Thunderstorm Potential       Regional                  National Conditions         

Ancient                        Trails

“Not I, not anyone else, can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.
It is not far, it is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know.”      

– Walt Whitman
  

I say to you, Selamat Jalan, which means "I welcome you to the journey."*

(Painting by Diego Rivera, the Passage of Melancholy) *My sister e-mailed me this Malayan send-off.  

"The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love." - William Sloan Coffin

   The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Diego, Me, and Senor Xolotl

Xolotl

Mictlan

Today I finished creating files for the major magazine markets for science fiction and fantasy, the kind of material I write.  Over the next few days I will finish edits for all my stories on hand and match them with the markets.  A high number of the magazines only accept submissions by e-mail.  This makes the whole process easier for me.  This feels like work, slogging through the tall grass, but it also feels good.  The way it works is this:  write, revise, rewrite, submit.  Repeat.  I've primarily done part 1, write.  Adding the other three will turn me into a professional.  About time.

The weather occupies my spare intellectual effort at the moment.  I'm trying to learn enough to do my own forecasting.  I already have a sophisticated weather station and subscriptions to a professional weather service and an amateur weathercasters website.  A book written by Tim Vasquez, Weather Forecasting, contains the preliminary information.  It's somewhat complicated, but I need the challenge.  

The forecasting occupies a part of my growing interest in understanding my locale, right here.  I've spent some time on the soil, what's beneath the surface and what grows from it.  I've learned some about the geology and the hydrology, but very little about the meteorology.  So, I plan to remedy that.

Kate earned a big, honking bonus over the last quarter and she's like a kid in a candy store.  It's fun to see her so excited.   

Oh. Boy.  Sit in a metal folding chair for 14 hours.  Wake up.  Ache.  No more election judging for this youngster.  Too demanding.

Brief note here.  Worked as an election judge from 6 AM to 9:30 PM.  2300+ voters.  An amazing turnout for an off year election when there were no races and only school board levy issues on the ballot.  Tired.  To bed.

Sheila gave a lecture on the art of Benin.  Beware, Beware, Beware of Benin, many go out, but come few come in.  A poem about the plague in Benin which gives a pronunciation clue.  As usual Sheila's filled her lecture with data obtained through scholarly effort, but for the first time I noticed what others had mentioned before about her handling of the data.  Tortured, someone said.  In this case, I agreed.  She portrayed the bloody human sacrifices of Benin Oba's (kings) that persisted through the 19th century.  She reported about the practices of slavery that enriched them and made them powerful, yet, in the end, she portrayed the Oba's and the Edo people as victims of British colonialism.   Slavers and sacrificers of humans receive no amount of cultural understanding from me.  Yes, these may have been practices common to their time and place, but enslavement and state murder are no more ethically sound there than in the American South or in the current barbaric states of Texas, Virginia, California, Oklahoma, Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio where capital punishment still occurs.  Note:  last year, of 42 executions, Texas killed 27 prisoners, all other states combined accounted for only 15 of the total.  In this sense it was a strange, off-putting lecture.

It was good to see Allison, Morry, Grace, Emily, Jane, David, Annie, Dale and Tom.  Again, I'm grateful for the new friends I've made through the docent program.  A gift for this stage of my life.

Home, nap.  

I heard of two deaths.  Allison's father in Milwaukee.  Families are such delicate, fragile things.  Their constellations ephemeral, the ties often tangled, yet enduring, our own lives so much implicated in the lives of these that we forget the power, until it is ripped away by St. Death.  The Mexicans in the movie I saw at the Walker the other night seemed to have made death a friend, a counselor, not something feared, but something worshipped.  This reminded me of the old Mexica poem to the effect that life is a dream between the realities of death, that death is before and after life, the most real.  

Another death.  Again, someone I don't know.  When I was in Willmar last week, a woman stood up and asked the congregation to remember a congregant whose father died while gardening.  Without knowing any particulars I imagined this as a perfect death.  Perhaps out putting the garden to bed for the winter, or harvesting late fall vegetables.  One last splendid fall day in one of the world's most creative places, the garden.  To die while engaged in something we love must be a good death.  May it be so for me.

