Wheels Within Wheels

One of the differences between what we create and what is created is that everything that we create has a singular purpose... to serve us. Because of this, the things we make fall infinitely flat compared to the natural world around us. Take for example, orange candy, compared to an orange. Yes, orange candy is good... but compared to an orange, with it's nutrients, tiny compartments of juice, even the oil in its skin, the candy just doesn't stand a chance. Beyond this, it is the marriage of purposes, the purpose of the orange, to propagate by giving us something that both pleases and benefits us, that creates a synergy between us and our surroundings. Our world is not singular, and not there just for us, even though we imagine that it should be. It consists of tiny worlds, joined together to make the

whole, but each of those tiny worlds is complete unto itself. It is our massive human audacity that accounts for our ignorance of  these and because of this, we fail to see the depth of what is around us. It is television, in its flat imitation, or even  fairly awful 3D. It is canned, simplified and served to us as a severe second to what is already there in nature, and in our hubris, we choose what we have created over what we were created to be a part of.

Sometimes when I am walking, I stop, and look. It doesn't matter where I am. Anywhere in the park, if I choose to pay attention, I can find something else's world, working in its tiny mechanism, fitting in to mine. This is why we can draw from nature to understand ourselves. It is because we are a part of this larger system, and try as we might,  we will always fall short in creating systems for ourselves. Thoreau had it right when he advised to "Grow wild according to thy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which will never become English bay. Let the thunder rumble; what if it threaten ruin to farmers' crops? That is not its errand to thee. Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee

to carts and sheds. Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs." We have no need of loneliness. We have overstressed our self-importance and because of this have, to some degree lost our places in the shadow of our ability. We do have a place in this world, one not of our own construction, but a place that it is infinite in its depth and waiting for us outside of our own doors. 

grace and bedcovers

It is four something in the morning. I am up. This was precipitated by a direct sequence of events that lead to my being up too early. Here's the run down: I opened my eyes. The moon was so bright that it cast a small bluish square of light onto my bedroom floor. I thought about how bright the moon was. I realized that I didn't have any blankets because my wife had taken them all. I thought about the wrestling match between "grace" and "rights." I was up. 

So, lets be honest, I was up a little before I thought about the difference between "grace" and "rights." Actually, I was up as soon as I thought about how bright the moon was. As soon as I actually think, make my brain work, I am a gonner. The two reasons I am writing this morning are that the moon was so beautiful and it was casting these networks of shadows on the snow... and because I had some clear, the kind of clear that thoughts can take on as soon as you wake up, thoughts about grace, and how difficult it can be. When I say "grace" I am really saying God's grace. Yes, I am talking about God, and it is four in the morning. 

You can blame this bit of writing on Jenny, who stole all of the covers. We don't heat the upstairs in our house. We can do this because we had a good friend, who is an incredible insulator, insulate the upstairs of our house, and because we have very warm blankets. It is never cold upstairs, but it can get pretty cool and I love the combination of cool and warm blankets. At any rate, the warm blankets weren't helping this morning because Jenny took them all, and I was cold...cool... whatever. I thought about just grabbing them back, and I thought that would be kind of useless because I am already up in my mind and I knew I wouldn't be going back to sleep anyway. And then I thought that I had a right to those blankets because I had bought them. Rights: what we somehow deserve because of obligation or ownership. I think that "rights" are really comforting. I knew that I could take back those blankets because I had a right to, even if it did risk the wrath of waking Jenny. 

I go to a church that is big on God's grace. Honestly, I am thankful for that. I believe that God is good, and is love, and loves freely and well. This is a great thing, I think, but in this idea of massive benevolence, grace can be a bit hard to swallow. If all of the big things, forgiveness, salvation, kindness, if all of these things are given to me through grace, than I have no real right to them. I have been in churches that have "built in" methods of having a right to them, through sacraments like "Confirmation" and through more subtle, but just as, and even more, powerful rights of passage like public confession of faith and even justified ways of living every-day life. Some churches that I have belonged to hang an incredible amount of weight on the actions of their parishioners. These actions are the justification for the rights that we have to God's grace. And although those parishioners might deny that fact, just break a few key ones and you will quickly see that the doors to that church will be shut, or in more acurate terms, the means of finding the same idea that they have of "grace" will be quickly taken away. There is an underlying, and I believe man-made, system that we have built to recieving and "deserving" God's grace, and it is huge and it is strong. I think it might just be the cornerstones of the modern Evangelical Protestant church, and it is there because having no rights to the most important aspect of faith: justification and grace, is really difficult. 

