Category Archives: Woolly Mammoths

Aging, Third Phase, Woolly Mammoths

Every Two Weeks

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Imbolc                                                       Valentine Moon

Read the other day that the average connection between close friends is every two weeks. The Woollies have been getting together every two weeks for over twenty five years. Builds a lot of trust. A lot of shared memories. A lot of support given and received.

Woolly Frank Broderick turns 81 next week.  Jim Johnson 72 today.  I was 67 on Valentine’s Day.  Even our group puer, Stefan, will turn 60 on April 1st, finally bringing us all beyond that mark.  A lot of white hair, a few bald spots, the occasional creak in the bend and much laughter.  And, too, grandchildren come up more and more often.

To have ten close friends is a rare and special gift, one I chanced into and I’m grateful.

Thanks, guys.

Art and Culture, Woolly Mammoths

Men Being Men

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Imbolc                                                                  Valentine Moon

(Arnold Bocklin – War)

This on a drive home from Wayzata, after a wonderful meeting discussing maleness and maleness in our time.  Tom suggested we bring images or other art work.  Tom chose three black and white photographs: a D-day landing, men working on the high steel with wheel-barrows and silhouetted couple dancing on a brick street.  He also chose three Symbolist pieces, two by Caspar Friedrich and one by Munch. (and the Norman Rockwell Boy Scouts)  Frank brought a photograph of Standing Bear, a Ponca chief, Michael Collins, a key mover in the fight for Irish independence and a painting of the spirit world by an Ojibwe painter.

Scott had a world tree with people and technology boiling up toward the sky, a wonderful mandala from Tibet done in gold leaf.  Stefan brought a Rothko and a Rilke poem about the ancient tower.  Bill Schmidt brought a Lonnie portrait of Regina, a selfie he drew some time ago and a new piano piece composed by a friend in Regina’s honor.  Warren had a coat of arms made by his sister when she was 14, his paperweight from the glass blowing evening (Bill brought his, too.) and a ceramic piece of old man smoking his pipe, hand clasping his head.

“Liebesfrühling” (Franz von Stuck)

Mark Odegard, Jimmy Johnson and Paul Strickland all contributed through e-mail:  Jim’s piece is a little hard to describe but it involved a yak or a Highland steer with a snake above it and some birds.  Mark sent a page of journal with drawings of gold panning equipment among other things and a self-portrait.  Paul sent a photograph of himself in a mask, himself with his grandson and son, himself and Sarah in Maine and a photograph of his grandfather’s grave.

Tom’s nephew-in-law by marriage once removed and sunny side up, Jordan, a newly minted nurse and a nurse-anesthetist to be, attended as well.

Conveying the conversation would be too difficult for easy summary.  We touched on sweet honey in the heart, a strong sword arm.  Of spreading our long-winged feathers in widening orbits around the ancient tower.  Of man the spiritual being and the man the relational being.  Of men to some extent set free from past constraints and expectations.  And most of all of the men we are, we Woolly Mammoths, who gather twice each month and see each other, man to man

(Franz von Stuck)

P.S.  Forgot to mention the birthday cake.  Thanks, guys.

Frank_and_Charlie

Art and Culture, Asia, Family, Friends, Holidays, Myth and Story, Retirement, Third Phase, Woolly Mammoths

Ecce Homo

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Imbolc                                                             Valentine Moon

Scott got reservations at David Fong’s, a long time Chinese restaurant in Bloomington. David Fong, Yin’s brother, started a chow mein takeout on the same location about 50 years ago.  This was eating in a Chinese restaurant on Chinese New Year’s, not eating a New Year meal.  The food was very good, especially since Scott came complete with recommendations from Yin as to what we would like.  Handy.

Frank, Warren, Tom, Scott and I were there.  We shared our steak kow, mongolian beef, lo mein, honey crusted walnut shrimp, pot stickers and a crumbly chicken dish whose name I can’t recall.  You put the chicken in a lettuce leaf, sort of like a taco.  All of them were tasty.

We spent a lot of time talking about grandkids.  Scott and I had a similar experience of five-year old grand-daughters who decided we were not “real” grandpop’s because we were not the biological father of their parent.  As with Ruth, this has passed in Scott’s case, too.

