Tag: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Serving Some Good Purpose

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We are the hollow men
    We are the stuffed men
    Leaning together
    Headpiece filled with straw.
~T.S. Eliot from “The Hollow Men”

Here is the scarecrow, see him stand
Upon the newly planted land;
A figure rugged and forlorn,
A silent watcher of the corn.

His dangling legs, his arms spread wide,
A lone man of the countryside;
Uncouth, the butt of pen and tongue,
Unheralded, unsought, unsung.

To you, old scarecrow, then this lay
To cheer you on your lonely way;
Would that all men, their whole lives through,
Served some good purpose same as you.
~Annie Stone “The Scarecrow” (written on her 103rd birthday)

Once I said to a scarecrow, “You must be tired of standing in this
lonely field.”

And he said, “The joy of scaring is a deep and lasting one, and I
never tire of it.”

Said I, after a minute of thought, “It is true; for I too have
known that joy.”

Said he, “Only those who are stuffed with straw can know it.”

Then I left him, not knowing whether he had complimented or belittled me.

A year passed, during which the scarecrow turned philosopher.

And when I passed by him again I saw two crows building a nest
under his hat.
~Kahlil Gibran “The Scarecrow”

“I’ve seen myself, Mother Rigby! I’ve seen myself for the wretched, ragged, empty thing I am. I’ll exist no longer.”

Snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it with all his might against the chimney, and at the same instant sank upon the floor, a medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from the heap and a shriveled pumpkin in the midst. The eyeholes were now lustreless but the rudely carved gap that just before had been a mouth still seemed to twist itself into a despairing grin, and was so far human.

“Poor fellow!” quoth Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her ill-fated contrivance. “My poor, dear, pretty Feathertop! There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world made up of just such a jumble of worn-out, forgotten and good-for-nothing trash as he was, yet they live in fair repute, and never see themselves for what they are. And why should my poor puppet be the only one to know himself and perish for it?”

“I could easily give him another chance, and send him forth again tomorrow. But no! His feelings are too tender–his sensibilities too deep. He seems to have too much heart to bustle for his own advantage in such an empty and heartless world. Well, well! I’ll make a scarecrow of him, after all. ‘Tis an innocent and useful vocation, and will suit my darling well; and if each of his human brethren had as fit a one, ‘twould be the better for mankind.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne from “Feathertop” (the story of a scarecrow brought to life)

We don’t see many real working scarecrows around anymore. Corn and grain fields are so vast and abundant, the loss of a few kernels to raccoons or crows is not devastating to the farmer, so why frighten them away?

Instead, scarecrows have become the stuff of cheerful autumn decorations, standing alongside cornstalks and hay bales on porches, scaring no one. Or they are portrayed as horribly sinister and menacing in Halloween movies and haunted houses – a poor scarecrow’s original purpose twisted to frighten away far more than hungry critters.

Perhaps scarier, as our election season progresses, we’re seeing “hollow” politicians portraying themselves as something far more than they really are. We watch them “lean together, headpiece filled with straw.” It doesn’t take long to be exposed as “wretched, ragged, and empty.”

The worthy politician with good goals and purpose “seems to have too much heart to bustle for his own advantage in such an empty and heartless world.” Sometimes they decide to simply retire into obscurity and the garden.

…or they should…

The honest and genuine scarecrow returns to his post in the cornfield – such an innocent and useful vocation. If only we each had as fit a job, it would be all the better for mankind.

(A personal note: back in 1972, I combined Eliot’s “Hollow Men” and Hawthorne’s “Feathertop” in a scarecrow-themed interpretive reading that garnered Washington State’s top high school prize, sending me to nationals at Wake Forest in North Carolina. There I, a true country bumpkin, was soundly and deservedly trounced by far more talented high schoolers from all over the country.

