Category Archives: Minnesota

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Other Nations

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Imbolc and the Leap Year Moon

Thursday gratefuls: That we haven’t switched to DST yet. Love me that standard time. Dr. Gidday, whom I see today. Corinne in Boulder. Murdoch, who’s getting a bath for his time with her. Kate, my Kate. The Democratic primary, calming down. Hope for the fall. My class with Rabbi Jamie, the way it’s provoking me. That I feel in excellent health on the day of my annual physical. (I know. Prostate cancer. COPD. Kidney disease. Even so, that’s how I feel.)

As the years grow greater in number, now 73 for me, the annual physical has a certain hold your breath feel. Will she find anything new, anything unwanted? It’s already happened to me a couple of times, so I know I can absorb the hits. Yet, I’d prefer not to. Life is still engaging, fun, demanding, exciting. I’m ready for a better year.

Kate’s had a recent setback with some bleeding. Not at the September, 2018 level, thank God, but there nonetheless. She’s going with me to my physical this morning, will talk to Dr. Gidday. Her recovery has been like this, a step ahead, a step back. She’s in so much better shape now that each problem now feels like a betrayal of those gains. Give her a break.

After my physical at nine-thirty, Kate and I will take care of a couple of errands, pick up Seaoh, and drive to Bergen Bark Inn. Murdoch will have had a bath and be ready for a visit to Boulder. We’re pretty damned lucky to have two potential foster parents and to be able to visit them both this week. Loveland, tomorrow, will be the second visit.

Kep got his teeth cleaned yesterday. Not our best part of doggy world. Gonna get better at this. Ordered some dog dental supplies. Will keep up with them now. He was a bit loopy from the anesthesia, his rear paws turning out at odd angles, his butt hanging lower when he walked. Took him until late in the evening to shake it off.

A friend wondered about our dogs, said he didn’t understand that part of my life. He wasn’t being critical, just a bit bewildered. “The dogs are a huge part of your life, I don’t understand all of that, three big dogs was overwhelming when…I visited you, there must be some ancient canine story flowing through your blood.” 

Dogs make it harder to travel. Pricey to board them. Dogs are expensive with food and vet bills. Dogs make messes, chew up stuff you’d rather have intact. Vega, for example, loved to eat shoes. Dogs get into fights, injure each other and us. They crowd into bed and won’t move, so we adjust. They sneak up under your arm at the table, seeking food or comfort. So, yes, hard to understand.

However. Gertie, in her last days, licked my face at 3 a.m. Emma stood on the downed cottonwood, a lioness looking over her domain. Hilo snuggled in under my armpit for a nap. Celt accepted all attention graciously, like a monarch. Sorsha took down a deer, tried to get two squirrels at once. Tor was one-hundred and ninety pounds of pure love. Orion, too. I pulled Tira, bleeding and in shock, off a gate in our garage. Morgana and Scot, siblings, were sweet, kind. Buck and Iris. Bridgit. Tully.

They are memories for us, like travel, I suppose. Moments Kate and I shared, often years of moments.

Mostly though, it’s about love. Given and received. Unreserved, unconditional. Greetings at the door. A friend for a nap. Their quirks. Their distinct and different personalities. Their willingness to share themselves completely.

They also offer a strange and privileged opportunity; they grant us a chance to live with and know what Henry Beston identified as: “…other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” Here’s the full, important quote.*

* “We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
― Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod

Beyond the Boundaries, Colorado, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Jefferson County, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Park County, permaculture, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, US History, Weather +Climate

Deep Guidance

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Imbolc and the Leap Year Moon

Sunday gratefuls: An extra day in my birthday month. DogsonDeployment and the three folks who responded right away. Seoah’s careful scrutiny of the profiles. Kate’s help with Corrine, who called from DoD. Blue skies and warm temps. Atlas Obscura. The Rocky Mountain Land Library. Jon’s offer to stay with Kate while I take the kids on a road trip.

