Category Archives: Plants

Anoka County, Asia, Bees, Dogs, Family, Garden, Great Wheel, Memories, Minnesota, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Plants, Tarot, Third Phase

Movement

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Tony’s Market, always a treat. The receptionist at Hearing Aid Associates who fixed my hearing aid. A walk around my neighborhood. Kate, always Kate. Tom, coming for a visit. The Post Office. Mail. Money. Sarah and her organizing for the 18th. Rigel. Her funny character. Cool mornings.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tony’s.

Tarot card drawn: Seven of Pentacles

 

 

I’ve been intending to get out and hike more. Decided to try a walk around the neighborhood. Could have done this a long time ago, but hadn’t. Nice homes. Meadows with white, yellow, and blue Wildflowers. Green thanks to the Rain. The route goes up and down with good variety, past my neighbors’ properties. Some with Horses. Most with Dogs. Views of Black Mountain. By the time I got back I was worn out and my leg, the p.t. focused right upper leg had begun to complain. That’s ok. Cardio.

Hearing aid stopped working a couple of days ago. Nothing. Happened once before. Tried to clean it, but my tools were inadequate. Over to Hearing Aid Associates. “We have a little vacuum tool. That’s how we clean them. Try it out.” Ah. Words came into focus.

Thought about aging. Lenses in my eyes to replace my cataracts. A hole through my iris to drain fluid creating pressures. Glaucoma. An aid to my hearing. That five-year old titanium knee on the left side. The repaired Achilles tendon on the right. A missing prostate. This old car’s been in the shop many times, but keeps on running. May it last for a while longer.

Mailed out money to Sarah for the Beatle’s cover band tickets. Red Rock. Kate’s family celebration. Checks to Diane, my cousin, to send on to Mark. Checks I mailed to him in Saudi Arabia last December. Got them back last week with a note in Arabic from the Saudi Postal Service. Maybe it said, Return to Sender? Also $9 to Ramsey County Marriage Records to get a certified copy of Kate and mine’s marriage license. Need it for Social Security. Can’t get spousal benefits unless you’re the spouse. And, yes, I have a copy. I know I do. But where?

An errandy day.

2014, Andover

Pine pollen still driving me nuts. Sneezing, dripping, clogging. Ick. A gift from my father I forgot to mention last Sunday morning.

Red snapper, salad, and sourdough bread for dinner. Or, lunch. Depending on.

Seven of Pentacles. As you can see, a gardener. Leaning on a stave as I leaned on a hoe or rake many times in Andover. I felt an affinity for this guy. He’s admiring, with some fatigue, the results of his work. A healthy vine, heavy with Pentacular fruit. He’s harvested one as a reward to himself, but knows that the better wisdom right now is to let the bush or vine grow.

Each minor arcana suit: pentacles, swords, wands, and cups has an association with one of the four elements. Wands Fire. Swords Air. Cups Water. Pentacles Earth.

This particular card sends a slight tingle up and down my arm. One of my avatars, horticulturist Charlie. An avatar I love, with whom I spent a lot of time, and an avatar who shared with Kate the wonder of Plants and Bees. To see a horticulturist, leaning on what could be, probably is, a gardening tool, admiring the plant. I know that guy!

Gardening, like marriage, only flourishes with cooperative relationships. The plants, like spouses, need tending, nurturing. With thoughtful, regular care amazing things become possible. It allows for the wonderful moment depicted in this card where the work has gone well and the Plant flourishes. The relationship between Plant and gardener has succeeded. Will succeed. That’s the message of the six pentacles remaining on the vine. Further growth will come. A bigger harvest.

Guess I’m an Earth guy. At least this avatar of mine is an Earth guy. Following the Great Wheel has made me sensitive to the changing of Earth’s seasons, what they mean, can mean, will mean.

Song dynasty

In the flow of cards over the last week we’ve come to a culmination. The seven of pentacles suggests investment and effort pays off. Or is about to. I don’t think it’s in my immediate future, but perhaps in my near term future. My investment in Kate’s life, in our relationship. My efforts with her up to and after her death. My investment in my own worldview, nurturing a pagan, earth-centered way, one influenced by the ten thousand things. My willingness to learn, to adapt, to change, to transform.

Worth it. Even with the struggles that the transition has created. Not yet finished, but the seven of pentacles suggests the next phase may not be far off. May it be so.

