How many ways does wood heat warm, Let me count the ways

 

Fred and Faye guard our woodpile
CC Jean Stimmell

This essay is a continuation of last week’s piece questioning the value of new technology like Apple’s latest iPad. Yes, this cutting-edge technology makes life easier, but is it good for your body and soul? Depending on your sensibilities,  you may find the following either romantic or asinine. 

Sacasas, in his substack, “The Convivial Society,”^⁠1 introduced me to the philosopher Albert Borgmann, whom I consider a kindred soul. Back in 1987, he wrote, “that technology has served us well by conquering hunger and disease, but when we turn to it for richer experiences, it leads instead to a life dominated by effortless and thoughtless consumption.” To make his case, he points out the advantages of heating with a wood stove, something near and dear to my heart.

While technology may make life easier, it doesn’t make for a good life. And that’s the essence of what we, of the sixties generation, were searching for. We found the answer in books like the one written by Scott and Helen Nearing: “Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World.” This couple had abandoned the city for a rural life with minimal cash, searching for self-reliance, good health, and community.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the wood stove loomed large in the lives of all of us engaged in the back-to-the-land movement, whether we already lived in New Hampshire or migrated here from elsewhere. While we had no money, we had lots of energy and enthusiasm.

We loved our wood heat:  not only could you physically feel the toasty rays soaking into your body as they radiated out from the stove, but the kinetic energy created a mellow feeling of community among all the folks present. 

This kind of energy was not immediate: it took time and community to create, as Borgmann notes: Wood heat “was not instantaneous because in the morning a fire first had to be built in the stove or fireplace. And before it could be built, trees had to be felled, logs had to be sawed and split, the wood had to be hauled and stacked.”^⁠2 

That encapsulates the old Yankee saying: "Wood heats you up three times; when you drop the trees, when you cut it up, and when you burn it."

I know it is a stretch, but contrasting the experience of wood heat with modern central heating is, for me, similar to that infamous Apple ad crushing all the former instruments of creativity in favor of the new iPad Pro. 

Let me explain by again quoting Borgmann who stresses not only the physical involvement that wood heat requires but the social aspects.

“It was a focus, a hearth, a place that gathered the work and leisure of a family and gave the house its center It provided for the entire family a regular and bodily engagement with the rhythm of the seasons that was woven together of the threat of cold and the solace of warmth, the smell of wood smoke, the exertion of sawing and of carrying, the teaching of skills, and the fidelity to daily tasks.”^⁠3

The newest Apple iPad may be the thinnest ever, but can it warm your body and soul like wood can?

xxx

¹ https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/why-an-easier-life-is-not-necessarily

² Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry by Albert Borgmann. University of Chicago Press: 1987

³ Ibid.

Entropy has been weighing on my mind

“Even the words that we are speaking now 

thieving time has stolen away, 

and nothing can return” –

Horace's Odes. 23 BC

We are not  unitary selves but merely a reflection of everyone
 and everything with whom we have ever interacted*

Watching my body fall apart at the age of 78, I can no longer ignore the fact that entropy is taking over. 

Entropy, of course, is the scientific fact that everything in the cosmos winds down, the universal reality that order inevitably turns toward disorder. As Carlo Rovelli has written in “The Order of Time,”^⁠1 entropy is special: as opposed to all the other laws of the universe, time is not reversible. You can’t go backward. 

How well I know! It’s a one-way street.

Rovelli writes that what’s special about time is that “the difference between past and future does not lie in the elementary laws of motion; it does not reside in the deep grammar of nature. Instead, it’s a natural disordering leading gradually to “less particular, less special situations.”

That’s exactly what my old body is feeling: Less particular and less special all the time.

Science tells us that at the beginning of time, the cosmos was in perfect order and has been unraveling ever since. Some say when the disorder is complete, everything will stop, just as it does for us as individuals at our death.

On the other hand, Buddhists and some rogue scientists claim that the cosmos’s trajectory from order to disorder is part of a cycle that repeats itself time and time again. Whatever it is, it’s beyond my grasp as a Northwood hermit to make that call.

The key for me is more immediate: the urgent need to find some branch to grasp – an anchor to hold onto against the uncertain demands ahead – as I am swept down this tempestuous river called life. For many folks, that anchor is established religion, something I don’t have. In lieu of that, I have pieced together two disparate strands that guide me and give me solace.

First, I know that I am made up of ancient and primordial atoms that have been here since the beginning of time and that these fundamental elements will live on, returning to the cosmos until called upon to return as part of some new life form.