Without a right, without laying a claim to those things, I can only rely on the constant kindness of the one who is giving them, and that can get old. It clashes with our system in America. We earn, through hard work and contracts, the things that make us secure. Taking these things without earning them violates several major social norms in modern American culture. I have a house because I went to college and earned the degrees which enabled me to get a job that I work at in order to earn enough money to float a mortgage and buy food, and buy oil for heat. All of the niceties in my house, the couch that I am sitting on, this computer, internet access, all of these are earned either regularly, or sporadically by my working. If I am able, I am to work for these. What if they were all just given to me? What if they were given to everyone? It would completely upset the balance of our society. Those with the biggest houses in town would not have the, what amounts to somewhat abstract claim, justifying their ownership of them. The rich would not be rich because of either luck, or work, or family inheritance.

 If God's grace is more meaningful than all of those things, and I think it is, than it is difficult to even think about it just being given to everyone. Everyone. Every Buddhist, Christian, Hobo, Gay, Straight, Royal Family member, Middle Eastern, American, Food stamp receiver, Heroin addict, Self-centered overly-rich Celebrity, Reckless teenager, Terrorist, Defiant curmudgeon, Wealthy socialite, Middle School Teacher. Everyone. "Deserving" cannot be written on that list. It is a foreign word to "grace," and if we can't earn it, how do we know we can have it? Like the my bed covers. I could have taken them back. They were mine, well, half-mine at least. I bought them. Without ownership, without rights, all we have to rely on is the hope that the one giving it to us won't stop, which is essentially, in God's case, a deep down, vital belief that God is good, caring, and will never stop being so, to everyone, not based on how deserving they are, but based entirely on how good He is. Not being able to earn the most essential aspects of our faith is humbling. I must align myself with every other non-deserving person that approaches this God. I have nothing to base my worth on... accept that this God, who loves everyone, loves me. No hierarchy here. No wages. No system. Just foodstamps, handed out to everyone, so we can live humbly and learn to value everyone around us on a different, all encompassing system of worth, not based on ourselves, but on the love that God has shown all of us. 

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Higgins

Medusa Head Plate

I know that the title of this blog would lead you to believe that I am only going to focus on being outside with my dog... but my life does go beyond that, and so, my blog will as well.

Besides, today should be recorded. At precisely 3:30 in the afternoon today, Worcester Massachusetts

lost one of the coolest things it possessed. Higgins Armory closed forever today. It had survived 83 years as a private collection of arms and armor. John Higgins, an industrialist in the early 1900's started collecting armor on his many trips to Europe. He created and sustained both the building and the collection. When he died he left the museum $17,000 to continue displaying his collection. This really wasn't a lot of money, but through creative means, the trusties (his children among them) found ways to stretch that initial money into over 80 years of presentation. All of the pieces are now going to be displayed at the Worcester Art Museum. For those familiar with WAM, what is now the library will be the entire collection of arms and armor. They intend to make the entire collection visible at all times to visitors.

I couldn't let the place close without one final visit. Our whole family set out this morning and got

there about ten minutes before the museum opened. As you can see, and as we certainly expected, there was a line. But it moved fast enough and soon we were through the think wooden doors that lead into the Great Hall. I love the Great Hall. It is just as it should be,  two stories tall with barrel vaulted ceilings and a rose window at one end. I remember going there when I was little. I thought we were going to have to drive all day to go there. The place hasn't changed a whole lot. The collection, I believe, is now static. The good thing about museums, is that the collection is always the collection: A dagger and sheath from 700 BCE is still from 700 BCE, it is just a tiny bit older than when I saw it the first time.

