Category Archives: Great Work

Bees, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Bee Diary 2012: Hiving the Packages.

Leave a comment

Spring                                                       Bee Hiving Moon

“Sometimes, you have to step outside of the person you’ve been and remember the person you were meant to be. The person you want to be. The person you are.”
H.G. Well

Drove out to Stillwater and picked up my California girls.  About 16,000 of them.  Sprayed’em down with sugar water when I got home.  Unloaded a 5 gallon pail of prosweet, a food supplement for this early period when nectar is in short supply, and two gallon pails with holes in the top for feeding (turned upside down).

Later today, around 5 pm, I took the packages, the two gallon pails filled with syrup, a pollen patty and went out into the orchard.  There I took the hive’s copper tops off, then the hive box cover and removed three frames from the center of the hive box.

Rain, a light rain fell.  And Rigel came in through a gate I had forgotten to close and ate the first pollen patty.  In spite of not being a bee.  Sigh.

So, back down to the refrigerator for another pollen patty.

Back up to the orchard and out to the packages.  I pried the syrup containing can out of the package, sprayed the bees again with plenty of sugar water, removed the queen cage and put it in my pocket, then rapped the container sharply on the remaining frames and 7,000 to 8,000 bees fell onto the floor of the hive box.

I spread them around with a bee brush, then took the queen out of my pocket.  First, check that she’s alive.  Yep.  OK.  Pull back the small screen on her cage while placing the cage in the hive box.  Tap it and make sure she falls into the bees.

Replace the three frames, gently.  Not killing the queen is an important part of this whole process.

Put a pollen patty on top of the frames, away from the hole in the hive cover since that’s where the syrup will come into the hive box and put the hive cover back on the box.  At that point invert the white plastic pail over the oblong opening in the hive cover, place a medium sized box over the pale and the copper top over that.

That’s it for the first day.

There were a couple of moments.  A bee crawled up into my glove.  I removed it.  All the time saying, if I’m calm, the bees are calm.  This is sort of true though even now, four years in, I still get an adrenalin pump when the bees hit the mesh on my bee veil.

I didn’t get all the bees out of the packages, most, but not all.  It was those stragglers that took off after me.  They were not a problem.  But, they could have been.

The hives look great in the orchard; they give it a productive, yet homey feel.

 

Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work

Growing

Leave a comment

Spring                                                              Bee Hiving Moon

Put in my seed order to seed savers yesterday.  This is the first year in a few that I’ve not started any plants.  We moved the hydroponics cart into the garage to gain room for consolidation of all our dog crates in the kitchen.  Not sure whether we’ll use it this winter or not.  Maybe.  But this year, we’re planting seeds or buying transplants.

I ordered 8 tomato plants and 6 pepper plants from seed savers.  I still need to pick up onion sets, leek transplants and kale, probably tomorrow at Mother Earth Gardens at Lyndale and 42nd.  Our potatoes will come from seed savers, too.

We’ve got raspberries, strawberries, apples, pears, plums, cherries, blueberries, currants, wild grapes and asparagus that are perennials, plus the overwintered garlic and some onions.  Even so, I’m glad we don’t have to survive off of our produce.  Gardening would be real work then, a chore.

Instead, our garden sustains us spiritually, maintaining that constant and close connection to the seasons, to the vegetative world, to the soil.  It also provides food throughout the winter and we’ve chosen to emphasize that aspect of our garden by planting vegetables that we can put up.

Plus the bees.

Great Work, Humanities, World History

Old Flames

Leave a comment

Spring                                                  Bee Hiving Moon

Masters of the Planet.  Started reading this book by Ian Tattersall, a paleoanthropologist.  A popular narrative about the evolution of the human species, Tattersall covers ground I learned well over 40 years ago when I majored in anthropology.   Trouble is, the ground has shifted a lot since I learned about australopithecus and paranthropus robustus and all the other hominids.

(Logo Institute of Human Origins)

When I finished my study,  the time line of human evolution ended about 3 million years ago.  Now it stretches to more like 7 million.  I learned bipedalism was a way to hunt for game and watch out for predators in the grasslands of the open savannah.  Hmmm.  Problem with that theory is that more recent finds show the first bipedalists hung out at the edge of forests and often went back into the forests.  Lots of experiences like that for me.

