utopia road: Recent Episodes
Peter Smith
utopia road - a podcast with stories, articles, and conversations with people making a difference - hosted by Pete Smith.
‘Leave the shore and discover the stars,’ comes from the ancient Polynesian practice of Wayfinding - a process of orienting and traveling from place to place by studying the stars, the wind, and the currents of the sea. When you leave the safety of the shore, understanding that darkness eventually calms down in space, you will discover the stars - points of light that offer us guidance as we cross the open water from where we were, to where we’re going.
Trying something a little different - at least different for me. What this recording is will be the prologue to a longer story about trains, the prairies and those who eat slugs. I'll lay that down in time but if you have a comment about this - drop me a note. Keep on keepin' on as the rocker says.
The next day I booked passage on a boat that took me on an overnight crossing to Crete and a car and cart ride later arrived in Irepatra and met Papa. But my time is up – so we’ll meet again perhaps - and if we do - I can tell you about being pinned to the sand by waves that had crushed me to the ocean floor…
"And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean."
Then we looked eastwards into the glaring sun which burnt over the wide sweep of the African uplands. "The first morning after the creation of the world," said Hermann quietly.
And I too experienced an indescribably reassuring feeling of belonging to the wild, beautiful, and cruel life of this vast country. It was as though the fresh wind from the south were dissipating all doubts and uncertainties and a feeling of peace and security came over me." (pg. 54, The Sheltering Desert)
We live in a delicate, resilient and closed system where everything is connected. Your smallest gesture matters.
I come from a family of nine people – two parents and six siblings. With my father away for long stretches of time working on the railroad in his attempt to raise funds to see us fed and clothed my mother would often reach her ‘wit’s end’ with us children.
Woke up this morning thinking about last night. The thinking continued on the bike ride and is still with me...
I don't know where it's all going - that I teeter now and then - but when I look up, and somewhere beyond the bend in the track - where it disappears into the deeper bush - I know what we are doing is connected to something greater - to people I can't see or don't know - but they are out there - just like I am out there and somewhere, at some time, we will connect and go along together.
However coffee came to be part of the morning ritual over here,
it has arrived and has reached an exalted state in the daily routine.
Every time it is prepared is like it never happened before.
I’ve changed, the world has changed, and in the routine of making the coffee, there is renewal, a first time all over again.
As I put cold water from the spigot into the kettle and then set it to boil,
I drop the dark roasted beans from the little red can into a grinder - then let it whirl.
(I’m of the Lyle Lovett school - I like cream in my coffee)
When the whirling is done,
I can hear the kettle bringing the cold water to boil,
The kkkkkkkkkkk sound keeps me with it.
When the kettle clicks - I let it rest for a few seconds -
like the Great Lakes who rest in winter -
allowing time to settle, to stop being so agitated,
crawled on.
There can be a resignation that there is little to nothing we can do about leadership - that what is, is. And as the disgruntled voter says, it doesn't matter who you vote for, the government gets in anyway. But thinking about old Heraclitus and his state of flux idea, and as we emerge from this time of constant change there are definitely other ways to think about leadership. That it is not the responsibility of any one person, that it is the responsibility of us all. That through participation gifts come forward - we appreciate others, and perhaps we can focus on what really matters, rather than focusing on accumulation and the thought that it's every human being for themselves.
Dearest Joe,
What a woild…
Life: not quite like the brochure.
And in that life, and on that Woild, things can be rambunctious,
and wild,
and organized,
and thorough,
and isolating,
and unfair,
and peculiar,
and, at times, kind and loving - beyond any sort of sense or reason,
and (because I was raised Catholic) it can be miraculous too -
and inspiring,
and, oh yes, fucked -
in different and colourful ways.
We were listening to the Stones’ Let it Bleed album as it spun on the turntable and blasted out the speakers that were located in different parts of the cabin. It was just past noon on a Saturday in August, and someone had mentioned ‘lunch’ but no one had the wherewithal to do anything about it.
I think it was Bertrand Russell who talked about the convergence of all forms of thought - that the further out the traveler goes in their curiousity and inquiry - eventually they will meet all the other travelers who have taken their thinking into the deep unknown. It happens at a point - as a surprise out there at a pale blue dot in space - where art, math, science, philosophy, thinking of any and all kinds, coverge, are suspended, and for a moment or two a clarity arrives. We understand that we are not alone. That we are in the company of beautiful. Through our various investigations we suddenly understand that we are one. It’s fleeting, just like being here is fleeting, but it is a moment to breathe the same air as another - and to rejoice in the infinite.