Just signed up for a Food and Land Bookclub. My real interest in it is its association with the Rocky Mountain Land Library in next county over Park County. When I bought the books for the book club, four in all, I found my powers returning. Oh, this is what I’ve got energy for my body said. Book titles: Mayordomo: chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico, Braiding Sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants, One Size Fits None: a farm girls search for the promise of regenerative agriculture, and, The Seed Underground: a growing revolution to save food.

When we first moved here, over five years ago now, I wanted to garden, to learn the native plants, to hike the mountains, learn the land and streams and wildlife. Prostate cancer, bum knee then knee replacement, COPD. Kate’s various medical dilemmas later. Distracted. Accomplished little of these. Some hiking, not much thanks to the COPD and the bad knee. Gardening here required more physical energy than I have available. My first native plants class got interrupted by my prostatectomy. Life. Stuff.

I first discovered the Rocky Mountain Land Library in 2015, our first year here. It was only a dream then, an idea concocted by the former owners of Denver’s most loved book store, Tattered Covers. It now has a ranch in Park County, south of Fairplay, a bit over an hour from here. Buildings and projects have begun to come together. It wasn’t ready when I found it and, as it turned out, neither was I.

During Gertie’s last days I reflected again on my instinctual opposition to euthanasia for dogs. It’s no longer absolute because I saw its necessity as Gertie suffered, but it’s still strong. Were there any other instances in my life where I made choices from an instinctual level?

Instinct? Intuition? Deep inner guidance? Link to a source of knowledge I can’t access consciously? Instinct in any formal sense is probably wrong, but the feeling involved, a strong compulsion, a certainty that this path was mine, had that flavor anyhow.

Turns out there were other such choices. When I turned 32, I knew I had to be a parent. Got a vasectomy reversal. Didn’t work. OK. Adopt. First child, a girl, died in a salmonella outbreak at the orphanage. Raeone didn’t want to go forward. She’d just gotten a new job. My deep push made me agree to take care of the new baby myself, no matter what it took. I took him to work with me until he was 18 months old.

After an Ira Progoff workshop in Tuscon, an intentional stirring of my inner life, I stopped by Denver to see Ruth and Gabe. By the time I left I knew Kate and I needed to move to Colorado. She agreed and so we did. We wanted to live in the mountains and to be in our kids and grandkids lives.

Other less dramatic instances. Saw a movie while in college that featured Manhattan. Put my thumb out and spent the summer of 1968, the summer of love, not in San Francisco, but in Manhattan. Curator of Asian art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Bob Jacobson, gave a lecture on Angkor. Specifically he showed the amazing stone bas relief sculpture that runs for a quarter mile around Angkor Wat’s great Hindu temple. And in particular the churning of the sea of milk where gods and demons struggle for a magical elixir. Had to see it. When my dad died and left me enough money to do some travel, I went.

A related but less pressured decision came when I realized I was no longer Christian, that I had to leave the ministry. Had I not met Kate, this feeling would have been tested, but I met her and she allowed me a graceful exit.

Right now I’m feeling a similar push, perhaps not only to the Rocky Mountain Land Library, but to reawaken the me who woke up for twenty springs, twenty summers, and twenty falls glad for the chance to plant lilies, weed onions, harvest garlic, trim the raspberry canes. The me who woke up for several years and knew tending the bees was in the day’s labor. The me who came here excited about the West, about the mountains, about being in a brand new place. We’ll see where this goes.

Denver, Friends, Great Work, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

Seeing the forest for the trees

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Imbolc and the Leap Year Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Sliver Leap Year Moon last night. Awakening to the forest around me. The beauty and warmth at CBE. Kate’s healing fingers, her growing stamina. Her mood. Wiggly Murdoch at Bergen Bark. Time with Seoah. All those dinosaurs and trees and shrubs that died so we might have oil. Keep it in the ground. Yes. For the Great Work.

How things work in my mind. About a year ago my buddy Alan Rubin came up here. His first comment was, “You live way back in the forest.” Huh. Well, yeah. The Arapaho National Forest. Those words tucked themselves away only to emerge a couple of weeks ago while I drove back up Shadow Mountain from a turn down the hill. Lot of trees. More than the drive up. Oh. Alan was right. We live way back in the forest.

