Beauty
I should have mentioned that this little "essay" below was inspired by two things:
1) James' little discussion of the topic of Beauty.
2) My new acquaintance Reader Nectarios' discussion on quitting blogging.
Friday, March 12, 2004
Beauty and the Restoration of the Cosmos
Here are some thoughts on beauty. This might sound fairly incoherent, so rather than calling it an "essay" let's just call it random musings.
Let me begin by saying: "I have devoted my life thus far to beauty" - so I consider myself somewhat of an expert.
How is it, you ask, that you have devoted your life to beauty?
Well, those who know me personally may have heard me say before that I consider myself an artist. That is, I am afflicted with that life-long ailment (and super human power?) of an artist. I am not yet "accomplished" substantially as an artist, but I live my life with that constant preoccupation: how to accomplish something as an artist.
I am not an artisan. I think many of you will understand the difference with that distinction, and many will not. For those who don't: an "artisan" is someone who creates art as a craft, as a duty, as a job. Now, there are many artisans who are also artists. But, by and large, most artists are not able to "make a living" at their craft: though that craft may possess them day and night. To give you an example of the distinction (in the broadest possible sense) between an artist and an artisan, let me suggest the following: Vincent VanGogh was an artist. Someone working as a graphic artist for a magazine (laying out ad copy, or formatting pages of text) is an artisan.
Another way of putting it: an artist is obsessed with his craft, whereas an artisan is able to do creative things in a lesser scope to satisfy some commercial need of society. An artist may or may not be able to satisfy a commercial need of society. Some artist have become vastly rich, and some have died in poverty. But for the artist, it is never about making money (though every artist deep inside wishes he or she could make enough money to quit his job and be an artist full time.)
What is my craft: Literature. I have devoted my life to the pursuit of writing artistic literature. Novels, short stories, poetry - these are what I work with. As an "artist" I have always considered literature to be my main pursuit. Now, if I were independently wealthy, I believe I would expand my art into many different directions. Possibly film, stage, painting, and definitely photography.
You've probably noticed I've gone crazy since I bought my digital camera. I will continue to do so.
Nevertheless, I am not independently wealthy. And although I think visually when I work on some art, I continue to do so through literature, because I can. I have all the tools I need, and then some. Well, don't we all?
Anyway, that's my introduction and way of saying I'm an expert on the concept of Beauty. I was struggling with, thinking about, working on what my own understanding of Beauty was, long before I became Orthodox. Indeed, the beauty so abundant in the Orthodox Church was one of the biggest reasons I converted.
Now, on to those random musings.
Consider: Got made all things Beautiful. God Himself is infinite Beauty. God did not make sin, but allowed it by virtue of His Divine Love: namely, He chose and chooses to interact with us without coercion.
Sin is the perversion of Beauty. Sin does not strictly speaking "exist" but is only the aberration of the perversion of Beauty.
Death, suffering and the flesh: Death is the natural consequence of sin. Again, it is something God allows to happen to us physically, because He chose and chooses to interact with us without coercion. Suffering is also the natural consequence of sin. Again, God allows suffering because he deliberately refuses to interact with us through coercion.
The flesh, represents two things: On the one had it is the physical body. On the other hand it is a metaphor for the place in our souls where resides the thing we refer to often as "original sin" which is the place in us where the perversion of Beauty finds root and tries to grow. As such it is a spiritual chasm within us, and does not refer to our fleshly body. Thus when St. Paul says, "crucify the flesh" he is not trying to get us to commit suicide.
Asceticism is the struggle of the soul against the perversion of beauty. More on that later.
There are vast differences from Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic, Protestant) though on the purpose of fasting. The West has succumbed to the heresy of Gnostic Dualism, in which the body is set up in drastic opposition to the spirit. The "spirit" is seen as that part of us bearing God's image, whereas the flesh is seen as that part of us which must be subdued in order to encounter the Divine. As such, the purpose of fasting in the West is to eradicate that which is inherently evil (the flesh) and exists within us. In the East the flesh has no such ontology. That is, it really does not exist as an entity in opposition to God. Rather than destroying it utterly, we elevate it, we transform it into something God-bearing, just as the flesh of Christ Himself was God-bearing, just as the Virgin's Womb was God-bearing.
The purpose of fasting in the East is not because the body is inherently evil, and we must cut ourselves off from nourishing its senses. We do not deny ourselves because that part of us we are denying is evil, and should be cut off. Rather we deny ourselves for spiritual discipline.
God has declared all things good. Thus we do not deny ourselves because things are inherently evil, but because they do not belong to us, and we must learn not to be a consumer and possessor. Thus, we do not gouge out our eyes so that we may see no evil, but rather we learn to look upon a thing without seeing evil.