There is something special about the middle ages. I know it has been nearly romanticized to death, but hell even the word "romanticized" stems from that time period. The Arthurian Romances (a name given them because of their association with Rome and then redefined into our modern understanding of romance because of the chivalry and lustiness present within Arthurian Legends) reached into who I am, and really the whole world, and found that part of us that valued chivalry and honor, strength

and purity of spirit and purpose. I still have a collection of his tales given to me by my first girlfriend tucked nicely in my library. Suits of Armor are really far more than protective technology, they symbolize, through tales sung by bards and passed down through Oral tradition to audiences of peasants and royalty alike, the true mettle of the human spirit. Beowulf did fight Grendel and the dragons deep under the thick water of a black and poison pond, but also found himself questioning the fate of a world that was slowly turning away from superstition and toward religion. Arthur's true glory wasn't in his might as a warrior, but in his undying spirit and thirst for a justice tempered by mercy embodied in his sword Excalibur. Legend states that his messianic return to Britain waits for them to turn toward the type of purity in justice that he offered.

I understand why John Higgins wanted to collect these pieces. Yes he was a steel worker, and I am sure that on the surface the artistry of the process appealed to him, but I think we go there to feel a bit of Arthur's presence again.

the "Bilbo" Blade

The place is filled with Viking weapons, knights' swords with their own names (like Bilbo! If this sword weren't encased in glass I don't know if I would have been able to resist touching it ... waiting... hoping that that blade would start to glow blue.) armor that was made as much for beauty as it was for self-preservation. Even the wood working is so foreign and at the same time familiar.

I will miss you, breezy, silver building.
Goodbye to Higgins Armory. May the ghosts of the knights that once inhabited those suits of armor still walk your halls.
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why I follow coyotes

You went to a library. It was a new one, but a very old one, in the middle of some old New England town. It was made of brick, or of stone. It was weathered and you touched the outside walls by instinct, just to see if they would crumble a bit in your hand. The doors creaked when you walked in and the Librarian, who was old, hunched, wearing those glasses with the little chains attached to the sides so they wouldn't fall too far if they were to suicidally attempt to jump off of her face, looked up at you slightly annoyed, leaving you with that pleasant feeling of slight intrusion. You walked past her and past the new part of the library that was sadly made of metal and bolts and wandered up the stairs that were railed with thick wooden rails. The steps curved their way upward toward the older part of the library. There were long-unused fireplaces threateningly placed precariously close to the old, dented wooden shelves that held the low-traffic books about things like the history of various neighboring towns and about the architectural significance of a selection of buildings in Boston. You could smell these books. You walked down an aisle that was a little too close to your shoulders and found a green, high-backed seat, sitted crookedly across from another fireplace that had forgotten its purpose a hundred years ago and you sat, because honestly, who could resist it? The chair felt good and a little hard in spots. In front of you rested a smaller shelf of books that was inset in the wall, hidden behind a little sliding glass door. One book was a history of the library itself, and because the aisle completely hid you from view, you reached out and tried to slide the little glass door aside. And it slid. You waited a second, glanced up and around you, because that what burglers do on TV and you picked up the book. 

A small click sounded somewhere behind you. You felt it more than heard it as it resonated through the wooden frame of the green high-backed chair. You noticed now, that the book was previously resting on a small platform that had raised ever so slightly when you picked up the book. You turned to try to look behind you and noticed that one of the wooden panels in the wall, about three feet high, sat slightly ajar. 

"Oh God," you thought as a feeling that was born of every Hardy Boy novel and Scooby Doo episode you ever saw welled up in your chest. 

And you went in.

This is why I follow coyote trails. They lead places, places that only the coyotes know about, and I want to

go there too. I walked this morning with Chauc, down roads that I have jogged on and walked well over hundreds of times. The winter illuminates things that are hidden in the leaves of the other seasons. Snow collects in the spaces and is tramped down by things that travel during the cold months. I have passed by this trail innumerable times, but I noticed it today. So I went in, because honestly, who could resist it? After it's initial opening in the brush, the trial wound its way,through a dense little pine forest that carpeted the floor with brown needles that must somehow generate their own heat, they always seem to be void of snow, and then through closely grouped pillars of young birch trees. The snow here had faded away from the path, but the coyotes had travelled here a lot and the snow had packed down to a white-emblazoned trail that cut clearly through the woods. I didn't walk far, maybe a quarter of a mile, and the path crossed over an old stone wall. The woods opened up and out to the wetlands and a promontory made entirely of discarded rocks left there by a farmer that had run out of land to line them up into walls on. The rock-island was probably no larger than fifteen feet across and was tucked into a small bay in the wetland. To the left, past a beaver hut that met all three of the real-estate "L's", the way opened up to a view of blowing grass and ice, to the right the way was completely enclosed in massive looming Hemlocks. I was alone and in a place of beauty.