We live in a forest. Oh. I see. Yes. All those trees. A forest. For five years I’ve been focused on the mountains. Their bulk. Their altitude. Their visual presence as I drive to Evergreen, to Aspen Park. We live in the mountains we tell ourselves and count ourselves so lucky. The Rocky Mountains. Guess what I’ve just realized. We live in the mountains, in a forest. It’s all around me now, this forest. I feel it, too.

In Minnesota we lived on the Great Anoka Sand Plain, groves of oak trees, iron wood, elm, black locust, cottonwood, but, no forest. Had to drive up north for the Boreal Forest or over to Carlos Avery Wildlife Preserve. We had a small woods on our property. Which I loved. But it was not a forest.

Here the lodgepole and aspen climb the mountains, show up in the valleys, surround our house and our neighbor’s houses. Here elk and mule deer and fox and mountain lions and bears and rabbits and pine martens and moose live in the forest, too. All us mammals in a place that feels like home, the forest. On mountains.

Makes me wonder what else I’m missing. Probably a lot.

Aging, Astrology, Colorado, Dogs, Family, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Living

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Imbolc and the waning crescent of the Shadow Mountain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Jen. Who called my attention to a lapse in judgement. King Sooper. Who will load my groceries this morning. Tony’s where I’ll get the pork schnitzel. The crescent moon above Black Mountain. The Storm Glass Ruth got me for Hanukah. Jon home from the hospital.

I reported something here said to someone else about yet another person. That was a lapse in judgement and I apologize to Jen for that.

Past the seventy-three marker and heading into another Aquarian year. Might be a good time to get my chart read again. Sorta put all that away after an initial burst of interest. Maybe an annual thing? Like an oil change and vehicle inspection? Time has slipped by, following the trails of Maxwell Creek, Upper Bear Creek, Cub Creek. Running toward the sea of souls.

In another liminal space, a large one this time. After Gertie. After Murdoch. As the wounds heal. Quieter, solemn. Rigel and Kep both subdued, following us, I suppose. No plans. One day in front of the other.

Even Trump seems far away, perhaps only an orange smudge floating out over the Atlantic. Our little family so dispersed. Atomic. Held together by the weak nuclear force. Yet, held together.

The two feet of snow melted in the warm days. Our roof not as layered. Our driveway almost clear. Another round coming, maybe today and tomorrow. Colorado.

This space between, a sacred place, a holy place. Happening on our mountain top. In the Rockies, in the West, in Colorado. The Midwest a humid memory. We’ll see what comes. Living. That’s it right now. Living.

Anoka County, Colorado, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Death and Resurrection

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Winter and the Future Moon

Saturday gratefuls: The snow, coming down hard. The temperature, 17. All 8,800 feet above sea level. Two weeks of consistent workouts, 5 days, 3 resistance, two with high intensity training. Ruth’s being here. (she’s sleeping with Rigel and Murdoch right now.) The Hanukah meal last night. Hanukah. Whoever conceived and executed Resurrection: Ertugrul. The internet.

Been thinking a bit about resurrection. Not as in Resurrection: Ertugrul, which is about resurrection of the Seljuk state, but in the New Testament mythology. Birth, life, death, resurrection. Christmas, Ministry, Black Friday, Easter. The Great Wheel. Spring, growing season, fallow season, spring. Osiris. Orpheus.

Death is being overcome every spring. Life emerges, blooms and prospers, then withers and dies. A period in the grave. Spring. Resurrection is not only, not even primarily, about coming back from death. Resurrection is a point in the cycle of our strange experience as organized and awake elements and molecules.

Saw an analogy the other day. Twins in the womb. Talking to each other about whether there was life after delivery. How could there be, one said. What else is all this for, said the other. Do you believe in the mother? Yes, she’s all around us. I can’t see her, so I don’t believe in her. How would we get food after delivery? How would we breathe? I don’t know, but I believe we’ll do both.

We know, too, the story of the caterpillar, the chrysalis, and the butterfly.

