Justice and Time

I was watching the CADFAEL series again, from PBS some years ago.

CADFAEL is set in the times of the war between King Steven and Empress Maud over the succession to the English throne after the death of William the Conqueror. Cadfael, played by Derek Jacobi, is a brother in the abbey of Shrewsbury who solves mysteries and does his utmost to see justice done.  Coming late in life to the cloister, he brings a more worldly wisdom to problems others would solve with faith and biblical precedent alone.

And this brings me to my point for this blog. 

Consider what medieval justice entailed: physical trials to determine God’s will, applying to God’s prescience to determine good from evil, right from wrong, truth from lies. Sometimes one-on-one combat settled legal matters.

In one episode, the disputants, blind-folded, each opened the Bible and set a finger on a verse, and from this, the will of the Divine was known.

And it was well-known that casting a miscreant into a pond would determine guilt or innocence, particularly in the case of witches: If you float, you’re guilty. Because God wants it that way.

As centuries have passed, we’ve considerably upgraded our skills and tools for determining truth, and we have set standards that must be met to determine guilt: actual and not merely circumstantial evidence. We have jury trials, not just the opinion or whim of the ranking lord or sovereign. 

In Cadfael’s day, justice was based on what people at all levels of life believed about God. They could not question the logic of a condemnation, lest they be questioning God’s disposition of the matter. Because God did that. This was the way God acted in the lives of humanity. That was how they understood God.

We can look back at the absurdities and horrors of medieval justice, and we understand that no matter how all-powerful God may be, we still have to find truth, and determine guilt by scientific methods like forensics, and through thorough police work, and in a courtroom according to the Rule of Law. Temporal law is our problem, not God’s.

Vigilantism is no longer a valid or acceptible way to mete out justice. Emotional perception no longer sets the standard for condemnation. We have learned that more often than not, emotions lead us astray, that the wrong people are held responsible for the wrong reasons. 

But in the 12th Century, by 12th Century beliefs and understandings, that kind of justice was entirely valid. Few questioned it, despite what we see now as pure absurdities and misunderstandings of how the physical world works. 

So… finally, ’round Robin Hood’s barn, I come to my actual point here: 

Centuries from now, what will people look back at and be amazed by in our 21st Century understandings, beliefs, and ignorances of how the spiritual world works?  What absurdities will they scoff at, or be horrified by? And what medieval notions will even then survive on the basis of “No, no, our spiritual teachers could not have been so wrong!”  

Just Sayin’…

The colonial powers paved the surface and built on shallow foundations, trying to negate and overcome the Earth. They have plowed down a few inches, they have shaved off the forests, they have killed off what they found troublesome and inconvenient. They believed they needed nothing and no one but themselves to prosper, never looking beyond immediate profit, never counting its actual cost.

The indigenous nations are the earth, their roots go deep, and–like the Earth itself–will outlast the shell the European conquerors and colonizers have laid over it.

The surface may change, and though some things are killed and lost, the world that taught its truth to those who lived in it still has that truth, still teaches to those who pay attention, whatever place their ancestors came from.

Aotearoa


 
Silver
The ferns, of course
but too the sky
the clouds and air between
Sun on misty rains:
Silver graced
with rainbows…
silver-bright the sun,
the sharp-cut shades
edges of trees
against the blue, grey, white…
Silver the stars
Southern Cross and Milky Way
on deepest night…
Silver
the moon in all its phases
dashing across the waters,
inviting path…
Silver the waters
day or night–
moving, gleaming, glittering…
Black swans flying
over the satin moire
Silver reflecting dawn pastels
and the fires of sunset…
Silver
I will remember
the Long Cloud Land.

2009

Tolkien Tribute: Suddenly, You

In the shadow
of the forest
lost,
and hiding,
running
from the echoing
anguish.
chaos
clashing
of armies embattled
besieging my mind…
suddenly–
sundered
all of it…!

O Nightingale!
You–
singing,
dancing in the glade
in gladness
draw me
from war’s clamour,
it’s darkness
it’s despair…
The whole of my world
they were
but suddenly–
You
are there! 
Dancing like down,
upon the air,
upon the melody
of the Nightingale,
in moonlight–
casting shadow out,
making room
in my heart
to hold the wonder
the mystery
the  magic
of your music,
of your dance
and
You.
All that was my life–
in this moment,
in this meeting,
parts from me,
fleeting and
dissolved
into your grace
O Nightingale!

Suddenly–
only
You
are all my world…

and all the rest
must wait.

2008

Self Portrait: Inside Out

I am not who you see
walking about smiling
or not…

This surface is not who I am
It is barely mine
at all in the mirror…
You do not know me
if you never ask:
whatever you surmise,
you cannot see the essence
without the deepest
clearest looking…
I dance, I laugh, I sing
and joy is in my every line and move!

