• Category Archives Art and Culture
  • Pandamndemic

    Fall and the Moon of the Thinned Veil

    Thursday gratefuls: Pruning. Proceeding. Pantry in use now. Picked a sink. Induction range and cookware. First heat. Friday. Kitchen remodel getting legs. Cold nights. Pandamndemic. Prostate cancer. HIIT. Good workout yesterday. Giving stuff away. Pots and pans. The stove. Money.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Sun, another day

    Tarot:       The High Priest, #5 of the major arcana, Druid Craft

     

    Goya’s, Self-Portrait with Dr. Arrieta. Mpls Museum of Art

    Pandamndemic. Creeping horror coming to your state the week of Halloween. Delta variant dawning. And twilighting. And causing pressure on health care, body counts, hope for a mask free end of the year. I find my own resistance to the masks, to caution challenged.

    I just wanna be free! Damn it. Me and roughly however many billion of us have been dealing with this damned thing for well over a year and a half. Feels like this gray pall draped over every encounter outside of home. The hearing issues with it make me want even more time alone.

    Then there’s the Build Back Better plan. How’s that going? I’m for putting McConnel and Manchin in a chain link box. Let a 3 round MMA bout settle which one’s the bigger impediment to a decent future. Winner gets a free disruption of the people’s business, no explanation required.

    What? They already have that? Are doing that? Oh, I see. Well then. Let’s put them in a chain link box and tether them, Andromeda style, to a condo sitting on Miami’s disappearing beach front. Now wait. That could encourage climate action. Couldn’t it?

    Between Covid and the Congress, between Covid and the weak-kneed White House, I find life outside the wonderful world here atop Shadow Mountain often dismal, rarely joyful. And. I. Don’t. Like. It.

    Yeah. So what, you say. Suck it up buttercup. Nope. Not gonna do that. And, I wanted to have my minute. There it’s over. Back to business as masked.

    Leading mussar today since Carole had a wreck. In hospital with a cracked sternum. Ouch. Meals for her for a couple of weeks. Glad. I get to return the favor.

    Topic in mussar today. Judgement. Of others. The Perkei Avot says Jewish tradition instructs us that when we judge another person, we are to put their misdeeds on one side of a scale and their virtues on the other side of the scale. If the scales are balanced, then we should tip them towards merit.

    And, ourselves. “The Talmud says that we should always judge other people favorably. We must also judge ourselves favorably”. (R. Nachman of Breslav)

    Odd that in Christianity, which says judge not, the tendency is to judge harshly, while in Judaism, which sees judging others and ourselves as both inevitable and necessary, the remonstrance is to judge others favorably.

    Reb Nachman puts another flaw in the ointment. We must also judge ourselves favorably. Whoa. That’s a hard one, eh?

    I’m guilty of judging others harshly, of weighing what I perceive to be misdeeds or character flaws as tainting the whole person. I suppose you could call this cancel culture. Make one misstep and you not only get judged, you get ostracized from polite society.

    “Machrio L’Chaf Zechut translates as “influencing others to virtue,” or “judging others favorably.” Machrio comes from the root chaf-reish-ayin and means “to bend.” L’chaf zechut means “to a scale of merit.” This is the middot associated with judgement.  Reform Judaism

    This one goes on my spiritual curriculum. A spiritual curriculum according to mussar has on its syllabus character traits where we often fall short and those that we have, but need to reinforce.

    This sort of work is actually High Priest work. “Tradition and guidance. Formal knowledge, education and academic establishments. A need to conform to orthodox ideas and conventional approaches. The significance of a teacher or mentor.” The message: “There is a value in discipline and routine to maintain the connection between your worldly and spiritual life.”  Druid Craft Book.


  • Jon, Fiddler

    Fall and the Moon of the Thinned Veil

    Jon and Kate in his new house. The kitchen looks very different now.