I watched the Vikings.  Amazed.  Adrian Peterson, a rookie, broke the NFL single game rushing record with 296 yards.  No Viking before him had ever rushed for more than 200.  And they won!  A good showing by defense and offense.  Whadda ya know?  How about them Vikings.

Made supper.  Kate got home around 5 and we took a nap while the chicken baked.

Pulled up stumps in what I think we'll call Midden Heap Park.  Why?  A lot of time spent digging out and throwing away old mesh sacks and plastic radish wrappers.  And a couple of remarkably preserved cans of old pop.  This frustrated me at first, then I recalled that most significant archaeological discoveries come from midden heap, that is, dumps where people  tossed broken pottery, spear shafts, broken cooking utensils, food remains.  Of course, my discoveries are not old enough to count, not yet, but I'm confident both the mesh sacks and the radish wrappers I haven't dug up will survive until they are old enough to count.

When I started this morning, I heard a pileated woodpecker pounding a dead tree.  He sounded like a bass drum hit very very fast.  

The Midden Heap Park's next project (first involved clearing out a lot of vegetable matter, and those #@!** bags) will be building a fire pit.  I'd hoped to get started on it this morning, but the archaeology kept me from getting there.  Decided to wait for Kate's input anyhow.  I keep seeing us sitting around a fire, on furniture created from downed trees on our property, with our grandkids and children.  Makes the work fun.

Anyhow, I've pulled on things long enough and I'm going to a long football break.  The Vikings.  How about them Vikings?  Yeah, you're right.  Then, Indianapolis vs the Patriots.  Both unbeaten.  Should be interesting.

"I do, indeed, close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human face looking at me." - Martin Buber

Whoever They are, They've done it again.  Messed with the clock.  We fell backwards today.  Kate told me we are not on daylight savings time now.  This is one intellectual battle I choose to let others fight.  I will change my clocks and go about my business, none the wiser.  All I know is I like the result in winter, night comes sooner.

Dream last night.  Kate and I moved to a new place, perhaps a retirement village.  I decided to go check out the neighborhood.  I went up a slight rise, passed some housing only for older women, then went past a lake and down into a small business district, not a town.  As is my way, I wanted to go back a different route.  Larry (the astrophysicists from Numbers) was there and I asked him which way he went.  He said, "Oh, most of the time I go that way."  He pointed to what looked like a street route.  "Cratton Path," he said.  I didn't know where that was, so I set off through the brush, following what looked like an animal path. (an ancient trail?)  Just before I got to the lake I found myself in a house with German (Bavarian?) wood work, a large bed, and a book on the book, a big book.  I opened it and found it had bookmarks scattered throughout.  Ah, a scholar, I thought.  Then, I realized I was in someone else's house and walked a bit.  

I came to a row of shops selling antiques.  At that point I went into a restaurant.  It was a large German restaurant with wooden tables and benches set up in an open room.  There were wait people and cooks, others dressed in German costumes, but no customers. Some of the people dressed in costumes were eating.  I imagined it was their meal before they opened for customers.  I asked them how I might get past the lake.  The scholar's house didn't open to a way around the lake.

The oldest man there said, "Cratton," and pointed a cane outside the restaurant.  I still didn't know what he was talking about, but I walked outside and there, across the road, was a trail marked by split rail fence and a sign, the kind used in state parks with recessed letters, that said, Cratton Path.  I realized that was the path I'd been looking for all along.  I headed toward it.

Another Walker evening.  This time to see a Mexican documentary, St. Death.  

The Walker is open on Saturday until midnight, though the galleries are not open.  The bookstore, the cinema or the theatre, and 20.21, Wolfgang Puck's restaurant are open.  I arrived early, as the ticket website suggested, but it was not  necessary.  Still, I did have time to wander through the bookstore and pick up a good book on cinema, The Rough Guide to Cinema.  With time remaining I went to up to 20.21 and sat at a table for two near the bar.  I had their Ahi sashimi and tuna tartar salad which I had the first day they opened.  It's still very good.  

