The Hunkypunk

1/25/2014

The Hunkypunk

I am a hunkypunk. If you do not know what that is, I will tell you shortly. I consider it important for you to know what I actually am and what I am not...especially the latter.  Now, i live in a garden in Vermont-- a quiet garden on a hillside. How and why I got here I am not sure myself but I will share what I know and you can decide if I am telling the truth.

So, sometimes people visit the garden where I sit and they inevitably say, “Oh, what a cute gargoyle!”  If I had blood, it would boil at those casual and  careless words.  I strongly suspect that gargoyles and I stem from a common ancient ancestor but we have evolved quite differently, like men and monkeys, we being the men, of course.  People like you know a little bit about gargoyles from pictures or travels to old cities in Europe. Humans seem to be fascinated by gargoyles but let me assure you that even the most celebrated gargoyles are nothing but old drainpipes. You find them on the eaves of aging cathedrals and churches, collecting rainwater in their hollowed-out backs and spewing it out and away from the mortar and walls of the cathedrals built to stand for eternity. All those hollow empty monsters do is drain water, laced, I am sure, with lots of pigeon poo, off the roofs of those old edifices.  Occasionally, one tumbles off an eave and strikes dead some unsuspecting soul on the ground.  Gargoyles are nothing but potentially deadly, pigeon poo spewing sewer lines.  I would never, ever want to be a gargoyle.

The word “gargoyle” itself is interesting, though. It comes from an old (i.e.. not modern) French word that referred to the throat. The word and the action evoke gurgling or gargling. If you are quite young, you may not be familiar with gargling but most babies do a fair amount of gurgling so you can get the picture of what I mean. The word simply evokes the sound of the water flowing through the throat of the gargoyle, a kind of onomatopoetic experience, if you will.

The legend tells us that a 7th century nobleman captured a terrible firebreathing dragon and brought it to the Merovingian king of France for slaying.  They set the dragon on fire to destroy it and burned it up, except for the head and neck of the dragon, which had been long tempered by all the firebreathing it had done over the millenia. The king just stuck the head and neck up on a church as a warning to evil doers. Thus the concept of directing dirty water off the roofs through the mouths of monsters was born. To be more historically correct, if one can be that regarding myths, the ancient Egyptians and Greeks used similar devices to drain water away, but as there is a lot more rain in Germany and Belgium than in Egypt, the Europeans really elevated the intimidating drainpipe to an art form through the dark ages and medieval times.

Anyway, I am proud to be a hunkypunk, NOT a gargoyle. I acknowledge physical similarities but my family lineage has never been attached to any roofline.  I am considered to be purely decorative, serving only to remind the bold and the timid that both good and evil exist in the world and we must be aware of both states. Yup, that is my job and I love it. 

My name comes from the West Country of England... Somerset, to be precise. I prefer to use my English name of Hunkypunk.  There are indeed other names used to label my genre. Those would include Chimera, Grotesque, and Kirkegrim.  Chimera, though pretty enough, is foreign sounding and likely to be mispronounced, as well as sounding ghostly and insubstantial. The term Grotesque is just....mmm.. grotesque. I use it to describe gargoyles and you already know how I feel about them. The words Kirke-grim bother me much. It is all right to be associated with a church (kirke). It is our tradition. But the word “grim” is all wrong. It means “ugly” or “nasty” and I am neither.  I am unique, I am ancient, I am a hunkypunk, a gentle spirit to please the eye and I offer my protection to those who love me.

“How so?” youi say. “you are a stone statue.”  I must respond that I work through the power and mystery of the magic that lingers even in today’s technological and cynical world.  Note my wings, a clear indicator that I am descended from dragons and what is more magical than dragons, I ask you? True, I no longer breathe fire. On a cold day I cannot even produce a little steam from my mouth or nose. But there are those times of the day when magic strengthens and when it wanes, mostly at the edges of night. I know this. The edges, all edges of worlds, are amazing... the edges of day and night, of forest and field, of life and death.. where magic is most mysteriously powerful and transitions are imminent and anything is possible. 