BUT everything changed early in the second period. It had started as the first had ended - classic ho hum. But there was a moment, a single moment, that sparked a very different experience for everybody under that roof. It would require other ingredients to become epic but it surely needed that spark to get the process going. The catalyst was a piece of happenstance, a fluke really. One of the very large Black Hawk players tripped on his own stick, lost control, and accidently wound up ploughing into “Duck” - driving him into the boards. He dropped as the proverbial stone and lay on the ice, not moving - a confused posse of players and refs around him, wondering, what had just happened? A skinny manager in a Jets toque slid across the ice on his Hush Puppies to see if the Duck was still alive.
In any of our planning, be it a trip to somewhere, or organizing a gathering, playing British Bulldog, making a cake, or creating an epic work of art, we have invariably come up against the question: So…how do I get from here to there? And as with any of us the manner in which we answer that question pretty much runs the gamut. We improvise, some say - or we’ll rely on past experience, says another. Or let’s just follow the manual, or why worry, let’s leave it open to wonder and the gods. Why bother? is sometimes offered. And then there are those who map it all out in such meticulously detail that the trip itself feels like it has already happened before we’ve even put the key into the ignition. It’s all about following a plan - any deviation and the whole experience is deemed a disaster. -
I read somewhere that somebody had figured out that the first letter ever written was by a woman named Queen Atossa of Persia around 500 BCE. Whoever said that went onto say that the letter she wrote was the most important letter of all time. Never found out why. Or who she sent it to, or how it got there, or if he or she wrote back. I mean, it was the first. What was the receiver to think? If nobody had ever gotten a letter delivered how would they know what to do with it? What the next step was? Simple enough today - ignore it, or write back. But how long did that take? Did whoever got this first letter ask around town - "I just got this thing from Queen Atossa... not sure what to do about it..." And then I wondered: how did the Queen come up with the idea? Was she waiting for somebody to show up so she could have a conversation? Finally she couldn’t wait any longer and decided to write him or her a note? Was there a pen by the phone, or something? A ream of paper conveniently stowed in a desk drawer?
a day as we define it is 24 hours long (remembering every 4 years we need to add a full day to make up for the incremental wrongness of that measurement that spreads across the 3 years before)
IN THE NEWSPAPER TODAY: in no particular order - with me joining the headlines into a single story - it reads…
“Immunity task force unable to compile national data, (someone is) finding her identity, (in) a dream in tatters, (wondering) how Arctic towns are dealing with vanishing permafrost, (and thinking about the) 779 days that Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been jailed in China, (meanwhile a) woman (is) left shaken after arrest by RCMP, (and) Farmer protests take violent turn in India’s Capital. Ugandan Troops withdraw, (but know) We’re here for you, (and that) School officials in hot spots express concern, (all the while) beading lessons reconnect a mother to her culture. (There is) The January Sale, (and) The Big Thaw: what Arctic Towns on sinking foundations think, (asking the question) do we need tougher travel rules? (Let’s get) Unstuck, America, America, (considering the) General Rule, (that) It Matters who the governor-general is, (as a) filmmaker revisits his grandmother’s story, (and we stay in) travel bubbles, (in) four fun diversions, (building) Immunity, (and all the while are) out-earned, outnumbered, and outranked.”
The snow started in a quiet way - flakes falling down, sideways, up, and sometimes they disappeared, leaving the air clear. But they returned - and they’d drift slowly as if in a thicker medium - as if caught in a current fifteen feet below the surface of the Sea. There’s no urgency and the wind that moves them is gentle - though every so often there’s a suggestion of something wilder, arriving with a hollow howl and a whistle as the wind rushes through the tree branches and meets the wires that hang loosely between concrete and wooden poles. And like a good story there is something pending - you know it’s there, the something else, the turn in character, the change in environment, the situation, where somebody dies, or somebody gets born, or married, or finds themselves out in weather with no way of getting back home.
This chapter has many things going on in it with learning to ride a bike - not as easy as you think - and piano lessons with Miss Funkel at the core of the adventure.
The challenges and joys of first love are revealed and the enigma of Mr. Summer continues.
