Imbolc Anniversary Moon
found by friend Tom Crane:
Category Archives: Politics
Violence and Holy Wells
Imbolc Anniversary Moon
It was with sadness that I read of the fight at the MIA last week. No matter the apportionment of blame between the two groups, this kind of violence within the museum shocked me. It also underscores the danger of cynics and demagogues setting the tone for our national conversation. Fists and physical confrontations are a means of dialogue, a blunt means, but one nonetheless. When the Whitehouse itself makes racism, anti-semitism, misogyny, xenophobia, terraism (violence against mother earth) not only acceptable, but for some normative, then this country will descend into further acts of violence, often one on one or many on one.
When I first started volunteering at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 2000, continuing education events for docents and guides (I was a guide at the time.) were held on Mondays in the morning. An excellent speaker on some aspect of art, art history or museology would give us an hour to an hour and a half presentation. I have a three inch thick notebook filled with notes from those events.
After the lecture the museum was open, but closed to the public. That meant we could take as long as we wanted to wander the galleries, taking time with this work, then that one. No interference, no one walking in front of you or talking loudly. It was my favorite meditation, of all the ones I’ve tried.
I had certain favorites: the Bonnard with its wonderful colors, Dr. Arrieta by Francisco Goya, the Rug Merchant by Gerome, the tryptych Blind Man’s Buff by Beckman, Kandinsky’s wonderful painting in the same room, the Doryphoros. I also loved the ball game yoke, the Olmec jade mask once owned by John Huston, but the Asian art always occupied most of my time. The tea house, the tea bowls and implements, the tatami room with its beautiful screen of the Taoist Immortals, the seated Buddha, the Scholar’s room, the ferragana stallion in metal, the Song dynasty ceramics, pieces carved from jade, the Wu family reception hall, the sand mandala, I couldn’t spend enough time with them.
On those quiet Mondays these works all became my great friends, friends that stay with me now, even 17 years later and 900 miles away. Also, on those quiet Mondays I found an alternative spirituality, one not rooted in the earth nor in the world’s great religions, but in the inside out nature of creativity. All of these works, some in overt ways, some in the covert way of working within a certain tradition, reveal the inner worlds of the artist. Reverting to the language of the post below the art allowed me-and you-to dive into another’s holy well, to see their inner life. This is a rare and privileged thing which explains to my satisfaction the enduring power of all art.
It is also the diametric opposite of Trumpism/Bannonism. The museum is a place to see what a world without these men can be.
O. My.
Imbolc Anniversary Moon
It’s been a month plus a little now. Little doubt about the direction of Trump’s administration in general terms: chaos and bluster. As to its direction over the long term? Impossible to tell. Neither markets nor foreign countries like an unpredictable U.S. Nor do I.
The only reliable impression I have about the future under Trump/Bannon is that it will be heavy weather. Those of us who view communal responsibility as a given, those of us who view the planet as one place important to all, those of us who see government as an instrument of support rather than the enemy, those of us who see taxes as a shared obligation will find much displeasure in that future, as we already have in the short, terrible time that has passed so far.
How much can he do? Unfortunately, far more than any of us would like. The bigger question is whether he can sink our experiment in self-governance. Admittedly, he’s only brought into obvious relief the oligarchic stranglehold that has dominated post-war U.S. policy, but he’s also trying to discredit critical pieces of our checks and balances: the press, the courts, even knowledge itself. If he can strengthen these attacks, then our nation will be in serious trouble.
And, no, we may not finish the struggle, but we are not at liberty to stop either. Tarfon.
Red Flag
Imbolc Valentine Moon
Went out yesterday with the pole saw and began the task of trimming branches on our lodgepole pines. OMG. Working that saw, always over my head, wore me out pretty fast though I did get several trees limbed. Splintered Forest rents power pole saws and I might rent one for the rest of the work.
I did this work in honor of the red flag warning (highest fire danger) we had yesterday. Limbing up to ten feet prevents a grass fire’s spread into the trees. The branches below 10 feet act as ladder fuel, giving the fire a way to climb. Otherwise the trees are not nearly as combustible. It felt good to be outside, a sunny day, warmish but still cool.
There was a video clip of the recent Meyer’s Ranch grass fire on Pinecam.com. Meyer’s Ranch is near us. When I saw the fire licking up around the tree trunks, it prompted thinking about ladder fuel. The reality was very easy to see.
