedy.

By the time I made it to the Post Office, there was a crowd of about a dozen or so – including, somewhat to my surprise, some of our erstwhile neighbors – gathered around an object leaned up against the building. Folks kindly cleared as I waddled my way forward.

Sure enough, it was a body.

It was a man – a very thin looking man, if the gauntness of his face was any indicator. His was curled up into a ball, lightly dusted with snow. He had what I would have considered “Summer gear” in these parts: jeans (cotton, become wet and damp easily), a long sleeve shirt with perhaps a layer or two beneath poking out, tennis shoes, and a beanie, and for some reason a beautiful gray cashmere scarf. No jacket, no gloves.

His extremities – fingers, nose, ears – were black with frostbite. His eyes – pale blue – were staring off into a distance that he could no longer see.

Someone pointed out that down the main road into town from the West, there were half covered footprints leading in. He had come then, sometime in the night before the snow had completely fallen, taking refuge against the post office (it is a large enough building in these parts and would have been fairly discernible – and died.

I scanned the crowd with raised eyebrows. People shook their heads all around: no-one recognized him.

There were two concerns in my mind at the moment. The first was any sort of transmissible disease that he might be carrying with him. The second was equally as pragmatic: with a huge dump of new snow, what were we going to do with the body?

I spoke sotto voce to Young Xerxes and off he went like a shot (well, really a snow-shoed shot) as the rest of us stood around. To keep people busy, I sent some of the younger folk down the road where his prints had come from to see how far they went. The rest of us waited, low mutterings around the circle punctuated by frosty clouds of breath.

Young Xerxes returned, bearing what I had asked for: Latex gloves. No sense in taking any risks. I put some on as he did and then, we pulled the body forward.

Only once have a touched a body in rigor mortis; it was as if I was moving a relatively solid piece of wood, not a body. The same was true here, with the caveat that in point of fact this was frozen wood. The sensation, even through the gloves, was not pleasant.

Keeping as much distance as we could manage, we “flipped” him over on the other side, like a fish in a pan that we were frying. This side was much colder and snow bound, of course. But nothing else was revealed.

His face and hands (from what I could see) bore no signs of obvious outbreak of sores or other skin outbreaks. I say “From what I could see”; I had no intention on bending closer to an unknown death.

Gingerly we felt around his pants and coat pockets. In one front pocket we found a Swiss Army knife stripped of its outer plastic siding, the metal parts exposed. There was a cell phone – probably dead now – with one of those wallet casing attachments on the back with some cards that I could not make out. Other than that, nothing: no rings, no jewelry, no weapons, no food.

An enigma.

Those I had sent off down the road came back; they said the trail had run straight down what was the old state highway from the West. Not a surprise, really – it was flat and one could relatively tell if one had gone off it.

Which, of course, left the body.

Three feet plus of snow and frozen ground does not lend itself a burial and just leaving a body around here might attract predators now looking for a meal or other sorts of predators later. It needed to move. I looked again to my energetic young friends: There was an oak about a half mile down the road; could they get the body there and place it? A discussion, 15 minutes later and a sled, and they were ready. Young Xerxes and I lifted the body up, instructed them to shovel a hole in the snow, and dump it in without touching it.

The crowd began to disperse, and even our Erstwhile former neighbors gave me a nod as they left. Young Xerxes and I waited until the burial party returned. It was easily 30 minutes; standing on the snow in snowshoes instead of in it mad for a better experience and after a week more or less inside, it was good to just stand outside.

Our young friends returned, reporting a successful mission. I suggested to Young Xerxes that we might go up there in a few days; given the nature of the Winter and animals about, I was of half a mind that the body would no longer be there.

I do not like mysteries, Lucilius. Especially the dead without explanation.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Marina Bay (II)

 A poem written about the Merlion:

A smaller version:

Another view of the Anderson bridge:

Just a chicken out for a day at the opera....

