The Furious Spinner

In times of old, The Furies protected Mother Right. If a mother (or any woman) was harmed, The Furies swooped down and took their vengeance. They were one of the last vestiges of a world that existed before the patriarchy. When we feel righteous anger, it is The Furies who are calling out to us to make what is wrong right again.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Composting Peace

I'm sitting on my couch listening to Annie Lennox sing, "It's a dark road." Mario is doing the dishes. I just finished reading about the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Every report on global climate change is gloomier than the one before it. I went to the site and started opening all the PDFs of the report and I suddenly felt so exhausted. They say we've only got a couple of years to turn it all around. What are we going to do? I moved onto an article about the police who tasered a young man and killed him. And then I read an article about a town in New York contaminated by uranium. By this time, I was silently screaming, what am I going to do, what am I going to do, what am I going to do to fix all this? Become a climatologist? Find a new energy source? Start a revolution? Curl up into a ball and cry?

Then I remembered, One bone at a time...

Today Mario and I went to New Seasons Market, a natural food store in Portland. I love the checkers at New Seasons. We usually go to the Concordia New Seasons, but the checkers seem wonderful at every store: a collection of empaths, sages, healers, and comics. A week ago, I grabbed a magazine at the Concordia store, along with a couple other items. The cashier (a young man) and I were joking around and I said, "Well, I guess you must like me." I can't remember why. It was just relaxed banter. As he was totaling my items, I realized that the magazine was $14. On the cover of the magazine was a photograph of a statue of Kuan Yin with the words "Choosing Peace" next to her. I wanted the magazine, but I didn't have enough money to pay for it. I was embarrassed. I said, "I'm sorry, I thought it was seven dollars and I don't have enough money." The checker said, "Today it is seven dollars." I was speechless for a moment, and then I said, "Gee, I guess you really do like me." (I felt like Sally Fields.)

That encounter is not unusual at New Seasons. I was at the Sellwood New Seasons a few days ago, after an acupuncture treatment. I was on my own because Mario had to work. I'd been sick for days, and I was about to head off into awful rush hour traffic (after a nice relaxing acupuncture treatment) for my hour long trip home. As I waited in line, I noticed the young woman cashier was singing the prices of the items of the woman ahead of me. She seemed happy and engaged, even though the woman she was serving didn't seem to notice. When it was my turn, I said, "You're singing. I love it." She smiled and began talking to me in an English accent. I joined in. We had a very British moment as she rang up my items. Nothing profound. Just a little goofy human encounter.

I don't meant to say that every cashier encounter at New Seasons is theater. It's not. But the people seem kind and present, and this is unusual and much appreciated. You may remember we quit Food Front, our food co-op of a decade, because of the checkers at that store.

Anyway, this is the long way of saying that today we went to the Concordia New Seasons. I'd been sick for almost two weeks (nothing contagious), and that had left me feeling vulnerable and a bit off-balance. We walked into New Seasons and it was jammed with people. We try not to go on Sundays because it is so busy, and this was the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Oops! We got what we needed and then got into line. We had already been to the library, and all the people sniffling there had triggered those latent obsessive compulsive tendencies of mine, and I just wanted to get away from everyone. But we had to get these few things before heading home. As we were standing in line, a man came into the store and went by me. He looked like he was probably homeless. He coughed just as he was going by me, inches from my face. I leaned over the conveyor belt in exhaustion and frustration. I was actually trying not to react; I didn't want anyone to think I was disgusted because he was a homeless man. I wanted to appear to be the open-minded liberal I thought I was! I wanted to say, "It's not because he's homeless. It's because he's a human being covered in a billion germs that are looking at me like I'm their new home!"

The cashier, who was ringing up someone else, asked if I was all right. She looked me right in the eyes as if she really wanted to know. So I said, "There are a lot of people in here." She said sympathetically, "I know, I know." Not whining about it. Nothing patronizing about it. Just being a human being. "And they're sneezing and coughing and all my compulsive obsessive tendencies are rearing up." "I understand," she said. She reached over to a bottle near the cash register. "See, I've got this here. Now I'm all clean." She showed me her hands. I laughed. "But that stuff can't be good for you." I figured it was antibiotic soap. "It's just alcohol," she said. "A little booze for my hands." And then we kept talking and joking as she rang up our items. She was so kind. When she was finished, I reached over and took her hands in mine and squeezed them. "Thank you," I said. "I just washed my hands, by the way." "Good," she said. And we laughed.

So now as I sit here on my couch freaking out about what to do about global warming, police brutality, and more, I think of Kari at New Seasons. I wonder if she goes through her day determined to be kind to each person she encounters. Are kind, funny people attracted to New Seasons or does New Seasons hire kind, funny, and creative people? Is their motto, "One person at a time"?

I think of the Bone Mother, too, picking up one bone after another until she has enough, until she can breathe life into that which was dead. Tonight I can't stop police brutality, the war in Iraq, or global climate change. I can go out to my compost pile.

It is pissing down pouring down rain outside. We made quinoa with lime juice, olive oil, cumin, cilantro, and scallions. Some of the ingredients we got at New Seasons, some at Alberta Cooperative Grocery, our new coop where the people are very nice, too. The scraps we didn't use are in a bowl. I'll take them out to our compost pile. If it's not raining too hard, I'll turn the pile over a little. I'll compost the scraps, along with the kindness I encountered today, the nourishment, my despair, my anxiety, my joy, my weariness at the end of a day, along with the words I'll be humming from Annie Lennox's Big Sky.

The compost pile is right across the yard from the Kuan Yin Peace Garden. The two white chairs near to her are turned over. So is the concrete bird bath. The recent storms have disheveled our whole yard. The entire Pacific Northwest actually. They've also scoured out the Gorge, and the air is damp but clean again. And Kuan Yin? She stands beneath the old fir tree, as calm and cool as ever. Peaceful. While all around her shakes, rattles, and rolls, she is still, standing her ground, composting peace.

One bone at a time...

Labels: Bone Mother, food, sustainability

Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/18/2007 07:24:00 PM

3 comments

3 Comments:

"One bone at a time"

Reminds me a bit of what I used to tell a co-worker who was a huge boxing fan--"One round at a time."

It's the only way anything will get done; one person, one heart, one mind at a time.

By James, at 4:02 AM