Category Archives: Holidays

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

Part I: Holiseason

November 15, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Thanksgiving Moon

Two thoughts kept rambling through yesterday and today. The first, how much more comfortable I felt when I remembered holiseason was here. The second, how to avoid demonizing whole populations with words like racist, sexist, homophobe, misogynist, classist. (I’ll post about this tomorrow.)

Holiseason. I find myself soothed and enriched by certain traditions. The holidays are among them. When I eased my psyche into holiseason yesterday, I realized that the holidays will help me survive the insults of Trump’s election.

Here’s what I mean. Holiseason begins now with Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah. Each year Jews all over the world celebrate new year, then follow it with 10 days of soul searching, flaw finding and asking for forgiveness. Can you imagine how those activities will be greeted in the Trump Whitehouse? Neither can I.

With Samain we enter the Celtic new year, celebrating not the fecundity of the earth, but its time of rest and renewal. Next week comes Thanksgiving when families all over America come together to eat, watch football and argue. Probably a grand family tradition at chez Trump.

After Thanksgiving, or around it sometimes, the Wheel turns to the festivals of light like Diwali, Hannukah, Christmas. We decorate and illuminate. We sing songs, give and receive gifts, enter into traditions older, much older than our nation.

The Winter Solstice also comes in this time. It is a festival of the dark, not the light. It is the moment of darkness, actual physical darkness, at its deepest and longest of the year. As some of you who read this know, this is my favorite holiday. It will be a time this year to concentrate my mind, meditate, discern what path forward makes sense in light of the many assaults on human life and on our planet to come next year and for the next four years.

After that, Kwanza, then the Gregorian New Year comes full force. Ball dropping at Times Square. Silly hats. Noise makers. And finally the feast of the Epiphany on January 6th. After the Epiphany we return to Ordinary Time, though on January 20th Ordinary Time will get a sudden jolt with the orange faced hair piece getting sworn in as the President. Aaiiieeee!

Cooking, Dogs, Family, Great Wheel, Great Work, Health, Holidays, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, Weather +Climate, Writing

Life does, in fact, go on

November 15, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Thanksgiving Moon

In spite of the political upheaval life, as it always does, continues, mostly in its old grooves. Here on Shadow Mountain for example the divorce process has entered its waning days. Final orders will be issued late this month though the outline for them, largely fair and equitable is already known. Jon’s anxiety level has receded. Good and heartening to see.

We had Asplundh tree service here on Friday and Monday clearing out the tree cover from the power line easement. I spoke with the workers, current day lumberjacks operating outside the timber industry.

“That’s hard work,” I said.

“Yes, but it’s honest. No shortcuts.” replied the bearded young man in charge of the crew. He’s right about that.

The utility bills from IREA, Intermountain Rural Electric Association, have been, since May, $10, a line fee that supports such work as the Asplundh team. The electricity we use has been produced by our solar panels.

I continue to write, now upwards of 63,000 words (I was a little too early when I said I’d reached 60,000 last week.).

Kate and I are becoming more and more a part of Congregation Beth Evergreen. It’s an interesting experience for me. I’m a participant, not a leader. I like it, being part of a community but not being responsible for it. I can help in modest ways and that feels appropriate to me for right now. That may change though with the political work that is brewing.

It’s dry, no snow. According to the weather services, this could reach a record snowless period for Denver. We’ve had a little snow on Shadow Mountain, but only two instances, rare. This, plus the winds and the low humidity, means the potential fire situation here remains at an elevated risk.

This morning at 10 I have my pre-op physical for my December 1st total knee replacement. The pain in the knee worsens, it seems, by the day. That’s good, I tell Kate, because it’ll feel so much better after the new knee. I’m grateful there’s something that can be done about it.

And, improbably, it will be Thanksgiving next week. There is no hint of over the river and through the woods weather to stimulate that Thanksgiving feeling. We may get a storm on Thursday. That would help.

We’re going to smoke a small turkey. Annie will be here from Waconia, Jon and the grandkids. Unlike the nation we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving on Wednesday because the grandkids go to their mom’s for Thanksgiving this year. Under the new divorce terms holidays alternate and this year is Jen’s Thanksgiving. It will be good once again to have family (and dogs) underfoot during the holiday.