Of course, it goes without saying that there are things each of us must refrain from looking upon, because we are not strong enough yet, and looking upon them will drive us to the perversion of beauty: sin.
On to the basic premise of this little collection of thoughts...
As an artist, my life is closely wrapped up in these concepts. Daily. For as an artist, I must look upon everything I can, and try to find the beauty in it. Of course, I am weak and feeble, and there are many things I myself am not ready to look upon. Nevertheless, my personal struggle, daily, is how to show forth the beauty in the ugliness all around me, how to shine forth the light amidst the darkness.
I do not work hard enough on my writing. I do not write daily. But I think about my stories daily. They are swooshing around in my head at all times like the contents of a washing machine. And I constantly try to feed the swooshing mess. And one more thing has occurred to me.
The incarnation.
Everything is about the Incarnation, and the Incarnation is about everything that pertains to the topic of God and man.
Art is man's reaching toward God. Grace is God's reaching toward man. An artful work accomplished, and set into existence by the artist participates in the divine in as much as it is a creative act: ex nihilo. The artist has created something out of nothing. Surely he uses the substances of things that exist (paint, paper, canvas, bits on a computer) to represent that which he has created. But the thing itself that was created? It was created out of nothing, and now it exists.
The corresponding point of reference for this on the side of the Divine in this great interaction is the Sacrament. The Sacrament is the fullest embodiment of God's Grace. It is the thing that exists and bears God's Divine nature to us personally.
Instead of consuming the created, we consume the Divine.
Instead of possessing the created, we possess the Divine.
And as such, the Divinity consumes us... possesses us.
So, what if I create an un-beautiful thing?
Honestly, I do. Frequently in fact. I recognize that I am not perfect, but I also recognize that God does not insist that I am instantly perfect. Life is a struggle to achieve perfection in whatever tasks God has given us, whatever crosses he has given us to bear. And perfection comes more in learning to forgive yourself, learning to forgive others, than it does in a self-inflicted and self-imposed sort of perfectionism.
Thus, once again, the Fast is not all about self-imposing perfectionism, nor is it about self-infliction of pain. To think as such subjugates the mind to the western heresy of Gnostic Dualism.
The fast is all about becoming whole though the attempt to look at things as something other than consumables, as something other than possessions.
I remember a few words from a song in the 80s: "If you love someone, set them free."
Well, that's what the fast is all about.
You remember the Lenten prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian:
"Take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk;
but grant me rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love;
Yea O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother..."
Unfortunately many people during the fast concentrate on the "judging my brother" part. Namely, what are the eating that is against the rules of the fast?
I see far too many people preoccupied with following the nitty-gritty rules of the fast, and throwing out the purpose of the fast: learning chastity, humility, patience and love.
I'd like to focus on one word here: "chastity."
I do not remember the original Greek, but in Slavonic it is "Tselomudri" - and a literal translation of it is "wholeness" or "completeness." In the West with our preoccupation on sexual matters we have lowered the meaning of this word to something strictly sexual. But the original word refers to wholeness in life, wholeness of person. Namely, a lack of "wantonness" or "lust" - a lack of that thing that makes us want to go outside ourselves and possess, or consume from the beauty that surrounds us.
The restoration of the cosmos?
What is particularly significant in Orthodoxy Christianity is our concept of restoration of the Cosmos. Not only did the Incarnation accomplish the restoration of man to relationship with the Divine (in the fusion of the two natures, Divine and human) but it is also the beginning of the restoration of the whole cosmos. You see this in the many blessings we have in the Orthodox Church: sanctifying the waters on Theophany, blessing fruit on Pentecost, the way we bless our homes and our bodies and everything we have.
In a certain sense, when you give up the use of some physical thing (as in Lent) and when you give over the use of some physical thing (as in when our things are blessed) to God, we are seeing two sides of the restoration of the Cosmos.
The world itself will ultimately become supremely beautiful through interaction with the Divine. The world itself will become God-bearing. The world itself will become Heaven. It will become transfigured, and filled with the Divine Light, just as it was at the Transfiguration.
As an artist I work toward seeing this. I work toward somehow grasping this, today, before it has even taken place. I do not always succeed. I don't even know if I succeed often. I don't even know if I succeed EVER. But I'm working at it.
Basil
Here are some thoughts on beauty. This might sound fairly incoherent, so rather than calling it an "essay" let's just call it random musings.
Let me begin by saying: "I have devoted my life thus far to beauty" - so I consider myself somewhat of an expert.
How is it, you ask, that you have devoted your life to beauty?