I know where this is, and apart from the coyotes and an occasional deer, I think I may be the only one who does. 

Tolkien knew this feeling well, in his Lothlorians, and Lewis, and Thoreau. There is beauty hidden just out of sight, and it remains the property of those who seek it out. 

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remnant

"Winter remnant" is the term for those elements of a plant that are left bereft of apparent life throughout the long stretches of winter here in New England.  It's such a thick word, "remnant": what remains. A sign that something existed here before. It is a brittle word. Something that you could crush with your hands and slowly grind to powder. It implies that something has left. That what has

been is now vacant, excepting the evidence that it was here previously. It is a grey-brown word. A hard word. A word that follows death, and yet, at least with these plants, that is not at all true. The plants are still here, and they certainly haven't died. Their root system lies just beneath my feet, lying dormant. "Dormant" is a much better word. It implies that life is waiting.

I wonder if death is true. 

I wonder if dormancy is a much more proper term. 

If we are to inform ourselves using the only true evidence of life: the world around us, death, at least in this massive family of plants, is at most temporary, and at least, untrue. 

Rutland State Park is full of winter remnant. The world this morning, except for Chaucer, Henry,

Myself, and a small group of Cardinals and Blue jays, was for all appearances...gone past. Waiting silently. Henry laughed when I told him that the only thing moving in the park this morning was the river. He told me that Chaucer, who has been kept inside by how dark the early mornings are before I go to work, was certainly not still. He was running, frantically trying to "remark" all of the old marking places that his scent used to dominate.

The frogs are dug deep into muck and tucked soundly into deep pockets of broken bark, body temperatures lowered to between 45 and 49 degrees. Grey Tree Frogs freeze rock hard in the winter. If you were to pick one up, it would feel exactly like a stone. 

Waiting. 

Painted turtles sleep down deep in the muddy world at the bottom of ponds. Bears hibernate.

Squirrels are in their nests. Chipmunks lie several feet underground in hordes of collected acorns and nuts. The world is just waiting to come back to life.

This morning I thought that I might take a lesson from the plants. I might choose to look at life through the seasons and allow myself to believe that maybe death isn't final... nothing in life suggests that it is. 

Maybe "dormancy" is a better word. 

It implies waiting. 

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Persimmon Pudding with Rum Pomegrenate Glaze

When one lives with a Henry (my super inquisitive, obnoxiously smart, nine year old) one is pushed into the far edges of culture and human experience. I know more, vicariously collecting knowledge through Henry's explorations, about jellyfish than any adult should. I thought I was fairly knowledgeable about Comic books... no. Not even close. I am now asked daily, in fact just now again from a little pajama clad Henry flitting around the living room in pajama bottoms, about my favorite X-man, Marvel, D.C. Nation, Pokemon...etc figures, and the normal ones just won't do. No, I am carried into the deep recesses of the archives of long dead heroes. The ones that only appeared in a couple of comics back in the 60's.

Holidays are not immune to his influence. Thanksgiving is now partially an exploration of early American and British exile culture. We can not make pumpkin pie. We must dig through the resources of fringe websites, and literary journals scouring site archives of sites like Old Sturbridge Village, looking for legitimate recipes that the early settlers did eat. And then, we must attempt to make those recipes. We must try to emulate a fireplace oven and find or simulate archaic cooking tools to make legitimate our efforts at Thanksgiving meal.

It really isn't as bad as all that.

