Yearly Archives: 2011

Myth and Story

Tru-Blood

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Mid-Summer                                                                           Waning Honey Flow Moon

It doesn’t fit very well with other parts of my life, but I’m a big fan of the supernatural, maybe a hold-over from my orthodox religious days.  Don’t know.

Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana, is the heroine of Charlaine Harris’s novels, 12 in all.  She lives in a vampire, werewolf, fairy, shapechanger and maenad infested region which impacts her day-to-day life in ways wonderful and mysterious.  The HBO TV series, Tru Blood, roughly follows the novels’s plot lines.

It made me smile when I read this paragraph in an LA Times short piece on the 5th year of Tru-Blood.  It features my congresswoman, who has made such a name for herself and our district.

“Ball did hint, though, that the vampires might continue to fight over Sookie, but they will unite to fight for their survival as the season reaches its dramatic conclusion. The year’s big baddie, Marnie, played by Fiona Shaw, isn’t exactly the threat Ball mentioned, though: “They’re going to stick together because they are fighting against a common enemy,” he said. “And that enemy is Michele Bachmann.””

Politics, Weather +Climate

A More Violent World

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Mid-Summer                                                                          Waning Honey Flow Moon

A violent, but quick storm blew through this morning, sheets of rain and bending trees, water flowing in the gutters; in it I saw the world that is to come and is now, heat and deluge followed by tornadoes and flooding, the world we have wrought and one whose future looks only more chaotic and wild.  It is not yet a world impossible for human kind, but we seem bent on creating one.  In Death of the Liberal Class Chris Hedges says the only way our communitarian values will survive is if we hunker down and ride out the dramatic changes ahead, all the while resisting the oligarchy and its all consuming maw.

While I tend to agree with Hedges’ diagnosis and his prognosis, the optimist in me, the non-doomsday guy wants to keep struggling, trying to push our collectivity towards a sustainable future.  A piece of me wants to hang on to the political actions I take now, the measures Kate and I have already taken, not to head off in what might be a monastic and quietist direction.  Not sure right now how I’ll make a decision to change course, but it feels like I may be headed there.  A more violent storm still comin’.

We intended to spread mulch today, but canceled because of the storm.  Maybe tomorrow.  A good day to rest, collect ourselves for the week ahead.

Art and Culture, Asia

Clay Days

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Mid-Summer                                                                                   Waning Honey Flow Moon

Five days of clay.  Whew.  What did I learn?  Well, I’m not holding my breath for that National Treasure for potting position when I turn 80.  Maybe by that time I’ll have learned how to center, raise a cylinder and throw a bowl.

We’ve made some new friends, including our instructor and I learned a lot about the craft of pottery making, a lot that will be useful when touring at the MIA.  Kate developed enough confidence to move forward with the work.  I learned enough to tag along, though with low expectations.  It was an intensive process and a good one.

We had a potluck today.  Kate and I took my two iron tea-pots and an assortment of tea cups.  Two Japanese potters on fellowship joined us, so I asked Rena what the bottom of my red, larger tea-pot said.  She looked at it, fingering the kanji, smiled and said, “Made in Japan!”  Oh.  I asked Naota what he thought of the U.S. and he said, “Comfortable.”  He comes from Tokyo and likes the slower pace of life here.

One of the women in the class, Claire, has 25 years of pottery experience and a studio in the Northern Clay Center, another, Alisha, teaches pottery making in high school.  And so on.  Kate and I were at the opposite end of the learning spectrum.  We didn’t know enough to recognize that the class was for way advanced folks.  Still, seeing others with skills working and taking lessons from a master potter was a learning of its own.  At this level a lot of the instruction was on small technical aspects like really focusing on centering, or learning how to cut a tea-pot spout so the uncoiling of the clay in the kiln will move the spout to the right position. (You cut it at a 4:30.)

This was an immersion in another world, the world of potters, molding clay as our mutual ancestors have done for several thousand years.  A craft and an art tied to the earth and seasoned by fire, to know those who make pottery is a window in to our deep past, yet an activity still very much in the present.