Well, those who know me personally may have heard me say before that I consider myself an artist. That is, I am afflicted with that life-long ailment (and super human power?) of an artist. I am not yet "accomplished" substantially as an artist, but I live my life with that constant preoccupation: how to accomplish something as an artist.
I am not an artisan. I think many of you will understand the difference with that distinction, and many will not. For those who don't: an "artisan" is someone who creates art as a craft, as a duty, as a job. Now, there are many artisans who are also artists. But, by and large, most artists are not able to "make a living" at their craft: though that craft may possess them day and night. To give you an example of the distinction (in the broadest possible sense) between an artist and an artisan, let me suggest the following: Vincent VanGogh was an artist. Someone working as a graphic artist for a magazine (laying out ad copy, or formatting pages of text) is an artisan.
Another way of putting it: an artist is obsessed with his craft, whereas an artisan is able to do creative things in a lesser scope to satisfy some commercial need of society. An artist may or may not be able to satisfy a commercial need of society. Some artist have become vastly rich, and some have died in poverty. But for the artist, it is never about making money (though every artist deep inside wishes he or she could make enough money to quit his job and be an artist full time.)
What is my craft: Literature. I have devoted my life to the pursuit of writing artistic literature. Novels, short stories, poetry - these are what I work with. As an "artist" I have always considered literature to be my main pursuit. Now, if I were independently wealthy, I believe I would expand my art into many different directions. Possibly film, stage, painting, and definitely photography.
You've probably noticed I've gone crazy since I bought my digital camera. I will continue to do so.
Nevertheless, I am not independently wealthy. And although I think visually when I work on some art, I continue to do so through literature, because I can. I have all the tools I need, and then some. Well, don't we all?
Anyway, that's my introduction and way of saying I'm an expert on the concept of Beauty. I was struggling with, thinking about, working on what my own understanding of Beauty was, long before I became Orthodox. Indeed, the beauty so abundant in the Orthodox Church was one of the biggest reasons I converted.
Now, on to those random musings.
Consider: Got made all things Beautiful. God Himself is infinite Beauty. God did not make sin, but allowed it by virtue of His Divine Love: namely, He chose and chooses to interact with us without coercion.
Sin is the perversion of Beauty. Sin does not strictly speaking "exist" but is only the aberration of the perversion of Beauty.
Death, suffering and the flesh: Death is the natural consequence of sin. Again, it is something God allows to happen to us physically, because He chose and chooses to interact with us without coercion. Suffering is also the natural consequence of sin. Again, God allows suffering because he deliberately refuses to interact with us through coercion.
The flesh, represents two things: On the one had it is the physical body. On the other hand it is a metaphor for the place in our souls where resides the thing we refer to often as "original sin" which is the place in us where the perversion of Beauty finds root and tries to grow. As such it is a spiritual chasm within us, and does not refer to our fleshly body. Thus when St. Paul says, "crucify the flesh" he is not trying to get us to commit suicide.
Asceticism is the struggle of the soul against the perversion of beauty. More on that later.
There are vast differences from Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic, Protestant) though on the purpose of fasting. The West has succumbed to the heresy of Gnostic Dualism, in which the body is set up in drastic opposition to the spirit. The "spirit" is seen as that part of us bearing God's image, whereas the flesh is seen as that part of us which must be subdued in order to encounter the Divine. As such, the purpose of fasting in the West is to eradicate that which is inherently evil (the flesh) and exists within us. In the East the flesh has no such ontology. That is, it really does not exist as an entity in opposition to God. Rather than destroying it utterly, we elevate it, we transform it into something God-bearing, just as the flesh of Christ Himself was God-bearing, just as the Virgin's Womb was God-bearing.
The purpose of fasting in the East is not because the body is inherently evil, and we must cut ourselves off from nourishing its senses. We do not deny ourselves because that part of us we are denying is evil, and should be cut off. Rather we deny ourselves for spiritual discipline.
God has declared all things good. Thus we do not deny ourselves because things are inherently evil, but because they do not belong to us, and we must learn not to be a consumer and possessor. Thus, we do not gouge out our eyes so that we may see no evil, but rather we learn to look upon a thing without seeing evil.
Of course, it goes without saying that there are things each of us must refrain from looking upon, because we are not strong enough yet, and looking upon them will drive us to the perversion of beauty: sin.
On to the basic premise of this little collection of thoughts...
As an artist, my life is closely wrapped up in these concepts. Daily. For as an artist, I must look upon everything I can, and try to find the beauty in it. Of course, I am weak and feeble, and there are many things I myself am not ready to look upon. Nevertheless, my personal struggle, daily, is how to show forth the beauty in the ugliness all around me, how to shine forth the light amidst the darkness.
