Backcountry Almanac
January 5, 2008
Tree: Alder Gem: Garnet Flower: Filaree
01 Joyous New Year // Inanna- Queen of Heaven & Earth
02 Open a New door
03 J R R Tolkien b. 1892
04 Quadrantids meteors
05 Avian Day, to honor all creatures of the air
06 12th Night // Alan Watts b. 1915
07 War Tax Resistance, first national congress, 1972
08 Elvis, the King, b. 1935// New Moon in Capricorn 3:37 a.m.
09 Richard Nixon b. 1913 (looking good in comparison)
10 Festival of Dreams – Iroquois
11 Feast of Hecate
12 Play
13 Depths of Winter
14 Murray Bookchin b.1921 // The Simpson’s debut, 1990
15 Martin Luther King b. 1929
16 Bush I launches first Gulf War on Iraq, 1991
17 Ben Franklin b. 1706
18 Traditional “Wassailing the apple trees” ritual
20 ACLU founded, 1920
21 Leadbelly b. 1885 // Martin Luther King day
22 Full Moon/Cold moon in Leo @ 5:35 a.m.
23 John Hancock b.1737
24 Warren Zevon b. 1947 // Granny D b. 1910
25 John Dillenger captured in Tucson, 1934
27 Feed the birds
28 Thomas Paine b. 1737, held that the Diety is consistent with nature & reason
29 Ed Abbey b.1927- environmentalist, writer // Concordia-peace festival, birthday of Pax
30 “Listening to the land” is not a metaphor”- Jeanette Armstrong
31 Eve of Imbolc/ Brigid’s Day // Fr. Thomas Merton b. 1915
Planets visible in the morning sky: Venus, Jupiter from the 15th,
Planets visible in the evening sky: Mars, Mercury from the 16th,
January days:
Plant above ground crops- 11,12,13,16,17,20,21
Plant root crops & perennials- 2,3,7, 27,28,29,30
“The lesson that life constantly enforces is ‘Look underfoot.’ You are
always nearer to the true sources of your power than you think. The lure
of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is
where you are. Don’t despise your own place and hour. Every place is the
center of the world.” –Naturalist John Burroughs
We drove on the Interstate highway from Tucson to where it ended in the little town of Green Valley and then took the two-lane Nogales Highway past a bustling Halfway Station and turned west between the Cow Palace and corner gas station. Our journey took us down the newly paved road across 23 miles of wide-open spaces to Arivaca. It was January 1975; clear, sunny and cold.
Gas cost $.55 per gallon and the truck burned one gallon every 12 miles- about the same as the popular Ford Torino. The Eagles sang out from the radio, interrupted now and then by the John Fogerty, the Marshall Tucker band, John Lennon or Olivia Newton John. Newscasts informed us of the popularity of Godfather II, the latest ‘streaker’, the unfolding Patty Hearst drama, Ford pardoning Nixon, Solzenitsyn’s exile from the Soviet Union, war in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, amnesty being granted to Vietnam War draft evaders, and gas shortages as the giant oil companies net profits rose 93%. The world population was 3.8 billion and the minimum wage was $2.10 ($6.12 equivalent).
There was a mile of dirt road curving downhill into Arivaca that we had to slow down for. Main Street was one sparse block with McElrath’s house set back from the road, the town’s only church building, Saint Ferdinand’s, the Posnecki house, and the Mercantile in a row on the north side. The mercantile building contained the store and corner post office with gas pumps in front. Helen Poznecki was postmaster and her husband, Bill, ran the store. Down the block was Helen Gregore’s large block house and Schwanderlick’s house at the turn to Sasabe. On the south side of the street were Schaffner’s place, Tony and Marge Prevor’s impressive compound, La Gitana Cantina with bar in front and a large dance floor- Bill and Ruth Larson proprietors, old adobes, Harvey Riggs’ house, and Townsend’s at the west end of town. There was a scattering of homes belonging to rather independent entrepreneurial types in the townsite to the north, a few with Hippies not welcome signs in the yard.
We passed one car on the drive in from the Cow Palace.
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell. -Edward Abbey
Peace, quiet and open spaces under the wide blue sky are the most precious things. I’ll leave the hustle-bustle to urban areas and choose the natural world for my home.
Lately the place has the feel of an invasion in full swing. Where did we get the idea that all these agencies with their noisy presence are needed by anyone for any reason? When did we loose our respect for the land and her creatures? What does it mean to “feel safe”?
I felt quite safe and perfectly happy out here in the Heart of the World from the beginning. The sound of an engine was rare and caught my attention. Visitors were infrequent. Aircraft seldom seen. Bobcat and larger cats, coati, ringtail cats, fox, badger, deer, antelope, javelina, skunk, coyote, raccoon, and many kinds of birds were common sights. Strangers out in the hills were usually rockhounds or hunters. Smugglers of various goods were invisible and benign transients. Mexican Nationals were hired routinely as day labor.
The Machine kicked into gear in the mid-eighties during the reign of Reagan. Economic wars were raging in Central and South America under the guise of ideology. (Aren’t all wars economic?) Mexico’s economy was faltering. ‘New’ drugs were introduced to the world and made illegal for sale or use. The Border Patrol and U.S. Customs began to grow in size and aggressiveness. Fortune’s were growing in the drug trade. Clinton’s NAFTA in 1994 was the clincher. All hell broke loose and now we have the new slave trade included in the Border Wars. Make no mistake. It’s all about the money and you cannot tell the good guys from the bad guys. Who, exactly, is pushing this agenda? Who are the players?
In the words of Paul McCartney, “Money can’t buy me love…” It can’t buy me peace, quiet, open spaces, or safety either.
As war and government prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases. -Edward Abbey
The long nights of winter are the perfect time for reflection upon our life and our place in the world.
Big love, big remembering, big forgiveness, big peace.
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Common Sense, 1776, ‘Introduction’ by Thomas Paine
Recorded history is largely an account of the crimes and disasters committed by banal little men at the levers of imperial machines.
Edward Abbey
Orthodoxy is a relaxation of the mind accompanied by a stiffening of the heart.
Edward Abbey
I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving.
Edward Abbey
If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.
Edward Abbey
I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze
than it should be stifled by dryrot.
I would rather be a superb meteor,
every atom of me in magnificent glow,
than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.
Jack London, American novelist, born on January 12, 1876
“Nature exults in abounding radicality, extremism, anarchy. If we were to
judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn’t believe the
world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one stock in trade. The
whole creation is one lunatic fringe . . . No claims of any and all
revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe.” –Annie Dillard,
*Pilgrim at Tinker Creek*
We have a duty to look after each other. If we lose control of our government, then we lose our ability to dispense justice and human kindness. Our first priority today, then, is to defeat utterly those forces of greed and corruption that have come between us and our self-governance.
Granny D (Doris Haddock), American nonagenarian activist born on January 24, 1910
Copyright 2008 Meg Keoppen
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