Guerrilla gardeners

Anyone with an engineering degree can put up a bridge that will carry traffic. Any run-of-the-mill architect can erect a building that will keep out the rain.

It is when these skills combine with beauty that humanity is truly uplifted -- when we are bequeathed a Golden Gate Bridge or a Parthenon.

Too much of our modern, so-called public space is dreary, boring, even downright ugly -- and soul-killing. And that's just the hardscape, not the often pathetic attempts to bring in some greenery.

An international movement seeks to change that in a surprising way. They call themselves guerrilla gardeners.

In essence, these folks sneak onto neglected public property by dark of night and plant things. Not cannabis but sunflowers, native plants, etc.

Now, being a gardener myself, I was skeptical at first. Anyone with functioning fingers can drop seeds on the ground and run away. To actually produce a garden requires a few return trips. Watering and weeding soon become necessary.

But I visited http://guerrillagardening.org and was happily surprised. The man who runs the website does slip back to tend his urban oasises. Even rakes leaves. And sometimes visits by day. I don't know if all his followers are so devoted. Still, more power to them.

Satisfaction

I had today off from work, so I ... worked.

Cut down the dying asparagus stalks in the garden to deter asparagus beetles in the spring. Cut back the grape vines to deter the black rot that claims too much of the fruit every summer. Spread shredded leaves over the garden soil for mulch. Rubbed down the garden tool handles with linseed oil. And plunged my fingers into the cold soil to dig up the last of the carrots, which tonight became a spicy carrot bread for dessert.

Satisfaction. I love working outside.

Story of a little dog

My local paper carried this story, which originated in Florida. It has to be one of the most beautifully written articles that I have read in a long time.

World's ugliest dog title pays pooch's medical bills

Owner found special connection with scrawny, one-eyed, three-legged friend
Lane DeGregory, St. Petersburg Times

Published: Thursday, November 13, 2008
GULFPORT, Fla. - She wrapped the World's Ugliest Dog in a blue baby blanket and carried him outside. But even in the sun, Gus couldn't stop shivering.

"Hey, little guy," she said softly. "You want to go for a ride?"

Gus looked up at her and blinked his one bulbous eye. His three paws were curled, claw-like, into his bony body.

Gus, the one-eyed, three-legged Chinese crested who won the title of the world's ugliest dog in June, died this week after a fight with cancer.

In June, when he was crowned in California, he became an instant celebrity. He growled at Howard Stern, appeared on The Today Show and Fox & Friends. Everyone agreed he couldn't look worse.

Since then, Gus had lost five pounds -- half his body weight. The cancer that claimed his back leg had twisted his spine. The $1,600 he won in the contest helped pay for chemo. But it didn't cure him. A few days ago, the vet said Gus only had a few days.

So this past Saturday, Jeanenne Teed booked a room on Treasure Island, one last getaway for her dog who loves road trips.

"There you are," she said, lowering Gus onto a pillow on the passenger seat. "Let's go to the beach."

She found him eight years ago, just after her divorce. Someone told her about this hairless, bug-eyed creature being kept in a cage in a dark garage.

With the help of a rescue team, Teed saved the Chinese crested puppy.

"He was the most hideous thing I had ever seen."

She told her son and daughter, who were in elementary school, that she was going to find the dog a good home. But that night, he curled against her on her ex-husband's side of the bed.

"My mom had this crazy bond with Gus," said Janey Teed, 16. "We'd had other dogs before, but she'd never been like that.

"It was like, Gus needed her more."

After a cat scratched out his left eye, after cancer ate his leg, Gus became even more docile. And hideous.

When Teed saw the World's Ugliest Dog contest on TV last year, she patted Gus and said, "They got nothing on you."

She flew him to California in June. By September, he was too weak to walk. Chemo cost $5,000, so Teed, a certified public accountant, put down his prize money -- plus her mortgage for October.

"He's part of the family."

She carried Gus into the motel, still shivering. She built a bed of blankets on the sofa and tucked him in.

"Remember?" she asked. "This is where we came to celebrate, when you won."

Gus opened his eye, then closed it. The effort seemed to exhaust him.

A few days earlier, he had stopped eating. A day ago, he stopped drinking.

Teed had to pour a few drops into the cap of a water bottle and hold it near his tongue.

She knew he needed her, now more than ever. But how do you know when it's time?

He slept fitfully Sunday night. By Monday morning, he was hiccupping, trying to catch his breath. She stroked the soft plume of fur on his forehead.

