Monthly Archives: July 2008

General

Lugnasa Entry

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A note to alert any interested that there is now an entry on Lughnasa in the Great Wheel pages.  Here’s an excerpt:

This year Lughnasa falls on a new moon, the dark time associated with the Corn Moon.  In moon lore the new moon, the dark moon affords a time for travel inward along the ancient inner trails of meditation, contemplation and ritual. New projects, new fronts on old projects can linger in our thoughts since the dark energy will not quash them, rather it provides a womb in which incubation can occur.  On the one hand then this is a time that focuses on the night and on the night without illumination, on the other it is the first day of the harvest and summer’s fading presence.lilytomatobed500.jpg

Family, Garden, Weather +Climate

Integrated Pest Management

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78  bar falls 29.68  2mpn NW dew-point 65  sunrise5:57  sunset8:40  Summer

New Moon (Corn Moon or State Fair Moon)

NOAA awakened me with its trademark ululation, alerting me to the thunder storm watch declared for Anoka County.  Such notices are rare in the morning, mostly coming in the late afternoon as the heat of the day punches up cumulus clouds into congestus, then into the anvil shape of the thunderhead, sometimes 5 or 6 miles high.

This allowed plenty of time for Kate and me to conduct our family business meeting.  This included Kate’s announcement of the fourth large quarterly adjustment in a row.  She works hard and gets compensated accordingly.  She’s off right now having lunch with Penny Bond at the Istanbul Bistro.

Last night while checking the crops I found an infestation of aphids in one corn stalk’s tassel.  After checking others and only finding the one, I ripped that one of the ground and moved it far away.  This morning I found another tassel with a few aphids, this one I squeezed between fingers and thumb instead of discarding.  I’ll check it again, but I imagine that fixed it.

Watching for disease and pests is an important part of gardening.  Another important part is not overreacting. I used to overreact, head straight for the pesticide or fungicide.  Since then, I’ve learned that plants can sustain damage with no harm to their overall purpose.  The trick is to know when the balance shifts from the plant’s natural defenses to the invaders.  Even when I react, I almost never resort to pesticides (I use cygon on Iris Borers in the spring.).  Instead I look for hand removal, plant elimination or measures such as squirting with high pressure water.  That approach has served me well for the last four to five years.

Integrated pest management (IPM) encourages this kind of response.  Good cleanup in the fall, creating a soil and growing condition favorable to healthy plants and either starting or purchasing strong plants also goes a long ways toward a manageable pest and disease environment.  These are also part of an IPM strategy.

Politics

SteppenWolf

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66  bar rises 29.68  0mph NNW dew-point 61  sunrise 5:57 sunset 8:42 Summer

Waning Crescent of the Thunder Moon

Sierra Club.  Numbers and names. Strategic decisions about endorsements and targeting of races.  All constrained by a set of compliance rules that would cross the eyes of a medieval theologian.  Still, this is the medium and political power is the message. 

Coffee afterward with Margaret.  We talked about organizing, but had to cut it short so Margaret could get back to her beagle.

Another wonderful summer night on the way home.  Stars in the sky.  A thin crescent moon somewhere, or not yet up. 

Still listening to Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf.  It is so different from what I remember, though my memory of it is fuzzy.  Makes me think of Steppenwolf, that wonderful German Sheperd who was part of my life for such a brief time.

Great Wheel, Politics

Radical Expectations

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86  bar falls 29.66 3mph N  dew-point 59  sunrise 5:56 sunset 8:42 Summer

Waning Crescent of the Thunder Moon

Lughnasa, August 1st, comes on a new moon night.  This means the first harvest festival of the Celtic year (it ends just before the last harvest festival on October 31st, Samhain.) will coincide with the dark moon.  In some pagan systems the new moon, the dark moon, is a time for introspection, for reflection.  It is a time to consider your life, to meditate and consider new beginnings.  This convergence of Lughnasa and the new moon may make for an interesting holiday.  Look to the Great Wheel posting on August 1st for some thoughts and a description of our celebration in the garden here at home.

