Category Archives: Faith and Spirituality

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.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Holidays, Weather +Climate

Not Wild. Not Yet.

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Imbolc                                    New Moon (Wild)

With the weather calm, blue skies and no wind, welcoming the Wild Moon seems a bit off point.  As February ends, though, and we head into March the character of the Wild Moon will show up.  Soon, the push and pull between winter’s resistance and spring’s temperate insistence will create storms as we oscillate back and forth until the sun’s rising angle makes spring inevitable.  The next  six weeks are a real meteorological festival when our latitudes entertain a host of weather’s finest celebrities:  sudden snow fall, driving rain, howling winds, sleet, ice and bursts of warmth.  Get ready to be entertained.  It will be, well, wild.

This morning the grocery store was full of shoppers with some aspect of Valentine’s day on their mind.  They bought candy, two for one ribeyes and items for their honey’s favorite meal.  As I checked out the clerk, a young woman with orange/red hair asked me if I had special plans for Valentines.  Yes, I told her, it’s my birthday and my wife and I will go out to eat.  What about you? I asked.  Oh, she said, I work until 2:00, then hanging out with friends I guess.  It’s a day for people that love each other to show that.  She  sounded a bit sad.

When I got back there were boxes inside from the mail, one from Singapore and two from Bonaire, Georgia.  One came yesterday from Denver.  Fun.

I’m dickering with Groveland UU to become a field instructor for an intern they want to hire.  It’s an old problem for me.  They don’t have much money, but the time commitment involves travel as well as an hour plus with the intern, once a week for nine months.  A lot of time for me.  Yet, mentoring is, I believe, an important part of our role as we get older, so I want to do it.

Faith and Spirituality, Friends, Humanities, Letters, Literature, Writing

Not Known To Self

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Imbolc                             Waning Cold Moon

“It is clear Charles, you know where you are going, and knowledge is the fuel.”   a fellow Woolly

Have you ever heard of the Johari window?  Here’s a graphic that illustrates it.  The white or open box represents common information shared between yourself and others who know you. The reddish brown box contains the stuff of which you are aware, but have shared with no one.  The third box is the one I’m interested in here, the green box.  It contains material not known to you, but known to others.  This is information to which you are blind for one reason or another, yet is apparent to at least one other.

This comment from a Woolly falls in the blind box for me.  Or maybe not.  A bit hard to tell.

It did make me reflect.  If someone else thinks where I’m going is clear, why would they think that?  Do I really know where I’m going?  Why is knowledge the fuel?

Here’s what came to me, after rolling the idea around for a week or so.

Long ago, perhaps in adolescence, the notion of a liberal arts education became central to my personal project.  How did it get there? It may have been my parents, could have been teachers, might even have been a minister, perhaps all of these plus things I read. The notion of a broad and deep education in the humanities, an education that began at least by the time of college.  There exposure to the great ideas, to the breadth of the human experience, to literature, art, music, theatre would open up a way of perception.  Perception that would inform life, even create a life.

There’s a lot more to this, but I’m tired.  Later.

Aging, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality

Contemplative

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Imbolc                                Waning Cold Moon

Ancientrails hits the road again this afternoon for sunny eastern South Dakota, high above the plains.  There I will reside, for three nights, in a local instance of a 1,300 year plus institution, the Benedictine Monks of the Roman Catholic Church. It’s interesting to me that the international website for the Benedictines has St. John’s in Collegeville as its host.  I have always found the monastic or even the hermetic life appealing which is why I eventually made my peace with Andover and its relative seclusion.

The quiet, contemplative atmosphere encouraged by monastics the world around and in various faith traditions serves a calm heart to a frenzied world, a place to which we can retire if we need.  I’ve had a long stretch with no regular  contemplative or meditative practice, this weekend I plan to enter a new phase, one appropriate to this time in my life.

Aging itself requires a contemplative spirit, an accepting spirit for the challenges that it holds include the inevitable and long shunned confrontation with death.  (Ironic note:  In the midst of this thought I got a robo-call from Congress Michele Bachman which I allowed to trigger upset.)