    Sunday gratefuls: Ovation West and Center Stage’s Fiddler on the Roof. Excellent. Jon, still struggling with Addison’s and diabetes and thyroid problems. Probably hospital next week. Ruth and Gabe, getting by with all this as best they can. Rigel, who barked in the middle of the Night. Kep, who did not. 33 degrees. Clear blue Sky. Ancient Ones. Johnson clan. Kate Strickland and Michael Banker at Scooter’s.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

    Tarot: Queen of Wands

     

    DIA, creative commons license

    Gosh. Took Joseph to DIA, leaving here at 8:30 so he could get a rapid Covid test, a haircut. Got the test. Busy barbers. On to the airport. Much easier drive on a Saturday morning. Both ways. I said good bye to this sweet kid with a big hug at United departures. He lifted his heavy, heavy duffle and his also heavy backpack, trudged off into the terminal. On his way to LAX, then Honolulu, Seoah, and Murdoch. And tonight, Sunday night, back to the airport for a flight first to Guam, then Manila. In the middle of the week, then, back home.

    Alan as the beggar

    Got home. A brief liedown. Up at 12:30 for my Tree of Life Tarot spread class. Left the class early. To Center Stage in Evergreen to meet Jon, Ruth, Gabe for Fiddler on the Roof. Alan is in it. A beggar.

    The production was wonderful. A small live orchestra accompanies most Center Stage musicals. And, they’re all musicals. Tevya was, oddly, the director of the Music Department at Colorado Christian College. His voice, stage presence, acting carried the show. Which had imaginative choreography, few props, and a compelling pace. The cast had chops.

    Ruth and Gabe at intermission

    It went from 2:30 to 5:45. Glad we didn’t do the evening show. I would have been snoring in my seat.

    Because I screwed up my schedule and we didn’t get lunch before hand (I forgot to enter my class and the show on my calendar. Rare.), I waited for a Beau Jo’s Mountain pizza while Jon and the kids went on to Shadow Mountain.

    About an hour later, I arrived home with a hamburger and sausage combination, 5-pound (how they sell them) pie.

    Jon’s struggles with his disease triad, teaching, and depression have gotten worse. So much so that he’s applied for medical leave and has considered going on disability. Yes, it’s that severe. He gets intermittent low blood pressure that makes him weak, thrush that makes it hard to eat, not to mention the serious fluctuations in his blood sugar and cortisol levels.

    The thrush went on long enough that he’s now thin, as Kate was. Eerie similarities in their path.

    Gabe’s bris

    All this concerns me, not only for Jon, but for Ruth and Gabe as well. Jon thinks his endocrinologist will put him in the hospital, possibly as soon as tonight or tomorrow. There they can manage his blood sugar and cortisol more closely, develop a plan for handling it. Jon told me last night that a small cohort of Addison’s sufferers have his symptoms, where the medicine does not resolve the cortisol insufficiency, creating crisis after crisis.

    Not sure where all this goes. Time.

     


  • Fourth Phase Life

    Fall and the Moon of the Thin Veil

    Wednesday gratefuls: A stained house, newly painted garage doors. Daniel. Alvin. Greg. Sandy, coming up to be with Kate’s ashes. Kate, always Kate. The Woolly retreat in November. The Mountains. The Rocks, Lodgepoles, Aspens, Creeks, and Wild Critters. Deep peace.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Roadtrip!

    Tarot: Ace of Pentacles

     

    Daniel stained my whole house in just over a day. A sweet man. The 3M window coverings reminded me of St. Paul, of the Twin Cities. Alvin, his partner yesterday, took down my blue lights. Think I’m gonna leave’m down. Lots of neighbors complaining about lights ruining the dark Sky, a true Mountain amenity. They’re not wrong. Does mean I gotta dig out the box of solar lights I ordered. I need something to identify our house at night. So easy to drive right past it.

    January 2020

    On Monday, Coyote HVAC. Then, choosing between bids for remodeling the kitchen. Probably won’t happen until later in the year. May seem strange, my doing all these things, spending a bunch of money. Not to me. They represent another phase of grief, one in which I celebrate what Kate and I had together while creating my fourth phase life. Hence, I’m enhancing the house she found and in which we shared our last years together.

    Got a note from the Assistance Fund, the one that pays down my copay for Orgovyx from $800 a month to $10. I have to reapply for coverage on December 1st. Won’t miss that deadline.

    Greg Lell, owner of the painting company, came by yesterday to get his check. We got to talking. He was, he said, a dairyCatholic.* He ran the words together. His parents figured out a three to four year gap system that resulted in six siblings for him, and, crucially, a new farm hand growing into the job as one left it. Oddly, he has a distinctive Texas accent, but he grew up in Colorado. Over 15 years in Texas he began to sound like a native.