The restaurant has a high design with oblique angles, white walls and black bar, two puce panels and floor to ceiling glass windows that overlook Hennepin Avenue and part of downtown Minneapolis.  A sophisticated, big city evening is only 30 minutes from home.  

The movie pulled in a large crowd, almost a full house in the Walker's cinema which used to be its main performance space, too.  Now there is a theater space, the McGuire, and the cinema only shows movies.

Here's a paragraph from an Arizona paper that will give you the flavor of the St. Death cult:

"The Roman Catholic Church says the veneration of St. Death is growing in Mexico despite attempts by priests to stop it. There are 40 shrines to Death in Mexico City and about 400 nationwide, said Davíd Romo Guillen, bishop of the Traditional Catholic Church Mex-USA, which runs the Mercy Church and has become the most visible promoter of St. Death. There are five prayer groups in California, Oregon and Washington, D.C., Romo said, but none in Arizona."

The worship itself reminds me of Voudoun with cigars and liquor and tobacco offered to her.  Death is just, one Mexican cult member said, she will take a rich man or a poor man, a man or a woman, an adult or a child.  A Catholic priest did an artful theological reflection in which he noted that the resurrection's whole aim is to defeat death.  The enemy of Jesus in the New Testament is Satan, so he refers to St. Death as a Satanic cult.  

                               "Don't wait for the last judgment - it takes place every day." - Albert Camus

Camus shaped my life from the time I read the Stranger.  His quote about politics, something like, It is our responsibility to ease the path toward death for everyone, since all of us are equal at death's bar, kept me engaged politically.  His understanding of personal responsibility and, in particular, the political dimensions of that responsibility still affect me.

Finished pulling the last of the fence posts out of the ground.   Went on from there to begin pulling buckthorn and black locust stumps.  Do you see a theme here?  This last is in preparation for my final garden project of the year, a firepit and seats.  Tomorrow I'll finish pulling the stumps with my weed wrench, clean up the area, then start digging.  I look forward to using the firepit as the weather gets colder.  Probably a yule log, perhaps a bonfire for the winter solstice, too.

Nap.  Groceries.  Home.  Workout now.

Most nights before I go to sleep my mind insists on having something to play with.  Last night I began surveying my library and realized I could read my real interests and areas of expertise (caveat: not all interests, not even most, count as areas of expertise) by scanning my books.  So, before I dropped off to dreamland, the books in my library came swimming up to me by category.

Here they are in no particular order:

Christianity, especially biblical studies

Liberal political and religious thought

Magic

Calendars and other means of honoring the seasons

The American Civil War

War, especially insurgent warfare

Hawai'i

Books related to places I've traveled (where I have just one or two, usually guides)

Latin America including Mexico and Central America

Art History with a special interest in Asian art (Japanese and Chinese, primarily) and early American

Asian history and culture with a focus on China and Taoism

Weather

Folklore, fairy tales, mythology, legends

Islam

The Renaissance

Topophilia and related ideas

Science and Scientists

Brain/Mind studies

The classics (ancient and modern)

Spirituality

Lake Superior

Immortality and the Afterlife

Movies

Theater

The West (American west)

The North (the idea of the north)

Poetry

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pilgrimage

Gardening

Natural History

Volcanoes

Architecture

Cities

Astronomy

Psychology

Philosophy

It is easy to see from this list why I've not written the definitive work on anything.  Not even a finitive work for that matter.  I have such broad interests I'm like a bee that can't stick to one kind of pollen so my honey always has flavors from many flowers.  Still, my interests are not infinite.  You'll note there is little here about machines or the Slavic countries or oceans or mountains.  Not anything about music (though I have a volume or two) or medicine or law.  Nothing about gender studies or Australia or New Zealand.  Nothing about Antarctica or chemistry.  Nothing about Africa or bicycles or sociology.   So, I figure, by defining my interests in this way, a sort of book buying Rorschach created over decades, I can begin to focus in a way I haven't so far.  