Next, see my ears, like those of a bat or a fox, those creatures of the night, not unlike me.  Like these creatures, my eyes are keen in the darkness and I see everything... everything. And I hear everything. So when night deepens and all the lights go out in the house of my garden, I am freed from the cold stone and I can roam the gardens and fields and barns to keep this hill safe from the weasel, the fox, or the owl. The cat can come out for a little mouse hunt or love match without fear because I will protect her.  The hens can roost in the knowledge that they are safe from raccoons. The lambs can sleep and dream next to their mothers, safe to grow another day. Then as I hear the dawn arriving on the song of the lark, or when the lights go on in the house, I return to my place among the tomatoes or between the lilies, wherever they have placed me.  It is about the magic and spiritual mysteries on earth, but especially the magic. And that is my job now, and I am glad.

There is more to tell-- there is always more but today I will sit in the sun by the lavender and roses. And now you know a little bit about hunkypunks.  And you must promise me to never, please, ...never call me a gargoyle.

Bluebird

A long time ago, but not so far away, the world was beginning to look as it does now-- not completely so, but you would recognize most of the animals that walked and birds that danced in the sky. The ancient mysteries like the dragons and unicorns had disappeared but some of the magic that these marvelous creatures brought into the world still existed, rarer now but still potent and capable of making things change in miraculous ways. There was certainly bad as well as good magic but one must stay away from the bad magic for very good reasons.

Now, while much would look familiar to you, there was one small bird you probably would not recognize though his kind are with us today. This little bird had no name and this made him very sad. He was quite plain and little noticed.  He was kind of brownish-grayish, the color of old leaves and dead grass. His song was sweet and melodious but was no competition at all for the thrushes and vireos that trilled throughout the summer forest, or for the nightingales’ evening prayers, or even the raucous chatter of the bluejays.  The little bird looked with an admiring but longing heart at the beautiful cardinals and graceful (though mean) swans, and the sunny goldfinches. They were all noticed for their songs or colorful presence and most of them even belonged to a flock, another joy which seems to have been forgotten when the little bird was assigned his place on earth. All these things weighed heavily on the little bird’s heart.

It is not that the little bird lacked skills or love. He and his mate were devoted to each other. That was their nature. And he had keen eyes and was a great hunter of bugs and worms to keep his family fed and healthy. Our little bird would perch high in an apple tree, at the tippytop, actually, where he could see across the fields and into the grass where the bugs were hiding. Then he would flutter down, almost like a dancer, hovering lightly in the air until he was upon the worm, then home to the nest with his catch. He and his mate raised several nestsful of hungry babies every year and his offspring all went out and made their own nests, as children are wont to do everywhere. He was very proud of his children. 

Still the plain little bird was not totally happy. He wanted a name, at the very least, and he decided he needed magic to help him.  As the last of the nestlings had flown away, and summer was still warm, he and his mate relaxed and enjoyed their days. He confided in his mate that he longed greatly for a name, and shared with her his plan to seek magic. This is what he told her....  He said, “the swans and geese told me they found  magic in the great oceans and waters that fill the world. And the thrushes and owls found magic in the deep forests that lie beyond our fields. I will visit those places to find a way to get a name.”  His mate, who loved him completely, cautioned the little bird. She pointed out that the forests were deep and dark, unlike the sunny fields where they lived. And there was dark magic there, trolls, pixies, and other things that do more mischief than magic. She feared that he would become lost in the forest and perish, get eaten by an owl or snake and never return. Then she turned her concern to the oceans and lakes. She said the oceans are vast and endless and there are few places to rest and he did not know how to swim. Lakes were also full of unknown perils, like fish that jumped out of the water to catch small birds, and sirens and eels, and nymphs of questionable motives. She begged him not to go  to those endless waters. 

That left the skies above his fields. They knew that there was magic in the skies. They had seen the rainbows, and shooting stars at night, and clouds that shifted shapes to create wonderful figures that quickly changed into something new again. But they had never heard of any creature that had sought magic there. They knew of dangers there also... hawks that hunted the skies and great storms that tore down trees and sometimes drowned the lands. But his mate pointed out that he had been in the sky and knew signs of storms and could always just drop back down into the fields if things got too scary. They wrapped their wings around each other and prepared themselves for whatever might  happen next.