    Many Woolly brothers, Tom, Mark, Paul, have decided not to attend the retreat. Excellent reasons, probably ones that apply to me, but I need to get outta here, get on the road, be somewhere else. Not new, forty years a Minnesotan, but also not Colorado.

    Largest wood fired kiln in the U.S. Bresnahan in sportcoat

    I will be staying in retreat lodging at St. John’s Monastery in Collegeville. I have done retreats there before and visited many times. The ceramic urn which holds Kate’s ashes came out of the Johanna Kiln, shaped by Richard Bresnahan from clay dug not far from the monastery. The firing of the Johanna Kiln is a major event as it’s a dragon kiln with several bays snaking up a hillside. When it’s firing, volunteers feed split Wood into its firebox 24 hours a day until the ceramics finish their ordeal. Maybe I’ll finally buy a teapot.

    Drew the Ace of Pentacles this morning. The aces are potential, the essence of their suit. Pentacles represent mother earth, malkut, this world, this physical world. In many cases this card may signal success in business, an inheritance, making progress in a career. It also can suggest deep peace, well being in this world. Feeling calm.

    As I’ve entered this new phase of grieving, a great calm has settled within me. A deep peace. I’m more in my life than regretting, mourning Kate’s death. As I said yesterday, my life with her is the foundation for this phase, what I’m calling my fourth phase. I’m modeling this fourth phase idea on the Hindu life phase of renunciation and a focus on the spiritual.

    The Ace suggests I’m on the right path. Let’s call it a new ancientrail. Though the road that led here connects to it, this ancientrail has made a sharp turn toward the West, toward the setting Sun. It is the final phase of life and one I want to walk intentionally. To walk it like a Celtic Christian saint. Peregrenatio.

    *Yes, I did mention the other dairyCatholic I know, Mr. Bill!


  • What do I believe about myself/my life that if I let go of it would free me? 

    Fall and the Thin Veil Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Black Mountain. Golden Fire. Those bucks who visited. Coolness. Daniel. Alvin. Greg. Staining the house. Amy at Mile High Hearing. Phonaks. The Roger. Kate, always Kate. Mark Horn. The Tree of Life spread. Tarot. Changing my perception of myself. That steak I thawed. Potatoes. Peas and carrots. Self-care.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mark Horn’s answer to my Tarot spread question

    Tarot: Two of Cups

     

    This exchange is an email between the man, Mark Horn, teaching the Tree of Life spread class, and myself. I post it here because he somehow (how does the Tarot work, anyhow?) identified a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately.

    How can I share the wisdom of the road I have taken with others? Then when the Hermit reversed shows up in Binah, you might ask, In what ways am I hesitant about stepping into my role as Sage?”

    Hesitant. Reluctant. Shy. Timid. Maybe not words you’d apply to me. But they are on target in this instance. I’ve been a faithful student all my life, learning as much as I can. I have written novels and short stories. Many sermons. Literally millions of words on this bog. Yet, I’ve done almost nothing to ensure others see my work, hear my voice.

    “What do I believe about myself/my life that if I let go of it would free me?” Mark asked. This question tumbles around now like clothes in the washer. Why have I been so timid, so shy, so reluctant, so hesitant to get my work out there?

    I don’t know the answer, but it’s a question worth exploring. This tarot stuff. Powerful.

     

    I wrote to Mark:

    “Though I’m less new to Kabbalah, I’m still in an early learning state with Tarot.

    Which makes me feel unable to properly read the cards I got for my supernal triad spread.

    Keter: The Devil

    Chokamah: The Chariot

    Binah: The Hermit reversed

    I got stuck on the Devil in the Keter position. Is my shadow the point here? I’m a recovering alcoholic, but I’ve been sober and calm 46 years. Not really addicted to anything.

    Anyhow, I then noticed the Chariot has a crown, so it’s stronger up here in the supernal triad. Not sure what ambition is about for me at 74. Not feeling like there are mountains for me to climb. Except of course the mountain on which I live. Ironically, it’s named Shadow Mountain.

    Hermit reversed? My wife died in April so I’m a widower, living in our house with our two dogs, Rigel and Kepler. I like being alone, but I see friends, close friends, regularly and attend Congregation Beth Evergreen’s events and see my grandkids and step-son regularly.

    Can you point me toward some help?

    I enjoyed the class a lot. Looking forward to next week.