At least I was able to say “I went to nationals…,” a very “hollow men” thing to claim.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFuFnRLRb_E
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A Relinquishing Light

barnstormingblog2 Comments

oct17leaves

 

octevening297

 

octevening2917

 

sunsetmaple2

 

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on,
and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.
The sunshine is peculiarly genial;
and in sheltered places, as on the side of a bank, or of a barn or house,
one becomes acquainted and friendly with the sunshine.
It seems to be of a kindly and homely nature.
And the green grass strewn with a few withered leaves looks the more green and beautiful for them.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

mapledown

 

octevening2914

 

octevening2916

 

If I were a month, I would prefer to be October…

A kindly and homely nature, with comfortable temperatures and just a hint of fogginess,
with flashes of burnt umber flashing misty gold in a relinquishing light.

 

eveninglight1010152

 

eveninglight1010151

 

mistyfrontyard

 

Happiness Beyond Our Grasp

barnstormingblog3 Comments

butterflythistle

July 4 is not only the birthday of our independence as the United States of America.  It is the day we declared to the world:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

No one had ever said it out loud before.  Historically there had been many a treatise written and wars won and lost about the right to live, and the right to freedom, but the right to pursue happiness?  Unprecedented– and so typically American.

Declaring it is one thing.  Making it so is quite another matter.  Happiness likes to elude our pursuit.

As the famous American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, born on July 4, wrote:

“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”

Americans pay a steep price in our noisy and pushy pursuit of happiness.  Perhaps it is the larger mortgage for a bigger house, a wider flat screen TV, the latest tech device, unlimited access to 24 hour porn sites, the best recreational substance money can buy, or the tank of gas that will carry us just a little farther down the road in our big trucks, RVs and SUVs.  We try to buy our way to happiness with our charge cards maxed out and find ourselves in a deeper debt pit, putting our life and liberty in serious jeopardy.  Even the government itself, home of the brave and the free, has never been so deep in deficit spending.

Happiness cannot be purchased with plastic, but is bought through individual personal sacrifice, making sure others have what they need before we ourselves rest easy.  It is the selfish pursuit of selflessness.  And that is exactly why it is so elusive because inalienable rights don’t come naturally–they must be fought for and preserved daily.

Much blood has been shed by Americans to guarantee Life and Liberty for others, including citizens of other countries.  If the price paid through the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives has resulted in more happiness, why do we still seem so unsatisfied and miserable?

Perhaps we have it backward, as Hawthorne suggests.  We can’t pursue happiness;  it will find us, like God’s grace,  when we least expect or deserve it.

Happiness certainly won’t be found in the fireworks that will be blown up today, or the food consumed, or the free flowing alcohol. It will be in a quiet moment of realization that we are truly blessed by this incredible place to live and raise our children, and that we need to work harder than ever to make it even better.   We will not be free until we stop allowing our appetites to dictate how we live our lives, but realize true freedom comes when we do what ought to be done to preserve equality, justice and liberty for future generations.

At that moment, in a public, no longer silent, prayer of thanks to the Creator addressed in our Declaration of Independence, can we know the Happiness that pursues us when we live in a forward thinking spirit of gratitude and sacrifice.

Happiness touches us, like a butterfly that lights upon us in our stillness,
in a moment of pure grace.

swallowtail2

A Line of Delicate Green

barnstormingblog1 Comment

delicategreen

delicategreen4

I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over  my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation.  It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.
–  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses from an Old Manse

delicategreen2

A Few Feathery Flakes

barnstormingblog4 Comments

snow2221419

snow22314

snow1220133

A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air,
and hover downward with uncertain flight,
now almost alighting on the earth,
now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

snow12201331

snow12201310

It was a fairy-tale world, child-like and funny.
Boughs of trees adorned with thick pillows,
so fluffy someone must have plumped them up;
the ground a series of humps and mounds,
beneath which slinking underbrush or outcrops of rock lay hidden;
a landscape of crouching, cowering gnomes in droll disguises—
it was comic to behold, straight out of a book of fairy tales.
But if there was something roguish and fantastic
about the immediate vicinity through which you laboriously made your way,
the towering statues of snow-clad Alps,
gazing down from the distance,
awakened in you feelings of the sublime and holy.
~Thomas Mann from The Magic Mountain

