Category Archives: Faith and Spirituality

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Holidays, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Darkness Approaches

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Lughnasa                                                            Harvest Moon

The night takes on a different quality as fall approaches.  In my study I’m half below ground with windows opening out at waist level, the lawn sweeps toward me.  An animal safe in a warm burrow, protected from the storm and cold, or, I would be if there were any storm and cold.

(Giovanni Battista Ciolina – Melancholy Twilight (1899)

The change in light, the lower night time temperatures, the scudding clouds like there were today change the seasonal tone from brightness and beaches and growing things to  darker and more forbidding shades.  As this shift deepens and the night begins to overtake the day, as happens at Mabon, the Fall Equinox, most of us feel a bit uneasy, perhaps even a good deal.

By late November and well into December this uneasiness has intensified, perhaps that paleolithic fear that the sun would no longer rise at all, or that it would remain in its pale and weakened state, never again to warm us and encourage the plants.  So we fight back with bonfires and candles and festivities, lamps and decorations, gifts and food, celebration in spite of the vague menace.

Thus, by some wry twist the darkest and bleakest days of the year have the most joy, the most song, the most brave gestures we know.  We will move, around Thanksgiving, into Holimonth, a season stretching from then until Epiphany that features many of the best loved days and nights of the whole year:  Hannukah, Christmas, Posada, Winter Solstice, New Years, Deepavali.

Perhaps I would even go so far as to declare a Holiseason beginning on September 29th, the feast of the archangel Michael and lasting from then right through Epiphany.  All of October, November and December months of special observance with holidays as peaks lifted up from a plateau of enhanced sensibilities that lasts the entire time.  Why not?

Asia, Faith and Spirituality

Sunday Matters

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Lughnasa                                                                             Harvest Moon

Song of Myself, excerpt from Stanza 6

What do you think has become of the young and old men?

And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the

end to arrest it,

And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

 

Revised my presentation for Groveland UU this morning.  It was better than I remembered, but still in need of some fiddling.  It also needed some readings so I poked around on Poetry.org for poems on aging.  Several good ones in addition to this piece from Whitman’s long poem, Song of Myself.  I’ll post the others on the third phase page for poetry.

After finishing that, I took out my toothbrush, toothpaste and my newly acquired yixing tea pots.  And scrubbed.  With the toothpaste.  The teapots.  Odd, eh?  Yet it’s the first thing to do in seasoning.  Scrapes off the wax used to make them look good in a showroom, that new teapot look, you know.

After that they get rinsed off, wrapped in soft cloth, lid and pot separately to avoid damage and boiled for 30 minutes.  Allow to cool.  Rinse with lukewarm water.  Then, if you want to do a professional seasoning, and of course I did, I mean why start the whole process without going all the way, you put three scoops of the tea you’ll be making in the teapot in yet another pot of boiling water.

Let it sit for 30 minutes, making a strong tea, then rewrap pot and lid in soft cloth, boil, you guessed it, 30 minutes, let them cool down and rinse off in the lukewarm water.  Now I’m ready for some gong fu cha.

They’re still cooling down so I haven’t made my first pot yet.  But I will tomorrow.

 

Faith and Spirituality, Humanities

Oh, Dear

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Lughnasa                                                                       Honey Moon

“Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Here’s some distressing reading.  And not for the reason that it indicates.  You can find other low-paying majors at: 20 Majors That Wont Make You Money.  There is, today, a sense that all higher education should be vocational education, only with more money at the end.  As we skid slowly out of the recent Great Recession and several million baby boomers slide toward retirement with little in the way of savings, it’s not hard to grasp the zeitgeist for all this.

But it’s a mistake.  The emphasis on lifetime earnings comes down very hard beside the point of education.  There’s an even more distressing list:  15 Majors that Will Make You Rich.   If you set out with the only goal in mind the accumulation of wealth, you will make wealth your lodestone.  That means your decision making compass will always swing toward the main chance, the lucrative deal, the high salary, the big payoff.