Lithe and slender, graceful…
Shining with love and mischief,
With youth and health and wholeness…

Unafraid, unashamed, unbound
by all the trepidations that crease this face
and tighten flesh and heart…
that shrink all that I am
into this awkward package
that does not want
to know itself…

Hunter’s Moon

a paleolithic winter’s tale

Wind rises, the sun is pale;
Leaves go brilliant and finally pall;
Wise creatures burrow deep
seeking the peace and safety of sleep
and the snow begins to fall… 

The People see the summer fail
and gather closer to the fire;
Meat is smoked against the days
when going to hunt no longer pays:
The blue smoke rises ever higher. 

Winter is deep in drifts, and dark:
Hunger grows but meat is gone.
Around the fire,  the People are dying
gnawed by darkness and hunger, crying
The oldest, the youngest, one by one.
 
Under thin light of the sun’s shallow arc,
in the day’s still-decreasing length
the last of the hunters seeks a track.
Empty-handed, he can’t turn back
For this is the very last of his strength. 

Miles away from hearth and Clan,
an old stag stands at the edge of sight
Gaunt and weak as the one who stalks,
the animal stumbles as it walks–
He pursues it into the night… 

Predator, Prey; Wild Animal, Man–
the Hunter takes the old stag’s  life.
He cuts and skins in the light of the moon
and knows he cannot return too soon
For the sake of his child and wife. 

The Hunter sings to the animal soul
its sacrifice he thanks and praises–
with gratitude balancing need to kill–
then finally descends the distant hill:
Towards home a hopeful eye raises.

Under new snow, his own track is cold,
he’s not certain of every turning–
But flame is a beacon in the night
to desperate Hunter, a beckoning light
where the Clan’s hearth-fire is burning… 

The People welcome the Hunter home,
with smiles and songs, they greet him.
They shut the howling weather outside,
and relish the hope one hunt can provide,
that Winter will not yet defeat them.

Journal: Al Franken Speaks

Al Franken last night, at the Paramount Theater in Seattle… Not only heartening to hear a political speaker making sense, but to see the enthusiasm for him and the size of his audience was also very encouraging.

I particularly like his suggestion that they should give Trump the nuclear codes–but change them, first. Then after he pushes all the buttons, hurry him down to the bomb shelter and leave him there for a while. There was more, but that was the main point.

Not surprisingly, there were a few protesters outside the theater, and a short gauntlet of tv cameras. 

Personally, I see quite a gap on the continuum between bad taste and boorishness, and criminality. And I am very glad no one is interested in exposing my youthful stupidities, as I am sure many of us are. 

Franken’s blindness to ‘making anyone uncomfortable’ is hardly to his credit, and typical of his generation–which is also mine, by the way. Many things have been scrutinized with more sensitivity, and sense, in fact, since the 50s.

Back then, drinking and driving was no big deal, and public intoxication was played for laughs. Spousal abuse was clucked at and socially despised, but not considered within the realm of community business. Children had no defense from the community for abuse, either. And patting women inapropriately was… not admirable, but part of social “normal.” And Franken was a joker which gave him more social leeway to be occasionally and opportunely outrageous. 

We have learned over years, and have changed the norms by which we define acceptibility. Some of us who were raised with other established notions have kept up with the changes, even welcomed them and worked towards them. Others–not so much. 

But there is still a wide range on that spectrum between “inappropriate” and “criminal.” The center of that spectrum also has shifted considerably, that line drawn between acceptible and unacceptible. This is how community consciousness improves, and how new generations are taught to be better than those that came before.

Franken did not speak to this last night, but he did open with a few words acknowledging the situation and his own personal responsibility.

JOURNAL: 4th of July 2019

This was what I wrote this past July 4th, usually a day of proud celebrations and a night of brilliant fireworks commemorating the birth of the United States of America in 1776. It bears repeating now, three months later, as tides are turning…

I have mixed feelings this Fourth.

You who read me here, you know I am a practical progressive, believe in compassion and justice, and utterly deplore the current administration’s  delusional justifications for it’s program of malicious mischief. With the anti-Americanism rampant throughout Trump’s cabinet and appointees, it is embarrassing to be an American, these days.

It is shameful that more rational and humane voices are drowned out in the mob’s chorus of nationalistic fervor. These years will be named in history as the era of White Supremacy empowered by massive ignorance and greed. It is the era of toxic capitalism, as evil a thing as the toxic socialism: they both create chaos in their extremes, in which there is nothing but growing desperation for the majority of American citizens; and desperation is a root cause of rising suicide statistics, of escapist entertainments and distractions, of losing our grip on civilization. 

But that’s not the whole story.

We are in a time of wakening, of growing awareness of the beliefs that have bound us to tribal thinking, and every day thinking, caring, and the acceptance of responisbility move us towards a higher level of civilization than technology has ever achieved on its own. 

I read a quote yesterday, an assertion that America’s true greatness lies in our ability to see and correct our faults. Adding that, however far from them we are at a given moment, this nation strives towards the ideals stated in the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, I agree.