I do not work hard enough on my writing. I do not write daily. But I think about my stories daily. They are swooshing around in my head at all times like the contents of a washing machine. And I constantly try to feed the swooshing mess. And one more thing has occurred to me.
The incarnation.
Everything is about the Incarnation, and the Incarnation is about everything that pertains to the topic of God and man.
Art is man's reaching toward God. Grace is God's reaching toward man. An artful work accomplished, and set into existence by the artist participates in the divine in as much as it is a creative act: ex nihilo. The artist has created something out of nothing. Surely he uses the substances of things that exist (paint, paper, canvas, bits on a computer) to represent that which he has created. But the thing itself that was created? It was created out of nothing, and now it exists.
The corresponding point of reference for this on the side of the Divine in this great interaction is the Sacrament. The Sacrament is the fullest embodiment of God's Grace. It is the thing that exists and bears God's Divine nature to us personally.
Instead of consuming the created, we consume the Divine.
Instead of possessing the created, we possess the Divine.
And as such, the Divinity consumes us... possesses us.
So, what if I create an un-beautiful thing?
Honestly, I do. Frequently in fact. I recognize that I am not perfect, but I also recognize that God does not insist that I am instantly perfect. Life is a struggle to achieve perfection in whatever tasks God has given us, whatever crosses he has given us to bear. And perfection comes more in learning to forgive yourself, learning to forgive others, than it does in a self-inflicted and self-imposed sort of perfectionism.
Thus, once again, the Fast is not all about self-imposing perfectionism, nor is it about self-infliction of pain. To think as such subjugates the mind to the western heresy of Gnostic Dualism.
The fast is all about becoming whole though the attempt to look at things as something other than consumables, as something other than possessions.
I remember a few words from a song in the 80s: "If you love someone, set them free."
Well, that's what the fast is all about.
You remember the Lenten prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian:
"Take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk;
but grant me rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love;
Yea O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother..."
Unfortunately many people during the fast concentrate on the "judging my brother" part. Namely, what are the eating that is against the rules of the fast?
I see far too many people preoccupied with following the nitty-gritty rules of the fast, and throwing out the purpose of the fast: learning chastity, humility, patience and love.
I'd like to focus on one word here: "chastity."
I do not remember the original Greek, but in Slavonic it is "Tselomudri" - and a literal translation of it is "wholeness" or "completeness." In the West with our preoccupation on sexual matters we have lowered the meaning of this word to something strictly sexual. But the original word refers to wholeness in life, wholeness of person. Namely, a lack of "wantonness" or "lust" - a lack of that thing that makes us want to go outside ourselves and possess, or consume from the beauty that surrounds us.
The restoration of the cosmos?
What is particularly significant in Orthodoxy Christianity is our concept of restoration of the Cosmos. Not only did the Incarnation accomplish the restoration of man to relationship with the Divine (in the fusion of the two natures, Divine and human) but it is also the beginning of the restoration of the whole cosmos. You see this in the many blessings we have in the Orthodox Church: sanctifying the waters on Theophany, blessing fruit on Pentecost, the way we bless our homes and our bodies and everything we have.
In a certain sense, when you give up the use of some physical thing (as in Lent) and when you give over the use of some physical thing (as in when our things are blessed) to God, we are seeing two sides of the restoration of the Cosmos.
The world itself will ultimately become supremely beautiful through interaction with the Divine. The world itself will become God-bearing. The world itself will become Heaven. It will become transfigured, and filled with the Divine Light, just as it was at the Transfiguration.
As an artist I work toward seeing this. I work toward somehow grasping this, today, before it has even taken place. I do not always succeed. I don't even know if I succeed often. I don't even know if I succeed EVER. But I'm working at it.
Basil
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Beauty
I wasn't able to post my comments to James Post at:
PARADOSIS
because my comments were too long.
Sigh.
So, here they are:
Hey James,
An inspiring post once again.
We've talked about beauty so much, and I agree, my own thoughts have lately turned toward beauty, and it's hard not to with spring in the air.
About the beauty of the human body, particularly for myself, as for you, the feminine human body - and the beauty of the soul, the beauty of God's finger in the world around us... the beauty of communion...
I do not think there is any such thing as good beauty and bad beauty. All beauty is good. And I think the goal of life, the becoming whole as the individuals God created us to be, is in coming to finally give up on the perversions we ascribe to "bad beauty" and see all beauty as a reflection of God's love and grace.
Another way of putting it: we pervert the natural beauty of the world all around us, by the desire to possess and consume. That statement encompasses everything from women to chocolate (or better I say, Bourbon? Scotch?). We become whole, and more Christlike, more God-bearing, as we come more and more to realize that our desire for consumption and possession is what makes things that are beautiful appear as though they are not. When we give up that desire, we can see all things as beautiful: reflecting the glory and nature of God.