     

    Mark Horn responded:

    Hi Charles,

    I’m glad you enjoyed the class. Let me give you some suggestions for these cards.

    When the Devil appears in Keter, well, one of the questions that comes up you have already spoken to, which is addiction of some sort—but there’s more to the Devil than that—it’s always good to ask, “is there some lie that i have been told about myself, or taken in unconsciously, that I need to free myself from?”

    -What do I believe about myself/my life that if I let go of it would free me?

    -Does my experience with addiction give me a role to play in helping others find freedom from substance abuse? (And specifically, if you’re in AA, have you taken on the role of a sponsor or a service position in your local AA? And if not, why not?)

    -How can I help others see through their illusions with humor? (The esoteric title of the Devil is The Lord of Mirth, and humor that helps people see the truth is one of the possible ways to interpret the card)

    -And yes, shadow is something that comes up here too, so that a question to ask is: what shadow elements do I still need to bring to light and heal?

    With the Chariot, some questions in the Chokmah position might be:
    How can I better engage the wisdom I have achieved? What new goals would inspire me? How can I share the wisdom of the road I have taken with others?

    The Hermit and reversals—I haven’t discussed how to read reversed cards yet, so good to have asked. This is one of those places where I let my intuition take over. By that I mean I don’t always read reversals. My feeling is that the context will help, and every hard has both a positive and negative reading, and which reading to go with becomes clear as we examine and ask questions. But, since a question that came up with the Chariot in Chokmah could be:  How can I share the wisdom of the road I have taken with others? Then when the Hermit reversed shows up in Binah, you might ask, In what ways am I hesitant about stepping into my role as Sage? How can I share my light with others who need it? In what ways can I make my life an example for others who are struggling on their path?

    With three Major Arcana cards in the Supernal triad, this is a powerful grouping, and given the context you mentioned, feels very much to the point.

    One of the reasons I give “questions to ask” rather than interpretations of the card is that an interpretation is closed, but a question, at least the way I try to phrase it, is open-ended and calls for thought before a response. It may not even call for a response, but be more of a question to live with. The questions are meant to resonate with the querent, and lead them to examine things they may or may not have thought about.

    And one thing I often tell people I read for is that the cards almost always tell you something you already know—you just need to hear it again or hear it from another source so that you’re more present to the information.

    I hope this is helpful.

    Everbest,

    Mark”

     


  • Sannyasa

    Lughnasa and the Lughnasa Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: HVAC mini-splits. Tom. His HVAC guy. Diane. Cousins. Family. Extended and virtual. Claire and her new life. Social Security. Cool morning. Allergies. Ragweed. Chenopods: amaranth, pigweed, waterhemp, russian thistle, lamb’s quarters. Washing machine. Dishwasher. Stove. Refrigerator. Sink. Well. Pump.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The trouble small bits of plant sex can cause

    Tarot: Justice, #11 of the Major Arcana

     

    Beginning, slowly. Sensing. Too much time in the afternoons. I take this as a good sign. I’m getting what I need to get done in the mornings, my best portion of the day, then I have a larger chunk of time in the afternoon where I feel a bit aimless. Over the last three years, the afternoon and evenings involved caretaking for Kate. So, filled up, always something else to do.

    The pruning, the planning for the 18th, the administrative side of taking over all responsibilities, have all begun to yield. Hardly finished, but none of them weigh on me, pushing me, as they had even this last month.

    The Musician and the Hermit – Moritz von Schwind

    In my life change often comes because I’m bored. Oh, I’ve got time for this, now! Or, what could I be doing with this time? I have a few go to’s: reading and writing at the top of the list every time. Travel, especially close to home. Hiking. Museum going. Eating out. More time with friends.

    There is, too, a niggling sensation that I could be doing more. Something more in a justice/climate change/political activism way. And, yes, I could.

    But. I’m trying to lean into the life of the sannyasa, the fourth stage of Hindu life, a stage of renunciation, of pursuit of spiritual matters. And, the life of a mountain recluse in the shan-shui tradition of China. Perhaps, for now, a semi-hermetic life. Focused on reading, learning, writing. Self-awareness. Deepening my inner journey.

    I’m going to mark September 29, Michaelmass, as a time to focus on whether this will remain my path. A retreat, perhaps. Three days somewhere in the mountains. Seems like a good idea.

    Drew the justice card. No big insights today.

