Category Archives: Great Wheel

Great Wheel, Holidays, Judaism

A Spiritual Audit

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Sorry about that unedited first line yesterday. I reread my posts to check for errors. Apparently I didn’t for that one.

Nights have become cooler as the calendar turned over to September. What to look forward to in September:

Harvest Moon

Mabon. The fall equinox. (for us northern hemisphere types)

Michaelmas on the 29th. The springtime of the soul.

The main harvest. Drive across Nebraska and see the combine crews gathering in wheat.

The start of the NFL season.

Labor Day.

Night beginning to overtake the day.

My favorite time of year. Through Samain, the Winter Solstice, and New Year’s Day.

Elul. The Jewish lunar month that proceeds Rosh Hashana, the new year celebrating the creation of the world and humanity. In preparation for this new year (one of four) we engage in cheshbon nefesh, an accounting of the soul. As with most things Jewish, its aim is to live well in this life.

Here’s a summary from Gemini of what this entails:

1. Carve Out Dedicated Time

Cheshbon nefesh requires stepping away from the noise of daily life. It is often done in a quiet space where you can be alone with your thoughts. Some people do a brief version of this daily before sleep, but during Elul, it becomes a more profound, deliberate practice of reviewing the entire past year.

2. Review Your Actions and Relationships

Take an honest look at your behavior, habits, and interactions. You might ask yourself questions like:

  • How did I treat my family, friends, and strangers this year?

  • Did I act with integrity in my work and daily obligations?

  • Where did my patience fail?

  • Did I waste time or miss opportunities to help others?

3. Acknowledge Shortcomings Honestly

The goal is to confront your mistakes without falling into despair or toxic guilt. It is an objective “accounting” where you tally up the emotional and spiritual ledger. You recognize where you missed the mark (the Jewish concept of chet) so that you can correct the course.

4. Make Amends (Seek Forgiveness)

A critical component of this accounting is realizing who you have hurt. Jewish tradition teaches that God cannot forgive transgressions against other people until you have sought forgiveness from the people themselves. This means making the difficult phone calls, writing the letters, and offering genuine apologies to those you have wronged.

5. Commit to Change (Teshuvah)

Cheshbon nefesh is not just about feeling sorry; it is action-oriented. Once you have identified your spiritual debts, you make a concrete plan for how to handle things differently in the coming year. It is about actively returning to your best self and aligning your actions with your values.

Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Memories, Plants, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

Amorous Bulls and Hyperphagic Bears

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The nights grow longer. Temperatures have cooled. The main harvest is only weeks away. We’re moving toward Samhain, or Summer’s End. First though we gather the bounty of the growing season over the long harvest that begins in Lughnasa and extends toward the end of Mabon.

I’ve written about back to school nostalgia. There’s also, for this Midwestern boy, memories of coming over a slight hill on a gravel road. Once in a while, during this time of year, a lumbering combine or a big John Deere pulling a corn picker can suddenly appear. Brakes. Gravel dust. Becoming part of the slow procession.

In the fields corn stands tall and green, its ears prominent in their maturity. Row after parallel row of corn. A major crop where I grew up. Alfalfa, too. Not much wheat, the fields often too small. Unlike the vast plantings in Nebraska. Soy beans, a lot of soy beans. Farmers would say, “I grow corn and beans.”

In my life harvest is not abstract or metaphorical. It is basic, predictable, woven into our fall days. Up here in the Rockies fall announces itself through hyperphagic bears tipping over garbage bins and that strange sound, the bugling of an amorous Elk bull. After 67 years in the Midwest I still look for slow-moving harvest machinery.

 

Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Politics, Seed Keepers

Dysphoria

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Sunday gratefuls: Mental energy. Physical energy. Emotional balance. Support. Driving. Agency. Diet. Mini-splits. Dr. Josy.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  The night sky

 

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut. Seeing the aspen and the lodgepoles. Seeing Artemis.

Tarot: Four of Vessels, boredom. “…you may be overlooking new opportunities due to inward focus, fatigue, or dissatisfaction. It suggests a need to break routines and re-engage…” I have let fatigue and pain reshape, and narrow, my daily life.

One brief shining: Spring rising on the Great Wheel. Last Samhain–Summer’s End–I was still harvesting. A strong hint. Something’s wrong. Missed it in my joy over fresh tomatoes.

