Monthly Archives: November 2013

Anoka County, Art and Culture, Minnesota, Our Land and Home, Politics, Sierra Club

Why I Live Here

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Samhain                                                             Thanksgiving Moon

I have decided, over and over again, to remain here in Minnesota.  Leaving occurs to me from time to time, more often now the direction considered is north, beyond our borders where the politics, health care and weather all seem more sane.  Even with those attractions, and they are considerable, Minnesota and in particular the Twin Cities Metro always trumps any competition.

The arts here are a wonder.  Having the MIA and the Walker in a small market city like Minneapolis doesn’t amaze us, because, after all, they are here.  But it would if you considered them in a national, even international light.  The Guthrie is only the most visible island of a large theatrical archipelago, boasting more seats than any other metro area in the nation outside of New York City.

The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra is a gem.  Again, nationally.  The Minnesota Symphony used to be an internationally renowned organization, as recently as two years ago, before dimbulbs began a series of self-inflicted wounds.  Dance, local rock music, glass and clay arts, printmakers and galleries all thrive here.  Jazz, supported by KBEM of internet renown, flourishes.

There are substantially more dining options now than when I moved here in 1970.  More than Kate and I can visit before they disappear.

Writers in Minnesota consistently publish and make the national book news.  The Minnesota Center for Book Arts and the Loft provide outside academia support for the literary community.

Healthcare is as good as it gets. Anywhere.  Hawaii and Minnesota are tops in the US and good US healthcare is as good as there is anywhere.

When policy makers divided the land in the Upper Midwest and created Minnesota they included the intersection of three US biomes:  prairie, deciduous forest (Big Woods) and the boreal forest.  The Wisconsin glaciation scoured out numerous lakes and the Great Lakes.  Though flat our terrain is remarkable for its diversity and its  pristine nature in the north where the moose and the wolf still live.  At least for now.

Where else do you get all these things?  Nowhere else.  That’s a large part of why I stay. Another, equally large part, is friends.  The Woolly Mammoths, the MIA docent class of 2005, the Sierra Club and various past political activity has peopled my life with friends. They’re here and I am, too.

In the past, too, I valued the Minnesota political culture which showed compassion to the poor, effectiveness in government and sound stewardship of the state’s natural resources. A long desert of mean policy makers, eyes and hearts captured by the great god money, have devastated much of that culture though I continue to believe it exists.

The common good, defined broadly, is just that.  Our future depends on an educated work force, receiving a decent wage, a hand-up when life turns sour and a healthy environment in which to work and live.  These have seemed and still seem to me the necessary elements of a civil society.

General
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Samhain                                                            Thanksgiving Moon

Looks like December 1st, the first day of meteorological winter, is not going to be far off. Temperatures will descend quickly after mid-week into below zero ranges.  That big snow storm?  Now maybe rain.  I hope not.  The ground is frozen and it won’t do us any good, just make things messy.

Kate gets back on the road today, headed toward Minnesota, just ahead of approaching true winter weather.  The dogs and I will be glad to see her.

 

Quotes

The Supply Is Vast.

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Samhain                                                                      Thanksgiving Moon

“Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy yourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play… I tell you, that it is on things like these that our lives depend.”
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“My fantasies are like wounds; they reveal my pathology.”
— James Hillman
“Let us imagine the anima mundi [world soul] neither above the world encircling it as a divine and remote emanation of spirit, a world of powers, archetypes, and principles transcendent to things, nor within the material world as its unifying panpsychic life-principle. Rather let us imagine the anima mundi as that particular soul-spark, that seminal image, which offers itself through each thing in its visible form.”
— James Hillman

 

“First there must be order and harmony within your own mind. Then this order will spread to your family, then to the community, and finally to your entire kingdom. Only then can you have peace and harmony.”
— Confucius
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
— Mark Twain
“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.”
— Mark Twain
“Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.”
— Mark Twain
“Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery.”
— Kurt Vonnegut

‘

Garden, Great Wheel

The Garden in Winter

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Samhain                                                         Thanksgiving Moon

Went outside this afternoon.  Something I do less and less as the cold time deepens.  The IMAG1160dogs’ paths stand out now with fallen leaves on either side of bare ground.  It’s possible to see to the far southern fence of our property through the woods, impossible during the growing season.

Checked the cardboard sleeve for the bees.  It’s fallen down and I had to prop it up.  I may staple it.  I wanted to avoid that because thumping sounds inside the hive tend to activate defense on the part of the colony and I don’t want to wear a veil.  But, I might do it anyhow.

The mulching, leaves, that I put down in the vegetable garden, partly as a weed suppressor and partly for soil nutrition, have blown off from the asparagus patch, the sun trap and the herb spiral.  We have more leaves and tomorrow I’m going to remulch those areas while I put down the mulch over the newly planted bulbs.  The soil has frozen so this is the time. IMAG0746 It’s also best to get it done before the snow falls and it looks like we may have snow next week.  At least I hope so.

