Tag Archives: Resilience

Humbling

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Crabapple tree broken at trunk and lying on the faded green of winter lawn, with street behind, houses visible on other side.
Fallen crabapple tree

On December 23rd, a severe rain and wind storm passed through Maine, after also creating havoc with storms and snow in other states. In the early afternoon, I was sitting in the living room, and suddenly heard some sort of clattering outside. I had previously gone out in the rain to right overturned trash barrels, and so I went out again to look around. At that moment, Margy was driving into the driveway from an appointment, and she asked me–did you see the crabapple tree? Going round the side of the house, this is what came into view: one of the ornamental crabapple trees in our front yard had suddenly cracked through its trunk and fell over. It didn’t land on anything or damage anything, which was a relief, but the tree was dead.

A couple hours later, our electric power went out, along with many other thousands in Maine–though only a segment of the people on our street. The thing with power outages is–you never know if it is going to be a brief interlude, a few hours, or a few days. You enter this limbo time of unknown duration. We waited until dark, and then lit our wood stove–thank goodness our house had this wood stove when we purchased it. It is a very fine wood stove, and it will heat the entire house when needed. We don’t usually use it except for emergencies. But in fact we had used it just a week ago when our heat pumps were being repaired. We have a few flashlights and candles, so we lit those too. And I could connect to the world via my cell phone, and Facebook.

However, I have to acknowledge that it felt very dark, the sun setting at 4 p.m., and not rising until about 7 a.m. Keeping up with wood in the stove was exhausting. It was hard to just relax with the uncertainty of it all. After a Friday of warm and windy rain, the temperature dropped on Saturday to a frigid 12 degrees. I was worried about our refrigerator food, and the freezer in our basement. I covered the freezer with a few blankets. I put the food from the fridge freezer into rubber tubs, and put them out on the back deck. Then, an unexpected grace–our neighbor Brian came by, and offered to run an extension cord from their house to ours–they had not lost power. So by this gift, we were able to plug in our refrigerator.

Before the storm, we’d purchased a round shrimp plate for a holiday treat–so Friday dinner was shrimp and cheese and crackers and cucumber and carrots. A little picnic. Margy had also boiled some eggs before the storm, and we had some sliced ham, so those were other meals that didn’t need cooking. On Saturday early evening, I got a text that the power should come back at 7 p.m., but then it did not. I felt such disappointment then, and crankiness, and boredom. Later, we tried to work on a puzzle, but without a good light source, it was mostly frustrating.

It is humbling to realize how difficult I found this time without electricity. I felt disconnected, restless, and bereft. I tried reading the book I had started a little while ago, but it was a heavy subject, and I couldn’t manage it in the midst of everything else. I missed the entertainment and mental stimulation of television or streaming channels like Britbox and Prime. I missed connecting to Christmas Eve services through Zoom. I felt at a total loss. I had imagined that as I grew older, I would become more resilient with age. But I see that I am perhaps less resilient after all, that I am vulnerable and dependent in many ways. When I went to bed, I felt defeated.

For whatever reason, I woke at 3 a.m. on Christmas, and couldn’t get back to sleep. I added a log to the fire, and wrote in my journal. I think then that I surrendered to the situation I was in–that here we were, in the dark, and we didn’t know for how long–and yet, we were warm, and we had food, and kind neighbors, and offers of support via Facebook. We were not alone. I thought about the people in Ukraine right now, also facing the loss of electricity in winter, and maybe no heat or water, along with the devastation of war and bombs–so much loss and uncertainty. I found myself praying for those folks who were facing so much greater hardships. I acknowledged my vulnerability and exhaustion.

By the time the sun rose, I felt peaceful sitting near the fire, drinking some tea after I’d managed to heat water on the narrow five-inch ridge on the top of the wood stove. I was still exhausted, still humbled by the difficulty of my managing in these circumstances, but somehow at peace with all of that. It would be a lie to say that I was not relieved when our power came back on at 10 a.m. But I am glad I came to some peace within my spirit before the end of our 44 hours without power.

Fire burning in the wood stove.
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Bittersweet Basket Weaving

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Bittersweet Ugly Basket

My first “ugly” bittersweet basket.

What does it mean to make a relationship with parts of the natural world that we ordinarily think of as trouble?  I am wrestling with this question as we wrestle with the bittersweet vines that surround our yard.  Asian Bittersweet is classified as an invasive species, because it takes over an area and can wipe out other species.  It is very hard to get rid of it.  This has provoked some places, including Falmouth, Maine, to plan to use horrible pesticides in its eradication–which seems to me an even worse problem–and a never ending one, because they admit that they won’t be able to ever completely eradicate it.

