quick note: back from St. Paul. Homecomer was a hit. I’ll post it later this afternoon to the Liberal Page and include a link here.
Category Archives: Writing
The Heart of Winter
7 falls 30.13 W0 wchill 7 Winter
Full Wolf Moon
The Full Wolf Moon hangs high in the sky, hidden behind cloud cover. It casts a ring of ice crystals, giving it a gem in a circular setting look. The moon light suffuses the sky giving a bluish cast to the snow as it filters through the clouds.
Another busy day. Tomorrow I preach at Groveland. Preaching may not convey quite what I do. If you read any of the presentations/sermons on the Liberal Religion page, you’ll get a better sense of what happens. I love the prep and the writing, the delivery adds a feedback dimension that I find valuable.
The winter sits with its full weight upon the land here. Snow covers the garden. The deciduous trees have no leaves. The air freezes in the nostrils and makes layers necessary. Growth stopped; but the plant world has not died. It only waits, gathering strength, making itself ready.
Winter has a somber tone, the weather serious and sometimes unrelenting. A Minnesota winter can kill you, so you have to pay attention. That makes it worthwhile. Like climbing a volcano.
Beard Experiment Tells Tale
-3 steep rise 29.99 W0 wchill -3 Winter
Waxing Gibbous Wolf Moon
The wind last night drove our bedroom windown open wider and the chilly night air blew on us early this morning. We always sleep with the window at least partway open, but this larger portal made even the down comforters inadequate. So we both woke up about 30 minutes or so earlier than usual.
Kate said last night, “You must be happy with what you’re doing.” I said, “Yeah, the political stuff is work I know. I understand it in some depth. Besides, a guy needs some validation now and then.” Later, I asked her why she made that remark, “Oh. You shaved your beard. Not so much that fact, but that you were experimenting with it.” I was and I made it so peculiar that the only remaining option was to cut it all off, all the way off. “When you’re not happy,” she went on, “You’re more controlled. When you’re happier, you’re looser, more willing to try things. That’s how I knew.” Oh. The clues we leave behind.
Homecomer is now done, but I have to edit it. That’s today. Seed database underway, but far from done. Business meeting today, too.
We Got Sizzle
24 rises 29.89 NNW0 wchill 24 Winter
Waxing Crescent of the Wolf Moon
The Internet is a strange phenomenon. It functions as a time machine, bringing the future just a bit before it arrives and churning the past as old acquaintances find you again through one of the search functions or social networking sites.
It’s a good thing for me, because I was not such a good communicator before the web arrived. I wrote a few letters, but I’ve never liked the phone much and the only reunions I ever attend are those of my high school. Now though with Facebook, Myspace and e-mail those old acquaintances are not forgot and often brought to mind.
Wrote about three pages of a new Homecomer. Much better. I needed to make it a continuation of the first two pieces in the Heresy Moves West series. I had conceived of them as a set from the beginning, but I hadn’t begun the other one as if it fit with them.
We have some kind of frozen precipitation coming down right now, but I don’t what to call it. Snert. Sleeze. Maybe sneeze? Frozen drizzle is so uninteresting. Fizzle? Hey, I got it. Sizzle.
I bought two new snow shovels. I have an unfortunate adventuresome spirit in the purchase of snow shovels. This time I bought one of a kind I saw used on the U.P. You figure they have 3 to 4 times the amount of snow we have, they must know something. The other one has a blade made of a tough (I hope) plastic that won’t snag on the nails on our deck–at least that was my conclusion. I may find out as soon as tomorrow morning.
Just finished a lower body work out and aerobics. Tomorrow AM all morning I’ll write, then watch the vikings. May Johnny Unitas have mercy on my soul.
Errands Before the Storm
18 steady 29.90 ENE7 wchill11 Winter
Waxing Crescent of the Wolf Moon
Gotta run a couple of errands before the next snow storm. Gas for the snowblower. A new snowshovel. Old one delaminated at the handle insertion point. Hit the grocery store. Then, continue writing on Homecomer. Started off in one direction yesterday, got about three pages in and decided I needed to start over. It happens.
Research, Writing, Meditation and Beef Broth
6 bar steady 30.24 0mph SW windchill 6 Samhain
Waning Gibbous Moon of Long Nights
I made a beef broth today. Took four hours to cook. Now it’s ready but I have not tasted it yet. I’ll probably use it as a base for soups.
Blew the snow from last night around 1pm after the city plows had gone by.
Did some research on the issues central to the Sierra Clubs work at the legislature this year. Home work assigned by me since I still don’t know the terrain very well.
Got back to working out today after two days of feeling crummy after two hours on my feet at the Russian Museum and a couple of hours sitting beside the freeway. Felt good.
Tomorrow I can begin research, writing and meditation. About time. I hope I can keep it up right along.
