Category Archives: Faith and Spirituality

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality

Sacred

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Imbolc                                                                  Full Bloodroot Moon

“Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.” – Ernest Hemingway

A wordy sentence for the master of terse.  Still.  Not only is it true, it will be true each and every day.  It could also be said that this hour is only one hour in all the hours to come, but what happens in it can influence all the other hours you’ll ever have.  Be here now has its detractors, I know, those who want to talk about history and the future, yet with all their reluctance or eagerness, they must still leave the past behind and the future for the next moment, because we are never in any time other than now.  Life comes to us in the present tense.  Always.  And ends the same way.

A presentation tomorrow morning at Groveland, Redefining the Sacred.  I’ll post it here after I’ve given it.  There’s a whole book, maybe several, in this general theme, a way of understanding the awesome, terrible, wonderful, magical, sacred nature of the lives we live and the world in which we live them, understanding them, that is, without needing an authority to tell us how, understand them within the experiences we have now, not ones we might have later, after death or in some altered state.

You might think my flat-earth approach to religious mystery rules out an after-life or a supernatural possibility.  Not at all.  It just means I don’t have anything to say about it.  If death includes a future, well, I’m there.  If not, I won’t be.  If there is a supernatural realm, a realm of the gods, I want to visit, but I’ve not seen the evidence for it.

So, a way of understanding the sacred within our lived experience excites me, makes me want to tell others of the possibility.  Which I will do tomorrow.

Aging, Art and Culture, Bees, Cinema and Television, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Humanities, Politics, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths

Carpe diem

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Imbolc                                 Full Bloodroot Moon

Got my novel a boost by going out to Blue Cloud, got back and dove into the legcom, MIA, Latin sequence plus finishing my presentation,  Redefining the Sacred, and have gotten little novel work done.  The times.  Now the air has begun to warm up and the snow to melt.  That means more time outside, which I’m eager to get started, but that, of course, means less time inside and all of the winter work is desk bound or at the museum.

When I talked to Kate about my despair for human life on this planet (see yesterday’s post), I also commented on my zest for life.  It’s never been higher, I told her.  OK, yes, the sun shone, the sky was blue and it looked warmer, all boosts to the life zestometer, but it’s more than that.  Kate’s retired and that’s removed a lot of stress from my life as well as hers.  I know this for sure because I have a mild case of psoriasis and its gotten much, much better since her retirement in January.

I’ve also got two challenging volunteer roles, docent at the MIA and the legcom at the Sierra Club, each of them test different skill sets every week.  The Latin work has given renewed confidence in my learning capacity, plus it’s fun in ways I hadn’t anticipated.  We have two grandkids with birthdays coming up.  The dogs are healthy.  Our orchard should begin producing this year.  I know what seeds I’m going to start and what I’m going to plant outside, early.  There’s a novel underway.  I’ve made new friends at Bluecloud and through the MIA and Sierra Club work. This will be my third year as a beekeeper. The Woolly’s are in our 25th year.  Finally, Kate and I have started new physical routines.

Said another way I get to be around art, practice politics, create, grow, love, laugh, visit with friends and family.  Life is full of matters that can keep us excited and eager to get up in the morning.

No matter what the world may be like tomorrow today is a day filled with promise.  So, like my friend, Bill W., I’ll take my life one day at a time.

Aging, Commentary on the news, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Humanities, Minnesota, Politics

They’re just being Republicans

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Imbolc                                                          Waxing Bloodroot Moon

Latin.  Subjunctives, indirect questions, tense sequences.  Done in a bit of a fog, almost like school.  The verb conjugations still have not taken full root in my mind, though at this point I have had exposure to all of them, for all four tenses.  I’ve had exposure likewise to five noun declensions, comparatives, superlatives, pronouns, interrogatives, adverbs, adjectives, ablative uses, dative uses, participles and participial clauses, and subordinate clauses of several types with more  to come.  I’m almost three-fourths through Wheelock and have now translated  75 verses of Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

As unintended outcome, I have found myself metamorphosed, changed.  Just how, right now, is not all clear, but it has something to do with facing a challenge, a language, and coming to grips with it, incorporating it into myself.  Just why I waited until I was 63, I don’t know; fear, yes, time, yes, but the largest barrier was lack of purpose.  When I began to want to know what was behind the translator’s veil, and, in particular, when I wanted to know what was behind the translations of Ovid’s master work, the purpose emerged and a teacher appeared.  There is no time when we stop growing, learning.

Later in the day I prepped for and ran the Legislative Committee for the Sierra Club’s weekly meeting.  This political season will not be kind to our lakes and rivers, our forests and wildlife, our prairies.  The burden will be laid at the foot of the Republicans, but really, they’re just being Republicans, giving political expression to the wills of those who support them.  No, the burden lies squarely at the feet of those of us who want to see our forests, rivers, moose, wolf, prairies and lakes healthy and whole now and into the future.  We have not fought with the same passion today as the Tea Party folk or the Christian Right or the Libertarians.

Over the retreat at Blue Cloud I read two novels focused on the political life of Cicero.  At the end of a brutal period for his political perspective he said, “All regimes come to an end.”