Regards,
Basil
I wasn't able to post my comments to James Post at:
PARADOSIS
because my comments were too long.
Sigh.
So, here they are:
Hey James,
An inspiring post once again.
We've talked about beauty so much, and I agree, my own thoughts have lately turned toward beauty, and it's hard not to with spring in the air.
About the beauty of the human body, particularly for myself, as for you, the feminine human body - and the beauty of the soul, the beauty of God's finger in the world around us... the beauty of communion...
I do not think there is any such thing as good beauty and bad beauty. All beauty is good. And I think the goal of life, the becoming whole as the individuals God created us to be, is in coming to finally give up on the perversions we ascribe to "bad beauty" and see all beauty as a reflection of God's love and grace.
Another way of putting it: we pervert the natural beauty of the world all around us, by the desire to possess and consume. That statement encompasses everything from women to chocolate (or better I say, Bourbon? Scotch?). We become whole, and more Christlike, more God-bearing, as we come more and more to realize that our desire for consumption and possession is what makes things that are beautiful appear as though they are not. When we give up that desire, we can see all things as beautiful: reflecting the glory and nature of God.
Regards,
Basil
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Saturday, March 06, 2004
Red Huckleberry
This is a very special day for me, and a very special photo accompanies it.
The Red Huckleberry
The Red Huckleberry is a very special plant, with very special berries. I love them. They are delicious. They grow all over the place in the wild, but it is a rare and special thing to find them. Personally, I think they should be on the endangered species list, but that might make them even harder for the average guy like me to find a bush for his back yard. Actually, if a black market opened up for these little plants, they might actually be EASIER to find.
You are probably asking yourself: how can all those different things be true? Rare, but they grow all over the place? Impossible to find? I don't get it...
My Quest for the Red Huckleberry, a life-long Journey
When I was sixteen, I went fishing for the first time with a friend. He was an odd sort of kid that nobody in school payed attention to, but I couldn't see anything drastically wrong with him, so I decided to befriend this guy. Well, I found out after a time that he loved fishing. First he took me to a lake and we sat there for some time and accomplished nothing. Then he took me to the Rogue River. We lived not far from it in the then little city of Medford, OR.
I like to recount my famous "first fish" story for all who would hear it. We were fishing for trout. I'd finally gotten used to casting with my rod and reel, when my friend Hank asked if I wanted to try it with his. Well, I did. And silly me, I let go too soon. The line soared up over a bush and landed God-knows-where. Well, I tugged and pulled and eventually found out where the line landed. It had actually landed in the River, about a foot or two off shore. And guess what. When we finally found it, it had a trout on the end of it sitting there waiting for me.
True story.
But what I never tell, because it isn't important to the story, was the fact that that was a huckleberry bush that I'd cast my line over the top of.
Well, now on to modern times. That first encounter with a huckleberry was 25 years ago. A lot has changed. I don't fish for trout any more, I fish for salmon (on the rare occassion that I go fishing with James.) I don't have a tiny little beard any more, I have a big one. And I don't ignore huckleberry bushes any more either.
I remember as a young person I always had a dream. "If ever in my life," I told my young self, "I have the opportunity to own a house, I will have tons of garden. I will grow every imaginable edible thing, every delicious thing I can think of... especially strawberries." As a counterweight to these youthful imaginings, I also recall that I never cared for blueberries in my whole life until recent years. In fact, I'd have to say that I never liked blueberries at all, until my friend at work, Rick, brought in a bucked of fresh blueberries one day.
Well, anyway, with home ownership I definitely tried the garden thing. I have not been successful. I have several raised garden plots and I haven't been able to grow a darn thing in them. I'd say the soil was poisoned or something, but I bought it myself and poured it into there. I use miracle grow, and water regularly all summer long and I'm lucky if I get three or four tomatoes by the end of August.
What, I have had success with, however, are berries! Loads of berries. I love berries. If I didn't have some friends named "The Berries" I'd probably put up a big sign and name my house, "The Berry Farm" or something silly like that. Anyway, I've got three large plots of strawberries (one of them wild strawberries, which are a different sort of thing altogether), and five blueberry bushes. I won't do blackberries, marionberries, or rasberries, because they take over your whole yard - and your neighbors yards. But I've been on a quest to do Red Huckleberries ever since I first discovered them.
