The Legend of 3G Tripod

Life is full of foolish things--for those of us with fanciful souls. Here in our little community of Chelsea nestled in the Gatineau Hills of Quebec, we (as with communities around the world) are coping with this time in history as best we can. And the search for hope and promise and beauty inside the darkness was and is a challenge. We have made it through some dark times with floods, tornadoes, developments and scandals. More than most communities have had to. The response to all of these things has made us unstoppable as a community. We found neighbours. We found unity of purpose around kindness and care. We found strength. Oh, not to say that there isn’t the odd kerfluffle and hurt feelings and bad things but overall, here in such an unlikely place we have gained so much. What happened then with Covid and the like seemed and seems at times to be too much. Much more than we needed, that’s for sure. On top of everything. Yet, for all that our little community has gone through we were gifted. We were given 3G Tripod. 

3G Tripod is a deer that appeared in our community. She has a broken leg.

When I wrote this story of the lessons of 3G Tripod it was a very bleak time. But something in me said that this deer we named 3G Tripod was a message. After I wrote the story i was living a bit of fear--that we would hear she had been killed on the road, or shot or worst of all someone tried to rescue her and take her away which would have been the worst thing to do altogether. I guess i was waiting for how it would turn out. Just this week Max Gibson posted a picture on our local forum that brought me to tears. The lesson now was clear. Out of pain and trial comes birth. 3G Tripod has a fawn.

Here is what I wrote then:

Ahem… Weekly rant. Thank you all for taking care of the vulnerable and taking care of the caregivers and watching out for your neighbours. I hope everyone is taking their zinc and Vitamin D. And maybe Vitamin C. It can’t hurt. Do not drink bleach. When you don’t know what to do, love the one you’re with. This week’s rant is about the deer.

For those of us inclined to fanciful thoughts, the wounded deer with a dangling leg wandering about Chelsea tells us pretty much everything we need to know at this time. She arrived as a lesson in hope and faith and endurance. We are more than gifted with her presence. No matter what happens to “3G Tripod” (affectionately named Gimpy, Gerta and Gustavia and Tripod by various members) we can accept her gifts to us now during this Covid crisis.

3G Tripod is oblivious to the ruckus her very presence causes. The solution from authorities is to let her be or shoot her. And so we are faced with deciding whether her life is worth living or not. It is painful to see her so damaged with leg dangling. We are moved to pity, to horror, to outrage but we are not indifferent. There is no longterm care facility or retirement home for this deer.  She cannot be put out of sight and out of mind. She is always there. So should we just shoot her and put her out of her misery? But she isn’t miserable. She is being a deer living her life. Who are we to decide her fate? Her presence upsets us because it is an “in your face” reality reminding us that sometimes life isn’t all pretty and Disney. It hurts us to see her. It might even annoy us. And the pragmatists say just shoot her. And the predators say she’d make good eating. And the empaths want to care for her. And the authorities say leave us the hell alone about the damn deer because we’ve got enough on our plate. And the perfectionists say she is offensive to look at in our pretty little world. And the philosophers wonder about the purpose of existence. And we all look at 3G Tripod. Because what are we to do? 

3G Tripod doesn’t much care about all that. 3G Tripod simply carries on as she has over the last winter munching leaves and grasses in the company of her herd. Except for the leg, she is managing her life—doing what needs to be done as a deer. She isn’t lying in the field moaning and weeping and wondering about her horrific lot in life. She isn’t curled up in a ball in the woods somewhere. She isn't seething with anger at the car that must have hit her nor is she wondering what the motives might have been. She isn’t comparing herself to the other deer nor does she spend much time worrying about how much grass there will be come autumn. She is enduring. She is doing what needs to be done. She lives quietly resourcefully and carefully in the moment. And that is all that we need to do. We don’t need to be upset by the reality that 3G Tripod represents, as cruel as it may seem. We need to be thankful. She lives her life as we all can, doing what needs to be done in the moment even when damaged. It is life. Be Calm. Be Loving. Be Safe.

