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Land, Sea, and Sky

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Yule and the Moon of the New Year

Where’s the Webb? 99.79% to L2 at 8 am MST. 1900 miles to go. Mission Day 30. Speed now: 450 mph.

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“L2 Insertion Burn

Mid Course Correction Burn (MCC2) – Begins L2 Insertion

Nominal Event Time: Updated: Launch + 30 days

Status: Schedule and Post MCC2 Coverage

Activities to plan and execute MCC2 – the insertion burn for Webb’s L2 orbit. MCC2 corrects any residual trajectory errors and adjusts the final L2 orbit.

The James Webb Space Telescope is launched on a direct path to an orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange Point (L2), but it needs to make its own mid-course thrust correction maneuvers to get there. This is by design, because if Webb gets too much thrust from the Ariane rocket, it can’t turn around to thrust back toward Earth because that would directly expose its telescope optics and structure to the Sun, overheating them and aborting the science mission before it can even begin. Therefore, Webb gets an intentional slight under-burn from the Ariane and uses its own small thrusters and on-board propellant to make up the difference.

There are three mid-course correction (MCC) maneuvers: MCC-1a, MCC-1b, and MCC-2. This final burn, MCC-2, which inserts Webb into its L2 halo orbit.” NASA.

 

Monday gratefuls: Marina Harris and her cleaning crew. Alan’s recovery from Covid. His role in the Colorado Ballet. The Ancient Brothers Ode to Joy this morning. Ali Baba’s gyros. Cancer. Prostate and otherwise. Rigel and her meds. January. Winter in its fullness in Minnesota. Colorado has cold December and snowy February, March, April.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

Tarot: will require its own post.

 

This damned event keeps getting new legs, fresh legs. In history the U.S. response to Covid will confound future generations. Why didn’t they take it seriously? Even after so many dead. So many hospitalized. So many left with lingering troubles.

Not to mention of course the number of the unmasked, unvaccinated who want to take over the government. I’ve become news shy. Like many of you, I know. Who wants to read about the brutal murder of Caesar or the Beer Hall Putsch? That is dangerous, of course. It is the uninformed and the passive who underwrite with their absence the fevered path of the few.

There is a small herd of Mule Deer Does who’ve been coming up the utility easement to eat needles off slash Derek dumped there. When they’re here, the scene becomes instant backwoods. An over the river and through the woods tableau. They’re here right now. The Buck, an eight-pointer, was here this morning. Neither Kep nor Rigel paid attention. Just as well. A chance encounter between a Dog and a Buck can result in injury or death for the doggy.

Kep noticed them. He walked through Snow, looked. Gave a short yip and came toward the house. The Deer munched Pine Needles, secure on the other side of our fence. Kep came in.

Rigel has begun to hesitate to walk up the five stairs to the kitchen level. She’s fallen, slid several times and she has the new meds on board. They’re supposed to help, but it appears to me that they’re making her feel strange. Doesn’t help confidence.

With Rigel’s legs and arthritis and spinal owies becoming more evident. With Kep’s nose undergoing x-rays and possible biopsy on Tuesday it looks like my companions may have rough water ahead. Since they are my grief counselors, sleeping partners, and the biggest part of my interaction with the living world, their troubles are very much my troubles. I’m not getting ahead of anything. Just aware that they, like Kate, like me, are mortal creatures. Like Abraham Lincoln.

Simcah Torah, Congregation Beth Evergreen. 2021

Thinking about donating money. What it means. How I decide. Most of my donations go to Congregation Beth Evergreen. There I’m saying yes to community, yes to friends, yes to thousands of years of history, yes to a religious culture cultivated by this unusual gathering. I don’t feel like I’m supporting the church. I’m supporting the chemistry of a place that accepts me and loves me as I am.

Otherwise I give a bit here, a bit there. Some to Dog shelters, some to performing arts organizations, some to politicians and some to political organizations.

Deciding that next year and thereafter I’m going to focus my giving beyond CBE in a different way. My largest non-CBE donation was to the Land Institute where Wes Jackson and his crew push toward perennial Crops and no-till agriculture. I’m gonna lean toward these radical solution organizations, ones working with the Soil, with Plants, with agriculture. I value the courage it takes to stand against farming practices that seem so entrenched as to be unmovable. And I value the creative thinking that the Wendell Berry’s, the Mary Oliver’s, the Aldo Leopold’s, the Thomas Berry’s, the Wes Jackson’s represent.

So this year. CBE and those working on long-term, universally applicable solutions to systemic problems in agriculture and protection of our World: Land, Sea, and Sky.

Aging, Anoka County, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Health, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, permaculture, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Impermanence

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Yule and the Moon of the New Year

Where’s the Webb? 791ooo miles from home. 108000 miles to L2 insertion. 88% of the way. .1769 mps. Sunshield: 131 F. Primary Mirror: -328 F.

 

 

Saturday gratefuls: Snow. Fresh and white. A friend’s Dog, cancer. The house changing, transforming. The Hermitage. Brown. Color. Kep’s abundant, luxuriant, always growing fur. The Mountains in Winter. The Lodgepoles with heavy bows. The Arcosanti bell has a white fairy cap. The outdoor table has a round, snowy table covering exactly its size. Medical Guardian. Uncertainty.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The love we have for our Dogs. And the love they have for us.