Might resurrection itself be an analog of these ideas? Could be. Easier for me to comprehend is the death of a relationship, the period of mourning, then a new one, different from the first, but as good or better. The death of a dream. Having to sell the farm, a period of mourning, then a new career, different, but satisfying, too. The death of a certain belief system. Say, Christianity. A period of confusion and mourning. Then, a new way of understanding. The way things are. Consciousness and cycles. This comes; that goes.

A Minnesota life. Well lived and full. Dies. A period of mourning and confusion. A Colorado life. Different, but satisfying, too. The gardens of Andover. The rocks of Shadow Mountain. The lakes of Minnesota. The mountains of Colorado. The Woolly Mammoths. Congregation Beth Evergreen.

Are there other resurrections? Of course. Is there a resurrection like that of Jesus? Unknown. I choose to celebrate the resurrections that I know, rather than the ones I do not. The purple garden that emerged in the spring. The raspberries on the new canes. Those apples growing larger from the leafed out tree. This marriage with Kate, a notable resurrection of intimacy in both our lives.

What is dying? What are you mourning? What resurrection awaits?

Aging, Anoka County, Beyond the Boundaries, Colorado, Family, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Jefferson County, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Retirement, Shadow Mountain, The Move, The West, Third Phase, Travel, US History

The West

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Samain and the Gratitude Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Seoah and her light presence as a guest, Murdoch again, the Grandmother Tree at CBE, the night drive up Brook Forest, then Black Mountain drives, the fox that crossed our path, the mule deer doe standing, looking toward the road, the nightlife of the wild, the ultimate wildness of the heavens

December 20, 2014 “The enormity of this change is still a little hard to grasp. We’re no longer Minnesotans, but Coloradans. We’re no longer flatlanders but mountain dwellers. We’re no longer Midwesterners. Now we are of the West, that arid, open, empty space. These changes will change us and I look forward to that. The possibility of becoming new in the West has long been part of the American psyche, now I’ll test it for myself.”

December 18, 2019 The usual mythic significance of the West, where the light ends, where souls go when they die, seems quite different from its American mythos as almost a separate country, an Other World where you could leave Europe behind, leave the East Coast behind and rejuvenate, remake yourself. (yes, Native Americans were here already. But I’m talking about the frontier, the Old West, the place where Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, and lots of versions of John Wayne lived. And, yes, the Spaniards on the west coast and as far north as what is now New Mexico. The Russians, too.)

Seems quite different. Yes. However, “the possibility of becoming new in the West.” The American mythic West is about where souls go when they die, when they die to a past that had not prospered in the East, to a life no longer well lived, to a life lived in the all too usual way, to a life of boredom.

What would we become? When would the West become home? When would this house on Black Mountain Drive become home? All those boxes. All that altitude adjustment. And, we would gradually learn, an attitude adjustment to mountain life.

We have become people of the mountains, in love with them enough to adapt our lives to thin air in spite of the difficulty it presents to us. We have become people of the tribe, of clan Beth Evergreen, part of a strange and intriguing religious experiment, a new community. That was part of what people sought in the West. A chance to build community anew, to different rules.

We have become embedded in the lives of our grandchildren, of Jon. They love the mountains, too. Our choice, to live close, but not too close, has had its challenges, but has worked out well. It’s hard for us to provide day to day support for Jon and the kids. We’re too far away and too physically challenged (of late). We are, however, a mountain refuge for them, a place away from the city where they can come to refresh. We’re also on the way to A-basin, Jon’s favorite ski area.

When we travel now, the return no longer involves a turn north, toward the Pole, but a turn West, toward the mountains and the Pacific. Our friends in the north, in Minnesota have stayed in touch. We’ve not gotten back much; it’s so good to still have solid connections.

We change altitude frequently, often dramatically during a day’s normal routine. No more mile square roads, farmland templates. No more 10,000 lakes. And, up where we live, in the montane ecosystem, no deciduous trees except for aspen. No more combines on the road, tractors, truck trailers full of grain and corn headed to the elevators. (yes, in Eastern Colorado, but we’re of the mountains.)

