Splendid photo poems and last day of the year reflections, Chris. I'm feeling deeply grateful looking at Sidney Perched On a Rock Overlooking the Lamar River Poem, Buff’lo Poem, and Best Dog Poem and reading your words at 3 a.m. which is an hour after my usual wake-up time, unemployed and fully employed. I'm a winter person. Savoring the darkness and the winter light and the relative cold outside and warm inside. The Trumpeter swans are here now, along with Orion rising in the early evening and accompanying us through the night. Of course, here in the Pacific Northwest we have rain and a heavy cloud cover much of the winter time. Perfect weather for the cedar trees and those of us who are like cedar trees.
Appreciate your thoughts about community in winter. I live alone (yet keep thinking about sharing my limited space with a cat again). On a daily basis throughout the year, I get together with a small group of friends, women and men, at 7:00 or 7:30 a.m. We are a diverse group of unemployed, fully employed people who support each other and welcome anyone who wishes to join us. Our gatherings are especially dear to me in the dark winter months.
All the best to you and your many loved ones in 2024.
Thank you for expressing your frustration and lack of solution about this - I am there too, questioning how to bring people close again in a way that is calm and gentle. I am reading Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport at the moment - one of the suggestions for increasing actual conversation (as opposed to 'connection' via screens) is having a weekly coffee hour where you tell your friends and family and community that you'll be at a coffee shop from x hour and that they are welcome to drop in to sit and chat and co-habit that space if they wish. It got me thinking about creating these containers where people know they can access you (a specific time, place, theme, that is repeated each week or month). There's so much a culture of 'I didn't call because I didn't want to intrude or disrupt your busyness' that perhaps this approach could help. Lots of food for thought!
So much to take-in from this one singular post. I like the concept of being unemployed/employed: I can identify with this. And, your doggie story. All the beautiful thoughts in this post to carry my heart from one eventful year into the blank slate of the next.
May 2024 hold much gainful employment for you, Chris ;)
Dec 31, 2023·edited Dec 31, 2023Liked by Chris La Tray
Nookomis is such a lovely, quiet companion, especially on cold winter nights. When she is full, I always look for her in the mornings before dawn, and when she is new and dark, I miss her beautiful face. I appreciate the "quieter, more relaxed, grateful kind of community" you've created here. Miigwich.
“the Wintermaker”. 💞💞 I like people who can roll with the chaos of my house. People who know how to entertain themselves but also like my cheese and crackers. Increasingly I am feeling like food is a great event. Cook a meal, a cupcake, put together a spicy mix of snacks, grab a hot liquid and tell me your gossip. I love to have the kids underfoot because adults forget how to play sometimes but have you ever seen a grown man play charades and pretend to act out tossing a baton in the air like a cheerleader? May have been my favorite moment last week….
Best dog poem. What a sweet soul--and I know what you mean, I have that same feeling about the first big dog I ever had. We just keep trying with what we know--and how they wait for us is something that is possibly the truest form of grace I've experienced.
I also love the winter--good thing finally since it's so long here...--but I was talking about that with friends over xmas dinner and it's also because of the time that people spend together more, when people are all sort of facing the same environment, the same season of quiet, rest, dark, cold. In AK, it seems everyone flee to the mountains and to fieldwork in the summer, but people are social in the winter more, around to be together--and I like that despite the settler colonialism of this land, the land is still teaching us what it means to draw together in times of cold and dark, that there is something of that rhythm that draws on us. It's imperfect--and as an admitted recluse, it's not frequent--but I do love winter for that part as well.
Blessings to you and all you care about for this new year.
Orion is my favorite constellation from childhood, probably because it was so easy to recognize for the wee lad I was, but also because there seemed to be something going on and I imagined stories about what that might be. I was happy to learn the Anishinaabe words Biboon and Biboonkeonini "the Wintermaker". A while back, I wrote this:
Orion returns
on a clear December night.
Standing watch til dawn
Your article "Unemployed, Fully Employed" reminded me of this quote from Jimmy Santiago Baca during an interview: "Who the hell has justified being able to go to a factory and work for fifty years putting labels on soup cans? Let's just call it murder because it's murder, it's spiritual murder..."