 

 

Samhain to Spring. My harvest extended well into November. I had planted late, in July, because Artemis took a while to finish. Seeing how the irrigation worked, tuning the heater and the exhaust fan for optimal tomato conditions, perhaps a chance to harvest some lettuce. That’s all I imagined.

The warm fall, which would extend into a warm, almost snowless winter, allowed the beets, spinach, kale, and tomatoes to continue growing, producing. I harvested these, plus a cucumber or two, until the nights grew too cold.

The garlic went in in early November, while I was still harvesting cherry tomatoes.

All of November, then December and January, now February and March I waited. To see snow fall among the lodgepoles. To have a quiet, white day. A fire in the fireplace.

Spring came nine days ago. Shadow Mountain went straight to summer. Wildfire risk: Extreme. Denver hit the nineties. I slept almost naked.

I have seventy-nine winters. None of them were like this one. Watching the snow fall. Sleeping in a cold bedroom. Bundling up to go out. Yes. Wearing a short sleeve shirt in March. No.

Time and the climate. Out of joint. We earn our spring through winter’s cold and ice. No contrast.

Lodgepole needles are brittle. Aspens, confused, push out buds. Elk herds have already started coming down to lower meadows. The Black Bears have been up and raiding garbage cans for a couple of weeks.

I asked Jackie, a fly fisherperson, whether she’d been out yet. “No,” she said, “The streams are too low.” Maxwell creek, in another year, would be deep and fast as the winter’s snow cover begins to melt. No snow to melt.

Trump says, “We’ll keep bombing our little hearts out.” I see my neighbors struggling to pay for gas and groceries.

I don’t recognize my own country.  Men I cannot trust; men who shame their friends and welcome autocrats. How have we let them in?

To be old and to have the fundaments of my world stripped away disorients me. Where am I?

I plant anyway.

Protest anyway.

I am here on Shadow Mountain.

 

 

 

 

Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Holidays, Judaism, Paganism, Plants

Muscular

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Sunday gratefuls: Exercise. Artemis. Planting today. Tomatoes. Carrots. Beets. Check garlic. Fantasy. Writing. AI. Medical Alert.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Parsha

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

 

Tarot: Queen of Stones, Bear. Strength rooted in Mother Earth. I know mortality in decay, in cancer, in Kate. I choose to live because of these, not in spite of them.

 

One brief shining: Artemis has been through her first winter–what passed for winter this year. Her Japanese lanterns glow at night. Ten bulbs of garlic have wintered in her west-facing raised bed. I will plant carrots and beets in that bed today, check the garlic. Prep the tomato bed, plant the seeds. Flowers of memory in the east-facing bed: gladiolus and stargazer lilies for Jon, purple iris for Kate.

 

Nowruz. The Persian New Year. Passover, the annual reliving of liberation from oppression. Easter, the annual celebration of life’s ongoingness. Spring.

If our Shadow Mountain April has no snow, it will be our cruelest month. Letting us slide into summer with little moisture for lodgepoles and aspens, grasses, dogwood, willows.

Spring holidays acknowledge our deepest fears. Easter. Is death the enemy? Passover. Are we enslaved in our narrow places, with no hope of liberation?

Nowruz. Will the growing season begin well?

Artemis. My nod to Nowruz. Planting in expectation of blood-red beet salads, carrots cooked in butter and brown sugar.

Gardening. A ritual of confidence. A collaboration. Hands, seeds, soil, and sun. I love taking the prickly beet seeds in my palm, pinching one between thumb and finger. Planting it, pressing the soil down around it. Tucking it in. Spring.

Fourth phase. In May of 2015 prostate cancer showed up, death knocking, no longer an abstraction but presence. A shock, yes. Yet not a shock either. Mortality begins at birth.

Health? My body equilibrated, functioning well. What health isn’t: a permanent state. Even for those seeking life extension.

I remember sunrise services, a melding of Christian yearning to defeat death and pagan confidence in the sun. Transform the fallow season into the growing season. Once again. Life after death.

Tara invited me again to her Passover.

A full Haggadah with afikomen hidden, questions about plagues, conversation about contemporary mitzrayim: in society, in ourselves. Mitzrayim. A narrow place of bondage. Egypt.

Ancient myth as contemporary history. Our story of liberation from slavery. Of the heroes and heroines who led us out of Egypt, across the Reed Sea, and into freedom.

