Category Archives: Memories

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They Say It’s His Birthday!

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Spring! and the Ovid Moon of Metamorphoses

Shoutout to birthday boy Publius Ovidius Naso, or Ovid as we know him in the English speaking west. He’d be two thousand and fifty-four today.

Saturday gratefuls: Safeway pickup. Kabob skewers. Kate’s fluid flowing. Psalms class finish. New class start April 9. Writing poetry. Colorado Mountain Sun. Ancient ones on Justice. Vaccines. April Fool’s Day: shot II for me.

Sparks of Joy: Unclogging Kate’s feeding tube and avoiding another ER adventure. Wu wei, the Way of my life.

March 1, meteorological spring. No romance in that one. March 20, today, 5:37 MST, the Vernal Equinox. Spring. Ostara. Bunnies and crosses and parting of seas, oh my! Lots of romance, lots of theological pulling and hauling. This religion defining moment: resurrection and another: the Exodus. I settle these days for the Sun and the Earth’s celestial equator. See this explainer if you need more. More or less equal hours of Sun and night.

Yes. We’ve moved from the transitional time of Imbolc to the birthing blooming buzzing time. Spring. No wonder the Anglo-Saxons, those Northern European ancestors of so many of us, chose a fertility goddess, Eostre, to celebrate. Estrogen. Ostara. Easter. Yes, the Catholics took her name, added it to the resurrection celebration, and, voila: Easter!

Jesus as Eostre. A dying and rising God like Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, Dionysus, Osiris, or Jesus seem like good company for a fertility goddess. Any gardener can testify to the thrill of planting dusty brown clumps of vegetative matter in the Fall of the year and in the Spring of the next year, the rapture of a moistened bed pierced by green shoots, then Tulips, Crocus, Grape Hyacinth, Iris, Lilies in colorful flower.

Isn’t resurrection a matter of taking a dead thing, or what appears to be a dead thing, putting it away, and having it rise out at the right time? If you listened to the Southern Gospel Revival’s rendition of “Ain’t No Grave” )two posts below this one), you heard the line, “Ain’t no grave, can keep my body down.” Further on, “When that trumpet sounds, I’m a risin’ from the ground.” Could be sung by every Tulip bulb I ever planted.

This is the right time to celebrate those things you may have planted a while back, projects or dreams that have needed some time in the grave or the soil or the unconscious.

It’s also the right time to look at the bed you’ve tended, the one in which you planted them, your life. There might be weeds, or, as I prefer, plants out of place. Note that this means you may have good habits or plans or projects that have become plants out of place in your life. You may have to remove them so your new projects and dreams will flourish.

Ask Eostre for help. You might find her in your anima, perhaps buried in your shadow. She’ll burst out, give things a boost up, if you let her. I’m sitting right now on Shadow Mountain, imagine what lies beneath.

Asia, Beyond the Boundaries, Commentary on the news, Dreams, GeekWorld, Letters, Memories, Mountains, Myth and Story, The Move, Third Phase, Travel, US History, World History

Go, young one, Go

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Imbolc and the Megillah Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Simple roast chicken. So good. Red Lobster dinner rolls. Likewise. Shadow Mountain Israeli Salad. Cooking. Kate’s feeling better this morning. Rigel prancing in the snow. At 12+. Kep and his serious life. Perseverance. For all those at JPL. Yeah! For all those from Colorado who participated (a lot). Yeah! For the part of our soul that is curious, that wants to see, that wants to know.

Sparks of Joy: That roasted chicken when it came out of the oven. Vaccines. The love of and by dogs.

We live in an age of exploration. I know it got started even earlier, but we have good evidence of humanity leaving Africa and spreading out over the Earth. A long period of exploration that once begun, we have not been able to stop.

Yes, it’s had its bad moments. Many of them. Colonialism its worst, I think. But a lot of glorious ones, too. Rounding Cape Horn. Summiting Everest. Walking the land bridge from Asia to North America. LANDING ON THE MOON. Voyager. Curiosity. Perseverance. Down to the Mariana’s Trench. Into the microscopic, the sub-microscopic.

And there are the psychonauts who explore the mind on hallucinogens. The mystics, who do their exploration without technology. Scholars who roam libraries, tells, caves for evidence of our long pilgrimage, how we have handled it. Children who go down the block, turn right into the field, and leave this planet by means of their imagination.

We are explorers. Pilgrims. Wanderers. Always hunting for some new place to live our lives, or to visit to expand our life at home.

