Daily Archives: June 20, 2013

Garden, Great Wheel

Yes

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Beltane                                                                           Solstice Moon

 

The earth has reached the point in its orbit where its tilt reaches toward the sun.  This is one solstice, the solstice of leaning toward.  At the solstice of leaning toward, the sun reaches its highest point in the sky.  Heat begins to build and will continue to do so after the solstice even though the arc of the day has begun to diminish and the arc of the night to expand.

This solstice can be seen as a moment of extravagance, of the sun blessing us with its bounty. (though it must be observed that the sun spends itself without discrimination as regards our home.  it is, rather, our capture of more of its expenditure that defines the season)  In that regard we can look into our lives for those blessings, those extravagances that assert themselves right now, throwing heat and light into our days.

The summer solstice begs us to enjoy them.  Grand kids shine their innocence, a brilliant beacon, into us and in the reflection of that innocence we find ourselves restored.  We can wonder whether astronauts have tushies, read books all the time, giggle at negative numbers, shoot long threads of silly string over the forest, smile or even act mischievously in that ingenuous way kids have.

The garden’s green and growing things:  carrots, lilies, iris, beets, leeks, hosta, juniper, kale, chard, sugar snap peas, lilacs, hydrangeas, ferns, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, asparagus, strawberries, rhubarb, raspberries, daisies, peonies, bug bane and begonias.  The orchard with hundreds of apples, cherries, plums and pears, currants and blueberries, gooseberries.  What a cornucopia.  And the bees, working at building their colony.  This is life throwing itself away for the life of others, a joint dance with humans and plants and animals in it together.

23 years of marriage.  A wondrous extravagance, giving that many years and promising that many more.  The time, the memories, the trust, the hopes, the suffering, the joy.  Yes.

This is the time to say yes.  Yes marriage.  Yes garden.  Yes grand children.  Yes home.  Yes state.  Yes earth.  Yes sun.

This is the time to lean towards.  To react with great warmth.  To shine as brightly as you can.  Wherever you can.  Yes.

Family, Travel

House Guests

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Beltane                                                                                   Solstice Moon

The grand kids have arrived.  With their parents in tow.  We have a playhouse for them that we put in the woods at the same time we put in the orchard.  Now, just outside the area of the playhouse, we have the new fire pit.

Tomorrow night we’re going to have an inaugural solstice bonfire.  We plan bonfires on the two solstices and on Beltane and Samhain.  I hope these can begin to be gathering moments for folks interested in celebrating these turning points of the Great Wheel.  Stay tuned for more about these events. We’re going to test the bonfire concept tomorrow night on the grand kids, after that, y’all come.

This family has been on the road since last Friday, driving from Denver to Chicago, then north across the Mackinac Bridge into the U.P., across the U.P. to the Brule for a night, then here this afternoon.  That’s a lot of time in the car for four people.  Exhausting might not even cover it.

Good to have them here, building memories.  We get out there quite a bit, but it’s nice to have them here, too.

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Beltane                                                                           Solstice Moon

Reviewing Latin as we wait for the arrival of the grandkids.

Mark and I are going over to the driver testing facility later for his 1 pm appointment.  I hope he passes.  It would be good for him to have the option to drive.  With a US license he can apply for an international license.

 

Great Work, Sierra Club

No country or corporation has the right to pollute the air at the expense of Singaporeans’ health and wellbeing.

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Beltane                                                                                     Solstice Moon

Linking the story from Singapore to this article in the New York Review of Books,  Collapse and Crash, JUNE 20, 2013, Bill McKibben, gives me a chance to promote your reading of Bill McKibben’s fine review of a book by engineer Henry Petroski, To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure.

(our very own engineering failure)

Though the book sounds interesting in its own right, it preaches failure as the great teacher, it’s McKibben’s context for his review that made me really pay attention.  In it he observes that many failures, perhaps most engineering failures, result in serious questioning of existing standards and often their revision.

And that’s just the rub now.  Mother Earth no longer acts according to the rules of the Holocene, the period since the end of the last Ice Age.  Temperature has risen on average about 1 degree around the globe.  And will rise more.  One thing this does, McKibben points out, is add energy to meteorological phenomenon, producing more tornadoes, more severe thunderstorms and, take just these two, increases stress on buildings, dams, sewer systems, stresses that were previously adjudged to be 50 year or 100 year or 500 year events, now occurring much more frequently.

How do engineers design structures safely and, a critical point, economically in such a plastic environment?  Then, as McKibben also points out, those who travel with the engineers, bond agencies and insurance companies, face an uncertain and novel setting for their work, too.

My sense is that McKibben, a well known environmentalist, has begun to point out the real time effects of global warming, not just the overall, omg the ice is melting, but it will also cost us money and lives and create a unique, unknown future.