Just realized in all the election fun I’ve allowed holiseason to get started without any remarks. Look for that to change as we head into the most holiday rich season of the year.

Holidays

Gifts.

November 12, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Thanksgiving Moon

Too much fun not to share.

Dogs, Family, Holidays, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Pumpkins. Gone.

October 31, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Thanksgiving Moon

Kate’s note to the grandkids yesterday:

Grandpop and Gertie and Kepler are up in the loft.

Grandma and Rigel are in bed.

The elk ate the pumpkins.

Blueberry muffins are on the stove.

The pumpkins got carved with much spilling of pumpkin seeds. Ruthie’s was silly and well done, Gabe’s slashing and minimalist. Overnight elk and mule deer found them. Were delighted. Only tops and one tooth grooved side of pumpkin flesh remained when we got up.

The mountains are filled with wild cousins ready to take advantage of a slight misstep. Bears will take out your garbage. Mountain lions will eat your dog. Elk and mule deer will dine on the Halloween pumpkins. And the alyssum. And the iris leaves. Scissor tailed flycatchers snap up the seeds of mature flowering plants.

We share this space. Or, they share it with us. Either way, we’re in it together.

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

New Year II

October 31, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Thanksgiving Moon

streamgage-or-screamgage-happy-hallowstream-from-usgs-auxiliary-streamgage-pend-oreille-river-at-newport-wa We have reached the end of another Celtic year. Summer’s End, Samain, marks both the end of the growing season, really, the harvest season and the beginning of a new year. Rosh Hashanah and the Gregorian New Year celebration on January 1st, like the Celtic New Year, put the marker down for a new trip around Sol either at the start of the fallow season or in its midst. In these three instances the New Year seems to suggest a season of reflection, of inner work, as the harvest ends or is well over, while fall and winter stretch ahead.

The Asian New Year’s celebration, usually in February or a bit later, like the Persian Nowruz celebrated on the Spring equinox, occur at the end of the fallow season or near it, setting the new year at the beginning of the growing season. In my case I like them all. I’ll put on a silly hat, pick up a noise maker or dance around the bonfire whenever.

Samain finds the veil between the worlds thinner, with the dead returning and the folk of Faery leaving the Other World to interact with humans. Like the day of the dead and All Soul’s Day, it’s a moment to honor the deceased, often with elaborate meals and tableaus of favorite foods, music, decor.

In the Mussar class at Beth Evergreen I identified myself as a pagan while we ate in the Sukkah. I know what I mean when I say that, but I’m not sure it’s clear to others. It does not mean, for example, that I’m a polytheist. I’m no Wiccan or Neo-Pagan, not a witch or a warlock. I’ll not be saying Blessed Be with a coven tonight.

quote_twothings So, what does my celebration of the Great Wheel mean? I began thinking about the Great Wheel when I chose to embrace my Celtic ancestry: Welsh and Irish. This was when I began writing novels a millennia ago in the 1990’s. As Kate and I began to garden seriously, joining our lives to the seasonal rhythms of the earth and its weather, the Great Wheel began to live. Time became, as it has remained for me, a spiral, a turning and returning to Beltane and the start of the growing season, to Samain, Summer’s End, and the end of the harvest.

To be a pagan as I understand it is to live into the Great Wheel, into the spiral turning of the seasons, to know the cycles of plant growth and harvest for what they are, the true transubstantiation, the everyday miracle of sustenance. To be a pagan as I understand it is to position myself in the ongoing story of the universe, not as a God’s experiment, but as a form of the universe able to reflect on itself. To be a pagan as I understand it is closer to animism than any formal creed or tradition. That is, the interlocking and interdependent nature of life and its interleaving with the inorganic world means all of it participates in the ongoingness of things.

year-wheel There is life and the spirit of the sun residing in every green thing on this planet. There is life and the spirit of the sun in every insect, mammal, protozoa, fish and flying creature. We are all more alike, much more, than we are different. Think of it. We share this planet, third from the sun, in the goldilocks zone. As living creatures on this one planet among billions of other solar systems, our home is a source of unity, a source of fellow feeling.

The inorganic participates directly in the same cycles as rocks break down into soil, as salt water evaporates and becomes fresh water. Fresh water falls as rain and slakes the thirst of growing plants and roving animals. A chemical like oxygen travels through the stomata of leaves, into the lungs of humans and whales. We are one, part of each other and dependent on each other. This is the sort of paganism I celebrate on this New Year’s.