Tarot: Page of Arrows, The Wren

 

Frantisec Kupka: The Path of Silence

A friend’s dog diagnosed with inoperable cancer. A friend on her third or fourth round of chemo for ovarian cancer. Kate dead. My own, more tractable cancer. Life. Then death. The way of the animate world. It says something about our need, our lust for permanence that disease followed by death exacts such a toll. But it does. Death is no more, no less prevalent than birth and life; but, it insults us, destroys our fabricated lives.

When the snow fell today, all day, as it hasn’t in a while, it covered the driveway, my solar panels, this Shadow Mountain. Even our daily views are impermanent, changing often in the temperate latitudes where I’ve lived all my life.

Ichi-go, ichi-e. Every moment, every encounter is once in a lifetime. The tea ceremony is a beautiful expression, a reminder of this oh, so important truth. Kate will never be here on this plane again. Unique and significant in her quick intelligence, her dry wit, her chesed, her love for me, for Jon, Ruth, Gabe. My friend’s dog, whom I’ve met many times, likewise. Stolid. Built low to the ground. Attentive, but mostly arranging himself near Rich. Each time I met him was a whole moment. Complete and wonderful. As was each day with Kate.

This summer my friend with ovarian cancer made home-made strawberry ice-cream and we shared it at a table in Mt. Falcon Park, near Morrison. We both had the brand of the impermanent burned into our bodies with blood draws, sleepless nights, worry, treatments. If we could, as the Buddhists I think recommend, lean into the impermanence, grant it the piquancy it brings, the poignance of ichi-go, ichi-e as a home truth, if we could, we might still mourn and grieve, but we might also find room to celebrate the passing of each once-in-a-lifetime instance.

Kate may 2013

Each spring in Andover plants would push up from the cold, cold Earth. The Grape Hyacinths, the Daffodils, the Crocus, the Anemones. The Spring Ephemerals. Those plants whose strategy is to store food during a burst of growth before Leaves on Trees and Bushes, taller Flowers block them out. Such a joyous, brilliant, hopeful life. Yet, brief. Ephemeral. Gone in a couple of weeks, three, four at the most.

Oh, how I miss those delights of the cold, wet days of late Winter, early Spring. I no longer miss caring for the Gardens, but I miss them nonetheless. Those gardens were an immersion, like foreign language immersion, in the ongoing lives of plants, in the dance of life and the inevitability of death. Each fall we composted the dead stalks that delivered food to the roots of vegetables and flowers. They had more to give even though they were now lifeless.

The Earth gives us daily lessons in impermanence, but we rationalize, smooth over, just don’t see them. I’m writing this now in the 10th month after Kate’s death. Her memory blesses me every day. Her lessons, the things she taught me. The same. I leave the door open on the washer so it won’t mildew. I trust my doctors. I love Judaism and the Jews that I know. Impermanence has permanently changed me.

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Holidays, Judaism, Kabbalah, Memories, Myth and Story, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Hello, Darkness, My Old Friend

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Yule and the Winter Solstice Moon

Max on the Winter Solstice

Tuesday gratefuls: My slab, all fabricated, comes home. Jodi and Blue Mountain Kitchens. Jon. Birthday dinner at the Black Hat tonight. The darkest, longest, deepest night. Yule. The Winter Solstice. First tarot reading. Max, growing.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fabrication

Tarot: going to create my first Celtic holiday spread, a Winter Solstice one. I’ll report later. This is the first day in my year long study of the Wildwood deck in particular and Tarot in general.

 

The quartzite fabricator has met his schedule, bless him. He will be here today to put in my new counter top. This is the piece I chose, the more expensive one, because I didn’t want the next few years working on a counter top I’d settled for. Excited to see it in place. Coming around 9 or 10.

Brian, the cabinet maker? Not so much. Looks like the promise of my kitchen coming home by Christmas ain’t gonna happen. My friendly cynic Alan predicted this. I chose to believe. Sigh.

I have asked Jodi if she can have Bowe come and connect my new sink and dishwasher if we’re going past this week.

 

Jon and I will attempt a reprise of the birthday dinner. I’m looking forward to it. Black Hat Cattle Company. I’ve had great meals and horrible meals there. Hope this is a good one. Planning to try to get a better bead on how he’s doing, where he’s going. With the family in the picture I’m feeling easier about him and about us.

 

Did my first ever Tarot reading yesterday for Luke, the Executive Director of Beth Evergreen. The Tree of Life spread I learned from Mark Horn. It was both harder and easier than I had imagined.

Harder in that I kept wondering what I’d say next. Each card has its own meaning and that meaning has a link with the sephirot on which it falls. My knowledge of the cards is still very sketchy and my knowledge of kabbalah, though better, is very far from deep.

Easier in that I found I could go from the images on the card and my understanding of the sephirot to questions that brought a point of reflection home to Luke. I think I talked too much and knew too little. Other than that, I’d give myself an attaboy for the first reading.

 

The Winter Solstice. The beginning of Yule. It’s my favorite time of the year! Darkness. Gets a bad rap. The longest night is as important to our soul as the longest day is to our crops. I think of this day as the culmination of the promise made on September 29th, the Saint’s Day of the Archangel Michael: This is the springtime of the soul!