I cannot remember when I first discovered Red Huckleberries, but I can tell you now a few good places to find them... to pick them to eat. In the Pacific Northwest, Red Huckeberries thrive in various places in the forrests and woods. There are definitely some at the beginning of the hiking trail at Wallace Falls. They also thrive at St. Edward's Park and at Seaquist State Park and down in Oregon at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park. At the later of these parks, Red Huckleberries thrive amidst Black Huckleberries, Mountain Huckleberries, Blackberries, Salmon Berries, and Thimble Berries. In fact, the entire forrest is thick with underbrush at the Umpqua Lighthouse Park, and all of the underbrush is wild berries. I've been to just about every State Park along the Oregon coast, and the Umpqua Lighthouse definitely has the most amount of berries. I'd say if you like berries, it's the place to go. It might even be THE place to go on the West Coast, USA. But, I digress...
The first three of these parks listed above mostly have blackberries, red huckeberries, and thimble berries. There might also be Logan berries, but I've not yet acquainted myself with that delicacy (it looks to similar to several varieties of berries that aren't good for you) but maybe someday I'll go there.
Anyway, back to Huckleberries... I decided several years ago that I wanted to plant some Red Huckleberries in my yard. Just one problem: after contacting virtually every nursary in the Puget Sound, I'd discovered that you cannot buy Red Huckleberries. Anywhere. Period. End of story.
Even the largest, and most diverse nursaries, with wild and native plant sections, even the ones with large variety of blue berries (the red huckleberry Vaccinium parvifoliumis a member of the blueberry (Vaccinium) family.) yes, even nursaries that carry every imaginable blueberry do not carry the Red Huckleberry. So, I was left with the option of digging one up somewhere as about the only way to get one into my backyard.
The only problem with that is: the only places you can get to them are in public parks, where it is against the law to dig up plants and take them home with you. Well, that and yet one more problem. In spite of the vast range of Huckleberries throughout the Pacific Northwest, almost the only place they grow is in the rotting stumps of fallen Cedar Trees. It's a strange phenomonon, but it is true. You rarely find Huckleberries growing without a rotten cedar tree beneath them, and you never find a Huckleberry growing without at least one rotting cedar stump close by that has a (maternal) huckleberry growing in it.
That being said... they are also extremely difficult to transplant. I asked one nursary why they didn't carry Red Huckleberries (after angrily accussing them of previously carrying them) and they said that it was because it was almost impossible for anyone to transplat one. That the often, no, even usually, die. That the only place they grow in nature is in rotting cedar stumps (something I already knew). Well, I ran this past a friend of mine who I had mistakenly thought successfully transplanted some red huckleberries in his own back yard. I was mistaken. He had tried to transplant his huckleberries from one location of his yard to another, and they had all died - all but one. The only one that had survived used to be growing in a rotting cedar stump. My friend had taken his chain saw, and cut out the entire section of cedar stump, and then planted the whole thing (stump and huckleberry bush) and it had survived.
Well, so I had made a similar attempt about a year and a half ago. I finally found a huckleberry buch growing on the roadside one day, and went back to dig it up. Remembering my friend's failure, I dug down deep, and took up as much soil around the plant as I could find. I also discovered interestingly, that deep down in the soil, this plant which looked like it was only growing in dirt, was actually anchored in a hunk of rotting wood (I can only speculate that it was cedar). So, I dug up plant and roots and rotten log, and planted the whole thing in my yard, in wood chips about a foot deep. It has survivied, and this year, I hope, will be first one to give me berries.
But, alas, for my years of trouble one huckleberry bush, eight inches tall, is not a very satisfying thing. So, I have continued my quest for Huckleberries. I have called nursaries, gazed at the side of the road whenever I am passing by a wood, explored, searched, investigated, QUESTED. And I have found nothing.
That is...
Until Today!
Yes, folks, that's why this is a special day... because that huckleberry bush you see in my photo there... that baby is MINE, and she's living right there in my yard now, along with two of her friends.
Yes, I finally found myself some red huckleberry bushes that I could buy! :)
This is a great day, and I feel as though the angels in Heaven are rejoicing at my good fortune. God has indeed shined down upon me and my humble little family.
It all started when I overheard a chance remark... My wife was telling me, "I can't go with Sue to the plant show..." and I said "what plant show?" and my wife said, "some plant show where they have Northwest Native plants..." (That's Sue, James' wife, pictured standing at the bus stop with my wife down below...)
Well, those words got my heart pounding. A new source for Northwest Native plants???? I had to find out more.
Well, to make a long story short, Sue didn't end up going to the plant show either. But I had it in my heart to go, and as difficult as it is sometimes to get my daughter to go out someplace with me (she always wants to stay and home and play for some reason) when I mentioned to my daughter "they might have huckleberries" she was more than willing to come.