Kate and I need to check our answers for Chapter 2 right now.  Back at ya.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Friends, Woolly Mammoths

Floating Away to Blue Cloud Abbey

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Imbolc                              Waning Cold Moon’

Last day at home until Sunday.  Headed out to Blue Cloud Abbey, where Kathleen Norris wrote at least two books.  The Abbey’s buildings are 1960’s modernist, most like public elementary schools, save for the Abbey church which has some panache.  The Abbey church, the guest house and the monastic facilities sit on the highest point for miles.  After sundown, the lights of small towns faraway twinkle.

I’m looking forward to an actual retreat with some quiet time spent on meditation and my own spiritual path.  I haven’t done one of those in a long time, too long.  Love is on my mind, right now, so I’ll plan to spend some contemplative time with how it is in my life and how I offer it to others.  This Valentine’s Day, my 63rd birthday, feels like a spur to thinking about love, a bit unusual for me since I’m normally focused on my birthday.  Anyhow, I have a new Parabola focused on love that I’m taking with me.

Woolly Brother Mark Odegard has taken his magic bus to the shores of the  Pacific Ocean outside Puerto Vallarta.  His journey, a pilgrim’s really, takes him where his vision beckons.  I admire his willingness to open himself to the world and to others, a life lived embracing life.  Very Zorba.  And Zorba is one of my heroes.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel

Imbolc 2010

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Imbolc                                            Waning Cold Moon

Though daytime begins to gradually increase right after the Winter Solstice, it is not until Imbolc that we begin to see actual signs of life’s return.  An early indication of life’s strong statement against the inertia of the cold comes as ewe’s become pregnant, have life within their bellies–imbolc.  Not many of us (Gentlemen Jim Johnson excepted, of course) have pregnant sheep in our lives, so this early pointer to the green means little to us.

The weather in Celtic lands had rain and chilly, but not cold, weather in these months, so the grass and plant life would begin to emerge.  Here in Minnesota this week often has some of the coldest temperatures of the year and snow is far from unusual.

The only U.S. ritual I know of directly related to Imbolc is Punxsutwaney Phil. Click this link for a direct immersion in this small Pennsylvania town which still celebrates an animal, the woodchuck, who comes up from a hole in the ground and checks the weather to give an indication of winter’s length.  His prediction stretches out six weeks which takes us close to the time of the spring equinox on or about March 20th.  In other words he predicts the weather during the season of Imbolc.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about my favorite Celtic goddess, Brigit.  This is her holiday and the candles in the picture here allude to the sacred fire, kept burning day and night, for at least 1,000 years and probably much longer, in her honor in the Irish county Kildare.  Brigit is a triple goddess, common in Celtic lore; she is the goddess of the smithy, the hearth and the poet.

The link between these aspects of her is fire and creativity.  The smith, in the time of the ancient Celts was a wonder worker, developing strong tools, weapons and jewelry for the people.  The hearth is the center of domestic life and the Irish put it out once a year and relit it from a large bonfire built on the sacred hill at Tara.  Finally, the poet, a crucial element in Celtic political and creative life, drew his or her inspiration from the holy fire of Brigit’s presence.

Imbolc, called Candlemas by Catholics, is a good time to examine the creative projects in your life:  at work, at home, in any location where you reach in to  your Self and offer something back to the world.  You may want Brigit to participate with you in that search, or you may want St. Brigit, the Catholic saint named after her.

Live into this holiday and this creative season as a person on fire.

Faith and Spirituality

A Convention of Former Therapists and Ex-Wives

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Winter                                            Waning Cold Moon

Strange event today at Groveland.  An old therapist of mine showed up to hear me preach.  An ex-Roman Catholic priest, he came into my life while I was still reeling from a barrage of self-inflicted wounds.  His therapeutic approach was problem-focused, that is, we always discussed what was the matter with me.  In therapy with him I learned that this approach didn’t function well overall for me.  He was a good listener and empathetic, too.  It was, though, over against that school of psychological thought that I sought out a Jungian and found John Desteian.

On thinking about it further I wondered what it would be like to have an event where all my old therapists showed up.  If I added in ex-wives, I could fill a small lecture hall.  What might we discuss? The points I refused to acknowledge.  The ground I could have covered more quickly if I’d only listened.  Or, might we discuss the essential fragility of the human condition, its inevitable pressures on our small selves.  We might have a laugh at the man I was and perhaps, I hope, drink a cup of tea to the man I have become.

Still doubting.  Still vulnerable.  Still fragile.  Yes, but still here, too.