    But. I did get a letter from Social Security yesterday explaining why they can’t pay me right now. My mistake. I didn’t give a new routing number after I closed the Health Care Credit Union account.

    However, I have a call with them on Thursday, long awaited. This will be the one where I claim survivors benefits which will bump my social security up a grand plus. I started this process in April when I informed them of Kate’s death. Lots of getting put off, turned over to someone else.

     

     

    *”It can also suggest a frustrating encounter with bureaucracy. If it shows up in your reading in this context, be prepared to navigate some red tape. Get help or advice from someone within the system you’re working in. Stay patient and persistent. This card in a positive position and upright indicates a good outcome.” tarotluv


  • Acts of Creation

    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.


  • Don’t believe everything you think

    Imbolc and the remaining, waning Wolf Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: Good Stock. Soups. 2.0 calorie nutrients for Kate. Kate. Always, Kate. Kep, so happy for breakfast. Literally jumping up and down. Cooler weather. Sleep. Until 7 this morning. Biden says no 45 intelligence briefings. Biden pushes relief package. As is. Vaccines. Covid. Awake. Rather than woke.

    Relishing the relief. No need to cringe when reading headlines. No need to jump out of my chair and hit the streets to comment publicly on a Presidential statement. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Biden’s win has taken a dark bowl off my back, set it down in the basement, the deep basement, (OK, Mar-a-Lago) where it belongs. It’s not alone down there. The dark bowl of slavery is there. Of white supremacy. Of fascism and fascists. Many others.

    But, don’t become complacent. That basement is our cultural shadow. These bowls are not gone. They can be drunk from again. Still. Only owning them, why they’re part of us, part of our communal life, can break the bowls and let their foul liquids seep into the bowels of hell from whence they came. We’re not ready for that yet.

    Though. He who will not be named’s Presidency did do us  service in that regard. Surfacing our shadow, bringing into the light. Giving it visibility. Charlottesville. January 6, a shadow epiphany. George Floyd. Drink bleach. Shine a light up your rectum. Deregulate oil and gas. Don’t read. Don’t learn. Don’t embrace or love your neighbor, instead take their kids and put them in a cage. Yes, we saw all of this. Good. It’s not gone away. It’s only resting in the deep basement of our national psyche. Below the National Archives, I imagine.

    The work that comes next. That will be the hardest. Essential work and in these matters we are all essential workers.

    Not now. Beat back Covid. Restore the economy. Shift to renewable energy. Reform policing. Extend a hand to those who would live in the land of the free and the brave. Breathe. Relax.

    The time will come to admit that the Klan served all white people. The time will come to admit we were all addicted to oil and gas. The time will come to admit that people who are different scare all of us. The time will come to say, yes, we outsourced our fears to the police, to ICE, to militia groups, to the NRA. The time will come.

    The time is now though to make critical thinking and science education a key part of every American’s education. Media literacy, a way of understanding that not all we read or see is true. These skills, their lack, has sickened us almost to the point of death. Fix them now. Now.


  • Still here. Still ok.

    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.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


  • Art: A Post About Grief

    Fall and the Moon of Radical Change

    Thursday gratefuls: Kevin at Ionos. Both hands. Keyboards. Learned fingers. This blog. Kate. Our talk yesterday morning. Her bandages and her 02 concentrator going back home. Kep, the sweet boy. Rigel, the yipper. Orion and Venus. Follow the arc to Arcturus. The Big Dipper, follow the pointer stars to Polaris. Bright Sirius. The steady polls. The coming change. May it be radical, thorough, and lasting.

    It’s good to be back. Solving the security feature, see the https/ at our url now, either created or coincided with another, bigger problem. Using up more space than my account at my webhost allows. Various attempts by myself and Kevin at Ionos were unsuccessful. Until yesterday afternoon. Sigh. Anyhow, we should be good. I realized over the dark period that I’ve been writing Ancientrails for 15 years, an anniversary that fell in February just when Gertie was dying and Covid had begun to make itself known. Distracted.

    Anyhow, here’s a post I wrote in Word, then I’m going to do another for today. So, two posts today.

     

    Art. A sad story. Ancient friend Paul Strickland named beauty as the theme for our Sunday morning. Mark Odegard included elegance, grace, and fully realized potential in his definition. Bill talked about the beauty of the human face. Tom showed a favorite piece of art, a swirly sand sculpture with gold on the inside. Paul surprised even himself I think by talking about a beautiful death. His hospice client since January died the day before.