It is creedless, institutionless, traditionless. It is, in its felt form, mystical. Why mystical? Because knowing this oneness, knowing the life and spirit of us all, is a direct knowing, a visceral experience. No seminary required. No monastic tradition required. No puja required. What is required was written over the gateway to the Delphic Oracle’s room, Know thyself. Yes, know thyself. It is the knowing of our Self as a participant in this great, this cosmic adventure that marries us to the ongoingness of this universe.

In this new pagan year take time if you can to breathe deeply, to see clearly, to listen closely, to taste and touch with delight, with joy. That’s all that’s needed. All.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Holidays, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Weather +Climate

Ordinary Time

October 13, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Hunter Moon

arthur_szyk_1894-1951-_the_holiday_series_rosh_hashanah_1948_new_canaan_ct

The ten days of awe have ended, the book of life has been sealed. The year 5777 is well underway. In case you wondered, as I did, when the Jewish calendar began, it’s with creation. There are apparently fudges about the first six days and their length. One, for example, says the first four days could not have been 24 hours because the sun had not yet been created.

Anyhow, it’s similar to Bishop Ussher’s famous calculations in the Christian tradition. He estimated the age of the earth by counting generations from the 7th day of creation. “By Ussher’s calculations, we are now set to enter the year 6020: 4004 plus 2016. This is very close to Jewish tradition, which puts us in the year 5777.” Globe and Mail

We slide now into ordinary time until, that is, the next holiday. Which on the Jewish calendar is Sukkot, or the feast of the booths.

I now celebrate several distinct new years. The Jewish new year, just over, comes not long before the Celtic new year which begins on Samain eve, or All Hallow’s Eve, Halloween. The next one is the Western calendrical new year on January 1st and that is followed by the lunar Asian new year, which comes sometime in February. That’s at least four opportunities to assess the old year and make plans for the new one.

This fall season will end on Samain, the third of the three harvest holidays: Lughnasa, Mabon and Samain. The Celts began their new year with the end of the growing season, a last fruit’s festival, one marking the beginning of the fallow time. I like the specifically seasonal emphasis of Samain, tying the new year not to dogma or tradition or an arbitrary date like January 1, but to the cycle of life on earth, a cycle influenced by the sun.

Each of these new years has its own flavor, it’s own thing to commend it. A good deal, really, all these variations.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Holidays, Jefferson County, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Yom Kippur

October 12, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Hunter Moon

On erev Rosh Hashanah I went to Beth Evergreen with Kate. The beginning of the Jewish New Year, 5777. Last night I went to the kol nidre service which starts the holiday of Yom Kippur, the end of the 10 days of awe. This morning Kate and I went to the main service for Yom Kippur. It began at 9:30 am and finished at 1:00 pm. Surprisingly, it went so smoothly that I barely noticed the time passing.

yomkippur Beth Evergreen’s sanctuary has multiple clear glass windows that offer views of Bergen Mountain and Elk Meadows. The view next to the Torah Ark had a mountain side filled with lodgepole and Ponderosa pine. Almost to the peak of the mountain though there was a small stand of aspen, golden still, in a perfect heart shape. All through the service I had a symbol, an accident of nature, created by my view, my perspective that synched up remarkably well with the overall theme of Yom Kippur, atonement. Also, up and to my right, at the roof of the sanctuary, a square window framed the tip of a Ponderosa pine. It looked like a painting by a member of the Kano school of Japanese art.

On this day Jews (and those of like mind) look back over the last year and consider the ways they have fallen short. A prompt to discover how you might have done so are the al chets. For example:

For the mistakes we committed before You through having a hard heart.

For the mistakes we committed before You through things we blurted out with our lips.

For the mistakes we committed before You through denial and false promises.

There are 44 such prompts at this website. A woman who spoke during the service made a very helpful distinction, “Christians,” she said, “are sinners. We sin.” And, Yom Kippur is a day when Jews can acknowledge their sin, atone for it and enter the new year a new creation. This makes abundant sense to me. We are limited creatures, bound to err, even as we strive not to. This does not make us essentially bad (original sin); it makes us human. It is no wonder that Yom Kippur is the most sacred day of the year for Jews.