The little bird began his journey. He flew up towards the beautiful blue sky, higher than he had ever flown. And he kept going higher, up, up above the clouds. The earth become fuzzy, and he could not see his home. Suddenly he saw a little raincloud form and shower the land below with its water. Then, to the little bird’s amazement, there was a rainbow. The little bird was quite spent but determined to seek magic there, so he flew as fast as he could because he knew that rainbows disappeared as fast as they appeared and he could see it begin to fade already. He flew so fast, until he realized the rainbow was gone, and then he began to tumble down towards his field. He could fly no more that day and could hardly even flutter his wings. Somehow, he got to his home, where he fell into a deep sleep and slept for a day and a night, most unusual for our little bird. When he awoke, he knew his mate had tended to him and that was comforting to him. He remembered little of his brave journey and decided his fate was to be plain. Magic was too hard to find. 

So, our little bird went out and perched on his favorite apple tree. He sat in the sun, not hunting, but thinking. Then he saw that many of the familiar creatures of the field were looking at him and he heard them say. “Look at that beautiful bluebird. He is the color of the sky! We have never seen such a pretty blue bird.”  ‘Is it true?’ he thought. He flew to his nest and told his mate what he had heard. It was true, she told him. He had tumbled out of the sky with the color of the heavens upon his feathers. And now he and all his kind had a name, Bluebird, as the magic had spread to all of his kind. The sadness which had been in his heart began to leave. It poured out his chest like blood from a wound, staining his breast red but leaving a happy heart in its place. And that is the beautiful bluebird we know today, not just beautiful but brave and loyal, and perched at the tippytop of the small trees in the summer, looking for bugs and worms to feed his family.

Evergreen

Evergreen

The Vermont rural winter landscape is often a subdued array of hues of blacks and whites with little color to catch the eye. Walking down the driveway on a morning when clouds are low and dense and snow is falling thickly, I am struck by the softness of the scene that presents itself.  It is like being in the middle of an Impressionist painting, soft edges and colors, indistinct shapes, as if the snow is silence falling all around, no wind, no creaking trees, just the hush of snow on snow and the sense that the world is far away.  The only color to see at this moment is the deep green of firs and pines, a dark green not even found in the crayon box and showing itself inconsistently as light and movement reveal infinite shades of green.

The big spruce next to the house is a perfect example of the blessings that evergreens give our landscapes. Almost as wide as it is tall, this tree is a visual feast of color and life. It contrasts with the lighter green of the feathery white pines behind it with its absolutely color-drenched green-black boughs, softened by the load of snow it carries today. On a brighter day, it shares its brown cones and even some yellowed tips, but on this snow filled morning, it looms dark, green and eternal. 

No wonder evergreens have been adopted as a symbol of life, both in pagan and faith-based communities. This tree with its persistent dark branches offers shelter and safety to the winter birds and squirrels. Flocks of doves and chickadees fly in and out with impunity. When I get too near this tree, it is prickly and difficult, but not for the birds who amuse us through the winter.  Summer birds prefer to nest in the lilacs or apple trees, but those winter inhabitants know that the dark evergreen is safe. Green is mentioned in the Quran as the color of carpets and cushions in Paradise. In Christian liturgy, it is the color of Ordinary Time, after Christmas but before Lent, then after Lent and before Advent. In Hebrew, the word “green”  and “young” is the same, reflecting the ideas of rebirth and renewal that is associated with the color.  Amen.

So I notice and like my evergreen in the winter. In the summer it will not stand out as the rest of the landscape will be revived, but in the subtlety of the winter world, it is most beautiful.

My Fear

I fear little

not death nor life

not pain nor uncertainty

not turmoil nor the future

I am not sure about fear.

I see  so much and so little

emotion, for better or for worse

reaction, to life, or to my small piece of life now,

possibilities, laced with hopes and questions,     
pitfalls, those named and those unspoken.

l want goodness for us

not only goodness, but reality and truth

challenge and possibility, then

comfort and assurance in each other,

awareness and consciousness of life together and its abundance.

I know this is all we have

life now, shared existence

 this is what we share:

life now

this is what we must celebrate:

life now

I fear only these

obstinance in love, faith, forgiveness

obliteration of memory

oblivion without the redemption of love and life.

and that’s all, folks....

