Samain and the Holiseason Moon
Wednesday gratefuls: Bi-weekly trash and recycling. Holly Bailey. Lauri Knox. Quilts. Kate’s many gifts. Her long arm quilter. Her stash. Now helping others. A slight veil of Snow on the solar panels. 18 degrees this morning. Blue Sky. Red flag day yesterday. So dry. Derek. Neighborly. Journeymen. The Guild.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s Yay! when she saw the quilt Holly brought over
Tarot: The Ancestor, #5 of the Major Arcana, Wildwood
A wonderful Tarot card from the Wildwood Deck. Which I’m coming to like a lot. Reminded me that Kate is now with the Ancestors, is an Ancestor.
We’ll get back to the card, but I wanted to comment on how Kate continues to weave the tapestry of our lives. Holly Bailey and her husband came over last night. Holly got Kate’s long arm quilter. She finished the quilt that was on it.
When I texted Ruth a picture of it, she said, “oh yay!! that one’s mine. I helped grandma pick the fabrics and the pattern and I think I sewed parts of it.”
This morning Laurie Knox, yet another engineer, will bring three quilts that she’s been working on, also Kate’s piecing. Holly has two more to finish. I will, over time, offer these quilts as gifts, especially to folk who knew and loved Kate. I’m not in a hurry.
I sleep on a library, a pillowcase fabric Kate found and turned into a pillowcase for me. Her work hangs in our living room and in her sewing room, too. In my loft I have two quilted small pieces, one with squares of moose, my totem animal, and one with old post card images of Rocky Mountain National Park. There are, too, rug mugs that she got into for a while. Curtains. A brick doorstop up here has a crocheted cover.
Shirts she made for me hang in my closet. Joseph’s robe of many colors is up here in the loft now. I also have two stoles that she made for me to wear over my monk’s robe. Her memory. My blessing.
The Ancestor #5 in the Wildwood Major Arcana. (Replacing the traditional #5, The High Priest)
Here’s some material from Wildwood’s book on the Ancestor.
“The Ancestor is linked to the part of our soul that is most ancient and most closely related to the archetypes that represent nature. She is a guardian of the sacred heart of the land and summons you by beating the drum to the heartbeat of the Earth. It is the part of you that unconsciously heard the drum and stirred the first desire to walk the path that is at work here. It is the overpowering strength and patience of nature, it is the awesome and relentless turning of the cycle that brings spring and warmth, an end to hibernation and the reawakening of abundant life.
The Ancestor stands before the gateway of nature that leads into the far forest. This is another beginning. Once you pass through the gateway you must strive to stay on the path and see the journey through to the end.”
Later on: “You have made the leap and started a new cycle. Your instinctive spirit has felt it necessary to lead you to the gateway and a new path…Your inner Ancestor is strong, patient and wise. Let them lead you into the forest with new eyes and a joyful spirit.”
This image, a female deity with a deer’s head, with antlers, is Elen of the Ways in a probably pre-Celtic faith. The Ways referenced in her name are the wild paths created by Deer and Reindeer. The hypothesis is that early hunter gathers used the Deer ways, too. Hunting the Deer, yes, but also following their seasonal migrations and gathering food where Deer browsed.
Elen honored this travel, honored the Deer who made it possible. She could be the goddess of paths and journeys, the hunt, fertility. The goddess of nature’s abundance and hence nature itself.
As the Ancestor in the Wildwood Tarot, she precedes in time and worship the more well know gods and goddesses of the Celtic pantheon like Bridgit, Lugh, Arawyn.
A new cycle is underway here on Shadow Mountain. The Hermit cycle. I will see it through to the end. Whatever, whenever, and however that may come.
Oh. Remembered. When the electrician taking power to the mini-splits was here Friday before last, he encountered an additional task at the end of the day. His boss offered to come help.
White privilege. Yes. It’s real and it’s pernicious. In oh so many ways. But. Caste privilege is real, too. Those born into educated families who educate themselves may still find the American Dream. [which is a pretty damned shallow thing if you have it, but a shiny object on a hill if you don’t] At least the English own it. India, too.