We are all travelers passing through and respect is a starting point for our most affecting and profound relationships wherever we are headed. Lingering in the moment - then holding easy and still - being with another - drawing breath together - not talking into the space - can deliver us to other ways of understanding, and appreciation, and loving.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
There is something in the Neruda poem, something in the pandemic of 2020, that has us without rush, without engines, all together, in a sudden strangeness. But it is only strange because it's an experience we haven't lived through before. Keeping quiet, listening to the other voices, feeling the strangeness, coming to an understanding that we've been offered another way to look at the world, for me at least, is the ask of 2020 - the correction - and with it an urgent request for us to change. The title for the article comes from the Neruda poem cited here...
Keeping Quiet Pablo Neruda Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about...
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with
death.
Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
Aeschylus wrote that wisdom comes through suffering. Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of the gods.
What you are about to hear is chapter two of Mr. Summer's Story. And that is all I have to say on the subject.
Mr. Summer's Story is the story of a child whose path Mr. Summer crosses only fleetingly but whose life - otherwise ordinary in every way - is forever changed by those few moments in time. (the story has been translated from German by John E. Woods)
Artist John Aldridge painted a painting called Winter that took me to that place 5000 miles from where it was painted, years before I was born, when I was 12 years old. I can feel the painting to my core.
Laurel flew out a few days ago to be with her mother and told me a story about something that happened almost as soon as she arrived in Edmonton. Kathy, her sister, picked her up at the airport and they drove over to the hospital. It was night. They were led to Carol’s room and stood on either side of the bed holding Carol’s hands - talking to her, singing to her. Carol might have been feeling their energy on some level - but remained still, her eyes closed. At one point the hospital Deacon came into the room and asked if she could offer Carol a blessing. Carol was a Catholic her whole life and had requested last rites be given her. While this wasn’t that, Kathy told her that it would be OK. The Deacon took Carol’s hands and blessed them – one at a time. Such a beautiful gesture – the hands that lifted and held, the hands that cared for, that baked and cooked incredible food. The hands that fed three generations of people. The hands that cleaned, and rocked babies – all the babies. They were strong hands, capable hands, and they were hands connected to her heart.
“I would address one general admonition to all — that they consider what are the true ends of knowledge, and that they seek it not either for pleasure of the mind, or for contention, or for superiority to others, or for profit, or fame, or power, or any of these inferior things, but for the benefit and use of life, and that they perfect and govern it in charity. For it was from lust of power that the angels fell, from lust of knowledge that man fell; but of charity there can be no excess, neither did angel or man ever come in danger by it.” Francis Bacon - in the year 1623
a feather is key to keeping a world in balance - a world created through time with energy, care, purpose, with delicacy, that includes so many different components, always on the verge of collapse.
“They had come to the station of the cross where something you want to see and can’t shuts out the sight of everything that otherwise could be seen.” Norman Maclean.
The poet and author Wendell Berry wrote…
*I go by a field where once
I cultivated a few poor crops.
It is now covered with young trees,
for the forest that belongs here
has come back and reclaimed its own.
And I think of all the effort
I have wasted and all the time,
and of how much joy I took
in that failed work and how much
it taught me. For in so failing
I learned something of my place,
something of myself, and now
I welcome back the trees.*
Every morning (to date) as I open my eyes I’m returned to the waking world arriving from the land of nod – its own unique territory, with its own unique transportation systems. The sleeping time can be filled with quiet or disquiet, be completed in a void - a black stillness brought about by physical and or mental exhaustion. Whatever goes on – from the darkness, to the images culled from my unconscious, to the elaborate concocted and sometimes disjointed dreams or nightmares, the activity of sleep can impact on my waking hours. Though the images and dreams are often stowed as my waking self drives the sunlight agenda - leaving the material of sleep on a shelf for consideration at another time. Or not.
“He’ll like it – just you watch.” He placed his hand beneath the donkey’s mouth. The donkey didn’t flinch, didn’t open its mouth either. “Come on come on – you like this stuff, I know you do,” Chris’ brother pushed the waste into the face of the donkey with a little more energy. Eggshell went up the donkey’s nose and rind stuck to its coarse hair, pits fell to the ground. The donkey still wouldn’t open its mouth. Chris’ brother got a little more aggressive, ‘come on come on you stupid thing you like this shit - come on take it,” and he shoved a little harder. At that point things got real animated. The donkey bit out a Chris’ brother’s hand using its large yellow peg teeth. Chris’ brother stumbled back, what the hell. The donkey then charged at him clacking those pegs wanting to bite him. His brother was now running and so was the donkey, after him. Chris had stepped over the fence and his brother ran toward him, no no keep away from me, this is your mess. Now both brothers were being chased by the suddenly athletic and very pissed off donkey. The clacking noise continued and the foot action of the donkey was done in quick steps the sound of the hooves on the ground added to the ominous percussion. Chris didn’t know why they didn’t head for the fence but they didn’t and the chase went on. And then as suddenly as it started, it ended, the donkey stopped under another tree and stood stock still, the only tell that something had gone on was the donkey’s moving sides as it took in deep breaths of air. All of the food that had been stuck to it had fallen off during the pursuit.
