Lughnasa Labor Day Moon
From NASA. the formal beauty of this machine, this spacecraft made photograph. wonder-full
Machine Formal
Monthly Archives: August 2015
The Now and the Not Yet
Lughnasa Labor Day Moon
A curious bifurcation. Friends comment on how well my life’s going. I’m not feeling it. Kate says look at the big picture. That’s what they’re seeing. Time with grandkids. Settling into the mountains. Healthy dogs. Cancer season mostly over. Loft getting put together.
When Kate suggested I look at the big picture, I replied, “It’s not in my nature.” My comment surprised me. What did that mean? “It’s not in my nature.”
In the moment I meant the larger trajectory of my life always gets swamped by the quotidian. The generator, damn thing. Rigel’s cast. Aimlessness. Sleep. That’s what gets my attention, my focus. It’s the way of generalized anxiety. Yes, I can back off from the day-to-day, know that these things are transient and the bigger things more lasting, but I get dragged right back in. Gotta change our home insurance before October 31st. Like that.
But more to my question, what is my nature? What does that mean? I mentioned a while back I’m reading a book called How Forests Think. In it Eduardo Kohn makes a strong, a remarkable case for animism, identifying animism with the Selfhood of living things. Self, if I understand Kohn right, is the gathered experience of not only an individual tree, dog, human, but of the evolutionary and genetic inheritance each individual bears. In this sense my Self is the culmination of human adaptation over millions of years, specific adaptation in the instance of my particular genetic family and the moments since my birth that have shaped who I have become in dynamic interaction with those genetics.
I’ve always had a strong view of Self, that emergent being/becoming we each are. (BTW: we, in Kohn’s vocabulary, includes all living things) Thanks to many years of Jungian analysis I have tended to articulate Self in relation to Jungian thought as an entity rooted in the collective unconscious, born of the struggle between persona and our genetic tendencies, or, said another way, between our adaptative responses to the world and our animal inheritance.
It is in this sense that I meant it is not in my nature. Over time, thanks to events subtle and gross, I have learned to focus on the thing not finished, the matter with something left to do. That moves attention away from the completed, the resolved. Things like settling into the mountains, presumptively cancer free, time with the grandkids recede, get placed in the room marked o.k. for now.
So my nature is the sum of me, the skin-bound memories (another Kohn term) and the adaptative ancestry from which I descend. Here’s an interesting point about genetics and adaptation that Kohn makes, they are future oriented. That is, the adaptations that stick are, in essence, bets on a future that will require them. So, though they come from the past and manifest in the present, each adaptation represents a subtle reorientation of the species to a time imagined, in the most physical of senses, to have similarity with the near past.
No Hurries
Lughnasa Labor Day Moon
The Labor Day moon has been full the last couple of nights. From our north facing bedroom window we see its light amongst the lodgepole pines, soft on the intermittently grassy and rocky surface that is our backyard. In Andover our south facing bedroom found the full moon shining, lighting up our bed and the room itself. This mountain experience is more subtle, we see the moon by moonshine only while the moon itself floats across the southern sky toward Black Mountain.
My mood has not lifted. I feel my Self as I see the moon shine. The Self, though hidden for now in my psychic south, still sends out rays of thought and feeling. Its presence is known only by these hints. An inclination toward horror fiction. A surge of interest in images from Rome. Imagining my books spread out on my art cart or me sitting in the now covered with books chair, reading. Looking through notes written on art works remembered. Feeling my way through the mountain, into the mountain. Wandering the trails, climbing on the rocks of Shadow Mountain.
After what I wrote yesterday, I realized this is not an unusual transition for me, though it’s not one I’ve made in a while. Something, perhaps the Self’s phases as it passes through the sky of a new place, perhaps the false winter of the cancer season, perhaps the ongoing adjustment to family and the absence of friends, something, probably a mix of all these, has put my Self in the southern sky, out of my range of vision for now.
The ancientrail through this place must be walked slowly. I’ve been trying to push, to run, to shorten the journey with speed. My inner ear becomes deaf as I hurry. My mind narrows to the dangers of the trail, watching for roots and projecting rocks. Imagination has no role. Yet, on this ancientrail of Self re-discovery listening, imagining, expanding the mind are what is necessary.
Waiting now to see the moonrise.
Clash
Lughnasa Labor Day Moon
Part of the transition to fall here in the mountains is the elk rut. My dental hygienist told me about her first experience. She and her husband came home from work in late September. They heard a sound like two men clashing 2×4’s together, went to the window and saw two bull elks in the backyard, charging each other. This went on through supper, and as night fell, they both used night vision goggles that her mother had left behind after a visit. They went to bed to the sound of the elks battling for reproductive rights.