The book did relight those old flames, the reason I added anthropology to my already in place philosophy major.  Something about the human story, that long arc of time when we differentiated from the ancestor we held in common with the great apes.  How it happened.  What it means for us, now.  All the different disciplines necessary to be a good anthropologist:  ethnology, linguistics, archaeology, physical anthropology.  It was just so much fun.

I’d recommend this book, but I think calling it a popularization is misleading.  Tattersall is a good writer, clean prose, very logical, that’s all good, but the subject matter often veers into the apparently esoteric.  If this stuff fascinates you, it’s a good way to catch up the last 40 years or so.  And they have been amazing years in the project of learning our story.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Great Work, Humanities, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Religion Collapse Disorder

Leave a comment

Spring                                                           Bee Hiving Moon

Had a chance to speak to Groveland UU this morning, a regular event each year for me for over 20 years now.  Some years more, some years less, always congenial.

The Reimagining Faith piece (see Current Work at the top of this page) resonated in a way a bit different than I had intended.  The conversation was not so much about reimagining faith as it was about the falling away of religious life and what that might mean.  That’s where the discussion led.

The Reimagining Faith project needs to deliver a fuller account of what I call religion collapse disorder.  Better documentation of this accelerating trend in the US and more on its implications for individual and group spirituality will be important.  I had sort of skipped over that and gone directly to the challenge facing deinstitutionalized Americans.

Between now and the Summer Solstice I’m going to start investigating possible Asian resources.  I’ll look especially at Taoism, Shinto, and the ukiyo-e artist Hokusai who belonged to a Buddhist sect that worshiped the north star.

There is also more work to be done on tactics, or methods, of constructing a new faith and I think the constructive theology exercise lined out below will be fun and a good step in this direction.

Realized, with a bit of surprise, that I’ve spent a lot of my life putting myself in front of people:  preaching, organizing, acting, touring, writing.  Never thought of it all like that before and it made me wonder what drives it.  Don’t know.

Art and Culture, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Great Work, Humanities, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Reimagining Faith: The Chauvet Cave Art

2 Comments

Spring                                                            Bee Hiving Moon

32,000 years ago.  In Europe.  When the Alps had glaciers 9,000 feet thick, in a valley in what is now France, in a cave concealed by an ancient rock slide, these astonishing works remain, a galleries of ancient art, a museum with no light, no movable images and nothing between us and the artists who worked here but time.  These are the oldest works of art.  Period.  And their lines flow from one place to the next, moving with the grace of an angel in flight, creating forms with ease, with economy of line.

Werner Herzog makes strange and wonderful films.  He finds human narratives in fascinating places.  That the French allowed him to film Chauvet testifies to his reputation and he only enhances it with this work.

He interviewed a man, I didn’t get his name or profession, who said to understand the photograph below there are two attributes of life then that could help make sense of it.  The first he said is fluidity.  That is, trees talk, rocks talk, entities are not fixed, they are fluid, one can change into the other, so a woman can become a river, a tree can become a man.  The second is permeability, the forms are not fixed, a woman might have the head of a bull, or a horse the head and upper body of a human.

He suggests, and it certainly makes sense to me, that this drawing from Chauvet Cave illustrates exactly that first example of permeability.  It doesn’t take much to get to Picasso’s Minotaurs or the Labyrinth in Knossos.  Or, Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Imagine living in a world where life, sentience, spirit embedded itself in everything.  More, image a place where the boundaries of your form and your life were not firm, where the boundary between this place and the Other World seemed always thin.  More, imagine lions with the head and forearms of a cave bear.  Or, a woman turned into a tree by a stream.  A hunter turned into a stag and eaten by his own dogs.

This is a world where neither faith nor belief are necessary because the world is as it is.  Magical.  Changeable.  Wonderful.  Horrifying.  Unpredictable.  Just imagine.

 

Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Reimagining Faith: Tree of Peace

Leave a comment

Spring                                                              Bee Hiving Moon

The essence of the Peacemaker legend follows as told by Mohawk chief Jake Swamp at the planting of a Tree of Peace in Philadelphia in 1986. “In the beginning, when our Creator made humans, everything needed to survive was provided. Our Creator asked only one thing: Never forget to appreciate the gifts of Mother Earth. Our people were instructed how to be grateful and how to survive. But during a dark age in our history 1000 years ago, humans no longer listened to the original instructions. Our Creator became sad, because there was so much crime, dishonesty, injustice and war. So Creator sent a Peacemaker with a message to be righteous and just, and make a good future for our children seven generations to come. He called all warring people together and told them as long as there was killing there would be no peace of mind. There must be a concerted effort by humans for peace to prevail. Through logic, reasoning and spiritual means, he inspired the warriors to bury their weapons and planted atop a sacred Tree of Peace”