As the darkness and cold of winter offers us a chance to sit by the fire, get warm, read, dream, the longest night offers us a chance to go as deep as we can into the inner structure of our becoming. Yes. Of course. You can do so at other times; but this day, this night reminds us of how deep we can go, how much of our life happens in darkness occulted even to our own consciousness.

Since I left the Christian ministry in 1991, I’ve stayed steadfast against transcendence as a spiritual goal. It takes us up and out of ourselves, away from this reality, away from life. It also reinforces the idea of a three-story universe with good heaven, to be suffered through earth, and a bad hell. And, with the Roman Catholic hierarchy leading us toward heaven, it has reinforced the patriarchy of Western culture.

In rebelling against transcendence I chose to go down and in, rather than up and out for spiritual sustenance. I wanted to sanctify this world, this place that we know. Existence before essence. That meant I wanted to know what happened in the interior of my life, how it could inform my journey.

So happened that the Great Wheel came into my life at the same time. When I started to write novels, Kate suggested I find something close to me as subject matter. At the time I was learning about the Correls, my Irish ancestors from County Wicklow. I chose to look into the Celts, their history, their mythology, their religion.

I learned so much. The Faery Faith, by Edward Evans-Wentz, took me into the daily, seasonal lives of 19th century Celts still involved with the auld religion. The holidays like Beltane and Samain, Lughnasa. My first awareness of them from this exploration.

Then I discovered the Great Wheel. The expanded Celtic calendar of holidays that includes the solar holidays, equinoxes and solstices, with the cross-quarter holidays peculiar to the Celts: Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasa, and Samain.

The Great Wheel was the key that unlocked the door to my new spiritual path. It’s seasonal and I’m a Midwestern boy attuned to their changes as they relate to the agricultural year. The Great Wheel is an agricultural calendar so it matched my lived experience in the corn and beans belt of central Indiana.

Now, thirty years plus later, I’m growing beyond my rebellion against transcendence. I still don’t want or need its reinforcement of patriarchy, of hierarchy. But. Transcendence can place us in this interconnected web of evolution, a literally universal process happening both in us and outside of us. Transcendence can be the way we come out of the comfort of our own interior to interact with the ongoingness of all things.

The Summer Solstice, the longest day, the promise of the Sun’s energy delivered to plants so that our lives might be sustained, is the holiday of transcendence. A time when we go beyond ourselves, feel beyond ourselves. Live in the web aware of the web.

The Winter Solstice, the longest night, the promise of fecund darkness, of fallow times, of the life that gathers in the dark world of the top six inches of soil, reminds us of our precious particularity, our uniqueness, our once and only time. We go down, down into what Ira Progoff called the Inner Cathedral. We knit together our shadow, our unconscious, our consciousness, go down the inner Holy Well that connects each of us to the collective unconscious. We knit them together, see them for the whole, the distinctive pattern, that is our Self. It’s a both/and, our uniqueness and our can’t get away from it interconnectedness.

Gone on too long. Sorry about that. Can’t wait for night to fall. This night, this Holy, Sacred, Blessed night.

 

 

Art and Culture, Asia, Denver, Family, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Kabbalah, Mountains, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot

A Walk in the Wildwood

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Samain and the Moon of the Winter Solstice

Tuesday gratefuls: Marina Harris and Furball Cleaning. Ana and her partner. Conifer Post Office. Mailing Christmas. That retired pre-school teacher I met in line. Meeting strangers. Ali, the Will Smith biopic. Frozen entrees, even if they are a bit boring. The pause in the remodeling. Cousins. Especially, Diane. Mary. Mark. Holiseason. Next up: Winter Solstice.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Yule

Tarot: The Hooded Man, #9 of the Major Arcana

 

 

This is the card I’ve chosen as my significator, the one that represents me. It’s why I had Herme made, a way to reinforce the Hermit, the Hooded Man living in his Hermitage.

Here’s what the Wildwood Book says about him: “The Hooded Man stands at the winter solstice point, along with the earth and the sun in the night. This is the time to be alone and contemplate life. This card describes the gates of death and rebirth, deep inside the Earth.”

On the Winter Solstice I plan to start a year cycle with a focus on learning, in as deep a way as I can, the Wildwood Tarot Deck. I’m going to follow it through the Great Wheel, doing a Great Wheel spread each Celtic holiday.

Mountain Path in Spring by Ma Yuan, Song Dynasty

I will walk this path as the Hooded Man, the Hermit. But, also think, the Chinese scholar in his mountain retreat. Thomas Merton in his cell. Any Jew walking the long road from Egypt to the Promised Land. The Celtic saint on peregrinatio. The Hindu man living through Sannyasa. This is the moment when attention turns to the holy, the inner, the sacred. That’s all I mean.

Even so. After enlightenment (no, not saying I’ve got there.) we must wash dishes, cook, pay bills. Not turning away from the world, living in it as a boy of wonder, a man turned toward the heart, toward the Wildwood. Gonna cook a regular Saturday afternoon family meal for my peeps. Use that new kitchen for taking meals to others. And, me too, of course.

 

Jon and I will try again next week for his birthday dinner. This time he’s coming up here and we’ll go to the Black Hat Cattle Company in Kittredge. Carnivores delight. Cardiologists’ dream restaurant. Good food, well made.

