Before railing against foreigners I think we all must look carefully at each of our own families’ travels across the planet and stop seeing differences and start seeing brothers and sisters.  Depending on which sides of my family history I look at I am either 3^rd or 4^th generation on this continent. There are many whose families came here before mine. Does that make me a foreigner to this place? I think so, in the sense of nationalistic boundaries. However I don’t think of myself as anything more than a human being  and this planet  is where humanity originates so far as I can tell, therefore none of us are foreigners, are we?   But more importantly what difference does it make? Yes there have been injustices. Yes there have been many things people have done to each other under many flags and under many beliefs that are based upon perceptions of difference and ignorance that have caused divisions. We as a planet are no longer ignorant unless we want to be or are made so by others. Information is available unless we are deprived the ability to find it and learn. Hate and fear are born of ignorance and compassion comes with understanding.  Everybody is different in some way, when people move from one place to another for economic or political reasons they tend to do it when they are in dire need to do so... Others are wanting for reasons of circumstance or misfortune what place is it of ours to judge our brethren?

Mark 14:7 “For you have the poor with you always, and whenever you will you may do them good: but me you have not always.” Matthew 26:11” For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good; by feeding them when hungry, clothing them when naked, and supplying them with the necessaries of life. ..“

We have the understanding that there will always be a need to lend help to some portion of our population and that it is something moral, necessary, and humane. Weather it is a function of government depends on your view of the term “welfare”.  As a rule government holds several keys to maintaining civil society, those being, to provide for general health, safety, and welfare of the society over which it governs. It is well known that the welfare of a society reaches to every member so to ignore the poorest in society (which also in many human societies is the most numerous group) would be done at risk of insurrection. Here in this country the amount in dollars given to keep the peace among the destitute is far less than the amount needed to rebuild a nation. It is also a minute amount as compared to the cost of policing the entire world,which we seem to be intent on as some righteous or upstanding gesture. We should consider our morality closely when we offer the world charity to help in times of need, billions of dollars, and yet many of our children are hungry at school. Is it any wonder that the rest of the world cringes when we as a nation send our Billions in aid abroad with a benevolent smile while our armies stand ready to sweep in and “keep the peace”  with trillions in arms to back them up?

After all - with family (both our direct family and our globally extended family) 

 ” If we fail to look after others when they need help, who will look after us?” ― Siddhārtha Gautama

shouldn't we look after others without threats, without malice or disrespect?    

 This is indeed the land of opportunity and as a species we have taken every opportunity we could. Now look carefully at where we are and what the future looks like for our brothers and sisters. I think we are blinded by chauvinism of a perception that the “American way of life” is somehow eternal.  The admonition of Siddhartha Gautama that “nothing is forever except change” should be paid some great attention by those people who are not willing to see that they live in a world of change.  We also live in a world where we are constantly moving to survive. We have been migrating across our big blue marble for as long as humanity's existence.

Some paleoanthropologists have suggested that the early ancestors of North Americas first peoples  may have been responsible for a more rapid extinction of many species of large game (paleomegafauna) when they were beginning to expand into the new world many thousands of years ago.  People have been changing the planet like other life has changed it before us and will change it after we go. To say our existence does not change the planet is put simply – ignorant. We as a species are not that much different today from the first peoples of the major land masses in the northern hemisphere as we migrated from the southern hemisphere of this planet after the glaciers began to recede.  We gobble up resources and destroy the cycles of life to suit our desires. This is and has been and may be both a wildly successful survival strategy, and our inevitable down fall. The more successful we become, the more rapid the resource consumption. Sooner or later there must be a limit unless we discover an escape hatch to the stars and there we find more resources to consume to feed our continued growth…