Some folks are taking a different approach however.  Yesterday, Margy and I attended a workshop led by Zack De La Rouda about weaving baskets with bittersweet vines.  I loved  Zack’s attitude–since we brought this plant here, then we need to find ways to deal with the consequences.  And with climate change and other pests threatening species like ash and willow, which have traditionally been used for baskets, we need to keep looking for options.  So he brought us into his experiments with making useful items with bittersweet. Which, as he said, is everywhere. The vines had been cut, dried, and then soaked in water for a couple days. I have to say it was not an easy material to work with–hard to bend and shape, at least for a beginner.  But Zack assured us that everyone has an ugly basket–when our first attempts to learn the skills result in less than usable outcomes.  So I took a pic of my ugly basket.

Another presentation in April got me started on this question.  Tao Orion, author of Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration spoke at the Resilience Hub.  We might think of getting rid of invasives as important to promoting a balanced eco-system.  But what she discovered is that in the professional world of land management, what usually happens first is a complete destruction of the “invaded” area with powerful pesticides.  She helped us to look beyond “the war” and explore other options for dealing with invasives.  For example, we can look at the function invasive plants are playing in the ecosystem where they have taken root, and address imbalances in the soil and other factors that may need attention.

Bittersweet shoots

Bittersweet vine shoots.

Orion was from the west coast, and didn’t specifically address bittersweet.  Margy started cutting off huge vine stems that are surrounding other tree trunks, to try to save those trees from choking.  But the vines are so resilient.  Tiny shoots start coming up in the lawn, from root networks spread beneath the soil. Non-pesticide ways to deal with them include pulling out what you can, cutting off what you can, and ongoing cutting, to keep the roots from getting the nourishment they need.  (Even people who use pesticides have to do all that, by the way.) In the final analysis, there is no way to completely eradicate them, so you have to learn to manage them.

On the plus side, bittersweet is a remarkable example of resilience.  They propagate by seeds, by roots spreading through the soil, and can re-grow from small root segments. You’ve got to admire that multi-functionality. And birds love the seeds in winter.  There are dozens of birds who live in the uncultivated area just west of our yard–which is overrun with bittersweet, as well as raspberries and blackberries and grape vines growing wild.

But on the other hand, I can’t help but compare it in my mind with the European peoples who invaded this continent, including my own ancestors from France and Scotland in Quebec, and my Germanic ancestors who came later–as immigrants being used to settle the west. Just like an invasive plant, the European invaders took over the landscape, wiped out other communities of people, and destroyed the balance of the eco-system.  On an even wider scale, modern human beings as a whole species have overrun our planet and are destroying our ecosystem.

So perhaps the most important lesson bittersweet might teach us is to look in the mirror, at our own invasions, and together we might learn about how to live within respectful boundaries with all of our siblings on this planet.

Resilience Circles

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There are many people who are already hard at work building connections based on partnership and sustainability. In the fall of 2010 I had the opportunity to participate in a facilitator training for “Resilience Circles.” Resilience Circles are groups of ten to twenty people who gather together in regular meetings to support each other through economic and ecological changes.

Resilience Circle Training/ Licensed by Creative Commons

Resilience Circle Training/ Licensed by Creative Commons

Our trainer Chuck Collins wrote:

The dominant messages in the U.S. economy are “you are on your own” and “some people are going to be left behind.” Countering this isn’t easy. For many, talking about their economic anxiety and asking for help is difficult and shaming. But to survive the coming period of uncertainty, we must regain use of our mutual-aid muscles, many of which have atrophied from lack of use.

The three main functions of Resilience Circles are to increase our understanding of the larger economic forces on our lives, to open up opportunities for mutual aid and support for local economic challenges, and finally, to engage in social action to create changes that can bring about a more secure and sustainable future.

We explored questions like: Why is the economy in distress? What is our vision for a healthy, sustainable economy? What are the sources of real security in our lives? What can we do together to increase our economic security at the local level? How can we help our neighbors facing foreclosure or economic insecurity? What public policies would make our communities more secure?

Social scientists say that the stronger our social networks, the more resilient we will be in a crisis. When I was working in direct support of homeless people, I noticed how often someone became homeless because of isolation—they did not have a strong social support system, and so a crisis became a catastrophe.

There are many ways that working together can enhance our economic well-being. The Resilience Circles begin with small mutual aid projects. For example, one idea was a weatherization round robin—a team of five people agree to help each other get ready for the winter. Each host buys materials such as caulk and plastic sheeting, and then the group spends a few weekends getting all their homes ready. Another idea was a babysitting coop, where parents take turns watching each other’s children, keeping track with tokens for hours of childcare. Tool sharing, job swapping, meal exchanges, bartering—the resources we have among us are many, and the options are only limited by our collective creativity.

The underlying principle of Resilience Circles is that our greatest source of security and wealth is in our connection to each other, and our shared stewardship of the earth.