Signs and Light

On finding illumination at home

Still processing the long weekend during which a small cohort of concerned business people, thinkers, and community leaders convened in a beautiful place and talked deeply about the future of our country, and our own responsibilities to a changing world with respect to the miracle and finitude of our individual human lives.

(What I won't do for fun!)

Primed for seeing my path indicated by "signs and light", I felt amused when my arrival at that meeting was heralded by a flock of resin duckies, and moved when my departure came with an unexpected nod from my beloved blue heron.

When I arrived at home, two families of turkeys were strolling the grounds: two big toms; two hens; four youngsters. I didn't want to disturb them, but managed to capture a few shots with my phone.

Half of my turkey visitors headed to the meadow

After poking at acorns and drinking water, half went to the woods. Half went to the meadow. I'm feeling meaning in that, too, since I built the meadow, provided the water, and opened up a path to the woods. I notice how creatures respond to these invitations. It feels like grace coming back to me, so I want to use it well.

I study symbol systems because I use them in art and writing. Their meanings have arisen through decades of embodied existence. And when you live close to the land your ancestors lived in, as I do, the symbolism and the impetus to respond to the meanings can be deeply embedded in our bodies, expressive of -- and sometimes harbingers of -- our present day and near future conditions.

We can talk for hours about whether brains are merely sensitized to see meaning where there is none, or whether we see symbols as a kind of confirmation bias, or whether we are projecting a message onto the symbol to give ourselves permission to examine our own inner being... or centuries of variations on similar themes about whether meaning is even meaningful.

But for me, having done such work, well... Gimme a heron and eight turkeys as bookends for an intentionally spiritual trip? I promise you, I'm feeling that path of mine illuminated with fluorescent paint and spotlights, with a tuxedo-clad cat holding an engraved invitation: "Go here."

Turkey has so many spiritual meanings in so many traditions... again, I can't do it justice right now. But one aspect of turkey medicine embraces the idea of transcendance of self in service of others. It's a call to keep one's resources in motion, giving away what we don't need to survive, in order that others may also survive, allowing the community to thrive as a whole.

I think of it as a call to water the garden, replenish the bird bath, clean my closets, make a donation, give my time. Get rid of the stuff that isn't doing work for me, by giving it to someone who will use it. Get it all in motion.

And the number 8 -- infinity, abundance, beginnings, endings, boundaries, circumcision of the heart, dedication, movement, commitment, overwhelm? Pick your symbols system: 8 is wild. And 8 turkeys? Yeah, big energy seems to be moving.

But, culturally, it also conveys that quirky resin ducky, Homer Simpson, "Doh!"

I live in both worlds. My way-finding system gets complicated. 😬😄

All that is to say, motivated by my desire to leave things better than I found them when I go for real, I've been spending my dollars and hours and creative powers and cogitating and space and fun-time, on working, and meeting, and writing and strategizing and acting with loved ones and friends and colleagues and neighbors and strangers in consideration of nonsensical to existential issues affecting everything from my backyard to the globe and back again.

Actively.

You know.

Life, intentionally and inexpertly.

And this weekend, while many if not most of us grappled with the big things, I noticed what world leaders were doing.

Most of them have been acting like most of us. Like people who have just received a disconcerting test result, trying to figure out what it all means.

And some played golf.

Now, that's ok. Golf can be a great way to center yourself, talk deeply with people while nobody else is interrupting, use your body, and enjoy birds, be in beauty.

But, there's the kind of golf where players actually call penalties on themselves, and then there is the kind of golf where people cheat because they can.

Now, our national leader is an avid golfer. Even though he is a good golfer, and doesn't need to cheat, it's an open secret that he does, and cheating stories predate his presidency, (where reasonably, you can excuse some cheating-like actions, because we can't safely have a president hacking balls out of the woods.) Yet, I could find no instance -- not one -- where he called a penalty on himself.

Still, he’s never won a championship at a course he doesn’t own and operate.

Contrast that with Californian golfer Saahith Theegala. During the third round of the Tour Championship last year, Theegala called a two-stroke penalty on himself for testing the sand. He brushed sand during his backstroke in a bunker. Imperceptible to observers. Even the tv analysts couldn't see it. And it cost him $2.5 million.

He called himself on it, because he felt the touch of sand, and as he put it, he otherwise wouldn't sleep if he didn't follow the rules.

Does it matter?

Yeah, it does, because the wrong golfer is at the top of the country.

While we were grappling with the big and little stuff, some marching, most feeling our interconnectedness and urgent calls to Do Something and stay within the rules while wiggling the pitiful but powerful levers of change we have at our disposal -- our president (the guy with ALL the levers) was cheating at golf.

Priorities.

Golf is his clear priority. Saying he is a winner without actually being one is another priority.

Ego.

Of the 17 trips taken by the president in 2025 (not including to official residences like Camp David):

• 9 trips to Florida to his clubs at Doral and Mar a Lago,

• 1 to his hotel in Las Vegas, 1 to NJ & his Bedminster club, (making it 11 taxpayer-funded trips to one of his resorts)

• 1 trip for the Super Bowl

• 1 trip for NCAA wrestling championships

• 4 official business trips to other places, all in the US.

A ratio of 13:4, trips for Trump-resort R&R vs trips for US businesses. 80 days in office to 21 golf days. (Some of those days also included work, to be sure. It isn’t fair to claim he isn’t working some of the hours of golf days.)

Set aside all the other noise about how much this costs taxpayers, and how he is lining his pockets, and think about where he is placing his attention: 9-FL, 1-NV, 1-NJ, 1-MD, 1-PA, 1-CA, 1-LA, 1-NC.

Not travelling to repair international relationships. Not visiting economists & America's creditors. Not comforting parents of fallen soldiers or kids dead from measles or missing their disappeared family members, nor one word about the devastating earthquakes and loss of life in Myanmar. Not easing concerns of ordinary Americans reeling from tariffs. Not fixing so much as a water faucet in Gaza. Not making peace in Ukraine. Not addressing the tsunamis of hardship created in small communities through losses of government jobs & funds. Not communicating a vision to justify all the pain.

Not one of his trips has been to the heartland of America, now beginning to wake up after a long winter to plan what crops to plant for a year beginning in chaos.

In this I find some hope.

In a country that loves its sports, we don't love a cheater. We don't love sloth. And we don't love false pride.

We want to win. AND we want to feel good about it.

I believe, like Theegala, more influential people will start calling penalties on themselves even though it costs them: because they won't be able to sleep if they don't.

It may be helpful to remind them that Theegala lost $2.5 million -- but he won $7.5 million. And if he had not done the right thing? He'd have been disqualified, losing everything.

Enough of the turkeys. Back to work.

I'm going to have a coffee, and wrangle some pixels into doing something good for someone.