And, yes, indeed. The very first man I ran into at the show had a whole bunch of Red Huckleberry bushes. And they weren't a bad price either: 6.00 a pop. I would have paid $30.00 each for them after all these years of searching. (But actually, I am glad to pay only $6 - known how hard it is for Red Huckleberries to survive transplantation.)
Well, so, there you have it. That's one of my new Red Huckleberry bushes. Here's another shot, a close up:
If all goes well (and I'm very hopefull) they will thrive. I've been rotting some cedar (by burying it in the earth) for two years in my yard, and I dug that rotten cedar up and planted a piece of it under each bush. Then, in addition to all that, they've each got about 6 inches of woodchips all around them. If that doesn't do it, I don't know what will.
God have mercy on my berry-loving soul.
Regards,
Basil
This is a very special day for me, and a very special photo accompanies it.
The Red Huckleberry
The Red Huckleberry is a very special plant, with very special berries. I love them. They are delicious. They grow all over the place in the wild, but it is a rare and special thing to find them. Personally, I think they should be on the endangered species list, but that might make them even harder for the average guy like me to find a bush for his back yard. Actually, if a black market opened up for these little plants, they might actually be EASIER to find.
You are probably asking yourself: how can all those different things be true? Rare, but they grow all over the place? Impossible to find? I don't get it...
My Quest for the Red Huckleberry, a life-long Journey
When I was sixteen, I went fishing for the first time with a friend. He was an odd sort of kid that nobody in school payed attention to, but I couldn't see anything drastically wrong with him, so I decided to befriend this guy. Well, I found out after a time that he loved fishing. First he took me to a lake and we sat there for some time and accomplished nothing. Then he took me to the Rogue River. We lived not far from it in the then little city of Medford, OR.
I like to recount my famous "first fish" story for all who would hear it. We were fishing for trout. I'd finally gotten used to casting with my rod and reel, when my friend Hank asked if I wanted to try it with his. Well, I did. And silly me, I let go too soon. The line soared up over a bush and landed God-knows-where. Well, I tugged and pulled and eventually found out where the line landed. It had actually landed in the River, about a foot or two off shore. And guess what. When we finally found it, it had a trout on the end of it sitting there waiting for me.
True story.
But what I never tell, because it isn't important to the story, was the fact that that was a huckleberry bush that I'd cast my line over the top of.
Well, now on to modern times. That first encounter with a huckleberry was 25 years ago. A lot has changed. I don't fish for trout any more, I fish for salmon (on the rare occassion that I go fishing with James.) I don't have a tiny little beard any more, I have a big one. And I don't ignore huckleberry bushes any more either.
I remember as a young person I always had a dream. "If ever in my life," I told my young self, "I have the opportunity to own a house, I will have tons of garden. I will grow every imaginable edible thing, every delicious thing I can think of... especially strawberries." As a counterweight to these youthful imaginings, I also recall that I never cared for blueberries in my whole life until recent years. In fact, I'd have to say that I never liked blueberries at all, until my friend at work, Rick, brought in a bucked of fresh blueberries one day.
Well, anyway, with home ownership I definitely tried the garden thing. I have not been successful. I have several raised garden plots and I haven't been able to grow a darn thing in them. I'd say the soil was poisoned or something, but I bought it myself and poured it into there. I use miracle grow, and water regularly all summer long and I'm lucky if I get three or four tomatoes by the end of August.
What, I have had success with, however, are berries! Loads of berries. I love berries. If I didn't have some friends named "The Berries" I'd probably put up a big sign and name my house, "The Berry Farm" or something silly like that. Anyway, I've got three large plots of strawberries (one of them wild strawberries, which are a different sort of thing altogether), and five blueberry bushes. I won't do blackberries, marionberries, or rasberries, because they take over your whole yard - and your neighbors yards. But I've been on a quest to do Red Huckleberries ever since I first discovered them.
I cannot remember when I first discovered Red Huckleberries, but I can tell you now a few good places to find them... to pick them to eat. In the Pacific Northwest, Red Huckeberries thrive in various places in the forrests and woods. There are definitely some at the beginning of the hiking trail at Wallace Falls. They also thrive at St. Edward's Park and at Seaquist State Park and down in Oregon at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park. At the later of these parks, Red Huckleberries thrive amidst Black Huckleberries, Mountain Huckleberries, Blackberries, Salmon Berries, and Thimble Berries. In fact, the entire forrest is thick with underbrush at the Umpqua Lighthouse Park, and all of the underbrush is wild berries. I've been to just about every State Park along the Oregon coast, and the Umpqua Lighthouse definitely has the most amount of berries. I'd say if you like berries, it's the place to go. It might even be THE place to go on the West Coast, USA. But, I digress...