Dec 31, 2023·edited Dec 31, 2023Liked by Chris La Tray
Ever since Covid I have been using a new writing routine. I park under a tree in a corner of a nearby cemetery and write in the passenger seat of my car. No distractions and stories abound. I have greatly enjoyed reading your posts, Chris.
Creating and participating in spiritual communities is important for my well being. It steadies me during this time of deep losses and grief. Singing in the church choir, participating in person and online spiritual discussion groups, going to local powwows...Mingling with neighbors prompted by seeing them walking in our hood. I’m on the lookout for rich community experiences, impromptu or not.
Thank you so much for this beautiful post to ease us all through endings and beginnings. I will look for those moments of quiet winter community and think of you!
We tend to invite people over for board game nights--at least once a month (if not more). We also play online so that our friends from all over can join in the fun. It's a great way to keep in touch with people, though I think I enjoy the in-person gatherings most. I've considered trying to put together a rotating dinner kind of thing--something one person does once a month, then another person who was there does the next month, etc. We also have a standing obligation on (most) Saturday evenings to visit a friend and couch co-op some sort of video game or other. These activities keep us grounded and enjoying one another's company over time. Maybe think of something you enjoy doing and try to make it a once-a-month kind of thing. Invite people over for a "nibbles, noshes, and libations" night--nothing big or fancy. Just bring something you like to eat (chips and dip, cheese and crackers, little sausages on a stick, etc.) and something you want to drink and share with others (anything from water to wine to spirits)--and then just sit and discuss poetry, or tell stories, or watch Nookomis around the firepit. Even if it's just one person that shows up, it's still a moment of community and sharing, and it's something fun to plan for and anticipate. Having a game to play helps to keep things light for us, but you might have a community that really enjoys talking about books, poems, or sharing indigenous stories. Maybe you just want to jam some music. Maybe you want to just enjoy some together time in silence, staring up at the stars and talking about whatever comes to mind. Any way you slice it, though, it's a way to be together and create that community that you're asking about.
I have often though that this is something religions do well for their respective believers. They offer them a social context to get together to celebrate their beliefs. That social connection is something that makes religions so cohesive, too. It's something that, when I chose to distance myself from religions, that I found myself missing the most. Although I do NOT miss the obligation. Often it felt more tedious than spiritual, and that's never something I want to feel about my beliefs.
Remember, too, that community is all around us--not just in other people, but in the heavens and the animals and the wind and the waters. Sometimes we may need the communion of nature instead of other people, and that's a good thing, too. It allows us to reflect, to consider, and to renew our bonds with that which we can no longer speak with as easily as the First People did. And our souls need that, too.
I often find that my soul speaks the loudest and the most coherently when I and the world around me is quiet. I think for creatives, that's an important necessity--to have that time to let the spirits of the world sing through us. Finding those quieter voices is an important way of connecting--and then sharing those connections with others helps them to find those ways of connecting, too.
I sometimes think artists were the first true healers and shaman of the world. The invited us to ask questions and seek answers. They told us stories and painted pictures that reminded us of lessons learned and wisdom passed down. They charted the skies and made sense of the seasons. They connected with the Divine and showed us how we could do that, too. But that sometimes meant they had to sit alone and be in communion with the world rather than others of their own kind. I guess what I'm trying to say is: don't fret so much about the means in which we're communing. There are stories everywhere, and that's never a bad thing. Just remember that sharing those stories with others is important, too--even if it's just in a blog, or calling a friend, or chatting with that person on the street corner as we wait for the walk sign to change.
I hope the writing convention went well for you, by the by. I didn't get a chance to read your last message; so, if you wrote about it there, I'll catch up--eventually.
Wouldn't it be neat to invite people over to just sit and write poems or songs one night? I've never had the kind of friends that would enjoy doing that, but if I ever find some, I'm going to do it! I could see it being a lot of fun--especially if we're learning a new form, or trying out something different metrically, etc. I always feel like I learn something better when I'm practicing it with others.
And ...now I'm rambling. So...Happy New Year! I'm sure you'll find the answers you're looking for, because you never stop looking.
Just like you, I'm still working at being the man my dog thinks I am.