Second, I believe in Complexity Theory, which, according to Neil Theise, is the most important theory of the 20^th century after quantum physics and relativity. This notion makes the mind-blowing claim that the essence of the universe is not material things but consciousness itself.

These two components have become my anchor, transforming my understanding of who I am. They puncture the illusion that this person called Jean, who is writing this essay, actually exists. Instead, I become merely the composite of everything and everyone I have interacted with throughout my life. 

 

This notion is beautifully expressed in the Buddhist metaphor “Indra’s Net,” first referenced in India over 3000 years ago.

There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe…

At every crossing of the threads there is an individual.

And every individual is a crystal bead.

And every crystal bead reflects

not only the light from every

other crystal in the net

but also every other reflection

throughout the entire universe^⁠2

How wonderful if consciousness is, indeed, the pure truth of the universe, directly accessible to each of us and not filtered through the fallible beliefs of shamans, witch doctors, preachers, mullahs, and rabbis.

 I am fully aware that when I am recycled back into a new life form, it is not likely to be a homo sapien. I have no problem with that because in the world we now live in, I’m increasingly ashamed to be a human being and would rather come back as an earthworm or a mud turtle.

xxx

¹ Rovelli, Carlo. The Order of Time (p. 1). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

² http://jeanstimmell.blogspot.com/2011/03/reflections-and-indras-net.html

¹ Rovelli, Carlo. The Order of Time (p. 1). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

² http://jeanstimmell.blogspot.com/2011/03/reflections-and-indras-net.html

It’s our choice: Back to the future or no future at all

                                                                    CC Jean Stimmell 

What would an old Yankee think? Around Jenness Pond, it used to be an April Fool’s joke to tell folks the ice was out when it wasn’t. But this year, it’s no joke: the ice is long gone, along with skiing, snowshoeing, ice fishing…, and a whole way of life.

‘Is winter really gone?’

I posed that question to my local shaman, Andiron Owl. She responded fiercely, withered grass sprouting from her eyes, a nagging reminder of the deadly effects of climate change, ‘Can’t you see the havoc you two-legged creatures have wreaked on us and the Earth itself? 

‘Now,’ she promised, ‘it’s time to face the consequences!’

Right on cue, I woke up the next morning to howling wind and a foot of wet snow, heavier than concrete, flattening my shrubs and small trees. Worse yet, it knocked out my electricity, causing my old generator to have a panic attack and die on the spot.

 There was no doubt that Mother Nature was exacting her punishment by casting me back in time: I  found myself once again a homesteader like my forebearers, warming myself by my woodstove, toting water from my farm pond, and writing by an ancient family oil lamp.

“Behold! This is your future,” the owl snarled. But if you are smart, it will teach you an invaluable lesson, a paradoxical truth: Learning again how to subsist isn’t a curse but the path not only to sanity but to earthly bliss. As a refresher course, she referred me to a recent Atlantic Magazine article, “A 600-Year-Old Blueprint for Weathering Climate Change.”^⁠1

Beginning in the 13^th century, the Northern Hemisphere experienced extreme climate change. “First came drought, then a period of cold, volatile weather known as the Little Ice Age.” It snowed in Alabama and South Texas. Famine killed perhaps one million people around the world. 

European countries doubled down, carrying on as before, concentrated in large cities with centralized, top-down organizations.  The end result was a disaster. Although it is little recognized, Native Americans had also “built grand cities on the scale of those in Europe with hierarchical class systems ruled by powerful leaders.”

But in response to the climate crisis, Native North American societies transformed themselves, spurred on by “a deep distrust of the centralization, hierarchy, and inequality of the previous era, which they blamed for the famines and disruptions that had hit cities hard. They turned away from omnipotent leaders and the cities they ruled and built new, smaller-scale ways of living, probably based in part on how their distant ancestors lived.”

They left behind ruins, such as those at Chaco Canyon and Cahokia, for smaller communities with more sustainable economies that encouraged balance and consensus. Oral histories from the generations that followed this radical shift described their new lives as greatly improved over the old. 

The secret of their success involved decentralizing governing structures with a variety of political checks and balances to prevent dictators from arising. “Power and prestige lay not in amassing wealth but in assuring that wealth was shared wisely. Many policies mandated councils of elders and balanced power by pairing leaders: a war chief alongside the peace chief” and a female counsel next to the male counsel.” 

As the historian Cary Miller has written, Native American nonhierarchical political systems “were neither weak nor random but highly organized and deliberate.” By living simply and sharing power widely, they were able to weather this 600-year mini-ice age with aplomb while the top-down European societies were mired in misery.

