All posts by Charles

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel

And then I knew: earth is the “Blessed Sacrament,” and always has been.

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28 93% 25% 0mph ESE bar 29.66 steady  windchill27  Yuletide

            Waning Crescent of the Cold Moon

We have come to the Twelfth night of Yuletide.  Epiphany is tomorrow and tonight is the end of the Yuletide season.  Our neighbors, the Perlicks, are Orthodox Christians.  They celebrate Christmas according to the old liturgical calendar which put the nativity on the same day as the Epiphany.  We bought cheese, bread and wine for their Christmas gift today at the grocery store.

Tips for the day

Preparing for Twelfth Night: For generations, at least since medieval times, Epiphany has been the day the season of Christmas traditionally comes to an end. A final night of feasting and merriment, gift-giving in some cultures to echo the gift-giving of the Three Kings, plays and mummery that echoed ancient ways. Then the decorations come down and we set forth into the new year.

And in a custom dating back to at least to the 12th century, and possibly as far back as Saturnalia, a King Cake is baked, containing a pea or a bean. This traditional continues in New Orleans with King Cakes baked from now through Mardi Gras (February 5 this year). Candlegrove contains one such recipe, here are others.

Next year I want to be more intentional about two seasonal things:  celebrating Yule and sending holiday gifts in time for New Years.  Both will reduce stress and deepen the occasion for me.

Here is an interesting paragraph from MythingLinks, by Kathleen Jenks.  It tells of her spiritual journey, which feels, and has felt for some time, a lot like my own.  The whole essay gives the context:  

And then I knew: earth is the “Blessed Sacrament,” and always has been. When Jesus, born in Bethlehem (bet lehem, “house of bread”), later took bread from earth’s threshed grain and wine from earth’s fermented grapes, and said, “This is my body which will be broken for you…this is my blood which will be shed for you,” there was no transubstantiation after all. That would have been an unecessary extra step. I think he meant it literally. Like the ancient Egyptian male earth-god, Nun, I think Jesus was saying that he is earth, and all that comes from it — thus, the wheat, the grapes, the olives, the maples, the sparrows, the fishes are literally his body and blood. They are, and always have been, of the substance of the divine, manifesting some 2000 years ago on the temporal plane as a specific male, Jesus, who was Earth’s emanation, avatar, deva, or emissary, for only a few decades, but now, since he has been “transubstantiated” back into the earth which birthed him, earth has grown as anguished as he once was — torn, abused, polluted, ravaged, broken and bleeding-out at a perilous rate.

Faith and Spirituality

Are You a Green Knight?

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22  86% 27% 0mph S  bar 29.72 falls windchill 22 Yuletide

            Waning Crescent of the Cold Moon

This day has been a slow one for AncienTrails.  In the morning I’ve begun writing first, that is, working in this case on a short story, Faeries on the Gunflint Trail.   If I start here first, I waste some of my writing energy and I’m trying to steer the force of that back into the creative end of things.  So, I wrote until 10:30, then had to get ready to go into the museum.  Wore my blue corduroys, pants I haven’t been able to wear for at least 2 years.  Felt good.

I also didn’t put out my Yuletide lore, so I’m going to continue a bit with the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  The more I think about it, the more SGGK, as the folks who write about it abbreviate it, seems central for our time.  This happens with old texts because the rhythms and oscillations of the human community repeat themselves over time.

In this case it may that our time is in the reverse situation from the SGGK.  In SGGK Christian civilization had begun to make inroads in European society, but a strong pagan faith lived on, especially in the rural areas.  Pagan=rural.  Today we have a post-Christian society, a world in which the Christian church, once dominant and interlaced with political power, has begun to weaken.  Thus, today the Green Knight might ride into a corporate boardroom, or up the Capital steps and into Congress.  The natural world has begun to move its tendrils into the corridors of power all around the world:  governments, corporations, political parties.  It will be difficult to find the Gawains, those willing to literally put their heads on the chopping block for Mother Earth, but they exist; they may display the same reluctance and fear. 

