AncienTrails

Late Night Philosophy

Samhain                                Waxing Wolf Moon

What is it?  This being human.  Being.  The question has an easy answer.  It is.  It just is.  We are.  We just are.  But, of course, we are not.  We are not just being.  We are also action, becoming.   There are all those famous moments: Abraham

and Isaac, Spartacus, Krishna opening the doors of the prison, Hercules struggling through his labors, moments that take a virtue like faith, obedience, patience, devotion and turn it on its head, a moment when being is no longer enough, when action has to flow, something needs doing and no logic, no dogma, no insight will come.  That’s what we become, the person who lives into those moments of kairos and comes out the other side different.  Changed.  No longer a human being, but a human becoming.

[Birth of Krishna - Vasudeva and Devaki Escaping Prison (By Raja Ravi Verma)]

It’s been on my mind today.  Liberal.  Conservative. What are these things?  Titles.  Labels.  Conceptual fields that suggest exclusion.  Competition.  Either/or.  Yet here I am.  National Health Service?  Tax me for it tomorrow.  Tax credits to the working poor to raise their income?  Again.  Tax me for it tomorrow.  Yet.  I love the classical literature.  The artistic traditions of the great civilizations.  Baroque music.  My family.  My nation.  I am no pacifist and recognize national defense as a responsibility of the state.  Yet.  I reserve the right to critique when we enter unjust wars:  Vietnam, Iraq, Nicaragua, Guatemala.  I’m an economic and political liberal and an aesthetic conservative, a family values supporter of gay marriage and abortion.

Why not?  We are children of Walt Whitman. We are one, We are many.

Had a Wreck Lately?

Samhain                            Waxing Wolf Moon

Well, Tiger Woods had a wreck.  Why?  What could have been going at 2:30 a.m. to cause him to drive into a fire hydrant near his home?  Why would I care?  Nobody but the insurance company cares when I have a wreck.  Not saying I have had one, though, and, also not saying what the circumstances were under which I may or may not have had a wreck.  Anybody want to interview me about the wreck I might have or might not have  had?  Didn’t think so.

Emma has come from the vets minus one hemangioma and much cleaner teeth.  Not a serious deal and our 78 year old dog (in human years) did not seem fazed at all.  She would not pee at the vets, but proceeded to do so as soon as we got home.  They were worried about this.  Emma has had a long life and it looks to extend a bit longer.  Good for her.

Colder weather coming.  Highs in mid-20’s, lows in the teens.  About time.  Now we need some snow.

Ordinary Time

Samhain                                      Waxing Wolf Moon

Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin to attend February Tea Party Convention.  That should be fun.  Seeing these two damsels of the right dancing to the tune of the real wierdos would be entertaining for anyone interested in politics.  I’d watch a 2-minute video just to see them on stage together.  They could discuss hair and glasses and kissing GW.

Mary left this morning on the 7:38 Northstar headed for the airport.  The strange action of the international date line has her leaving on Monday and arriving home on Wednesday, coming here she left on Tuesday around 6 a.m. and got here Tuesday at 11:00 a.m., something like that.  Both ways the flight involves 21-24 hours.  And I find daylight savings time confusing.  Under any circumstances the air temperature will double when she gets home, perhaps a bit more.

Ordinary time has slipped back into the house for the moment with family gone and the leftovers much reduced.  I worked on MIA business a bit this morning and will spend some time today getting the Sierra Club legislative committee focused for a December meeting.

After that I can continue my declutter campaign.  It goes pretty well.  My study has remained clear and I’ve removed several things from it, some in anticipation of the arrival of my Anthro computer desk.  On it will go the Gateway I bought in the summer.  I plan to use it only for art history research and creative writing.

Cinema, the Mythopoetics of our Time

Samhain                            Waxing Wolf Moon

Thanksgiving has begun to recede and will soon again be a holiday to be anticipated, a future event rather than a recent one.  Just ahead lie Advent, Hanuka, the Posada, the Winter Solstice, Christmas Eve and Christmas.

