Category Archives: Woolly Mammoths

Commentary on Religion, Woolly Mammoths

The Largest Hindu Temple in the USA

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Beltane                                    Waxing Planting Moon

The largest Hindu temple in America is in Maple Grove.  Who knew?  I dare  you to find it there, though it’s a big place, set on 80 acres and rising high above the plowed fields to its south.  The location makes it intriguing as it sits next to farms and has a large marshland on its property.  This was my fourth visit to the temple, the first since Indian sculptors finished all the smaller temples, 21 in all, and since the carvings have come almost all the way down the temple facade pictured here.  Not a usual sight in Minnesota.

The Woolly’s met there tonight and heard a presentation on Hinduism by Dr. Sane, the founder of the Children’s Hospital and the energy behind the development of the Hindu Mandir of Minnesota.  We then had a fine Indian dinner served by a temple cook.  Great desert, as usual, but the best nan I’ve ever had.  Worth coming back for the food.

After the meal we adjourned to the main room of the temple which has smaller temples built inside housing the living statues of various Hindu deities. (Sri Durga) The main temple deity is Vishnu and he has the largest temple.  He faces the large ceremonial doors which, when opened, shine the light of the rising sun on his body.  Shiva, Lakshmi, Ganesha and Saraswati also have temples.  Each temple has the superstructure of a particular temple located somewhere in India.

All during our presence in the main temple area, Hindu priests with the Brahmanic thread, shirtless and shoeless, chanted prayers, offered pujas and lit incense.  The smells of the incense transported me to Singapore where my sister Mary and I celebrated Diwali by visiting a couple of temples, shopping in Little India and watching the fire walking in the early am hours of a November morning.

This mandir incarnates the global cosmopolitanism that cities across the world have begun to display.  We’re lucky to have it here.

Aging, Art and Culture, Bees, Friends, Great Work, Health, Humanities, Woolly Mammoths, Writing

When Do Many Avocations Become a Vocation?

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Beltane                                       Waning Flower Moon

Beekeeping, it seems to me, must always fall under the avocational** rather than hobby* definition, because it engages one’s time in a manner similar to an occupation, only perhaps not in as time intensive a way.  Under the latter definition I have an avocational interest in gardening, writing, art, religion, politics and now Latin.
Add them all together, as I do in my life, and the result is a vocation composed of many parts integrated through my particular participation in them.

I like the idea of a hobby as an Old World falcon, that is, engaging the world with grace and speed, stooping now and then to pluck a prize from the earth below then returning to some nest high and remote to enjoy it.

Whoa.  Worked out last night at the new, amped up level, after advice given to me by an exercise physiologist.  My polar tech watch which monitors my heart rate began to fade so I didn’t have a reliable way of checking my heart rate.   Guess I overworked myself because when I finished dizziness hit me and nausea soon followed.  Kate was home last night so she took care of me, eventually giving me a tab of my anti-nausea med.  That calmed things down, but didn’t put me right.  So I went to bed early.  Even this morning my stomach was sore, like someone had removed it and wrung it out like a dish rag.  Kate says I may have too little fluid during the day yesterday combined with salty foods.  Combined with the more vigorous workout it upset my body’s homeostasis.  It put me temporarily in the same place as the benign positional vertigo.  No fun.  No fun at all.

Lunch today with Paul Strickland.  He still doesn’t know for sure why his hemoglobin levels dropped so far.  He had a five-hour iron infusion last week and his color is better as are other symptoms.  We talked about his and Sarah’s place in Maine which has the possibility of a large LNG port being created nearby.  This is Eastport, Maine, roughly, and borders Canada, so the Canadian government has a voice as well as environmental groups.  Sounds horrific, an example of big corporate power taking on a relatively weak local government.  Bastards.

More sleep after.  I have returned to near normal but I’m going to skip the workout tonight just to be sure.

I have never sought nor do I plan to seek retirement though most folks would call me retired and I so call myself at times in order to give folks a handle easily understood.

At 6:00 pm I’m going to my first meeting of the Minnesota Hobby Beekeeper’s Association. It raises an interesting question for me about the difference between a hobby and an avocation.

The first two definitions here are of the word hobby:

*1. Etymology: Middle English hoby, from Anglo-French hobel, hobé
Date: 15th century

: a small Old World falcon (Falco subbuteo) that is dark blue above and white below with dark streaking on the breast

2. Etymology: short for hobbyhorse
Date: 1816
This one comes from an entry on avocation:

: a pursuit outside one’s regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation

** Etymology: Latin avocation-, avocatio, from avocare to call away, from ab- + vocare to call, from voc-, vox voice — more at voice
Date: circa 1617   : a subordinate occupation pursued in addition to one’s vocation especially for enjoyment
Woolly Mammoths

Late for Dinner

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Beltane                                Waning Flower Moon

Arrived at Christos at 6:30 pm, everyone had their plates in front of them and had finished.  Guess I missed the 6:00 pm memo.  I thought our time was 6:30.

We had a long discussion about bees.