Heart Level Change

We, wearing our masks when it feels like 40 degrees Celsius can’t catch much of a break from this heatwave here in the Gatineau Hills. It feels like gravity is stronger or something and we are dragged down just for the spite of some mad decree by unseen gods.  Masks in this heat… It’s torture really. It is really amazing we do what we do for the sake of others. Protecting. Caring. Hot. Irritated. Slick with sweat. We prefer not to go out if we can. We drag ourselves heavily through the day looking for ice cream and water and air-conditioning mostly or the purring thrum of fans labouring in the hot air. 

Some of us go to the river where silvery fish swim down to play tag in cooler waters. They have learned to love the places where there are shadows in their river. Up here we can see in odd places, the parched grasses catching the warm yellow sun where there was green not long ago. There seem to be no cool shadows on the greenery now, just feeble greys sometimes, like laundry washed too often. There is not much respite. We are not fish. We live up here with the sultry yellow sun. Our river is the very sky around us.

When everything is so bright with light we hide where we can because this place, this dry place dazzles us. But we always know the storm will come. The one that rushes water and jagged thunderous streaks of light from our sky and for a few hours, maybe more, we are appeased.

It’s a trying time to be alive right now. The stark sun on the world’s landscape dazzles to painful squints. It hurts to look at it. It’s as surreal as it gets. At least so far. There is very little we can do about the world I’m often reminded. And that is wise advice of course. So little we can do in a world which at this point seems pretty unfathomable. And that is a fishes’ word—unfathomable. The depths of the waters we are swimming in and its extent not able to be measured by any of us. We watch. We wait. We weather the storms. It is one of those times in history we could never have prepared for but which has happened in similar ways before. If you look at history long enough. And us standing here squinting at the sun means we got through it all then and we will get through this now…whatever that is. At the end of the day, we take care of our families, ourselves, our community. This is always the way it is done. Has always been done. The details hardly matter. 

For some though, the details are everything. They’re in trouble. The bills. The jobs lost. The loved ones sick or threatened by this mad virus. The curtailing of our usual forms of fun and comfort and freedom. The price of food. Tempers flare. Worries ebb and flow. Too many worries to count some days. That’s when you say, there will be a better day and you grit your teeth and get through it. Best you can. You are not alone. There are many like you. Most of all you cut down the noise of the world around you. It may seem a sad thing to know that sometimes when epic change demands of all of us, it is not all of us who can afford to charge ahead to make the world a better place. It is an odd and strange privilege of time, person and circumstances. There are too many of us now who can only do what needs to be done for our families, ourselves and if possible our community. And you know what? That’s okay. Because each struggle, all these struggles and fears we go through individually change the world in the way it is meant to be changed. Where it matters. Where the heart of change happens.

It is wisdom to understand that the heart of change happens in the cool shadows. Not in the bright and demanding sunlight where there are many voices clamouring at us. We can’t see it necessarily so clearly in the dark. The man who lost his job is stronger than he was yesterday because that is what he has decided. The woman frantic with worry over her parents has a look now about her that speaks of determination and compassion. The ingenious finagling to find results on small scales in all the small businesses. The parents finding patience where none was before. The neighbour that said, “let me help you with that.” The old man who said on this I will not compromise and know it. The treacherous child who learns forgiveness. A person's anger and judgment now changed to compassion.  The heart of change does not sometimes happen at protest marches and in great and lofty halls of government. It happens when heart meets strength it never had before. It happens when kindness and a quiet courage replace outrage, one to another: the heart level of change.

You will find that here at the heart level, the changes grow stronger every time. And by the taking care of just those small things by so many people, the world changed. That’s sometimes how history goes. That is how you will find yourself on the right side of history. Quiet. Resolute. Strong. Unwavering.

So when people say there is little you can do and you are not able to scream and yell and protest and fight for causes, know you’re already doing it. You got through the day with strength and kindness. One more day. And you will do it again tomorrow. And by gum, you have no idea how strong you are. Even when you’re crying. Even when you’re afraid. Even when you see no future. Even when you’re madder than hell. By gum, it is heart level change that will get you through. And you have no choice about that.

If it all gets too much this week, this month: wake up early. Somewhere between 3 and 5 in the northeast you can see by the naked eye in that vast river of sky where we spin on this little green planet, the brightest comet we have seen in decades. It is not an omen.  It is light, a heart light, alone swimming in the cool waters to an ancient rhythm of time and space and promise. It reminds us we too sometimes swim alone in shadows but how damn glorious we can be. Be Strong. Be Kind.