The sparkle of faery touched us all as we moved through the days of the dead and it stays with us until the coming of the Three Wise Men, making this whole season, this holiseason, an enchanted palace with many rooms.  In it there are rooms for sacred mysteries:  a time of anticipation, a pilgrimage which takes the holy into an alien land, the depth in inner darkness, the coming of the god of dreams and the incarnation of the holy in human flesh.  Silent Night, Holy Night.

Kate, Mary and I watched the blu-ray version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney’s first animated feature crafted in the depression years and filled with the voices of 1930’s Hollywood. It was made in 1937.

While watching it several things struck me, the first being its obvious reflection of  1930’s cinema.  The songs have that vibrato so often featured in songs of the time.  The castle and backgrounds have a distinctly Maxfield Parrish feel.  Snow White has a certain Betty Boop quality in spite of her apparent innocence.

There is an evil presence lurking in the land, threatening the whole kingdom, the Queen who must have constant reassurance of her primacy.

Ordinary working stiffs with various endearing traits, the hero dwarfs are  like Snow White, innocent, and subject at first to the manipulations of the Queen.  The Queen falls to her death after being pursued up a rocky precipice by angry dwarfs.

An apparent death that overcomes Snow White when she bites into the Queen’s apple, Snow White’s deep sleep can only be broken by love’s first kiss, applied endearingly by Prince Charming.

Love and loyalty (not to mention great domestic skills) triumph over petty wielders of power.

The Grimm’s fairy tale does not get muted in Snow White.  At times the cartoon terrifies and innocence seems powerless before the anger of adult power.  Only after terror, violence and struggle does innocence receive its due, eternal true love.

Cinema contains the mythopoetics of our time.  We may be the first era in which sacred scriptures get casual treatment, presented as mere entertainment and often received in the same light.  Snow White being led by the creatures of the forest to the dwelling place of working class heroes, the banality and ultimately self-destructive nature of evil, the power of innocence leap off the screen in  this now 70 year old masterpiece.

Another Quiet Pleasant Valley Sunday

Samhain                                   Waxing Wolf Moon

Da Vikes!  Again.  36-10 over da Bears.  The game had little drama, but a good spread of offensive plays, defensive plays and solid special teams play.  There was a series of downs in the red-zone where penalties created a one-step forward, two-step backward that didn’t look good.  There was, too, a 77 runback by Johnny Knox, but the Bear retreated gradually from there to go away with only a field goal.

Mary has done some laundry, a task she does not do open as evidenced by her admission that she first tried to start with the dryer.  She heads back tomorrow after a short trip here.  It’s been good to have her here, a quiet time, a wind down from the four years of dissertation work.

God of Dreams, Bringer of Gifts

Samhain                           Waxing Wolf Moon

The trail of thanksgiving remains shoved into plastic containers, ziploc bags and under foil wrap remind us of the feast meal.  I’ve not gone back to the leftovers yet, preferring brisket or kale and white bean soup, perhaps today, watching the Vikings I’ll dig out the chestnut stuffing, the deep fried turkey and even my chewy fennel and white bean salad.

Mary and I watched Elf last night. Will Ferrel and Ed Asner lifted off  from Central Park at the end borne high on Christmas spirit.  As Ed said, “Christmas is not about seeing; it’s about believing.”  As far as I’m concerned, Santa Claus is one of the best parts of Holiseason, a mysterious elf himself, tinkering away all year on an impossibly long list designed to make children happy, delivering same with anonymity.  Like Jesus, Santa has been co-opted to serve the consumerist impulses of our late-stage capitalist economy, but,  if stripped of his Coca-Cola ad campaigns and the sticky fingered lines of children in department store toy departments, Santa has a purity and innocence we all still need.