They had some amazing trees:

The Lim Bo Seng Memorial, dedicated to the memory of Lim Bo Seng (A.D. 1909-1944), a guerilla fighter against the Japanese following the fall of Singapore to the Japanese Imperial Army in A.D. 1942.  Imprisoned in A.D. 1942 and tortured, he died in captivity without revealing any information:

The memorial. It includes an octagonal tower and four guardian lions from Chinese architecture. There inscriptions in English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil:

The front of the Concert Hall with a statue of Stamford Raffles, considered in some aspects the founder of modern Singapore.

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Marina Bay (I)

 The second stop on our (arguably) whirlwind tour of Singapore was Marina Bay, which is one of Urban districts of Singapore.  This particular area borders on new development (as a redevelopment zone) as well as historical buildings as well.

Part of downtown Singapore.  Remove the tropical setting, and it could be downtown anywhere:

The Victoria Theater and Concert Hall.  Originally started in A.D. 1862, it was initially completed in A.D. 1909 and renovated from A.D. 2010-2014:

The Anderson Bridge, built A.D. 1908-1910.  Crossing the Singapore River, it is part of the F1 circuit when the race is run in Singapore:

The Merlion is a symbol of Singapore.  Although mythical sea creatures have been part of Malay, Chinese, and European history, there is no specific relation from any of those to this.  It was originally designed in the A.D. 1960's for the tourism board.  The merlion combines the fish, which symbolized Singapore's origins as a fishing village called Temasek, or "sea town", and the head of a lion, symbolizing Singapore's original name of Singapura, or "lion city".  Interesting, the original was struck by lightning in A.D. 2009:

A view of The Marina Bay Sands, the world's most expensive casino valued at $6.9 billion.  If you think that it looks like a ship built on top of the towers you would be right:

Another view of downtown:

An example of a water taxi:

Pray, And Let God Worry

 

One of the underappreciated authors of our time in my mind is Francis Schaeffer.  An apologist of the mid to late 1960's to his death in the 1980's, he clearly saw - as did C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton - the outcome of thought processes and policies of modernism from its beginnings in the Late Middle Ages to the modern world.  Schaeffer wrote such books as How Now Shall We Live?, A Christian Manifesto, and The Coming Evangelical Disaster.  Always in his works, Schaeffer worked through not only how we had arrived at current modernism believe, but what the call of a Christian is in the modern world.  

Calling, as it turns out, has been much on my mind - as usual, brought into being by a series of events that arguably could only have been orchestrated by God:  re-reading The Call by Os Guinness, re-reading the first book of the works of the Stoic Epictetus, a realization that in some ways (such as The Ranch) I had built up in my mind an idol of how I was going to live rather than asking God "How do you want me to live?"

All of this, of course, layered onto the events of last week.

It is obvious - at least to me - that I am called to do something.  The question is, what?

I am not a man of violence, and I will - to the best of my knowing ability - not call for violence.  Part of that is from a deep conviction that while there may be isolated incidents (think personal self defense or countries at war) that violence "solves" the issue, the fact is that it just as often does not - and the outcomes of even those incidents leave scars that take years or decades to heal.  The other part of the conviction comes from the fact that there are two great masses of people whom are not (I assume) those that would generally take my side in many issues: those that are "true believers" and for whom there can never be compromise, and those who may disagree, but may be willing to be convinced.

The first group is likely beyond my ability to communicate to or with.  The second, though, may be.  

But you have to talk to them.

As a Christian, my model is - and has to be - Jesus Christ.  And what did He do?  He talked to people. He taught people.  He did works - miracles (which I cannot replicate) and forms of charitable actions (which I can replicate) to demonstrate that He did not just say His beliefs, He meant them.  That did not mean people always liked what He said - good heavens, they killed Him for His words - but that they did hear them. 

So then, to Schaeffer's question, How now shall I live?

I am not a man given to apologetics; public speaking makes me nauseous still and I am not a skilled debater.  But I can write.  And I can usual InstaPic to post Christian messages from the classics.  And I can practice humility to make me more Christlike and kindness and charity to align my life with my words.