What is the evanescence of health against these muscular affirmations: life lived through fallow seasons, life confronting and transforming death, oppression changed into freedom, into a tribe?

Sun.
Soil.
Seeds.
Spring.

Great Wheel, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Shadow Mountain

A Druid

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Monday gratefuls: Morning darkness. Tomato seeds. Gladiolus bulbs. Iris rhizomes. Lily bulbs. Artemis. Spring. Shadow, gnawer of toys.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gumbo

 

Kavannah: Groundedness. Yesod.    Yesod is about establishing oneself in reality, refusing to rely on comfortable illusions.

Tarot: Knight of Stones, Horse. A strong connection to mother earth. Yesod. Year of the fire horse. Dramatic, even revolutionary change.

 

One brief shining: Ordered from Seed Savers Exchange–Moonglow, large red cherry, and Cherokee purple heirloom tomato seeds. From Eden Brother’s Nursery–Dark purple reblooming Iris bulbs, Gladiolus, and Star Gazer Lilies. Grounded. My gardening Yesod. Co-creation.

 

Paul sent me an article: Paganism Popularity Grows in Maine. I read it with my usual combination of gratitude and unease.

Grateful for the spread of Earth-centered affection. Reverence for Mother. God (pardon me) knows we need it. Many follow the Great Wheel, as I do. Organizing rituals. Seeing the sacred in a seedling, a garden plot, the changing of the seasons.

My unease comes from paganism’s splintered and often invented roots. Rabbi Rami Shapiro answers the question: Who is Jew? Anyone who says they are a Jew is a Jew. Rattling many rabbinic cages. His point? There is no one, no text that defines who is a Jew. Q.E.D.

The same applies to paganism. Anyone can claim to be a pagan. My unease increases when Asatru and other pagan gatherings claim Northern European supremacy. Read: White.

Long ago. Perhaps 1988, I had a spiritual director, Rev. John Ackerman. A Presbyterian clergy. As I was then. Starting to write novels, I’d gone deep into what I then thought was my Celtic ancestry.

Sitting in his office in the staid Westminster church, I told John transcendence and the usual notions of God felt patriarchal. “Charlie,” he said, “You’re a druid!”

That transformed my self-understanding. I left the ministry two years later.

OK. Maybe I’m being too much the scholar, too much the adherent to religions with provable ancient roots. Why should it matter where a faith comes from?

Consider Jim Jones and his Kool Aid eucharist of death. Moonies. Or this: “‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.’”

Pagan and heathen. Rural folk. Those who held on to the old ways. True of the Celts when the Roman Catholic Church built cathedrals over Celtic holy wells.

I need no text to find the sacred. It’s right there: In the lodgepole growing toward the sun. In a tomato seed, bearer of life. In photosynthesis.

I’m too harsh. Let a thousand pagan faiths bloom. Yet. Critique and reject. Paganism as a cover for bigotry and violence.

Artemis will be my temple.

In her I will plant tomatoes, garlic, beets, iris, glads, and lilies.

With the vegetables I will practice the only true transubstantiation: eating.

 

Great Wheel, Minnesota, Politics, Seed Keepers

A Winter People

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Renee Good and Alex Pretti, say their names

Sunday gratefuls: Dr. Josy coming to change Shadow’s bandage. Shadow, enconed. Cool weather. Protein. Exercise. Roxann and Tom, recovering. The resistance in Minnesota. In Minneapolis. A gentle, angry people. Political pressure. Finally, Democratic pushback. Minneapolis nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. A light to the nation and the nations.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Courts of law

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Tikkun  Olam. Repairing the world.

  • Lurianic Kabbalah: A 16th-century mystical belief that the world was created by divine vessels that shattered, scattering “sparks” of divine light. Humans perform tikkun by gathering these sparks through prayer and mitzvot.
  • Modern Social Justice: Since the 1950s, the term has become a shorthand for social action and progressive activism, such as environmentalism and human rights. 

Tarot: Queen of Arrows, The Swan

  • Attributes: She embodies honesty, logic, and a sharp wit. Like the traditional Queen of Swords, she is highly capable and values direct communication.
  • The Swan Element: The swan’s presence signals a need to swim toward clearer waters after a period of sorrow or separation.

One brief shining: Can you feel the sorrow, the sore hearts, the sadness rising in Americans all over this land; the Swan that is  our collective weariness with the harsh, coarse hand of a government devoid of love, compassion, and justice swims in her graceful desolation toward states united against rule by whim and fear, standing together like the North Star, blazing in the cold.