 

This Seth Levine, New Builders idea keeps itself alive. A sign I need to do something about it. I ordered the book, New Builders. Here’s my idea in a nutshell: Foundry Group (Seth’s venture capital organization) allies itself with a model synagogue, probably a big one like Emmanuel or Mt. Sinai, and a model Black Church, probably like or in fact, Zion which Rabbi Jamie has cultivated as a partner to Beth Evergreen. These three figure out how best to use the resources they each represent to nurture and support New Builder businesses.

If the model proves functional and productive, roll it out to other synagogues, other Black Churches, and invite in the City of Denver’s Economic Development office. The latter will have funds from the Build Back Better initiative.

Then, get to work.

No solution is the One. As in, if we fixed education, everything would be better. If we focus on mental health, we can end homelessness. No.

Yes, of course. Focus on education. Mental health. But, don’t forget jobs, businesses, the capacity to work on your own, for yourself.

I believe economic justice needs to occupy a much bigger slice of our attention than it does. Reparations? I don’t know. Maybe, if it looks like what I’m proposing, that is, a way to underwrite Black creativity and initiative. To go with their ideas, their plans. Help them breathe, live. Forty acres and a mule brought up to date.

Who knows? Could happen.

 

 

 

 

 

Art and Culture, Asia, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Holidays, Kabbalah, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Insight. Important.

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Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon

©willworthingtonart

Gratefuls: Samain and Winter, my favorite time of the year. Holiseason. Cranking up speed. Paul. 75 years! Charlie H. A reprieve! Another beautiful Colorado Day. High Fire danger since July. New cabinets arriving on location tomorrow. TSA prechek. Hanukkah presents from the Johnson (and my) sisters. Delightful. Gabe, Ruth helping unload cabinets, clearing out the sewing room. Joan Nathan’s chicken stew. Ham and cheese on sourdough. The Meme game.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: That family feeling

Tarot: The Hooded Man, #9 of the major arcana

“The Hooded Man stands at the winter solstice point on December 21, along with the earth and the sun in the night. This is the time to be alone and contemplate life. This card describes the gates of death and rebirth, deep inside the Earth.

After the difficulties and tribulations when confronting the ancient forces, we need a moment of calm and reflection on life.

The Hooded Man (The Hermit, Robin – i – The – Hood, the hermit in the deep forest) will bring persistent light in the middle of the winter as well as use his wand to dig deep and accumulate knowledge. His lantern illuminates the darkest frightening crises in every soul, repels misunderstandings, and opens the way to the door to The Great Tree. He knows that knowledge is the light and can only be cultivated through self-sacrifice and self-discipline. He points out the secrets of the deep forest and helps those seeking ways to cultivate their minds to go deeper into the forest. The Great Tree is one of the symbolic powers of the forest, which contains countless secrets and treasures of erudition.” Tarotx

 

All righty then. I’ve got my old totem animal, the Moose, and my new, sidecar totem animal, The Great Bear, and coming home tomorrow my neon sign of The Hooded Man, aka The Hermit.

Since I wrote yesterday’s post, I’ve been pondering the drum set with JUSTICE spelled out on the bass, long haired me sticks in hand, banging and kicking and whooshing. I’ve been pondering, too, the Hermit, the Hooded Man.

And an odd insight has come to me. The little drummer boy for justice may actually be my anima, so, a little drummer girl instead. Justice is frequently portrayed as a woman and I can see (not sure about this yet) how my mother’s compassion toward and with the poor might have taken root in my soul as the constant song of a just world. Insistent. Rooted in feeling, not ideology. Instinctive. And, feminine. The yin impulse in my soul. Unexamined, strong, protective, nurturing. Insistent. A mother’s way.

Which would then let the Hooded Man (reinforced by the Moose and the Great Bear) have the animus role. Makes so much sense to me. I have a conflict within me between an instinctive desire/need to right wrongs, fight injustice and an equally strong need to be alone, to go within, to sit in the darkness of the long Winter Solstice Night and be still.

These are not exclusive, no. The one refreshes, recharges, brings perspective and deep connection while the other gathers up that energy and throws it into the world, crashing down bowling pins as it does. But it’s the opposite of the stereotypes. The man wants to return home, cook, play with the kids, have a quiet and peaceful life while the woman wants to take up arms against the sea of troubles and by opposing end them.

This feels so right. And so complicated. Especially right now. The trinity of Hooded Man, Great Bear, and the Moose are of the Winter Solstice while Justice runs with the hot sun of the Summer Solstice. Fire energy.

I suppose this time might be a time when the two try to come into harmony, realizing how much each needs the other. Yet, I feel the Hooded Man wanting to claim more and more of our common life. Home. Family. Introspection. Calmness. That bomb throwing Emma Goldman, deeply loved and cherished, on the other hand, feels guilty sitting out when there are wars still to be fought.

Perhaps this new year will be a time to consider how these two can achieve the alchemical marriage: “Alchemical marriage is a soul-interaction that invites the sacred feminine to the sacred masculine. As a result, we experience wholeness in our spiritual core.” from here.

In fact that would be a good goal, uniting the Hooded Man and Lady Justice. How to do that? No clue. Is it a good idea? I think so. Maybe it’s the end of the ancientrail of life. The conclusion or the work of the fourth phase.