Maybe, just maybe, we no longer have to rely on Morgan La Fey at Hautdesert’s castle.  The pagan spirit that loves the land first and places that loyalty above all others appears from time to time all over the globe.  We need not one Green Knight, but many, many willing to take the challenge to those who must take the primacy of Mother Earth as a serious, even deadly duty. 

This is not as clear as I want it, but it’s late and I’m a bit fuzzy.  Still, it’s in the right area. 

Art and Culture, General

The Learning Curve(s)

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28  75% 25% 2mph SSE  bar 29.78 falls windchill 27 Yuletide

            Waning Crescent of the Cold Moon

A day with two tours.  Nice kids from Island Elementary in Shoreview.  Once again my questions and preparation left me as I got on the floor.  Guess I’m gonna need to prepare cheat sheets for the questions–to review just before the tour.  I tend to remember the details about the piece, but not the questions I planned to ask. All part of the learning curve.

Listening to Tom Wolfe’s new book, I Am Charlotte Simmons. It’s about college life today.  If it’s accurate, and I don’t have any reason to doubt it is, it must be an intimidating time to be a college student.  So much sex and pressure for grades.  Oh, wait.  Wasn’t that the same college I experienced?  All kidding aside the picture it presents is drastically different in some ways, yet so familiar in others.  I’m enjoying listening to it, but I liked the Alan Greenspan book, too.

News of the Strange, Politics

Obama and Huckabee

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16  85%  26%  omph S  bar 30.07 falls windchill 16  Yuletide

               Waning Crescent of the Cold Moon

                         Iowa Caucus Night

Oh, the political junkie in me is humming tonight.  Obama takes Iowa.  Huckabee takes Iowa.  Who knew all these folks wanted Iowa in the first place?  It would have been fun to be in Iowa tonight. 

If you’ve never submitted yourself to the pleasures of an Iowa subcaucus evening, you haven’t lived politically.  The DFL here in Minnesota adopted the Iowa subcaucus process.  In three hotly contested elections I subcaucused in Minneapolis.  It’s sort of the political version of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  How many gender neutral, pro-labor, anti-gun McCarthy voters are there?  If there are a few left over for a viable caucus, who can we cut a deal with to get  more for our issue?  It’s wild and if there are a lot of people it’s exciting.  Horse trading and dickering at a fast clip.

It also makes tallying up winners an interesting process as Wolf Blitzer kept saying all evening.  In the end CNN counted the total of Iowa state delegates each candidate got, created percentages and called their winners.  The more sedate Iowa Republicans took straw votes and went home.  Much easier, but not nearly as much fun.

What does this mean for the race as a whole?  Well, Hilary doesn’t look inevitable anymore.  Obama is far from having it locked it up, but, as a commentator on CNN said (not poor bewildered Wolf Blitzer), if he carries two predominantly white states, Iowa and New Hampshire, black voters will flock to him and quite possibly away from Hilary.  They won’t want to stand in the way of the first black president.  By February 5th, a quick time in politics, it may done since AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, GA, IL, MN, MO, NJ, NY, ND, OK, TN & UT primaries plus New Mexico, Idaho and Kansas Democratic primaries are on Tuesday, February 5th.

That would mean the general election race would begin that night and last until November.  What does that mean for an election process usually compressed in the days following Labor Day?  Don’t know.  Anyhow, lots to keep us junkies up nights until then.

GeekWorld

Running Wires, Hooking This to That

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18  82%  26%  omph S  bar 30.09 steady  windchill 18  Yuletide

             Waning Crescent of the Cold Moon

The writer’s strike has made TV watching more vacuous than ever, at least on the broadcast channels. 

Our HDTV will arrive on Saturday afternoon and I plan on spending a few fun hours running wires, hooking this to that and generally having a good time.  When its up and working, I’ll order HD TV from Comcast.  I admit it.  I’m excited.  Kate surprised me last week by suggesting I was something of a geek.  After some thought, I decided, well, compared to many my age, I suppose I am sort of geeky.  I read Wired Magazine and I’ve used computers since 1982, but I don’t program, which I consider sort of the dividing line between geek and techno-junky.  Still, if it’s electronic, I’m interested.