Actually, its pretty fun. Hard sometimes, but definitely fun. Yesterday (and today's) effort was Persimmon Pudding. This isn't a pudding as we know it today. These puddings are from the mid 1700's and were popular among the British citizens both in the homeland and in the colonies. Earlier forms of these steamed puddings involved meat and some sort of grain for use as a binder. Sailors would boil their rations in this way much of time. Blood sausage and other "sausages" were made this way. Eventually, all of the blood... meat... and other savory things were phased out and what remains is the desert puddings. Even these are slowly being lost to the modern definition of pudding.

Steamed puddings are really super super moist breads that develop deep flavors through the carmelization of sugars in what amounts to hours of steaming.  They generally involve some sort of fruit and grain along with other preserved ingredients. This specific pudding also has those amazing Thanksgiving spices (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, etc) and has a spice cake quality. Like many old world deserts, it isn't overly sweet, so it benefits from some sort of glaze.

I used, and adapted a recipe that Henry and I found in the Old Sturbridge Village document archives. Here is the version that we came up with:

Pudding:
1 stick of butter
1 cup white sugar
4 ripe (These really need to be ripe. They should feel a bit like a water balloon) persimmons
1 Tbs Rum
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of baking soda
2 table spoons of hot water
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 capful of real vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
1 teaspoon of ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 a cup of walnuts
1 cup of dried cranberries

Glaze:
1/2 Tbs Butter (melted)
1 1/2 cups of confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon of Rum
1 to 2 Tbs of milk

1 pomegranate (taken apart and juiced... reserve 1/2 cup of unbroken pips (those little red juicy guys))
1/4 cup of sugar

Directions

Cream the Butter and sugar in a stand mixer. Peel and seed the persimmons. This is a deceptively easy and messy task if your persimmons are truly ripe. Just cut the things in half and squeeze the pulp into a bowl. Pull out the seeds (they're about as big as Lima beans... so not easy to miss). Dump the pulp into a food processor and process until the fiber break down a bit. Just a few good pulses should do. In a bowl, lightly beat the eggs, combine with the pulp, rum, and the baking soda slurry (combine the warm water and the baking soda).  Add this to the creamed butter and sugar, alternating with the flour, while the mixer is running on medium slow. Let the mixer run for about five minutes or so. While it's mixing, in a bowl, combine the vanilla, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, walnuts and cranberries. After the mixer has run for five minutes, add the spice/nut mix to the bowl and run the mixer on slow just to combine it all.

So... I don't have a pudding mold. Nor, will I be buying one anytime soon. But, I did have a bundt cake  mold, which is almost like a pudding mold. The big deal here, is whatever you choose to use, it should have a hole in the middle. I don't think that the thing will set if you were to just try to boil it in a mixing bowl. So, bundt cake pan. Take the pan and butter the heck out of it. This is going to want to stick, so it really needs to be well buttered. Pudding molds have tops that clamp down tight so they can steam without taking on water. I decided to try just using tinfoil, and it seemed to work well. Butter a sheet of tinfoil just like the bundt cake pan. Poor the batter into the pan and then put the tinfoil on the top of the pan, making sure to get a really tight seal along the edge of the pan. The pan I used was one of those coated jobbies so things release easily, and it had a nice lip around the edge. I think I lucked out a couple of times there. The lip made it easy to really crimp the tinfoil around the edge, creating a nice seal. Find a big pot. Mine had to be really big... actually I used a lobster pot that we had down stairs. Put the bundt cake pan in the pot and then fill the big pot with water until it reaches half way up the sides of the bundt cake pan. I took special care here not to let the water get on the tinfoil... I don't know why, it just didn't seem like that would be a good thing.

Get the water boiling and immediately reduce it to a slow simmer. Put a cover on the big pot and simmer this thing for a full two hours. No lie... two hours. You might want to make sure periodically that the water hasn't evaporated. Mine didn't. I did have to make several adjustments throughout the steaming to maintain a slow simmer though. At the end, peel a bit of the tinfoil back (yes I did burn myself here, I was good about the tinfoil, but I didn't expect the steam inside the pudding mold to get me when I peeled the tinfoil back) and stick a skewer in. It should come out clean.