Pan, Santa Claus, the Great Wheel, Brigit, the Tao all are vehicles for the numinous, all important to me at various points along the arc of the year.  Yes, you can say that Jesus and the Buddha are more, what exactly?  Serious?  Some would say profound.  Others would add the metaphysical flourish:  real.  Certainly they have more ink spilled about them, more buildings built, more treasure amassed, more reach in numbers, more historical impact.  In all these ways their faith traditions are more serious, even more real.

There is, though, the need to separate institutional and adherents’ action from the metaphysical claims contained in these faith traditions.  It is my belief–note that this is all it can be–that the mythic dimensions of Pan, Brigit, the Great Wheel, even Santa Claus have more value for us in a time of ecological crisis than do the claims of these ancient and venerable faith traditions, Buddhism and Christianity.  That is, the anthropocentrism of the historic faith traditions, including Judaism and Islam, leaves them less able to cope with values and meaning in a time when Gaia-centrism makes more sense for all living things.

We need now a Ge-ology more than a theology, thinking that sees humanity’s place in nature as the Taoists do,  integral but insignificant, thinking that echoes the words of the Iroquois medicine man I met over 25 years ago, “We two-leggeds must pray for the four leggeds, the winged ones, those that swim, the crawling things, the grass, the water and the trees, for we two-leggeds are so fragile.  We need all of these much more than they need us.”

OK, I admit Santa Claus might be a stretch, but try on Santa Claus as the god of dreams, the bringer of gifts, a deity of joy and goodwill.  Works for me.

Dining Out

Samhain                                   Waxing Wolf Moon

Our favorite upscale restaurant in the neighborhood, Canyon Grille, closed its doors, a victim I assume of the recession.  Its unconventional architecture, somewhat imaginative take on American cuisine and its pleasant wait staff made it a pleasure for an intimate meal.  I’m sorry it’s gone.

Mary took us out to eat, her choice was Canyon Grille, but on finding it closed we diverted to Osaka, sushi and tempura instead of prime rib and walleye.  We’re lucky to have a good Japanese restaurant nearby.

Mary’s dissertation, with its final revisions, only went in the day before she left to come here.  That means she will return to a life without a dissertation or a viva looming, a time of reassessment for her.  She plans to write journal articles based on it, that sort of thing.

From this northern state her life seems very exotic, and it is in many ways, but in many ways, too, it is also a life, a job, friends, home.  Kate wants to visit.  So do I.

BTW:  The writing worm, niggling and squirming somewhere among my dendrites and axons has two objectives to worry.  One is a historical novel that would feature the history of Lake Superior.  The second is a horror/fantasy novel based very loosely on my life.  That’s not meant to suggest my life has been a horror show, rather I see a thread within it I can use for a horror theme.

Holiday Sines

Samhain                             Waxing Wolf Moon

Mary is on walkabout, bundled up, still working to stave off jet lag.  She should arrive back home in Singapore just as she has compensated for coming this way.

Kate’s progress is real now, but not back to work readiness by any means.   She stood a lot during our preparations for the Thanksgiving meal and hobbled around yesterday as a result.  She felt better today though so her resilience has improved.

Holidays have a bell curve nature, a gradual upslope to a frenzy of preparation, followed by a plateau involving the main event, in this case, the big meal, then a gradual descent back to the normal world.  As I think about it, it’s not a classic bell curve because the right-hand slope extends longer than the left, carried along by the positive (or negative) impacts of family and food.  We’re still on the glide off the peak, it’s extension a function of Joseph’s presence yesterday and Mary’s today and tomorrow.

During holiseason the curves begin to resemble a roller-coaster, starting with the gentle peak during Samhain, then tailing off until the end of November as Thanksgiving comes and goes.  The retail push the day after Thanksgiving tries to get us Christmas minded throughout December, but works less well for me these days.  Advent can elevate the left-hand slope of the curve a bit for some Christians, but for me the key comes in the steady diminishment of light, the increasing length of the nights.