    “Truth is beauty, beauty truth, that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.” Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn. Where I began.

    We often go to the visual when we think of beauty and  the visual artist, the designer among us, Mark, was the most clear about it. The rest of us went in varied directions but I underlined, first, the beauty of knowledge, of theorems, of proofs, of science, mathematics. Truth is beauty.

    In 2000 I became a guide at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. Guides got training for specific galleries. My first one was Latin America, I think. Then, Native America. South and Southeast Asia. In 2005 a new docent class. I was in it. All those years the MIA offered continuing education for guides and docents on Monday mornings.

    We would come into the quiet museum, closed to the public on Monday’s, and listen to art historians talk about painting, sculpture, Asian art. Perhaps a curator talking about a new exhibit they planned. Or, a rearranging of the galleries in their field. Trends in art, both older and contemporary. It was wonderful. I sucked in the knowledge, filling up two five-inch-thick notebooks with sketches and notes, quotes, my own ideas. A joyous time.

    But not even the best part of Mondays. The best part came after the continuing education was done. The museum allowed us to stay in the galleries if we wanted, wandering from here to there in the long rooms filled with Renaissance paintings, or Impressionists. Van Gogh. Beckman. Copley. Homer. Goya.

    No one from the public. A few museum staff cleaning objects, hanging or installing new works. Otherwise. Quiet. Peaceful.

    The Asian galleries drew me, a long-time fascination with the art and cultures of Asia getting fed. The Japanese tea sets, a Buddha sculpture, the Ferragana stallions in metal. Song dynasty ceramics and paintings. The lonely Taoist scholar resting by a giant waterfall.

    Goya. His Dr. Arrieta. Ghosts from his past lingering in the background as he sank, exhausted from illness into the arms of his physician. Rembrandt. The Lucretia. Her blouse stained by blood from the knife of her suicide.

    The wonderful colors and fanciful shapes of the Kandinsky. That haunting Francis Bacon of a pope with his mouth wide, wide open.

    So much. So much. I could, and often did, stay for hours, alone.

    In writing this I realize how lucky I was. Those days are with me still. But. That is not what I communicated on Sunday morning. Paul said, “You seemed to feel a longing, a yearning…”

    That shocked me a little. Grief, someone suggested. Yes, it is true. I have been unable to find in my life since then, since the museum changed the day of the continuing education, since I quit in 2012, no longer willing to make the winter drive in from Andover, a way to be intimate with art.

    A great sadness. I have tried various things. I look at art on the internet and good images are easy to find. I read art books, ones I bought over those years. I paint myself, in oils and in sumi-e. The quiet, the prayerful, the devotional relationship I had with objects at the MIA? No. Not available anymore.

    Grief is the price of love. I grieve my lost mother, seventeen dogs, Kate’s shattered health, and, yes, I grieve those moments, those hours. Still. Probably always.

     

     


  • Still alive in my heart

    Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: The Ancient friends. Health. Healthspan. Working out. Cool weather. Low humidity and dewpoint. Extreme fire weather. Rain yesterday and Friday. Stress.

    Drifting to sleep, roaming places that reached into my heart. In no particular order:

    Delos, the small Greek island where Apollo and Artemis were born

    Delphi, home to the Delphic Oracle in the Temple of Apollo

    Ephesus, the most complete Roman city I’ve seen. Near Patmos. The grave of John the Evangelist is there. Maybe.

    The Chilean Fjords. 120 miles of islands, ocean, and glaciers.

    Ushuaia. The furthest south city in the Americas.

    Angkor Wat, temples of the Khmer devi-rajas, God-Kings.

    The Maglev train in Korea

    The Forbidden City and the Great Wall

    Pompeii

    The Uffizi

    The Sistine Chapel

    Inverness, Scotland

    St. Deniol’s Residential library

    Winifred’s Holy Well

    Cahokia

    Chaco

    Lake Superior

    Northern Minnesota

    Shadow Mountain and its neighbors

    Manhattan

    The Cloisters

    Bangkok’s China Town and its night restaurants on the sidewalks

    Minneapolis and St. Paul

    The Panama Canal

    Oaxaca

    Mexico City: the zocalo and Garibaldi Square and Xochimilco and the Anthropology Museum

    Merida