Reflections On The 23rd of February

Today is День защитника Отечества (Defender of the Fatherland Day) in Russia. The date always leads me to a bit of a "on the one hand" contemplation, because over time it's gained more significance than simply Veterans' Day. To wit, it's come to honour all men, whether veterans or not. For example, on this day women in the workplace perform small gestures of appreciation for their male colleagues – gifts, compliments, cursory favours – regardless of civil status.

This is a good idea. The denial of universal human value implied by identity warring is, as Dr. King taught, backward and ultimately suicidal, and in my era at least, gender warriors have been most vocal and least corrected in this delusion.

(I should pause to point out that the Russians have observed International Women's Day since the Bolsheviks, which is why at some point they felt compelled to balance the equation in this fashion.)

So fair play to them. But I'm unsatisfied with glossing armed service with manhood. To begin with, Russia has famously employed large numbers of women in military combat roles for at least a hundred years. But the deeper issue is the unchallenged custom of pegging a man's intrinsic human worth to the presumed privilege of killing him at discretion. In wars, certainly, but also on the job, or in emergencies, or when non-men require defending, or to assuage collective rage, or basically any time we need more grist for Hollywood movies. Loudon Wainright III nailed this many years ago, and I haven't seen any progress on that front, to invoke an apt metaphor.

Like most men – virtually all; I've never heard one object – I accept this status implicitly. It doesn't annoy me, really, this notion that I might get a sword run through me at any time, whether protecting others or making a buck for the boss. We're all literally raised to die. And so it's always passed as the Way of All Things with me. It's just the pretexts arrogated by some non-men that make me grumble.

Life is hard all over. That's why everyone requires compassion.

And bodhisattvas are also all over. That's why everyone requires appreciation.

I respect the Russian people for understanding that – a vestige of their Communist past, perhaps. But the conflation of men with soldiers is disturbing. It's not true that soldiers are a gender – and to suggest otherwise devalues both.

It'd be great if we could receive every newborn as endless potential, promising everything and owing nothing.

But while we're waiting: С 23 февраля! to all my brothers and those who love them. The feast may be a little flawed, but it's a start.


(Photo of a US Navy corpsman in 1st Medical Battalion USMC, feeding his daughter at an on-base Father's Day event, courtesy of Lance Corporal Sarah Wolff, the United States Marine Corps, and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Квас из черного хлеба

(I've been making kvass [квас] more or less weekly for the past five months. This photo, from my first batch, is квас из черного хлеба, or classic rye-bread kvass. I've since made a few fruit kvasses too, but my mainstay is still the basic bread-based brew. Since that fairly blond first effort I've taken to roasting the bread hard, resulting in a dark, bitter, muddy concoction with vaguely coffee flavour. Ironically I don't like coffee, except apparently when it's kvass.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Suchness

This may be the most Zen thing I've ever seen in a Japanese garden. (And I've seen a lot; been fanboy of that Zen-soaked tradition since I was 9.)

The feature itself, carefully nestled in native and introduced ornamentals, is a fine example of skilfully-used stone. No surprise, given that we're in Seattle's Kubota Garden; founder Fujitaro Kubota was noted for his expertise with stone.

What's less widely known is that he apparently also had a koanic sense of humour. Because the inscription on this stone (記念碑) reads "monument".

The Kubota Garden Facebook page says this is also a kinen-hi – a disaster memorial – but neither it, nor the garden's own website, nor any other I've found, specifies which disaster it memorialises.

But material matters aside, the Kubota Stone remains a ringing, uh… monument… to suchness.

(Photo courtesy of Joe Mabel and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Good Housekeeping Seal

(This little figure, which my mom brought home from one of her trips up the North Coast, had a place in her living room for forty years. Early on I dubbed it the Good Housekeeping Seal, by which name it's generally been known since.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Dried kelp

(Nereocystis sp. Great toasted as a salty crunchy snack, or broken into soups, sauces and the like as a vegetable.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Karmic Kryptonite

The most dangerous thing a sentient being can do is to act on pretext. "Since you did that, I can do this."

That's policy, not principle.

Amœbic eye-for-an-eye morality is karmic kryptonite.



(Photo of Amœba sphaeromeleolus [fine life form as far as I'm concerned, but not noted for circumspection] courtesy of Dalinda Bouraoui, the Muséum d'histoire naturelle de Genève, and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Forest memorial

(According to information painted on its crossbar, this marker memorialises a young person. It's nailed high on a Douglas fir on the shore of a pond that's accessible from a nearby trail. It's a deeply touching gesture, as much for the simple dignity of the testament as the peaceful seclusion of its location.)