I'd like to write a finitive work on something, if not de finitive one.  Now, let's see, I'm going to group these. (later)

Science and Scientists  Weather   Astronomy   Volcanoes    Natural History   Lake Superior   Brain/Mind studies

Philosophy    Psychology  Pilgrimage   Ralph Waldo Emerson   The North (the idea of the north)  Spirituality   Folklore, fairy tales, mythology, legends   Islam   Christianity, especially biblical studies   Liberal political and religious thought   Magic  Calendars and other means of honoring the seasons

Cities  Architecture  Gardening  Topophilia and related ideas

The American Civil War    War, especially insurgent warfare

Books related to places I've traveled (where I have just one or two, usually guides)  Latin America including Mexico and Central America Hawai'i  The West (American west)

The Renaissance  Asian history and culture with a focus on China and Taoism

Art History with a special interest in Asian art (Japanese and Chinese, primarily) and early American     

Poetry   The classics (ancient and modern)

Movies  Theater

                                                                                              Ralph Waldo Emerson

This Aesop must have been peeking into a crystal ball.  How could else he know about Cheney and Bush?

Kate and I have made Hawai'i plans:  Maui and Kauai.  It means I will celebrate my 61st birthday on Maui, as I have at least three other times.  I've not been back for over 6 years and I'm ready.  

This AM spent in a business meeting for the most part.  No outside work today. 

Each year, at New Year's (Celtic and mine), I evaluate the last year and look forward to the next.  

When this year began, the second year of docent training at the MIA was underway.  Graduation was last June and our docent class went to New York last month.  This was a dominant thread of last year, which will continue in the next three years at least with 40 tours a year.  Asian art and culture continues to draw me in, teach me, leave me wanting more, so that aspect of the docent training will gain in importance for me.  With no docent training, I do plan to spend more time at the Walker, where its collection makes more and more sense to me, now that I have a better grounding in art history.  I have also followed through so far with my desire to attend more of the Walker's cinema and performances, a key part of their role in our cultural scene.

Kate shifted to after hours at the beginning of this year and that change has had many positives for her.  She likes urgent care medicine, the hours suit her, and she's actually made better money than we had anticipated.  There have been challenges, too, but on the whole she seems on pace to retire in three years.  

Financially and legally we have kept ourselves on an even keel, putting money away and getting all the end of life documents like trusts, wills, and living wills in place.  

Joseph has spent one more full year than he intended at Breck, but he did get his mustering in letter for the Air Force.  He starts OTS on March 19th.  His growth as a  young man continues to delight me.  An important part of his life is being Uncle Joe to Ruth Olson, the daughter of Jon and Jen and our first granddaughter.  She turned 1 this April 4th and we learned recently that Jen is pregnant with baby Lars. Lars is the temporary name.  I realized today that we've done well by Ruth. She has a sober, steady Dad who married a nice Jewish girl.  She has a uncle whose Indian roots will provide an additional element of diversity.  We offer her another part of the United States to get to know and Kate's medical background and my humanities will provide options as she looks toward her own future.

The Tillich course I took this spring at UTS made me humble.  Keeping up on the reading--a brutal schedule that the professor decided to severely cut after having to do it himself--was more difficult than I'd imagined, especially with the docent work.  I didn't get the intellectual lift I'd hope for writing a Ge-ology and I'm no longer sure about that project.

The garden has gone through yet another transformation, this one reflecting our growing competence. We manage easily what took most of our attention in the beginning.  I was able to put in many hours working in the woods and that work has begun to show some fruits.  We've also decided to grow as much of our own food as we can, so we transist several of our raised beds (5) to vegetables only.  We may add one more raised bed.  By next spring we'll have a fire-pit and a backyard area for people, in addition to all the places we have for plants.