Minnesota: “Don’t attack a winter people in the winter.” A Minneapolis resident quoted yesterday. Going in layers to meet the day. A layer first, close to the skin of warm compassion.  A second layer over that one of chesed, loving kindness expressed in action. A third layer of indignation, a layer protective against the winds of oppression, and finally, a layer of gentle fierce anger, an anger that pleads for, no, demands justice.

Don’t forget a warm hat and boots. Gloves, too, my winter people.

The Great Wheel: Today, February 1st, marks the beginning of Imbolc, a Celtic cross quarter holiday that lies midway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. A traditional understanding of Imbolc says it means, “in the belly.” Short hand for quickened Ewes beginning to freshen, that is, lactate.

After a long fallow time living off the stores of last year’s growing season, the freshening of the Ewes promised milk, cheese, and the birth of new Lambs, pure white Lambs. Family and village wealth increases and the Lambs evidence the imminent coming of a new growing season. Cold weather crops might go in the ground just after Imbolc, providing fresh greens for the table.

Imbolc also celebrates the Celtic triple goddess, Brigid. She is the goddess of the hearth, inspiration, and the smithy. She warms the home, inspires bards and poets, and heats the blacksmith’s fire. Fire is her element and her holiday reminds us each year that Great Sol has begun to warm Mother Earth with new intensity.

This Imbolc I’m celebrating the fire in the belly of Minneapolis citizens. Their actions can birth a Spring of justice and compassion if we can keep the pressure on, turn up the heat.

 

Asia, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Health, Plants, Weather +Climate

Jumping Jack Frost

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Mabon and the Samain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Jamaica. Cuba. Puerto Rico. Grenada. A warm Caribbean. Melissa. The awesome power of Mother Earth. Rocky Mountain high. Far inland. Taking Joseph to Breckenridge during Katrina. Red Tie Guy in Korea. Their golden tributes. Xi Jinping. China. Vietnam. Malaysia. Singapore. Japan. Philippines. Cambodia. Thailand. Laos. Burma. Australia. New Guinea. Indonesia.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Asia

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hochmah.  Wisdom.   “Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.”  Perkei Avot: 4:1   Making medical decisions this week.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: The controller on my electric blanket blinked F, F, F, meaning failure as the temperature through my open window fell to 17 degrees, chilling me beyond comfort, requiring lights, finding another blanket, though it may be a sign since my soon to arrive Butrans patch does not play well with electric blankets.

 

My medical October continues (and will spill over into early November): Maddie came yesterday, my palliative care nurse. So did Rachel, my brand new, Optum Health Care supplied social worker. I’m a revenue capture center all by myself.

Rachel introduced herself, a young woman like Maddie, short blond hair, sharp but not unpleasant features. I can help with transport, support of various kinds. After talking about wills (done), medical power of attorney (done), her final question showed where I am in life’s journey. How do you feel about hospice?

Sure, when the time comes, I think it makes sense. Oh. Here I am discussing end of life care. For me. Nothing soon, I hope. Still enjoying my path.

We then discussed my by now many ailments. The back. The hip. Cancer and the jumped up met on my T4 vertebrae. Finally, my floppy neck and the lack of good options. A unicorn, me.

Maddie helpfully followed up with Swedish central scheduling and my MRI got scheduled for November 5th. With that now in place I imagine Dr. Carter, a radiation oncologist whom I see Friday, will schedule radiation to kill that energized met. Back to Bupathi on the 17th of November. So. Much. Fun.

 

Mother Earth: On Sunday my Tomato plants stood tall, Cherry and Roma Tomatoes ripening, yellow spiky flowers promising more. On Tuesday morning it was over. A hard frost and the greenhouse temps fell into the high 20’s. When I walked in there yesterday morning, a desolate scene. Plants slumped over. Tomatoes on the Vine frozen through. Go now, the growing season has ended.

Even though I was sad, I felt lucky to have had as long and fruitful a growing season. Since I planted in late July, I thought I would only learn about how Artemis works this year. Instead I got Tomatoes, Beets, Spinach, Chard, Nasturtiums, and Cucumbers.

Strange for the growing season to have gone so long, but the greenhouse definitely extended my Tomato harvest for over a month. My Carrots still grow in the cold frame. Same with Spinach and Beets and Chard and Kale. At least as of yesterday. We had another hard freeze last night.

Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

Coming to Summer’s End

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Mabon and the Samain Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Paul. Marilyn and Irv. Big O. Closing up the cold frames. 19 degrees this morning. A cold Rain. 23 in the greenhouse. Bye, bye Tomatoes. The Diplomat. High quality TV. Joanne, coming home today. Aspen Perks. Maddie, coming today. CBE bridge this afternoon. Red Tie Guy trying to make nice with fellow tyrant, Kim Jong Un.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow Tires

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hochmah.  Wisdom.   “Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.”  Perkei Avot: 4:1   Making medical decisions this week.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Shifted waiting room chairs after Great Sol heated me up, found a shaded one as customers came in, spoke with front desk clerks about brakes, a steering wheel that wobbled at forty miles per hour, which winter tire to buy while I laughed out loud, often, reading Carl Hiaasen’s Beach Fever on the Kindle app of my Samsung phone.

Following Alan’s plan from last year, I had my Snow tires put on a bit early, beating the November scrum that often finds appointments out past Thanksgiving. Big O, not Stevenson Toyota. Cheaper and closer. An 8:30 am drive down Black Mountain/Brook Forest Drive listening to Hard Fork, the New York Times podcast about tech with a focus on AI.

Aspens in sheltered places remain the grand golden torches of the late Fall Forest though most have lost their leaves to Wind and Rain. This is a delicate moment between our bicolored Fall and the bitter weather leading toward Thanksgiving. No Snow here yet, though Black Mountain’s ski runs did collect Snow a week ago.

Elk Cows gathered along Maxwell Creek where it turns and flows through Evergreen, their horned Patriarch lounging as the Cows ate Grass and drank from the cold Waters of this Mountain Stream. Evergreen Lake had no paddle boarders, no kayakers.

A quiet anticipation. Black Bears nearing the end of hyperphagia, hunting for or returning to dens to sleep away the fallow time. Elk Cows and Mule Deer Does quickening with Calves and Fawns.

Humans have on their hoodies, fleece. Most have on long pants though I saw a  man yesterday in bright yellow down vest, shorts, and sandals. Temperatures vary a lot between Sun and Shade, between early morning and midday making what to wear solved only by layers.

10 foot tall skeletons, ghosts made of used sheets, orange trash bags filled with leaves sport pumpkin faces. The increasing and earlier decorations for All Hallow’s Eve, or the feast of Summer’s End, Samain.

Summer has not fully fled with Denver hitting seventy-five this week. A few 60’s in our highs for Shadow Mountain.

We hang here between the final harvests of late fall gardens and the full stop of the growing season. Life in my late seventies mirrors this time. How long until l come to an end of my growing season? Words begin to disappear. The body becoming a brown husk, its seed long harvested, waiting for that first heavy Snow.

Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Judaism, Plants, Seed Keepers, Weather +Climate

Nathan and Lizzy

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. The Night. A cool, very cool Night. 35 right now. Shadow curled, nose to tail. Tom. Roxann. Ode. Elizabeth. The Northshore. Lake Superior. Grand Marais. The Poplar River. Lutsen. Wolves. Moose. The Boundary Waters. My new Pendleton Blanket with the Aurora Borealis. Electric blankets.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Nathan and Lizzy

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Yesod.  Groundedness. Foundation.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Rain saturates the red cinder blocks making up my small patio, indoor light reflects off them as I open the door, outside for Shadow into the early morning darkness, eager, tail high, wet cold air seeps inside. I shut the door.

 

Hanging the Mezuzah on Artemis: Irv, Marilyn, Gabe, Tara, Me, Rabbi Jamie. Nathan took the photograph rendered here in the style of Thomas Benton.

Nathan and Lizzy: I love developing relationships. When they happen naturally. Yes, I’m an introvert, proud of my solitude and nourished by it. Yes. But I’m far from a misanthrope. The world has so many amazing people, kind and skilled and offering a perspective only they have. Can have.

I’ve gotten to know Nathan over the construction of Artemis, from rough idea to frame up to raised beds filled with soil and now plants. He’s a young guy, maybe early thirties. A man of business. A handyman. A trucking company. Colorado Coop and Garden.

He has plans. Emulate Tuff Shed. A Colorado firm that started out building sheds, then went to making kits that they ship all over the country. Next year he’s renting a shop where he can work regular hours, make kits for greenhouses and chicken coops, market them to the nation.