We chose to live here, so we have to take these matters into account. In a big fire, a crown fire or one whipped by the winds that often roar down mountain, we’ll probably lose the house anyway. This work means that in something less than that it might survive. Being close to the main road, Black Mountain Drive (aka Co. 78), and having a flat, short driveway means firefighters will work to save our house. That ups our odds, too.
And, on that cheery note, I’ll make all this a metaphor. Donald Trump is a red flag warning for our democracy. If we don’t do the important maintenance now and for the next four years, we might lose the White House and self-governance. Get out that pole saw and call your congressperson.
Breaking: Survivors of Bowling Green Massacre to go to Sweden in Show of Support
Imbolc Valentine Moon
Breaking: Survivors of Bowling Green Massacre to go to Sweden in Show of Support
This morning the survivors of the Bowling Green massacre announced they will be journeying to Sweden to show support for what is happening in that country. The trip came together quickly, soon after the president highlighted the terror that is occurring in Sweden because of their immigration policies. It was for the Bowling Green group nothing less than a call to arms to help and support their Swedish brothers and sisters in their hours of need.
“The parallels between the Bowling Green massacre and the terror in Sweden are extraordinary,” said one member of the Bowling Green group.
“I feel as the terror victims of Sweden and I exist in the same small universe,” said another.
The group expects to be welcomed by the Swedish government. “I have contacted them and they said we could get together and smoke a little something,” said the leader of the group. “An activity that I hope will bring us together in important ways. We share so much, we are in many ways the only ones who can understand each other.”
The group will then stop at Maro-Lago on the way home. “We won’t be able to get in of course,” the leader of the group said. “But we will hold a candle light vigil outside, across the water, eating Subway sandwiches. We just want the president to know we are there and we exist….at least in his own mind.
February. Rushing By.
Imbolc Valentine Moon
February always seems to scoot by so fast. It’s the 19th and there are only 9 days left, this not being a leap year. I suppose one reason February seems to move so fast to me is my birthday is in the exact middle of the month, except for those leap years.
Last leap year we plunged over the cliff and down the snake hole into Trumpland. At least that can’t happen again this year; though we do have to navigate the never (we wish) land created by the Disney of political horror. Perhaps Trump is Peter Pan, the boy who would not grow up. If so, does that make Kellyann Conway his Tinkerbell? Even if she dresses like the toy soldier from the Nutcracker Suite?
Went grocery shopping with Ruth yesterday. First time I’ve gone in a while. It was fun having Ruth along. She finds many things that she needs, things not on the list. Yesterday one of them was a potato bagel that we shared on the way back home. Delicious.
Jon moves the last of his things out of Pontiac Street today. I’m hopeful this will be a sharp demarcation point, maybe a turning point in the whole divorce process. His considerable work on that house made it a difficult place to leave and to be shut out of for the last nine months. The restraining order made it so. Finally removing the physical objects that bound him there will help him look forward, no longer tethered by dishes, records, bicycles, pots and pans and books still lodged, like something between the teeth, in his former home.
Our contribution will be taking care of Gabe and Ruth today.
Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis?
Imbolc Valentine Moon
Well. That happened. The 70’s.
I remember that decade as a time where great rock went to die and when the movement began to decline. The reaction against the cultural revolution, hippies and back to the land and free sex and rock and roll and feminism and black power, began to gain momentum. Last year, on November 8th, we saw the culmination of that fulmination. And, it’s ugly.
I’ve asked myself many times in the intervening years whether the 60’s were a mistake, a wrong turn, excess turned into a political rationale. There is no easy answer. Yes, excesses were common, drugs and sex in particular. Some of them though pushed us past the traditional barriers erected by our parents and the people in power. Those excesses allowed us to fight a weighty establishment which had sat on freedom for women, for blacks, even for soldiers caught in a miserable foreign policy, for decades and in some cases centuries.
Today we have the revenge of the cis-gender, straight, white, males and their allies. Shunted aside in the rush for liberty from traditional sexual and racial mores, these folks heard a man who claimed to understand their situation. To them, making America great again meant a return to a time of unconscious and unearned privilege, a time when they had good jobs and could support their families.
As I’ve written here before, how you define is how you solve. These folks see globalization and line-jumping as the primary source of their woes. Not that simple. Automation turns out to be the culprit. We’re manufacturing more than ever before; we’re just doing it with many fewer employees. Shaming corporations into leaving plants here will not do the trick, neither will tariffs on imports. We need a complete rethink of work, of the social safety net, of our common obligations to each other.