Wrote 1400 words today, a new short story.  Did it mostly to kick off the rust and get back at it.  Not sure it’s gonna go anywhere.  May head off into new country tomorrow morning, though I have tours at 12:15 and 1:30.                     

Not much going in the head tonight, focused on the Iowa process.  Way too early to know much.

Politics

Tomorrow, In a Cornfield Near You

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1 77%  22%  0mph WSW bar 30.73 falls  Yuletide

           Waning Crescent of the Cold Moon

Today is the day I devote to marketing my work, an idea suggested by Scott Edelstein.  A day a month on it, then put it away, he said.  That way it has time set aside and does not weigh on the work.  I’ve done just that since September and I have finished all my short story edits.  Next month I will have some to submit.

I heard from my brother, Mark, who told me a while ago he was afraid the political unrest in Thailand might set off violence.  He was right, as he says, regrettably.  

United States democracy, and democracies in most of the developed world, are a reasoned trade-off between the power of violence and the assertion of authoritarian government.  The nation’s focus on Iowa tomorrow has such edge because the result in that agricultural state might change foreign and domestic policy in the world’s strongest economy backed up by the world’s most expensive military.   That is, we expect a peaceful transition of power between one government and the other, in fact, we insist upon it.  Not all countries can harbor such expectations.

It is just this peaceful transition that Al Gore protected when he refused a public challenge to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Florida voting discrepancies.   His graciousness was necessary, I think, in spite of the horrors that resulted directly from it.

Some people call it the silly season.  Others turn off their TV sets and stop reading newspapers.  I call it the best show on earth with the exception of the greatest spectacle in racing, the Indianapolis 500.  A presidential election year.  What a year it is.  The first time in 80 years that no incumbent president or vice-president is on the ballot.  Think of that.  This is the first time in two generations, my whole life.

The first chapter opens tomorrow in a corn field near you.

Family, General

One Day Down, 364 To Go

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0  72% 23% 0mph WNW bar 30.64 steep rise  windchill -2  Yuletide  New Year’s Day

                              Waning Crescent of the Cold Moon 

A day almost gone in the New Year. 

Kate and I now have a weekly Skype call with Jon and Jen and Ruth+.  + being the one who comes.  This is weird because it means we have a video phone call, our picture and voice shows up there and their picture and voice shows up here, all in real time…well, almost real time.  Ruth says, “All Right.”  “Ma.” (grandma)  No. (snow) Bye. and so on.  All delightful and all wonderful, as if done for the very first time ever in the history of child development.  She’s a cutie, a blond Jewish Norwegian who lives in Colorado.  The mixing pot stirs on.

Worked out, watched a Japanese movie and an Arctic Tale and the Descent.  Three movies.  A holiday.  All pretty different.  Samurai and Shogun, sword and kimono.  A poignant tale of Arctic babies:  a walrus and two polar bears affected by the warming of the Arctic Ocean.  The Descent is a horror movie and a good one.  It left me squirming and wincing.   Made by the director of Dog Soldiers.

The morning I spent exegeting, then interpreting Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  What a tale.  Important for our time, yet hundreds of years old.  

Happy New Year.

General

The Beauty of Folded Metal Blades

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20  87%  27%  omph  ESE  bar29.95 falls windchill 20 Yuletide

                Waning Gibbous Cold Moon

Kate and I bought ourselves a new knife set for the holidays, Japanese knives made of beautiful folded metal.  Boy, are they sharp.  My fingers bear the proof.  The slightest contact with skin and these knives cut.  Of course, that is the point (or the edge); still, I wonder how long it’s going to take for me to learn how to use them well?

Watched the Patriots beat the Giants.  A battle down to the end.  Randy Moss looked great, just as I remembered him.  He floats up, puts out his hands and the ball gravitates toward him.  I should say, almost as I remembered him.  In this game he blocked.

A quiet time now, meditative.  The windows which during the day show me 7 oaks now reflect back the rooms interior.   The night can bring us to our inner selves, reflected back in the mirror of a calmed soul, a soul often too busy in daylight busyness, focused on the world outside the window.