 

 

 

 

*”The meaning of the Seven of Pentacles relates to investment and effort. It follows the Six of Pentacles which refers to the end of financial or material hardship. If you have been putting in time and effort in your work, it signifies that your efforts are paying off and they are going to pay off in the future as well.

If you are looking to invest, the Seven of Pentacles suggests that you are ready to put in a lot of effort, time and work into whatever you want to achieve. It reaffirms you of your long-term vision and helps to show that you are not confined to seeing results in the short term only. It shows how much you value the investment because of the effort that you are willing to put in.” Labyrinthos

Colorado, Dogs, Family, Hawai'i, Plants, Third Phase, Travel, Weather +Climate

Shadow Mountain

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Summer and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Marina Harris and her housecleaning crew. Bond and Devick, trusted. Dr. Niguchi and his hygienist. Clean teeth. Safeway pickup. Ruby working fine. Jon, Ruth, and Gabe coming up at 1 pm. Kep and Rigel, my pals and companions. Cool weather. 59 this morning. New laptop.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Single life.

Teeth cleaning. Every six months. You know the drill. First time without Kate. We always went together. Kate, always with Kate. She travels in my lev though, everywhere. (Lev is Hebrew for heart/mind. I agree with this more ancient binding of the intellectual and emotional, but English doesn’t have an equivalent.)

Unexpected moments when Kate comes to mind. Seeing Jackie for my second haircut with only lev Kate. Jon, Ruth, Gabe coming up for a visit. Like old times except, no Grandma. Writing. Thinking I should let Kate see this.

Each time I’m aware of her, see mail addressed to her, walk by her ashes and my small altar to her, the pain lessens and integrating lev Kate becomes more of a joy. WWKD is an important sieve. I can hear her voice, know her responses which would differ from mine.

As I said of Kate’s mother Rebecca, who haunted Kate until the day of her death, ghosts live within us. Not all ghosts are hungry ghosts, mean and demeaning as Rebecca was. Kate’s ghost, lev Kate, her spirit and knowledge living with me, brings me a smile, a warm glow. May it always be so.

Kate, BJ, Ruth, solar eclipse 2017 at BJs Idaho house

We’ve had rain the last two nights and temperatures have dipped into the high forties. Perfect sleeping. The rain not only improves our wild fire situation, but also knocks down the Lodgepole pollen that filters inside, leaving yellow layers on wood surfaces. Tree sex. We’re in the middle of it right now.

The Aspen, a later evolved species, use a different strategy. Casting male pollen into the air hoping it lands on a female cone has the hallmark of Pine’s early place in the evolution of Trees. Though Aspen produce seed, cloning through shoots sees Aspen Groves, all with the same DNA, common. More certain than blindingly flinging your stuff into the wind. But both work.

Jet lag not too bad. Going to sleep at my regular time between 8 pm and 9. Getting up between 5:30 and 6:00. Jagged still, but less so. Working on the plan. Fiscal and physical order here on Shadow Mountain.

Jon, Ruth, and Gabe arrive around 1 pm, bringing dinner with them. Ruth will start the process of removing Kate’s stuff by defining what she wants from the sewing room. Sewing machine, yes. But, what else, she’ll decide today. She’ll also take Kate’s t-shirts and make me a quilt from some of them.

Jon plans to work on the Subaru’s brakes, moving forward the time when it can leave the garage. I want it gone since the garage is a key pruning site. Most of the near term pruning will involve Kate’s belongings, getting them distributed where they can help the most.

I plan to move the Stickley table from downstairs into what had been Kate’s sewing room, creating a more formal dining area. Will use her storage spot as a pantry.

This process will take a while, but I’d like to finish before August 18th when family will gather for a final tribute to her. Would have been her 77th birthday. Doable.

Hawai’i has receded. Now faraway, 3,000 miles over water. Loved, not forgotten, but no longer present. Wait and see.

Byodo-in, Oahu, 2021

 

 

 

 

Hawai'i, Judaism, Plants, Poetry

Messianic Times

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Endless Messiah Contemplation

 

Water rippled by trade Winds, an endless path

Travels up, up into the clear blue Sky. Made fresh,

Land its Plants, its Animals drink and live.

Ancient, received not made here, one of the four

 

This Land. Made by Pele as Plates shift, restless, find fire.

Islands alone, contemplating restless creation, recreation.