WTS Writer’s Saving Time
29 bar rises 29.97 2mph SSE windchill 28 Samhain
New Moon (Moon of Long Nights)
Day after. No turkey hangover. But. I have begun to reset my clock for a 10:30 bedtime. Soon I’ll be able to get up early again and write for my usual four hours in the AM.
A bit more work outside, but the heavy lifting is done. Now it’s putting down the black plastic, straw on top of that. Final stroke is mulch over the vegetable beds (to add organic matter) and over the bulbs I planted. That should all get done in the next week or so, then it’s inside time for at least four, maybe five months.
Over the course of that period I want to restart my writing routine and, sigh, work on edits and revisions. I say sigh because my last 12 years has the litter of so many good intentions in this regard and so little to show for it. Maybe this will be the decade. Not that many left.
Kate has a Hanukah piece underway and some Christmas knitted and crocheted items, too. She’s a whir of activity, a real equivalent to a woodworker in a shop. A creative gal.
A Year and A Week +
Brief Note: I began using WordPress to create this blog just over a year ago, November 7th, 2007. Bill Schmidt took the initiative and taught me a new tool. Thanks, Bill.
Thanks, too, to each of you, now about 2,500 a week, who read AncienTrails. I hear from some of you, occasionally, but I’d enjoy hearing from more of you. Anyhow, thanks for reading.
What Should I Do?
30 bar rises 30.00 1mph windchill 28 Samhain
Waning Gibbous Dark Moon
Kate is my wife, friend and partner. I had a conversation with her this morning.
“Kate,” I said, “I want to do something substantial before I shuffle off this mortal coil. (Dad used that phrase a lot. I don’t know where he got it.)”
She smiled and waited, her face turned a bit up to ease the strain on her neck.
“It’s not that I don’t like my life and what I do with it. I enjoy diverse things that require different skills. I’ve accepted that’s the life likely to be lead by a valedictorian. Good at many things, deep in none. Still. I’d like to work on and complete a substantial writing project.”
“What’s your question?” she asked.
“What should I do?” She’s good at answering questions like this. Most people are not, but I trust her and have trusted on these matters for years.
“Lake Superior. That’s the first thing that popped into my mind,” she said, “We could have monthly Lake Superior meetings. Get a large paper pad and work on the project at least once a month. We could make a point of going once or twice a year to different parts of the (true) north shore and pay close attention to it for a week or so.”
“Thanks,” I said, “That’s what I needed. Now I’m going to go get groceries.”
On the drive over I considered her suggestion. It was a good one. We could work on it as partners. I have a shelf full of books and two large file drawers filled with information on Lake Superior.
A few years ago I started in earnest on an ecological history of Lake Superior. I made three trip around the lake, visiting local historical societies as I went, purchasing books and making notes. Taking picture. I made notes, created an outline and a research plan, dug up many good websites. I still have all this material.
I may have stalled the first time around because I’d made my objective both too specific and inflexible. Lake Superior as myth, as geological feature, as water, as story, as an expression of a coming zeitgeist are all rich avenues to explore. Painting, music, lore. Some mix of these, positioning Lake Superior at the heart of the continent and the center of a worldview. Something along those lines.
Right Regrets
62 bar rises 29.84 0mpn NEE dew-point 61 sunrise 6:29 sunset 29.84 Lughnasa
Waning Crescent of the Corn Moon
“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.” – Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller. Once married to Marilyn Monroe. A right regret? Who knows.
His point seems apt. Until scientists convince us we do not have free will (another time), all we have in life are the choices we make. Since the world and its manifold dynamics function chaotically (thought not without a kind of order), making choices that reflect our true values and our authentic Selves are the best we can do. Results have so much to do with accidents of birth, i.e. man, woman, white, black, Latino, Asian, African, poor parents, middle class parents, rich parents, country of origin: USA, Namibia, Brazil, Bangladesh, France, Georgia, era: middle ages, reformation, 19th century, 23rd century, not to mention genetic endowments and psychological environment, the crucial forks in the road for each individual life.
This reality gives Taoism a special resonance for me. Conforming ourselves to the movement of heaven means recognizing all these various factors as they come to a point in an individual life, our life. Attunement rather than atonement. We scan the heavens, using the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching, our minds and discern where to adapt and where to use the times as leverage for our choices. Even a perfectly attuned Taoist, a sage, may have no result in their life if the times and the heavens have no room for their ambitions.
Thus, we can only choose. Our choices, not the results, define our regrets. If we choose paths consistent with our values and our authentic Selves, then we will have only the right regrets. Why? Because we will have not betrayed who we are and we will not have betrayed those values we clasp to our hearts. The results come from the movement of the heavens as our choices either align with them or bump into their hard reality.
It may be that I have added one step too many. If we align ourselves with the Tao, the movement of heaven, then our values may be of no importance. If a value serves to set one in conflict with the movement of heaven, then, if I understand the Tao, it can force one out of alignment with the Tao. This can violates conforming ourselve to the movement of heaven.
This is what I mean when I say life does not need meaning, it is meaning; life does not need purpose, it is purpose.