Monthly Archives: November 2012

Poetry

The American Cinquain

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Samhain                                                                Fallowturn Moon

November Night

by Adelaide Crapsey 

Listen. . .

With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.

 

Adelaide Crapsey

was born in 1878. She is known for developing a variation on the cinquain now referred to as the “American cinquain.”*

*a class of poetic forms that employ a 5-line pattern. Earlier used to describe any five-line form, it now refers to one of several forms that are defined by specific rules and guidelines.

Adelaide Crapsey invented the modern form, known as American Cinquain[2][3] inspired by Japanese haiku and tanka,[4][5] akin in spirit to that of the Imagists[6].

The first, fundamental form is a stanza of five lines of accentual verse, in which the lines comprise, in order, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 1 stresses.

Then Crapsey decided to make the criterion a stanza of five lines of accentual-syllabic verse, in which the lines comprise, in order, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 1 stresses and 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2 syllables. Iambic feet were meant to be the standard for the cinquain, which made the dual criteria match perfectly.                 wikipedia

Health

New Aerobic Activity

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Samhain                                                                 Fallowturn Moon

Oh boy.  New aerobics.  Used my felling axe, now that the weight restrictions from hernia surgery are over.  First tree just cut down.  The small scrub ash that the %@#%# squirrels used as an intermediary road when highjacking our Honeycrisp crop.  The pirates.

This is going to be good aerobic and upper body resistance work.  Got my heart rate up pretty fast.  I imagine I’ll get more efficient, but even so this went smoothly.  Another lesson relearned, even small trees are heavy.  I had to shove this one off a path.

Next stop, unwanted trees to be cast out of the garden.  I will send them east of eden and guard the entrance with a flaming sword.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Holidays, Humanities, Weather +Climate

Ring a Ding, Hear Them Sing, Holiseason Is Here!

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Samhain                                                                      Fallowturn Moon

Geese honking, flying in some direction, no longer always south.  Trucks with rickety wooden sides piled high with split oak come into the cities to sell firewood door to door.  Golf carts head south on flat bed trucks.  Irrigation company trucks haul air compressors behind them to blow out irrigation systems.  Bee colonies board trucks headed for California, Texas, Florida where crops can be pollinated over our winter.  Signs for various aspects of deer processing go up.  County Market near us has been advertising sausage mixes and consultation with experts.

Soon the early Christmas trees attached to the tops of cars will appear on Round Lake Boulevard, cut at the cut your own place north of us.  The skies have already turned gray, the wind chill.  Snow comes first in this month, too.

All Hallow’s today.  In one interesting variation on this theme I found that in some traditions this is the day the souls of those who died in the last year are judged.  Cheery thought, eh?

We have entered, according to my sacred calendar, holiseason.  It stretches from Samhain to Epiphany and includes Samhain, All Souls, Día de los Muertos  Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and Epiphany but also Hanukkah, Posada, Deepavali (Diwali), Advent, Boxing Day, the Mayan 5 useless days at the end of the year and my favorite, my low holy day, the Winter Solstice.

So light those candles, dig out the decorations, crank up the holiday music and let’s party like it’s Holiseason 2012.