Water Clock

When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.  —Benjamin Franklin

                                                              

 The question that dominates my waking hours now is—

When Day Zero arrives, how do we make water accessible and prevent anarchy?

            —Helen Zille, Premier, South Africa’s Western Cape Province, 

now in the midst of the worst drought in a century.

Is the water crisis in Capetown a harbinger of what’s coming next to the planet? 

Capetown, a city roughly the size of Los Angeles, has been threatening to have a “Day Zero,” when the city shuts off the municipal tap and begins to ration water to homes and businesses. The third year of a drought, insufficient dam capacity, lack of water conservation, and political mismanagement have contributed to bring Capetown to the brink of disaster.

Similar warnings accompanied by rationing have hit Mexico City, Melbourne, Australia, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Jakarta, Indonesia, the Marathwada region of India, and the state of California.

Climate change, population growth, and overdevelopment have forced cities in drought regions to consider how to collect, protect and if necessary ration water—The fate of the planet hangs in the balance as we try to figure out the answers about water—a precious commodity facing depletion in the 21^st century.

Vessel # 56 Release

Water Clock

Breaking barriers, forming rivulets,

                                     shaping rocks, eroding structures,

                                                         rearranging the Earth, dancing with abandon.

                                                                                             Rushing with urgency,

                                                                             obstinate dripping,

                                    spinning, merging— constantly shifting.

Sustenance receding, peril rising,

                                      a migratory witness, a vigilant player,

                                                                         marking time in instants and eons.

Diaspora—The Shifting Winds

“Language, identity, place, home: these are all of a piece - 

just different elements of belonging and not belonging.”   —Jhumpa Lahiri

“Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space. Invite one to stay.”  —Maya Angelou

The shifting winds of February flow like the diaspora that is roiling throughout the world.

From the mean streets in Syria, Yemen, Honduras, and El Salvador to Sub-Saharan African and the plains of Afghanistan families have been uprooted. War, threats of violence, political and religious persecution, climate change, lack of livelihood resources, and natural disasters have forced people to leave their homeland in search of a better life.

Like genetic anomalies finding homes within human cells, displaced refugees move with uncertainty. Food, clothing, shelter, and language barriers all become obstacles in a quest for sanctuary.

Diaspora by Jeff Key

A gust of wind, a coursing bloodstream—conduits of a continual diaspora, scattering organisms of every size and shape on a random journey down the path of natural selection.

Instructions tucked into the nucleus of a body's cells, written in the language of the DNA molecule, forcing a wrong turn on the on the genetic road map—
zika, ebola, malaria, cancer.

Spores set forth by a mother fungus cast their fate to the prevailing breeze—from the jungles of the Congo to a new colony in the mountains of Peru.  

A new location somewhere on chromosome seven—eaten by a spider, deposited on a desert rock—a torn blanket in the shadow of a barbed wire fence—a tenement basement with an unfamiliar tongue. 

The dispossessed, wrested from the sleep of night, thrust on an unwelcome expedition to an unknown destination—roots torn, origins dissolving, destiny declared.

Beacon—On Laws, Treaties and Trust

Good people don’t need laws to tell them to act responsibly….and bad people will find a way around the laws. —Plato

You can't trust water: Even a straight stick turns crooked in it.—W. C. Fields

Like New Year’s resolutions—laws, treaties, and commitments are constantly being broken as the year moves forward and history is being written.

A promise is a fleeting proposition—presented with conviction and trust but bent like a river breaking into tributaries of hypocrisy, deceit, and betrayal.

How do people govern in the early 21^st Century—with their hearts, their minds or their pocket books?  A nod of the head, a handshake, or the stroke of a pen determines the fate of individuals caught in the vortex of a power vacuum.

Congress  votes on bills that will enrich their bank accounts; a president decides to turn his back on 194 nations trying to save the planet from apocalyptic climate change; 700,000 young people brought to the United States by their undocumented immigrant parents live in fear that they will be deported.

Friends, neighbors, and families—tribes, congregants, and countries peer over the fence to read the face on the other side. Is it a friendly smile, or is it a mask that can change with the wind—sunny today—cloudy with rain likely tomorrow?

