Ramblings of an EdMan

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Looking up at Mount Baldy

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Was reading my Facebook wall after work and heard a second hiker died on one of my favorite mountains. The beautiful Mount Baldy that towered over the foothills of Claremont, CA where I lived for two years getting my MBA at the Drucker School.

I miss seeing mountains and had such a beautiful place on Foothill Boulevard (Old Route 66) with the gorgeous Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden across Foothill Boulevard and a clear view of Mount Baldy and the San Gabriel Mountains. I drove up the foothills a few times to Mount Baldy Village and enjoyed looking over the Los Angeles Basin, it’s a huge metropolis. Probably the best views of how big are going south on I-15 from empty desert to vastness and flying in over the basin and seeing all of the cars in red and white.

I remember seeing white on Mount Baldy while wearing a t-shirt and shorts in the 70s down in the foothill town of Claremont. Felt surreal, I missed seasons.

And I remember walking up Mount Baldy with my friends Erik Hansen and Ryan Schnobrich up Mount Baldy through the trees and down through the Devil’s backbone. I think it was late spring, maybe May? I can’t imagine going through that narrow ridge in February. I know my friend Erik went through so many of the peaks of the San Gabriels and Southern California including Mt. Whitney. One of the highest peaks I have ever summited at over 10,000 feet and a glorious day, around 15 years ago now in I think Spring 2001.

Learned today that a two hikers this winter died on Mount Baldy. One Daniel Nguyen trying to save his friend. I grieve for his friends and family. He sounded like a wonderful young man. Another was Dong Ling Xiu who was 48, and died on a day 12 hikers had to be rescued. I am glad the trail is closed.

Here is a beautiful tribute video to Daniel Nguyen, enjoy the outdoors, love our beautiful world and be safe.

“Rumi (for Coleman Banks)” and “Such Silence” by Mary Oliver

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When Rumi went into the tavern
I followed.
I heard a lot of crazy talk
and a lot of wise talk.

But the roses wouldn’t grow in my hair.

When Rumi left the tavern
I followed.
I don’t mean just to pick at
such a famous fellow.
Indeed he was rather ridiculous with his
long beard and his dusty feet.
But I heard less of the crazy talk and
a lot more of the wise talk and I was
hopeful enough to keep listening

until the day I found myself
transformed into an entire garden
of roses.

– Mary Oliver
from Blue Horses: Poems

Her last book “Dog Songs” was my favorite book I have read in the last 12 months.
As someone whose dog Misty saved his life when I was a toddler and slipping on the ice in Wisconsin, blocking me with his strong long-haired collie body.
It’s one of the great reasons Coywolf/Eastern Coyote, the guardian of the suburbs bred from coyotes and the last big group of eastern wolves deep in the wilderness 200 miles north of Toronto, Canada appeals to my spirits.
The coywolf is an animal that can walk through suburban neighborhoods often unseen by humans, if seen in one shot in the wonderful “Nature” episode “Meet the Coywolf” by a cat.

I really think that my cat Squiggy who greets everyone at the door when they come in and says welcome to my house please pet me, is dog spirit.
His brother Lenny is the trickster who hides when guests arrive and likes to love through bites and play.
They are together coywolf spirits.

Please buy Mary Oliver’s last two books they are excellent.

And I would of course love to interview her on my The Poetry Conversation podcast.

A second poem I was touched by even deeper is about an old stone bench, very, very old .. such silence

———–

Such Silence

As deep as I ever went into the forest
I came upon an old stone bench, very, very old,
and around it a clearing, and beyond that
trees taller and older than I had ever seen.

Such silence!
It really wasn’t so far from a town, but it seemed
all the clocks in the world had stopped counting.
So it was hard to suppose the usual rules applied.

Sometimes there’s only a hint, a possibility.
What’s magical, sometimes, has deeper roots
than reason.
I hope everyone knows that.

I sat on the bench, waiting for something.
An angel, perhaps.
Or dancers with the legs of goats.

No, I didn’t see either. But only, I think, because
I didn’t stay long enough.

also from “Blue Horses: Poems” by Mary Oliver,
The Penguin Press, 2014

Wow. This hits very deep into my spiritual practices.
Hearing the water and hearing the birds.
Feeling the wind.
Connecting deeply with a tree in a three cauldrons meditation and checking in to see if the cauldrons of your gut, heart and head have their cauldrons up, sideward or down. The three cauldrons mediation is powerful for me. The first time I did it, I saw the snarls of people who are in crisis not getting care. Of people who in ERs and prisons, by police officers and well intentioned professionals are placed in frightening areas.

May we all work to be like Spring Harbor Hospital in Portland, Maine and realize that patients are much better off in a ward where they can talk to nurses who will listen and hear their concern.

It calms their fire. It definitely calmed mine in 2013. This book today is helping me know. Outstanding!

And I am also happy that I waited in front of the Vietnamese Buddhist temple here in Ansonia. It is a place I will need to spend my Sundays to balance the fire of creativity going through me out.

edmund

For We Have Been Touched by Magic

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There is a line in a chant we using at the closing circle at Rites of Spring, a pagan gathering we go to every Memorial Day weekend in the Berkshires called Rites of Spring. “For we have been touched by magic, and the magic will make us whole.”

Maine is beautiful, it’s a special place. Portland is a magical city.

But since we have moved to North State Street in Ansonia, CT the place ahs been touched by magic. When my wife saw the two benches in the gravel she immediately thought it was a Fairie garden. It seemed touched with something special.

The song of crickets at night makes my soul happy. All of the beautiful rocks. The old trees. The old houses. It’s beautiful.

The amazing view across the valley, special. Seeing insects lit up by the late evening sun looking like little fairies.

Bees loving the wildflowers, playing with the pollen and being happy.

The world would be a better place if we planted gardens over grass. Better for the local wildlife. Prettier. Food during the harvest. Canning. Old ways.

Also less gas used, less sameness, less blah.

Not sure when planned communities in beige with bizarre homeowners association rules and sameness became desirable.

Feeling touched by magic in the local forest. I am a forest person.

Going from the beautiful Ansonia Nature Center and exploring off trail into the Naugatuck State Forest. Getting lost, feeling the spirit of the trees, stumps and old rocks. Feeling the energy of the land. I am feeling deeply connected here.

Who know I may have some roots here. My ancestors in America go back a long way, a lot fo them in the 17th and 18th Century. I know I have some roots in Mexico, Maine wondering if I have roots in the valley.

This area built things. Rivers like the Naugatuck, and the Presumpcot which goes through Westbrook, Maine and was the most dammed river in the US per mile not long ago, were industrial corridors. The United States, used to build things. Ansonia was a copper center, Waterbury a center of Brass, Westbrook a paper town, tires made in the Valley working people.

Beautiful old mills, sometimes destroyed, sometimes converted to beautiful use. Like the North Dam Mill in Biddeford, ME and the Dana Warp Mill in Westbrook, Maine.

I heard a rumor while fixing my car that the huge copper mills in Ansonia are due to be torn down too. I hope they are made into a park. I would rather they were converted into something cool and beautiful. I need to ride the Metro North to Waterbury and go through them before they go.

I have heard everyone in Derby and Ansonia knows each other. I need to get into those circles and I think I will be a lot happier. It’s a matter of time.

I do like the neighborhood and it’s a special place. And touched by magic.

eddie