I celebrate each explorer. Each pilgrim. Each wanderer. In you, in us, we grow beyond this species and into the future. May it always be so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art and Culture, Asia, Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Friends, GeekWorld, Great Wheel, Health, Literature, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Myth and Story, News of the Strange, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel, US History, Weather +Climate, World History

Still here. Still ok.

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Winter and the beautiful waning crescent of the Moon of the New Year

Ordinary time. Is there any such thing right now?

Saturday gratefuls: Kate. A good night’s sleep. For both of us. Much needed. Rigel keeping me warm. Kep the good boy. Impeachment. 25th Amendment. Resignation. January 20th. All. Subway last night. Beef stroganoff tonight. Easy Entrees, thanks Diane and Mary. Life. Its wonder even amidst its difficulties.

 

 

 

Whoa. Yesterday was tough. I slept from eight last night to seven this morning. All the way through. Thankfully. Feel rested and ready for today. Grateful, really grateful.

Kate’s still worn out though the oxygen situation has resolved. She’s already fatigued from whatever has been going on for the last three weeks, then to have an insult like the oxygen concentrators gave her was hard. She’s still asleep. I’m glad.

As long as I can stay rested, healthy, get my workouts in, see friends and family on zoom, I am ok. Though on occasion I get pushed right up against my limits. I imagine Covid is helping me since I don’t get out, am not around sick people. Or, when I am, I’m masked. Odd to consider, but I’m sure it helps.

Life continues, no matter. Until it doesn’t, of course. That is, even when an evil bastard like Trump is in office, we still have to eat. When a rampant virus rages, we still have to sleep. When a family member is ill, we still love each other, support each other. Life is a miracle and wasting it, well, please don’t.

Got an article about building a computer. Something I’ve always wanted to try. Might just do it. Also read about an experiment that proved quantum entanglement is not instantaneous. And one about the lost merry customs of Hogmanay. And about lyfe, the idea that life might be, probably is, existing in forms we carbon based life forms might not recognize, even if it’s in front of us. And another on why water is weird. And another on why the universe might be a fractal. (thanks, Tom)

No matter how proximate or distant disturbances in the force, science goes on, literary folks write books and articles, the past remains a source of inspiration, and the future a source of hope. No matter whether life has meaning or whether it is absurd (as I believe) the secondary effects of this strange evolutionary push into awareness persist. And, yet they persisted.

Lucretia hangs in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, ready for witnesses to her dignity, her sense of honor, and her tragic fate. Goya’s Dr. Arrieta, not far from her, documents gratitude for healing and the comfort of ancestors. Van Gogh’s Olive Trees teach us that perspective differs from person to person, yet each perspective can be beautiful while remaining unique. Beckman’s Blind Man’s Buff embraces the mythic elements of life, helps us see them in our own lives. Kandinsky. Oh, Kandinsky. His colors. His lines. His elegance.

Mt. Evans and its curved bowl continues to deflect weather toward us here on Shadow Mountain. The light of dawn hits Maine first, as it has for millennia. The polar vortex slumps toward Minnesota.

Roman Ephesus. The last standing pillar of the Temple of Diana. Delos. The Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The ruined temples of Angkor Wat. Chaco Canyon. Testimony to the ancientrail of human awe. Of an eagerness to memorialize wonder.

It is, in spite of it all, a wonderful world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anoka County, Bees, Great Wheel, Holidays, Memories, Minnesota, Myth and Story, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Here’s to Thee, Old Man Apple Tree

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Winter and the Moon of the New Year

Christmastide, day 7: New Year’s Day

Friday gratefuls: Sherlock Holmes. Cribbage. Ribeye and lobster. Mashed potatoes. Deli salad. Tony’s. Cold. Snow. Low wildfire risk. Rigel between us, sharing her head. Kate’s pillow. Mine. Kep at his spot. 19 days til 1/20 at 9 am. See the back of his head. Tom’s mother, Evelyn. Tom. His sister.

 

           Andover, 2012, Bees and Apple Blossoms

 

Paul, here’s an English New Year’s ritual for you. Wassail. You may have heard the word used in relation to wild parties. That’s good too of course. But. In England folks go out to the oldest apple tree in their orchard, usually around noon, and pour cider from a bowl around this tree.