The pace of life in the mountains is slower. Many fewer stoplights, fewer stores, less nightlife. Service of all kinds is slower, too. Plumbers. HVAC guys. Mail folks. UPS. Fedex. Denver Post. Painters and electricians. Once we quit expecting metro area level of service, especially in terms of promptness and predictability, life got better. The mountain way.

Our life in the West has also been shaped, profoundly, by medicine and illness. Tomorrow.

Feelings, Friends, Memories, Minnesota, Woolly Mammoths

Friendship. Solitude. Memories.

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Samain and the Fallow Moon

The 32nd Woolly Mammoth retreat. Or, so. Happening near Stillwater, Minnesota at Dunrovin retreat center. Soon. The topic: Friendship and Solitude. The last full retreat I attended was in 2015 shortly after my prostate cancer diagnosis. Given the recency of our move to Colorado and the shock of that news that retreat was especially important for me.

Friendship and the Woollies. In many ways the Woollies, my men’s group for over 30 years, was a tutorial in alternative methods of male friendship. We did not bond over the Vikings, not even the Packers. We didn’t start out as a poker night or a hunting group or as fishing buddies. The Woollies were an outgrowth of the Men’s Movement, furthered in Minnesota by Robert Bly, yes, that Robert Bly, in particular.

We learned that friendship could be nurtured through intimacy, with each other. Not a shocker, I know, but far from the norm when men gather for just about anything. In the early years we had retreat topics like Fathers, Mothers, Death, Pilgrimage.

During the year we met on the first Monday and the third Monday of every month. That was another learning. Friendship requires commitment and work. Frank always took March so he could serve corned beef and cabbage in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. This honored Frank’s Irish blood, not the Roman Catholic Church. At Scott’s Yin would put out a Chinese meal and until her death, Yin’s mother, Moon, would help. At other homes it was soup, or barbecue, or turkey chili. We would eat together, then have a meeting on a topic the host chose.

On the first Monday we would gather at a restaurant, in the early years at the Black Forest in Minneapolis. We talked about that son, the Asperger’s one, who was difficult. Or, the movie we’d just seen. Might have been Spirited Away or a blockbuster. Sometimes work, but most often about relationships.

At Villanova, a Catholic retreat center on the Mississippi, there was a lunar eclipse. Our retreats then were usually in January. A group of us went outside around midnight and stood in the snow and well below zero weather to watch the moon turn red. Another January retreat at Valhelga, a family retreat center designed by Woolly Stefan Helgeson, the temperature was -30. The Minnesota January was part of our year.

Now I meet once a month with five of these men using Zoom the video conferencing software. These friendships are lifelong. Amazingly, for a group of ten men, none of us have died though two are into their eighties.

Solitude. Mostly introverts. Solitude preferred. One Woolly moved to northern Maine. Paul. I moved to the Rocky Mountains. Jimmie, though not an introvert, is in South Dakota. Another, Charlie, lives on a lake in northwestern Wisconsin. There is a Woolly diaspora and where we chose to live reflects the preference for solitude.

Solitude accepts our inner life as worthy. Necessary. It’s about nurturing a friendship with whoever narrates your life right now. It allows us to grow as individuals, to honor ourselves, and be able to honor others.

Perhaps I would have added memory to this retreat topic. Friendship and Solitude are complementary for sure. But it is the memories that bind us together. The broomball on the ice at Valhelga. The visits to Richard Bresnahan’s pottery studio at St. John’s Monastery. Meals at the Black Forest, Christo’s, Sawatdee. Frank’s ongoing hate affair with the Roman Catholic Church. Warren’s articles on aging written as a reporter for the Star-Tribune. That one guy that got shot at by his wife. The night we ate in what turned out be a former Nazi military commander’s house, ironically in the very Jewish suburb of St. Louis Park.

My friends, my brothers, the Woollies. Then, now. Forever.