Nelson pulled up in front of a shop and jumped out. The man with the machine gun, who hadn’t spoken the entire trip, got out too, followed by Kapuscinski. Nelson shouted, “ANOTHER DAY OF LIFE!” and proceeded to do calisthenics. Kapcusinski couldn’t believe what he was seeing – really? But Nelson’s enthusiasm, his smile, his statement that they were having another day of life – got the other two into some jumping jacks, got them laughing, and then tension released, and they cried. It was then two old women and a handful of young men appeared to begin unloading bags of flour from the back of the truck. A half hour later the village, the valley, was filled with the smell of baking bread. Children, women, men, came out from buildings and entered the bakery, dogs and cats lingered on the boardwalk. Kapuscinski was to learn that the community had been without food for a while because of the war. Nelson had heard about it and made it his goal to get them flour to make bread – and that’s exactly what happened – everyone there was going to have another day of life and Nelson wanted Kapuscinski to tell the world about it.
I found a pop machine, pumped in some change, then walked around town sipping a Fanta Orange drink – taking in the sites – and by five o’clock found myself in a nifty little bar. The bartender was an amazing fellow who could throw a hard-boiled egg into the air, and before it returned to earth, take a shot glass from the bar and put it into his shirt pocket, catching the egg in the glass as it landed – creating a perfect crack in the shell. He’d lift the shell off in two or three pieces, then cut it expertly with a knife in a Zoro kinda way, into thin slices. A sprinkle of Paprika was dashed on top followed by a pinch of salt. He’d slide the little plate toward me with a spin. It was all flash, splash and panache. He’d then shout, “COMER!” Eat. What was not to like? And other little plates followed - deep fried sardines – never seen them before – head, tail, bones, the entire thing – pop it in and wash it down with a cold Spanish beer. I was putting the Bad into Badajoz. Peanuts, more egg, more deep fried fish, all forms of tapas – squid, cheese, olives, were presented. By 8 o’clock I was full of everything and needed air. I wandered the streets and by 9pm had found a pair of bushes to sleep under. I couldn’t be seen unless you were really looking and it was there that I lay my head. Ditches and park living at its finest appeared to be the way for me in Spain. At least at 17. I woke up the next morning to a dog licking my face. Welcome to the next day of your life, the dog-face said. Time to get rolling, non?
I stood on the shoulder of the highway shaking – a long way from comfortable and a short distance to what felt like heart failure. After a bunch of deep breaths I looked around. Where was I? Wherever it was it included plenty of pitch black. And whatever the lights in the distance were – they were like a mirage or if they were real a long way to walk to get there. The energy that had kept me going through the madness of the mountain drive and the intense El Whapo scene on the side of the road – was now leaving me. It ran like sweat down my arms – setting them to tingle. It kept moving slowly to my hands then trickled the length of my fingers, dropping in single drops and carried away on the wind. The energy drifted into the air out the top of my head, and some of it settled into the fabric of my jacket. Vehicles whipped past but there was no way I was going to catch a lift, not then – too dark, too large a person - so I walked over to the ditch, stepped into the tall grass, found a level enough spot, unrolled my sleeping bag, crawled in, and fell asleep - the sound of cars and trucks tearing along the highway the last thing I remember.
“Good morning boys and girls. I hope you’re enjoying this great day that has been given to us as much as I am.” She smiled and her face was beautiful. “Now today we have a choice of stories that can take us away.” She lifted her eyebrows inviting the room to go with her on an adventure. “Dr. Zeus decided to write a book for us entitled Green Eggs and Ham. It was very good of him to think of us up here, don’t you think? I also have some poems that a lady named Beatrix Potter penned. She had no idea that we’d be gathered this morning to read them, but I don't think she’d mind. And finally I have our novel – Robert Louis Stevenson wrote this book so many many years ago. I’ll give a brief recap of Treasure Island for those who weren’t here the last number of weeks to get them up to speed and then as quick as you can say Long John Silver, I’ll pick up our story and take us off to the high seas. If I recall correctly Jim was in a bit of a pickle with an unsavory character named Ben Gunn.”