snow2221418

snow1220135

“You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there–
the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall.
All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home,
which is no less shimmering and white as it falls.
The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence.
It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at,
but unless the child in you is entirely dead,
it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way,
before your defenses are up.
It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed.”
~Frederick Buechner

snow1220137

snow1220138

You should see my corgis at sunset in the snow.
It’s their finest hour. About five o’clock they glow like copper.
Then they come in and lie in front of the fire like a string of sausages.
~Tasha Tudor

snow22214

“one day you stepped in snow,
the next in mud,
water soaked in your boots and froze them at night,
it was the next worst thing to pure blizzardry,
it was weather that wouldn’t let you settle.”
~E.L. Doctorow

coyote1
coyote in the field

coyote2

coyote3

Snow not falling but flying sidewise, and sudden,
not signaled by the slow curdling of clouds all day
and a flake or two drifting downward,
but rushing forward all at once as though sent for.
And filling up the world’s concavities,
pillowing up in the gloaming,
making night light with its whiteness,
and then falling still in every one’s dreams…
~John Crowley

snow12201332

blowing snow in the barn
blowing snow in the barn

another barnstorming
another barnstorming

snow12209

“The smallest snowstorm on record took place an hour ago in my back yard.
It was approximately two flakes.
I waited for more to fall, but that was it.
The entire storm was two flakes.”
~Richard Brautigan

snowjose

snowonsnowdrops

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
~Robert Frost “Reluctance”

snow12201329

A Kindly and Homely Month

barnstormingblog1 Comment

sunrise1019

frontyardwalnut

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on,
and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.
The sunshine is peculiarly genial;
and in sheltered places, as on the side of a bank, or of a barn or house,
one becomes acquainted and friendly with the sunshine.
It seems to be of a kindly and homely nature.
And the green grass strewn with a few withered leaves looks the more green and beautiful for them.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

If I were a month, I would want to be October…

A kindly and homely nature, with comfortable temperatures and a bit foggy,
with flashes of burnt umber, misty gold in the relinquishing light.

mistybarn

mapledown

Any Wonderful Unexpected Thing

barnstormingblog1 Comment

startingfall

chlorophyllgaps

cottonwood3

After the keen still days of September, the October sun filled the world with mellow warmth…
The maple tree in front of the doorstep burned like a gigantic red torch.
The oaks along the roadway glowed yellow and bronze.
The fields stretched like a carpet of jewels, emerald and topaz and garnet.
Everywhere she walked the color shouted and sang around her…
In October any wonderful unexpected thing might be possible.
~Elizabeth George Speare from The Witch of Blackbird Pond 

pastureoctober

chlorophyllholes

maplegaragesunrise10612

I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

creepergarage

abouttoburst

whirlybirs

He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkien from The Fellowship of the Ring

sunrise10611

sunrise1064

pondtree

pastureoctober1

thistlehair

sunrise1062

Like the Touch of a Butterfly

barnstormingblog3 Comments

photo by Josh Scholten http://www.cascadecompass.com

July 4 is not only the birthday of our independence as the United States of America.  It is the day we declared to the world:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

No one had ever said it out loud before.  Historically there had been many a treatise written and wars won and lost about the right to live, and the right to freedom, but the right to pursue happiness?  Unprecedented– and so typically American.

Declaring it is one thing.  Making it so is quite another matter.  Happiness tends to elude our pursuit.

