ENDLESS CYCLE OF CREATION, CRISIS, COLLAPSE & REBIRTH

A beautiful piece of writing, HSF.

My father tried to write a fiction novel one time (while I was writing fiction… he was uber competitive in his own way) and handed it off to me to critique. Beyond a few editor’s marks for his long, run-on sentences that often took the narrative off the page and into the cornfield, I simply read it and wished he were a better writer instead of a good storyteller. His story began with a “vignette” about The Black Axe, a legendary weapon carried by the Chief of the Plains Tribes who gathered at the very edge of the low foothills of the Ozarks in the early 19th century. The gathering of the tribes was to wage war against and stop the neverending westward movement of the settlers who’d made treaties with the tribes in the east. The vignette ends with a great earthquake, what would later be known as the New Madrid Quake.

(I apologize… your wonderful storytelling AND writing caused me to get distracted and start rambling. I thought I had that under control. LOL) I really don’t care that you’ve never learned the difference between the possessive and the contraction, but its moot point is not worth addressing. Your vignette is more than worth it’s praise. And if you don’t think that is funny it makes it even funnier.

Perhaps our old friend ec made it out of here just in time. That’s funny… Just-in-Time Rapture service for very clever commenters. I would have loved to read his opinion on this border mess. I bet we would all be more enlightened for his point of view.

As we are all more enlightened for being able to read yours.

Thanks and the best of luck with your gathering. It is very different here than there.

Here are my ramblings I apologize for above…

Strange Happenings

The New Madrid earthquakes were the biggest earthquakes in American history. They occurred in the central Mississippi Valley, but were felt as far away as New York City, Boston, Montreal, and Washington D.C. President James Madison and his wife Dolly felt them in the White House. Church bells rang in Boston. From December 16, 1811 through March of 1812 there were over 2,000 earthquakes in the central Midwest, and between 6,000-10,000 earthquakes in the Bootheel of Missouri where New Madrid is located near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

It is quite an interesting piece of history, if you’ve not ever studied it.

In the known history of the world, no other earthquakes have lasted so long or produced so much evidence of damage as the New Madrid earthquakes. Three of the earthquakes are on the list of America’s top earthquakes: the first one on December 16, 1811, a magnitude of 8.1 on the Richter scale; the second on January 23, 1812, at 7.8; and the third on February 7, 1812, at as much as 8.8 magnitude.

http://www.new-madrid.mo.us/132/Strange-Happenings-during-the-Earthquake

Tecumseh’s Comet and the Battle of Tippecanoe

The earthquakes were preceded by the appearance of a great comet, which was visible around the globe for seventeen months, and was at its brightest during the earthquakes. The comet, with an orbit of 3,065 years, was last seen during the time of Ramses II in Egypt. In 1811-1812, it was called “Tecumseh’s Comet” (or “Napoleon’s Comet” in Europe). Tecumseh was a Shawnee Indian leader whose name meant “Shooting Star” or “He who walks across the sky.” He was given this name at birth. A great orator and military leader, Tecumseh organized a confederation of Indian tribes to oppose the takeover of three million acres of Indian lands, which were obtained by the Treaty of Fort Wayne in 1809. His brother, a religious leader called “The Prophet,” had gained fame when he foretold the total eclipse of the sun on June 16, 1806. (They had learned about it in advance from a team of visiting astronomers.) During this time, the Governor of Indiana Territory William Henry Harrison–worried about The Prophet’s popularity–had challenged him to produce a miracle. After the day of the “Black Sun” the brothers had no trouble attracting followers. A Black Sun was said to predict a future war. On September 17, 1811 there was another solar eclipse—which, again, was predicted by The Prophet. The brothers’ center of operations was at Prophet’s Town, located near the junction of the Wabash and Tippecanoe Rivers in northern Indiana. Tecumseh was traveling and recruiting warriors among the southeastern tribes, when Governor Harrison attacked Prophet’s Town with over a 1,000 men on November 6, 1811, a pre-emptive strike by the U. S., which marked the beginning of “Tecumseh’s War.” On December 16, when the earthquakes began, Tecumseh was at the Shawnee and Delaware Indian villages near Cape Girardeau, 50 miles north of the epicenter at New Madrid.

So my father’s story begins with a pioneer making his way across that very ridge where the tribes had gathered when they were literally swallowed by the earth. The guy stops to rest his horses and family for the night and finds the Black Axe.

It actually could have been a good novel if my father hadn’t wandered off into the forest while describing the trees.

The story, which I probably could have told had it not been for certain copyright issues my siblings did not understand, was a good one. His novel needed a lot of work.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Best of luck with your gathering. We are going to be very, very quiet. We are hunting rabbits.

My grandfather seeded and harvested right into his mid 80s until his eyesight started to go. Thereafter he remained busy with projects in the house and yard. Almost blind, he renovated his basement one year, his kitchen the next and maintained a half acre yard and vegetable garden.

When he turned 90 and was still sharp I asked him what the secret to his long and healthy life was.

He said, without missing a beat “Get up every day with a purpose.”

In his mid to late 90s he developed dementia and ended up in a home. It was damn hard to see a guy like that in a place like that. When he died at 99, just a few months short of his 100th birthday, it was difficult to feel mournful about it. He’d lived a good, productive and contented life surrounded by people who admired and loved him. And he lived that way until his last moments when he passed from this world surrounded by those same people.

It’s good to live purposefully. It’s good to be an axe.

I know this story wasn’t written specifically for me, but it feels like it was. I’ll keep chopping.