Monthly Archives: August 2012

General

The Other World

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Lugnasa                                                       Hiroshima Moon

5.  It’s not the Other World; it’s the real world.

Continuing my mini-series on the real world, today we deal with number 5.  Some of you know I have a fascination with Celtic antiquity (my heritage–at least half of it, the other half is German), especially the ancient Celtic religion.

(holy well, a bridge to the other world.  Ireland)

The sidhe, or faery, the realm of the fairies was one expression of the Celtic notion of the Other World.  In Celtic mythology the veil between this world, the realm of the living, and the Other, the Other World, is tenuous.  At certain points in the year this veil thins and beings from both realms can move back and forth.  The Celtic feast of Samain, Summer’s End, the last of the three harvest festivals which marks the finish of the growing season and the beginning of the fallow time, was a holiday well known for this very characteristic.

In its contemporary, very watered down version, Halloween, the costumed wee folk going from door to door reflect this traffic.  Folks from this world, the living world and hence a real world, not necessarily the real world, could go through and could be captured by those in faery.  Likewise, folk of the Other World could cross into this one and, if they chose, carry captives back to their own real world.

Another riff on this question of the real world comes from the ancient faith of the Mexica, the Aztecs notable as part of this long tradition.  In this instance, our world, the living world, is not the real world, rather the real world is both before birth and after death, this realm being merely a dream between a sleep and a sleep.  I suppose you might put the Christian afterlife in this same vein, since the life eternal has a more real aspect to it than this very temporary proving ground.

Family, Travel

Mark’s Leaving Tomorrow

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Lugnasa                                                    Hiroshima Moon

Another tour with developmentally disabled adults this morning.  A more interactive group this time though that might be because I had a better plan.

We focused on questions like:  Old or young?  What do you see that makes you say that?  Man or woman?  What do you see…?  How do you imagine Bartholomew feels?

Got good responses and attentiveness throughout our session.  It was a good feeling all round.

Today is Mark’s last day here.  He takes off tomorrow for Lansing, Michigan where our cousin Kristen lives.  Greyhound will carry him from here to there.  He plans to go to Detroit after that and visit our cousin Leisa who is in a nursing home after a stroke.  The rest of his visit, undecided.

His school year in Riyadh starts sometime after September 1st.  He has to be there between August 25th and then.  He hasn’t got his ticket yet because he has to get his visa redone, then send them on to the school’s folks here and they’ll book his ticket.

 

Art and Culture
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Lugnasa                                                                  Hiroshima Moon

Rembrandt tour today with another group of developmentally disabled folks.  This time a simpler approach.  What’s a painting?  What are colors?  Eyes?  Mouth?  Ears.  Can we find them?  More appropriate for this group.

 

Garden, Weather +Climate

The Harvest Season Underway

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Lugnasa                                                                  Hiroshima Moon

Cool.  Rainy.  Clouds.  Ahhh.

My whole Minnesota self sighed today as the clouds rolled in, a bit of chill rain hit the windshield and the temperature hovered around 70 and below.  This is curl up with a book or hit the computer or nap or just enjoy the evidence of the sun slowly giving up to night.  Me.  I plan to do them all.

Each aspect of the gardening season has its pleasures, but this one, preparing food for the long fallow time has many.

Kate came downstairs this morning and showed me a container full of dried garlic slices.  They look like tiny potato chips, but pack a heavy garlic punch.  I ate one, so I know.  We also pulled all the pears off the tree (well, ok, there were 5.), brought them inside and put them in the fridge. Turns out, according to our drying book, that pears ripen better off the tree.  Keeping them in the fridge holds back the ripening and we’re doing that so we can dry them with the apples which don’t come to maturity until September or so.

 

Family, Garden, Latin, Translating Metamorphoses

Intiba, Radix, Lactis Coacti, Ova

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Lugnasa                                                               Hiroshima Moon

Spent yesterday with my nose in the Metamorphoses.  I’ve not been doing Latin every day, rather only when I can devote sufficient time to it, like 3-4 hours.  Yesterday I put in 6.  It’s not the best way.  Each time I have to crank up my Latin engine, which often acts like one of those old cars with the hand starter.  Better to keep the engine  running by daily exercise.

