Whomever Thought of Starlings (and ponderings on potatoes)

Good morning to you, this bright, cold day!

Two sharings today: a short poem on beauty, gratitude and joy as a pathway through difficulty and some ponderings on potatoes.

Whomever thought of Starlings as ordinary

can’t have seen a murmuration ribbon dance

across the sky with motions as changeable and

sensitive as any great orchestra

but silent to us

beyond the thumping rush of wing beat.

And yet

I feel this joy all through me as though

we’re one extraordinary being.

Perhaps we are?

The rise and fall of their flight

mirrors something within me

(this breath, this beating heart)

that catches me, pulse quickened, head turned skyward.

To think of a Starling as ordinary

whomever must not have seen

an ancient, leafless tree

come alive on a mild winter’s day

They must not have noticed

Each half-cracked branch tip budding

with the poised expectation of starlings, blooming.

Yes, I said blooming.

Blooming Starlings

as a January blessing not a curse.

Blooming Starlings

About to lift the old tree's branches off

in a unified explosion of flight

into a low lit sky

while the snowy fields nearby are thick with fog.

Am I imagining things or is this delightful?

What is the gift of Starlings to a human world whose eyes are obscured by

hardship and by grief? What is this gift of nature

but wonder and beauty conjoined in presence

reminding us that

Even in the depths of winter’s choking grip

there’s an eternal spring

(in you)

(this world)

just waiting to be noticed.

Throw back the veil, pull on your cap and join the dance.

There are always things to be grateful for, my friend.

Jill M MacCormack

Alexandra, PEI (January 14th 2022) Birding with Lucas MacCormack

Potato Ponderings:

Friday morning, while out driving in the fog and calm before the storm (yes--a second nor'easter in a week and this one nastier and more true to its name than the last) I noticed something roadside that looked like horse patties, yet not. As we drove along the south shore road I kept seeing these rusty red clumps that I thought the snowplow must have lifted from the ground--like rocks or mud balls-- when all of a sudden I realized they were potatoes fallen off a truck and lolling about on the side of the snow banked roadway.

Fallen vegetables always make me feel sad, like the time last fall when I came upon a disaster of spilled green cabbage, half driven over and half intact and just wanted to gather them all and make coleslaw and veggie tacos and so many other tasty things or the time two weeks ago when walking a new section of the Rails to Trails here and we came upon a field of turnip left to rot and I just stood there aghast at all the spoiled turnip like this field meant I might never have mashed turnip again.

Admittedly I am the kind of gal who holds each potato I peel in my hand for a moment of gratitude for those who've played a role in bringing this miracle of tasty, nourishing goodness to my kitchen for me to prepare it for my family. I cannot drive by a winter field whose snow is stained blood red by a failure to provide winter cover in nearby fields without a confusion of rage arising within.

As a mindfulness practitioner, I know the wisdom in realizing that in order to properly care for ourselves and this Earth we must honour the truth of what is (as bleak or upsetting as it might be) and then from that place of acceptance we can move forward with better choices of how to live our lives and grow our food.

I feel deeply about the food we grow and consume. I feel gratitude and concern in equal measure. But the PEI potato crisis has got me like none other. I feel for everyone involved in this crisis as it seems to me to be the face of everything that is wrong with how we farm for the North American french fry market here on PEI in this terrible game that so often sees the Irvings as winners and our waterways and soils as losers.

Maybe its because in this house we eat reams of potatoes done in every way imaginable or perhaps my Celtic background and the cellular remembrance of the Irish potato famine but the unfathomable thought of the destruction of so many potatoes due to the loss of the US export market--well it has me nearly undone. And I know that many good people are working tirelessly to correct and mitigate these potential losses. But still I am sad and I feel like this is a grief I need to share.

I agree with Ian Petrie's wise eye and feel like its some kind of twisted madness that politics gets to decide the fate of all these veggies (and ultimately decides who eats and who doesn't).

The idea that perfectly good food might go to intentional waste both shocks and horrifies me and not because I do not understand the economics of it all--I do. The horror to me is that in a time of widespread poverty, pandemic and disruption of growing seasons because of climate change that we still somehow allow politicking and economics to be the deciding factor in all things.

If there is food that can be cooked and eaten and there are hungry needing to eat it then we should be ensuring that the hungry are prioritized recipients of said food. Why can't it be as simple as this? I know, I know.

Most troubling to me though, is the fact that PEI still believes that growing a monoculture of millions of pounds of potatoes in service to a global export market is the way to grow food in this era we are living in. It all leaves me feeling bewildered and disillusioned with so much. And ready to forswear off french fries, beyond homemade, for good.

Truly, less is more, small is beautiful and waste not want not are words to live by, going forward into a future fraught with uncertainty.

Thanks for reading!

Wishing you wellness,

Wishing you safety,

Wishing you ease!

Jill

ps--Yesterday morning at nine am I was out in the minus twenty something windchill feeding the birds while my husband was helping our neighbour who was stuck at the end of our street (our neighbour was once again, on his way to climb poles all day in a snowstorm to restore power to those who'd lost it and the roads not yet plowed). If this sounds strangely familiar it is because you read my post from the snowstorm last weekend. Thank goodness for kindness and those able to face difficulties head on.