Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Great Wheel

The Crescent Moon’s Gentle Spell

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61  bar steep rise 29.87  0mph WNW dew-point 52  Summer night, pleasant

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

I dug up a couple of garlic to see if descaping had any affect.  It has.  Bulbs have begun to form.  I hope if I leave them in a bit longer, I’ll get fully developed bulbs.  This is important because I can then plant the cloves from the best bulbs in the fall and harvest more garlic next year.

The crescent moon casts a gentle spell over human kind.  It ends up on flags, in religious symbols and in children’s books.  The Thunder Moon crescent is in the west, just below the tree line, but visible through some our poplars.  Hidden, it takes on even more allure.

Back in the 80’s I used to practice a form of contemplative prayer; it carried me into many strange places.  One of them was sitting on the cusp of a crescent moon with Jesus on one side and Moses and Abraham on the other.   We spoke, but I don’t recall the conversation.  The crescent moon made that possible because it has that curve.  Could not sit on a quarter or whole moon.  A gibbous moon does not seem right either.

Faith and Spirituality, Writing

Wisdom of the Past Brought Forward

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79  bar steady 29.77 3mph N dew-point 52  Summer, warm and clear

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

“To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. They are of two kinds: the library of published material, books, pamphlets, periodicals, and the archive of unpublished papers and documents.” – Barbara Tuchman

Given this definition I must be, ipso facto, an historian.  In fact I consider myself a humanist in the traditional sense, one who searches the literary and artistic and faith traditions of the world for guidance.  In a broad understanding this is a historical work since it relies on the wisdom of the past brought forward, a version of the history of ideas.  It takes me into many libraries and archives and I am most happy there.  The sense of possibility in a place stacked with books or objects of art or the accoutrements of faiths journey is, for me, boundless.

Having had my little car in the shop for so long I found I had a desire to get out during the day, to drive around, go shopping.  I did.  It didn’t amount to much.  So I came home and planted beets and carrots for fall harvest.

After a long nap I have picked up again my research on U-U history in the Twin Cities area.   This project puts me squarely in the historians camp and will find me rummaging in boxes of letters, meeting minutes, newspaper articles and old sermons.

There is a very interesting video on YouTube that highlights a heresy  controversy in late 19th century Minneapolis within the Universalist community.  Here’s the link.

Faith and Spirituality, Travel, Woolly Mammoths

A Houseless Life

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72  bar rises 29.73  0mph WNW dew-point 62    Summer, pleasant

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

“It is not how old you are, but how you are old.” – Jules Renard

Elizabeth Odegard has West Nile virus.  She’s lethargic, stays in bed.  Not much to do, but support your body and wait it out.  Mark thinks she may have gotten it in Thailand when they stayed on a houseboat.  Mark has the most unusual current lifestyle among the Woollies.  He and Elizabeth, then real estate agents, sold his house in Marine of St. Croix, pooled their retirement funds and began living a houseless life.

He often refers to himself as homeless, but what he actually is houseless.   His home is the Twin Cities and he’s rooted here.  He and Elizabeth went to Hawai’i three years ago and got the Cambridge certification in teaching English as a second language.  With that credential and a cash flow generated from investments (managed by Scott Simpson) they have moved from spot to spot:  Buenos Aires, Peru, Shanghai, Bangkok sprinkled with returns home.  Here they housesit for folks they know.

They leave for France later on this summer, where they will spend time with Mark’s brother and his family before heading off Morocco or Turkey or Chile.  Sometimes they work, sometimes one does and the other doesn’t.  It’s been all ESL.  Mark worked on a healthy sexuality exhibit in Thailand, for example.  They ponder a commitment in Japan, where the English language jobs require a year contract.  Most of their stints have been four months or less.

We talk about travel often at the Woollies.  We are a well-traveled group.  Paul and Sarah made a round the world trip early in their marriage.  Paul jets off to Africa, Syria and Cuba now and then.  Frank is in Ireland right now for the eight or ninth time.  Bill spent over a year in Japan building a nuclear power plant.  Tom travels the US every week.  Charlie Haislet and Barbara cruise in Europe, go to Africa now and again.  Stefan has been many places.

Last night Stefan talked about a childhood trip to Egypt.  “It made me want to be an architect.  Karnak.  With those great pillars shaved back and sloping upward.  And the details on the gate.”

We are atypical as a group in so many ways:  level of education, diversity of employment, life paths dominated by values, intimacy among men that has lasted over two decades.  Our level of income is high.  We lead lives of privilege in the most powerful country the world has ever seen.

Faith and Spirituality

Unitarians in the Upper Midwest

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81  bar steep drop  29.62  0mph E dew-point 69  Summer, warm and sunny

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

A lot of online research today about UU history.  The UUA (Unitarian-Universalist Association) keeps its congregational data close to the vest.  I wanted to hunt out the location and size of the largest congregations in the US, but they make it really hard.  To get the info I have to wade through 1067 different files.  Yikes.  Maybe I don’t want to know.