 

Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Kabbalah, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

A New Totem Animal

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Samain and the 5% waning crescent of the Holiseason Moon

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Friday gratefuls: Blue Skies. Black Mountain. Green Lodgepoles. Naked Aspen. Oceans. The World Ocean. Lakes. Ponds. Puddles. Creeks. Streams. Rivers. Mighty Rivers. Volcanoes. Steam Vents. The Earth’s Core. Riding on the Mantle. Crusty.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Brother Mark

Tarot: The Great Bear, #20 of the major arcana

 

As they often say in fantasy movies, it has begun. I’m deconstructing the kitchen. Drawers with thermometers, hot pads, skewers, kitchen towels. Cabinets with bouillon, cream of mushroom soup, ladles, and wooden spoons. Into the boxes I’ve been saving. I’m doing a little pruning right now, but the priority is to unload all the cabinets before Monday. I’ll prune more as I replace things in the new cabinets or, better perhaps, after I’ve gotten everything in boxes.

I’m excited to have this project moving forward. It’s completion will be the trigger for moving furniture, rearranging the house. One thing I look forward to upstairs is a conversation area focused on the fireplace. Since I don’t have COPD, I can have fires, but a lot of them? No.

The first fire after the furniture and new lamps and table are in place will be Irish peat logs. I mentioned them a while back as reminiscent of the nights W.Y. Evans-Wentz spent in Celtic homes listening to stories around the fire, often peat logs burning. I want to experience the smell and the fire.

Fits in with the Hermitage notion. I’ll welcome you here if you want to come. Oh, and I’m working on that host thing, too.

©willworthingtonart

I may have a new, or additional, totem animal. Can you have more than one? Love the card I drew this morning, the Great Bear. Here it is again.

The Great Bear guards a passage tomb, a sort of pre-Celtic columbarium that could contain multiple tombs on either side of a long passage. In the tomb souls await rebirth and the Great Bear protects the souls as they wait to renew themselves.

The Great Bear, in the Wildwood Deck, corresponds to the Winter Solstice, that longest night when we sink into the darkness. Happens to be my favorite holiday. Matching it with Ursa Major and the Aurora Borealis makes the Winter Solstice take on an even deeper meaning for me.

As it goes, so it comes. When darkness reaches us, it invites into the passage tomb. We have no need to worry because the Great Bear will protect us through the vulnerable process of our soul’s metamorphosis. While we’re in the tomb the night sky shines above us in all its starry, auroral glory.

The Great Wheel teaches us that rebirth is not a singular event. As the dark Night goes, it will come again, offering another chance for renewal, for rebirth. This is a comfort for those who mourn, who feel a new life awaits. For me.

 

Anoka County, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Honoring Ancestors

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Samain and the Holiseason Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Bi-weekly trash and recycling. Holly Bailey. Lauri Knox. Quilts. Kate’s many gifts. Her long arm quilter. Her stash. Now helping others. A slight veil of Snow on the solar panels. 18 degrees this morning. Blue Sky. Red flag day yesterday. So dry. Derek. Neighborly. Journeymen. The Guild.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s Yay! when she saw the quilt Holly brought over

Tarot:  The Ancestor, #5 of the Major Arcana, Wildwood

A wonderful Tarot card from the Wildwood Deck. Which I’m coming to like a lot. Reminded me that Kate is now with the Ancestors, is an Ancestor.

 

Holly and the quilt

We’ll get back to the card, but I wanted to comment on how Kate continues to weave the tapestry of our lives. Holly Bailey and her husband came over last night. Holly got Kate’s long arm quilter. She finished the quilt that was on it.

When I texted Ruth a picture of it, she said, “oh yay!! that one’s mine. I helped grandma pick the fabrics and the pattern and I think I sewed parts of it.”

This morning Laurie Knox, yet another engineer, will bring three quilts that she’s been working on, also Kate’s piecing. Holly has two more to finish. I will, over time, offer these quilts as gifts, especially to folk who knew and loved Kate. I’m not in a hurry.

I sleep on a library, a pillowcase fabric Kate found and turned into a pillowcase for me. Her work hangs in our living room and in her sewing room, too. In my loft I have two quilted small pieces, one with squares of moose, my totem animal, and one with old post card images of Rocky Mountain National Park. There are, too, rug mugs that she got into for a while. Curtains. A brick doorstop up here has a crocheted cover.

Shirts she made for me hang in my closet. Joseph’s robe of many colors is up here in the loft now. I also have two stoles that she made for me to wear over my monk’s robe. Her memory. My blessing.

The Ancestor  #5 in the Wildwood Major Arcana. (Replacing the traditional #5, The High Priest)

Here’s some material from Wildwood’s book on the Ancestor.

©willworthingtonart

“The Ancestor is linked to the part of our soul that is most ancient and most closely related to the archetypes that represent nature. She is a guardian of the sacred heart of the land and summons you by beating the drum to the heartbeat of the Earth.  It is the part of you that unconsciously heard the drum and stirred the first desire to walk the path that is at work here. It is the overpowering strength and patience of nature, it is the awesome and relentless turning of the cycle that brings spring and warmth, an end to hibernation and the reawakening of abundant life.

The Ancestor stands before the gateway of nature that leads into the far forest. This is another beginning. Once you pass through the gateway you must strive to stay on the path and see the journey through to the end.”