Another way of describing this is that wealth will become your center of value.  You will value other things in proportion to their capacity to make you wealthy.  Think then about spouse and children.  Think about the dog or the cat you love.  Think about the sport you play with passion.  Think about the music or art or literature that gives your life richness, texture.  Where do these things stand relative to your value center?

The compass needle does not turn toward them.  At best they are on the periphery of what you value most.  I’m not saying that you can’t make a lot of money and not have all these things.  Of course, you can.  Some do.

But let’s look at it another way.  What if you started out with the goal of a good life, a life of friends, family, learning, joy and service?  What if that rich life was your goal rather than a life of riches?  How would your decision making needle twitch now?  How would spouse, children, pets, sports, arts stand in relation to your value center?

Notice, too, that if the good life included wealth, wealth would be at the service of the good life rather than life at the service of wealth.  This is a world-defining difference.  And, of course, just the kind of thing you might expect from a philosophy and anthropology double major.

The material below comes from the 20 majors what won’t make you money weblink.

#2 Anthropology

Anthropology has the unfortunate distinction of being just about the worst major for your career. Recent graduates earn just $28,000 a year. That’s less than many people make with just high school diplomas.

And those anthropologists consider themselves lucky. They’ve managed to beat the odds of 10.5% unemployment rate in their field.

What’s the best you can hope for with an anthropology degree? A 7% unemployment rate and roughly $40,000 a year, on average. Those are some of the lowest grad earnings in human history.

#13 Philosophy and Religious Studies

Looking to expand your mind with Philosophy or Religious studies? We hope you count your wealth in terms of knowledge. Graduates make just around $42,000 a year on average.

That doesn’t sound too terrible, but it’s 20% less than the grads in the top 100 majors make. And that’s not the starting salary. New grads make $30,000 a year and must overcome 7% unemployment.

That’s probably why these majors are twice as likely as their peers to end up working retail. But it won’t be too bad. You’ll have a lot of time to ponder the nature of the universe while you fold shirts.

 

#1 So What Should You Major In?

This all amounts to a lot of bad news. So is going to college really worth it at all? Sure, but to earn more than a high school dropout, you have to pick the right major. The best earning majors are those in the science, technology, engineering and math fields.

And you don’t necessarily have to rethink your passion to earn more. Look for branches within these fields that satisfy your particular yen for knowledge.

If you’re worried about your earning potential, it pays to do the research. A few minutes of investigation now can save you from a lifetime of low wages.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Myth and Story, Writing

My Mythic Past

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Lughnasa                                                                           Honey Moon

Most of the day among the eddas of Snorri Sturluson and various books on German and Scandinavian mythology.  This is the material that lies beneath the Tailte trilogy, this one at least, and it has fascinated me for a long time.  Since over half of my ancestry is Germanic, this is the song of my people, the stories and tales which knit the world together for ancient northern Europeans.

(Snorri)

In my writing, mostly, I have focused on Celtic and northern European lore because they are my heritage, a vein I can mine without approbation of cultural encroachment.  I don’t believe that’s necessary, but it makes my psychic life easier.

I’m still trying to understand the elusive Loki, often called a trickster, but in the end an enemy of the Aesir, leading the giants and the unworthy dead against them.  The einherjar, the worthy dead, those who died in battle and were chosen by the Valkyries to feast in Valhalla until Ragnarok and the Aesir, the pantheon of Nordic gods fight to keep the world whole.  Loki is a character central to Loki’s Children and the book after that, The Unmaking, but he’s tough to define and will be a challenge to create.  That’s what makes him interesting, of course.

