not native fruit

the museum of extraordinary things + jane eyre

I enjoyed this book!  Love Alice Hoffman's writing style: so vivid and sensate.  Enjoyed the way she wove in the history of Coney Island - many layers - and studded her work with gems of wisdom.  And of course, the basic story of two people who find themselves and each other in a setting of both visual beauty (nature photography) and visual anomaly.

She wove in a sub-theme around Jane Eyre, a favorite book of the Wolfman at the Museum, who after reading of the incarceration of the first Mrs. Rochester, decided to free himself from his own incarceration by his family in Virginia.  He finds out that the world will not be kind to a 'wolfman' and that his family's hiding him away while caring for him with attention, books, nice food, providing a private domain of enjoyments for him was an act of love of their part.  He was not unloved.

Mr. Rochester had the same motivation in hiding away his first wife, an untreated, undiagnosed schizophrenic before there was such a diagnosis.  To read about the treatment of schizophrenics in his era, read Sebastian Faulks' novel "Human Traces" - it is an absolutely amazing book!  Hoffman seems critical of Mr. Rochester's incarceration of his wife, which he claims he did out of love for her.  As Faulks' book tells us, most schizophrenics were chained in outbuildings or kept in basements, dungeons, and yes, attics, completely ignored and barely fed.  But Mrs. R. had a constant attendant, and Rochester contrasts his wife's situation to what it might have been in an asylum of the day.  Read "Human Traces" if you want to form a more realistic idea of what that was like.  (Happily, the book is about more than that, so I promise you it won't be a steady diet of misery.)

Also, Charlotte Bronte's sister Anne wrote a novel about the plight of a woman married to a debauched wealthy land-owning man.  Apparently, as is often the case where there are great riches involved, there was a lot of debauchery among the upper classes of England during their imperial heyday.  Families were impoverished by debauched males who gambled away the family fortune or spent it on entertainments and courtesans.  There's quite a bit of good literature on that topic out there.  So, Charlotte turns the tables here and asks the question, what about a debauched woman, who is also schizophrenic - what is the effect of such a person on a young unformed male just starting out on his adventure of life.  Rochester expresses regrets over his 'lost innocence' that Jane resonates with.  They are two good people who find each other and who must reach across a cultural and social abyss to meet.  They meet as 'souls' - as 'soul mates.'  Yes, there is a Deus ex Machina but it was the first, not a typical Gothic Romance - no, actually, the very first one that all the others imitated. 

I'd like to write more about what Jane Eyre meant to me.  Will try to get back to this soon.

 

american porch

One thing I miss in Berkeley is 'the front porch.'  I used to wonder about the dearth of porches here, and my husband said it was because there are no warm evenings.  Well, that seems like a reasonable explanation to me.

But there aren't any porches down in Los Angeles either, at least not in the numbers you see in other parts of the country.  I also don't see any typical 'American porches' in films set in Europe, don't remember seeing any porches in my own brief travels there.  So I began to wonder if the American porch, as an extension of a living space, not merely as a covered passageway, is possibly one of those vestigial native american influences we find scattered throughout american culture with no 'provenance' so to speak, because we deny all native american cultural influence as a matter of course. 

So, I started my research, looking at the etymology of the word 'porch.'  Wikipedia says:
"A porch (from the Catalan word porxo)^[1] is a structure attached to a building, forming a covered entrance to a vestibule or doorway.^[2] It is external to the walls of the main building proper, but may be enclosed by screen, latticework, broad windows, or other light frame walls extending from the main structure.

"There are various styles of porches, all of which depend on the architectural tradition of its location. All porches will allow for sufficient space for a person to comfortably pause before entering or after exiting the building. However, they may be larger. Verandahs, for example, are usually quite large and may encompass the entire facade as well as the sides of a structure. At the other extreme, the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan has the longest porch in the world at 660 feet (200 m) in length."  [Significant that the longest porch in the world is located in prime native american country, and I'll bet it has been lined with rocking chairs at certain times in its history.]

With a Spanish origin of the word and concept of 'portico,' it would seem obvious that porches are not really an 'Anglo' thing, although the American-Anglos have adopted them wholeheartedly.  However, you don't see porches in Great Britain.  Yes, there was much more Spanish and Portugese influence in early colonial East-Coast America than is acknowledged, but even in Spain, the porch was not really an extension of the living space, a place where comfortable chairs were set out and people did housework, like veggie-prep, household repairs, tools maintenance, child-care, etcetera.  This is the way porches were used in our regional area, especially by the native americans, who often sat low to the floor while performing these household tasks, surrounded by cooling grass-mat screens.  Porches in those other parts of the world - like Spain - seemed to be used for taking the air, being shaded while watching an event in the courtyard or looking out at a vista, not for daily living.