In Devon and Cornwall they add bowing three times to the “Apple-Tree Man.” I like this. The idea is to encourage a large and healthy crop for the fruit season. Pieces of cake and toasted bread were hung from the branches. This was called wassailing the tree. Wassail comes from wase haile, or good health.

They sing:

Here’s to thee, old apple tree

Whence thou may’st bud and

Whence thou may’st blow.

And whence thou may’st

Bear apples anew.

Hats full, Caps full, Bushel,

Bushel sacks full.

And my pockets full too?

Huzzah

Or.

Blow, bear well,

Spring well in April,

Every sprig and every spray

Beat a bushel of apples against

Next New Year’s Day.   

Matthews, 193 for both

 

Another New Year’s custom from the Faery Faith involves dressing the wells. In the ancient Celtic way artesian springs were considered dwelling places for faery folk and pathways to the Otherworld. Like some Native American nations, prayer rags tied to trees and shrubs near the well were common. Also, bouquets of flowers, small candles.

In 1995 I visited St. Winifride’s Holy Well in Holywell, Flintshire, Wales. Called by some Catholics the Lourdes of Wales, her well has a stone well casing about three feet high and a large pool which the well fills. When I was there, wheelchairs and crutches lined one of the walls.

St. Winifride’s Holy Well is one of the few locales mentioned in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Sir Gawain goes there on his journey to find the Green Chapel. Winifride was a Celtic legend long before the Roman Church and the connection to the tale of the Green Knight involves her beheading by Caradoc, a jilted lover.

The spring rose from where her head hit the ground. Her uncle Beuno, probably a Druid, reattaches her head, and healing became associated with her well.

May the healing power of Beuno and the well of Winifride wash over this new year, this new decade. May our 2021 heal as much as it can, cheer as many as it can, especially on January 20th at noon.

Aging, Family, Friends, Holidays, Memories, Minnesota

Childhood

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Winter and the Moon of the New Year

Christmastide, Day 3: Holy Innocents, Children

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient ones on wonder. Wonderfull. High humidity outside. Another weather change on the way. 23 days until he has to come on down. 4 days till 2021. Back to workouts today. Covid. Trump. The Absurd. Authenticity. Living into the abyss. Haislet’s poem.

 

Murdoch’s last day at his birth home

 

First. Don’t start anything important today. As was well known a while ago, nothing started on Holy Innocents ever turns out as hoped. In the Middle Ages kings would not be crowned on this day. Two kings, French King Louis XI and English King Edward IV would not conduct any court affairs.

You have been warned.

This day commemorated the children killed by Herod in his slaughter of the innocents and added, over time, an emphasis on all children.

Ruth’s final day at Swigert

There were odd rituals. Parents beat their children with fresh evergreen branches. Sometimes children would beat the parents. Masters, servants. And, servants, masters. They would say: Fresh green! Long life! Give me a coin. or, Fresh, green, fair, and fine, Gingerbread and brandy-wine! I don’t know. Go ahead if you want.

Take this as a day to honor the children in your life. Grandchildren. Your own children. Text them. Call them. Let them know, again, what they meant to you. In the wonder and strangeness of growing up, both us and them, we can forget to acknowledge each other as individuals, as amazements. Let this day encourage you to do it now.

Another facet. Childhood. Consider your children’s, your grandchildren’s lives when they were young. What was it about them then that made them special? That either prefigured traits they have today or that disappeared in the process of becoming older. Pleasant or precious memories. Hopes you had for them.

Seeing Joe in Colorado Springs

I remember Joseph at t-ball. Hitting the ball off the t and then the scrum of kids from all positions heading toward the ball. Many, many trips to baseball card shows. The rookie card of Kirby Puckett he bought when we took the train the wrong way out of St. Louis and had to wait for the next one. Driving with him into St. Paul from Andover. Picking him up from the plane. How he made and kept friends.

Another facet. Consider your own childhood. Honor the child you. What made you special? Pleasant or precious memories.

The garden spider mom and I watched for a whole summer. She had spun her web on the window frame just above our kitchen table. My stack of comic books I kept under my bed with some Superman comics hidden among them. (forbidden) Listening to the 500 mile race in the family car, rain pounding down. All those kids on my block. Games. The coal chute in the basement of our apartment. And the augur which fed the furnace. A dragon, I thought.

Childhood. And, the folks who care for children, too. Like pediatricians. Teachers. Nannys. Their friends.

