Samain (full) Thanksgiving Moon
(N.B. I love vintage images on the web. I’m including here some of the weird ones I found while checking out Thanksgiving.)
We put out our best aluminum tins from Tony’s. Mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, sage stuffing, green beans almondine. I plunged the plastic bag of turkey gravy in boiling water. The turkey breast went in a shallow pan with a 1/2 cup of water. We have two ovens and the top one, the smaller of the two, did its job well for the potatoes and the stuffing.
The larger, lower oven not so much. After almost an hour in an oven reputed to be at 350 degrees the turkey hardly moved the dial on the meat thermometer. Well. Perfect. No Thanksgiving is complete without some culinary malfunction. Kate suggested I slice the breast and warm the pieces in the microwave. How did we ever survive without microwaves? Many of you remember the primitive past. Today’s kids don’t know how lucky they are.
On the table sat our finest paper plates, a big turkey printed on them saying gobble, gobble, gobble. The napkins had pumpkins and vines and stuff. The meal was very good and aside from the now suspect ovens (I won’t mention that the other one went wonky, too.) exceeded my hopes.
We talked about the usual Thanksgiving topics.That dumb#$! in the Whitehouse. The ruination of American culture by technology. No, wait a minute. That was somebody else’s house.
We talked about Annie’s retirement from the Scott County jail after 30 years of public service. Learning how to be retired is not something we anticipate, but it can be a real challenge. She’s working on it. And getting there, I think.
Jon’s car came up. Always a fruitful topic. He’s putting on a new axle today, getting ready to refit several bushings. His hearing next Tuesday for the misdemeanor. Ruth and Gabe. “They eat whole baguettes. I have to hide them.”
Kate’s two months from hell. A modest amount of this excellent meal sent her straight to bed. Not sure where we go from here. Smoothies and Korean food, maybe.
Jon and I talked for awhile after Kate went to bed and Annie went up for a nap. He took home a large chunk of turkey breast, sweet potatoes, sage stuffing and green beans. “Next year my kitchen should be done. We can have Thanksgiving there.” Sounds good to me.
In between all this I’m still learning about planets and glyphs, natal charts, signs, houses. The big task though is not directly astrology related. I’m going to figure out the notion of the archetype once and for all. After reading Tarnas, I’m convinced archetypes are a big clue to the efficacy of astrology, but how does that work? And, just what is an archetype anyhow?
Woke up this morning and did my gratitude practice. At night I consider all the gifts I got during that day, all the gifts I gave, and any trouble I caused. In the morning I start out with what I’m grateful for right now. Both practices seem to soothe me, put me in a place to receive and accept blessings. Life’s a hell of a lot better when I’m in that sorta space.
So. If you’re reading this, I’m grateful you took the time. Thanks.