It is said that the Tree of Peace given by the Peacemaker symbolizes the Great Law of Peace. The symbol is a great white pine, and it is said to shelter all nations who commit themselves to Peace. Beneath the tree are buried the weapons of war of the original five nations. Above the tree is an eagle that sees far. Also, four long roots stretch out in the four sacred directions, and they are called the white roots of peace. The Peacemaker invited any man or nation desiring to commit to the Great Law of Peace to trace the roots to their source, and take refuge beneath the Tree of Peace. The Peacemaker’s teachings stressed the power of reason to assure righteousness, justice and health. Faithkeeper Oren Lyons, an Onondaga, states that the Great Law of Peace includes freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right of women to participate in government.

The seed-idea underlying all Iroquois philosophy is that peace is the will of the Creator, and it is the ultimate spiritual goal and natural order of things. The prayer below comes from the people of the Iroquois Confederacy. The prayer is based on the tradition of interconnectedness that the Iroquois or Haudenosaunee possess. This prayer is said to be the backbone of the Iroquois culture. The prayer expresses the belief that rather than take the world for granted, it must be respected, and that we must thank all living things in order to align our minds with creation and the Creator. Usually, a faithkeeper is selected to share the prayer of thanksgiving at the opening and closing of social, government, and ceremonial events. The prayer is comprised of three levels:

 

Spiritual Forces on the Earth, Spiritual Forces in the Sky, Spiritual Forces beyond the Sky

The Spiritual Forces on the Earth are:
the People, our Mother Earth, the Waters, the Fish, the Grasses, the Plants,
our Sustenance, the Animals, the Trees, and the Birds.
Throughout the year we bring our minds together as one
We give thanks to one another
All year long she gives us all that we need

We give thanks to our Mother Earth
Everyday it quenches our thirst
We give thanks to the waters In winter it replenishes the lakes.
We give thanks to the waters

During the year they purify the lakes
We give thanks to the fish
When the wind turns warm a green blanket appears
We give thanks to the grasses
In early summer the flowers turn sweet
We give thanks to the medicinal plants
In early summer they help us survive
We give thanks to the food plants
In midsummer we dance for the green corn
We give thanks to our sustenance
In midsummer we dance for the red beans
We give thanks to our sustenance
During the winter their pelts warm the soul
We give thanks to the animal creatures
Since early times they have been our companions
We give thanks to the animal creatures
In early spring we are glad they reappear
We give thanks to the animal creatures
At one point in time it became a symbol of peace
We give thanks to the trees
At the end of spring the sap will flow
We give thanks to the trees
In early morning they carry messages
We give thanks to the birds
In times of danger he warns the people
We give thanks to the birds
In the summer they sing sweet songs

We give thanks to the birds Spiritual Forces in the Sky are:
the Four Winds, our Grandfather Thunder, our Elder Brother Sun, our Grandmother Moon, and the Stars
Throughout the seasons they refresh the air
We give thanks to the Four Winds
In early summer they bring the falling drops
We give thanks to our Grandfather Thunder
Every morning he brings light and warmth
We give thanks to our Elder Brother Sun
Every night she watches over the arrival of children
We give thanks to our Grandmother Moon
In the night their sparkle guides us home
We give thanks to the stars
The Highest Spiritual Forces beyond the Sky are: our Protectors, Handsome Lake, and the Creator
All the time they remind us how to live
We give thanks to our protectors
At one point in time he brought back the words of the Creator
We give thanks to Handsome Lake
Everyday we will share with one another all of these good things
We give thanks to the Creator.
– Prayer of Thanksgiving, Iroquois Confederacy

Aging, Great Work, Sierra Club, Weather +Climate

Another Beautiful Day. Bah.

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                                Woodpecker Moon

Another beautiful day. Yes.  But.  What dark forces work to push the boundaries of weather around like so many children’s blocks, a lego castle on wheels rolling north, careening over everything in its wake?  As I hope I’ve said here before, efforts to control global warming are NOT about saving the planet.  The planet will keep on whirling around the sun as long as gravity and spacetime remain.  Well, not quite, there is that whole red giant business, but it’s a really long time from now.