Dexterity and mechanical intelligence. Also distributed. Those with these gifts suffer from our cultural obsession with intelligence of the sort used for a college education. They’re blue collar workers. Not quite good enough to make it into the office, to the C suites. Obvious they should make less, right?
And how do we pay them? As if their work were a casual necessity. As the economy improves the front line workers go to the back of the line for wages and benefits. Again. Still. Right where they’ve been all along.
Friday gratefuls: Cytopoint. VRCC. Chewy. Earth Venture. Veggie Dent. The Star show. Every night! The Winds of late Autumn in the Rockies. I am; therefore, I think. Thanks for that one, Tara. Tired Jamie. Jon. Winter tires back on Monday. Oil changed. Thanksgiving. Last holiday in the old kitchen. The mini-splits. Working. Lodgepoles bending. 25 mph Wind. Not breaking.
Climate change. Glasgow. Climate pessimism. Nihilism. 47% of Republicans don’t believe we should regulate greenhouse gases. Why? Oh, just the planet going through a regular cycle. Or, made up by the elites. Or, don’t give a damn. And they may win the 2022 elections. An election that could doom the planet and human life as we know it. Talk about high stakes.
Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Orion and his dog. The Zodiac. Our star canopy. The unimaginable size of the universe. Our unimaginable place in it. Life. The animator. Total mystery. Darkness. The holidays of Light. And that wonderful one for the Night. Thanksgiving. Jon. Ruth. Gabe.
With Mars in the same house I found my work life adequately explained. I will fight for progressive ideas. Mars. And, I will do it with folks I know well. Have done. That part of my life feels over now.
Holiseason. A primer. I discovered holimonth 15 years ago. That was December with its abundance of holidays. Then I extended the idea to holiseason. (discovered later that this was a word anyhow. But, hey.) Holiseason by my reckoning runs from Samain on October 31st to the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th. [A Kate aside here. She left Sunday School for good when one of her teachers, 4th or 5th grade, kept pronouncing the holiday epi-fanny.]
Reflecting on my radical career. One thing in particular. A long time ago, either 1975 or 1980, I attended a conference. Liberation Theology in the Americas. There were two and I can’t recall which one I attended. Cornel West. Harvey Cox. Lettie Russel. My roommate was a priest from Guatemala. Lots of impassioned speeches. Marxist analysis. Great meal conversations. Bus tours by a Detroit Socialist party that had made some political progress.
At the end of the conference he performed a ritual typical of the Confederacy, planting a pine tree as a sign of peace. In the original rituals tomahawks and bows and arrows and knives would have been placed into the hole, covered in soil, the tree planted on top of them.
Kate and I attended a Physicians for Social Responsibility conference in Iowa City. On climate change. This was in the mid-1990’s. A national conference they had now well-known figures in the climate change movement presenting. Each day we would go back to our hotel and express wonder that this science was not public. And, it wasn’t then. At least not enough for anyone to notice.
Saturday gratefuls: The electrician and his dog, Lulu. Omega Electric. The mini-splits with power. Jodi. Brought a copy of the quartzite Taj Mahal and some of the brick backsplash. Plus, cabinet samples. One with the stain. Which is very close to the Stickley. Missed workout with all the busyness.
Electricity out in the loft all day. Running conduit to the mini-split. Forgot to ask the electrician’s name, but we bonded over Rigel and Kepler. He has a Shibu Inu/Husky mix, Lulu. She’s a cutey. Looks like a miniature Husky.
Although I’ve not used the fireplace much, especially since Kate got sick and I got diagnosed with COPD (later changed to post-polio syndrome), I couldn’t resist ordering, from Ireland, a box of peat logs. Gotta get some firewood, too. The post-polio diagnosis means a little smoke from a fireplace is not gonna create a problem.
“Keywords: Heartache. True growth. Wisdom from suffering.
Friday gratefuls: Tina at Morry’s Neon. Master Benders. Fun. Making the house mine. Finding Morry’s Neon, an urban pathfinding adventure. Jon. Cardio. Gut bombs. Jodi coming today. New washer coming on Monday. None too soon. Cities. I love them. But no longer want to live in them. The Pandamndemic. Orgovyx. Prostate Cancer.
Then, when Tina flipped a switch, look what showed up. Could have been Times Square or the Vegas Strip. I love neon and neon signs.
