Lugnasa Superior Wolf Moon
Quite a productive day today. Got my glasses fixed. Got my left knee injected with steroids. Went to Whistling Duck, which has had our money since May and not produced a table. Got a firm date for its start and its delivery. In the mid-afternoon over to Bear Creek Designs for a discussion of the elements for Kate’s bathroom remodel.
Lugnasa Superior Wolf Moon
Murakami, the novelist, says time flows differently on Sundays. Yes. After that powerful acculturation of Sundays at church with Mom and Dad, then weekends off from work followed by weekends in which I worked on Sunday, the day has accretions of unusual moments, moments when the ambition and the struggle of the day to day evaporated for a few hours: that picnic, a moving worship service, reading the Sunday paper over breakfast, movies, ham, scalloped potatoes and spinach.
Yesterday I took advantage of that different flow to get myself past a difficult place in my work on Superior Wolf. The deep background of the story begins at the very beginning when Chaos and Chronos merge to bring some order to the new, emerging universe. I have a very specific reason for wanting the story rooted in the mythology of early Greek gods and goddesses, but I’m mindful of a critique I read about research. This novelist, I’m paraphrasing, obviously did a lot of research and she insists on using all of it. Ouch.
Even with that caveat I decided the story had to be told, so I spent Sunday finishing the section in which the key elements get laid out. This is a rough draft so I may not use much of this work, but I’m now past the somewhat didactic writing and back to the flow of the novel itself. A logjam broken up with a pike and spiked shoes.
Lugnasa Superior Wolf Moon
Ruth came up to the loft yesterday, sat in the leather chair and we talked while I worked. She’s such a sweet kid and very curious. Very bright. We talked about painted elephants, Hokusai and his famous print of the wave. Taking out a large book I have of Hokusai’s work, we paged through it and I explained the floating world of late 19th century Japan.
When I used chopsticks to eat beans and wieners for lunch, she said, “You’re weird, Grandpop.” I said, “Thanks. I take that as a compliment. Don’t you?” She nodded shyly.
Right now I’m trying to tell the story of the primordial Greek gods and the wars that occurred among the gods that followed them, the Titans and the Olympians. Tough to do without getting didactic, deadly to the flow of the narrative. Realized last night that I just have to get it down right now. This is a rough draft, not even a first draft.
Brother Mark asked about the dogs the other day. Gertie has recovered from the most recent rending of her flesh by Kepler. She bounces around, her right arthritic leg slightly splayed, not holding her back very much. Rigel continues on in her healthy, happy way. She has first rights on the couch now that Vega is dead. Kepler has gone from the still puppy like dog that he was when we got him two years ago to a mature dog with a distinct personality. He loves his life, getting excited, opening and closing his mouth, lifting himself slightly off the ground by hopping whenever food or something else that pleases him happens.
And then there’s Trump. Aaaccch. But, thank the powers of the universe for offering him to us when another candidate would have given Hillary a much more difficult time.
Lugnasa Superior Wolf Moon
County officials lifted the fire ban, a level II, which bans all fires in Jefferson County, at midnight last night. We’ve had a few cool, wet days in a row. As August continues, the fire danger tends to decrease, though doesn’t fade until sometime in September.
Jon’s back in his art room, getting ready for his students. The grandkids come up today for the day. The divorce continues to rake its nails across all our lives. How to be gracious is a challenge. But, a good one.
Kate and I went over to Bear Creek Designs in Evergreen yesterday. We made an appointment for Monday to pick out materials for the bathroom remodel. “Oh, aging in place renovation?” Molly asked, “Getting out ahead of it, eh?” Yes, the work over the next few years will take into account the fact that after February we’ll both be in our 70’s. Just part of the third phase.
Lugnasa Superior Wolf Moon
This morning Black Mountain has a shroud of gray white fog slumping down its eastern slope. Rain water puddles on the driveway and the overall feel is early fall. As we prefer it here on Shadow Mountain.
Could this election get weirder? I’d have said no, but the Donald keeps surprising me, all of us. As his polls slump like the fog on Black Mountain, certain Republicans have begun raising money for Hillary, admitting openly that they will vote for her, too. This group includes members of congress and a former primary candidate for President, Meg Whitman. That’s very strange.
But, wait! There’s more. Now the Dump Trump folks have begin wondering in interviews if he can be forced to drop out. Or, perhaps he’ll just choose to drop out, some hope. So, members of his own party are campaigning against him while others are trying for an unprecedented, geez I think I’ll just quit you. This all very new stuff in American politics, like seeing a rare bird and getting to add it to your life list.
He will not drop out. His self-image is of a fighter and a winner. Fighters don’t quit and winners don’t lose. From a political hobbyists point of view this is a most excellent campaign. Not the same old boring cereal we get every morning for breakfast.
