Daily Archives: November 21, 2013

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Holidays, Memories, Music

Holiseason Begins to Put the Pedal Down

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Samhain                                                              Thanksgiving Moon

We’re in that pre-holiday time when the air begins to take on a certain quality.  It’s part hope for a Thanksgiving (this time) that we both recall and imagine, a desire for an ideal time with family, with busyness, with good food and good memories made.

There are those other times, the times before, when the magazines had turkeys in their ads and the Whitehouse spared a turkey.  This year it will be a Minnesota turkey.  The times when we all had to put on our Sunday clothes even though it was Thursday and drive to an Aunt’s or to Grandma’s or to a friends.  Football and stuffing, a browned turkey and mashed potatoes.  Too many people around a too small table.  That drowsy, sleepy feeling, a tryptophan haze.  The turkey drug.

Those times mesh with hope, give it a flavor, a scent, a sound, a cast.  Those are, for me at least, good memories.  They give the time, this time, a pleasant before hand buzz, a family inflected smile.

This is holiseason.  It has these moments one after the other.  Times when others and the world of commerce and the world of religion and the world of small children all begin to bang into each other, making the world merry.  Yes, it’s chaotic and capitalistic. No doubt of that.  But it’s also fun, filled with good songs and lights.  Gifts and cold weather.  At least here.  Not so much in Singapore and Muyhail.

To all of you headed over the hills and through the woods.  Have fun.  Eat too much.  Laugh a lot.  Drive safely.

 

Writing

The Groove

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Samhain                                                                Thanksgiving Moon

Usually I break up my day into chunks:  writing, translating, learn something new. Right now that means Missing, version 5.0, Ovid: Lycaon’s story and Dramatica, the writing software. After that I work out, eat supper, watch some TV, usually a British detective show these days and, following Kate’s going to bed, I read.  During the growing season I might plant or tend the bees, do something with the fruit trees, check how plants have grown, spray or put down a soil drench in the Ag Labs program.  And there’s always the garage.

Today was different.  I got into Missing and found a groove, a revisionary groove.  It kept lighting up the aha board in my head, so I followed it, working longer than normal at writing, in fact, working the whole day.  That’s usually hard to do, makes my head ache after a while, but not today.  No idea why.  Still, I’ll take it.  I’m getting closer to the end of this fifth revision.  I want to finish it before the first of December.

Family, Travel

Back in the S.A.

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Samhain                                                        Thanksgiving Moon

Brother Mark is settling into Muyhail, Saudi Arabia.  He said it has a back of beyond sort of feel and its location makes that no surprise.  I posted this map a while ago, but here it is again.

Muyhail is in Asir province and shares a border with Yemen.  It’s also not far from the Red Sea though a long ways from the Suez Canal.  What it’s very close to is the Rub Al Kahli, the famed empty quarter that is the desert of Arabian Nights’ fantasies. And mine, too, for that matter.

He’s teaching in a Basque owned company providing technical college students an opportunity to learn English.  Tip of the hat to brother Mark for finding a new position in the land of oil and sand.