Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon
Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Taking out the garbage. Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’. 46 degrees this morning. The Mule Deer Doe resting in my back yard. The shema. Lunch with Ruth and Gabe. Insurance and cancer. Sullen Sky. Gyros. Kafta Kabob. Irv. Ode. Bill. Zoom. Guns at CBE. Concealed carry? Rich. Tara. Veronica. Diane’s great card.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Summer Solstice tomorrow
One brief shining: On the Summer Solstice Swedes get naked and dance around huge bonfires, a form of sympathetic magic I suppose, celebrating Fire with Fire, heat with heat, the growing season still needing Great Sol; sure and I get that, but I celebrate it in a quieter, less obvious way since the Summer Solstice, the longest day, also marks the gradual triumph of the dark-the night grows minute by minute after this sweaty Solstice, moving toward the longest night of the year.
Each morning I wake up and look out in the back. Hoping for an Elk or a Mule Deer to be there. This morning, far back in the tall Grass growing over my drain field lay a Mule Deer Doe, gently gazing around, comfortable and quiet. I find a satisfaction in these instances. Unearned, of course. Even so. For a while my temporary property feels safe enough, welcoming enough for a rest, a moment in a life lived on the move hunting for nourishment, avoiding Mountain Lions, drinking from our Mountain Streams. Ichi-go, ichi-e.
May our lives as we live them provide safe harbor for the souls of others, Mule Deer and humans alike.
Conversation with Ruth yesterday over lunch. She’s pro-Palestinian, anti-IDF war, pro-Israel, anti-Hammas. Same as me. She’s frustrated because her peers, even her Jewish peers, reduce thought about the war in Gaza to slogans and simplistic analysis. As she says, it’s complicated. Luke, of Leo and Luke, has become so pro-Palestinian that he bridles at the mere mention of a pro-Israeli sentiment. Others at CBE want the IDF to eliminate Hamas and do whatever it takes to accomplish that. Easy to see where eliminate Hamas no matter what it takes and the River to the Sea have taken root as contrasting driving forces.
As I talked with her, I imagined her in her dorm room holding these debates with her roommates, others from down the hall. A teeny bit of envy crept up. I loved that part of college. Loved it so much that I never quit with the radical questioning of that time. She’s so bright and thoughtful. A rapidly maturing mind at work. Amazing and gratifying to see.
Just a moment: Willie Mays is dead. 93. Baseball back when. Back when I listened to the Brooklyn Dodger’s games on the transistor radio I clipped to my belt while delivering the Alexandria Times-Tribune. There was a purity in my love of the game which Willie Mays played so well. My son still has it, bless his heart.
I imagine in fact that some of the MAGA nostalgia comes from remembering those days of the 1950’s, the time after World War II when American life exploded with children and UFO sightings. And the next decade with NASA and high-finned cars. Easy to remember the 104 stolen bases of Maury Wills and forget the budding war in Vietnam, the Jim Crow south, women in the kitchens and gay folks in the closet.