When she got up, the second elk was gone and the winner basked in the comfort of a large harem of does. Also, she said, the bugling sounds just like bugles. Looking forward to this fall.
Life Is What Happens When You’re Making Other Plans
Lughnasa Labor Day Moon
Rigel broke her thumb and dislocated the digit next to it on her left paw. She has a cast and a medi-paw over the cast to protect it. She stumps around like a one-eyed pirate captain, whacking the floor as she goes. How did she do it? No idea. Kep has furred out again, looking like an Akita about twice his real size. Over to Award-Winning Pet Grooming in Bailey on Monday. No kidding. That’s the name. Vet recommended it.
That generator I’ve written about so often? Still not installed and this time it’s the electrician who pulled out. He claimed his crew’s work on El Rancho, an Evergreen remodel, had overwhelmed him. Feeling a bit snakebit on this one. So, sigh. Find another electrician. The amount of work for the trades up here in the mountains is so high that smaller jobs get pushed off the calendar.
On Monday Ikea delivered the last of the bookshelves, five more of the tall ones. This time I took out the tape measure and measured the remaining piles of books, divided the total inches by the length of a bookshelf. Needed five to cover what’s on the floor. With the black walnut shelving on the shorter bookcases these birch veneer units will snap to attention. Jon’s also producing a custom top for what he calls my art cart, resin over a basin filled with various smaller pieces of wood. Not gonna make Labor Day for the finish up here, but the result will be worth the wait.
Lughnasa Labor Day Moon
Been trying to feel the mountain. Beneath our house Shadow Mountain extends at least 8,800 feet to sea level and just where a mountain begins and ends after sea level is a mystery to me. That’s a mile and 2/3rds of rock. A lot of rock.
14 years ago I came out to Colorado and camped above Georgetown in the National Forest. Right next to me was a sugarloaf mountain. As darkness fell, the mountain disappeared into the gloom. All that massiveness just disappeared. But I could feel it looming over me. Since then I’ve wondered what the mountain equivalent is to the Shedd Aquarium’s freshwater exhibition tag: The essence of a stream is to flow. What is the essence of a mountain?
Mass seems to be the answer. It is the distinctive feature that draws our eyes when we come in on Interstate 76 from the plains of Nebraska. Suddenly, the plains stop. The essence of the plains is flatness? No more flatness, verticality created by mass intervenes with sight lines. The volume of rock pressed upwards by colliding tectonic plates changes the topography.
So these last couple of mornings, before I got out of bed, I’ve been trying to feel the mass of Shadow Mountain. Trying to extend my Self into the mountain, to feel the mountain as it lies there. Not so successful so far. It occurred to me this morning that this is the opposite of conquering the mountain, of summiting, of climbing. This is diving, deepening, merging. Part of the difficulty is the claustrophobic feeling of having the mountain all round me even in my imagination.
This is not all. I noticed the other day in the east, just above the lodgepoles on our property, Orion. In Minnesota I was a late riser so I don’t know where Orion was at 5 am in August, but his presence here surprised me. I have, until now, counted Orion as a winter companion, first becoming visible in November. He may have risen much earlier even in Minnesota, but I missed him. Orion is a special friend, a constellation with which I’ve had a long relationship and one I view as a companion in the night.
Then, there are the bucks. Mule deer bucks. On Sunday as we drove to Evergreen there were four mule deer bucks with still velveted antlers quietly munching grass along the side of the road. They looked at us; we looked at them. The velvet has a prospective nature, auguring the rut when not yet released. On this morning they were friends, not competitors for breeding rights. And they were in harmony.
Then, yesterday, Kate said, “Look at that!” I turned and over my left shoulder looked down into the grassy valley that extends between Shadow Mountain and Conifer Mountain. In the field of mown alfalfa stood a huge bull elk. His rack was enormous and already cleared of its velvet. It arced out away from his head on both sides, tines extending its reach even further. This was a bull of legend. Seeing him took us into the wild, the world that goes on alongside us here on Shadow Mountain, the lives of our fellow inhabitants of this mountain.
All of this, the essence of the mountain, Orion rising, velveted mule deer, the bull elk, hiking on the Upper Maxwell Falls trail, all of this accelerates becoming native to this place. The Rockies. Our home.
Markets End a Wild Day Down About 4%
Lughnasa Labor Day Moon
Third phase folk pay attention to the stock market, at least those of us lucky enough to have investments. I spent a bit of time 15 years or so ago trying to get up to speed on investing. Bio-tech stocks seemed real attractive to me. After a year or so I realized investing was not my thing. A real stunner, that, since I had only a few years before resigned as the development minister for Unity Church in St. Paul, one of the dumber career moves I’d ever made.
