Daily Archives: May 1, 2013

Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths

A Beltane Snow

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Beltane                                                                               Planting Moon

So.  If the goddess goes out to meet the horned god for a little whoopy in Minnesota tonight, the pair will freeze.  And possibly end up under a snow drift.  Since their ritual seals the beginning of the growing season, it may not look good for the crops.

Although in our instance the cold weather crops will enjoy this continued blast of chilly air and I imagine the air and the soil will warm up around the usual time for the warm weather crops like tomatoes and green peppers.

Tomorrow we’ll wade into the snow and take off for the North Shore where if the weather maps are right, we might run into a lot of snow near our destination, the Cascade Beach Road area north of Lutsen.  The Woolly’s will gather again, diminished in numbers a bit by the absence of gentlemen Jim Johnson who is in Hawai’i, Charlie Haislet who is enroute to the Twin Cities as I write this from Shanghai, I believe and Mark Odegard, who will come up later like Charlie.

These gatherings have moved from heavily structured to loosely structured to almost no structure, the years and the bonds taking care of the programmatic aspects of our time together.  Mostly we go to catch up, take each other in in those small ways, off to the side, in casual moments that don’t happen during our twice a month meetings during the rest of the year.

This particular retreat finds two of us fairly new to the third phase and retirement, two of us still on the cusp.  It means in some fashion the Woollies will change.  How is not clear.  Perhaps something will become obvious during the retreat, perhaps not.  Part of this third phase journey is the slower pace, the more deliberate decision making, the luxury of time to consider matters with care.

Not sure whether there is wi-fi at the house on Lake Superior, so I don’t know if I’ll be posting over the next few days or not.  If not.  Till Sunday evening.

Great Wheel

Beltane, 2013

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Beltane                                                                         Planting Moon

Yes, the Great Wheel has turned again, according to the calendar.  But.  Not according to my window.  For some inexplicable reason this Beltane finds snow falling on the somewhat greened grass.  Snow.  Since 1891 there have been 6 instances of 2 inches or more of snow in May.  Today, tonight and tomorrow we may get as much as 5 inches.  So, that’s the first thing to say about Beltane 2013.

Beltane celebrates the marriage of the lady and the horned god, the introduction of fertility among the cattle and the fields of ancient rural Celtic lands.  Labor contracts for the year got made.  Hand-fast marriages through a hole in a fence were for a year and a day.  As with all the Celtic holidays, there was a week-long market and festivities that included huge bonfires (sympathetic magic to heat the earth), couples jumping over bonfires in hopes of children, cattle driven between bonfires to cure them of disease.  And, on Beltane eve and night, couples in the fields, coupling.  Like the sympathetic magic of the bonfires human lovemaking transferred to the fields the fertile passions of all the couples.

We got seeds in the ground and bees in the orchard over the last couple of weeks.  The
magnolia wants to bloom but has a hard time imagining blooming during a snow.  The garlic has emerged, as have the daffodils though they have not bloomed.  The scylla and the grape anemones out front are blooming.  They don’t mind the cold.

It is this combination of the practical and earthy with the mythic that has kept the Great Wheel present in my life for over 20 years now.  As Kate and I work with the soil, with the plants and trees, the bees, we follow in our labor the movement of the sun and the seasons, long observed closely out of dire need, now out of wonder.

John Desteian has challenged me to probe the essence of the numinous.  That is on my mind.  Here is part of that essence.  The seed in the ground, beltane’s fiery embrace of the seed, the seed emerging, flourishing, producing its fruit, harvest.  Then, the true transubstantiation, the transformation of the bodies of these plants into the body and blood ourselves.  A unity, a circle, rhythm.  Plant, grow, harvest, feed, be.

There is some kind of resurgence of these deep feelings, these always have been connections and the resurgence gets expressed in what might seem extreme ways, but I find them encouraging.  Hopeful.  Google Edinburgh Fire Festival 2013.