walking down the iles...

of my local Wholefoods store, I passed the meat section, which usually consists of blurred out area I rarely find no need to look into, and found myself riveted to the recently re-tiled floor. I blinked once, twice, etc.. Was what I was staring at a product of my imagination, or was it yet another display of someone's lack of access to a second opinion?
Brushing the first option aside, for the simple reason that my imagination hadn't been that creative for quite some time now, I licked my lips, and allowed my whole being to bask in in this priceless experience.
By now, if my modest understanding of human nature, mine excluded, is half as good as I think it is, you are probably getting a bit restless, ready to skim through this unnecessarily elongated narration of the endlessly winding sort, in order to find out what it is I am babbling about. Well, I hear you my friends, and forgiving your impatience, I submit to your caprice, for we are friends, and what are friends for if not to let each others' faults and imperfections of the mind and spirit, etc... pass? Please, notice and appreciate the clever use of etc.
Now, and back to the crux of my story, which is based on facts, and facts only -scout's honor, not that I ever was one, what I was staring at, my precious comrades, was no less and no more than a phrase that, written on a board set in grand display behind the meat counter, read as follow, "Grass fed ground beef"... Need I say more?
For those of you who, now, are reaching for the backs of their heads tempted to give in to that primal urge to scratch one's cranium when encountering a riddle,I will just add that this visit to wholefoods was one of phenomenal educational value, for as you too, who are now aware, or perhaps you already knew this, meaning that this whole time you could have been doing something more productive instead of wasting your time with the content of your humble servant's blog, I now know that there exists somewhere on this planet of ours, a creature that is called ground beef,surely a rare species from the bovine family, a creature so sweet and kind and peaceful that it can live, unlike our very violent kind, on a simple grass diet. Sniff, sniff... my eyes water at the thought of ground beef, standing at the very top of a green hill, munching on grass, free of guilt, free of anger, etc... Having done it again with another artistically dropped etc, I bid you goodbye.
Be well and smile, or even laugh.
Still googling ground beef, and not getting much -could it be a hoax?

questioning my lifestyle...

A few minutes ago, this morning, I walked past a young man holding a stick with a basket and an a hook attached to one of its ends. Wearing a straw hat, the young man was picking apples from a tree that stands at the corner of the parking lot of a 'Noodles and Company', not too far from my Borders bookstore, and very, very close to the side entrance of a Copps supermarket. He'd raise the stick, setting the basket under an apple, and with a downward tug, make the apple fall right into the basket. Needless to say, I was quite impressed, and rather surprised.

The reason for my surprire was not that I had stumbled onto a quasi-urban fruit-picker in my neighborhood, but that I had failed to notice this apple tree before. Surely, I'd taken this path before, a plethora of times, by car, bike and on foot; after all, I've been this very location's Borders patron since I moved to Madison.

So, and with a thought leading to another, I began to wonder, "What else was I missing?" "How could I have been so blind?" I decided to go back to the tree, just to make sure it was really there, and I hadn't just imagined it. Well, it was, and not only that, but the ground surrounding it was covered with rotten fruit, which, if anything, was an indication that I wasn't the only one who had failed to see this tree for what it really was.

Now, sitting at a table, outside my bookstore/cafe/office, I ask, "How many readily available resources are going to waste like this? How many of us choose on a daily basis to pass trees just like this one, and enter a supermarket to buy the same fruit they could have collected if they'd wanted to?" Yes, these apples are tiny looking things, but I suspect them to be tastier than what is on display in our stores' produce section.

For quite some time now, I've been hearing about urbanites, all over the western globe, who are changing the way they're living their lives, choosing to be more careful about how they use their local resources, more careful about their impact on this planet of ours. They use their balconies to grow vegetables and greens. They take over abandoned lots to turn them to community gardens. They recycle smartly, turning trash into compost. They ride bicycles, or take advantage of what public transportation they have access to, instead of driving cars. They're members of food co-ops. They support their local farmers. Yes, they might strike you as hippie-wannabes, as they might own a Subaru, and might indulge in the burning and inhaling of certain mind-altering substances... anyway what was I trying to say? Oh, yes...

We all say and think that we want better, healthier, lives. We all say that we want to be responsible more involved in how we build our world. But how many of us are willing to do the right thing, make the necessary changes, let go of luxuries and wastful habits that have become so ingrained in our daily modes of thinking and being, moving our whole planet towards a disastrous tipping point. So, to these rebels, these example setters, people who care, people who walk their talk, I say, I am humbled by your ways, and truly ashamed of mine.

I wish I could join you. But, I don't really believe that I can. I've become too attached to my car, too disconnected from nature, although, I did once work as an horticulturist assistant in Florida, but all I remember is doing a great deal of watering and pruning of tropical plants I knew almost nothing about, that, and getting attacked by crazy fire ants, and giant roaches... Still there is no harm in hoping. No harm in trying, and what's there to lose anyway?

Perhaps, this is why I am here in Madison, Wisconsin. A small island of awareness, a mid-sized town with many green spaces, hills, forests, lakes, native sacred mounds, free summer concerts, people who care, rebels residing mainly, but not only, on the East-side of the University, who choose to live more responsibly and creatively, or at least outside of the consumerist mainstream box. There is so much to learn here -if only I was opened to learning.

With this said, I invite you to share with me what beauty you see wherever you are. Today, my world is one made of a thousand and one fluttering butterflies, a few crows, a gliding hawk, and a cloudless blue sunny sky.

Be well, be happy. Life is now.