As the famous American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, born on July 4, wrote:

“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”

Americans pay a steep price in our noisy and pushy pursuit of happiness.  Perhaps it is the larger mortgage for a bigger house, a wider flat screen TV, the perfect antidepressant medication or the  best recreational substance money can buy, or the tank of gas that will carry us just a little farther down the road in our big trucks, RVs and SUVs.   We try to buy our way to happiness with our charge cards maxed out and find ourselves in a deeper debt pit, putting our life and liberty in serious jeopardy.  Even the government itself, home of the brave and the free,  has never been so deep in deficit spending.

Happiness is not purchased with plastic, but is bought through individual personal sacrifice, making sure others have what they need before we ourselves rest easy.  It is the selfish pursuit of selflessness.  And that is exactly why it is so elusive because inalienable rights don’t come naturally–they must be fought for and then preserved daily.

Much blood has been shed by Americans to guarantee Life and Liberty for others, including citizens of other countries.  If the price paid through the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives has resulted in more happiness, why do we still seem so unsatisfied and miserable?

Perhaps we have it backward, as Hawthorne suggests.  We can’t pursue happiness;  it will find us when we least expect it.

Happiness certainly won’t be found in the fireworks that will be blown up today, or the food consumed, or the free flowing alcohol.    It will be in the quiet moment of realization that we are truly blessed by this incredible place to live and raise our children, and that we need to work harder than ever to make it even better.   We will not be free until we stop allowing our appetites to dictate how we live our lives, but realize true freedom comes when we do what ought to be done to preserve that freedom for future generations.

At that moment, in a silent prayer of thanks to the Creator addressed in our Declaration of Independence, can we know the Happiness that pursues us when we live in a forward thinking spirit of gratitude and sacrifice.

Happiness touches us, like a butterfly, in a moment of grace.

And only then, can we make it so.

The Pursuit of Happiness

barnstormingblog4 Comments

AmericanFlag

July 4 is not just the birthday of our independence as the United States of America.  It is the day we declared to the world that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  No one had ever said it out loud before.  Historically there had been many a treatise written and wars won and lost about the right to live, and the right to freedom, but the right to pursue happiness?  Unprecedented– and so typically, utterly American…

Declaring it is one thing.  Making it so is quite another matter.  Happiness eludes the pursuit for most.

As famous American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, born on July 4, wrote:

“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”

We Americans pay a steep price in our noisy and pushy pursuit of happiness.  Perhaps it is the larger mortgage for that bigger house, the wider flat screen TV, the perfect antidepressant medication or recreational substance, or the tank of gas that will carry us just a little farther down the road in our big trucks, RVs and SUVs.   We try to buy our way to happiness with our charge cards maxed out and find ourselves in a deeper debt pit, putting our life and liberty in serious jeopardy.

There can be no true happiness until we ensure all Americans, indeed all world citizens, are given their best chance at Life itself–free of disease, of starvation, of homelessness, of genocide.

There can be no true happiness until we ensure all Americans, indeed all world citizens, know the freedom of true liberty– free of tyranny, of oppression and poverty, of war and destruction.

Happiness is not purchased with plastic, but is bought through individual personal sacrifice, making sure others have what they need before we ourselves rest easy.  It is the selfish pursuit of selflessness.  And that is exactly why it is so elusive because inalienable rights don’t come naturally–they must be fought for, daily.

Much blood has been shed by Americans to guarantee Life and Liberty for others, including citizens of other countries.  Has the price paid through the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives resulted in more happiness for the rest of us?  Perhaps we have it backward, as Hawthorne suggests.  We can’t pursue happiness;  it will find us when we least expect it.

Happiness won’t be found in the fireworks that will be blown up today, or the food consumed, or the free flowing alcohol.    It will be in the quiet moment of realization that we are truly blessed by this incredible place to live and be free, given opportunity to raise our children in such a place, and that we need to work harder than ever to make it even better.  At that moment, in a silent prayer of thanks to the Creator addressed in our Declaration of Independence, can we know the Happiness that pursues us when we live in a spirit of gratitude and sacrifice.

It touches us, like a butterfly, in a moment of grace.

And only then, can we make it so.