Tonight is the second Sierra Club political committee meeting.  More endorsement work and consideration of targets for the up coming election.  I can’t talk about the details, but the political work makes a certain part of me thrum.

Speaking of cycles and elections the fall campaign has begun already.  Obama visited Europe and the Middle East.  McCain visited a German restaurant.   No kidding.  Look it up.  While my broad political sympathies lie with the Obama camp, my particular politics seem distant from the tug and pull of rhetoric which focuses on tax cuts and forcing people to buy medical insurance.  Where are the poor?  The disadvantaged?  The environment does seem to have traction in this race, part of the reason I decided to go with the Sierra Club work, but even there the radical, cut to the true bottom of an issue and deal with that, hears only faint echoes of itself.

Of course, expecting radical solutions from a political/economic system devoted to moderate policy initiatives, policy initiatives often vetted by the very industries and political interests targeted by them, remains, as it always has, an exercise in futility.  I know that.  I see it.  I feel it in my gut.

Which begs the question, why work within it?  Unlike those long ago days of movement politics drugs sex and rock and roll I sense no significant political minority roused.  The environmental advocates, who, if any, should be advancing with some power right now, seem fragmented.  In a moment without a vanguard and in a moment without a popular, even if disorganized, front clambering for change the politics of most use happen within the messy gears of our quasi-democratic process.

Garden

Onions on a Screen

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80  bar steady 29.71  2mph W dew-point 61  sunrise 5:56  sunset 8:42 Summer

Waning Crescent of the Thunder Moon

Heaved sand out of the to be fire pit.  Still a lotta roots even after the stump grinder.  Sigh.  It will get finished, and before 8/18 as a birthday present for Kate and as a Woolly place.  Gotta get up earlier to make this happen however.

Pulled onions, put down an old sliding door screen over the raised bed and put them on it to dry.  We have red and yellow, no white.  Seeing them out there, all next to each other, soaking up the rays like California girls makes an aging horticulturist proud.  All the allium crops are out of the ground now.  The garlic hangs in the utililty room in the basement and the onions will go in the garage either in burlap or slotted crates.

With tomatoes coming and the bean plants producing we are well into the first harvest cycle.  We will celebrate this on August 1st with some kind of ceremony in the garden.  We also plan to invite the neighbors on August 2nd.

Faith and Spirituality

Separate Maya from Reality

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77  bar steady 29.73  0mph NW  dew-point 62  sunrise 5:56  sunset 8:42 Summer

Waning Crescent of the Thunder Moon

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.” – Shunryu Suzuki

Beginner’s mind.  It has such a resonance for me.  It reminds us that separating maya from reality is a learned skill, one at which we can improve and improve by a vast extent.  It also suggests that life, instead of growing more difficult as we learn, can grow simpler, more straightforward.  Once one abandons ambition, goals and accepts death life becomes less cluttered.

Chess education speaks of beginner’s mind.  The beginner has to contemplate so many moves that the mind becomes overwhelmed, unable to choose.  The expert sees the board as lines of force and connected patterns related to classic moves.  Thus, even though the expert looks at the same board as a beginner, she can look further ahead with less choice to a better move.

Learning is the same.  As I grow older and my information and knowledge base increases, I find that connections between and among ideas comes quicker, more easily.  Historical data correlates with art or architecture, political movements, literary experimentation.  Certain patterns of thought typical of the Renaissance, say, illuminate Chines thinking of the Warring States Period.  Ways of approaching matters of faith begin to interlace and inform each other rather than conflict and confuse.

Horticulture.   Over the years here in Andover the care and feeding of multiple plants in multiple beds, with varying sun has gone from difficult to manageable.  This year I have added hydroponics and vegetables (though Kate has done vegetables for years).  In the fall we will plant an orchard and add a few raised beds.  With a beginner’s mind the care of such a diverse garden would have created chaos and the plants would have suffered, now the moves are more familiar, more predictable, the choices have decreased.