This is the third interview with Kaleb on his 2 year sojourn to the other side of the world - more interviews will be coming right up. Enjoy.
It’s funny – how you land in people’s lives, and they in yours. We share some space and some time then as quickly as it started, it’s over. We disappear from each other. But every once in a while - maybe for five minutes, fifteen years later - on a hot August afternoon you step back in and share that life again. I’ve always thought that time is a trickster – grabs memories willy-nilly from the vaults, puts them together with the experience I’m living in, and not afraid to reach into a future I might be imagining – swirls everything together – leaving me in all time and no time at all. For a few moments in Mike’s Milk me and Mrs. Morin dropped into that time – we made contact, we embraced, and then we went our ways – never to see each other again. And as the Trickster Time continues on in her work - it has taken me another thirty years to remember the experience – to be once more dropped into no and all time – to relive a memory as if it had just happened.
“There is an unspoken language that makes it possible to bridge every worldview, a language that can be learned through dialogue—the willingness to set aside preconceived ideas and listen not only with your mind but with your heart. And if the way forward begins with a commitment to genuine dialogue, it teaches that the exchange of conversation must not only occur between human beings but also between all the creatures and plants and spirits that connect us to and with the earth.” He talks about the power of listening – learning from the world because we are only one part of a much greater, intricate, and delightful whole. “Only when the rocks begin to know you,” he says, “will they tell you their story. This goes back to the notion that a dream is not a one-way thing. It goes both ways.” LeRoy Little Bear.
journey (n.) The word journey comes from an Old French word, journee, “a day’s length." In Middle English journey meant, “a day's work, or "the distance traveled in one day.” The word has grown to mean: a course of travel by land or sea, a description of someone’s path in life, a trek into something, away from something, with the unknown available and if alert - time to take the unknowing in.
Whether the journey is done without really going anywhere, or because of a need to find a new home, or searching for enlightenment on a spiritual pilgrimage, most creatures on earth have been on the move, one way or the other, since the project of being here got underway.
A reflection on what was, and a thought to what might be and a question: What Can You Get Used to?
This morning while reading the Globe on the porch - it was early - a large cat walked up Lockwood - fat tail swishing. He was dropping a periodic meow now and then. Not a plaintive cry but kinda 'I want something' - built into it. He was a little annoyed as well. Everything just bugged him, something had to give, and somebody had to pay. He gets to the corner and plops down, looks around, lets out a couple of more yowls. Nothing. He sees me on the porch doin' not much at all - clearly a part of the problem - and he walks across the road - stopping in the middle of the street. Two more yowls from his new post got directed at me - 'what's the matter with you, man - get yourself right," the cries say. I kept gawking and Leo wasn't backing down. He walks all the way across the road then stops again - this time on the sidewalk in front of our place. Two more loud meows - GET. YOUR. SHIT. TOGETHER, MAN! it said.
John died when he was almost 93 years old. He was born and raised on a farm in Utopia, Ontario. He lived through the time before and the time of - the telephone, the automobile; he saw changes in our society over nearly a hundred years of an active life. He used to take the train to school – catching it across one of the farm fields his family worked. He went to Central Collegiate (gone now) and attended the Ontario Agricultural College before it became the University of Guelph. He left the farm following a rough year during the depression and took his wife, Isabel, and their three kids to town. He secured a job on the railroad – the CNR. He had a variety of positions for the CN and eventually worked his way to engineer. He saw the transition from steam engines to diesel and lived long enough to hear about the crew-less train that ran across 1000 miles of Canadian track. He and Isabel had 7 children in all.
It was then I heard the buzz – the buzz of a bee. There’s no other sound like it in the natural symphony. A single sustained note that cuts through the clutter of noise and announces clearly, “I iz here.”
