Harmony
As we prepare to leave Monteverde and move back to Oakland (tomorrow!), I am thinking about a sort of harmony that we've experienced over our two years here. People and the many living things around us are basically getting along. Whether we are flora or fauna, vertebrates or invertebrates, Spanish or English speakers or singers of birdsong, we are coexisting with a certain respect for each other and for the larger community. Of course, birds eat worms, but without meanness and in a way that keeps the web of life in balance.
It is not easy to give up my place in this harmonious corner of earth, in order to reconnect with a country whose leadership lately projects greed, intolerance, and disregard for the environment as if they were human nature. I don't belive we must exist on an isolated mountaintop to exist peacefully, but still it's tempting to remain on this mountain.
The world can look to Costa Rica as a nation and to Ticos as a people for some clues to creating harmony. The country abolished its army in 1949 and is on track toward its goal of carbon neutrality by 2021. Last week, when legislators passed a law to make college more affordable to low-income students, a video circulated of them all jumping up and down to celebrate. After Tropical Storm Nate hit hard last October, the President tweeted frequent reminders to his people to not forget to look out for lost dogs.
Here in Monteverde, I often think about the four Quaker men from Alabama who refused to register for the military draft in 1948. They were jailed for 4 months in Tallahassee and then decided with their families and some others to leave the country. It took a few scouts 6 months in Costa Rica before they found a piece of farm land in Monteverde that was big enough for 42 of them to settle initially. The settlers ranged in age from 2 to 80, and they started their dairy farms with little more than tents and the things they were able to bring up the mountain by oxcart.
Sixty-five years later, several of the original group are still here, along with their children and grandchildren. Others have joined them -- Quakers, biologists, my great-aunt Sue and -uncle John, Ticos from other regions, and us -- who have found something special in this community. They have built a Quaker meeting, a cheese factory, the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, the Monteverde Institute (which hosts visiting scientists and students)... and the Monteverde Friends School that Alia has been so lucky to attend.
We celebrate this community each year on Monteverde Day with a big potluck picnic in Sue and John's garden.
Last week, Alia and Maya Lucia and I were invited to our friend Helena's painting studio to learn about mixing acrylic paints. Helena -- who was born here, and whose eyes were trained by the intricacies of the forest -- introduced us to yellow, blue, red, and white and helped us explore their many combinations. She encouraged us to put them on paper and look to see how they "get along."
I think a lot here about the interconnectedness of things and how somehow they seem to find balance and get along. I think about this on quiet morning runs, and sitting in silence at Quaker meetings, and especially when I'm in the cloud forest. I feel so small among all this life, I'm reminded to look carefully and listen.
If you slow down, you will see these incredible orchids, big and tiny...
... and this mushroom.
Colorful birds...
... flowers...
... and glorious bugs!!
Caterpillars...
... the butterflies they become...
... snails...
... and sometimes someone bigger.
Wonderful leaves...
... mosses...
... and maybe in a garden or at a roadside stand, fruits.
Here we try to go for many hikes, so we can appreciate all these living things and think about how we fit in with them.
If we're lucky, we go into the forest with good friends, like Benito whose machete clears the trail ahead...
... Willow, the fount of knowledge about Tropical Plants of Costa Rica, and Bill, the dragonfly expert...
... Maya Lucia, who makes sure our hikes are as silly as possible...
... and friends who know where to stop at trees with great swings.
Life here has changed since the days of oxcarts and tents, but still some of the food we eat comes right from the farm, without packaging or processing. It's good to see that the milk cows and goats lead a good life...
... and if possible to meet the very cows and chickens who feed us milk and eggs.
We appreciate a certain simplicity here that can mean appreciating the little things in life, like sun shining down and the chance to take a break in a comfortable place...
... or the pleasure that comes with learning to do something with your hands...
... or to play a new game.
We're going to miss quiet afternoons here playing in the river...
... and good friends.
Here I have thought about how the connections among us say more than the differences, how simple things make us rich, and how caring for each other makes us whole. I've learned how important it can be -- in the midst of work and school and policy-making or whatever might occupy us -- to be quiet for a moment, sense the harmony, and notice the leaves of a tree against the sky. We'll soon be doing the same among the oaks of Oakland.