Land loosens, sifts, smooths, ground fine. Sand.

A place not only Land, not only Water. The Shore.

Like our bodies between our souls and eternity.

 

The Trade Wind. Faithful, gentle, dependable.

A quiet Messiah who reveals the unseen’s power

Who moves the Palm and the Monkey Pod Tree

And lifts the Water into white pregnant Clouds.

 

No slouching toward Bethlehem. No complicated timing.

Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.  Those who need them.

The Messianic times come round through the heat of the Sun,

The turning of the Earth, and the long pilgrimage of life.

Bees, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Garden, Great Wheel, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Hey, Pardner

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Beltane and the Moon of Mourning

Saturday gratefuls: Kate, sticky with the honey harvest. Kate, shepherding me into a shower, giving me antihistamines after multiple bee stings. Kate, Celt, and I at the St. Kate’s art fair in St. Paul. Cody Wise, a Wells Fargo Banker. Rich Levine, bee keeper. Rabbi Jamie. Mark Koontz, of Primitive Landscaping. He will extend and replant the Iris bed and put in three Miss Kim lilacs in the back. BJ live on the radio with Schecky.

Sparks of Joy: Beekeeping. Getting tasks done.

Wild grapes waiting for Kate to turn them into jelly

Yesterday afternoon I pulled out all the honey harvesting equipment: uncapping knife and rake, solar wax renderer, motorized extractor, buckets, and filters. Took it to the driveway so Rich could pick it up for our work this morning with Sofia.

As I moved these objects, each last touched by us in 2014 when we moved, a wave of sadness and longing swept over me. Kate and I were partners. We grew flowers, picked fruit in our orchard, planted and harvested vegetables, managed a pack of dogs. My partner is dead. I missed her so much in that moment. Went back inside, sat down, cried for a bit. Not paroxysmally, but tears running down my face.

We were bound together by those things of the soil, of the four-leggeds, of the six-legged. It was a good life until the physical burden of became onerous. The move to the mountains, here on Shadow Mountain, came at a time when we needed to set down those tasks, pass them onto the younger couple that bought our Andover home.

We partnered again, living in the move. It took us most of 2014 to get ready and we worked hard. Once here in the Rockies we found ourselves tested by cancer, by Jon’s divorce, by Kate’s medical issues. Through it all. Partners.

Even to the last. Death with dignity. Yes, the right choice for you, I said. Even beyond the last. I’ve hired a landscaper who will fulfill two of Kate’s last wishes, a larger Iris bed in front and Lilacs planted in back. Half of her ashes will go into the Iris bed in August when family gathers to honor her on her birthday, August 18th.

Those tears, that sadness. It was for the good stuff. The way we lived together, always. Yes, I miss my pard, as we might say here in the West, but the knowledge and memory of how we were together does and will sustain me as I move forward.

Grief is the price we pay for love.

 

Family, Health, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The Move, Third Phase

Tough

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Ostara and Kate’s Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Kate’s clear head, her choices. Death with dignity as an option. The Ancient Friends. Rabbi Jamie. CBE. Sleep. Kep and Rigel.

Sparks of Joy: Sarah calling the Long Term Care folks. A Golden with his head out the window of a pickup truck.

I know about true love. And, about bad love. Kate and I lived and loved into each other, saying yes. Saying of course you can. Of course we can. In bad love you hear and say no, you can’t do that. I don’t want to. Not now.

We bring out the depth of each others soul. Kate’s needle gifts, her love of Mother Earth, Flowers, Vegetables, Dogs, Fruit. Grandchildren. Sons. My writing. My love for Mother Earth, Flowers, Vegetables, Dogs, Fruit. Grandchildren. Sons. Not hidden, not wished for, but acted upon.

Supporting each other, even when the world might not agree. Have 7 Wolfhounds and two Whippets? Sure. Put in an orchard? Of course. Go around Latin America. No question. Move to Colorado? Not only that, let’s go up in the mountains. End life on your own terms? Yes, if that’s what you need.

This ancientrail of human life may have come close to an end for Kate. She wants to consider death with dignity. I imagine she’ll choose it. Does it make me scream inside? Yes. Does it make me sad? Yes. Will I support her? Yes, as in all things.

This is stark. It means a time certain, not an ambiguous, drawn out process. But, the end is the same. And, it’s coming for Kate, as it is for us all. Just sooner for her.