Long haul the most significant change of this last year came in writing.  A convergence of events, precipitated by our financial advisor, Ruth Hayden, led me to call Scott Edelstein to review my work.  Before I went to meet him, I decided to get back into writing full time with the marketing end included.  I feel now that writing is my main work again and I have a regular schedule for marketing.  As soon as I get a few more of these garden projects to bed, I plan to start a new novel in the AM and work on revisions/rewrites in the afternoons and evenings.

The next year will see Joseph in the Air Force, Ruth 2 and a new grandchild arrive.  We'll have Ruth here with us while Jon and Jen adapt to the new arrival.  We plan to get a puppy, possibly a Valhund.  Marketing work will become routine, mailing stuff out as it comes back and rewarding myself for each rejection. (as Scott wisely suggested)  A new novel will emerge, as will a third rewrite of Pilgrim.  The Lake Superior work has begun to call to me, too.  I do plan a trip around the Lake again this year.  Kate and I plan to make the Ellis reunion this year in July.  We'll be vegetable gardeners next spring and summer, preservers in the fall.  We plan to put in a root cellar, too.  That's enough for one year.

All the metal fence around our park is down.  Yeah!  Took awhile, but it's done.  Great outdoor work weather.  Temps in the 40's. When you heat up from work, you remain cool or just right.  In addition I pulled a number of now extraneous fence posts out of the ground.  This involves hitting them several times with a small sledge to loosen them up, then grabbing them and pulling straight up until they come free from the soil, mostly sand.  This worked well on all but one, the last.  On this post I gave it the requisite few whacks to dislodge it, crouched low, put my legs and back to work, and, surprise!  It broke off at the soil line.  All the energy of my legs and back now had no resistance, so I literally threw myself backwards, landing hard on the tip of my spine, then on my head.  Surprised more than hurt me, but it did ring my chimes.  Gave up and went in for lunch.

Our back now has prairie grass out our kitchen window and blue fescue in and around the park.  Our eight raised beds have only a split rail fence around them.  The whole looks like a Mother Earth News backyard with a shed, a compost heap, the raised beds, and the next project, the fire pit area with its own split rail fence.  A project for the winter months and early spring is the development of a nature trail for our grandkids.

We have entered the season of Samain. In the early Celtic faith this season ran from October 31st to Beltane, May 1st.  There were only two seasons to the year, winter and summer, or, better, growing season and fallow.  After the addition of the equinox and solstices and the addition of Imbolc (Feb. 1st) and Lughnasa (Aug. 1), the Samain season runs to the Winter Solstice (Dec. 20-23).   This is my favorite time of year.  Horticultural fall is a prolegomena to the bare minimalism of Samain and the Winter Solstice.  Following a word I discovered in the Oxford English Dictionary, I refer to this period as a holiseason and the month of December as holimonth.

Families come together on Thanksgiving and Hanukah and Christmas.  Light becomes central to our festive life as Sol shows up less and less.  Houses put up holiday lights.  People light more candles.  The Hanukah menorah has eight candles (nine if you count Shamash).  Theatres put on the Christmas Carol.  Music we all know (even if we pretend not to like it.) seems to come from everywhere.  Yes, the commercial end of it seems to swallow the best parts, but in fact the human, gift giving, family supporting ethos still leaks through even during the after Thanksgiving and the after Christmas sales.

In my own life there is no day now more holy, more anticipated than the Winter Solstice.  The long night, which I have celebrated in many ways, often by staying up all night, captures the essence of the earth bound faith.

Though it is ordinary time for the Catholic faithful, for those of us in the Celtic tradition, it is a sacred time.  It's somewhat ironic that I live near Anoka, the Halloween Capital of the World. Reference Desk website reported it sponsored the "first official citywide Halloween celebration in 1921."  

Kate's home.  I'm glad to have her home.  There is a centering quality I feel when we are both here that often escapes me when I'm on my own. Love has many facets and sharing each others anxieties and frustrations is every bit as important as sharing the joys and celebrations.  It doesn't mean life is always smooth; it's not, but we keep up our communication and share each others lives.  We live as two pilgrims on an ancient trail, companionship between a man and a woman.  This may be the most ancient trail of all, yet it is never old, nor stale, always full of promise.