Have we changed the planet?  – I think the evidence is clear indeed we have.  Good, bad, indifferent? We have yet to tell, because in the time span of the planet we are nothing more than a recent blemish on the surface of a very slowly changing system. Weather we have made a scratch in the skin of the environment that will heal in time or we have punctured an artery and it will cause our inevitable demise is still a future we must wait to see. Either way we are all children of the same mother and are fighting as siblings do. But we must at some point grow up to see that the squabbling is about nothing and the real task of living on our little rock is to do it well with some small amount of comfort and security.  Together we can have that comfort and security through compassion and understanding. Fighting and separation by economic or other types of warfare simply provide discord and distress that further alienate and segregate the peoples of the planet, the siblings of us all. Mohandas Gandhi use a simple idea of personal industry to help raise the standard of living in India and that idea of personal industry is at work around the globe. But industry no matter how small takes investment. Investment by both the society and the individual is critical to starting a self sustaining human enterprise no matter the size.  

 The few bucks we spend on helping those who need it in our own nation are so minute as compared to the amounts spent on other things I wonder if those people who are opposed to the expense are simply angry and mean spirited because they have been treated badly, dealt a bad hand, or have never wondered where the next meal is going to come from. Perhaps they are just sociopathic fascists with no conscience. It makes me wonder what leader they would follow when the global distribution chains we have built are broken again and the world becomes a very uncomfortable place. We all will migrate to food and resources and struggle to simply survive as immigrants and foreigners in what may become more than a hostile political landscape………

So many things to get done

So many things to get done and so little time to bring all the pieces together for another seasons end. Seeds and potato starts, more vines, and a hope for this last years plantings to survive through the winter. A new hoop house, and a larger cold frame await the plants which will be sprouting soon for the colder season. The bulbs are planted and the weather is switching from summer to fall from day to day. The house and the barn need the annual painting and oiling to preserve them through another swing around the seasons and there is upkeep and tidying out in the meadow, and the animal yard still needs to be done. The vehicles all need attention and there is always other handiwork which seems to pile up regardless the amount of attention payed to accomplishing it.
An old friend who visited recently commented on how he was amazed by what I have accomplished and how much he wished he could get more done. It felt good to have praise for the things that are done but what of those I have yet to do? The yet undone seems to become larger and the bits I am able to accomplish seem to shrink......
 I have always kept in mind that in order to make any journey or accomplish anything I must keep focus, taking each bit in turn, and no matter what move forward as best I am able. The focus part has been the most difficult for my entire life. I am reminding myself constantly as my mind flashes between a myriad of projects to do, and partly done, to focus on the most attainable, to organize the resources for those which are partly accomplished and to plan for those which continually are presented by the wear and tear of life.

Reflection

It has been a long time since I have had the time to sit down and write - The children have all changed their positions in life and I have watched as another season has entered and exited.

 I have recently returned from my almost annual pilgrimage to the wilderness for a respite and recovery from the maddening world we have created for ourselves. I have returned from my journey with a new perspective on my season and am beginning to understand that the most important gift I have to give is passing on as much of the skills and craft and lore that I have gathered  over my life. Not that I won't continue to gather more, but passing on what I have learned to insure the knowledge and craft is not lost. Insuring that the skills and nuance of true craft are there to peak the interest and captivate the desire for learning and provide for the skills and understanding the future may need to remember. Just how to teach the skills and craft I have accumulated is going to be a challenge......Getting interest generated is difficult with all the distractions we have.

I was reflecting on great books and how they provided for getting along in our world, and provide a code which, if followed, provides a reasonable amount of sanity dealing with each other in our societies. There are other books and electronic resources which provide recipes for concocting all manner of things, or building any device or structure you may wish, but the true transfer of skill and craftsmanship seems no longer a necessity for making a livelihood. It is lost as a structured part of the educational process. Mastery is now a personal thing rather then a trade learned by apprenticeship. I do not mean to discount the trades and apprenticeships which still exist, there are still many but far fewer than were part of our societies even three generations ago. Some of the skills and craft I know of from my family's past are gone.....or at least they no longer require hand craftsmanship, machines have the replaced the skills and we no longer toil at those things.
But is that better? What have we lost? Have we traded away things of great value? What have we gained?