Beltane Summer Moon
Transitions. a : passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another : change b : a movement, development, or evolution from one form, stage, or style to another; and, c: an abrupt change in energy state or level
Frank had a Lakota pipe, given to him in a sweat, making him a pipe carrier. It marked, he said, a transition from a crude, aggressive atheist to a man who saw something else, something beyond the material world. Warren had a statue of Don Quixote which had belonged to his father. His life, he said, had been one of transitions related to writing and reading. Books and journalism. I’m not sure he said, but I think he did, that Don Quixote’s idiosyncratic (I’d say Quixotic, but you know…) way in the world felt like his own.
Charlie Haislet presented his body “as the object which had carried him through all of his transitions” including the most recent and not easy one to retirement. He also told a great story of an ascent of Mt. Fuji, a cousin along who experienced angina and treating him with brandy. Then, faced with oncoming darkness they chose a faster route down the mountain than the switchbacks they had come up only to find themselves finally at the bottom, but halfway around the mountain from their car.
Bill had a leather bound volume with entries beginning in 1967, the year he left the Jesuits, and other entries as recent as last year’s retreat on Lake Superior only half a year after Regina’s death.
Tom spoke of opening boxes of his mother’s containing his foot-print as a baby, his receiving blanket and wondering about the transitions he’s gone through since that time, feeling some of them as he found more and more items. Now, he lives in the moment, trying to show up at each momentary transition as his best self.
Scott is decluttering his downstairs to develop an apartment for his stepson, but this has involved moving decades worth of Yin’s fashion designer remnants: clothing, cloth. The big question is what to do with it all.
Mark talked of the transition from the country (Marine) to the city (a block or so from Frank). He lifted up a deer antler that he found in California and spoke of the mystical masculinity of a buck, an antlered buck, especially one in velvet.
Stefan announced his leaving his position at Crane Engineering for a calmer life.
It was a powerful evening on many levels, including the stories of two guests.