Later on: “You have made the leap and started a new cycle. Your instinctive spirit has felt it necessary to lead you to the gateway and a new path…Your inner Ancestor is strong, patient and wise. Let them lead you into the forest with new eyes and a joyful spirit.”

This image, a female deity with a deer’s head, with antlers, is Elen of the Ways in a probably pre-Celtic faith. The Ways referenced in her name are the wild paths created by Deer and Reindeer. The hypothesis is that early hunter gathers used the Deer ways, too. Hunting the Deer, yes, but also following their seasonal migrations and gathering food where Deer browsed.

Elen honored this travel, honored the Deer who made it possible. She could be the goddess of paths and journeys, the hunt, fertility. The goddess of nature’s abundance and hence nature itself.

Black Mountain, two days ago

As the Ancestor in the Wildwood Tarot, she precedes in time and worship the more well know gods and goddesses of the Celtic pantheon like Bridgit, Lugh, Arawyn.

A new cycle is underway here on Shadow Mountain. The Hermit cycle. I will see it through to the end. Whatever, whenever, and however that may come.

 

 

 

 

 

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Radical, man

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Samain and the Holiseason Moon

Black Mountain

Monday gratefuls: Rigel. Her head on my pillow most of the night. Kep, so happy to get up. Orion of the morning. Skeletal Aspens. Lodgepoles waiting with spring loaded Branches. For Snow. Shadow Mountain. Solid Rock beneath my house, my feet. Black Mountain. Which tucks in the Sun.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mitzvah

Tarot: See notes from my hexagram spread next post

 

Holiseason. A primer. I discovered holimonth 15 years ago. That was December with its abundance of holidays. Then I extended the idea to holiseason. (discovered later that this was a word anyhow. But, hey.) Holiseason by my reckoning runs from Samain on October 31st to the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th. [A Kate aside here. She left Sunday School for good when one of her teachers, 4th or 5th grade, kept pronouncing the holiday epi-fanny.]

Holiseason contains multiple holidays, many of the holidays of light like Divali, Christmas, Hannukah. Thanksgiving. Posada. Advent. Kwanza. Winter Solstice. Gregorian New Year. Dia de los muertos. All Saints. And, of course, Samain. It’s my favorite time of the year. Lots to celebrate.

Reflecting on my radical career. One thing in particular. A long time ago, either 1975 or 1980, I attended a conference. Liberation Theology in the Americas. There were two and I can’t recall which one I attended. Cornel West. Harvey Cox. Lettie Russel. My roommate was a priest from Guatemala. Lots of impassioned speeches. Marxist analysis. Great meal conversations. Bus tours by a Detroit Socialist party that had made some political progress.

At the time I thought the conference was important for the clergy and theologians. Only later did I realize that the most radical moment came from a member of the Iroquois Confederacy, a medicine man in a 700 year lineage of medicine men.

At the end of the conference he performed a ritual typical of the Confederacy, planting a pine tree as a sign of peace. In the original rituals tomahawks and bows and arrows and knives would have been placed into the hole, covered in soil, the tree planted on top of them.

Afterward, and this part of the story I’ve told many times, he gave a long prayer. I listened carefully. You can read it below.*

When he finished, I went up to him and asked, “I noticed you didn’t mention the two-leggeds.” Oh, he said. Yes. The people are the most fragile of all. We need all the other spiritual forces healthy if we are to survive. So we pray for them. If they are well, so are we.

That was the radical moment at this most radical of all theological gatherings. I see it now. I carried on with work for economic justice: affordable housing, supporting unions, worker owned cooperative businesses like food co-ops and grocery stores and drug stores. Restaurants. Direct financial aid to the unemployed seeking work. Until.

Kate and I attended a Physicians for Social Responsibility conference in Iowa City. On climate change. This was in the mid-1990’s. A national conference they had now well-known figures in the climate change movement presenting. Each day we would go back to our hotel and express wonder that this science was not public. And, it wasn’t then. At least not enough for anyone to notice.

No habitable planet. No need for justice. I decided then that the remainder of my political work would be on climate change. And so it was. But, I could have made the same realization back in 1975 or 1980. Had I listened to the Iroquois medicine man.

 

 

 

 

  •   Reimagining Faith: Tree of Peace

Spring                                                              Bee Hiving Moon

The essence of the Peacemaker legend follows as told by Mohawk chief Jake Swamp at the planting of a Tree of Peace in Philadelphia in 1986. “In the beginning, when our Creator made humans, everything needed to survive was provided. Our Creator asked only one thing: Never forget to appreciate the gifts of Mother Earth. Our people were instructed how to be grateful and how to survive. But during a dark age in our history 1000 years ago, humans no longer listened to the original instructions. Our Creator became sad, because there was so much crime, dishonesty, injustice and war. So Creator sent a Peacemaker with a message to be righteous and just, and make a good future for our children seven generations to come. He called all warring people together and told them as long as there was killing there would be no peace of mind. There must be a concerted effort by humans for peace to prevail. Through logic, reasoning and spiritual means, he inspired the warriors to bury their weapons and planted atop a sacred Tree of Peace”

It is said that the Tree of Peace given by the Peacemaker symbolizes the Great Law of Peace. The symbol is a great white pine, and it is said to shelter all nations who commit themselves to Peace. Beneath the tree are buried the weapons of war of the original five nations. Above the tree is an eagle that sees far. Also, four long roots stretch out in the four sacred directions, and they are called the white roots of peace. The Peacemaker invited any man or nation desiring to commit to the Great Law of Peace to trace the roots to their source, and take refuge beneath the Tree of Peace. The Peacemaker’s teachings stressed the power of reason to assure righteousness, justice and health. Faithkeeper Oren Lyons, an Onondaga, states that the Great Law of Peace includes freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right of women to participate in government.