I agree.

Asia, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Travel

Mindfulness

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Imbolc                                                      Waxing Bloodroot Moon

We’ve begun the slippery, muddy slide into the growing season, though I understand some of the parking lot snow piles, many well over 8 feet high and some much higher than that, will take a long time to melt.  Maybe months, into the summer.  The snow always pleases me as it falls and as it covers our world, now over 120 days straight with snow cover, but there is a time when it becomes a nuisance.  The snow went beyond nuisance this year and became a definite hazard as it has become impossible around the piled snow at many city intersections.  When driving the Celica out of the garage here, I’ve not been able to see traffic on 153rd since late December.  In that regard I will be not sorry to see the snow melt away.  On balance, though, I get far more pleasure from the snow than I do hassle, so when it’s time again, I’ll be ready.

Leslie’s mindfulness presentation this morning was wonderful.  We drew mandalas, did a guided meditation and ate a strawberry, a grape, a piece of cheese and a hunk of bread with intention and attention.  We washed it down with water and tea.  Each bite was an adventure.  Made me aware of how unmindful I am when I eat.  Also brought me into the present.  It was a Be. Here. Now. time.  Gotta get back to the meditation, discovered I missed it.

South America.  A lot to learn in the next six months plus.  In addition to scoping out the ports, already somewhat begun, I’ll read at least one comprehensive history of the continent, an ecological history and a natural history.  I want to find a reasonably priced geography, too.  The ones I have found so far are damned expensive.  One of the values of traveling is its ability to make the distant, close and the abstract, real.  There’s a definite gestalt to lengthy travel in a part of the world unknown.  At some point, a point uncertain, an understanding snaps into place, a combination of prior experience, preparation and that small market in Manta, Ecuador, the smells of Santa Marta, Colombia, the sight of glaciers around Punta Arenas.  Then, like the Velveteen Rabbit, South America will become real for me.

Often, I take along some literature, too, perhaps some Allenda, Losa, maybe I’ll just take take a Hundred Years of Solitude and read it again.  The phrase book, too.

Grocery store now.

Dreams, Faith and Spirituality, Politics, Writing

Dreamin’

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Imbolc                                                  Waxing Bloodroot Moon

Still adjusting to this early rising, write, then do the rest of the day which included, today, my 2 hour mentoring session with Leslie, more writing, the legcom call, then doing a quick study on the mourners for a brief tour of them tomorrow.

So, I didn’t have much time to get here today.

Here’s an idea I had before going to sleep last night.  What if our dream life is our real life and the process of this embodied life is the aberrant condition which death resolves?  Actually, the Mexica had a similar idea.  Crazy I know, but maybe worth a story or two.

Aging, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, News of the Strange, Writing

Story Problems. More Story Problems.

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Imbolc                                                        Waxing Bloodroot Moon

OMG.  I can’t count!  I did about one-third the number of words at Blue Cloud as I thought I did.  A silly arithmetic error.  Have you ever seen that Gary Larson cartoon with Hell over the door and a bookcase containing books titled:  Story Problems, More Story Problems, Story Problems the 11 edition?  That’s me.

It doesn’t change how hard I worked, not at all.  Or, the value of getting back to the writing.  Just deflates my overall sense of accomplishment.  Which, come to think of it…

On my last night at Blue Cloud I met an unusual guy, Lawrence Diggs.  Lawrence is a bald headed Africa-American about my age, a Buddhist and refers to himself as the Vinegar Man.  Lawrence and I had a two hour long conversation about reality, economics, racism and writing.  It was strange to meet a fellow flat-earther as far as divine metaphysics go on the last night of my stay at this Benedictine Monastery.  Strange and exhilarating.

When the Woollys go back to Blue Cloud in September, I’m going to set up a visit to the International Vinegar Museum in Rosslyn, about 40 miles to the west on Hwy. 12, toward Aberdeen.  I mean, how many chances will you get to see it?

As I now calculate it, I have about 60-65,000 words done on Missing, counting the Blue Cloud work.  That’s about 2/3’rds of the way.  Just gotta keep plugging away.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Travel, Weather +Climate, Writing

Heading Home Tomorrow

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Imbolc                                     Waxing Bloodroot Moon

Snow has begun to come down in earnest.  I like the view out of my window here in the Bishop’s room.  Snow falls between the two pines that frame the central pane and I can see across the service road toward what I now know is the Monastery orchard.  This is a wonderful piece of land, wooded in parts, with two lakes and ample space for agriculture.  The Monastery did have a large farm at one time.

I’ve decided I’ll head home tomorrow afternoon.  I’m a bit lonely here now and I want to see Kate and the dogs.  Since I get my writing done in the morning, sometimes a bit after lunch, I can write tomorrow morning, eat lunch and head out.  That way I can be back at my desk on Tuesday morning, ready to keep on writing.

So ancientrails will hit the road around 1 pm tomorrow, driving east on Highway 12, then north on 494.