Tom has set up an intriguing question for our February 17th meeting:   What does it mean to be a male in our culture?  He has also asked that we bring three images of men that will start off our conversation.  I’ve got a few posted here, but as I’ve gone hunting for images it made me wonder if there is a book called the male image in art.  Lots of such books for females, many of nudes, but of men?  A quick google search in the books section shows none.  Probably are some, but that they’re not obvious says something.

Another thought that occurred to me, and it relates to third phase life for men, is this, what is our image of a man at home?  That is, beyond the guy with the fly-rod, golf club, barca-lounger, or woodshop.  And these are based on the silly, even pernicious idea of third phase life for men as the replacement of work hours with a favorite leisure activity.

With no positive image of a man at home it’s difficult to understand how to be at home when one has left traditional work life behind.

Family, Our Land and Home, Woolly Mammoths

Welcome Home

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Winter                                                                  Seed Catalog Moon

-20.  That should be cold enough.  Felt good to come downstairs to an evenly heated 69 rather than the previous starts at 59 or 58.  The barometers pointed straight up and already at 30.75.  That’s pretty high.  Means a big cold front is here and likely to hang around for a while.

Being with Warren and Sheryl at the Dakota, listening to local jazz musicians felt like a welcome home.  Out with Kate and good friends, in the city.  One of the things I’d miss if we left.

Even the punishment of the cold last night.  A signal that this winter would be winter.  No, not all of them have been that way recently, but at least this one is and the further you go from here south the less likely this kind of weather is.  Ever.

On the other hand there’s Gabe, “Grandpop, would you write about baby animals?”  Ruth, “Don’t go, Grandpop.  Don’t go.”

 

 

Family, Friends, Woolly Mammoths
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Winter                                                       Seed Catalog Moon

African proverb:   “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Groups like families and the Woollies offer us the opportunity for both.  To live long and well, we travel with each other on the ancientrail of life.  To hone a particular skill or project we can go alone, but with others supporting us.

 

Friends, Holidays, Woolly Mammoths

Warm

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Samhain                                                             Winter Moon

Still warm from yesterday evening.  We need the small flames that friendship kindles to keep the soul from growing cold.

Tom’s other gift of holly and acorns, the Holly King and the Oak King, sits above my computer, recalling the struggle between the two over the last six months, a battle that will, starting on the Solstice bend toward the Oak King’s forces of light.

Mark’s gift of polished Woolly Mammoth tusk is up there, too, waiting inspiration.

As many of you know, I’m no longer a Christian, but I celebrate Christmas the holiday still, only now in the way we did last night, by seeing people I love.  No tree.  No gifts.  No cards. No church services. Just other humans walking this most ancientrail–life–together.

 

Faith and Spirituality, Holidays, Woolly Mammoths

up north with friends

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Samhain                                                                Winter Moon

Here is a northern moment.  Good friends gathered in a small room with wine and steaks and snow outside, the cold.  The Holiseason has charged the air with angels and dreidels and long nights.  Ice on the streets and roads creates the kind of gentle confusion, and sometimes not so gentle confusion, that makes driving in Holiseason different from the rest of the year.

We gathered slowly, two Woollys walked up to the bar before I got there.  Mark in his silk Chinese tie and fancy sport jacket with high points on the collar sat with Charlie H. leaning back, comfortable around alcohol, the two smiling and talking.

The Sun Room at the Nicollet Island Inn was back through a labyrinth of halls, past the bar, stuck away from the rest of the place, a private area for ten or twelve, just right for the eight of us:  Warren, Frank, Mark, Charlie H., Paul from Maine, myself, Tom and Bill.

Tom made the evening special with a gift, the meal, a gesture toward the season and toward brotherhood, appreciated by each of us.  It was that special holiday gathering, one of friends genuinely glad to see each other, to listen, to laugh.  May we have as many more ahead of us as we have behind us.

 

Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Woolly Mammoths

Fed

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Samhain                                                     New (Winter) Moon

Drove into Minneapolis in driving snow as far as Coon Rapids, then rain.  The Woolly’s met at Gorkha Palace, a Tibetan-Nepali-Indian restaurant near Surdyk’s Liquor store in Minneapolis.  Tom, Bill, Scott, Mark, Frank, Warren and I had a pleasant meal together.