As the stars come out earlier, cold and snow grow more intense, deepening the mood, pushing us more and more inside as our inner world reflects the outer.   The festivals of light, Hanuka and Christmas, try to lure us away from this inverted curve, so congruent with the turning of the Great Wheel, yet so feared we resort to Santa Clause, dreidels, Christmas lights and cheery songs.

On the Winter Solstice, the longest night, the stillest night, the axis of holiseason and introspection reinforce each other to afford me my favorite moments of the year.  So for me the curve goes down a bit with each gained minute of night time, reaching a plateau on the Solstice and the long nights which follow it.  Around New Years another cycle begins, this time lifting me up toward the day, a fresh moment, baptised in the cold light, a new beginning.  All this ends for me on the Epiphany, January 6th, the traditional end of the twelve days of Christmas.  The curve has gone back up for a New Year’s plateau, then arced down, back to, as the Catholics call it, ordinary time.

What a ride.

PHD Land

Samhain                                 Waxing Wolf Moon

Sat around the kitchen table this morning talking about Mary’s journey through Ph.D. land.  One of her examiners (of 3) never returned their evaluation of her dissertation, or the copy.  That put her behind by a few months.  Later, a new examiner completed the missing work in one month, but required major revisions.

This English model has substantial differences from the American.  It required no coursework.  The oral defense of the thesis carrries the title viva, which apparently is short for a latin phrase, live voice.  If the viva panel fails you, they can offer a lesser degree, a Masters of Philosophy for example.  Also, the viva is open to the public.

Practically, by the time you get to the viva, very few dissertations receive a fail, but as Mary said, “The examiners can make you really, really miserable.”  She gave the example  of a viva she attended in which panel member began with, “I don’t see my name anywhere in your dissertation.”  She proceeded, Mary said, “…to eviscerate the woman on point for twenty-three minutes.  But, she passed.”

Mary already has a card that introduces her as Dr. Mary Ellis, though the graduation ceremony will not happen until July, 2010.

She has an amazing opportunity to learn about cultures as diverse as Hindu Indians, Muslim Malays, and the Chinese religious Taoists.   People of these backgrounds are her colleagues and friends, constituting the three major ethnic communities in Singapore.  English as a common language makes the interactions easier than might otherwise be the case.

(pic:  Hungry Ghost festival banquet)

Kate and Mary plan to go shopping this afternoon, heading out into the maw of the after Thanksgiving season.  I’m not sturdy enough.

The Day After

Samhain                         Waxing Wolf Moon

Joseph and I went to Matt’s, our ritual since he was 6.  We had juicy lucys with Dave, grandson of Matt.  Dave, Joe’s friend from college, goes hunting tomorrow with the now 85 year-old inventor of the juicy lucy.   We ate in the center of a milling crowd looking to get a burger fix after the turkey, college football on the many flatscreens now de rigueur in any bar.

Raeone met Joseph at the door.  He went in lugging books and pictures he’d found here and wanted to take back to his new home.  He’ll leave Sunday at 10:45, back to Bonaire.  He gets his new assignment Monday.

Mary, Kate and I ate leftovers from various meals for supper tonight:  beet soup, brisket, french bread, grapes.  Later we watched TV:  Glee, Criminal Minds and Bones, a quiet wind down from a busy couple of days.

Mary brought gifts from the Far East:  a DVD, Mad About English, chronicling parts of the Chinese government’s massive efforts to inject the English language into such diverse jobs as taxi drivers, greeters and information booth attendants.  It is both hilarious and serious, a different culture at work, with very different assumptions about learning.

She also gave me a large photography book filled with quotes from various faiths in Singapore and accompanying pictures.  Kate received a large cloth turtle among other things.  (Kate collects turtles.)

Family, dancing the ritual of  coming together over food, being close, relearning each others lives, then dispersing back to the far places, we are a widely distributed bunch though few.  Makes for interesting dinner conversation.