A Full Artemis Moon

Lughnasa                                       Full Artemis Moon

This morning I took a group of 15 Jesuits-to-be through the Matteo Ricci map exhibit.  They were a bright and curious group, joining the same order that deployed Ricci to China 330+ years ago.   The Jesuits were only a generation old at that point.  They were the most attentive group I took through, because, I imagine, they felt some personal stake, no matter how tenuous.  The Chinese Heritage Foundation displayed equal interest, but soon began exploring the map for themselves, reading the calligraphy.  This was an interesting exhibit and improved my knowledge of the Ming dynasty and the Jesuit order.

When I rolled those plastic trash bins out to the roadside tonight, the full Artemis moon had risen.  Full moons hang over the far eastern end of our street and it was beautiful, golden.  The air was cool, the sky a deep blue and this gold charm floated just above the trees.

Three boxes full of honey extracting equipment came just before I left for the city this morning.  Kate and I plan to open tomorrow morning, see what’s in them.  Two more boxes are on their way from another Dadant plant.  This means we’ll get the equipment set up before our date for extraction–August 30th.  Good thing.  All this equipment and it’s only used once a year for a brief time, but in that brief time it captures the results of a year’s worth of collaborative labor between beekeeper and bees.  Worth it.

Strolling on the Mall

Lughnasa                                           Full Artemis Moon

Downtown Minneapolis, along the Nicollet Mall, has a lot of art, as Glen Keitel showed a group of 15 or so this afternoon.  We started with shadow portraits made of loonbronze and cast into the sidewalk.  They were commemorations of various political struggles including the 1934 truckers strike, Nellie Stone Johnson’s political career and a moving tribute to a Dakota woman.  Across the street from them at Westminster Presbyterian a Paul Granlund cast three humans up and heavenward from geometric forms all cast in bronze.  We walked a long ways, over two hours, and the leg on which I ruptured my achilles took to aching.

A surprising number (to me) of restaurants downtown now have sidewalk dining and there were plenty of people out and about.  A fun afternoon.

There was, too, as there always is in a major downtown, desperate people pleading for attention, for money.  One woman stood with a sign that said she was 7 months pregnant; another man asked me to roll down my window on the way home.  A few sat heads down, clothes tattered, a look of dejection covering them in gloom.

There are now many theories about the mall, whether it was a good idea or whether it has stagnated downtown, taking the liveliness out of it.  Should we fix it by allowing cars?  Should we close it altogether?  What worried me was the number of businesses with store fronts, but no display windows and several buildings with papered over glass and graffiti.

It is city life, flux, humanity at its richest and most callous, humanity at its poorest and most demeaned, the impermanent made to seem solid and stable amidst the signs of constant change and the flow, always the flow, of paper and food and metal and goods, in and out, as the people flow too, making paths that do not last on streets that will not either.