We would be wise to follow their lead today. Indeed, leading political theorists on both ends of the political spectrum have proposed decentralization as a means to bring democracy closer to the people – and, in the process, slow the rate of destructive climate change by learning to live sustainably like the first inhabitants of this land. 

Left and right could help make it happen by joining forces to break through our current political stalemate: Create a more grassroots democracy that fosters greater freedom while ensuring it is fair and equitable for all.

My shaman, Andiron Owl, tells me what we already know in our hearts: the alternative is bleck: a continuing upsurge in name-calling, insurrection, famine, and plague.

xxx

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

¹ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/04/little-ice-age-native-north-america-climate-change/677944/

Invasive Forces Plundering NH

Governor Chris Sununu, VP Charles Koch Institute William Ruger, and Free-State Project Founder Jason Sorens at the Cato Institute celebration of NH as their choice for "freest state."⁠1

Traditionally, NH folks have been known to be self-reliant – maybe to the extent of appearing standoffish – because of our ‘live and let live’ philosophy.  Yet, while flinty and frugal, we believe in community: coming together to raise barns, build schools, and practice home rule through direct democracy in our town meetings. That is until three Republican governors have come along to disrupt our Yankee ecosystem just as invasive species are decimating our forests.

First came Mel Thompson, a law book publisher who became our 73rd governor, aided and abided by William Loeb, the fiery, right-wing editor of the Manchester Union. Both of these carpetbaggers were cosmic bad luck, warping our destiny to this day. They were the ones who brainwashed us with the motto, ’No Broad-based Taxes, which is still reverberating in our heads like a stuck record, continuing to wreak havoc on our poorer schools.

It was Meldrim, you may remember, who lobbied to arm the NH National Guard with nuclear weapons, coincidentally or not, at the same time the Clamshell Alliance was holding mass protests against the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant.  It was also Mel who led the push to construct a huge oil refinery in Durham – it would have been the biggest in the world at that time – defiling, in the process, the Great Bay Estuary, that precious jewel on our already minuscule 19 miles of ocean coastline.

Then we have Governor John Sununu, Chris’s Daddy. As chief of staff to President George H. Bush, he thwarted the US from joining the international conference to address climate change. In addition, he single-handedly pushed through the completion of Seabrook, that colossal white elephant first championed by Mel. 

The reactor ended up costing seven times the original estimate, causing the utility owner, Public Service, to go bankrupt. Of course, we, the NH taxpayers, had to bail them out. We are still on the hook to shell out the fortune it will cost to decommission Seabrook, which is supposed to happen soon, hopefully before it blows a radioactive gasket.

Now, let’s move on to John Sununo’s son, Chris, who has served as our popular governor for four terms now. His affable-appearing personality hides a dark agenda.

Governor Sununu has ties to Koch Industries, The Free State Movement, and the Libertarian Party. The Koch brothers (Charles is now deceased) own Koch Industries, the largest privately owned company in the country. The Kochs were instrumental in creating the Libertarian Party in 1989, using it to increase their business profits by maximizing individual liberty, no matter the social or environmental cost. They and their colleagues have spent hundreds of millions to weaken democracy nationwide.^⁠1 

At the state level, Sununu has installed Frank Edelblut, libertarian-leaning with a divinity degree, as our commissioner of education. Together, they are laying the groundwork to eliminate public education by promoting private charter schools and giving folks vouchers to defray the cost of private schools, which will be paid for by—you guessed it—our hard-earned tax dollars. 

Governor Sununo also has ties to Jason Sorens, founder of the Free State Movement, who has recently moved to NH to become a professor at St Anselm’s College –  conveniently appointed to the post after the Kochs donated $1 million to the college in 2018.^⁠2 

Another strand of this dark web is Koch’s Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), an anti-public education PAC based in Texas that has made significant inroads into our state, listing nearly 100 NH GOP state house representatives as members of its coalition.^⁠3

These extremist groups are planning a coup that would spell disaster for NH. As Leonard Witt explains in InDepthNH, “Almost half of the GOP members of our state legislature have become YAL-inspired ideologues, not guardians of our children’s future and certainly not champions of fiscal responsibility.” Public schools are just the beginning, a wedge issue followed by plans to end Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.”^⁠4

If we do not confront these dark forces now, our traditional way of life will be dismantled in the same way invasive species like the emerald ash borer and Asian longhorned beetle are demolishing our forests today.

xxx

¹ https://mailchi.mp/granitestatematters/march2024?e=00177fab1c

² Ibid.

³ https://indepthnh.org/2024/02/19/op-ed-dark-money-texas-pac-has-foothold-on-half-the-gops-nh-state-reps/

⁴ Ibid.