Minnesota, Politics, US History

Consent Given

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Fall and the Sukkot Moon

“…he who displays himself does
not shine; he who asserts his own views is not distinguished; he who vaunts himself does not find his merit acknowledged; he who is self-conceited has no superiority allowed to him.” from Chapter 24, Tao Te Ching, Legge translation

As far as I know, Lao Tzu was not aware of Donald Trump. Still, you gotta admit, he knew him. So does George Will, “Donald Trump, an ongoing eruption of self-refuting statements (“I’m a very stable genius” with “a very good brain”), is adding self-impeachment to his repertoire.” If you have time, I recommend Will’s opinion piece in today’s Washington Post: The spiraling president adds self-impeachment to his repertoire. It’s at once hilarious and damning. A masterpiece of the genre.

In the same issue of the Post seventeen special prosecutors during Watergate say Trump has committed impeachable offenses. Also in the same issue is a recounting of Trump’s amazing, stupefying sermon to his congregation of red-hatted worshipers.

He called Ilhan Omar an America-hating socialist, then went on to denounce the entire Somali-American community. He heralded his recent executive order which gives cities and states the authority to refuse without their express written consent any refugee or immigrant resettlements. He recommended the crowd “speak to their mayor.”

Frey replied immediately on Twitter: “Consent given. Immigrants and refugees are welcome in Minneapolis.” The Minnesota I know well and love.

From the Warring States Period of China to today a person only committed to themselves is unfit to be a leader. We’re in an unusual crisis. This is the Presidency of our country made venal. Such a strong argument for the warning inscribed over the entrance to the Delphic Oracle in the Temple of Apollo: Know thyself.

BTW: if you’re wondering where the illustrations have gone, I’m experiencing a Word Press glitch on uploading images.

Aging, Family, Friends, Health, Holidays, Jefferson County, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Woolly Mammoths

Tough Weekend

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Fall and the Rosh Hashanah Moon

On her birthday

Kate’s had a tough weekend. Short of breath, feeling tired. We didn’t make it to Rosh Hashanah services last night. A year and two days after her bleed. She’s made great progress on weight, nausea, even her Sjogren’s is less problematic. Her stamina, up till this weekend, had increased and she was doing more.

Her daily life involves a lot of tubing and schlepping. At night she carries her Inogen, portable CO2, as well as her pump and feeding supplies. Heavy for her. She does remarkably well with all of it, but this alone takes a toll, too. Hoping for a better day for her today.

Need a lung disease diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment plan. So slow.

Yesterday was Tom and Roxann’s 16th anniversary. At their wedding they featured the mandorla. “In icons of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the mandorla is used to depict sacred moments that transcend time and space…” Wiki Marriages, good ones at any rate, live into their own mandorla. Happy anniversary! It was also the 7th anniversary of Regina Schmidt’s death. Bill continues to honor her and their love. A mandorla still, I think.

Tomorrow, October 1st, I get my second Lupron shot. 9 am at Urology Associates Swedish offices. In the butt. Thank you, Sherry.

works for both paragraphs

Then, let the fun begin! Hot flashes have become more frequent, a bit more intense. Still only annoying, but, they are annoying. They creep up the body, making it flushed and warm. Last night I had my sweatshirt off and the window open, the cool night breeze a relief.

Extreme fire danger here. Red flag warning yesterday and today. We have a higher fire risk rating than the area around Paradise, California. One of the highest in the country. Good times. I’ve been too nervous about the fire danger to get my chain saw going. Maybe this week.

My friend Dave, personal trainer, had bad news about his brain cancer. The tumor is back after surgery only a few months ago. He’s at the extreme end of survival time for glioblastoma. As he said, it’s a horrible place to be. 53 years old.

You might think I would be stressed and anxious, but I’m not. Living today. Will wait for tomorrow.

Anoka County, Commentary on Religion, Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Plants, Poetry, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

The Equilux

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

I’m changing seasons on the equinox, which is today. Learned a new word reading some material for this post: equilux. An equilux happens after each equinox and occurs this fall on September 26th. If you look at a table of sunrise/sunset, on September 26th, at roughly our latitude, the sun rises at 6:59 am and sets at 6:59 pm. After the equilux, for 172 days, until the next equilux on March 17th, the sun will shine for less than 12 hours.