The first three of these parks listed above mostly have blackberries, red huckeberries, and thimble berries. There might also be Logan berries, but I've not yet acquainted myself with that delicacy (it looks to similar to several varieties of berries that aren't good for you) but maybe someday I'll go there.
Anyway, back to Huckleberries... I decided several years ago that I wanted to plant some Red Huckleberries in my yard. Just one problem: after contacting virtually every nursary in the Puget Sound, I'd discovered that you cannot buy Red Huckleberries. Anywhere. Period. End of story.
Even the largest, and most diverse nursaries, with wild and native plant sections, even the ones with large variety of blue berries (the red huckleberry Vaccinium parvifoliumis a member of the blueberry (Vaccinium) family.) yes, even nursaries that carry every imaginable blueberry do not carry the Red Huckleberry. So, I was left with the option of digging one up somewhere as about the only way to get one into my backyard.
The only problem with that is: the only places you can get to them are in public parks, where it is against the law to dig up plants and take them home with you. Well, that and yet one more problem. In spite of the vast range of Huckleberries throughout the Pacific Northwest, almost the only place they grow is in the rotting stumps of fallen Cedar Trees. It's a strange phenomonon, but it is true. You rarely find Huckleberries growing without a rotten cedar tree beneath them, and you never find a Huckleberry growing without at least one rotting cedar stump close by that has a (maternal) huckleberry growing in it.
That being said... they are also extremely difficult to transplant. I asked one nursary why they didn't carry Red Huckleberries (after angrily accussing them of previously carrying them) and they said that it was because it was almost impossible for anyone to transplat one. That the often, no, even usually, die. That the only place they grow in nature is in rotting cedar stumps (something I already knew). Well, I ran this past a friend of mine who I had mistakenly thought successfully transplanted some red huckleberries in his own back yard. I was mistaken. He had tried to transplant his huckleberries from one location of his yard to another, and they had all died - all but one. The only one that had survived used to be growing in a rotting cedar stump. My friend had taken his chain saw, and cut out the entire section of cedar stump, and then planted the whole thing (stump and huckleberry bush) and it had survived.
Well, so I had made a similar attempt about a year and a half ago. I finally found a huckleberry buch growing on the roadside one day, and went back to dig it up. Remembering my friend's failure, I dug down deep, and took up as much soil around the plant as I could find. I also discovered interestingly, that deep down in the soil, this plant which looked like it was only growing in dirt, was actually anchored in a hunk of rotting wood (I can only speculate that it was cedar). So, I dug up plant and roots and rotten log, and planted the whole thing in my yard, in wood chips about a foot deep. It has survivied, and this year, I hope, will be first one to give me berries.
But, alas, for my years of trouble one huckleberry bush, eight inches tall, is not a very satisfying thing. So, I have continued my quest for Huckleberries. I have called nursaries, gazed at the side of the road whenever I am passing by a wood, explored, searched, investigated, QUESTED. And I have found nothing.
That is...
Until Today!
Yes, folks, that's why this is a special day... because that huckleberry bush you see in my photo there... that baby is MINE, and she's living right there in my yard now, along with two of her friends.
Yes, I finally found myself some red huckleberry bushes that I could buy! :)
This is a great day, and I feel as though the angels in Heaven are rejoicing at my good fortune. God has indeed shined down upon me and my humble little family.
It all started when I overheard a chance remark... My wife was telling me, "I can't go with Sue to the plant show..." and I said "what plant show?" and my wife said, "some plant show where they have Northwest Native plants..." (That's Sue, James' wife, pictured standing at the bus stop with my wife down below...)
Well, those words got my heart pounding. A new source for Northwest Native plants???? I had to find out more.
Well, to make a long story short, Sue didn't end up going to the plant show either. But I had it in my heart to go, and as difficult as it is sometimes to get my daughter to go out someplace with me (she always wants to stay and home and play for some reason) when I mentioned to my daughter "they might have huckleberries" she was more than willing to come.
And, yes, indeed. The very first man I ran into at the show had a whole bunch of Red Huckleberry bushes. And they weren't a bad price either: 6.00 a pop. I would have paid $30.00 each for them after all these years of searching. (But actually, I am glad to pay only $6 - known how hard it is for Red Huckleberries to survive transplantation.)
Well, so, there you have it. That's one of my new Red Huckleberry bushes. Here's another shot, a close up:
If all goes well (and I'm very hopefull) they will thrive. I've been rotting some cedar (by burying it in the earth) for two years in my yard, and I dug that rotten cedar up and planted a piece of it under each bush. Then, in addition to all that, they've each got about 6 inches of woodchips all around them. If that doesn't do it, I don't know what will.
God have mercy on my berry-loving soul.
Regards,
Basil
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)