Wikipedia goes on to say that porches are found as parts of churches in England or as parts of temples in India.  Yes, that kind of 'porch' or really 'covered passageway,' is seen in lots of kinds of temples around the world.  In New Englad, according to Wikipedia, the porch evolved from a mudroom or covered vestibule.  I've been in mud-rooms, and they really don't seem like porches to me. 

On the other hand, the Algonquin-speaking Native Americans, like the Lenape, had bungalow-shaped dwellings with a roofed extension in summer, shaded on the top and sides by grass mats, much like those still in use in my neighborhood in poor Philadelphia in the 1950's. This extension to the house (wikaon) was called 'alewikaon' in Lenape, which is usually translated as 'porch,'  The less native/more white-identified households in Philly adorned their porches with canvas awnings, but there were still plenty of the old grass-curtains in use when I was a child.  We still had the old Lenape baskets in use, too - my grandmother had one, and I often saw them in the homes and yards around the neighborhood - and we also used a distinct local native-patterned cloth.  I wish I still had a piece of that.  I would not be able to recreate the pattern today even though as a child it was extremely familiar to me.  I'm afraid I very ignorantly scoffed at these native vestiges, influenced as I was by the many recent European-immigrant children to disdain my american roots.  Nobody's fault, just the way it is.  Kids will be kids, and we didn't know anything.  But I'm afraid I may have hurt my mother's feelings.  I'm very sorry about that.  I wish I had known, but my mother's verdict was that I looked unambiguously white and therefore there was no reason to teach me anything about our native roots, and it might even be dangerous to try to do so.  So, that's how it went.

But anyway, I think - imo, in my opinion - the typical American porch is a vestige of our old Native American lifestyle, the lifestyle adopted by so many newcomers to America from Europe who did not only impose their own cultural imprint onto the landscape but were also influenced in turn by their new homeland and its people, or who married into a native or quasi-native family and tradition.  So much of the truth of all that has been lost in the struggle for survival, which has involved denials and denouncements, hiding and secrets, lies and white-lies, etcetera.  But let's not go there.  The season is hard upon us to go out and enjoy our front porches.  Bring up the rockers and the glider from the basement or garage, put out the grass carpet and the wicker furniture, set up the awning, make some lemonade.  I hope this kind of lifestyle is still happening somewhere in America.

north pole sunset

 

"This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point last week.
a scene you will probably never get to see in person, so take a moment and enjoy God at work at the North Pole.
And, you also see the sun below the moon, an amazing photo and not one easily duplicated. 
You may want to pass it on to others so they can enjoy it.
The Chinese have a saying that goes something like this:
'When someone shares with you something of value, 
you have an obligation to share it with others!' 
I just did.. Your turn"

A friend sent this to us.  Isn't it beautiful? 

I like the passage too - reminds us of just how much God doesn't need us - God's been having fun creating effects like this for untold millenia.  I've heard it said that we are here because God wanted His or Her handiwork to be appreciated.  My question is - How good a job are we doing at that?  Is that really our top priority?

kerala temples

When I studied theology, I learned that the architecture, iconography, etcetera of a religious tradition tells us a lot about the way its people view reality and the human relationship with the 'divine.'  The 'axis of the world tree,' etcetera, from Mircea Eliade, on vertical religious architecture:  soaring cathedrals, bullet-like projectiles around mosques.  Recently I've had a renewal of interest and enthusiasm for my Keralan spiritual connection, and I liked this passage from 'Temples and Legends of Kerala" by K.R. Vaidyanathan.  He quotes Ronald Bernier in "Splendors of Kerala":

"Kerala temples emphasize horizontal movment as symbolic of the path toward truth.  The temple is not a mountain, although it is built around an axis.  It is activated by its enshrined 'engine,' a holy power in the form of a sculpture or symbol from which energy and goodness radiate.  Mighty as it is, a figural image at the centre of the womb may smile in benevolent, friendly acceptance.  Perhaps Kerala's is the most house-like of all the divine dwellings in India.  Its materials are natural and clearly earth-derived.  The monument touches the masses in terms of earthly experience rather than that of of the worldly grandeur and pomp.  At the same time, there is room for preciousness since the temple is after all a heavenly abode.  (Yet) it is not for its precious parts that Kerala temple design is best to be remembered, but for its special accomplishments primarily in the use of wood."