Yeah! Though born in Oklahoma near the Red River, almost to Texas, I’ve always been a child of the cold and snow, influenced by too many Jack London novels. And, Renfrew of the Royal Canadian Mounted. Moved to Appleton, Wisconsin in September of 1969 and lived up north until the Winter Solstice of 2014. In our particular location on Black Mountain Drive, just east of 14er Mt. Evans, we get lots of snow, some cold, but easier winters. Better for septuagenarian bones.

from “What is Michaelmas?”

Six days from now is the 29th of September, the Feast Day of St. Michael the Archangel. It is, as regular readers of ancientrails already know, the springtime of the soul. At least according to Rudolf Steiner.

Rosh Hashanah, September 30th this year, the Jewish new year (one of four), begins the month of Tishrei in Judaism’s lunar calendar. Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, follows ten days later on October 9th. 5 days later on October 14 and 15 is Sukkot, a harvest festival. A week after the second day of Sukkot is Simchat Torah, joy of the Torah.

On October 31st, 6 weeks from last Friday, the next Celtic holiday is Samain, or Summer’s End. The Celtic New Year comes at the beginning of the fallow season.

I am the hallow-tide of all souls passing,
I am the bright releaser of all pain,
I am the quickener of the fallen seed-case,
I am the glance of snow, the strike of rain.
I am the hollow of the winter twilight,
I am the hearth-fire and the welcome bread,
I am the curtained awning of the pillow,
I am unending wisdom’s golden thread.
~ Song of Samhain, Celtic Devotional:
Daily Prayers and Blessings, by Caitlín Matthews

The transition from the growing season when farmers and gardeners harvest its fruits to the fallow season when plants in mid and northern latitudes rest has ultimate significance for non-tropical humanity. Not so long ago a failed growing season would lead to a limited harvest. Unless adequate stores from years past were kept, starvation over the winter was a real possibility.

7 Oaks garden, 2014

Oh, you might say, well, that doesn’t apply to us in the modern age. Think not? Perhaps one really bad harvest could be accommodated by trade and stored foods. Maybe even two bad harvests. But if the world saw several bad harvests in a row, say because of a dramatically changed climate, starvation over the winter could become a real possibility even in the developed world.

Mabon, Sukkot, Samain. With Lughnasa on August 1st, the first harvest festival, the months August through October have evoked human expressions of gratitude, of thanksgiving for soil, seed, and sacrifice. Certain animals and plants become offerings to feed others, including the now unwieldy population of humans.

The heart of the harvest season, right now, is a deeply spiritual moment. The complex web of life bares itself to our witness. Any Midwesterner is familiar with trucks of yellow corn, soy beans, golden wheat, rye, rolling down highways to grain elevators. Hay gets mowed perhaps a third time and baled either in rectangular bales or huge round ones.

This is also a traditional time for the slaughtering of animals. Now slaughterhouses and intensive livestock farming have allowed slaughter throughout the year.

I’m grateful that farmers and ranchers are able to feed us still. I’m grateful that the soil, that top six inches especially, feeds and stabilizes the foodstuff that we grow. I’m grateful that photosynthesis allows us to harvest the sun’s energy by transforming it into vegetables, fruits, grasses, grains, nuts. I’m grateful for each and every animal that dies for our table. I’m grateful for the grocers who buy and display the food for us to purchase.

It is a time of thanksgiving followed by an increasing darkness. That darkness is fecund, for me at least. Steiner’s idea of Michaelmas as the springtime of the soul, the placement of so many Jewish holidays, in particular sukkot, during this harvest time, and the major Celtic holidays of Lughnasa, Mabon, and Samain offer us many chances to open our hearts to the wonder of this world and its blessings.

Slightly outside of these three months is the Day of the Dead celebrated throughout Latin America and the Feast of All Souls.

WINTER SOLSTICE by Willow, Celtic Lady

As the harvest wanes and summer ends (Samain), we have time to take stock of our lives, of our hopes and dreams. We can lean into the darkness after the equilux, celebrate its fullness on the Winter Solstice. It is in the fallow season that we learn the why of death. In this coming season we can make our peace with mortality.