Art and Culture, Asia

Working Off the Hump

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Mid-Summer                                                                                  Waning Honey Flow Moon

Potting, something done for thousands of years by diverse human communities, is hard.  At least for me.  Kate seems to be getting it.  We have a 6,000 year old Chinese pot at the MIA that is one of my favorite pieces in the museum.  It is not easy and especially not easy to turn out something so pleasing in shape, execution and overall proportions.

We start at 10 am at the Northern Clay Center. Leila Denecke, our teacher and a veteran potter, gives us a demonstration.  This morning she showed how to make a honey pot.  She throws “off the hump” which means that she actually throws the object on a larger hunk of clay known as the hump.  This raises the level of the piece on which the potter works, an advantage in itself, and allows for following one piece with another and another, using clay from the same hump, working down from the top.

Like most expert artists her hands work the clay with ease, as if any one could do it.  From a lump of clay, literally, she fashions a small jar with a slight belly and a flanged mouth.  With her wire tool she cuts its off the hump, raises the hump higher by creating a cone and creates a flanged top for the jar with a small handle.

After the demonstration we go back to our wheels.  Most of the class, experienced potters, then try to reproduce whatever Liela has shown us how to make.  Refinement of their craft with feedback from a pro is why most of the students are in this class.

Hands slick with slip we work at our various levels, one woman has her own studio, has had for twenty-five years, another sells work at art fairs, yet another came up here all the way from South Miami.  It’s a varied group, 6 women, myself and Patrick.  We’ve bonded a bit and will share a meal tomorrow.

Art and Culture, Politics, Weather +Climate

Life of Riley

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Mid-Summer                                                        Waning Honey Flow Moon

On Monday I started the clay class.  Monday evening the Woollies made monoprints at Highpoint Print Co-op.  Last night was the History of Graphic Design lecture on graphic design, 1950 to the present and tonight Justin and I meet to discuss the Sierra Club’s legislative process and other matters related to the club’s political work.  This has been a demanding week and next week won’t be easier with guests coming.  Ah, the quiet life of the Golden Years.

Moorehead was the hottest reporting station on EARTH yesterday.  A dewpoint of 88 made the heat index 134.  Yikes.  Thank you, global warming.

More clay today.  More wedging, centering, drawing up cylinders and, I hope, bowls.

Aging, Art and Culture, Retirement

Clay. All Day.

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Mid-Summer                                                      Waning Honey Flow Moon

Turns out making cylinders is hard.  In clay.  Kate and I are rank beginners at this clay thing, but we are taking a class with others who aren’t.  This makes life difficult for the teacher and for us rank beginners.  Near the end of Day 2 today I think I got how to draw up the wall of a cylinder.  Light touch, right hand and left hand equal pressure for pressure, move up, relax and the lip, repeat.

Kate’s arthritic thumbs gave out about 3 pm today.  Now that she has the new hips and the back fusion, her pain load is less, but the arthritis moves around, finding new joints to bug.  The hands have been less bothersome up till now because the hips and the back were worse.  Now though…  She also wears out after about four hours.  She did the other day (did I write this already?) how surprised she is at the effect major surgery has on her stamina.

We’re both having fun though, trying out new modes of expression, learning new things together.

Aging, Art and Culture, Woolly Mammoths

Bees, Clay, and Prints

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Mid-Summer                                                                              Waning Honey Flow Moon

Long day.  Up at 7:00 to get a head start on the bees.  Hive inspections done, then get ready for Northern Clay.

At Northern Clay Kate and I tried to make cylinders.  Not as easy as it sounds.  Especially since come of the clay was short.  This means damned hard to draw up without breaking it off at the wheel.  Kate was pretty worn out after the first day.