There was much music. A choir. A jazz band. Last night a cello. Guitars, Rabbi Jamie Arnold and a former member of the congregation. A grand piano. The cantor Tara Saltzman. A lot of congregational singing. A congregational songbook of 30 pages contained songs for the congregation to sing, several of them written by Rabbi Jamie.

This was interspersed with events like members of the congregation lighting candles, taking the Torah in its full dress and carrying it throughout the congregation, short speeches and Torah readings. The Reconstructionist prayer book provided the traditional liturgy, but one filtered through the reconstructionist theology.

Grace Carrying the Torah. Congregation Ohr Tzafon — Grace Carrying the Torah.
Congregation Ohr Tzafon

When the Torah in its red cover and its silver ketel (crowns) on its atzei chayim (the wooden shafts that hold the scroll itself) and a torah shield hanging from the atzei chayim went among the congregation on the shoulders of a congregant, people reached out with their with High Holy Day prayer books, touched it and kissed the book. Others with prayer shawls lifted a corner of the shawl and touched the Torah, kissing the shawl where it had touched the Torah.

At other moments those who had a death in the last week stood and gave the names of the one who died. Remembrance of those who have died and recognition of those in mourning are parts of each service, not just Yom Kippur. This recognizes the tribal nature of the congregants, their intimate relationships with each other through blood. The Yahrzeit, the year anniversary of a death, is also important and recognized during each service.

This was my first experience of the ten days of awe, the period from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. It reinforced my view of Judaism as a practical, humanistic faith, one that knows the human animal for what we are, not what we pretend to be. Yes, for many it still has a God at the center, but for many it does not. Oddly, it works just as well either way. At least from where I sit.

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A Busy Few Days

October 4, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Fall (High Holy Days) Hunter Moon

rosh-hashanah Yesterday included three separate trips into Evergreen. First, I took Kate in for the morning Rosh Hashanah service at Beth Evergreen. Then, I came back to answer questions, be available for the electrician and the painter. At noon I went back to pick up Kate and eat the after service lunch with her. All these trips included waits in two spots on Brook Forest Road for culvert repair. Stop. Slow. Stop. Slow.

It was a glorious Colorado day with brilliant blue punctuated by puffy white, a soft wind, then a brisk wind blowing and temperatures in the mid to high sixties. Low humidity.

The service, as services often do, ran 20 minutes over so I sat on a concrete patio outside of Beth Evergreen’s event hall. The brisk wind stripped pine needles from the huge ponderosa’s on the hillside sending flotillas of the connected two needle bunches at me. Round top tables set outside on the patio had rocks on their table cloths. A table near where I sat blew over; the tablecloth, I think, acting as a sail.

my-familys-noodle-kugel1 There were kugels in aluminum pans, bagels with lox and cream cheese or chopped egg, fresh cut vegetables, fruit. Paper plates and plastic forks. Lots of eating and greeting. Some very short skirts. Some men carried small cloth pouches containing prayer shawls and yarmulkes. Kids ran around,

teenagers laughed knowingly to each other. The wind continued to blow.

Back home we napped while Caesar finished painting. The big thing unfinished is installation of the shower door. That will probably happen today. The result is even more pleasing than I imagined it would be.

The third trip into Evergreen was for the Evergreen Writer’s Group at Where the Books Go. Writing groups are fragile things, easy to get wrong. They focus on critiquing work, the very work you’ve been laboring over in private for hours, days, sometimes weeks and years. The internal stakes are high, no matter the outward stance individuals take.

If one of Kate’s sewing groups was similar, the women would bring in their current project and ask others what they thought. How are the seams? What about color choice? The fabric. Their intention for the work and whether they seemed to be achieving it. Most important, the event would not be collaborative as these groups are, but critical.

There might be something to learn here. Perhaps the writing group could be more collaborative, be more a place where we could write together, work on current projects or doing writing exercises together.

Anyhow this trip to Evergreen was without the stop. slow. stop. slow bit because the Jeffco work crews had shut down the skip-loaders, dump trucks and road graders and gone home.

Kate went with me, dropping me off at the meeting and going on to the Lariat Lodge where we ate a couple of weeks ago. She managed to get most of the reading done for our Mussar group, four chapters worth! She also bought supper for me.