I cried a lot last night. Sat up with friends talking. Then, slept well. No anxiety. This is sad. Not unexpected. No details yet. It’s not decided decided. But I know Kate. Once she broached this idea, her mind was close made up.

It makes sense to me. She was told she’d have to wear the bipap at least at night from now on. She hates it. It’s intrusive, invasive, and claustrophobic. There is no hope she’ll come off of it. Also, she’s exhausted from a two and a half year struggle with first this, then that.

She’s so frail, her breathing labored, her movement restricted to bed, mostly. No magic bullet. No procedure. No medications left.

What would you do?

Family, Great Wheel, Health, Holidays, Judaism, Myth and Story, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Easter Morning

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Ostara and the Ovid Moon of Metamorphoses

Sunday gratefuls: Broad spectrum antibiotics. Kate’s will. Jamie Bernstein. Easter and Passover and Spring. Friends. Rabbi’s. Countryfolk. Mountains. Dogs.

Sparks of Joy: Kate’s blood cultures negative for infection. Exhaustion, but exhaustion held in the care and concern of so many others.

Kate at Mama’s Fish House

Been thinking, a lot, about the holidays: Ostara, Easter, Passover. How they hold the wonder and awe of Spring and apply it to our human lives. On Maundy Thursday (no, I never remember what that means) Kate was in severe crisis. She had a crowd of nurses, physician’s assistants, respiratory therapists, a pulmonologist. All working carefully, quickly, urgently.

I had a hushed conversation in the hallway with the physician’s assistant and Dr. Fenton, the pulmonologist, about resuscitation.  Asking hard questions. Trying to be true to the situation, to her wishes, to the possible.

She survived the crisis, her blood pressure down and her breathing more stable. She moved to the 10th floor where she could be treated with nurses who work with more complicated cases.

Her situation got better, but death still seemed as plausible as recovery. On Good Friday, her lucidity returned, she made it off the bipap (a small mask that is actually a treatment for the pneumonia, among other things), and her white cell count continued to come down.

Yesterday we found her blood borne infection was gone. Though it still needs a four to six week bout of IV antibiotics to make it sure it doesn’t resurface. She passed her swallow study so she can drink and eat. Prognosis still guarded, but less so now.

Her friend, Jamie, reported she looks good. Jamie stayed all night with her.

It’s Easter morning.

Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Humanities, Memories, Mountains, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

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.

Great Wheel, Mountains, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Heal Yourself with the World

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Sent by friend Bill Schmidt. Good advice.

 

 

Advice  from María Sabina, Mexican healer and poet – “Heal yourself with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon. With the sound of the river and the waterfall. With the swaying of the sea and the fluttering of birds. Heal yourself with mint, neem, and eucalyptus. Sweeten with lavender, rosemary, and chamomile. Hug yourself with the cocoa bean and a hint of cinnamon. Put love in tea instead of sugar and drink it looking  at the stars. Heal yourself with the kisses that the wind gives you and the hugs of the rain. Stand strong with your bare feet on the ground and with everything that comes from it. Be smarter every day by listening to your intuition, looking at the world with your forehead.  Jump, dance, sing, so that you live happier. Heal yourself, with beautiful love, and always remember … you are the medicine.”

 

Art and Culture, Cinema and Television, Literature, Media, Myth and Story, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Travel, US History, Writing

Acts of Creation

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Imbolc and the crescent Wolf Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Beau Jo’s pizza. Easy Entree’s Chicago beef sandwiches. Keepin’ me sane. Kate. Somewhat better days. Trying new things with her nourishment. That crescent Moon. Sleeping through the night. Invisible City, a short Netflix series featuring Brazilian folklore. Latin American magical realism. 100 Years of Solitude. Marquez.

Folklore. Legend. Fairy tales. Mythology. Religion. Art. These are some of my favorite things.

Just finished the short series, Invisible City, on Netflix. It features Brazilian folktale creatures like the Saci, the Cuca, the Cucupira, the pink River Dolphin. Green Frontier, a Colombian series from 2017, focuses on the Amazonian forest and the supernatural.

Netflix and to a lesser extent, Amazon Prime and HBO Max, keep offering films and television series from all over the world. I love this, especially the original programming on Netflix produced by local creatives in their own language and in their own thought worlds. The supernatural dramas draw me in though they vary a great deal in quality.

