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Thursday, July 19, 2012

07/19/12- Preparations


“We are on a mission from God.”

The Blues Brothers (The original, not that crappy sequel)

I finished Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie, again, and have started on William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways and Carolyn Baker's Sacred Demise. These books feel like conversations with good friends- sometimes sad friends, but simapitcos.

Christianity has a saying, “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” Most Faiths have something similar, but that's the best known version. For me, it's that smoothness when I'm “in the groove.” When I'm not, it's like I'm constantly bashing my head against obstacles and clashing with dunderheads.

As Joseph Campbell put it, “Follow your bliss.”

It was that way with Garden Goddess. We built the greenhouse, and things easily fell into place. People we needed to know just showed up. Chances to spread the word competed for our time. Not that it wasn't hard work, but it was work that flowed.

That changed. Yes, our greenhouse manual was selling. Yes, people were building greenhouses. Yes, we had speaking engagements. But, we ran into more obstacles. People started to get weird on us- Ones who should have been partners ignored us or got in our way. Connections and plans that should have worked out, didn't. We could feel that the context had shifted. I started saying to myself, “My work here is done.” We needed to rethink things.

With this trip and writing work, I'm back in the groove. Improbable but significant people have just shown up to be a part of it. I was prepared to camp, but folks all along the way have offered beds.

Carol's story is Carol's story to tell, but I'll just say that she's having similar synchronicities and bliss.


“I'm off to get my life-sustaining supplies- corn meal and gunpowder and ham hocks and guitar strings.”
Yukon Cornelius, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

My, that preface got out of hand! What I was originally going to write about was going for trip supplies. Yesterday I went to the Big City out here, Willmar, population about 20,000. Don't laugh. That would have been considered a city anywhere on Earth clear up until about a century ago- context matters.

As I sat having lunch in my favorite Chinese buffet, finishing Travels with Charlie, and people watching, I got the feeling of being in Rome a few years before the barbarians invaded, or Pompeii before Vesuvius blew. No, not quite Rome- they knew what a threat the barbarians were. There was an episode of Doctor Who a while back that made the point- The Pompeiians didn't really know what a volcano WAS. They had no concept of the danger they were in.

Maybe both apply. Some people understand what kind of trouble we're in, but most don't. The insight that developed from last weekend's incident at the theatre, see my Lessons on Human Nature, is that they literally CAN'T. Getting angry and arguing with them is useless. It would be like arguing with that pleasant Down's Syndrome fellow the other night.

We must each ask, “What am I doing?” not “Who am I arguing with?” or “What fruitless protest am I involved with?”





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