Each time I go to a meeting I come away nourished in body and soul.  The body is fed.  And so is the soul.  What do I mean by soul?  I mean much the same as I do when I use the word Self, that fluid yet somehow distinct sense that the I in this sentence is a peculiar, particular entity and one always with me, one with me.  That last is tricky because to be one with me implies a separation between me and the I, a separation that does not, I believe, exist.

How does the soul get fed?  By being seen, validated by others who recognize me as a peculiar, particular entity.  It’s important to note though that the soul, the Self that I experience is not the same as the one recognized by others.  Yet, it is fed by others who see me and respond to me as a continuing presence from one time to the next.

It helps the tricky move of the I seeing the Self.  There is a difficulty here.  What part of me sees the Self that is also me?  I know there must be answers to this, but right now they’re escaping me. Ha.

What I’m trying to say here is that this soul is fed by the souls of others, especially others key to his ongoing story.  The Woollys are such people for me as I am for them.  We help each others Selves stay alive and well.

 

 

Faith and Spirituality, Friends, Memories, Woolly Mammoths

Absence

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Samhain                                                    Thanksgiving Moon

Driving home from the grocery store today I went past the street down which Dick Mestrich used to live.  Used to live in the sense that he died a couple of years ago.  It felt like there was a hole there at the end of the street, a place where my knowing went and came back with a false report, an absence.

It led me to think what it would be like if I still lived in my hometown of Alexandria, a town of around 5,000.  I knew people on most streets, classmates, friends of classmates, friends of my parents, business owners, people from church.  By now, at age 66, I can drive past many homes where my knowing would report an absence.  Jim Ragsdale out on Harrison Street.  Pancreatic Cancer.  Richard Lawson and Richard Porter out south on Harrison, Alexandria’s main street.  Richard Lawson from injuries sustained in Vietnam, Richard Porter from a fast-moving disease.  Sherry Basset.  Dennis Sizelove, diedClass of 1965 Float (2) in Vietnam.  Even Karl Kyle the owner of the funeral home that sat diagonally from our house and where my mom’s funeral was held.  Mom and Dad, of course.

As we get older the list gets longer, places where our knowing no longer functions, a hole in our social fabric.

Regina Schmidt, too.  Here.  Moon.  I’m aware that this is how it has been and how it will be.  Death changes life even for the living.  Why this came up for me today, I don’t know. But it did.

One more thing.  It feels ok.  Death taught me its deeply personal lesson long, long ago when my mother died.  I’ve known since then that life is a precious gift, one that can be lost with no forewarning.  This life, this unexplainable awareness and mobility and love, is ours on loan.  The universe wants its elements back, has another use for them.

This holiday I’m thankful for their organization in myself and the people I know, and in the people I’ve known.  A deeply weird opportunity, life.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Feelings, Friends, Great Wheel, Woolly Mammoths

The Samhain Bonfire, a bit more.

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Samhain                                                             Samhain Moon

Frank said as he left, “Casual gatherings.  Low key.  That’s what I like best.”  It was low key, but in its own surprising way, profound.

The bonfire stayed interesting for 3 hours plus, the last hour or so the result of the five four foot lengths of ironwood cut in the morning.  There will be a number more of those logs cut over the next few weeks as we prepare for the Winter Solstice bonfire on December 21st.

The calling of the ancestors to the circle worked.  When we finished, they stayed with us, entering our conversations, adding layers to the people gathered around the fire.  Our group of 7 grew by generations of Fairbanks and Charles’s and Wolfe’s and Perlich’s and Zike’s and Spitler’s.  Some of us called in our tribal ancestors from those days long ago before settlement of Europe and all of us gave a nod and a toast to the Tanzanian man whose y chromosome all the men share.  Mitochondrial Eve, too.  (Though I understand that picture has gotten more complicated.  But the idea is sound.  That woman and that man, far enough back to have entered all our DNA.)

Warren and Sheryl threw their names into the fire wrapped around logs from long ago cached wood for a barbecue.  When they did, sparks from the fire flew up toward the night sky.  Reminded me of Beowulf’s bier, where “heaven swallowed the smoke.”

More memories gather around this place.  It becomes richer with each event, especially with the crowd of ancients who filled it last night.  Some of their spirit will linger on, remembering us and being remembered.