(Loki, the Trickster — artwork by Arthur Rackham, 1910)

A lot of the best scholarship on the eddas and other poems of the northern European tradition are in German and Scandinavian languages so it is sometimes a struggle to find decent material.  I’m lucky in one regard in that years ago, on a whim, I picked up a multi-volume work called the Norroena:  the history and romance of northern Europe.  It contains translations into English of the major works, up to date as of 1905.  I have read all the works in the Edda volume, a fascinating collection of stories put together by an Icelandic scholar, politician and Skald, Snorri Sturluson.

 

Faith and Spirituality
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8/14/2013  Lughnasa                                                                  Honey Moon

“The general function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that re-establishes, in a subtle way, the total psychic equilibrium.”   Carl Jung

Art and Culture, Dogs, Faith and Spirituality

Doubled Vision

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8/11/2013   Lughnasa                                                             Honey Moon

Rigel, who weighs about 120/130, likes to come up to my chair while I’m reading, then put first one leg, then another in my lap.  Her head, now close to my chest, looks up at 2012 05 01_4255me, then she rests it there.  Not long.  But for a bit.  How long she stays in my lap varies, usually not more than a minute, if that.

In years before I might have shrugged her away, wanted to get on with my reading, not realized the precious moment that was happening.  With Tor, our great yellow Irish Wolfhound, a true sweetheart, much like Vega, Rigel’s sister, I began to have a doubled vision. No, not double vision, but doubled.  I would see Tor, smiling at me from the carpet, and I would see Tor dead, lying stiff and lifeless.  This may seem gruesome, and perhaps it is, but it comes from having experienced the deaths of so many dogs.

The phrase, how terrible it is to love something that death can touch, had become a present reality for me.  This doubled vision, a long and painful lesson taught to me by so many dogs, has changed my life.  When Rigel comes to visit in my chair now, I see the moment for what it is.  A time that will never come again.  A time that means everything, all of it, right in that instance.

In the way of tea the Japanese tea-master takes unbelievable pains to ensure that the tea ceremony you attend is a once in a lifetime experience, ichigo ichie.  The tea-master chooses art, flowers, tea cups, fresh water vessels, waste water vessels, foods and candies all with you in mind.  The Japanese tea-ceremony reminds in an elegant way, that every moment has the potential to be a once in a lifetime moment.

With the giant breed dogs, whose lives are so short, each moment is so clearly once in a lifetime.  They have taught me to cherish those ordinary moments, a dog crawling in my lap, as a time of unique tenderness.  This doubled vision, though I don’t encourage it necessarily, has taught me that it is this moment, this time, right now that is the time we have together.  Much better to embrace it than wish for it after death has already come.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

At The Limit

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Ancientrails hit its size limit on my host, 1&1, and has to be moved to a larger venue.  Bill Schmidt is working on that right now.  It took a bit of time to realize what was wrong.  I’ll be back online as soon as possible.  Thanks

 

Soul

Lughnasa                                                                      State Fair Moon

The soul. As probably understood most of the time (in the West):  a non-material component of the body-mind-soul combination that makes up all human beings.  This third component floats free at death, off to any number of possible outcomes depending on your belief:  heaven, reincarnation, nirvana, Elysian Fields, Valhalla or hell.  Usually the soul’s journey after life is believed to have some correlation with adherence to one moral code or another.  Might be karma, might be sin, might be courage and bravery, might be heroic stature.

If your belief aligns with any of these understandings, then the third phase, as the one we know for certain ends with the terminal phase and the terminal moment, becomes critical, a blessed time when spirituality and spiritual attentiveness prepares you for the afterlife.  Not gonna say how you might do this because it entails too many variables but the menu certainly includes:  retreats, meditation, reading, prayer, perhaps engagement with a community of fellow travelers. It also includes attention to the past if you feel making amends or restitution or penance is part of your journey.

And if you’ve been so engaged prior to the third phase, congratulations.  Now this kind of personal work can become a key thread in your life.