Kerala is coastal territory, beaches and wetlands ringed by coastal mountains and the sea.  I wonder sometimes if my attraction to this spiritual tradition springs from my ancestors having come from coastal territories so much themselves.  It's 'in the blood,' so to speak.  My mtDNA J2 ancestors are associated with sea routes from Turkey to Iceland, my father's people lived on the sea-swept west coast of Jutland, I have Irish ancestors from County Mayo, a poor coastal territory that took in its share of survivors from the Spanish Armada, and then my Delaware Moor ancestors were native to the marshlands of southern New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. We also seem to have a certain element of pirate ancestry, as well, which fits with the high scores I had in East African dna matches.  At any rate, I love that spread-open, airy, flat 'delta' kind of land wherever I find it.

But there's more to it than that, of course.  I love Vedanta and the entire Shankaracarya tradition as it has been lived up to the present day in Kerala.  Shankaracarya was a peace-maker who synthesized many different traditions in Kerala.  I confess I felt a bit weary of the constant fighting of the middle-eastern traditions from which my Jewish, Christian and Moorish forbears sprang - that fighting just seems to go on and on.  Shankaracarya brought resolution to similar fighting among religious factions in his own land, and the peace seems to have lasted pretty much up to the present.  So, there must be something to it.  I think we really ought to be looking at what they're doing.  At any rate, it is one of the most beautiful, lively, colorful, relaxed, joyful, playful, mystical, entrancing religious traditions I've ever come across, and I've come across quite a few.  (Sufism, perhaps, comes closest, imo.)  Wise and insightful, Keralan spirituality has certainly stood the test of time.

Anyway you can see more examples and read more about Kerala's Temples here.  
 


 

mother nature in berkeley

 

nature in the morning

This morning I saw a hummingbird, a monarch-type butterfly (beautiful, big, black, orange and white, with scalloped wings), a bunch of honey-bees and a black-and-yellow bumble-bee - all feeding on the manzanita in front of our house at the same time.  Uplifting!  Nature, alive and doing her thing on a clear, cool autumn day in central-coastal California.

dalva and crazy horse

My husband has read the Mari Sandoz book Crazy Horse: the Strange Man of the Oglalas two or three times and has always encouraged me to read it as well.  So, finally, just a few weeks ago I took out Larry McMurty's book, Crazy Horse: A Life on CD's from the library and was able to hear it being read while commuting through the park to work - about a 45 minute trip - twice a week, and also while driving on any other little errands or visits.  It was only three disks and went fast.

In the meantime, I was reading a memoir called Off to the Side by an author named Jim Harrison, whom I'd never heard of, but then I don't keep up with the NY Times Best Sellers List.  I have a more Daoist approach and let the Dao brings books to me. :-) And this is an example of how that process works!  I still haven't finished the memoir, but I liked it so much that I decided to try one of Harrison's novels, and as luck would have it, Dalva was the first novel to come into my hands.  And who is one of the featured characters of the major sub-plot?  Crazy Horse.  So the story of Crazy Horse, and his friend He Dog, and the military outpost of Fort Robinson - all of this was fresh in my mind as I read Dalva.  I've visited Fort Robinson once, by the way, knowing nothing of Crazy Horse's death there, but feeling averse to 'the energy' as they say.

Anyway, Dalva is a masterpiece of writing, most of it first-person narrative with a female voice (Dalva's), told in flashbacks to adolescence and other stages of life from a 45-year old standpoint.  The central section of the book is narrated by a crazy professor who is researching the journals of Dalva's great-grandfather, an early comer to the Sand Hills area of Nebraska, and someone sympathetic to the Sioux, in fact an agonized witness to their demise.

I find it interesting that I've characterized the professor, Michael, as 'crazy' and that this was also the appellate of Crazy Horse.  Harrison mentions that for the Sioux the word 'crazy' really meant something closer to 'enchanted' or 'magical.'  Well, the professor's academic mind is something like fly-paper, everything sticks to it, and his personal mind is very mobile, not being undergirded by a strong character.  He is thoroughly opportunistic, desperate and needy, but talented!  Harrison does a marvelous job in capturing the chaos of someone like Michael.  In fact, all of Harrison's characters are rich, nuanced and feel thoroughly authentic.  Despite Michael's failures, Dalva and her family are very kind to him, protective and nurturing, rather like the attitude of the Sioux towards those they regarded as 'crazy', such as Dalva's great-grandfather, a johnny-appleseed-Methodist Minister whome they saw as 'too strange to kill.'