My goal is to create a history of Unitarianism and Universalism in and around the Twin City’s metro area.  Not a full blown book-length deal, but more than the one page historical summaries available on congregational websites.  I want to discover why liberal religion took such firm root here.  We have three large and two mid-size congregations, a remarkable number when you look at the maps in the rest of the US.

Unitarianism has the nickname, the Boston Religion and it’s not much of a joke.   Outside New England the UU movement is thinly dispersed.  We even have as strong or stronger group of congregations than the Chicago area.  It intrigues me and I want to figure out the why of it.  That’s always what interests me, the why.

The Mammoth herd stops tonight at the outdoor cafe of the Black Forest, an urban oasis.  I look forward to seeing the guys, catching up.

Kate had lunch with a friend today.  Not notable in many lives, but Kate has had her head down for so long she’s almost forgotten lunch, nights out.  I’m glad she’s venturing out.

Faith and Spirituality, Family

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

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79  bar falls 29.73 4mph NE  dew-point 65  Summer, hot and cloudy

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

Good thing I checked the Minnesota History Center hours before I drove all the way to St. Paul.  Closed.  Closed tomorrow until noon.  Had to shift my research hours, so I spent some time outside today putting down the last of the mulch, the third tier.  It’s much larger and much less closely planted than the bottom two tiers.  I’ve gone to either straw or leaves, no cedar or other store bought mulch.

Mary writes that she is in suspension now, waiting for the critique of outside reviewers for her dissertation.  Tough place, that.  Waiting is difficult for us humans.  We prize agency and anything that diminishes our ability to act makes us feel uneasy.  It highlights the underlying truth of the human condition, that is, we are never in control of our lives; our agency, no matter how powerful, is always transient.  Sic transit gloria mundi. 

To counter punch that though we have ars longa, vita brevis.  Art is long, life brief.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Weather +Climate

A Sabbath

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87  bar rises 29.71 0mph NW dew-point 63  Summer, hot and sticky.  Clouds forming.

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

Unless I miss my guess, the Thunder Moon will have a namesake event to celebrate its waxing phase.  The day was hot, the dew point high and clouds have begun to build.  In fact, I’ve come downstairs to see if I need to unplug the computer.

After the picture printing in the AM, I have focused the afternoon on reading Sierra Club political committee material.  It’s a well thought out approach, developed at the national level.  It’s primary aim is to influence electoral politics on behalf of an environmentally sensitive agenda.  As such, it works at the retail political level and at the election atmosphere level, too.  Don’t know yet what my role will be since there has been only one meeting and I couldn’t make it, but I’m looking forward to rolling my sleeves up and getting back in the fray.

Otherwise a laid back day, a non-workout day.  A Sabbath.

Family, Friends, GeekWorld

The Printing Press Today

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83  bar steady 29.68 1mph SE  dew-point 67  Summer, hot and clear

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

“What is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects. What is life but what a man is thinking of all day? This is his fate and his employer. Knowing is the measure of the man. By how much we know, so much we are.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Another late milestone here.  Kate has lunch tomorrow with an old friend she hasn’t seen in a while.  She asked me to print some grandchild pictures.  In the process I selected several photos, including some of her.  The milestone is this.  They came out printed on our Canon Pixma.  The first color work I’ve ever done.  We’ve had many computers over the last 18 years, but only one printer, the HP Laserjet 4.  It has served me very well and still does.  Like the red car I can’t imagine daily life without it.

We bought the Canon as a copier and fax machine, but it also has the capacity to print photographs and other color images.  I got out the manual, the paper and cracked open the usb cord I bought for it January before last when I purchased it.  Worked like a charm.  Technology amazes me and delights me.

Off to feed the dogs and read through the Sierra Club material.

Cinema and Television, Holidays

The Night After

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74  bar steady  29.73  0mph ENE dew-point 56  Summer night, too warm

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

This is the night after the fourth of July.  No bangs, pops, whistles, booms, showers of color, whirling fountains.  No patriotic music or patriotic festivals on the TV.  A night whose character takes its shape from the night it is not.

When I thought of this earlier, it made me reflect on all those night afters.   Each have their unique caste.  The night after Labor Day school begins for many, the serious, get-to-it season commences.  The night after Halloween the candy gets eaten or dumped, the costumes stowed, the lights taken down.  The Celts have begun their new year.  The night after Thanksgiving many of us groan and roll around on the bed or the couch, one too many turkey legs or dollops of mash potatoes or pieces of pecan pie still harbored somewhere in the digestive track.  The night after Christmas Santa has returned to the North Pole (where will he go if the ice melts?), no more presents and no more anticipation.  The night after Hanukkah the menorah goes back to it usual spot, the family gatherings end.  The night after New Year’s we settle into the next year, the hangover finished, the streamers and screamers and auld lang syne all put away until next year.

In each case we leave the sacred or festive time and return to what the Catholics call ordinary time, a phrase I love.  The value of ordinary time comes from the leavening, the spice that holidays bring to it.  On the night after the frisson between ordinary time and the festive, sacred time of holiday is at its most poignant, the memory still fresh, yet the moment has passed.  So, happy night after the fourth of July.  I hope the sense of patriotism embraced by the revolutionary generation seeped a little bit more into your bones.

