Lugnasa New (Autumn) Moon
Woollies tonight. Warren, Scott, Stefan, Mark and Frank. We met in Wayzata on the grounds of the old Cenacle Retreat Center, now a treatment center for addiction. Sheepshead buddy Dick Rice works there. They have a retreat house that we’ve used from time to time as a meeting place and Warren chose it.
We met with Jonathan Odell, author of The Healing. Kate read it and told me to read it, but I didn’t get around to it until a couple of weeks ago. If you’re reading this blog and have any interest at all in the Civil War, post-Civil War south, from the slave and freed persons’ perspective, read this book. It’s a moving story, told from the perspective of a freed woman and her life both on the plantation and after the war.
It’s a powerful evocation of womanhood and the mystical strength given to women through the act of creation. It’s an equally powerful evocation of what could never be taken from the slave and what, in this story, certain slaves claim.
Jonathan’s writing process and his story as a writer made me cheer. It can be done. Requires stamina and courage. He’s a strong and amazing person.