Much of the book takes place in natural settings around the Niobrara River, the kind of country I just love and tried to depict in my own novel, Desert Sanctuary.  Harrison recreates the vitality of life lived close to nature.  Anyone who has ever experienced such a life will be grateful to him for this book, and other readers will appreciate the window onto a life that is still available here and there in the west.

What an incredible book!  And what a wonderful coincidence to have read McMurty's Crazy Horse: A Life just before reading Dalva.

spiderwebs

Twenty-five years ago, when I first began hiking up through the neighborhoods in the north Berkeley Hills (on my way to the intersection of Spruce and Grizzly Peak), I couldn't help noticing the grotesquely large hairy spiders sitting in the exact center of their huge, hap-hazard, beautiful, scintillating-in-the-sun spiderwebs.  Some of these constructions seem to be built on the scale of a cathedral - I just saw one the other day stretching the height and breadth of a typical Berkeley Bungalow.  Sometimes one sees them in diminishing fractals, a large one, followed two feet away by a smaller circle, and so on, down to the baby spider-sized web.

Over the years, I observed sightings of the numerous spiders and their webs steadily marching lower and lower down in the hills, and finally, just several years ago, I began to find them in my own neighborhood, and on my own street and in my yard.  Now, when I step outside in the morning, I never know if I am going to walk right into one!  They seem harmless enough, scurrying away as I brutishly tear through their delicate filigreed webs of silver.  Some years the spiders are so very numerous that it seems as if the house and its surrounding plants have become positively mummified in spiderwebs!  This may seem like an exagerration, but I have a friend who never leaves her home in late summer and early fall without a switch to twirl around in front of her face so she won't walk into one of the sticky webs, invisible except when touched by the sun.

Like a perpetually junior naturalist, I have observed them as they have expanded their territory.  HOwever, this has not been much of a feat in the annals of science, as it turns out they are very well-known and even common, an invasive European spider called Cross Orb-Weavers (among other names like Garden Spider or Diadem Spider).  I found this passage about them on Wikipedia, which includes photos (I've tried to photograph them, but my camera must not be up to the job, and I notice that the photos did not transfer from Wikipedia.  Probably Something in the universe wants to spare you nightmares): "The European garden spider, diadem spider, or cross spider (Araneus diadematus) is a very common and well-known orb-weaver spider in Europe and parts of North America, in a range extending from New England and the Southeast to California and the northwestern United States and adjacent parts of southern Canada.^{[citation needed]}

"Individual spiders' colouring can range from extremely light yellow to very dark grey, but all European garden spiders have mottled markings across the back with five or more large white dots forming a cross. The white dots result from cells that are filled with guanine, which is a byproduct of protein metabolism.^[2]

European Garden Spider in Coudersport, PA (photo available on Wikipedia)

Female in the UK with traces of Dew (ditto)

The third pair of legs of garden spiders are specialized for assisting in the spinning of orb webs. These spiders also use them to move around on their web without getting stuck. These legs are useful only in the web; while on the ground, these legs are of little value.<sup>"


I can see why these spiders are called 'diadems.'  They sit like a jewel in a setting in the very center of their web and have a jewel-like appearance, as long as you don't get too close, in which case they turn into remarkably ugly, hairy spiders!  Eeek!

I am really surprised to discover that these Diadem spiders are so common.  I've never seen them in my life before I moved to Berkeley.  Or maybe I've just never seen such humungously large ones.  Right now we are inundated by them.  Who would ever guess that Berkeley, in late summer, is completely swaddled in spiderwebs?</sup>

 

farewell to summer 2010, bay area

how soft and moist
your breath
against my skin -
sixty-five days of fog and
rolling clouds touching
the tree-tops, silvering
the air
- and I breathe you in,
a summer's mild winter
clinging close
as a lover.

spring wind

it was a single city block
or two,
clean, neat and orderly,
set aside
as a memorial park
dedicated
to something of significance
that had happened long ago,
in revolutionary
philadelphia,
the park a place
of inexplicable peace
in the chaos of the city,
now its young trees
grown tall and stouter,
more steadfast
in recent years.
beneath a clear blue
cloudless sky,
dark narrow trunks
like upright soldiers
topped by bare branches
putting forth
new buds
of leaf
in the swift keen air
of Spring
(verging on a warmer
current, just),
freshening my mind,
and my heart lifted
as if on wings.

was that the promise
of you I felt,
way back then,
when I was young,
before I even guessed,
or imagined?