Monthly Archives: May 2014

General
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Beltane                                                              Emergence Moon

We’re only 4 days away from the average date of the last frost. That means in a couple of weeks the warm weather crops like tomatoes and peppers can go in the ground. Once they’re planted along with a few others like herbs, beans, peas, egg plant and ground cherry the work of the garden and orchard shifts to nurture.

Then we weed, drench the soil, spray with the International Ag Labs products, watch for bugs, thin. This year will be first with a full program for the orchard, so much of the work there will be new.

 

Family

Mothers

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Beltane                                                               Emergence Moon

Tomorrow is mother’s day. As we age, the number of mother’s around us multiplies. First, there’s your own mother. Then, there’s your wife (or  yourself) (and perhaps multiples). She (you) can be a mother. That’s the case for me. Plus Raeone. (ex-wife) And mother. Then your kids get married. And have kids. More mothers. No wonder Hallmark went for mother’s day.

As reader’s of this blog know, my mother’s been dead since 1964, 50 years. That’s a long time without a living mother. Still, the other mothers in my life make the celebration noteworthy. So, here’s to Kate, Jen, Barb, Raeone. Happy mother’s day all. And to Gertrude.

General
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Beltane                                                                                           Emergence Moon

The onions and the leeks peek out above the soil, all planted now, a bit late, but it’s been a weird spring. Yesterday while exercising to keep my body strong, my back did a thing. A painful thing. Not the result one looks for when working out. That means the planting of the onions involved more pain than the task needs to entail. Still, they’re in the ground, ready for the watering mother earth has prepared for later this afternoon.

Faith and Spirituality

Native Terran

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Beltane                                                             Emergence Moon

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. – Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio

A cartoon, I think it was in today’s paper, had two E.T. figures with their spaceship in the background. Two humans were in conversation with them. “But,” the E.T. said, “you’re from space, too.” Oh, yeah. The chicken is an eggs way of making more eggs. We often don’t realize that the way we understand things is not the only way to understand something. A truism perhaps, but a profound one.  Another example is the Mexica view that death is the normative (real) state and life is a dream.

Which makes me wonder what I’m missing. A friend sometimes asks himself, “What if:  you were a  bodhisattva  who is knowingly choosing to experience these feelings as part of the process of aiding the healing and enlightenment of all sentient beings?” This in response to the pall I’ve spoken of over the last day or so. This is a perspective shift, taking another, unusual angle from which to view a situation.

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Friends, Poetry, Third Phase, Travel

Three Things

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Beltane                                                                         Emergence Moon

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.                                  Mary Oliver, Blackwater Woods

This life here. This land. These friends. The memories. All mortal. And I love them all. For forty years I have held this life, in its glad moments and its sad ones, against my bones, knowing I did depend on it. For twenty years I have held this land and the life here with Kate against my bones knowing I depended on both of them. For twenty-five plus years I have held the Woollies and Kate against my bones knowing my life depended on them. The dogs, too. Later, the docents, friends from the Sierra Club and elsewhere. All against my bones.

Now, and here is the gray cloud lying close to my mental ground, the ravens and the crows flying there, the catafalque. The weight. The heaviness. The mudstuck boots. Now, the time has come to let them go. All but Kate and the dogs.

No, of course there will be times. Times back here. Times together. Moments driving down the same streets, sitting in the same homes. But then as a visitor, a man from far away. No longer here. But there.

Mary says when the time comes, let them go. Yes. I’m doing that. She didn’t say anything about being glad. And I’m not. I’m sad in the deepest reaches of my bones. But, it is time, and I will let them all go.

 

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In a not so placid place, boots still stuck in the mud, clouds gray and close to neural ground. With canceling the bonfire I gave myself room to workout this evening which usually lifts my mood. We’ll see. That’s in a half an hour.

Feelings

A Mudsucked Boot

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Beltane                                                                Emergence Moon

I have, uncharacteristically, started and stopped with this post several times. There’s a sleep deprived pall hanging over me, bringing the low-hanging, gray cumulus inside, almost to my psychic ground. It’s hard to see. Catafalques. Black-draped carriages. Heavy. Weighted.

This is the time of the mudsucked boot, the slow drudge through the mindscape where ravens and crows predominate. The pace of movement is measured, no second-lining, no upbeat notes. Where all this originates, I know not. That it comes once in a while is a certainty.

Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality

Crowded

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Beltane                                                                    Emergence Moon

After meeting Becky yesterday at the MIA, I left. I had planned to stay a bit, wander in the bowl650galleries, visit old friends. But an unremembered aversion pushed me out the door. The place was packed. Lots of school kids and lots of Friends of the MIA for the Friends’ lecture.

Back in the now long ago and halcyon days when continuing education was rich in content and held on Mondays, the museum closed to visitors, going in for continuing education had the flavor of a monastic retreat. There would be an hour plus of wonderful thinking about art, followed by private contemplation in quiet galleries.

An understandable desire to get numbers through the doors has made visiting museums during high traffic times a much different experience. This is edutainment. Minds young and old soaking up the kind of information and experience that enriches their lives. That’s a big positive. But for those of us who visit the museum for a one on one moment with Song dynasty ceramics or Baroque masterpieces like Poussin’s Germanicus, not so much.

 

Feelings

Up at Night: Sequelae

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Beltane                                                                  Emergence Moon

Slept in until 9 this morning after my couple of hours of insomnia. Cost me a lunch with Tom and Bill this afternoon since I have to get out there and chop wood, carry water for the Beltane bonfire tonight. Insomnia is one of those things that hits those of us with anxiety once in a while. Its trigger is not obvious and I’ve long ago decided that figuring what causes insomnia only exacerbates it.

As a general rule, my life is more placid now that it has been at any other point. Still, the occasional mood storm rushes through my inner world much like the rain ran through here last night, fast and furious. This one is gone now, perhaps leaving with the morning rush of hormones. Don’t know.

Anyhow I have Latin and chopping wood today. Carrying water, too.

General
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Beltane                                                              Emergence Moon

One of those nights. Woke up. Still up. Doesn’t happen often, at least not anymore, but here I am at 3:50 am. Not wide awake, but not asleep either.