The forest

Even the early mornings this last week in the Gatineau Hills were hot and languid and heavy. For those who had to work outside it must have felt like a slavish oppression by Mother Nature who, adding insult to injury, sent in the mosquitoes to feast. Most of us not dipping into the river or riding in cars top down were huddled in our air conditioned houses if we had air conditioning. Those without simply stayed stupefied in front of fans or lying drowsily in hammocks under a forest of trees. We watched the world on our TVs and computers as it struggles waiting for the heat wave to end. The world itself seems as if it is burning and roiling in the heat of politics and rebellion and chaos.

But we are here and the world is out there. We watch our gardens grow lush with the thunderous rain and feed the miracle of birds that drift from the somnolent sky. Some, now back to work, escaped to the offices and stores in our small town but mostly to the city across the bridge. Above the colourful masks, eyes peer and furrowed brows catch at the heart. The worry is palpable. The struggle for some is painful. We don’t know what the new normal is supposed to be and we are, if nothing else, logical about things. Rational. Ready to do what needs to be done but unsure of what that is now. In this world. In this crazy world. So in our lives we simply do what needs to be done that day. For that day is all we are guaranteed and pretty much all we’re prepared to cope with. And that is okay. For now. We do that day sometimes determined, sometimes on edge, sometimes with flaring tempers or dull dark with anxiety and worry. We are human. We aren’t normally like this. Not normally. But then, nothing really is normal now.

How are we too reckon with all this? This worldwide epic change swirling, churning, billowing around us, insistent on itself even as we fight for perspective. All we can do is live inside our quiet place, our familiar place. We watch over our family, our neighbours, our communities. We wait. Sometimes we make a stand but mostly we wait.

I’ve written before about all this madness in the world. It seems like chaos but it is simply a reckoning. As if the world was striving towards an unseen goodness in a sea of angry opinion. All these “isms.” It makes us creep about in conversation fearful of mishap, worried about taking any stand, going hopefully with the flow, most too tired now to care. Most of us want to be left alone to think what we think. It seems like an individual is lost in this, and well they are—hostage to monumental forces. But that is okay. As I’ve said before, I believe all of these “isms”, environmentalism, feminism, veganism, anti-racism form a prism--a stunning piece of glass reflecting all those colours of the human spirit. It is magnificent. It is hope. But we must guard with our very lives the good here. And what then is the good?

I know only what good isn’t. Good is not hatred of the other. Good is not contempt for the other. Good is not judgment. Good is not ignorance. Good is not these things. And that is where this epic, this Homeric Time demands a reckoning—our only task as individuals in this sea of change. They call it, for wont of a better word, a soul-searching time. It is for many a great “undoing” of everything that they believed in. When jobs are lost, when people we love die, when the sand beneath our feet slips away we can only hold on to what matters. We can only gauge ourselves by our searching. So by what do we gauge ourselves? 

Do we gauge ourselves based on how we were educated? How we were raised? What our peers believe? What our favourite political party tells us? What our job demands? There comes, to us all, a time when we are alone with ourselves to fight our way to what matters. What truly matters. And that is not hatred. It is not okay for a white person to hate a black person because they are black. It is not okay for a woman to hate a man because they are men. It is not okay for a man to hate a woman, a vegan to hate a carnivore, a communist hate a capitalist, a liberal hate a conservative, a child to hate an adult… No. It is not okay. Any institution, philosophy, political party or community built on these things is not okay. 

These “isms” are just trees in a forest and we need to see that forest. A forest is made of mighty trees stretching high to the sky—many limbs arching to the sky. A forest seeks only to live in community, harmless, quiet, in sunlight and shadow. By what do we gauge ourselves with? Certainly not a forest fire of hatred. Certainly not an opinion of others that rolls eyes and points fingers. If you were taught this. If you were educated to this—unlearn it.

Why do you need to unlearn it? Because you are left defenceless against what may be a fight for us all. We want goodness, not hatred. We cannot fight what we have become. And that battle may come. You cannot fight what is bad in this world directly: you must increase the Good.

We gauge ourselves by kindness. One to another despite all differences. That is all.