Many modern writers have been quick to point out
the strangely cavalier approach to hunter-gatherer peoples. After all, they keep no food in their freezers.
French Jesuit Paul Le Jeune spent six months (during the winter of 1633-1634) among the Montagnais in Quebec (sometimes known as the
Innu, which translates
human being). In his journals Le Jeune writes about being irritated by natives' generosity, even shocked by their egalitarianism and openness.
"If my host took two, three or four Beavers whether it was night or day, they had a feast for all the native Savages," Le Jeune remembers. "And if those people had captured something, they had one also [a feast] at the same time; so that on emerging from one feast you went to another, and sometimes to a third or a fourth."
Le Jeune tried to explain the advantage of saving food; in order to be less wasteful, more frugal... that going from feast to feast may not be a wise lifestyle choice. "They laughed at me," he writes. "Saying 'Tomorrow we shall make another feast with what we shall capture.'"
Put simply: Hunter-gatherers lived each day with the assumption of affluence. And sufficiency. And enough. Regardless of circumstance or impediment or quantity or misstep or even brutality of life.
In contrast, we live in a world where we believe that with each choice we draw down some reservoir; whether it be filled with courage or generosity or resolve or love. As if we are pre-wired with a kind of warning light: Beware. Almost empty.
It is no wonder that many of us shut down.
Yesterday I attended a memorial service for Carl Blomgren. An islander. And an outlier. He didn't spend a lot of energy trying to "be somebody."
At the service there was a full house to say goodbye, to celebrate with stories and laughter and tears.
And an invitation to make another feast with what we shall capture.
His son Anders wrote,
"Pop invited us all on his boat
rolling downstream in the river of consciousness
where we each have a pole and fish
for ideas, cinnamon rolls, and
this experience of being alive."
Like a hunter-gatherer, shortage was not in Carl's vocabulary.
Kate Braestrup writes about how this wrestling affects our parenting. "'Don't drink and swim. Wear a helmet. Make your stand in the parking lot,' I tell my children, as if I can hector them into a lifelong immunity from fear and pain. As a mother, I pray for miracles of the most ordinary kind on their behalf: I want their hearts to keep beating. I want them to live. But then, a grateful heart beats in a world of miracles. If I could only speak one prayer for you, my children, it would be that your hearts would not only beat but grow ever greater in gratitude, that your lives, however long they prove to be and no matter how they end, continue to bring you miracles in abundance."
To live pusillanimously means to live with a small soul.
To live with magnanimity means to live with a great soul.
Here's the deal: I want to live with magnanimity.
So why oh why, do we put a governor on our capacity for risk or acceptance or delight?
Are we afraid there is no room for indiscriminate desire or risk or passion or compassion or magnanimity?
Are we afraid that it will take us too far? What if we crack? What if we offend some rule of propriety? Or what if we don't deserve this bounty--this world filled with miracles?
Barbara Scott in her book, The Stations of Still Creek, tells this story: "Friend dying of cancer says, 'Anything extra I've got now is going into riding my motorcycle. Does that make any sense to you?' Of course. It could be dancing, only I can't dance; turning wood; playing the banjo; riding a motorcycle. Whatever it is when we at last say no one will interrupt me right now and I will not apologize for spending all day on this."
On one trip to Victoria, B.C. rummaging in Munro's Bookstore, I saw a great book title, 1000 Places to See Before You Die. I opened the book at random to "Antibes and the Hotel de Cap Eden Roc." They are right. I have never been there. And, from the pictures, I would love to spend a fortnight or so there.
And I wondered, wouldn't it be something if I turned the pages and found pictures of my garden and the people I love? No offense intended to the book. But I miss the point entirely if I fail to see those close to me.
Here on Vashon Island, Bob's Bakery is an institution. It is one of our watering holes. For me a morning coffee with a pumpkin muffin. This is a sacred ritual.
In front stand two benches, each made of planks of timbers shaved from the side of a tree. They are worn smooth by time. It is the place to sit, sip your coffee, watch the day roll by, and take the island's social pulse.
Some years ago I sat with Carl Blomgren, the bench one of his sanctuary places. His beard, style, clothing, and weathered look tell you that this day could be unfolding at the turn of the previous century. Carl was a gentle soul, always with a smile and kind word. "Where's your friend?" I ask. (I always saw him with Dan Chasen, another long-time-islander. I have teased him in the past, telling him that we should just make a bronze statue in front of Bob's and be done with it.) "Oh," he says. "What's today? Tuesday? Well, tomorrow he'll be here about noon. It's our conversation appointment. Every Wednesday."
I thought about that conversation appointment sitting in the service. So I thank you Carl.
He's not a list maker, and likely (according to his son Per-Lars) would not have made it through his own memorial service, finding better ways to celebrate a sunny summer day.
But if you would prefer a list, borrow this one from my friend Mary Anne Radmacher:
Be avid.
Create apart from perfection: risk failure.
Cover your words with sweat.
Excruciatingly touch.
Laugh until you cry.
Dance with your eyes closed
Understand you die a little everyday.
Be enlivened.
William Blake, seated, in his old age, beside a little girl at a dinner party; Blake leaned down to her, smiled, and said, "May God make this world as beautiful to you as it has been to me."
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