Over the next decade plus the significance of this race will become clear. The most interesting analysis I’ve found so far links Trump to the rise of voters seeking an authoritarian leader. Read this Vox.com article: The Rise of American Authoritarianism. Research into the phenomenon of authoritarian leaders has its origins in the puzzling question of how Germany pivoted to Nazism in such a short period of time. There are now several well-regarded academic works that focus on answering that question. Some of them look at American culture, probing for similarities to post-Weimar Germany.
In this understanding, with which I agree, Trump is not the cause, but the effect. Another good article on the political roots of this new American authoritarianism comes from NYT columnist, Charles Blow: Trump Reflects White Male Fragility.
Lugnasa Superior Wolf Moon
So, you might ask, why Superior Wolf Moon? Well, I’m in the Superior Wolf world now and plan to stay in it until I have a new first draft. I conceived this story idea back in 1999, have picked it up and put it down several times. Now though I’ve got traction, I’m having fun and I’m finally going to finish it, probably around this time next year, maybe a bit sooner. Every one’s a little different. Superior Wolf Moon is a device to remind me of that commitment every day for the the duration of this moon cycle.
Lugnasa Superior Wolf Moon
This one. Well. Too damned cute.
Lugnasa Superior Wolf Moon
Not sure if it’s wishful thinking on my part, but it appears that Trump has begun, finally, to self destruct. A normal politician, no matter how he felt about the Khan’s, would recognize that his approach to this Gold Star family is destructive to his own chances to win the election. At that point some face saving (read hypocritical) story would be concocted, trotted out at a press conference or two, then the issue would be ignored. But, not candidate Trump.
Nope, he bullies right along, his thin skin rent, his dignity in tatters because (in his opinion) of the nasty Muslims who attacked his honor. This is the politics of the Crips and the Bloods where being dissed is rationale for a drive-by shooting, in Trump’s case a drive-by mouthing.
Jon’s back to work today, going over to Centennial for breakfast at his principal’s house, then out to visit a few students in their homes.
Kate’s meeting Penny Bond, her long time friend and financial advisor, for lunch. Penny comes to Denver once a year to see an old Stanford friend.
Lugnasa Superior Wolf (new) Moon
A gray morning on Shadow Mountain. Cooled down yesterday, feels good. The painting and staining are done. Next up is the downstairs bathroom. Zero entry shower. Some quiet here right now.
Kate finished a project begun after my 2013 trip to the Pre-Raphaelite show at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. This needlepoint came from the museum shop for the Pre-Raph show. When we get it framed, it will have a small plaque that reads, Vega.
Jon starts back to his work tomorrow. He’s the art teacher at Montview Elementary in Aurora, an eastern suburb of Denver. It’s been a summer of lawyers and courts, frustrations and doubts for him. He’s looking forward to getting back to work with his students. The commute from here to his school, we’re some distance west from the west edge of Denver and Aurora’s on the eastern edge, is substantial, but common for folks who live in the Conifer area.
While at the Denver County Fair, I got this photograph of three young Latinas dressed up to party.
Lughnasa Superior Wolf (new) Moon
Lughnasa opens the harvest season, celebrating the Celtic God of arts and sciences, bright Lugh. Its emphasis on the harvest, however, comes in honor, not of Lugh himself, but of his foster mother, Tailtiu. (most of the information here comes from Myth*ing Links Lammas page.)
Tailtiu was, in a mythic rendering of Ireland’s ancient history, one of the Fir Bolg, the fourth of six peoples to invade and settle Ireland. The first three groups left the island or were eliminated, each one leaving an empty country for the next invasion. Tailtiu was a royal lady, a ruler among the Fir Bolg, captured when the Fir Bolg fell to the Tuatha de Danann, the fifth of the invaders. The Tuatha de Danann are a supernatural race who became the primary gods and goddesses of pre-Christian Ireland.
The conquering Tuatha de Danann forced Tailtiu to take on a decidedly unroyal task, the clearing of a great forest to create fields for agriculture. She succeeded, but in the process exhausted herself and died. Her body, buried beneath a hillock, the mound of Tailte, gave fertility to the newly made grain fields.
As the first year’s grain crops began to ripen, Tailtiu’s foster son, Lugh, decreed funeral games be held in her honor. They were held, in the beginning of August, at the mound of Tailte. Over time these games at the start of the harvest season became common throughout Ireland. Market days and ceremonies that honored not only the grain harvest, but the work of those who farmed the earth, became part of Lugh’s original celebration of his foster mother.
Tailtiu might have been an earlier goddess of the earth. In this understanding, which makes mythic sense, Lughnasa gives prominence to the sacrifice of the soil, necessary for a crop to grow. Myth*ing links quotes an article by Mara Freeman on an earlier name for the festival, Brón Trogain, which refers to the painful labor of childbirth.
The funeral games for Tailtiu, and the subsequent extended festival known as Lughnasa, have continued life in the U.S. as county and state fairs. The early Irish and Scots immigrants to this country brought their harvest celebrations with them. The last of the three harvest celebrations, Samhain, the end of the harvest and summer’s end, we celebrate as Halloween.