Splendid photo poems and last day of the year reflections, Chris. I'm feeling deeply grateful looking at Sidney Perched On a Rock Overlooking the Lamar River Poem, Buff’lo Poem, and Best Dog Poem and reading your words at 3 a.m. which is an hour after my usual wake-up time, unemployed and fully employed. I'm a winter person. Savoring the darkness and the winter light and the relative cold outside and warm inside. The Trumpeter swans are here now, along with Orion rising in the early evening and accompanying us through the night. Of course, here in the Pacific Northwest we have rain and a heavy cloud cover much of the winter time. Perfect weather for the cedar trees and those of us who are like cedar trees.
Appreciate your thoughts about community in winter. I live alone (yet keep thinking about sharing my limited space with a cat again). On a daily basis throughout the year, I get together with a small group of friends, women and men, at 7:00 or 7:30 a.m. We are a diverse group of unemployed, fully employed people who support each other and welcome anyone who wishes to join us. Our gatherings are especially dear to me in the dark winter months.
All the best to you and your many loved ones in 2024.
Thank you for expressing your frustration and lack of solution about this - I am there too, questioning how to bring people close again in a way that is calm and gentle. I am reading Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport at the moment - one of the suggestions for increasing actual conversation (as opposed to 'connection' via screens) is having a weekly coffee hour where you tell your friends and family and community that you'll be at a coffee shop from x hour and that they are welcome to drop in to sit and chat and co-habit that space if they wish. It got me thinking about creating these containers where people know they can access you (a specific time, place, theme, that is repeated each week or month). There's so much a culture of 'I didn't call because I didn't want to intrude or disrupt your busyness' that perhaps this approach could help. Lots of food for thought!
So much to take-in from this one singular post. I like the concept of being unemployed/employed: I can identify with this. And, your doggie story. All the beautiful thoughts in this post to carry my heart from one eventful year into the blank slate of the next.
May 2024 hold much gainful employment for you, Chris ;)
Nookomis is such a lovely, quiet companion, especially on cold winter nights. When she is full, I always look for her in the mornings before dawn, and when she is new and dark, I miss her beautiful face. I appreciate the "quieter, more relaxed, grateful kind of community" you've created here. Miigwich.
Beautiful post. I loved so much in this. Thanks for lifting my spirits in the wee hours of New Year’s Eve.
“the Wintermaker”. 💞💞 I like people who can roll with the chaos of my house. People who know how to entertain themselves but also like my cheese and crackers. Increasingly I am feeling like food is a great event. Cook a meal, a cupcake, put together a spicy mix of snacks, grab a hot liquid and tell me your gossip. I love to have the kids underfoot because adults forget how to play sometimes but have you ever seen a grown man play charades and pretend to act out tossing a baton in the air like a cheerleader? May have been my favorite moment last week….
Best dog poem. What a sweet soul--and I know what you mean, I have that same feeling about the first big dog I ever had. We just keep trying with what we know--and how they wait for us is something that is possibly the truest form of grace I've experienced.
I also love the winter--good thing finally since it's so long here...--but I was talking about that with friends over xmas dinner and it's also because of the time that people spend together more, when people are all sort of facing the same environment, the same season of quiet, rest, dark, cold. In AK, it seems everyone flee to the mountains and to fieldwork in the summer, but people are social in the winter more, around to be together--and I like that despite the settler colonialism of this land, the land is still teaching us what it means to draw together in times of cold and dark, that there is something of that rhythm that draws on us. It's imperfect--and as an admitted recluse, it's not frequent--but I do love winter for that part as well.
Blessings to you and all you care about for this new year.
Orion is my favorite constellation from childhood, probably because it was so easy to recognize for the wee lad I was, but also because there seemed to be something going on and I imagined stories about what that might be. I was happy to learn the Anishinaabe words Biboon and Biboonkeonini "the Wintermaker". A while back, I wrote this:
Orion returns
on a clear December night.
Standing watch til dawn
Your article "Unemployed, Fully Employed" reminded me of this quote from Jimmy Santiago Baca during an interview: "Who the hell has justified being able to go to a factory and work for fifty years putting labels on soup cans? Let's just call it murder because it's murder, it's spiritual murder..."
Thank you for your art and sharing.