The seed-idea underlying all Iroquois philosophy is that peace is the will of the Creator, and it is the ultimate spiritual goal and natural order of things. The prayer below comes from the people of the Iroquois Confederacy. The prayer is based on the tradition of interconnectedness that the Iroquois or Haudenosaunee possess. This prayer is said to be the backbone of the Iroquois culture. The prayer expresses the belief that rather than take the world for granted, it must be respected, and that we must thank all living things in order to align our minds with creation and the Creator. Usually, a faithkeeper is selected to share the prayer of thanksgiving at the opening and closing of social, government, and ceremonial events. The prayer is comprised of three levels:

 

Spiritual Forces on the Earth, Spiritual Forces in the Sky, Spiritual Forces beyond the Sky

The Spiritual Forces on the Earth are:
the People, our Mother Earth, the Waters, the Fish, the Grasses, the Plants,
our Sustenance, the Animals, the Trees, and the Birds.
Throughout the year we bring our minds together as one
We give thanks to one another
All year long she gives us all that we need

We give thanks to our Mother Earth
Everyday it quenches our thirst
We give thanks to the waters In winter it replenishes the lakes.
We give thanks to the waters

During the year they purify the lakes
We give thanks to the fish
When the wind turns warm a green blanket appears
We give thanks to the grasses
In early summer the flowers turn sweet
We give thanks to the medicinal plants
In early summer they help us survive
We give thanks to the food plants
In midsummer we dance for the green corn
We give thanks to our sustenance
In midsummer we dance for the red beans
We give thanks to our sustenance
During the winter their pelts warm the soul
We give thanks to the animal creatures
Since early times they have been our companions
We give thanks to the animal creatures
In early spring we are glad they reappear
We give thanks to the animal creatures
At one point in time it became a symbol of peace
We give thanks to the trees
At the end of spring the sap will flow
We give thanks to the trees
In early morning they carry messages
We give thanks to the birds
In times of danger he warns the people
We give thanks to the birds
In the summer they sing sweet songs

We give thanks to the birds Spiritual Forces in the Sky are:
the Four Winds, our Grandfather Thunder, our Elder Brother Sun, our Grandmother Moon, and the Stars
Throughout the seasons they refresh the air
We give thanks to the Four Winds
In early summer they bring the falling drops
We give thanks to our Grandfather Thunder
Every morning he brings light and warmth
We give thanks to our Elder Brother Sun
Every night she watches over the arrival of children
We give thanks to our Grandmother Moon
In the night their sparkle guides us home
We give thanks to the stars
The Highest Spiritual Forces beyond the Sky are: our Protectors, Handsome Lake, and the Creator
All the time they remind us how to live
We give thanks to our protectors
At one point in time he brought back the words of the Creator
We give thanks to Handsome Lake
Everyday we will share with one another all of these good things
We give thanks to the Creator.
– Prayer of Thanksgiving, Iroquois Confederacy

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Happy New Year!

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Samain and the Moon of the Thinned Veil

Sunday gratefuls: Kate, always Kate. Nearer to my heart as the veil thins between this world and the Otherworld. Rigel and Kep, good dogs. Xiola, that pit bull that showed up yesterday. Hope she got home ok. Low hanging Cloud this morning. Fog on Shadow Mountain. Samain, Summer’s End. New Year’s day for Celtic lands. Long ago. Glasgow. Needs all the power it can get. Then, to use it.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fog

Tarot: Eight of Cups, Druid Craft

Happy New Year! Feliz Samain! The season of light has fallen behind us. As I write at 7:30 am, the sky has only begun to lighten, a blue steel. As I feed the dogs in the afternoon, the sky heads toward late twilight. The temperatures are cooler and Snow is in the forecast. All Crops are dead except those few winter hardy ones like Winter Wheat, Garlic.

Up here the Aspens are naked. I found a skim of Ice on the Dog’s outdoor Water yesterday. This morning the shed and the roof of the house have a coating of Frost. I’ve begun layering with flannel shirts, fleece, and lined outer shirts. The boiler works harder now.

The Celts began their year today. The Samain festival marks the end of the growing season and the harvest season. Samain is the last harvest festival, preceded by Mabon in September and Lughnasa in August.

Through its influence millions of children will go door to door tonight dressed as Bob Ross (Gabe), candy bars, ghosts, celebrities, goblins, animals, witches. Whatever seems fun. Most will not know that the costumes mimic the Celtic belief that the veil between this world and the Otherworld thins on this day. That means the dead, those of Faery, other creatures like goblins can cross into this world more easily. In the ancient Celtic mind anything strange might happen or show up.

And, yes, it also means that the living can cross over into the Otherworld if they can find a portal, a place where the veil thins even more. Holy wells, caves, dolmens, sacred groves. A place made sacred by repeated worship. The living, though, have to be careful if they cross over because the return from Faery, or the Otherworld, may not be as easy. For sure eat no Faery cake nor drink no Faery wine.