But (I can already hear the question), What about impact?  What about actually "turning the tide"?

There is a concept in martial arts that goes "Do not speak of that which you do not know".  This is a concept that applies to everyone at all times - or me more times than I like to admit - but really seems to come to a head when a student is just past the "new student" phase and feels like they have grasped the art. In point of fact they have almost certainly not grasped anything but their own understandings.  Headmasters and senior students spend literally decades learning every aspect of the art; the new student knows little more than the basic mechanics and the names.  The best thing is to simply be silent and learn - and speak of what you do know (which is often not much).

Outcomes are beyond my reach and knowledge - what I do not know. I can merely do that which I am called to do and know - Love God, Love People, Preach the Gospel.  Use words if necessary.

For the rest, I have to pray and let God worry.

A Year Of Humility (XXXVI): Criticism

 

I hate criticism.

Saying that, of course, is to perhaps state a commonly held axiom:  no-one "likes" criticism.  But I have a special dislike of it, an aversion that is sometimes unreasonable in my attempts to avoid it.

It is fair to ask where it comes from.  Frankly, I have no idea.  I could come up with a possible source, my relationship with TB The Elder when I was younger, but that feels like the standard sort of excuse one could pick out of any commonly available psychology book.  I cannot think of any particularly jarring incident.

All I can tell you is that I do not like it.

I do not have a problem with self criticism - of a certain sort.  I will routinely "bash" myself in conversation, almost to the point that people will look at me in disbelief.  It is another habit, a habit likely born of getting people to react or laugh in tough situations by giving them something else to focus on.  But the criticism is never lasting or impactful in that sense: I know what I am bad at or fail at and can rip myself to shreds over it, but it seldom changes me.

Neither of these, of course, is the point of the quote of Ephraim of Arizona above.

Accepting - truly accepting - criticism requires the sort of humility that I can only grasp at times.  It requires the ability to listen without judgement, accept the truth without defense, and then act on the criticism.  It is incredibly hard to do when I am invested in my own correctness or the incorrectness of the source or just the source indeed (how many times have I received useful criticism from people I may have had problems with!).  It means being willing and ready, at all times, to set aside practices and beliefs that I may have had for years or decades.

Not all criticism is the same, of course.  There is criticism for doing the right thing or unreasonable criticism for not being everything someone else expects; this can (and should) be easily ignored.  But too often I confuse the two, letting my opinion of the other or the situation exclude the point that I am being told something about myself that I can better.

If, as the Geronda suggests, agitation about the criticism is a measure of my ego, then I still have a very long way to go.

Deeply Troubled

I have struggled with this post.

A commitment I made years ago to the blog (and thus indirectly to you, my readers), is that I would be as honest as I could be.  In some ways, of course, that seems highly improbable - given, for example, the fact that I write under a nom de plume, which by default leads to certain things not being "honest".  On the other hand, that very anonymity, thinly veiled as it may be, gives me the ability to be honest in ways I likely am not in real life:  in a sense, this is as likely the "real me" as my actual existence, just in a different way. Two sides of the same coin, as it were.

With that said, I am deeply troubled.

I almost never write on current events.  Part of that is due to the fact that current events make for miserable applicability in the future and at best are a personal view of the world at large which can often age badly over time.  The second is that over time, I believe myself to have built a community which are likely on "both sides" of the fence as it were.

But this week has shaken me badly.

I find myself in a position which I can only compare to 49 B.C., knowing that Caesar has crossed the Rubicon and that the SPQR (Senatus Popolusque Romanus, the Senate and the People of Rome) prepares for war.  I am likely a quiet partisan at best for one side or the other (which side, you will have to guess as neither Gnaeus Pompeius or Gaius Julius ever truly appealed to me as historical models) who really only wants peace and the ability to study and be in a garden with bees and rabbits and wuail and ducks and cats and dogs.

Perhaps this makes me Cicero, the strong supporter of one side (The Republic and Pompey) who dithered as much as did any good, was forgiven by the victor, and then killed after his death (although I suppose history remember him far more fondly than the one associated with his killing, Marcus Antonius).