Mark has an idea for a house-boat trip down the mighty Mississippi using his acquaintance with locks and the river.  Sounds fun to me.  Sign me up.  Warren is at the legislature covering health-care issues.  Scott saw an I-Max movie about the Hubble telescope that he highly recommends.

It was Frank, Paul, Bill, Scott, Mark, Warren, Stefan and myself.

A long day after a long day after a long day.  Tired now.

Aging, Art and Culture, Bees, Family, Friends, Garden, Health, Woolly Mammoths

Man About Town

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Beltane                                    Waning Flower Moon

We were both a bit achy from yesterday’s garden-a-thon, but it’s that good kind of ache that comes from things accomplished, the kind of things outside, those things that often feel more substantial, more real than the reading and writing.

Today has busy on it, too.  In an hour there’s a going away party for Michele Yates, a sweet woman, an artist, a French citizen long ago, now American for the most part.  We’ll miss Michele, we being the docent class of 2005.  We’re a close group, again for the most part.  We met every Wednesday for two years, not to mention hours of practice tours, parties, that trip to New York, enough time to bond with each other and as a group.  Michele is part of us and she’s leaving, so we need to say good-bye.

I leave Michele’s party to visit my dermatologist, not exactly a 9 on my thrillometer, but one of those important self-care things, like teeth cleaning and annual physicals.  Dr. Pakzad, a thin, intense guy comes in white coat, hurried but kind, confident.

In between Dr. Pakzad and the Woolly restaurant evening tonight, I have to get in a nap, queen my divide and check the package colony for larvae.  It’s doable, but it will be a whir.

Tomorrow morning I’ll go with Kate for her first visit to Dr. Heller, who does the minimally invasive hip replacements.  This visit should determine whether Kate has the right pathology for a hip replacement.  I hope she does.  She throws her right leg out as she walks, trying to find a movement that doesn’t cause pain.  With no luck.

37

The Way takes no action, but leaves nothing undone.
When you accept this
The world will flourish,
In harmony with nature.

Nature does not possess desire;
Without desire, the heart becomes quiet;
In this manner the whole world is made tranquil.

Bees, Friends, Health, Memories, Woolly Mammoths

Friends

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Spring                                                  Waxing Flower Moon

The Woollies met last night at Stratford Wood where Bill and Regina live.  The topic of the evening was friendship, requiring time one said, trust another, play yet another.  We evoked our history as a group of men who have given each other time, trust and vulnerability.  We talked about the vessel, the container we have created, a place of safety and love.  We wondered about men and the trajectory of men’s lives that leads away from the easy friendships of youth and into the barren land of male competition and ambition.

One of us spoke of his wonderful physical.  His doctor commended him on lowering his blood pressure through diet alone.  All looked well.  Until the phone call.  Which said his hemoglobin numbers were well below normal.  Since then he’s been endoscoped, colonoscoped and even put on film by a small bowel camera.  No joy.  No explanation.  Only shortness of breath going upstairs and fatigue.  He sees a hematologist this week.  Kate thinks the hematologist will probably take a bone marrow biopsy.

My swollen hand and bruised middle finger got some attention.  We discussed, again, the bees.  Charlie said I should get an epi pin right away.  Kate, who sees a lot of bee stings in urgent care, has a more moderate evaluation.  A localized reaction to multiple stings.  I think she’s right.

Cybermage Bill Schmidt’s brother in Iowa still lives, though in hospice care.  Another brother, Bob, had a near deal with sepsis.  Life is fragile and wonderful, treat with gladness.

Humanities, Letters, Woolly Mammoths

Liking Latin

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Spring                               Awakening Moon

Didn’t go into the Woolly restaurant meeting this evening and feel mildly guilty.  I didn’t have a good reason not to go, I just wanted to stay home.  Showing up is important.  Anyhow.

How about this?  I’m really liking Latin.  Not quite sure why.  It has a puzzle aspect I find enjoyable and, of course, there’s the learning curve which I find challenging–a good thing for me.  The key reasons are two, I suspect.  First, I’ve never finished studying a language, have never gotten to a point where I felt like I had a good grasp of one.  A bit of French, some Greek, some Hebrew, some previous Latin, a disastrous semester of German, but no focused, positive experience.  I feel like I’m headed toward a good grasp of Latin.  Second, I have a particular goal, translating Ovid’s Metamorphoses for myself.

There’s a novel in there, too and I’m excited about that as the language comes more and more easily.

I also like having a tutor.  This one-to-one learning works well for me.  Kate’s taking it has ramped up my learning by the joint working through of chapters after we finish the assignments separately.  So, there’s that together aspect to it, too.

Tomorrow I’ll finish the ancient sentences, translating from Latin into English, then a bit of Cicero, but I’m most excited about a paragraph of Ovid I’ll translate, too.

Bees, Humanities, Woolly Mammoths

Vanitas

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Spring                                    Waxing Awakening Moon

A Woolly brother goes in for knee surgery on Monday.  He’s a bright guy who will select a surgeon with care.  He’s also good at taking care of himself so I’m sure the surgery and the recovery will go well.

These are the years when retirement income and the upcoming procedure can fill a lot of conversation.  The body degenerates, the centre does not hold, things fall apart.  The way of it, this human, animal, mammal, finite life.