Life, Now

Finally, more than one full year after my retirement, I am beginning to feel like I am becoming the person I was always supposed to be.  For the curious, that would be pioneer-hunter-gatherer-survivalist.  Who would ever have predicted this?  I understand that there is often regression as part and parcel of the aging process.  Often we become less capable in skills we had once mastered, less interested in the new and exciting developments brought to us via modern business, less adventurous in the wilderness. We may even eventually return to very early childhood-like behaviors.... eating soft foods, needing reminders to zip, and even (shudder) returning to diapers and sides on the bed again. No, no... I am not yet even close to these final stages and really hope to simply pop off one day before I have to ask someone to turn me over in bed because I can no longer do that. Actually, I can think of good reasons to ask someone  to turn me over in bed but disability is not one of them. I digress.  I feel kind of reborn, if you will, into a new time, a simpler time, but one filled with lots of hard work not typically done by your average middle-age ex-teacher person.  We have lived a fairly conventional life made up of regular jobs and paychecks, kids involved in school and sports and on to college, their own marriages and lives, and plenty of grocery shopping using the family van. We now have the empty nest and I quit... I am essentially now a kept woman, as the hubby toils away still, bringing home the real bacon. Someday, he will also discover the joys of retirement, but not yet.  I would invoke the Italian phrase "dolce far niente", translated as "so sweet to do nothing"... but that is not exactly accurate either.  I ask your indulgence as I employ that old saw "we are human beings, not human doings" The "doing"  vs "being" distinction is important.  I am certainly not ready to be nothing and I am certainly not doing nothing.  I simply do not know the Italian words  for "so sweet to be what I want to be when I want to do whatever or be some way or another".

Our habitat of choice is fairly isolated, not far from people but home is not a peopled place. We are connected to the world via satellite and internet, telephone and automobile. Now, I find days go by without using the car. I stick around here. I have not given up the electronic connections but can actually imagine not having the television and internet.  We have been without both of those for most of early life and many of our adult years. The TV would not be missed. The computer seems to have replaced human contact with email and facebook contact, though it is useful for making party invitations. It has supplanted cookbooks, newspapers, gossip magazines, real letters and cards, phone conversations, books and travel agents. I hear they are working on replacing teachers in public schools with internet learning, and we know it is used for higher education, if you call an online program an education. Here again rises my outraged atavistic perspective, that real learning comes from relationships and common experiences, not from a list of facts and reading recommendations. But I suspect I will lose this battle.  Not the first nor the last. How much of this should I keep to myself? I am sure I will eventually be proven correct...


I am still evolving and the world is evolving. We are just following different spirals, sometimes almost touching but generally on our own inevitable tracks.  I wonder if my pioneer-hunter-gatherer-survivalist persona will become more apparent or necessary with time. Today my big decisions are should I make apple sauce or apple butter out of the 20 pounds of drops I picked up today?  Or maybe just dehydrate them until a better idea comes along? The sauerkraut is fermented and canned... should I start a new batch or make coleslaw and cabbage soup? Should I gather the cabbage in the garden all in before the woodchuck finds it? Will this or that field be better for a couple of sheep?  I sometimes have to work to keep my thoughts from considering post-apocalyptic scenarios, where the survivalist piece might be useful. Not World War Z but there are plenty of weirdos out there and lots of heavy weaponry. I mostly like where I find myself these days, working on things that seem almost ready to disappear from modern knowledge and experience. Vermont is a great place to be this way.. a place where good husbandry, good food, simple pleasures, caring communities and a vibrant history and culture are valued and practiced.  Maybe I just have to evolve a bit more into this life as it is, now that I have shed the shackles of the workaday world. Here, the only deadlines are the ones I set for myself...

Time Travelling

Here is another piece for our writing group...

Time Travelling to 1935.

I have taken myself back to 1935, to Iron Mountain in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where my father’s parents live on a small farm at Pine Creek. It is summertime, which is the best time to travel in the northern regions, a warm and fruitful time.  1935 tells me the Great Depression is upon us but it is not raging in the farming communities in this place. I want to meet and visit with my grandmother, whom I never met. I am told I am very much like her. I have a picture in my house of the family, taken probably about 1925  or so. My dad, born in 1919, is about 6 in the photo.  The youngest child, my uncle Walter, is a baby, no more than a year old, as he would be in 1925.  Grandma is a solid, sober looking woman, 45 years old, mother of 8 living children, all born within the span of 12 years. My dad looks like her, I look like my dad, so the physical evidence is there.  She immigrated from Swedish speaking Finland in 1908. She arrived with a Russian passport, thanks to geopolitical realities, but has always been identified as Swedish, so that is what we say now.