Kate and I have learned to manage money, not easily, not without pain, but we’ve got it now. What buddy Scott Simpson does, manage money for others, is a high-dive act, a constant immersion in a chaotic realm. Being able to do it consistently and for others means he’s mastered a very complex and often cruel domain.
On days like today, when markets shake like the San Andreas getting ready for the big one, those of us retired and depending on our investments for a certain portion of our monthly living expenses can over react. Markets correct when they go down at least 10%, and they enter bear market territory when they hit 20%, off a previous high.
Market corrections, on average, last about two months. In other words, sell now and you sell low. If you go into cash, you then have to decide when to buy back in. Most people wait till the market ticks up again, often resulting in buying high after having just sold low. Some people’s portfolios never recover. That happened to many, including friends of mine, in 2008.
So. Take a deep breath. Do nothing. Wait. Often difficult, but the wisest course of action now.
The Eyrie, update pics
Lughnasa Labor Day Moon
The Eyrie
Lughnasa Labor Day Moon
Shadow Mountain homestead still under construction. Jon added the shelving unit on Saturday that will hold my tea, teaware, coffee and water heating appliances. That will make the winter a more civilized moment up here in what Kate calls Charlie’s Eyrie. A second story loft at 8,800 feet. An eyrie.
We added a new gas stove to our kitchen yesterday. Kate’s adventure with thumb surgery will find me happily back at the grocery store and cooking. But, I really don’t like electric stoves. The kitchen will get a complete makeover, but the stove we needed now.
That generator, the project that will not die, will get leveled and stabilized and wired on September 1st. Alpha Electric will install a ceiling fan in our bedroom on the same day. The gas will get attached, an inspector will come, then we’ll be ready for what happened a couple of weeks ago. In the same process we’ll get an estimate on redoing Kate’s bathroom with a walk-in shower. Safer over time. Skylights need repair, too.
The house, even after all this, will still be missing its soul, our art. The walls are bare, waiting a good feel for where we want paintings, sculpture, travel mementos, photographs. Until the art is hung, the house will not feel fully like home.
That will leave the external sprinkler system, probably next spring, whatever kind of cover Jon can create for the gap between the house and the garage (too much snow and uneven icy, ground in winter) and garden/bee works. Jon has an idea for the house/garage gap that may include a greenhouse, which would solve the garden works.
My original vision was fully moved in in two years. I still think that’s about the right length of time. We may make 18 months.
This process is, by turns, frustrating and exhilarating. The frustration is dealing with trades people and their shifting schedules, plus the difficulty of accurately assessing their work, both what needs doing and how well it’s been done. The exhilaration is finishing projects, bringing the whole closer to our vision of home. Time and money.
It Can Happen Again
Lughnasa Labor Day Moon
And now, news that Donald Trump has staying power. Oh, my. A few days back I wrote about the possibility of a four-party presidential election with Trump on the right fringe and Sanders on the left fringe. If this should happen, it raises the possibility of a Jesse Ventura outcome on a national level, a minority candidate sliding into office. I’m not sure how plausible such an outcome is, but the thought of Jesse the Mouth being followed by Donald the Hair gives me shivers.
Presidential elections, the silly season, have extended themselves back in time. We’re still over a year from the election and yet news of candidates and candidacies are everywhere. There is no incumbent. The first viable woman candidate is making her case, trying to make doubled history by following the first black president. Bernie Sanders has quite literally come out of left field, giving voice to many of us who’ve felt disenfranchised by the center right politics of the Reagan era. And Trump. The mean side of the American dream, only white dreamers need apply.
Politics since the mid-1970’s have lurched from outright criminal to benign neglect, from the right’s right wing to the horrific posturing of the neocons. Obama has been better, Obamacare a good start on national health care, but his use of drones, failure to close Gitmo and his defense of the industrial/governmental security state have made his years since then look status quo.
There was this bright moment, from about 1965 to 1975, when politics had the will of the people behind it, pushing, keeping up pressure, not letting old fissures of race, gender, militarism, class go unchallenged. It was an anomaly, I see that now, but it was my youth and my young adulthood, so it became what I hoped for, what I continue to hope for. Politics enacted at the grassroots level. Politics done for the needs of the many, not the interests of the few. Politics that listen to the voiceless: the tree, the river, the mountain, the land, the elk, the pika, the wolf.
Yes, the 60’s were an anomaly, but they don’t have to be. That spirit can come back, the realization that we are, all of us, responsible for each other and that a primary executor of that responsibility is government at all levels. That spirit can lift us out of the corporate state and back into a citizen state. It has happened before and can happen again.