No, good ol’ h. sapiens will catch the fever.*  Of course, those with an eye to irony or just desserts might not see this a totally uncalled for solution; but, hell, I love our funny two-legged species, roaming around making babies, art, war, sport, roombas, nailguns and rainbow ponies.  What will the universe do for a laugh when we’re gone?

Fans of schadenfreude will rejoice.  Though whether one can be very schadenfreudie when you’re baking along with the ones responsible for delaying action, I don’t really know.

So, as a paid up member of the northern European gene pool, I’m tellin’ you it’s no wonder I’m melancholy.  The world is going to hell in a Hummer, not a handbasket.

 

*Scientific American

LONDON (Reuters) – Global greenhouse gas emissions could rise 50 percent by 2050 without more ambitious climate policies, as fossil fuels continue to dominate the energy mix, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Thursday.

“Unless the global energy mix changes, fossil fuels will supply about 85 percent of energy demand in 2050, implying a 50 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions and worsening urban air pollution,” the OECD said in its environment outlook to 2050.

The global economy in 2050 will be four times larger than today and the world will use around 80 percent more energy.

But the global energy mix is not predicted to be very different from that of today, the report said

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work

The Wise Old Wood Gods Laugh

Leave a comment

Winter                                   Garden Planning Moon

Tom Crane sent out an e-mail that contained many different photographs of paths and trails.

Then Bill Schmidt sent out this poem.  I love it.  Not always great prosody, but the concept?  Wow. Read all the way to the last stanza.  It’s worth it.

by Sam Walter Foss  (a new hampshire librarian)
(NH 1858-1911)

The Calf-Path

 

One day, through the primeval wood,

A calf walked home, as good calves should;

But made a trail all bent askew,

A crooked trail as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,

And, I infer, the calf is dead.

But still he left behind his trail,

And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day,

By a lone dog that passed that way.

And then a wise bell-wether sheep,

Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep;

And drew the flock behind him too,

As good bell-wethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade.

Through those old woods a path was made.

 

 

 

And many men wound in and out,

And dodged, and turned, and bent about;

And uttered words of righteous wrath,

Because ’twas such a crooked path.

But still they followed – do not laugh –

The first migrations of that calf.

And through this winding wood-way stalked,

Because he wobbled when he walked.

 

 

 

This forest path became a lane,

that bent, and turned, and turned again.

This crooked lane became a road,

Where many a poor horse with his load,

Toiled on beneath the burning sun,

And traveled some three miles in one.

And thus a century and a half,

They trod the footsteps of that calf.

 

 

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,

The road became a village street;

And this, before men were aware,

A city’s crowded thoroughfare;

And soon the central street was this,

Of a renowned metropolis;

And men two centuries and a half,

Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

 

 

Each day a hundred thousand rout,

Followed the zigzag calf about;

And o’er his crooked journey went,

The traffic of a continent.

A Hundred thousand men were led,

By one calf near three centuries dead.

They followed still his crooked way,

And lost one hundred years a day;

For thus such reverence is lent,

To well established precedent.

 

 

A moral lesson this might teach,

Were I ordained and called to preach;

For men are prone to go it blind,

Along the calf-paths of the mind;

And work away from sun to sun,

To do what other men have done.

They follow in the beaten track,

And out and in, and forth and back,

And still their devious course pursue,

To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove,

Along which all their lives they move.

But how the wise old wood gods laugh,

Who saw the first primeval calf!

Ah! many things this tale might teach –

But I am not ordained to preach.

 

Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Travel

The Frigate Bird

Leave a comment

Winter                                     First Moon of the New Year

The Frigate Bird

This photo comes from the series on the Panama Canal, but I connected with these birds in Rio.

Abundant all along the way these graceful animals love the liminal zone where land and ocean meet.

The Ipanema Plaza, our hotel in Rio, had 17 floors with a coffee shop, swimming pool and lounge area open to the air.  From that vantage point I watched these graceful birds sail the thermals created by the meeting of ocean air and the breezes coming off the land.  They swing up and down with casual, almost lazy movement of their wings.  Maybe once.  Twice.  Then the soaring continues.

Ipanema beach shines white in the mid-day sun and these birds flew in oval shaped patterns, watching the beach, the streets and whatever else can be seen from their height.  It was balletic, an aerial gavotte.  A composer could, I’m sure, develop a line of music from their regularity, floating up, then down, curving in a pass over the beach, then circling back, watching, always watching.

It was the purity of their line, the effortlessness of their flight, its calm, unhurried grace.  That’s what took my heart.