The birds had taken a nap, the dogs were off in the fields, there was no traffic along Smith Road. It allowed lady bee quiet for her solo performance in the laze of the mid afternoon heat. The noise got louder and then stopped. I figured she’d found a flower to suck on. But then the buzzing was back and it was as if she’d found a microphone - the buzz was louder and closer to me. I rolled onto my back and as I did the buzzing stopped. Following the next burst I discovered where it was coming from. It was down in the hole I’d just created. The bee had found something new in her path – something that hadn’t been there when she’d come by in the morning. I crawled over and looked in. She was at the bottom, walking around, not making a sound. Then she’d lift, her loud buzz echoing in the chamber - then she’d stop, all would go quiet again, and she’d take another walkabout. Her reconnoiter went on for another minute or so and then she lifted like a helicopter, ascending into open air, and flew away. A minute later she returned, down into the hole again - doing another pass of the space. Was this a hole of opportunity? It was certainly cooler down there. How hot do bees get anyway? What’s their air conditioning like?
The man was honking his horn like a madman and I was waving at him to relax – pointing to where I was going, pointing to the steep shoulder. Maybe he thought I was giving him the finger – I dunno. He kept on honking and I gave up trying to placate him and just plugged away – I was just a man and his manure. I finally got to the concession road just as the convoy finished passing by and I thought OK mister – here’s your chance to drive on through. But nope. Mister followed me onto the concession and then proceeded to roar past – covering me and the tractor in dust. Classic dick move. The dust stuck to my sweat, went up my nose, was in my mouth and I couldn’t see shit. And by the time it cleared I was surprised to see Mister had pulled over up the way and was standing on the road – arms crossed, sunglasses on, very James Dean, waiting for me. The tractor was making a lot of farting noises so I couldn’t make out what he was saying exactly – but I could read body language and it wasn’t pretty what he was shouting. As I got closer I was able to take in his fine prose. “What kind of an asshole are you?” he shouted, sounding a bit like Mr. Potter from It’s A Wonderful Life. “Who do you think you are?” Was another of his lines. And as I got real close he stepped out in front of the tractor and stood there - blocking my way. I didn’t want to kill the man – though the thought did cross my mind.
In Utopia there is no king. Nor is there a hereditary aristocracy. By virtue of its fundamental law of community of goods, therefore, Utopia is also by necessity a republic. Election, not inheritance, is the principal mechanism by which political power is acquired. Could the arrangements of this best commonwealth ever be realized? It’s a question that gets asked from time to time. The answer could be that it’s no more possible now than it was in 1516. But maybe that’s not the point. Maybe, Utopia, the book, and Utopia, Ontario, is more of a blueprint, a map that shows us the way toward a grand destination. As More says to Hythloday, when Hythloday says that he has nothing to offer the councils of kings: ‘Don’t give up the ship in a storm because you can’t hold back the winds! ... what you can’t turn to good, at least try to make as little bad as possible.’ And if there was ever a place close to what More was talking about in his book, a place where people don’t give up the ship because they can’t hold back the wind, it is here, where we are right now, in Utopia, Ontario. Happy 150th Birthday and here’s to the next 150 years of this no place that is truly a some place. Amen.
We eventually leave the kitchen with a fresh cup of coffee and walk out to the porch and greet the dogs. After a bit we step off the porch and our parade of dog and people is in full glory. We drink our coffee as we go – like lords of the manor, the dogs our companions have their heads up, tails wagging. Idyllic is a word to describe it. We end up in the shed the building adjacent to the barn. We spend some UFT in there talking about various things that include local and international politics, maybe a recent hockey game, or a game from 50 years ago. There is certainly a story or two about the ancestors. At one point we come upon a gerry-rigged pen that holds some goats inside it. The goats come over for a little visit. The dogs don’t have much interest in the goats and drift out into the open air.
The poet Rainer Rilke said: God sat down for a moment when the dog was finished in order to watch it... and to know that it was good, that nothing was lacking, that it could not have been made any better.” There are Monks in the United States in a place called New Skete. They raise dogs and one of them said this: For many of us, love for creation deepens through the relationships we form in nature, making us more conscious of the mystery inherent in all things. We cannot but delight in recognizing the mystery in the length and breadth of our daily life. In our particular monastic context of New Skete, we have been privileged to share this in a very special way with our German Shepherds, who in an entirely natural way have taught us many lessons about life and about ourselves.
“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.” Bertrand Russell said that and it’s not a bad idea. We are certainly living in a unique time on planet earth – with questions about how we operate, how we might co-operate, how we listen, and how we respect one other. There are many opinions on the best way to go – the best road to travel, and there’s also an opportunity to discover other roads – ones that we never knew existed but could lead us to some pretty remarkable places.