Plague Journal, Water
Yesterday, there was a good deal of rain. I took a walk into Braeburn Marsh. The marshland floor was wet; the decomposition of wood fragments of the fallen giant cottonwoods was a visible example of the carbon cycle. Sunlight, to sugar by photosynthesis, to the cellulose wood fiber over time, becoming a 50 foot tall tree. Then by lightning strike, or simply by the action of age, wind and 
detrition of insects, bacteria, etc. the giant falls to the marshland floor. Decomposition begins the transition back to earth. And so is goes with us as well. A cycle of life 
and death.
It rained last night. I remember hearing thunder before falling asleep. I slept through the downpour. Waking early, to keep an appointment with my son, I drove to the dam on the 
Fox River at North Aurora. The Fox is a substantial river that flows from Wisconsin into Illinois. I would estimate the Fox between an eighth and a quarter mile across at the dam. There is enough water flow that in the late 19th century the river towns along the Fox derived 
prosperity from factories powered by the dams constructed across the river. The flow is diverted to spin turbine wheels. By a system of belts and pulleys Nature’s energy was transformed into force, force to operate the machines inside the factories.
The application of human intelligence to nature, to derive an improved living, is truly amazing. In the pre-electricity age, that is how things 
were done, by mechanical ingenuity. Upon reflection, what alternative did we, do we have? We are “of Nature” ourselves. That is the given.
This morning the Fox River at the dam roared with a drumming basso-profundo voice. The concrete dam was well submerged under the roaring water. In the photo can be seen a log falling over the back of the river, dropping over the dam into the turbulent, rolling brown water.
What is the point? It is fair that you ask. Nature is not to be denied. Intelligence, our human flair for calculation, ratiocination allows us to work with Nature, to divert the raw energy, upon occasion even to serve our purposes. Yet Nature is not under our purview, subject to servitude as we might be tempted to think. Nature can be raw, violent, a god that beckons us, reminding us individually and as a society there is no respite from the cycle of life and death.
These thoughts came to mind as I drove in return home from the river. Especially in view of the news. Subsequent to the declaration by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the state is “open-for-business,” bars and taverns were packed with revelers. Never mind, the covid-19 virus, — out of sight, out of mind.
Right?
6 thoughts on “Plague Journal, Water”
It is with disappointment of self, that such thoughts remain rolling around in my brain; present the retort that the incident could be considered ( if justice is served by the severest consequences of the law ), the unfolding process will be ‘evolution in action’. Even ‘life without parole’ would put an end to that particular, singular (father and son) strain of unwholesomeness from replicating itself via further generations.
I’ve begun a rereading of ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ which surgically dissects ( and quite often, maddeningly ) presents the myriad of all thoughts and diagnoses present in this human dynamic.
Blessings
Al, always a pleasure to receive and consider your comments. The unfolding process may be evolution in action, but I do not think that is what we intend to mean by justice. Even the imposition of the law, while critical for social order, does not accomplish justice.
Am interested in hearing your thoughts on ‘The Brothers Karamazov’as you have opportunity to reflect upon the story. You could compose a guest post…!
In law there should exist equity as well as statute but you are correct that justice is not served. And now, sadly, we witness such on the evening news on a daily basis.
Our legal system is the institution necessary to an ordered society. Disputes are settled, when one side prevails over the other. Justice depends upon the judgment of a judge or a jury, if they have the ability to perceive the truth beneath the lies spun by the attorneys. Anyone who spends more than a few minutes in a courtroom understands that if you want justice, stay out of court.
As I often do, I go back to Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, where the protagonist eventually learns to listen to the wisdom of the river. Siddhartha has no desire to alter the flow or harness the power, but only to learn the secrets of the ages from an ancient source. At least to me this is the true goal of a symbiotic relationship, where there is not an attempt to alter our environment, but to live in harmony with what we have inherited from Mother Nature. Many times I wonder if we have not become too far removed from this connection and if it is indeed too late to re-immerse ourselves in the landscape of our ancestors. I know that I catch glimpses (as do you) of what this connection can be. Wendell Berry is a master of offering a doorway into that world that at once seems both achingly familiar and foreign.
Following is one of Mr. Berry’s most poignant works:
The bell calls in the town
Where forebears cleared the shaded land
And brought high daylight down
To shine on field and trodden road.
I hear, but understand
Contrarily, and walk into the woods.
I leave labor and load,
Take up a different story.
I keep an inventory
Of wonders and of uncommercial goods.
I climb up through the field
That my long labor has kept clear.
Projects, plans unfulfilled
Waylay and snatch at me like briars,
For there is no rest here
Where ceaseless effort seems to be required,
Yet fails, and spirit tires
With flesh, because failure
And weariness are sure
In all that mortal wishing has inspired.
I go in pilgrimage
Across an old fenced boundary
To wildness without age
Where, in their long dominion,
The trees have been left free.
They call the soil here “Eden”; slants and steeps
Hard to stand straight upon
Even without a burden.
No more a perfect garden,
There’s an immortal memory that it keeps.
I leave work’s daily rule
And come here to this restful place
Where music stirs the pool
And from high stations of the air
Fall notes of wordless grace,
Strewn remnants of the primal Sabbath’s hymn.
And I remember here
A tale of evil twined
With good, serpent and vine
And innocence of evil’s stratagem.
I let that go a while,
For it is hopeless to correct
By generations’ toil,
And I let go my hopes and plans
That no toil can perfect.
There is no vision here but what is seen:
White bloom nothing explains.
But a mute blessedness
Exceeding all distress,
The fresh light stained a hundred shades of green.
Uproar of wheel and fire
That has contained us like a cell
Opens and lets us hear
A stillness longer than all time
Where leaf and song fulfill
The passing light, pass with the light, return,
Renewed, as in rhyme.
This is no human vision
Subject to our revision;
God’s eye holds every leaf as light is worn.
Ruin is in place here:
The dead leaves rotting on the ground,
The live leaves in the air
Are gathered in a single dance
That turns them round and round.
The fox cub trots his almost pathless path
As silent as his absence.
These passings resurrect
A joy without defect,
The life that steps and sings in ways of death.
A magnificent poem. A poem worth reading over and over.