Folk Fest Philosophy II - Time and Money

The Claire Lynch Band was another group of performers that had me digging through my backpack last weekend at the Folk Festival to find my paper and pen so I could quickly scribble down some more inspiring lyrics. In her sweet Alabama voice, Claire sang,

"Find the time to make your pay: Give a dollar's worth away to make a quarter."

The song was called "Moonlighter," about a mother working two jobs to pay the bills while trying to take care of her kids. The mom in the song makes coffee in her sleep and hopes the kids get ready for school on time so she's not late for work, all the while lamenting that she doesn't have the time to spend with them that she'd like to.

It's a cliche to say that time is money. I think Claire's words speak to the idea that time is worth more than money, but that our 'rat race' type of society devalues time in favor of money. That's hardly a new concept, but what about this concept: Sometimes time is just time. Time with family, time for ourselves, time in the garden. Time for tea and a book.

What if people took back their time? Imagine if people on a large scale decided that it was more important to go camping or play board games with their kids/spouses/siblings/friends, than it was to rack up one more overtime shift. What if instead of working those overtime shifts to pay for that motorhome or cruise we get to enjoy for two weeks out of the year, we spent time on a regular basis with the people we'd be going on vacation with anyway? Would employers value their employees more? Would people value their loved ones more? Would we be less attached to material things?

Each moment in life comes by only once. I'm trying to get better at remembering that, and acting accordingly.

Folk Fest Philosophy I: Garden-measured time

Ahhh....it was another fantastic Edmonton Folk Music Festival! The weather was nearly perfect, the food delicious, and the people as kind and considerate as usual. We were treated to the generosity of both friends and strangers.

And the music, oh the music. Four days of inspiring, heart-wrenching, forward-thinking, joyous folk music from around the world. We saw artists from Denmark, Scotland, Mali, Australia and Wales to name a few. Not to mention a bunch of terrific performers from many parts of the USA and a whole bunch of local talent from my province of Alberta, and other Canadians from coast to coast.

The lady you see in the picture here, calls herself Little Miss Higgins, and she's a blues player from Alberta, currently making her home in Nokomis, Saskatchewan. Little Miss talked about her love of her little 400-person town, and how she liked to dig and weed in her garden while listening to the trains going by. She even marked time in terms of her gardening, saying by way of introduction to her town,

"We moved there five gardens ago."

Imagine if we all counted time this way. If we saw time in terms of natural cycles instead of the artificial ones we create, like "9 to 5" or "Spring Break" or whatever time we set that dang alarm clock for.

It's hard in our culture to try and live our lives based on natural time cycles. We even try and change natural time cycles for our own purposes, like when we switch back and forth between 'standard' time and 'daylight' time. Aptly enough, in Little Miss Higgins' province of Saskatchewan, they have eschewed this practice and stick to 'standard' time all year round.

Even better than 'standard time', is 'garden time', I think.

Thrift Store Bounty!

Our trip to the thrift store yesterday was very successful. I found the dark enameled roasting pan I was looking for to use in the solar oven I will be making (one of these days, with the help of the Solar Power for Dummies book Gord bought for me a couple weeks ago).

I also found a lovely ginger jar for only 4 dollars and some spice storage jars for a dollar each. We also got a set of three cordless phones for 20 dollars, which are a nice upgrade to the cordless phone we have now. And Gord got a soap dish, toothbrush holder and tumbler that he really liked - 6 bucks for the set. (I have the same set in red, which I know cost 30 dollars when I bought it new about 8-10 years ago!).

Gord got a book on world music, and also some vintage records (Bruce Cockburn, Maria Muldaur) which we are listening to right now, and I picked up a couple canning jars too. There were dozens of canning jars, in all sorts of sizes and some with lids, so I now know where to pick these up for the bargain price of 50 cents each! All in all, it was a very successful and satisfying foray into the world of thrift and frugality.

Tomorrow is our trip to Sparrow Organics CSA Farm, so I will bring my camera along and report back about that in the next couple of days! And I may have a thing or two to say after going to a Chuck Brodsky concert this weekend too! Did I mention how much I am enjoying my week off work?