At Domo
Beyond the Boundaries, Commentary on Religion, Great Wheel, Holidays, Judaism, Letters, Memories, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

A Wandering Soul

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Samain and the Moon of Thanksgiving

Sunday gratefuls: Paul’s birthday. Mark Ellis. Mary. Diane. Rigel, keeping me warm. Dr. Bachtel. Cod fingers and steak bits. Onion and Cucumber salad. A Colorado blue Sky day. Colorado road builders. Jeffco snowplow drivers. Whoever invented concrete and macadam. Britain. Wales. Scotland. England. Isle of Man. Druids. The Holy Isle. Castle Conwy. Hawarden, Wales. St. Deniol’s residential library. Chester, England. Horse racing there.

I have my toe in the Christmas Spirit pond. Not fully there, but it’s coming. Feels wonderful. Getting ready to dive into some research on Yule and the Winter Solstice. Where most of the Christmas traditions originate. I love learning about Celtic and Northern European religious traditions. Their pantheons. Their myths and legends. Snorri Sturluson. Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Tolkien’s work. Beowulf. Not sure why but these traditions resonate with my inner life. As does Taoism and the lifeways of the Japanese. Much more so than the New Testament or the Torah. Seems strange that it would be so. But, it is.

Even Diwali and Holi. I’d like to experience Holi at least once. Throwing colored powder at each other to celebrate the riotous colors of spring and the triumph of good over evil? Yes. Messy, beautiful, ecstatic.

Buddhism doesn’t do it for me either. Except certain aspects of Tibetan Buddhism. Yamantaka. Bardo. Again, not sure why. Thin soup for me.

Those traditions that find animacy everywhere like Shinto, many Native American traditions. Yes. Roman and Greek myth, legend. Yes, not in a soul way, but as story, as ancient layers below this civilization in which we live.

Perhaps my soul never left the time into which it was born. Maybe during the journey out of Africa when all things were miraculous. When all things moved and lived and had their being right alongside those of us on pilgrimage to humanity’s future. Or, maybe some shamanic ancestor moved directly into this body. Wondering what it was like far from his or her time.

Whatever the explanation. Once I began to see, and then shed, the totalizing myths I’d been steeped in from birth… Well. I can’t unlearn the fragile and human created nature of them. The scent of fear in them, attempting to make certain an uncertain world. Building meaning for lives out of tissue paper and sealing wax. Like the Catholics who built their English churches over Celtic holy wells. Tried to absorb enough of the Faery Faith to draw the Celts away from their pagan practices. It worked. For a while. As Judaism and Islam work for a while, for many. Zoroastrianism.

Not sure about Hinduism. It seems to want those most early, most primal connections with this place. Great stories like the Ramayana and the Rig Veda. I don’t know it well enough. Maybe never will. The Mahabharata. Many mystical practices. Lots of color and fun. Also, the dark side of caste, of killing Muslims.

This month though, the time of deepest darkness, has inspired so much wonderful music. Story. Celebration. At least for those of us in the temperate latitudes. And, I revel in it. Going down with the longest night into the well of my soul. Coming out to light an evergreen tree, hang mistletoe, holly and ivy. Santa Claus. Elves. Snow. Cold. Icicles. Sleighs. Horses with halters. Fire up the yule log. Wish I could lift a glass of grog, or ambrosia, or single malt scotch. But, alas no.

Guess this is my Sunday unsermon. Leaving one way and seeking others.

Colorado, Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Great Wheel, Holidays, Memories, Mountains, Park County, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Third Phase, US History

My Christmas Wish

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Samain and the Thanksgiving Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Last night Kate said as we were going to sleep, I know one of your gratefuls. OK. Your electric blanket. Oh, yeah. She right. And that down comforter on top of it. Plus, the cold bedroom that makes them both necessary and a joy. In the single digits here. Windows open. Our way. The small Animal which created the narrow tracks that look like a tiny wagon had crossed our snowy driveway. The Mule Deer that came by later. My own, for that matter. The wheel tracks of the garbage taken out yesterday morning. Temporary memories. Our mailbox. Bought one that has a door in the back as well as the front. I can get the mail without standing on Black Mountain Drive as folks drive home from work.

 

Prepping for a Hanukkah post. Advent, too. Yule and the Winter Solstice. Why is our New Year’s in the middle of winter? Kwanza. This is a big holiday month. We need it this year. We also need it to be safe. Hope you have an uncomplicated but joyous holimonth.