When that’s done, the outside garden work is over for the winter with one exception: pruning the fruit trees.  We’re going to have Javier come in and do it since it’s a specialized skill and we’d like to get them on the right path.

This winter will find me outside, out back more than usual.  At least that’s the plan. Pruning the forest, building up cut wood stores for future bonfires.  Creating yet another beeyard.  I have a new pair of gloves, a new chain and a new bar on the Jonsered, so I’m ready.  I’ve got my felling and limbing axes, too, and I plan to cut down some trees the old-fashioned way.  I’ll limb most of them with the limbing ax.  Safer than using the chain saw.

 

Latin, Translating Metamorphoses

Golden

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Samhain                                                 Thanksgiving Moon

Watched movies and TV, ate lamb, lounged around with the dogs.  That was Thanksgiving.Titan Titan is the only other body in the solar system with liquid on its surface. It has hydrocarbon lakes and seas, shores and rivers, and seasonal rainfall like on Earth Today found me back at the Latin and ready to go.  The first hour was golden.  I was on and it flowed.

I broke for about an hour to work in the garage, clearing the way for the biggest part of the project, dismantling the dog feeding and sleeping stations lovingly and well built by Jon now many years ago.  We have stuff stacked on them and some in them, so spots have to be found for all of that.  There is plenty of room.  After all, we have a three car garage and only one vehicle.

When I came back, the Latin aqueduct that had opened earlier, closed.  Weird.  I couldn’t make the words dance.  So, I put up my papers and my commentaries and my grammar. This kind of work, much like writing, will not be pressed.

Soon it will be time for lunch and our inter-species nap.  My eyelids are already drooping.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Holidays

Following the Great Wheel

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Samhain                                                       Thanksgiving Moon

The Thanksgiving Moon has become a crescent, my favorite shape of the moon.  When it matches up with Venus or Jupiter in the evening sky, what a wonder.  As the Thanksgiving Moon wanes, we are in the middle of Samhain, the cross-quarter holiday beginning on Summer’s End, October 31st, and running through the Winter Solstice.  Samhain covers the first 8 weeks of the fallow time.  Winter the next 8 weeks.  At least on my sacred calendar.

Following the Great Wheel as it rolls through the sky, a human, mythic rendering of the earth’s orbit, helps me stay in touch with the seasonal nuances.  Following the moon through its phases adds a wheel within the larger wheel, two eccentrics moving through the universe and around the sun together.  This would, in itself, be enough for me.

The other holidays though, Deepavali, Easter, Boxing Day, 4th of July, the Eve of St. Agnes, the Posada, Christmas, Hungry Ghost, the various new year’s dates add spice, are the flavors of others sacred sight added to the earth tones of my own observances.  And I love them, too.

We can experience this life as a series of holidays, one after the other.  Delightful and evocative.  Why not?  Perhaps one year, maybe my 70th, I will decide is a holiyear and try to celebrate as many festivals as I can over the course of a year.  Could be fun.

Cinema and Television

Die Wand

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Samhain                                                        Thanksgiving Moon

Die Wand.  So, I cooked my rack of lamb, put the beets and greens and mashed potatoes on my plate, and sat down to watch a movie whose description had me in the I’ll watch 10 minutes of it and if I don’t like it, I’ll do something else mode.

1 h0ur and 38 minutes later with dogs lying all around it was clear doing something else would not be necessary.

This movie struck several chords within me.  German.  Strange.  Beautiful.  Integration into the natural world.  Survival.  They played, together, a melody of isolation and yet freedom, a symphony of what it is like to be a human, a woman, a dog alone.  A man.

The Wall of the title, Die Wand in German, reflects an unexplained occurrence at the very beginning of the movie.  A woman, whose name we never learn, has gone into the Alps to a mountain cottage with friends.  They leave soon after arrival to walk back down to the village.  Their dog, Lynx, stays behind.

(the novel from which the film was adapted)

The next morning the friends, an elderly couple, have not returned from the village.  The woman and Lynx set out on the road for a walk.  At a point some distance from the cabin the woman reaches an impenetrable, invisible barrier.  The wall.  Over time she learns it encloses a large area around the cabin, but does isolate her from everyone.  No one comes to find her.

The rest of the movie is the story of her gradual adaptation, often unhappy and despairing, to a solitary life.

At one level this is a movie about the essential barrier we all find between our true selves and the world, and the people, around us.  At another about how women adapt to the world and the violence men bring to their lives.  At another, and the most meaningful to me, about the integration of our humanness with the natural world that is our true home.

No aliens.  No cops.  No serial murderers.  All the stuff that often draws me into a movie.  Just a meditation on life.  Wonderful.

 

Science

And NASA. Thanks For NASA’s Cassini

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Samhain                                                                    Thanksgiving Moon

All these photographs taken by the Cassini Spacecraft.  All either of Saturn or its moons and rings.

annotated Cassini Saturn shot with earth

I posted this one before in a smaller shot.  The title hanging below the lower right portion of Saturn’s rings says, earth-moon.