Today is my first Samain without Kate; I feel her absence and her presence more keenly today. A family altar anchored by her ashes helps me place her both here and there. Wherever there might be.

The fog, the frost, the chill in the air underscore this day as one of a thinned veil. A day after which the strength of the growing season must see us through until Imbolc when the ewes freshen and milk becomes available. Even then we must wait until Ostara, the first day of Spring, to see the world once again as a place that can support the living.

To start the year here suggests an emphasis on the inner world, on life lived with family, often huddled around peat fires for warmth. Eating, being sustained, by the crops of the time of light.

A book dear to me, The Fairy Faith, written by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, recounts his several visits to the smoky huts all round Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany. In those villagers’ homes he heard the stories that kept the family enthralled over the long nights following the New Year. Stories of elves, fairies, goblins and more. Evans-Wentz went on to become famous as the translator of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

We have stripped the world of its magic with Enlightenment reason and scientific method. Many, most, are as I used to be: either/or folks. Either the scientific, logical worldview or nothing. I prefer, Yes science and logic. Yes magic and mystery.

Sure this is meteorological Fall. Yes. It’s also Samain and Mabon ends today. It’s true we don’t know what happens after death, but it’s also true we really DON’T know what happens after death. The second law of thermodynamics explains dissolution, decay, the inevitable crumbling of organic structures. As far as it goes. Yet it cannot imagine a world untouched by its rule. But, I can.

Having the New Year today suggests that there is a way of understanding that comes in the dark, in the midst of decay, in the inner reaches of our psyche. A way best accessed when the light recedes and time for reflection grows. A way that precedes the way of light both in time and in spiritual significance.

early spring, 2011

Remember Steiner’s Springtime of the Soul at the feast of Michael the Archangel? September 29th. I believe Steiner recognized the same wisdom as the ancient Celts. To become more of who we are we need to go inside, into the dark, into the fecund place where the imagination lives.

During the season of light we work and live in the outer world, coming to the dark and the inner life mainly at night. During the season of dark, the fallow time, we can more easily spend time in meditation, dreaming, listening to tales told before a crackling fire. Perhaps writing and painting and cooking to express for others our inner work.

Join me this Samain as we honor the dead, honor the pool of memories that bind us all as one, honor the subconscious mind, honor the mysterious and the immeasurable. Honor faeries, goblins, elves, Tarot cards, the Tree of Life, and astrology. Kabbalah. Everything that seeks to penetrate or contextualize the interesting, but limited world of science and logic.

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My Cauldron

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Fall and the waning crescent of the Michaelmas Moon

Monday gratefuls: Greg Lell, starts today staining the house. Susan, who will care for the dogs when I go to Minnesota, comes at 10:30. Marina Harris and her crew coming today to clean. RJ working on how much money I can spend. Coyote HVAC next Monday. Kate, always Kate. Those two Mule Deer Bucks. The beginning after the ending.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The World, #21 of the Major Arcana

Tarot: The World

 

Bubbling and churning. My life a cauldron, happily. Eye of house stain. Leg of house cleaning. Fingernail of dogsitter. Horn of Mule Deer Buck. Feather of mini-splits. Bits of redo and redesign of kitchen. A dash of Orgovyx. One major arcana. A pinch of the ayn sof. A sprinkle of Stars. A slice of Woolly Mammoth Tusk. Two measures of Aloha. Tears of grief. Stir with family and Congregation Beth Evergreen. Simmer for a season or two.

Not sure of much these days. Which suits me just fine. My path has companions worthy of Chaucer. A location worthy of poetry. A destination unknown.

My ancientrail, my life, has begun to reknit itself, reconstruct. The base of this reknitting? The love and life I had with Kate. Her smile, her laugh, her sharp insights, her deep knowledge and compassion. Her kindness. Not gone, here, right here in my soul. Her hand in mine until the end of time.

She found this house. She earned most of the money I receive monthly. She encouraged me to leave the ministry and take up writing. We were brave together. Adventurous. We loved each other and left imprints on each other’s souls.

Now I have to walk this ancientrail without her physical presence. I wish it were not so, but it is. As I put a few touches on the house, learn methods to access the occult, manage my cancer, exercise, spend time with friends, read, write, paint, I’m living forward, not looking backward.

Changing the house a bit will help me say, yes, this is my place, too. It will never be other than our place, but no ghosts allowed. Only good memories.

The whole Tarot, Kabbalah, Astrology, Judaism journey has me on a strange side road from that of the skeptic. Where it leads is to mystery, of that I’m sure. How it will affect my life? Unclear. Maybe a lot. Maybe only some. Tincture of time. (a favorite phrase of Kate’s)

When I came up for closing on this house, October 31, 2014, three Mule Deer Bucks greeted me in the back. We stood with each other for a long time, not moving, seeing each other. After they left, I knew the Mountain Spirits had welcomed Kate and me to their realm. Samain.

Yesterday, two more came.

 

They came on a day when Black Mountain was aflame.

I got up this morning and let Kep out and he chased one of the bucks who had stayed the night. The buck cleared the five foot fence as if it wasn’t there. Kep was pretty damned proud of himself. He never barked.

Back to that pot. Double, toil and trouble, cauldron burn, cauldron bubble.