The soul:  As I understand it at the moment.  Roughly equivalent to the Self, a holistic view of the you that is body-mind-soul.  Now.  In this understanding the third phase stands as a blessed time when you can become more of who you already are.  It can mean jettisoning the persona-pack you’ve carried in the world of work for a persona more consonant with the Self.  If you’re lucky enough to come into the third phase with a persona and Self in healthy dialogue, you’re in good shape.  This time can then be an extended exploration of the unique gift you are to this world.

Soul work:  These two perspectives, one tied if loosely to religious tradition, and the other tied closely to the humanist tradition in Western culture are not exclusive of each other.  That is, both ancientrails can overlap in any one individual.

Next time:  what then might we do?

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Third Phase

Terminal Phase. Sabbath.

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Lughnasa                                                                     Moon of the First Harvests

Some rough ideas, thrown out as thought provokers for now, on the third phase.  In September I’m going to do a presentation to Groveland UU on the third phase and want to start thinking out loud here, maybe draw in some comments from those of you who read Ancientrails.

1st phase:  learning [self, relationships, general skills and particular skills]

2nd phase: praxis [learning put into practice with career, family, personal growth]

3rd phase: soul work [work that only you can do.  inner work.  life review, summing up]

terminal phase:  dying [good-byes, cleaning up, finishing up, endings]

The terminal phase is a new addition to my third phase thinking and it’s based on being with Kona as she died and on the experiences some of you have had, notably Bill Schmidt and Scott Simpson, as loved ones died, but slowly.

NB: the word associated with the phase is that phase’s primary and guiding emphasis, where the inflection of life in our culture comes down.  Certainly we learn in each phase, put our learning into practice in each phase and do soul work in each phase.  It’s the dominant motif that concerns me as I think about phases.

3rd phase as life’s sabbath.  This idea just came to me today.  It segues somewhat with the traditional view of retirement as life’s last vacation, a sort of permanent weekend, but goes well beyond it.  If you agree with me that we might consider the third phase primary emphasis as soul work, then the third phase can be seen as a point when we move more and more often from ordinary time (a favorite Catholic liturgical idea) into extraordinary time, what I would call sacred time.

That means we may want to pay attention to rest, reflection, contemplation, retreats, doing work that more often integrates than fulfills needs.  In my case time in the garden helps.  Time not spent writing or reading, unless it’s poetry or some other reflective material.  Time sitting in the chair, eyes closed, thoughts wandering.  Meditating.  Being with friends.

These are just the nubs of ideas.  Interested in what you think.

 

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Garden, General, Great Work, Our Land and Home

Dancing in the Garden

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Lughnasa                                                         Moon of the First Harvests

We’ve settled into a rhythm that will continue until the last substantial harvest.  I go out in the mornings and harvest.  Kate then pickles, cans or freezes.  I helped with the garlic drying, but otherwise she’s done all the work.  We’ve had to clear the detritus out of the food storage room, gathered there over the winter and spring, because now trips down there for empty canning jars or to deliver full ones have become frequent.

Kate said she needed a calico dress and a gingham (Gangham?) apron.   I suggested a bonnet.  This work for her, right now, is primary in her life and she reports getting energy from doing it.  She must because she stands long hours in the kitchen.  Of course, she’s one tuckered out gal at the end, but the pantry has more stores and she feels good.

This whole garden is a dance with each of us playing different roles over the course of the season.  I have overall responsibility for the gardens and their health.  I do most, but not all, of the planting, all of the international ag labs supplementing and survey the various beds for plant health over the course of the growing season.  If there’s corrective action to be taken, that’s my job.  I bag the apples and take care of the fruit trees, also harvesting. (but not pruning.)

Kate weeds and that is one huge job.  One I don’t like.  She says it brings her satisfaction. I can’t get no satisfaction there so I’m glad she can.  At harvest time Kate takes the lead and chooses what kind of recipes to use and what methods of preservation to employ.  Near the end, when the leeks come in, I’ll make pot pies for freezing.  We both do fall clean-up and I plant bulbs.  Then the garden takes its long late fall and winter nap.