Still, I made progress.  Even had Latin nouns circling in my mind before I went to sleep:  intiba, radix, lactis coacti, ova.  That’s endive, radish, cheese (coagulated milk) and eggs.

Today Mark and I will make one attempt for his driver’s license.  By we I mean I’ll drive him over there and then sit as he waits in line.  For hours.  I hope he gets it though since it would allow him to rent cars in Saudi Arabia, be generally more free.

I sliced garlic and gathered rosemary last night, both for drying.  We bought a dryer several years back and each fall we process things.  First time for garlic, though Kate has done a number of herbs in the past.  I hope to dry apple this year.

Mark has a bank account, new passport and the material he needs for his visa.  The driver’s license is the main thing he wants now.  He leaves Friday for Lansing, Michigan to visit our cousin Kristen, then on to Detroit to visit Leisa and her husband, Bob.  She’s in a nursing home recovering from a devastating stroke.

 

GeekWorld

Show Me

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Lugnasa                                              Hiroshima Moon

Woollies met for our first Monday restaurant meal at an Indian restaurant near Wayzata.  So-so food, but great conversation.

The prime topic of the night was an epistemological one.  Mark said he reserved judgement on the facticity of  the Curiosity project.  More than once he said he wanted to check other sources, see if they agreed.  This comes in part from a deep disillusionment with the government during the Vietnam war as well as an incident involving his father. (Which I didn’t hear. It was noisy.)  It also comes, I suspect, from his creative personality which prizes openness, non-foreclosure.  It comes, too, from a knowledge of the world of science gained while creating exhibits for the Minnesota Science Museum.

At any rate Tom, Bill and I had no question about the Curiosity landing, at least not as to its occurrence.  We went back and forth for a hour or so over what constitutes evidence, the possible reasons for deception, the notion that some biases can be inherent to the observer (sexism, mechanistic as opposed to vitalistic understandings–well, we didn’t really discuss this, but we could’ve, if I’d thought about it then, accepting rather than skeptical bents).

It is not my usual experience to find someone being more skeptical than I am and I had to consider my own gullibility factor.  It may be that I’m too quick to accept the work of physicists, astronomers, NASA engineers but I see no reason to believe that right now.  I proposed a continuum of science from the realm of physics, astronomy, chemistry–the hard sciences, with a mid-point perhaps being biology and extending on to experimental psychology and economics, for example.  I have less skepticism about the hard sciences and the work in them than I do about the biological sciences and I’m definitely show me when it comes to the softer end of this continuum.

This was an intense, even impassioned, but calm and deliberate conversation.  The kind I hope I can have more and more despite my tendency to jump in with both feet.

Thanks, guys.

Garden, Weather +Climate

A Window Defenestrated

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Lugnasa                                                     Hiroshima Moon

Harvested the last of the first planting of chard, the first of the first planting of collard greens and continue to harvest from the kale Kate planted by the herb spiral.  Staked up (further) tomatoes and peppers, all getting tall and droopy with fruit.  A good thing.

Weatherman Paul Douglas reports he found a dining room window blown out after returning from the cabin this weekend.  A stained glass window in our bespoke garden shed, secure in its mount for over 12 years, blew out, too.  It lies on the garage floor, awaiting a large enough piece of cardboard to slip under it, then off to the stained glass place.  Don’t know where one is, but Mark Odegard does and I’ll see him tonight.

Used lath to nail thick mil sheet plastic over the window; that’ll have to do until the repair folks finish.

Now, back to work on revising the novel.

GeekWorld

Wow

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Lugnasa                                                            Hiroshima Moon

These are the first images taken by NASA’s rover Curiosity after landing in Gale Crater on Mars, shot with the rover’s Hazcam cameras. The image on the left shows one of the rover’s wheels. When it first showed up on the screen in JPL’s mission control, someone could be heard shouting “It’s the wheel, it’s the wheel!” The image on the right shows rocks, dust, and the rover’s shadow on the surface of Mars.

Shortly after these images were sent to Earth, the rover’s signal was blocked by Gale Crater’s central peak, known as Mt. Sharp. We’ll bring you more images from Curiosity as they become available.

Images: JPL/NASA