What Would The World Be, Once Bereft..

They say, of all People on Earth, it’s those of Scottish blood that feels the deepest root no matter how far from that land they wander. When my daughter’s were young and both producing their own little newspapers, my youngest was greatly enamoured to discover in her history books that The Romans could not hold Scotland (the Antonine Wall was the Northern-most boundary of the Roman Empire for 12 short years). The Romans, were driven back to Hadrian’s Wall by stubborn hoards of Scots (not to mention, foul weather!). Jess crafted her headline with glee: "Extra! Extra!! Scotland Too Tough For The Romans!!

I have to say I felt the same kind of thrill the day I learned that the Declaration of Independence had 6 signers who originated in Scotland, and that that very document drew its inspiration from Scotland’s 14th century ’Treaty of Arbroath’! So for my Words of Wisdom I will give over to three Scottish heroes before I wrap it up:

The birthdate of Scottish-born John Muir, champion of the California Sierra’s, was April 21, 1838,  Now April 21 is designated John Muir Day in the State of California:

 The Governor annually shall proclaim April 21st to be ’John Muir Day’

- California Government Code Section 6714.

... All public schools and educational institutions are encouraged to observe... April 21 of each year as John Muir Day... and to conduct suitable commemorative exercises ... stressing the importance that an ecologically sound natural environment plays in the quality of life for all of us, and emphasizing John Muir’s significant contributions to the fostering of that awareness and the indelible mark he left on the State of California.

- California Education Code Section 37222 (a)(2) and (b)(2).

Muir inspired people all over the globe to protect places of special beauty and wildness.

"John Muir Day", celebrated each April 21, provides us with a day to recognize the modern ecological insight that humankind is a part of Nature, and that our well being - indeed our very survival - depends upon an ecologically sound natural environment.

 Inversnaid

THIS darksome burn, horseback brown, His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

 Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn. 

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet


Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

*~*~*~*~*

Well, and for the generations of crippling judgment, I’ll let the man himself , also a Scot, say all, except to say my own brave mother, in the face of the same, wrote to me: "I will be a sweeper; a sweeper away of the old ways." And so she was.

Address To The Unco Guid, Or The Rigidly Righteous ~ 1786: Robert Burns

My Son, these maxims make a rule,
An’ lump them aye thegither;
The Rigid Righteous is a fool,
The Rigid Wise anither:
The cleanest corn that ere was dight
May hae some pyles o’ caff in;
So ne’er a fellow-creature slight
For random fits o’ daffin.
Solomon.-Eccles. ch. vii. verse 16.
O ye wha are sae guid yoursel’,
Sae pious and sae holy,
Ye’ve nought to do but mark and tell
Your neibours’ fauts and folly!
Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,
Supplied wi’ store o’ water;
The heaped happer’s ebbing still,
An’ still the clap plays clatter.

Hear me, ye venerable core,
As counsel for poor mortals
That frequent pass douce Wisdom’s door
For glaikit Folly’s portals:
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes,
Would here propone defences-
Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes,
Their failings and mischances.

Ye see your state wi’ theirs compared,
And shudder at the niffer;
But cast a moment’s fair regard,
What maks the mighty differ;
Discount what scant occasion gave,
That purity ye pride in;
And (what’s aft mair than a’ the lave),
Your better art o’ hidin.

Think, when your castigated pulse
Gies now and then a wallop!
What ragings must his veins convulse,
That still eternal gallop!
Wi’ wind and tide fair i’ your tail,
Right on ye scud your sea-way;
But in the teeth o’ baith to sail,
It maks a unco lee-way.

See Social Life and Glee sit down,
All joyous and unthinking,
Till, quite transmugrified, they’re grown
Debauchery and Drinking:
O would they stay to calculate
Th’ eternal consequences;
Or your more dreaded hell to state,
Damnation of expenses!

Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,
Tied up in godly laces,
Before ye gie poor Frailty names,
Suppose a change o’ cases;
A dear-lov’d lad, convenience snug,
A treach’rous inclination-
But let me whisper i’ your lug,
Ye’re aiblins nae temptation.

Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho’ they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark, -
The moving Why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.

Who made the heart, ’tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias:
Then at the balance let’s be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What’s done we partly may compute,
But know not what’s resisted.

http://www.robertburns.org/works/93.shtml (all vernacular words are translated if needed)

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

When I embraced my woman
I met my spirit child
She knows her life path is not wrong
Accepts the invite to belong
Is willingly beguiled
By Christmas trees and faerie lights
And stars in moonlit skies
She taps a well of playfulness
Is infinitely wise…

 My spirit child
She never left
The shores of faerieland
She never lost her innocence
Walks willingly and hand in hand
With anyone of any creed or hue
And knows her sisters and her brothers
Are not few
But many souls apart
Not strangers of the heart
But healers of the rift
Each soul each birth on Earth
A precious gift

 The music box, the music box
It always stirred me so
Silver metal strips that strum
On and on around that drum
On and on it played around
As I looked in from where
O I remember, my heart said
I’m sure I know that air

 That air of sweet and crystal clear
Those notes of clean delight
O yes, my spirit child replied
You know that tune alright
For that’s the tune your mother sang
As you skipped by her side
And that’s the tune your father played
And you his pride
And joy

 And there you are, my little one
And now you understand
That everything we sent you
was no more than you planned
We sent so many many things
To try to help you see
We saw you stirred so many times
Only to start and flee
Yet now we know you’ve heard us
And you know how we can tell?
’Twas We you heard when first you spoke
into the Infinite
Wishing Well!

 CCR McF