Faith and Spirituality, News of the Strange

Christians Sued for Use of Allah

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22  82%  25%  0mph ENE bar 29.95  windchill 22  Yuletide
                  Waning Gibbous Cold Moon 
My brother Mark sent me this one.  He’s on his way to Malaysia this week to renew his Thai visa.
From a BBC Online article: 
Malaysian row over word for ‘God’ 

(Religious freedom is guaranteed under Malaysian law)
“A church and Christian newspaper in Malaysia are suing the government after it decreed that the word “Allah” can only be used by Muslims.In the Malay language “Allah” is used to mean any god, and Christians say they have used the term for centuries.

Opponents of the ban say it is unconstitutional and unreasonable.

It is the latest in a series of religious rows in largely Muslim Malaysia, where minority groups claim their rights are being eroded.

A spokesman for the Herald, the newspaper of the Catholic Church in Malaysia, said a legal suit was filed after they received repeated official warnings that the newspaper could have its licence revoked if it continued to use the word.

“We are of the view that we have the right to use the word ‘Allah’,” said editor Rev Lawrence Andrew.”
Here’s my reply to Mark:

Thanks for sending it over. Irony comes to mind. After all, the so-called Abrahamic religions all claim to worship the same God, so why wouldn’t the names be interchangeable? Stupid also comes to mind.

And Mark’s back to me just moments ago: 

“Indeed. A Muslim lawyer was complaining in the Malyasian Star, a local paper, that the Muslims were being way too sensitive. Indeed, I read further that the Catholic paper is suing whomever gave that ruling. The lawyer pointed out that Al means the and lah means God in Arabic. It seems futile and yes, dumb. The God of the Jews, Muslims and Christians is the same. It seems especially dumb to have the dispute around Christmas, but there you go.”

Family, General

The Stomach Has Its Desires

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 22  85%  26%  0mph  NNE  bar 29.97 falls  YuleTide

          Waning Gibbous Cold Moon

 Excerpt of a poem by William Stafford, Choosing A Dog

Your good dogs, some things that they hear
they don’t really want you to know —
it’s too grim or ethereal.

And sometimes when they look in the fire
they see time going on and someone alone,
but they don’t say anything.

Bill Schmidt sent this poem along from Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.  It is a touching work, especially for those who live their lives in the company of dogs.

A morning filled with errands.  Took packages for New Years to the Anoka Post Office.  It’s sure easier to mail stuff now than it was a week ago.  Geez.  Practically walked right up to the postal clerk.  One clerk, on the other end of the counter, bald head and heroic biker beard, helped a man set up a General Delivery account.  I looked at the man, fiftyish with black hair laid flat on his head.  His used trench coat sagged with the bow of his shoulders.  His pants looked polished from wear and the boots old.  What had happened in his life?

At the library I donated several Teaching Company courses on audio tape.  As I walked in with the sacks, I began to think about libraries, how important they’ve been to me at each stage of my life: a refuge in an Indiana small town, a place of scholarship during college and my two post-grad degrees, sources of reading material when my funds were low and most recently a source of audio books.  There are two places in this world where I’ve always felt comfortable:  Catholic churches and libraries. 

Donating these courses made me consider charity.  Charity always makes me think of Frank Broderick who seems to incarnate charity.  I always feel less than in the presence of his generosity to others, less than because that’s not what I do.  Then I thought, wait a minute.  I’m not Frank Broderick; I’m Charlie.  Charlie’s generosity focuses on his passions:  art, libraries, dogs, gardens and, for some reason I can’t quite define, water.  These are the places where my volunteer energy, cash and other resources go.  And that’s just fine.

After this, groceries, where my stomach spoke to me down each aisle.  Each time I saw an old food friend like cheese or chips or Kashi cereal my stomach growled and I felt deprived.  The stomach has its desires, its attachments and communicates them; but, those are attachments learned over years of a certain kind of eating.  The process I’m in now is one I’ve gone through before, reeducation.  I’m reeducating my stomach to growl for lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes.  To speak to me of yogurt, right-sized portions and sourdough bread.

A morning full of errands, and, of learning more about myself.  A good morning.