I also love dramas and mysteries that show life in different places. Gomorrah, organized crime in Naples. The Alienist, turn of the century (19th to 20th) New York, Monarca, contemporary Mexico City, Wild District, contemporary life in Bogota and the lives of guerillas. Many others.

Since I can’t get out, get around, these days, travel comes to me. The anthropologist in me loves the folktales, the cultures, the different mores. And the ticket price is far lower.

Reading lately. Finished a few chess related novels after watching the amazing Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. Finishing Theodora Gossa’s European Travels for Monstrous Women and will pick up Kim Stanley Robinson’s, the Ministry of the Future next. Science fiction and fantasy also live in the fairy tale, folktale, legendary realm.

Writing. Jennie’s Dead. Ancientrails. Writing a Psalm for the Rabbi Jamie class. Not as much as I’d like, more than I’ve been doing. Just bought some Brazilian folklore books. Might be good basis for a new novel.

I have another novel idea I’ve been kicking around for years, one that would examine white supremacy, maybe militias. This one emerges not from the favorite things I mentioned above, but from my growing up years in Indiana. Like my buddy Mark Odegard this work sustains me, even though it may never see the light of day.

My birthday’s coming up and I’m playing with the idea of a podcast or a Patreon website on which I would read my own novels, figure out some sort of subscription service. Not a new idea, novels were sometimes published in newspapers, magazines, in serial fashion. Combine my speaking voice with my creative voice. The birthday part of this is buying items for a podcasting studio.

Friend Alan Rubin has a lot of experience in audio recording and has created a studio for himself to do voice overs and commercials. He’s advised me. I’ve watched Youtube videos and just bought Audio for Authors, a book about this sort of project.

So, yes, the creative me stays alive, is never far from my consciousness.

The only rule is to work. From a list of rules by John Cage. That’s the trick. Persistence.

Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Myth and Story, Plants, Politics

Distaff Day

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Winter and the Moon of the New Year

Christmastide, Day 10: St. Distaff’s Day

Monday gratefuls: CBE services online. Kate’s sisters. Bridgerton. Writers. Books. Ovid. Tolstoy. Ford. Cather. Oliver. Shelley. Whitman. Emerson. Camus. Berry. Electricity. Lights. Darkness. Stars. Ruth’s wisdom teeth. Out today. 16 days. Farewell, so long. Auf wiedersehen. Please be a stranger. Welcome, sanity.

 

 

Distaff day. Not sure about the St. That sounds like a Catholic appropriation to me. A quick search indicates that’s correct. There is no St. Distaff. The addition of St. to this more ancient day reveals patriarchal and misogynistic appropriation. Not to put too fine a point on it.

 

Partly work and partly play
Ye must on S. Distaff’s day:
From the plough soon free your team,
Then come home and fodder them.
If the maids a-spinning go,
Burn the flax and fire the tow;
Scorch their plackets, but beware
That ye singe no maidenhair.
Bring in pails of water, then,
Let the maids bewash the men.
Give S. Distaff all the right,
Then bid Christmas sport good-night;
And next morrow everyone
To his own vocation.

Robert Herrick, Hesperides

 

Written in the 17th century by poet and cleric, Robert Herrick, this poem gives you the essence of Distaff Day. On this day the Midwinter festival came to an end. Women returned to spinning and weaving. Hence, distaff day. The men, a few days later, would celebrate Plough Monday when they returned to the fields with their teams of oxen.

A return to ordinary time. To domestic and agricultural labors. But not without some play. On Distaff day the men would set fire to the flax or wool the women tied to their distaffs for spinning. The women would have buckets of water ready. To put out the wool and flax, yes, but also to dump on the rowdy young men. Not sure, but it seems neither gender was quite ready to give up the play of the festival time.

Plough Monday, the traditional start of agriculture in England, fell on the first Monday after the Epiphany. This year Plough Monday falls on January 11th. A plough might be pulled through the village by young men, one dressed as a Fool and another as a purser.

The purser would go from house to house collecting money. If the money received seemed adequate, the young men would plow an acre, then dance around it. If the villagers were miserly, they would plow up the street.

I’ve been readying my space for a return to ordinary time after Christmastide. Each morning I’ve taken down a bit of the decorating I did. This morning I removed two wooden bowls in which I’d placed Christmas ornaments. On other days I’ve returned Santa globes to their shelves, folded up Christmas cloth and packed it away.

Tomorrow: the Eve of the Epiphany