We are, I fear, on the cusp of something as gut wrenching as 9/11, which also fell this week and changed the world after it.

What does that change look like?  I have no idea. If you had asked me 24 years ago what I thought the future would have looked like, it was certainly not this.

Has it changed me?  It has.  Can I speak meaningful about it?  Not now, not yet.  It is still to raw and the enormity of what we have become as a civilization is terrifying to me. 

It really feels like Rome circa 49 B.C.  The question - at least the most relevant question to me - is if the Cicero's of the world have a place in the coming age, whatever it turns out to be.

As we were reminded this week, it is those that seek to write and talk and speak of ideas that are some of the most likely casualties. 

Post Script:  If the event you feel the need to comment on the actual events themselves or express political opinions or even urge violence, do not bother:  these are my own thoughts and not meant to open this forum to the free-for-all of the Interweb.  There are other places that such things can be vented and argued over, and they are easy enough to find.  I can and will delete such comments. 

Essentialism (XXXII): Final (Essential) Thoughts

 Friends:

Thank you so much for your patience and tolerance on this journey. 

I can assure you that when I started to write about Essentialism back in January, I had no intention of making this into what has turned into a 31 week essay, a sort of extended book report that almost exceeds the length of a year of college classes. But the book was too complex, the ideas too nuanced and deep, that anything other than a full examination seemed to do.

It is fair to ask at the end of any journey "Was it worth it?" and "What did you learn?"

Was it worth it? Yes, I believe so.  It has been some time since I have given myself the luxury of focusing on a single book like this.  Reading, and re-reading, and then writing what I read has given me a focus on this idea that I had not anticipated.  In the question of breadth versus depth, I went with depth in this instance.  And I am not disappointed.

What did I learn?  Other than re-introducing myself to the concepts of this book and dwelling on them in more detail (this is not my first journey through it), I might argue it was less of a learning and more of a right timing issue in that - between a relocation and a re-orientation of my life - I was primed to look at my life and the things in it in a new way. Some of these things - for example -the sale of The Ranch - have already manifested themselves as they seemed to have become - in a sense - "non-essential" to my life as it now is.  As I continue to think on these things, I suspect there will be more.

These essays are now collected and posted to a page at the right, both for readers as they need them, but mostly for myself as I need to constantly keep such things in front of me.

There is one final quote I have to offer from McKeown from his last chapter:

"The life of an Essentialist is a life lived without regret.  If you have correctly identified what really matters, if you invest your time and energy in it, then it is difficult to regret the choices you make.  You become proud of the life you have chosen to live."

Or differently said, from the beginning of the book by Mary Oliver:  

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do

 with your one wild and precious life?"

Never Forget 2025

 Growing up when I did, Pearl Harbor Day was something that was punctually remembered every year.

As a pre-teen and middle schooler I had a large interest in World War II for reasons I cannot fully tell you at this time, so - perhaps more so than my peers - I understood what had happened and in a way, what it meant. What I did not really grasp was the visceral punch of the event in a way that made my grandparents; and parents' generation remember it ("celebrate" seems peculiarly inappropriate) as they did.

After September 11th, I got it.

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Gardens By The Bay (II)

 More Gardens by the Bay:

Petrified wood from Indonesia:

This water feature has a visitor:

A monitor lizard?  I am not sure, but he was bigger than I am comfortable with reptiles being.

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Gardens By The Bay (I)

 One of the benefits of having an approximately 10 hour layover in Singapore is that there is an opportunity to take a quick city tour.  The tour is about 2.5 hours so one does not get to see a great deal of the city, but at least one gets out of the airport

Our first stop was Gardens By The Bay, which is a 105 hectare/260 acre set of three gardens which encompass 1.5 million different species of plants. 

These sculptures are called Supertrees.  They are gardens themselves, and allow plants like ferns and vines to flourish.  They also has photovoltaic cells, which allow them to light up at night.

The gardens are filled with plants and sculpture.