"Hey, little guy," she said softly. "You want to go for a ride?"

He had taken her places she'd never dreamed of going, got her on talk shows and YouTube. All the way to the vet, she kept telling him, "I'm right here."

She held him as he left her. He watched her for what seemed like forever.

When he shuddered, she tugged the blue blanket over his bald head.

On his tiny grave in her backyard, she planted a Butterfly bush with golden flowers.

"Something beautiful," she said, "to grow out of all that ugly."

Hot Bird

Today is Thanksgiving for U.S. Americans, a day in which our merchants either to try to sell us stuff at ungodly hours or a day which they conspicuously ignore in order to promote the big holiday beyond.

We also roast turkeys on this day, unless we are members of certain anti-meat groups.

But my thoughts this morning are upon a different sort of hot bird.

I speak of the phoenix.



Like the dragon, the lore of this mythical monster seems to permeate almost every human culture.

For the longest time, I have had a brassy coin that I thought was from China, and upon whose obverse I assumed was a depiction of Tiananmen Square. I searched and searched and only this month have I discovered, ignorant American that I am, that it is no more Chinese in origin than a Looney is legal tender in Mazatlan.



This is actually a ten yen coin, depicting the Phoenix Hall of the Byodoin Temple in Kyoto, Japan, a building that dates to 998 A.D.

I don't know what Japanese word is translated as phoenix, or even how closely that approximates to the western concept of the beast, a bird reborn in fire and ash.

Not just the pagans but the Early Christian Church father Clement speaks of the phoenix, as a symbol of resurrection, in his letter to the Corinthians. (Don't confuse this with the canonical letter by Paul!)

"...from the neighborhood, that is, of Arabia. There is a bird which is called a phoenix. It is the only one of its kind and lives five hundred years. When the time for its departure and death draws near, it makes a burial nest for itself from frankincense, myrrh and other spices, and when the time is up, it gets into it and dies. From its decaying flesh a worm is produced, which is nourished by the secretions of the dead creature and grows wings ... [flying to the Egyptian city of] of Heliopolis, it lights at the altar of the sun."

The Christian "heretics," the Gnostics, also mention this flammable fowl. I found a reference today in the Nag Hammadi text, "On the Origin of the World."

"And the worm that has been born out of the phoenix is a human being as well. It is written concerning it concerning it, 'The just man will blossom like the phoenix.'"

The Gnostic writer cites the Septuagint (Greek) version of Psalms 91: 13 for this reference, but he seems to have taken some liberties. Our King James version reads:

"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet."

The Septuagint has "basiliskou" from the Hebrew pethen, for adder. No flying phoenix, just a bad-tempered snake. Perhaps some later monk scrubbed out the mythological term -- although the dragon escaped his scrutiny.

Blog tidying up

Gazing around at this little place I tenderly call Isis, I realize that some corners have grown dusty.

It takes me about a month to go through my entire blog roll, because I like to post comments that are more than mere superficiality, and go beyond the top post, on the blogsites of my friends. These days, some of those friends have moved their original sites and I have to jump through a few hoops to visit them -- that needs to be cleaned up.

This also explains why I don't comment more frequently on some of my favorite blogs.

I realize that I have a few good friends who I have not yet added to the rolls, and need to do so.

With great sorrow, too, I realize that other friends have closed down their blogs or haven't updated them for many, many months, or have not visited here in so long that I realize that we have just drifted apart. Those names will come off the blog roll -- but I will add them back in an instant if they ever visit here again.

I guess everyone has to do that now and then.

I don't know where I'm going
But I sure know where I've been
Hanging on the promises
In songs of yesterday
An' I've made up my mind
I ain't wasting no more time
But, here I go again
Here I go again

Tho' I keep searching for an answer
I never seem to find what I'm looking for
Oh Lord, I pray
You give me strength to carry on
Cos I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams

--- Whitesnake

The song opens with Big Synthesizer swelling up mighty like church hymns used to do, instantly tying it to the 1980s, when pants were parachute and hair and music was big.

But for me, every time that I hear that song, I am carried back to the dawn of my teenage years, bittersweet years in between the helplessness of childhood and the burden of being an adult.

And I think about my friend, L. How for some teenage reason we loved this song by Whitesnake and we would sing it at the top of our lungs as late at night we traversed the dark concrete wasteland of the old flightline between the two halves of the Air Force base where we lived.

We were silly and too young to care.

L. died far, far too young.

But I hear this song and I think of him. Always will.