On the other hand beginner’s mind can help us visit old areas with fresh eyes.  It can help us embrace each day with wonder and awe.  Beginner’s mind can keep us in the present and attentive to the now.  Beginner’s mind can help us break free of stale routines and static ideas.  Beginner’s mind can keep love fresh and learning exciting.

So we need both beginner’s mind and the expert mind.

Garden

What a Tomato!

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86  bar steady  29.66  2mph SSE dew-point 56  sunrise 5:55 sunset 8:43  Summer

Waning Crescent of the Thunder Moon

“Frisbeetarinism is the belief that when you die your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.”  George Carlin, RIP

OMG!  Picked another Cherokee Purple tomato.  It weighs 1.5 pounds.  That’s quite a tomato.  These plants have just begun producing ripe fruit so I imagine the next month or so will see challengers.  Now I have to figure out to save the seed and grow these monsters again next year.  Each of these plants got their start in our hydroponics.  Very satisfying to go from seed to a 1.5 pound fruit.

Kate’s sewing a dress for Ruthie.  She already made two small suits for Gabe.  She gets into a trance when the sewing begins, real flow.

Garden

One Slice Covers a Salad Plate

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82 bar falls 29.66 1mph E dew-point 73  sunrise 5:55 sunset 8:43 Summer

Waning Crescent of the Thunder Moon

Dead headed the lilium today, their bloom period is almost past.  Buddhists say flowers get their beauty from their transience.  Makes sense.  The flower symphony I outlined a few posts ago honors this notion, seeing the transience as  beautiful.  The hemerocallis, or day lilies have begun to come into their own, vigorous and bountiful.  Their multi-colored, short-lived flowers will grace our garden for some time.

The acorn squash plant that had designs on much of the area in its not so immediate surround had to give up some of its space today.  While cutting back the vine, I harvested squash blossoms for soup or salad.  This vine has small prickles on it, stay away signals.

Kate harvested four of the Cherokee Purple tomatoes yesterday.  They are huge.  They taste sweet, a subtle flavor with undertones.  One slice covered the bottom of the salad plate on which I put it.  The heirlooms have a different feel, a different texture on the palette.  Sort of like eating history.  I imagine pioneers or turn of the century farmers plucking these giants and serving them up just as I did, slice after slice with a little salt and pepper, no need for garnish.

The corn, some of it, has tassles.  With tassles, ears of corn are not far behind.  This is Country Gentelmen, a shoe peg white corn with irregular kernels.  The beans planted in the space between their rows flourish, too, as do the second planting of beets in the bed now vacated by the garlic.  Today, too, I plan to dig up all the onions and put them on a large screen to dry, then bag.  There are a lot of onions.

Art and Culture, Friends, Literature, Memories, Politics

More Radical Than Thou

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80  bar falls 29.66  0mph E  dew-point 76!  sunrise 5:55  sunset 8:43  Summer

Waning Crescent of the Thunder Moon

Jerry Stearns sent word that he worked with rebels in Central America and served a stint as a bodyguard for Rigoberta Minchu, the Mayan activist.  This reminded me, though I don’t think it was his intent, of the old game, More Radical Than Thou.

This was a game of gotcha and it drove the Everything Matters part of the personal is political.  If I, say, was a draft resister and an anti-war marcher, you might say that you planned to go to Canada.  If I planned to go Canada, you might say you were going underground.  If I said I was going underground, you might say, me too, but I’m going to bomb federal buildings, too.  This macho ratcheting up of the stakes in a round of how far can you travel away from middle-class morality and conventional politics lasted for a long, long time.

It was an aspect of movement politics in which I always felt one step behind, never quite outré enough.  I was back then, as now, stuck with this dipolarity, radical and conservative, both alive and well, never reconciled, perhaps irreconcilable. Come to think of it this same dipolarity might have been the tense spring that kept me going back to the bar for one more round.