Lizzy, his partner, whom I met yesterday, runs a pet sitting business. She has larger ambitions, too. She’s a beautiful, high energy lady with a sweet soul. And, she loved Shadow. Ah, a way to care for Shadow if I get well enough to travel. Quirky dogs are her and a few of her employees special interest. Even better.

May they live long and prosper.

 

Artemis: I planted in late July. The average first frost at my elevation has come in early September, some years late August. It’s October 6th and still no frost. My Carrots, Beets, Spinach, and Kale are all cool weather crops, can withstand low temperatures, even light frosts. Especially the Beets and Carrots improve with the cooler weather, get sweeter.

The Tomatoes, my inside the greenhouse crop, do not like the cold. I’ve gotten a great first year crop with them, but if I could have had them in a month earlier, I would have had a huge crop. For a tiny greenhouse.

Nathan and Lizzy came by yesterday so Lizzy could see the almost finished Artemis and Nathan could install hooks for my cold frame tops. With the cold frame tops I can enclose the outdoor beds so they still receive Great Sol, yet remain above freezing. Extending my growing season on the outside of the greenhouse.

Once Nathan puts hard foam insulation panels-with handles-inside Artemis I should be able to grow Kale, Lettuce, Arugula over the winter. I should also be able to grow my own starter plants as winter begins to let go.

Good for my soul.

Far Right, Garden, Great Wheel, Politics

Free Speech. Unless.

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: Mini-splits. SnowPack Pizzeria. Aspen Perks. Conifer Cafe. Spice Ranch Fusion. Primo’s. Oyama. Three Victorias and Three Garcias. Brooks Tavern. Golden Styx. Thai 202. Safeway. King Sooper. Stinker’s. Ace Hardware. Wicked Whisk. Ripple. Big R. The Borgata. Natural Foods. Liks. Subway. Colorado Furniture.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mabon/ Erev Roshanah

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Yirah. Awe and Wonder.

Tarot: Nine of Wands, (Druid Craft)    “The landscape: In contrast to the figure’s fatigue, the landscape behind her is green and fertile, often with a river or body of water. This represents a sense of hope and the promise of new life, suggesting that the struggle is nearing its end and the rewards are still protected.” Gemini

One brief shining:  The darkness remains long and longer, Mabon marks the day when we have darkness and daylight in balance, a halfway point to the longest night, the Winter Solstice, and a Wiccan holiday marking the main harvest that told the fate of the village in the fallow time beginning at Summer’s End.

 

Mabon: The Fall Equinox. A moment of equal light and dark. The growing season at an end. Combines in the Wheat fields of Nebraska and Kansas. Corn Pickers in Iowa and Indiana. Combines, too, in the Soybean fields. This is the Big Ag that has taken us out of balance with the practices needed for healthy soil and adequate water.

Artemis, sown late this year, in July, has already yielded Cherry Tomatoes, Roma Tomatoes, Kale, Spinach, and Cucumbers. Her Carrots have sprouted well, too. I harvested enough Tomatoes, Spinach, and Cucumber for a first Salad. It takes some discipline not to eat the Cherry Tomatoes. So sweet.

Mabon can help us remember the need for organic gardening and farming, for regenerative farming, for perennial grains and other food crops. No till farming. We can only continue to harvest from Mother Earth if we treat her well. May it be so.

 

Just a moment: Free speech. Unless. It criticizes Charlie Kirk. Or, the Burger King. Or, his manipulation of the military into roles for which it is not intended. Or, his elimination of the food insecurity report done annually at the Dept. of Agriculture. Or, his firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for numbers he didn’t like. Or, you’re a court jester on a late night TV show who dares make people laugh at his expense.

This, my friends, is real and true tyranny. The suppression of speech. Not to mention the Burger King’s weaponizing of the Justice Department to go after his enemies. His enemies, yes, but servants of the truth when seen from another perspective. Dictators punish their enemies, tailor information to make themselves look good, and govern by whim. Red tie guy ticks all these.

How has he gone so far, so fast? First, shamelessness. No act too mean, no decision too cruel, no choice too dangerous. Second, a movement conservative agenda printed in advance in Project 2025. Third, minions who preen and praise no longer offering analysis critical of our dear leader.

No Kings on October 18th. Remember.