What Gets You Up in the Morning?

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "What's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" 

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.                                             

                                                                                                              —A.A. Milne from Winnie the Pooh

Finding ourselves in the midst of the holiday season and on the brink of a new year, it’s a good time to pause, take stock of what went well in 2017, what gave us comfort, what went wrong, what kept us up at night …..and what we can do to improve life for everyone in 2018.

What Gets You Up in the Morning?

Porridge in the morning, steam on a cup of tea, a reverence for light, the mystery of fire, biking to work, rolling in the snow, watching flowers grow, finding that illusive answer.

In Danish it’s Hygge, Lagom in Swedish, Gemütlichkeit in German, Fargin in Yiddish, Jugaad in Hindi, Ikigai in Japanese, Mbuki-Mvuki in Bantu, and Xìngfú in Chinese.

It’s the stillness inside that transcends words—learning to recognize joy and beauty, feeling love and hope, expressing morality and compassion, pulling a soft blanket over your shoulders to harness warmth and tame the darkness of winter.

Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle found it in eudaimonia, thought giving way to the spirit—arriving at virtue. Camus searched for meaning and purpose, marveling at the will of Sisyphus as he keeps pushing his rock.

It guides us through the seasons, overcomes nostalgia and melancholy, tunes in the sound of wind whistling through trees, gathers the luster of moonlight on water, and recalls memories as we find ourselves opening the door to take on a new day.

                                                                                                                       —Jeff Key, 2016

STEPS

"The light, acquiring luminous momentum, is caught in a brazen act of seduction

and scurries below the surface, attempting to avoid its own brilliance."

                                                                     —excerpt from STEPS by Jeff Key

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

                                                                                             —Winston Churchill

Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.

                                                                                        —Elvis Presley

Truth is an elusive commodity.  Source, attitude, and perception color facts and populate print and speech with disparate realities. 

Steps comments on how these traits affect truth, influence thought, gather momentum, and descend into enigma.

How can 40% of Americans reject evolution and 50% reject the evidence that climate change is mostly due to human activity?  (Pew Research Center survey)

How could the Supreme Court in its decision of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission declare that corporations have the same rights as people and grant  corporations and labor unions the ability to spend unlimited funds for the election or defeat of a candidate?

How could Congress pass a major tax bill without hearings or a more thorough analysis of its economic impact in light of the report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that the bill would increase the national deficit by more than $1 trillion over the first 10 years.

As Kurt Andersen points out in his new book, Fantasyland—How America went Haywire,  “People tend to regard the Trump moment—this post-truth, alternative fact moment—as some inexplicable and crazy new American phenomenon. In fact what’s happening is just the ultimate extrapolation and expression of attitude and instincts that have made America exceptional for its entire history.”

Click on "read more" to see the text for STEPS

WALLS

With so much in the news these days about building walls to keep people out with physical and legal barriers, I created some pieces that comment on why these obstacles get implemented and the consequences they generate.

Pope Francis, in an audience at the Vatican in 2016 stated, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.”

Although the Pope never directly referred to Donald Trump, the President felt compelled to tweet in response, “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.”

The Great Wall in China, the Berlin Wall, Trump’s vision of a barrier on the Mexican-American border and now his mandates on immigration policy—only time will tell what effect these structures and policies will have on the arc of history.

As Martin Luther King said in his 1964 Baccalaureate sermon at the Wesleyan University commencement, ““The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The quote was so important to President Obama that he had it woven into a rug that graced his tenure in the Oval Office.

Click on "read more" to see the text for 
Is it a Fence, a Wall, a Partition, or a Barrier?

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.  -—Buddha

                                                                                                                                                      

You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there. 

                                                                                                                              —Yogi Berra

                                                                                                      Writing and illustrating this blog will give me a chance to engage 
in commentary that I refrain from on my website, Facebook, and Instagram sites.

From Buddha to Yogi Berra I try to look at history, the present, 
and the future through the eyes of revered philosophers, spiritual sages, and world leaders whose vision points either forward or backward depending on how the wind is shifting.

(Left—self-portrait with background credit to Yayoi Kusama)