Summer and the Herme Moon
Friday gratefuls: Joan. Alan. Bread Lounge pastries. The Cuban. Calendars. Mayan. Gregorian. Julian. Lunar. Jewish. Celtic. The Great Wheel. Seasons. Living into revelation. Living with revelation. Seeing the sacred. Seeing yourself as you are. The examined life. The authentic life. The life that burns away everything but love. Psilocybin. Guides. The layers of our selves. Inner life. Acting. The Trail to Cold Mountain. Brother Mark and sister Mary. My son, Seoah, Murdoch. Korea.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: honest conversation
One brief shining: After I exercise, I go out on the loft’s deck, sit in the wicker chair carried here from Andover when we had that glass table top, Great Sol still behind the garage because it’s close to noon, and look at my house, the Lodgepoles in the yard, up to Black Mountain, the ski runs there carved by privilege “earned” in the petroleum addiction trade, and pinch myself yes you do live here.
Feeling even better about long periods of time alone. Yet also with times, often intense times in conversation. Going into the world of shared life with Rebecca, Tom, Diane, Alan, Luke, Rabbi Jamie, the Ancient Brothers, Joan, Tal. With the mussar group. With MVP. With Rich and Ron. This rhythm of welcome isolation and precious time with others feels like the right mix for me these days. I do wonder as I write this what I do for fun. Not much as I review my life over the last few years. The occasional hike. Movie. A nice meal out. Keeping up with F1. Art used to have a big role for me. Not so much now. Perhaps that’s something I can change. Maybe learning Magic: the Gathering will open up an avenue for me. What do you do for fun?
The Trail to Cold Mountain. Learning it a page at a time. A focus for the next three days. I talked to Ann yesterday. She’d doing the calligraphy for Cold Mountain’s poems. I also asked her to make me a white banner with Cold Mountain’s name in Chinese. Two characters. If she can, I’ll hang it in the background as part of the scene setting. The rest of the scene is this:
Deep in a land of Mountains and Forests. In front of a cliff, a cave. A grove of pine trees opens out from the cave. A campfire burns in the grove, lighting the cave with flickers of light and shadow. Cut logs serve as chairs around the fire. Evening has fallen and a cool breeze carries the scent of pines and a not too distant river. Far off is the place Herme chooses to live. Green peaks in the background.
Since I completed my first draft, it’s taken up less mental space. Though. If all goes well and other folks think it’s worth expanding, too, it may take up a good deal of my time after I get done traveling. Adding more scenes, extending the run time from 20 minutes or so to over an hour.
May have gone a little overboard with all this. I bought a woodsman’s shirt, pants. A gourd like Chinese scholars used to hold wine. I’m spending a tidy sum having Ann do the calligraphy for the poems and perhaps the banner. Not to mention the cost of the class. Going to check with the Magic Castle, a costume place, and other prop shops to see if I can rent a woolen hooded green cloak and woodsman’s boots. Wish I’d thought of costume rental before I bought the outfit, but…