I believe that this mad era will pop like a noxious swamp bubble, that we will claw back our humanity and wisdom; for another generation or two, the best of what we are will override the worst, until our children’s children’s children have forgotten what we are remembering now: that it is our responsibility as adults and as citizens to keep an eye on the flow of power and to keep it from bursting its boundaries and flooding catastrophically again. That will no doubt happen again, because there is nothing like success and well-being to fuel complacence, and the taking-for-granted of blessing earlier generations bled for.  

After all, we have been here, exactly here, before. If you doubt it, do some research on The Gilded Age. There are some excellent documentaries on Amazon Prime.

So today, the 4th of July, 2019, I will be figuratively and literally be turning my back on Trump and his imitation of power, his imitation of the authoritarians he looks to as role models. I keep faith with those who think and care and take on the responsibility to rise above the swamp sucking at our feet. Every day, more of us awaken to the atrocities this administration perpetrates, and there are more of us than of them: all we have to do is vote, and vote smart. 

That’s what this day will be about for me, today, and tonight, every fireburst in the sky will be light blasting away the darkness.

Violetta 15 Years My Friend

It is not you my sweet friend
I lay to rest upon a bed of flowers,
cover over with petals 
of pink and yellow and white
and all the gentle colors of the rose…
because I could not simply consign
your empty body to the earth, 
lying on, surrounded by unlovely dirt.

It is not you there in the garden
under the cairn we built 
to mark the place, I know because
I see you in my heart, with mind’s eye
romping full of life and spry again
in a meadow where the wildflowers
bounce and tease and play with you
and all the others who have gone before.

I know you are not there because
I glimpse you from the corner of my eye
from time to time about the house
behind the door or on the stairs…
or feel you snuggle in the night 
in your accustomed place 
against my shoulder, and I can almost
hear your calm persistent purr

especially in those moments
when I would miss you most 
if I did not know that you
like all beloved pets
do not abandon us when 
your ill or aging body dies
but stay nearby as long
as we still need you to be here. 

2015

Tolkien Tribute: Erebor


Born of fire, the Mountain rose, alone amid the plain,
and stood there steaming for an age, cooling in the rain
that fell and gathered in stream and pool and marshes, fen and pond
until a lake lay at its feet, and stretched over the lands beyond.

Came a hearty race of wandering folk
that sheltered there out of the night
bringing songs and tales, and hammers and ales
and eyes so very bright!
Caverns they found in the Mountain’s folds,
and made themselves at home,
delving chambers and corridors
from the Mountain’s patient stone.

The Mountain yielded treasures of gems,
of gold, and of silver gleaming,
an endless source of beauty and wealth,
as it lay there quietly dreaming.
And Aule’s Children, they cut and carved,
and made of the darkness a wonder
and lit it with lamps of the glittering gems
they’d from the Mountain’s heart plundered.

Other folk came to the lands round about
and planted town and crop,
That rippled, reflected in the shining lake
alongside the Mountain’s top.
In alliance they feasted and raised fine toasts
in many a mighty flagon,
And while they sang and the Mountain slept
there came like a storm, the Dragon.

Woe and sorrow, for all that died,
for the wealth and the glories lost–
The few that lived, ran for their lives,
to the tempests of fortune tossed.
The Beast, he bellowed and gathered together
a glittering golden bed
of all that the Dwarves had left behind
when those weeping survivors fled.

Grim the years, and cowed the folk
who lived on the lake in the gloaming,
ever in fear of the Dragon’s penchant
for malicious and fiery roaming.
But as the time passed, the Dragon grew older
and fat on the fruit of his malice,
and finally mostly all that he did
was sleep at the roots of his palace.

In lands afar, the vagabond Dwarves,
they made what poor life they could
but ever they dreamed of return and revenge
and knew that someday they would
defy that great Dragon, that arrogant Wyrm,
and drive him away from their hall–
They dreamed and planned in exile far,
though their resources were small.

The Mountain moved not, nor noticed nor cared
who dwelt in the halls nor how former lords fared;
Alone on the plain, it slept away ages
while Men, Dwarves and others filled History’s pages…

A day came indeed when the Dwarf-kind
returned and the ancient Dragon was roused
and goaded and teased until he stirred
from the halls where he comfortably housed.
He flew off towards the town on the lake in a fury,
his outrage errupting in fire
and there at the point of a long black shaft,
did the wicked old Wyrm expire.

Parades there came of Men and Elves
and Dwarves and Goblins and all
the races that live in Middle Earth,
old, young, and short and tall…
Armies met and clashed and killed
and died in defiance and rage
in a Battle that heralded the opening blows
of the end of another Age.

Hammers and swords, songs and laments
have echoed on the Mountain’s side;
Lives have been lived there in joy and despair
and many a death has been died;
Great and mighty have dwelt in its deeps
from swaddling clothes to shrouds…
The Mountain drowses alone on the plain,
where the reaching earth touches the clouds.