I went on to Bryant Lake Bowl after a quick stop at the Sierra Club, right across from Northern Clay.  At Bryant Lake Bowl I waited for the Woolly folk to show up.  Warren and Sheryl, Frank and Mary, Mark and Elizabeth, Bill, Yin, Charlie Haislet and I ate a nice meal at the Bryant Lake Bowl, then adjourned to Highpoint Print Co-operative where we each made 2-3 monoprints.

I found myself in a primary color, color field mood and produced a couple of prints that are not too bad.  It was a fun process and everyone had a great time.

Bees, Garden

Bee Diary: July 18 2011

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Mid-Summer                                                                   Waning Honey Flow Moon

The six new honey supers did not prove necessary since I’m still two supers ahead of each colony, but it does look like colonies 2 & 3 have already stored a lot of honey, especially in the two supers that went on in place of  the third hive box.  In colony 1, the colony I will overwinter, they seem to still be at work filling up that third hive box which will constitute their honey supply for the winter.  In 2 & 3 we will harvest the honey from the two super equivalents to that third full hive box.

Looked at the garlic, which I’ve been harvesting as its leaves brown.  When two leaves are brown, I pull them and I have about half the crop out now. It looks like the best garlic crop I’ve ever had.  Nice fat heads.  I’ll save a couple to plant next year, continuing this garlic’s acclimatization to our soil and weather.

We’re harvesting more frequently overall this year, getting beans, peas and lettuce before they over grow.  This part of the July is the hump part of the growing season.  From this point forward it’s either harvesting or making sure plants stay healthy until they are ready to harvest.  The bees are in mid-honey flow, storing and working like, well, like bees.

Artemis gardens and hives is having a good year.

Art and Culture, Bees, Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Great Wheel, Woolly Mammoths

To Bee, To Do

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Mid-Summer                                                             Waning Honey Flow Moon

Out to the bees in just a few minutes to slap on two more honey supers each, the six I finished varnishing yesterday while Mark put foundations in the frames.  This will find six honey supers on colonies 2 & 3, while colony 1, the parent colony for next year’s only divide, will have four.  Not sure if I’ll need more than these.  I’m having to do this in the early morning, not the best time, but the only time I’ve got today.

At 9:15 Kate and I take off in separate cars for the Northern Clay Center.  Our clay intensive starts this week, 10:00 to 4:30.  I hope to learn how to make Japanese style tea cups and salad sized plates.  Like tai chi working clay puts a premium on hand-eye co-ordination and sense of touch as well overall design skills.

A good while ago my spiritual journey had gone stale in the reading, meditation, contemplative modes I knew best. The next stage of my spiritual practice became gardening, working with the rhythm of flowers, soil, spades and trowels.

That practice went on for many years when Kate and I decided to add vegetables and the orchard with permaculture principles in mind.  That added a good deal of oomph to the tactile spirituality, deciding to keep bees put animal husbandry into the mix.  At this point my spirituality has become more and more attuned to the rhythms of growing seasons, plants and bees, all within the context of the Celtic Great Wheel.

With tai chi and clay my spiritual practice comes closer in again, my hands, my feet, my hips, my arms.  Both clay and tai chi are paths on this nature focused ancientrail, though for me they are quite a bit harder.  But that’s the push I need to grow.

After our first day at Northern Clay, I have my Woolly meeting tonight at Highpoint Print co-operative where we will make prints.  One more step down the ancientrail of the mind/body link.

Aging, Asia, Family, Health, Travel

Sunday, Sunday

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Mid-Summer                                                                            Full Honey Flow Moon

More fun with the alarm system.  Back and forth with ADT.  On the phone, pushing buttons.  Still the chirping.  Service call.

Business meeting.  Scheduling a Denver trip for sometime in September.  Looking at buying some more mulch for the vegetable garden.

Practice tai-chi.  Sand and varnish for coat number three six honey supers.  They need to go on tomorrow morning.  Mark put foundations in the frames today, so we’re ready to go.

Out to tai-chi.  I’m still the slow student in class, but I’m learning.  Slowly.  A challenge for this guy to connect body and mind, but a challenge worth keeping after.