Nowadays I cherish this peculiarity.  I can engage radical environmental politics, continue in my radical analysis of American society while loving the MIA and my docent role there.  I can continue opposition to conservative politics while loving the classics, poetry and faith traditions.  These two poles now serve as a creative edge for me, a sort of tectonic junction where volcanoes are born and subduction feeds the volcano.  Back then I felt the need to exist on only one end of the pole, rather than embracing the tension that came from them.

More Radical Than Thou pushed me to one end of the pole.  I ended up denying, repressing the conservative part of me that wandered art museums, read Ovid and Homer and yearned for a connection with God.  Seminary and a stint as a Presbyterian minister only reversed the pressure.  While I could affirm my love of biblical study and prayer, I felt constant pressure to be more radical, to engage in more and more radical political activity.   This change from one end of the see-saw to the other was no resolution either.

Only now, in these days when the introvert has settled into a quiet writing existence have I begun to live from both ends of the dialectic.  I can work as a docent amongst the fascinating details of art history while I the Sierra Club work blossoms.  I can write novels while I search nature and the American literary tradition for a pagan faith relevant to today.  Though the Jungian analysis moved far along this ancient trail, only unconditional love can heal these splits and I have found such love in Kate. We are soulmates.

Memories

Vanished in the Smoke

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76  bar falls 29.70  0mph SSE dew-point 67  sunrise 5:55 sunset 8:44  Summer

Waning Crescent of the Thunder Moon

Echoes from the past.  Over time certain folks reconnect out of the blue.  Jerry Stearns is one.  We were part of the movement at Ball State.  Hard to believe, but we had a radical wing at this conservative midwestern teacher’s university.  We did some drugs, raised some hell.  He’s kept the faith working with Central American guerillas and medical groups like medicine sin fronteras.  He’s still at it doing hospice work now and using the money to help develop clinics with the Zapatistas and sub-commandante Marcos.  He brings word of folks I’d forgotten about long ago.

Those days.  They were so different than now.  So formative for a generation, at least a chunk of the generation.  As I’ve written elsewhere, we engaged in struggle in our own lives, with our friends and lovers, in our own communities.  The personal was political and the political personal.  It was, really, politics drugs sex and rock and roll.  We went on road trips, driving through Indiana small towns flashing the peace sign and shaking our long hair. (Yes, I realize how ridiculous this sounds now.) We smoked dope, dropped acid and listened to acid rock.  We demonstrated, wrote, loved and then disbursed.  Jerry stayed in touch with more folks as near as I can tell, but I never looked back.  After Dad and I split, I left home for Wisconsin, then Minnesota.

Intense. Those days dripped intensity.  Everything, every tiny thing mattered.  It was, for this cowboy, too much.  The more intense it got, the more I drank.  I gave up acid and marijuana early on, but I hung on to beer and whisky.  The sexual revolution kept going and going and going up until my second marriage, then it stopped until my divorce.  At which point it picked up again.  Then stopped again when I married Kate.  And happily so.

Back then I was an introvert trying to function as an extrovert.  It took a lot of chemicals and a rich dose of denial to stay at it.  When I finally woke up, I was on my second marriage, working for the Prebyterian church and wondering just what the hell I had done with my life.  Treatment brought me into contact with a new reality, my true self.  It was, though, as it often is, ten years before my maturation caught up with me after I stopped drinking.  18 off and on years of Jungian analysis.

All the drugs and sex, the politics of rage, make the true effects of those years difficult to sort out.  They were painful in so many ways, yet pain and growth are old partners.  The overall affective tone of those years has a negative valence emotionally, but a positive one in terms of commitment, struggle, victories.  So much of it vanished in smoke and the slosh of beer. I mean my memories are unreliable, in some cases extinguished, or at least very hidden.