With the grandkids coming last Friday night and leaving at 2 pm on Sunday, then erev Rosh Hashanah that night, and the three trips into Evergreen yesterday, it’s been a very busy few days for us. And, we’re not done yet.

This morning I’m seeing Lisa Gidday, our internist, to discuss knee replacement. We’ll also get our flu shots. The week calms down some after this.

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Soul Renewal

October 1, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Fall New (Hunter) Moon

Last night was a black moon, defined as the second new moon in a month. This is relatively rare, the last one occurring on March 30, 2014 and the next one on August 30, 2019. (earthsky news) This black moon precedes the rising, tomorrow night, of a sickle moon that will mark the start of the Jewish New Year on Rosh Hashanah. It’s also the beginning of the Muslim New Year.

Autumn is upon us now. Cooler nights. The possibility of snow next week. The Chinese, again according to earthsky news, say weeping is the sound of autumn, a part of its essential sadness. Not something to be avoided, but embraced, a regular part of the Great Wheel as it turns and turns again. My own response to this season used to be so pronounced that Kate and I had a phrase for her to say, “You seem to be slipping into melancholy.” That way I would know that my inner atmosphere had begun to mirror the outer, gray clouds and a wet chill had crept into my bones.

michaelmas_175 This conforms to Michaelmas as the springtime of the soul. Sadness is a way we consolidate past experiences and sort them out, learning from them and choosing which aspects of the past to embrace and which to let go. When our tears are over, we are cleansed and renewed, ready for the next phase of life. Autumn gives us an annual opportunity for self-renewal. This Great Wheel, natural cycle phenomena matches up exactly with Rosh Hashanah and its climax, Yom Kippur.

This is the time of soul renewal. And I’m ready for it. Bring on the gray skies, the inner turn. My favorite time of the year.

Commentary on Religion, Dogs, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Great Wheel, Holidays, Jefferson County, Judaism, Memories, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Springtime of the Soul (& the Equinox)

September 29, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Harvest Moon

“Just as we can experience the Death and Resurrection of the God in the Easter season in spring, so can we experience in the autumn the death and resurrection of the human soul, i.e. we experience resurrection during our life on earth…” Festivals and Their Meaning, Rudolf Steiner

The Archangel Michael (left), Gabriel (right) and Raphael accompany Tobias. Francesco Botticini, 1470; Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Source: Joachim Schäfer — The Archangel Michael (left), Gabriel (right) and Raphael accompany Tobias.
Francesco Botticini, 1470; Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Today is Michaelmas, the feastday of Michael the Archangel. British universities start their terms today, the Michaelmas term. Following Steiner, I have, for some years, seen Michaelmas as the beginning of a long period for soul cultivation. It is not, I think, an accident that the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, falls in the same period.

These are, too, harvest festivals, falling near the autumnal equinox. It makes sense to me to begin the New Year as the growing season ends. Samain, Summer’s End, in the Celtic calendar, marks the finish of the harvest festivals and the beginning of the fallow time. It is also the Celtic New Year.

Last night at Congregation Beth Evergreen I waited for Kate while she took Hebrew. Where I chose to sit filled up with religious school kids, bouncing with tweeny energy. Rabbi Jamie Arnold came down to talk to them about the shofar and the upcoming New Year. He talked about Rosh Hashanah and described it as a moment when the creation can begin anew. It is possible, he said, for each of us to start life anew on Rosh Hashanah. I like this idea and the question it poses: Who do you want to be in the New Year?

I’m going to consider this question over the next few days before Kate, Jon and I attend the Rosh Hashanah service on October 2nd at Beth Evergreen.

Another way to pose this question is, how do I want to nourish my soul in this, its springtime? What practices can I use? Kate and I have begun to seriously wrestle with the Jewish spiritual practice of Mussar, as I’ve mentioned here before. It will be one lens through which I approach the possibility of a new being, a new me.

Yet. That new me will have a strong relation to the man who harvested years of friendships over the last week in Minnesota. He will have a strong relation to the man who hears, Grandpop!, from Ruth and Gabe. He will have a strong relation to the man who loves Lynne Olson, and Kate, too. He will have a strong relation to the man who is several dogs’ companion. He will have a strong relationship to the man who writes novels. He may be a new man, yet still the old one, too.