Breakfast today is at 8, not 7:30.  Feels pretty soft, writing here at 7:50 instead of dining in silence.  The Monastery is a great place to focus on writing and I think I’ll return when it comes time to revise one of my earlier works, perhaps in January.  Once I finish the first draft of Missing, I’ll have Kate read it and comment on it, perhaps Lydia, then I’ll set in a manuscript box on the shelf in my study.  6 months or so later, I’ll take it out and read it like a stranger, making the first cuts and revisions.

Though I’ve not practiced it, they say writing is in the re-writing and I believe it.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Humanities

Corvids

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Imbolc                                  New (Bloodroot) Moon

Another image came to me last night.  The monks look like ravens, clothed in black with their beaks pointed backward (the cowl) and a human face where the back of the head would be.  Ravens and the corvids in general are the most intelligent of all birds, having demonstrated their cunning and their problem solving ability to anyone who knows them well.  They also have demonstrated self-awareness, something many humans can’t claim.

In that sense then this would be a rookery with the monks nesting in the long south wing and their guests in temporary nest to the west and north.

The longer I’m here the more I realize what a strong community exists among these 14 monks.  They have roads to plow, vehicles to maintain, building systems to repair and maintain, dishes to wash, the sick to care for, guests to accommodate, prayer services to attend and lead, worship and eucharist on Sundays for the Blue Cloud parish, clothing to make, linens to wash.  Ora et labora indeed.

The brotherhood and intentional community impresses me as does it long historical continuity dating back to the early centuries of the first millennium c.e.

A little weary today of the writing, but I plan to plow ahead anyhow.  That is, after all, why I’m here.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Humanities, Weather +Climate

Hail, La Nina

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Imbolc                                New (Bloodroot) Moon

A while back I asked John Harstad, then the naturalist at Cedar Creek Nature Center, a wonderful place run by the University of Minnesota and only about 15 miles from home, about first signs of spring.  His answer coincided with a local master gardener, “Bloodroot blooms.”  Since that should happen within the waxing and waning of this moon,  I’m choosing Bloodroot Moon for its name.

The snow began to come down this morning and has some legs.  The sky has turned sheet metal gray and the wind blows in from the northeast.  If I recall correctly, such wind direction can foretell deep snow.  Not predicted though.

This is the half-way point in my stay here at Blue Cloud.  I’m feeling it, too.  I’ve been working almost twice as long each day as I usually do when I write at home.  Though I love it, I’m getting tired.  Might be another 10 am nap coming on, too.

Conspirata, a novel about Cicero’s life, has been my casual reading.  I’ve finished 60% of it; I know this because the Kindle gives you a percent read number for each page since you don’t have the sense of the book’s length but its heft.

The other reading I’ve been doing is Livia Kohn’s introductory text on Taoism.  As with most things that interest me, I find as I get deeper into it that my opinion begins to change, split along certain lines where my own sensibilities face challenges.  In the instance of Taoism I find myself drawn more and more into the mystical, physical aspects:  the Dao, the exercises, meditation practices and pushed further away from the political implications, or wuwei (inaction) applied to political affairs.

This doesn’t bother me as I’ve learned, quite a while ago, that I don’t have to swallow the whole message to be enlightened by a school of thought.  Part of the creation of dogma comes as an institutional base emerges around any school of thought.  The dogma supports the creation of certain organizational structures, then the structures become a conservative force clinging to the original dogma, thoughts most often far removed from what Max Weber called the original “charisma.”

Thus, by the time most of us enter into a body of religious or philosophical thought the original genius behind it is hidden by layers of defensive structure and dogma hardened over time, often hardened against the danger of the original charism.

And so forth. Time to pick up the tablet and get to work.  Bye for snowy now.

Bees, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Humanities, Woolly Mammoths

The Bishop’s Room

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Imbolc                                     Waning Bridgit Moon

This room is the Bishop’s bedroom.  B-1 in the Bishop’s wing.  Which has only B-1 and B-2.  When the Bishop comes, he stays in this room, uses this pigeon-hole desk, which I find surprisingly user friendly, and has a whole sitting room for himself and his entourage.

(lined up to reserve this room. this first guy just couldn’t believe they’d let me in ahead of him.)

I imagine I have it because, since Tuesday, I’ve been the sole retreatant.  Just me and 14 monks.  By chance I stayed in B-2 during the Woolly Retreat in February, so I’ve completed a tour of the Bishop’s wing.  This room’s better.  It has this pigeon-hole desk while the other has a flat top desk that would look at home in a down-scale dormitory room at a community college.

The shower here has sliding doors and a plastic molded seat.  B-2 has a narrow stand-up shower almost under a window.  Here, I have a bookcase bed.  In B-2 it was just a bed.  There is also a small nightstand with four drawers and brass handle pulls.  I put my pajamas in there.   Oddly, the drawers all have a divider which makes them less, rather than more, useful.

Tonight, after I wrote in praise of silence, I discovered that the monks kick up their heels on Thursday night, dining in the guest dining area and, wait for it, talking during the whole meal!  I sat with Brother Paul and Brother Chris.  Father Tom joined us, too.

We talked bees.  Brother Paul and Brother Chris are bee-keepers here though they’ve not kept any bees for the last couple of years.  Sounds like they’re going to give it a go again this year.  They have large fields of clover, one of the best honey plants, and alfalfa.