Ever since Covid I have been using a new writing routine. I park under a tree in a corner of a nearby cemetery and write in the passenger seat of my car. No distractions and stories abound. I have greatly enjoyed reading your posts, Chris.
Creating and participating in spiritual communities is important for my well being. It steadies me during this time of deep losses and grief. Singing in the church choir, participating in person and online spiritual discussion groups, going to local powwows...Mingling with neighbors prompted by seeing them walking in our hood. I’m on the lookout for rich community experiences, impromptu or not.
Thank you so much for this beautiful post to ease us all through endings and beginnings. I will look for those moments of quiet winter community and think of you!
Lovely, lovely post.
We tend to invite people over for board game nights--at least once a month (if not more). We also play online so that our friends from all over can join in the fun. It's a great way to keep in touch with people, though I think I enjoy the in-person gatherings most. I've considered trying to put together a rotating dinner kind of thing--something one person does once a month, then another person who was there does the next month, etc. We also have a standing obligation on (most) Saturday evenings to visit a friend and couch co-op some sort of video game or other. These activities keep us grounded and enjoying one another's company over time. Maybe think of something you enjoy doing and try to make it a once-a-month kind of thing. Invite people over for a "nibbles, noshes, and libations" night--nothing big or fancy. Just bring something you like to eat (chips and dip, cheese and crackers, little sausages on a stick, etc.) and something you want to drink and share with others (anything from water to wine to spirits)--and then just sit and discuss poetry, or tell stories, or watch Nookomis around the firepit. Even if it's just one person that shows up, it's still a moment of community and sharing, and it's something fun to plan for and anticipate. Having a game to play helps to keep things light for us, but you might have a community that really enjoys talking about books, poems, or sharing indigenous stories. Maybe you just want to jam some music. Maybe you want to just enjoy some together time in silence, staring up at the stars and talking about whatever comes to mind. Any way you slice it, though, it's a way to be together and create that community that you're asking about.
I have often though that this is something religions do well for their respective believers. They offer them a social context to get together to celebrate their beliefs. That social connection is something that makes religions so cohesive, too. It's something that, when I chose to distance myself from religions, that I found myself missing the most. Although I do NOT miss the obligation. Often it felt more tedious than spiritual, and that's never something I want to feel about my beliefs.
Remember, too, that community is all around us--not just in other people, but in the heavens and the animals and the wind and the waters. Sometimes we may need the communion of nature instead of other people, and that's a good thing, too. It allows us to reflect, to consider, and to renew our bonds with that which we can no longer speak with as easily as the First People did. And our souls need that, too.
I often find that my soul speaks the loudest and the most coherently when I and the world around me is quiet. I think for creatives, that's an important necessity--to have that time to let the spirits of the world sing through us. Finding those quieter voices is an important way of connecting--and then sharing those connections with others helps them to find those ways of connecting, too.
I sometimes think artists were the first true healers and shaman of the world. The invited us to ask questions and seek answers. They told us stories and painted pictures that reminded us of lessons learned and wisdom passed down. They charted the skies and made sense of the seasons. They connected with the Divine and showed us how we could do that, too. But that sometimes meant they had to sit alone and be in communion with the world rather than others of their own kind. I guess what I'm trying to say is: don't fret so much about the means in which we're communing. There are stories everywhere, and that's never a bad thing. Just remember that sharing those stories with others is important, too--even if it's just in a blog, or calling a friend, or chatting with that person on the street corner as we wait for the walk sign to change.
I hope the writing convention went well for you, by the by. I didn't get a chance to read your last message; so, if you wrote about it there, I'll catch up--eventually.
Wouldn't it be neat to invite people over to just sit and write poems or songs one night? I've never had the kind of friends that would enjoy doing that, but if I ever find some, I'm going to do it! I could see it being a lot of fun--especially if we're learning a new form, or trying out something different metrically, etc. I always feel like I learn something better when I'm practicing it with others.
And ...now I'm rambling. So...Happy New Year! I'm sure you'll find the answers you're looking for, because you never stop looking.
It's such beautiful country where you live.
And Bernard was a handsome gentleman pup. :).
Happy New Year to you and yours.
What a beautiful post. Poem photos, heartfelt reflection and an invitation to make community. The best one yet, Chris. ❤️