I had planned to check on my bees tomorrow, see if they pollen patty needed replacing and put on a syrup feeder, but the weather guy says cloudy, cool and wet.  Not a good bee day.  Like many of us, bees stay home when the weathers inclement and they don’t like uninvited guests.  Really don’t like them.  Sunday or Monday look better.  I’ll wait.

Kate and I are through Chapter 9 in Wheelock, closing in this week on Chapter 10.  We also got a book of readings and now do sight reading in each session in addition to the readings in the book.  This last reading was from Seneca about slaves and masters.  It’s moving.  The issues of slaves and slavery is old, very old and the issues of freedom and the injustice of slavery is also old, very old.

The more we work with the Latin the more I become committed to classical scholarship and the doors it opens into human thought, human thought not in dialogue with Christianity, but with the world of Athens.  This is a world both intimately connected to us, yet very foreign, too.  It is pagan, though that’s an anachronism, since before Christian dogma, there were other religions, not paganism.

I’m still pumped about the health care reform even if it fell short of single-payer.  That’s for later.  Right now, let’s party.

Art and Culture, Bees, Woolly Mammoths

Putting the Stuff Together

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Imbolc                                   Waxing Wild Moon

A tour for Academia Caesar Chavez this morning.  Delightful 4th graders with lots of questions and energy.  I think they liked looking over the railing into the fountain court about as much as anything.   The talent level in the docent corps always amazes me.  The two women docents who shared this tour with me were, respectively, a professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary and a retired professor of epidemiology from the Public Health department at the UofM.deep-hive-body

After the tour I had lunch at Keegan’s Pub with Frank Broderick.  He gives me the leftover corned beef after his St. Patrick’s day meal for the Woollies, but he forgot on Monday.  He had a corned beef sandwich for lunch and I had bangers and mash.  The bangers were much smaller than the ones I remember from England.

The first order this season from Mann Lake Bee Supply came yesterday.  It had eleven hive bodies and seven honey supers.  Kate has a hive body and a honey super already put together.  A hive body is deeper than a honey super since it contains frames that house brood, the queen and the nurse bees.  A honey super is about half the size to fit the honey frames.

(pics:  a deep hive body and a honey super with frames)super-frames

We’re buzzing.

Woolly Mammoths

Supper at Frank’s House

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Imbolc                                               New Moon (Awakening)

Tonight we sat around Frank’s long table, a green shamrock table cloth decorating its top, a pot of shamrocks in the middle, on it platters of corned beef, bowls of mashed potatoes and cabbage and soda bread in saucers.

Instead of our usual Irish related conversation we turned to a difficult topic.  A person known to several of us and close to one of us has been charged with murder.  The circumstances are not clear at this point, but it seems he had a fist fight with a much bigger guy and as a result of the fight the other guy died.

This is not the usual Woolly territory though we have children and friends who have stumbled badly with drugs and alcohol, even two instances of gang related activity, but murder enters a whole new realm.  This is a saga that has just begun.  He is in jail and the family has sought a defense attorney but not settled on one  yet.  A tragedy on many levels.

Afterward we discussed topics ranging from female mutilation to how to avoid urinary leakage, a common older male problem.  Mostly though we laughed and enjoyed each others company.  The extraordinary thing about the Woollies is how the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

Aging, Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Literature, Woolly Mammoths

Turning 63

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Imbolc                            New Moon (Wild)

“Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”- Franz Kafka

It’s not an especially significant birthday in the way of things.  63 is a lull between OMG I’m in my 60’s and 65, the all purpose retirement age in former times.  The lack of symbolic significance and its very ordinariness makes me happy to turn 63.  I have no expectations about life at 63.  So far, the 60’s have been kind to me.  I’ve lost no friends, no family.  With the exception of Kate’s back trouble, no one I know has a serious ongoing health problem.  Frank Broderick who at 77 is now in his 15th year after his first heart attack manages his cardio problems, proving that even yesterday’s fatal condition can now fit into a long life.

(Rembrandt self-portrait at 63)

Turning the prism one more  time 63 astonishes me.  Why?  Because of its very ordinariness and because of its lack of symbolic significance.  Not so long ago, say when I was in my teens, folks my age had begun to teeter toward a time of serious old age and disability.  That point in life is still not on the observable horizon for me.  In fact, it’s possible some number of us reaching this age will be relatively healthy and able until our final days.  Quite a change.

On a personal note I have made my peace with the world in terms of success.  What I’ve had, little but some, will do.  I enjoy the love of a good woman and five dogs here at home and the circle  expands to nuclear family and extended family and friends like the Woollies, the docents and the Sierra Club folks.  My days have meaningful labor that changes with the seasons.  I live in a country I love, a state, and a home.

Intellectually and creatively, it seems, I’ve just begun to come into my own, which means there are satisfying frontiers still ahead.

Then there is Kafka.  Kafka.  What an odd and yet appropriate quote from  him.  He knew with fine detail the absurdity of modern life, yet he  found aesthetics central to a life of real engagement.  Me, too.