If we consider the 60’s as the thesis and the 50 years or so since then as the antithesis, we may now be moving toward the synthesis. That, I hope, is what the next decade or so will bring. I’d love to see the new culture arising from this dialectical struggle, so I hope it begins to take shape before I die.
An Endangered Species
Imbolc Valentine Moon
Let’s call alt-facts what they are: propaganda. Psychological warfare against our own citizens. Though specific attacks on the environment, refugees, people of color and regulations keeping rapacious financiers at bay are horrible, an assault on the nature of truth is deadly.
How can we keep a political dialogue going if facts are subject to derision and distortion and obfuscation? The tobacco/cancer link deniers, the pesticide purveyors, the climate change deniers, the colorful and varied tweets of our Twitler, his outright lies about his inauguration crowd and the massive voter fraud and his distance from his businesses are all instances of outright deception, propaganda presented as fact.
Facts are, of course, subject to interpretation and reasonable people can disagree about their implications. That’s not the issue here. The issue here is changing the facts, ignoring them, hiding them (see the Whitehouse website, for example). Our democracy cannot survive a buffet attitude toward the truth.
I’m not sure that the Trump folks even know the difference between facts and lies. Their ideology or their venal natures may allow them to see only what they want to see. Whatever it is, I hope we can work as a nation to protect truth-sayers, fact-gatherers, lie confounders. Science is a conspiracy, yes, a conspiracy to understand the nature of reality.
So, hard as it is for many to fathom, are the humanities. In studying literature, philosophy, theater, language, cinema we gain the tools to separate fact from fiction. Critical thinking may be the most powerful tool we have in fighting the rise of a nationalist fascism. Critical thinking is taught in the humanities. In them we also learn the value of fiction, when it can enlighten us, when it can deceive us.
Right now facts and the truth they undergird need protection under the Endangered Species act.
Interesting Times
Imbolc Valentine Moon
I’ve been reading a lot. Still. Always. A lot of my recent reading has focused on politics. Surprise! There is no simple analysis, but certain outlines have become clearer to me.
First, the main struggle right now, in both Europe and here, is between globalists, people like me, and blood and soil nationalists, like Trump’s America First. It’s not an either/or, of course, but most of us tend to lean toward one end of a continuum, more concerned about home or more concerned about the world as a whole.
This split has a geographic manifestation. Globalists tend to live in highly populated metropolitan areas while nationalists tend to live in rural or small town settings. If you can recall the red and blue maps of the recent election, you saw this phenomena in color, lots and lots of red, not so much blue. But, if you put population numbers on the map, the blues exceed the red.
Second, this election and its current aftermath has laid bare a disturbing reality of contemporary America. There are former middle class and working class whites whose lives have been upended by globalization and automation and union busting. When today’s world is seen from within their perspective, it looks both bleak and punishing.
The bleakness is the lack of good-paying jobs for those with less education. The punishment comes from seeing others getting in line ahead of you for the American Dream. This line-jumping (Hochschild’s analysis), as it is perceived by white working class folks, has been created by the left’s very successful focus on identity politics: women’s rights, LGBT rights, civil rights. Put these two together, the bleakness and the punishment, and it’s no wonder we have a reactionary revolt underway, just look at your Facebook feed for proof.
Third, there is an abysmal chasm between the 1% and the 99% and the former methods for upward mobility, especially education, seem to be failing. I say this because much of the asset and income gap can be explained by examining the economic situations of those with college degrees and those without them. This education gap reinforces and sustains the growing imbalance in a world where 5 men have as much wealth as 50% of the world’s population.
Fourth, after reading Hochschild’s book, I’m no longer convinced that a focus on economic policies will adequately address the working class movement toward nationalism. I say this because Strangers in Their Own Land opened my eyes to the cultural values of much of the working class and the huge barrier they present to any kind of political conciliation. The barrier is large enough that Marilyn Saltzman, of Beth Evergreen, and I, discussing the book, wondered if this might lead to civil war.
If you can see the interlocking dynamics among all these points, then you understand the depth of the problem we face as a nation. How will all this playout? I don’t know. In the immediate future, at least four years, much of the work will of necessity be tactical, resisting the most egregious moves of Trump and his gang of mediocres; but, it cannot be only that or the electoral political situation will remain the same or worsen.
Interesting times.
They Call It Democracy
Imbolc Valentine Moon
This Canadian folk singer has something to say. Haven’t had music here in awhile. Found by friend and cybermage, Bill Schmidt.