My Christmas wish. Please make DJT disappear from the television, social media, and print. I don’t care if he stays in the Whitehouse until US Marshals come to serve him an eviction notice. I’ve coined a phrase, and I don’t want it to offend those who got PTSD in horrendous circumstances, or to demean them in any way, but Post Trump Stress Disorder is real. His voice, his image, news articles about him trigger me. His careful enunciation of outright lies, his presentation as conman in chief shames our country and has been repudiated. Couldn’t we muzzle him for the next 48 days? I have a wire muzzle for Kepler that out to fit him. Or maybe noise cancelling electronic devices when he opens his mouth?

Still feeling glum. I don’t have the holimonth spirit. And, I want it. Gonna find that box of Christmas decorations in the garage and lug it up here. String up some lights. Position my small collection of Christmas snowglobes around. Put out ornaments. I’ve got a spruce on our property to cut for a tree. Not a very big one. While I’m decorating, I’ll hit Pandora’s Christmas music stations.

Oddly, what I miss about Christmas is not the church services, except for the music. I don’t miss the creche. Nor the story of a baby God. I miss the parts of Christmas that make it a family holiday. The tree. The music. The food. That Night Before Christmas feeling. I want to put out a five dollar bill, ok, maybe a twenty, so Santa can go eat at the Rustic Station in Bailey. Get some of those buttermilk pancakes. I’ll put out hay for Rudolph and Dancer and Vixen and all the team. Some milk or whatever elves prefer. This is the Christmas that absorbed so much of the pagan Yule.

Today’s a Happy Camper day. I’ll see the white tops of the Continental Divide as I drive on 285. Snow sprinkled Ponderosa, Lodgepole, Spruce line the highway. At points along the way, tucked away in the tree are the stone chimneys and fireplaces left over from earlier settlers cabins. Not to far from Conifer High School, on the way to 285, are two cabins from that time, too. They’re dotted all over. Plenty on Shadow Mountain Drive. The road goes up steeply and down dramatically. Mountain roads. Each time I drive here I look at the mountains, scan for wildlife, enjoy the odd mix of businesses and homes, some mansions often high up. Five full years this Winter Solstice and it’s all still beautiful and amazing to me.

I’m not a small government guy. Not at all. I believe government has the responsibility to keep all of its citizens healthy, educated, housed, and with adequate nutrition. Even so. I want government to recede, go back to its normal presence in our lives. Post Trump Stress Disorder has made me eager to have him gone and to have words and whole sentences, complete thoughts in the mouths of our government officials. Calm. Quiet. At least until January 20th. Please.

Memories, Minnesota, Politics, US History

Yet To Be Known

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Samain and the Moon of Radical Change

Saturday gratefuls: Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, even North Carolina. Let them count. Let it be obvious. Life without Trump in the Whitehouse. Kate. A new, better political reality. Snow comin’. Cold, too. The Moon of Radical Change three-quarters through its month. And, working. A blue tide, even at neap tide, brings real, radical change. That writer in me that keeps yearning to write. May he never die.

The mail in ballot stomp. I’m for it. May this be the new normal. More and more votes by mail. Fewer and fewer at the polls. Back in 1974 I was an intern at Bethlehem-Stewart Presbyterian church at the corner of 26th and Pleasant in Minneapolis. This was an old church with non-handicap friendly stairs, linoleum tile floors. Also, a polling site. A city of Minneapolis truck parked in front of the side entrance, the driver and a helper got out, put strong wooden ramps down after opening the truck. They literally manhandled the huge metal voting machines, levers and curtains, into the church. They had to take a couple of them up a short flight of three stairs. That was tough. On the stairs. And, the men. The machines themselves were fine.

Wonder where all those clunky, very heavy machines are now? Perhaps in the Arizona desert next to all those passenger jets? This was an important invention for its day, but mail is better. Provided of course we still have a United States Post Office.

I knew my spirit would lift as soon as it became clear Trump would lose. It’s clear to me that it’s all over but the final counting. No one wants to be accused of influencing the election by calling states early. I get it. Bad media juju. Still, guys and gals. Come on. The longer we wait to announce a winner, the more noise Trump can make. Even without an announcement though, my heart has moved on, Trump is gone. The Trump Executive branch is gone. I feel free of the constant need to check on the idiot. Now the idiot looks like a desperate kid who lost his bid to be President of the second grade. And. Just. Can’t. Believe. It.