This next bit is tough. Reseal the tinfoil and somehow, get the the bundt cake pan out of the big pan... not gonna lie here... this was pretty hard. I ended up carefully using a couple of kitchen towels and quickly, got the edge of the thing and picked it up.

Take the tinfoil off and let the pan sit and cool for another hour. Make sure it isn't warm anymore when you attempt to take take it out. I took a plate and put it over the of the bundt cake pan and then inverted the whole thing. It just came right out nicely for me. When the pudding is nice and cool (I did this this morning) make the icing.

The icing is nice and easy. Combine the butter, vanilla, rum and 1 Tbs of milk. Mix it with a fork until it is combined. If you want it to be thinner, just keep adding a little bit of milk until it gets to the consistency you want. I actually made mine a bit too thin. Spoon it over the top of the pudding and let it run down the sides.

Take the pomegranate pips and crush them in between two mixing bowls fitted inside of each other. (see the picture). Press down and pour the juice out. Mix them up and press again, do this as many times as you can. Take the juice and in a small pot combine it with the sugar. Simmer it down until a stripe that you make with your finger stays on the back of a wooden spoon. It will seem a bit liquidy, but when you let it cool it will get syrupy. I let it cool till it reached about room temperature in another little mixing bowl. Put the reserved pomegranate pips along the top and sides of the pudding, and then drizzle the pomegranate syrup lightly along the top. Take care not to completely overrun the icing. I then took the excess syrup and poured some of it on the pomegranate pips on the outside edge of the pudding.

That's about it. I'll tell you how it tasted after tonight's Thanksgiving meal. Did I tell you that I love Thanksgiving? I love Thanksgiving.

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Eye of Newt

Eye of newt, and toe of frog

Wing of bat, and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork, and blind worm's sting

Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a Hell-broth, boil and bubble

Shakespeare doesn't normally show up on my morning walks, but He did this morning. These are one of my favorite little guys in the fall. They are really around all year long, but the heat and undergrowth keeps them hidden under logs and such. In the fall, they start to show up, brazenly walking along the dirt roads of Rutland State Park. They can be brazen too... because they're poisonous. There really aren't too many poisonous animals in New England, but these guys are. They are pretty special little guys actually. Several myths, other than Shakespeare's nice archaic addition, exist surrounding salamanders. One is that they are oblivious to fire. This probably comes from the fact that they live in wet logs... which may repel the heat of a fire for a while. When the fire finally gets too hot, the salamander leaves and crawls (hopefully) out of the fire. Also, they tend to be brightly colored or spotted with bright colors. This little guy certainly is.

The Eastern Red Spotted Newt. This is it's land phase, and when they're in their land phase, they're called an even more ethereal-greek, Narniac, Harry-Potterish sounding name, an Eft. Sounds like they should be hanging out with Mr. Tumnus. I know they're poisonous, but it certainly doesn't stop me from picking them up every time I see one. There is something about their little feet... I don't know... just so cute! They don't bite, like a snake, and even if they did I would be fine. The poison isn't in their saliva, it comes out of their skin when they are attacked. That's one of the reasons that they are so brightly colored when in their land phase. If a naive Robin were to take one for a meal, he would probably not forget the stomach problems he would have after. No more bright orange salamanders for him. When the EFT is in either of its water phases, it is green with a yellow or orangeish belly. The bright  red spots on its back remain. 

They live a pretty long life, upward of 15 to 25 (one actually lived in containment for 25) years. The first few years they live in the water, they are an undeveloped juvenile. They then move to their land phase and can stay on land for seven years. When they are fully adults and ready to mate, they move back to the water and live out their days there. 

Shakespeare's witches in Macbeth weren't far off in their potion making. I mean they are poisonous, and if they really needed an eyeball to make the thing especially piquant, then a newt would probably be a good choice. They can grow them back. Newts have a layer of cells hugging close to their "rods and cones" called a retinal pigment epithelium. This is pretty much a series of stem cells that convert new growing cells into those necessary to grow the whole thing back. Scientists are obviously picking out their eyes by the hundreds and harvesting the cells. Actually, they are being contained in a nice building in Rensselaer, New York.  

I don't pick out their eyeballs. I just think they are about the cutest thing you could probably pick up in New England in the fall. 

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