While exercising today, I finished Lust,Caution by Ang Lee.  This film pushes boundaries like Brokeback Mountain, sexual boundaries and the question of love ignited in impossible situations.  It is a brave film, both for the director and for the two lead characters.  The context is the Japanese occupation of China.  Most of the film takes place in occupied Shanghai.  The struggle between the resistance and the Japanese, which forms the overall storyline, portrays the complex choices people make in situations that test loyalties at their core.

The technical skills in Asian cinema–Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Korean, Singaporean, Thai–has developed over many years.  We are now beginning to see films that push into the east/west osmotic filter from both directions.  This is a rich and interesting time for cinema from Asia and I feel lucky to participate.

Family, Friends, GeekWorld, Writing

Back In Its Own Stall

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79  bar falls 29.84 1mph ENE dew-point 61   Summer, hot, moving toward muggy

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

The cracks in the red car’s head were tiny.  I saw them.  They ran, in one instance, down the threads that hold the spark plug in place.  While threading in a spark plug or under pressure, these cracks could have broken loose and allowed oil and exhaust gases to invade the spark plug and generally foul things up.  Carlson was thoughtful in showing them to me.

We’ve sunk almost $5,000 in this car this year.   That’s almost a year’s car payments.  Even so, we could put in the same amount next year and still be ahead of the game.  It runs quite well now, though there is that piece that fell off on the way home.  No kidding.  A big chunk of something fell off.  I’m going to take it back and ask them about it, but not today.  It looks like a shield or rock barrier, not metal, rather some kind of composite, tarpaper like material.

It’s 31-32 miles per gallon on the highway alone justifies keeping it in our two vehicle collection.  The pick-up we’ll park for the most part in the not too distant future.  $90 a tank to fill it up.  Ouch.  And it sucks the gas down, too, with its v-8.  What were we thinking?  It is, though, a useful vehicle for errands and landscape chores.  Another advantage is its four-wheel drive.  (Oh, come to think of it, that’s what we were thinking.  In 1999, when we bought it, Kate still had call and  hospital duty.  She had to be able to get to where she was needed.) That makes it potentially important in a severe winter situation.  Besides, pick-ups and SUV’s have lost significant value.  We could get nowhere the value it is to us.  So, it will stay, too.

Our neighbor went to bed apparently healthy, then woke up the next day with MS.  A striking and sudden life change.  It has occasioned a major alteration in their lives.  They went from the salary of a 58 year old career civil servant at the peak of  his career to a fixed income household.  This was six months ago.

How it will affect their family dynamics over the long haul is an open question.  The prednisone  makes  him cranky.  He’s gone from an active guy who built his own observatory and sailed Lake Superior to a wobbly man who can no longer read.  His mental acumen seems fine, but for now he wanders, lost in the bewilderment of this rapid change, as well he might be.

Today is an inside day.  I’m going to write on Superior Wolf, get ready for my research on Unitarian Universalism in the Twin Cities and, maybe, crack the case and clean off my cooling fan.

Garden, Great Work, Holidays, Politics

Bozo the Clown and Jesse Helms Die

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77  bar falls 30.01 1mph SW  dew-point 50  Summer, pleasant

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

Sometimes coincidence says things that would have not occurred to me:

Larry Harmon, longtime Bozo the Clown, dead at 83.

Former Sen. Jesse Helms dies at age 86.

Mulch goes down today.  Old leaves and grass clippings from last year stored in plastic bags.  Straw baled on a farm.  Organic matter that will blend into the soil, enrich it and give it better composition.  Before it does that, it will suppress weeds and keep the soil beneath it cooler, helping plants fight the extremes of summer heat.  An all purpose good deal, mulch.

A columnist referred to the 4th as the happiest of holidays.  It has sparklers, band music, cookouts, fireworks and family gatherings.  As for me, a solid northern European intellectually, I find it a sober holiday.  Our government, at its least competent level in decades, has not made tiny, forgivable, do over mistakes; no, they have blundered on the world stage as well as the domestic.  They have tanked the economy, made citizens suspicious of Washington, politicized the judiciary and made WC Fields and Mark Twain look like optimistic boosters.  On the foreign affairs we have reversed and three upped Teddy Roosevelt.  Now we speak loudly and shoulder nuclear RPG’s.

In light of this July 4th is, for me, a time to redouble my own efforts to bring down these clowns (apologies to Larry Harmon, mentioned earlier) and to change policy at the national, state and local levels.  My own focus now is the natural world, the world that can go along on its own without human interference, if it does not have human interference, that is.  In times past issues of war and peace, civil rights and economic justice were stage front in my political world.  They remain critically important, but I choose to pass that torch to another generation of activists.

On a lighter note I look forward to charcoaled hamburgers, potato salad, corn on the cob and cold watermelon when Kate comes home.  We also have a cache of sparklers to set out in the yard and light.  Star spangledness will live on in our Andover backyard.