In my world the air is fresher, the sights better, the sky bluer, the sun brighter. Does getting rid of Trump solve anything by itself? Well. Yes. It gets rid of Trump. Does a Biden presidency ensure sweet milk and cookies every night for the next four years? Hardly. Did I mention it does mean that Trump will be gone? This is a huge deal to me. And, I suspect, you. The rest we can get to work on. But, without getting rid of that orange excrescence getting to work on anything would be impossible.

It will take weeks and months, probably years to examine this election. To figure out who voted for who and why. That Biden has a four million vote advantage is significant and reassuring. That Trump is within four million is deeply disturbing. What will we be on January 20th, 2021? Will Trump have convinced his 70 some million voters that Biden is the antichrist? That the Democrats want their guns, their babies, and to fill up their neighborhoods with folks who don’t speak English? That is the nightmare for me. What will we do? Yet to be known.

Commentary on the news, Family, Health, Memories, Politics, US History

1968 – 2020

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Fall and the Moon of Radical Change

Friday gratefuls: Kate’s good week. Rigel’s returned appetite. Her getting on the bed last night, a bit wobbly, but there. Kep. So dignified and attentive. The sweetness of our life together. The approaching election. Ahi tuna from Tony’s. Pickup from Safeway. Covid, still changing our culture, our lives, our visions of the future. Climate change and those who work to limit and mitigate it. The Sun.

Kate’s had a week of no nausea, no appointments. A wonder. And, wonderfull. We’ve pushed into new territory, goaded from behind by Covid and being together. A greater appreciation for each other, for our, as Jim Harrison’s poem says, “…life of dogs and children and the far wide country
out by rivers, rumpled by mountains.” Carpe Diem. Thanks, Tom.

Brother Mark asked me to think about now and 1968. “Have the changes of 2020 been different from 1968?” It’s an interesting question. Both, I believe are capstones of an era. 1968 found many of us who were young throwing off the post-WW II culture of conformity, working and not thinking, easy racism and easy wars. Sex was not forbidden. Make love not war was more than just a slogan. It was a lifestyle. We were angry young folks, too. The war. The draft. In loco parentis. (look it up) We found protesting the war both necessary and liberating. See Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix.

2020. Protests now seem to come in two flavors: Black Lives Matter and their allies, Proud Boys, the Klan, and their allies. There was some pushback in the 60’s from blue collar workers and straight parents, but for the most part the protests were anti-war in nature though the civil rights movement still had some energy after a hard, but productive first few years of the 60’s. A major difference now is that the alt-right impulses of the 60’s, and they were there, were seen as fringe and cuckoo. Now, with the agitator in chief the fringe has cover in the Whitehouse. That makes them think they are less fringy now. They’re wrong.

I have a lot of other thoughts and I know this is cursory, but I want to post it today. Get back on the board.

 

 

 

Family, Garden, Great Wheel, Memories, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Nothing is lost.

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Fall and the RBG Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Cheaters. Again. Stephen King. The Institute. Dr. Gustave. Makeshift eye protector. PSA’s forever. The Wind. Golden Aspen. Blue Sky. Black Mountain. The loft. My library. This computer. Amber. Kate. Her Jevity.

The spirit of Fall has come into me, rests with me. The Trees of my inner Mountain have changed color, taken gusts of wind, and lost most of their leaves. The bare, fallow time Soul needs this transparency for its work.

Perhaps each fall I grieve the loss of those leaves, wish for a while longer with their food making, their feeding. Mom’s death in October, the 25th Mary writes, came amongst this seasonal loss. Added to it. The feelings around her death seem to reemerge eachFall, making my mood sad, reflective, inward. Melancholic.

Seasonal synchronicities reach deep, help us experience the Great Wheel as a reality in our life. As Mom’s death created this strong Fall resonance for me, I can walk my ancientrail of grief and death as Trees lose their leaves, Grasses brown, Meadows turn gold.

The experience though has more sides. The seasons are never just this or that. It is the Elk rut. The Mule Deer rut. The Black Bear’s final eating, hyperphagia, before hibernation. Roots store the sugars and proteins from a Summer’s sun and rain. The Mycological world begins absorbing and repurposing the fallen Leaves, the dead Animals, increasing the depth of duff and topsoil.

Life literally in the midst of death. Melancholy might be the Mycology of the soul. It grabs onto our fallen persons. The withered dream. The gathering dark. Changes them. Makes from them compost for the growth we need. Nothing is lost. Nothing.