Before 1933, the family lived in town. Grandpa was a shoemaker and had a shop that the US government took to build a post office in Iron Mountain. Grandma had grown up on a farm, the child of crofters on a large place, and she wanted to go back to farming. The other side of the coin is that she insisted that the family move out of town to remove Grandpa from the earthly temptations of drinking and womanizing, but there is no proof of the second sin. They were married 11/11/11, and Grandma is quoted as saying, while 11/11 might be remembered as Armistice Day, for her that was when the war began. Though not prosperous, they lived a self-sufficient rural life on the farm until Grandma died in 1945.

We are in Grandma’s kitchen. It is mid morning. Everyday is baking day, she says, as bread is rising and pies are in the oven. I help by chopping dried apples for coffee cake. It is hot work in July, as the stove needs wood and the kitchen heats up. Kids are doing chores, off with mates, or making plans to attend dances in town. She has already tended the garden and ripe tomatoes and cukes sit in a basket, ready to round out the lunch of sandwiches, pickled beets, and milk. Coffee is on the stove and a fresh pot will be brewed when her neighbor ladies come for “fika”, the afternoon coffee break with cake and smokes in the kitchen. Grandma tells me that they will make plans for their annual weaving days. She will go to her sister Lisa’s house, taking with her the worn clothes and rags collected in the past year, and they will have a little vacation, weaving rag rugs. She says the kids get a kick out of trying to identify their old clothes in the rugs that are scattered through the house. The house is old but has indoor plumbing, a toilet in a closet and a tub. There is a furnace with one vent upstairs in the hallway between the bedrooms. There, the kids leap out of bed and dress over the vent in winter. Grandma tells me that she is glad she moved to America. In Finland, life was hard, work was endless and there was little expectation of better. She only went to 4 years of school and her father and six siblings all moved to America. Only her mother stayed there. Grandma said her father left Finland for America in 1884, when she was just 4, and they never heard from him again.  She tries to explain some of the relations but they are pieces of a complex and incomplete puzzle to me. They all have the same name but it is more of a place name than a family name. She shares some family stories.. both sides, grandpa’s and hers, have their share of members arrested for drunkenness or breaking the Sabbath, births out of wedlock, even thievery, but also the stories of immigration and starting a life in a new place.  Interesting to me but Grandma has apparently moved on from her past.. there is no time for sentimentality with a large family on a farm during the depression. So the stories are brief, the sun is warm, lunch is ready,  and her friends will arrive for coffee. Corn from the fields has been picked for supper.  There is a lull as lunchtime approaches. I must go. She will die in 1945 and I will be born in 1948, so we never meet. I like to think that I have her country soul, transferred to me via some kind of genetic/cosmic magic. I do have her face, her solid body, and a firstborn child at age 32. I am hoping I have more than the 65 years she was allotted.

Speed Writing

Our little writing group meets every couple of weeks. Our goals vary, some looking for practice or advice, some for fun. We generate an idea, a sentence, or a topic to write about and generally allow ten minutes to complete the exercise. Now, ten minutes is not much time to put coherent thoughts together but that is about all our fingers and hands can handle, given the longhand requirement.  It is too much time sometimes, given the topic and stuttering mental flow. Topics range and outcome vary wildly. That is the fun part.  I share with you now my exercise, given ten minutes and the topic "In a State of Disarray" (my caps). Enjoy.  And feel free to comment. We all want clarity....

In a state of disarray
I take my life, day by day.
The house can wait, the laundry, too.
I have less important things to do.
Some call it ADHD, age related
I call it mainly discombobulated.
A random thought flies by my head.
I reach to catch it with some dread.
Because I know that when I stop
another thing in my head will pop.
What's more important, this or that?
I think I  need to brush the cat.
No, sweep the floor but not till later
because I know it won't get better.
Garden to clean or was it my closet?
I'm usually quite sure but now I've lost it.
Do I have an appointment- I'll check my book,
Or maybe the other one is where to look.
My mate's not much better; we both kind of stew
He says it is my job- I say, but you knew.
So on we go til we have a goal
And then we can sight on the  not distant pole.
The best way to accomplish the tedious tasks
is to both start our work and to not finish last.
Cause whoever is done first is likely the winner
Even though that one has to cook dinner.
It's a summer event, this lack of a focus,
A change in the season, it just seems to poke us,
On to the deadlines and duties of work
At least he is working though I am still in the murk
The housework, the church work, the yard work, the chickens...
I'd rather be singing or reading some Dickens.



That's all, Folks... ten minutes of scribbling about a state of disarray.  Give it your best shot.