Enceladus Cassini one of the more active bodies in the solar system

Enceladus Cassini one of the more active bodies in the solar system (moon of Saturn)

Hiding within Saturn’s rings are thousands (maybe millions) of tiny moonlets, each no more than a kilometer across. Cassini discovered this shortly after arriving at Saturn

Hiding within Saturn’s rings are thousands maybe millions of tiny moonlets each no more than a kilometer across. Cassini discovered this shortly after arriving at Saturn

Hyperion. This irregularly shaped moon looks like a honeycomb. It behaves weirdly, too, neither spinning at a constant rate nor maintaining a constant orientation

Hyperion.

This irregularly shaped moon looks like a honeycomb. It behaves weirdly too neither spinning at a constant rate nor maintaining a constant orientation

Iapetus21000

Iapetus

late 2010, a massive storm began churning in Saturn’s northern hemisphere. the storm stretched over rou

late 2010, a massive storm began churning in Saturn’s northern hemisphere. the storm stretched over 190,000 miles.

Saturn Cassini1000

Saturn Cassini

Saturn’s north pole is home to an enigmatic hexagon

Saturn’s north pole is home to an enigmatic hexagon

Though they measure nearly 200,000 miles across, the rings are incredibly thin. The main rings average only a few stories tall.

Though they measure nearly 200,000 miles across, the rings are incredibly thin. The main rings average only a few stories tall.

Tiny Mimas is the smallest spherical body in the solar system. Less than 250 miles across

Tiny Mimas is the smallest spherical body in the solar system. Less than 250 miles across

Titan Titan is the only other body in the solar system with liquid on its surface. It has hydrocarbon lakes and seas, shores and rivers, and seasonal rainfall like on Earth

Titan Titan is the only other body in the solar system with liquid on its surface. It has hydrocarbon lakes and seas, shores and rivers, and seasonal rainfall like on Earth

Family, Feelings

Kate

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Samhain                                                           Thanksgiving Moon

There is one.  One special thanksgiving.  It starts with the baroque or the classical, a little IMAG0998Mozart, some Hayden, Pachelbel.  An affiliation with the older music making traditions of public music in the West.  Enough so to encourage regular attendance.  Then divorces, seats given up, and two people, the remainders of the marriages, seated next to each other.

Yes, one night over coffee at the St. Paul Hotel after the last Chamber Orchestra concert of the season, this woman and I discovered we had each other figured wrong.  Me: a lawyer.  Her: a school teacher, maybe a college professor.

Later a three week trip through Europe, starting in Rome, following spring north in March, as far north as Inverness, capital of the Highlands.  After that, closing in on 24 years of supporting and loving each other, blending our families, raising and loving many dogs, growing food, sewing and writing, growing old happily.

Kate.  This is thanks for Kate.

 

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Great Wheel, Great Work, Health, Holidays

Be Glad You Exist

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Samhain                                                            Thanksgiving Moon

Thankful.  Grateful.  Still here.

Yes, that’s the  prerequisite to all that follows, my living presence to write these words. And, yes, damn it, I’m grateful to be alive.

When I visited Constanta, Romania a year and a half ago, I went there as a pilgrimage to the place of Ovid’s exile.  This is a city that has Roman (Romania!) roots.  Outside an excellent museum of Roman and Greek antiquities (it was a Greek trading port first.), there was a collection of grave markers.  On one of them was this line:  Be Glad You Exist.  That’s what I would call ur-gratitude.  Thankfulness for living.

It’s where I’ll start.  Beyond consciousness and good health in my own case I’m thankful for the same in Kate, the dogs, family, friends and even a few others.  Our home.  Our buddies and colleagues the bees, the soil and the plants which grow in it, those past and those to come.  The orchard and the trees in our woods.  All the critters, sleeping and active that call it home.

Extending all that in a generally cosmic direction, I am grateful for the physics that allow us to exist at all, the sun for its energy, the planet for its hospitable climate (sorry about that hot pack, Gaia) and the North American continent for its wildness and its cities and towns.  Yes, the suburbs, too.  Even Andover.

Language.  English.  Being able to communicate with each other, even through such a flawed and miraculous medium.  What would life be without language?  Western medicine.  Often maligned, but my fav.  Western civilization.  Also often maligned, but mine and yours.  At least most of you who read this.  And just as worthy a human artifice as anyone else’s.

Of course the internet.  Cyberspace.  What a wonder to an old man raised with bakelite phones, 6 digit phone numbers, a time before tv.  So much.  So much to say thank you for. More than can be expressed in any list, no matter how long.

How about, for example, oxygen?  Or the properties of water?  We are made of stardust, animated elements spun out so long ago at the birth not of our nation, not of our planet, not of our solar system, not of our galaxy, but of our universe.  And now they walk, talk, consider their origin.  How damned amazing is that?

So.  Thanks.