Faith and Spirituality, Friends, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths

The Archaeology of Snow

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Winter                                                   Waning Cold Moon

As the Cold Moon begins to wane, so will the bitterness of our winter,  sliding toward warmer averages, probably more snow, certainly no green for another month plus anyhow.  This winter, like winters of yore, we still have November snow Add Newlayered like archaeological remains below December and those below January.  Even with increased temps we will, most likely, bury these further under a February layer and March until we have five months here, mingled compressed, all vulnerable to the sun that rises higher concentrating its blessing until we discover once again that things still grow here.

Preached this morning at Groveland.  A repeat of Roots of Liberalism.  I wrote this piece originally for Groveland, but ended up presenting it in Wayzata last Labor Day Sunday.  My October date with Groveland, when I would have given it there, they asked me to do some consulting, help them get on top of their disintegrating community.  Too much work for too few volunteers, an old churchbane.  No easy answers, but they’re still at it.

When I presented Roots in Wayzata, it went over so well I felt brilliant for an entire afternoon.  Even then, though, I felt near the end I had reached beyond the patience level of the average listener and I felt the same way today.  The reaction today was less effusive and the discussion less rich, but I felt heard again.  Now I can move forward and get to work on Liberalism, part II:  the present.  Due near the end of March.

Buddy Mark Odegard writes about reading on the beaches of Puerto Vallerta.  He believes we should all emulate the small birds who have the good sense to emigrate during the bleak season to warmer climes.  When I grip the steering wheel with white knuckles while driving on ice, I agree with him.

Asia, Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Great Wheel, permaculture

Ordinary Time

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Winter                              Full Cold Moon

In just two days those of us who follow the Celtic calendar will celebrate the coming of Imbolc.  I’ll write more about it on Monday, but I wanted to note here the difference in timber and resonance between post-Epiphany January and the holiseason just ended.  We move now into the ordinary days, days when the sense of expectation and sacred presence relies more on our private rituals, our own holydays.

In my own case, for example, Valentine’s Day lends this time period a certain magic as its pre-birthday spirit invades the present.  Also, for me and my fellow Woolly Mammoths, this next week marks our annual retreat, so we get ready for it, this time again at Blue Cloud Monastery in South Dakota.  It is, too, for those with any presence in the Chinese world, just a couple of weeks before the beginning of the spring festival, or, as we know it here, Chinese New Years.  This year it begins on my birthday.

Imbolc, too, has sacred resonance and its six week period marks the beginning of the growing season here as seeds for certain long growing season vegetables like leeks must get started.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Myth and Story

Jung

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Winter                                 Waxing Cold Moon

“The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.” – Carl Jung

Jung has been central to my later life and this quote shows one reason.  He recognized the indescribable complexity of the lived experience and never tried to simplify it.  We live into problems, rather than roll over them or change them.  If we’re lucky, we make the problems part of our lives, otherwise they eat away at our lives.

Life from 17 to about 37 was difficult for me.  Sometimes in the extreme.  When Mom died, though I couldn’t see at the time, my world fell apart.  It didn’t have to, but I let it.  I internalized my grief, took up drinking and smoking and completely screwed the pooch when it came to making use of a pretty good academic career.  I ended up in the ministry, a place I should probably have never been and it took me 20 years  to extricate myself from that.  Along the way I got married twice, to women for whom I was a bad fit and who were a bad fit for me.  I drank myself into alcoholism, got cleaned up, but didn’t get better until I realized my second marriage was a bad one.

In that process I found John Desteian, a Jungian analyst.  He guided me on a journey of self-exploration and honest self-reexamination.  Much of what I learned about myself was painful, some of it exhilarating.  In the end, I left the ministry, started writing, found Kate and got myself headed off in a direction that fit who I was then and am now.

Jung’s metaphysics may be wrong, who knows?  The collective unconscious has no falsifiable reality.  The Self, as Jung understands it, stretches into neo-platonic realms.  Could be wrong.  His naming of complexes and archetypes likewise have no tangible referents. Doesn’t matter.

What does matter is this.  The blend of thought that Jung put forward encourages me to take mySelf seriously, yet to do so lightly.  It acknowledges the essentially messy and chaotic nature of both inner and outer life, yet makes clear that the only through it is eyes open, heart open, with forgiveness for yourself and others as humans struggling together.  That worked for me, works for me, and will see me through to the end of my life.

Thanks, Carl Jung.  I needed what you offered.