Commentary on the news, Jefferson County, Mountains, Politics, US History

American Authoritarianism

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Lugnasa                                                                       Superior Wolf Moon

Black Mountain in the cloudsThis morning Black Mountain has a shroud of gray white fog slumping down its eastern slope. Rain water puddles on the driveway and the overall feel is early fall. As we prefer it here on Shadow Mountain.

Could this election get weirder? I’d have said no, but the Donald keeps surprising me, all of us. As his polls slump like the fog on Black Mountain, certain Republicans have begun raising money for Hillary, admitting openly that they will vote for her, too. This group includes members of congress and a former primary candidate for President, Meg Whitman. That’s very strange.

But, wait! There’s more. Now the Dump Trump folks have begin wondering in interviews if he can be forced to drop out. Or, perhaps he’ll just choose to drop out, some hope. So, members of his own party are campaigning against him while others are trying for an unprecedented, geez I think I’ll just quit you. This all very new stuff in American politics, like seeing a rare bird and getting to add it to your life list.

He will not drop out. His self-image is of a fighter and a winner. Fighters don’t quit and winners don’t lose. From a political hobbyists point of view this is a most excellent campaign. Not the same old boring cereal we get every morning for breakfast.

Over the next decade plus the significance of this race will become clear. The most interesting analysis I’ve found so far links Trump to the rise of voters seeking an authoritarian leader. Read this Vox.com article: The Rise of American Authoritarianism. Research into the phenomenon of authoritarian leaders has its origins in the puzzling question of how Germany pivoted to Nazism in such a short period of time. There are now several well-regarded academic works that focus on answering that question. Some of them look at American culture, probing for similarities to post-Weimar Germany.

In this understanding, with which I agree, Trump is not the cause, but the effect. Another good article on the political roots of this new American authoritarianism comes from NYT columnist, Charles Blow: Trump Reflects White Male Fragility.

Minnesota, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Superior Wolf

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Lugnasa                                                               Superior Wolf Moon

Luna in snow (International Wolf Center)
Luna in snow (International Wolf Center)

So, you might ask, why Superior Wolf Moon? Well, I’m in the Superior Wolf world now and plan to stay in it until I have a new first draft. I conceived this story idea back in 1999, have picked it up and put it down several times. Now though I’ve got traction, I’m having fun and I’m finally going to finish it, probably around this time next year, maybe a bit sooner. Every one’s a little different. Superior Wolf Moon is a device to remind me of that commitment every day for the the duration of this moon cycle.

 

 

Commentary on the news, Family, Politics

The Politics of the Crips and the Bloods

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Lugnasa                                                                     Superior Wolf Moon

Not sure if it’s wishful thinking on my part, but it appears that Trump has begun, finally, to self destruct. A normal politician, no matter how he felt about the Khan’s, would recognize that his approach to this Gold Star family is destructive to his own chances to win the election. At that point some face saving (read hypocritical) story would be concocted, trotted out at a press conference or two, then the issue would be ignored. But, not candidate Trump.

Nope, he bullies right along, his thin skin rent, his dignity in tatters because (in his opinion) of the nasty Muslims who attacked his honor. This is the politics of the Crips and the Bloods where being dissed is rationale for a drive-by shooting, in Trump’s case a drive-by mouthing.

Jon’s back to work today, going over to Centennial for breakfast at his principal’s house, then out to visit a few students in their homes.

Kate’s meeting Penny Bond, her long time friend and financial advisor, for lunch. Penny comes to Denver once a year to see an old Stanford friend.

 

 

 

Dogs, Family, Our Land and Home, Photography

Love is Enough

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Lugnasa                                                                           Superior Wolf (new) Moon

love is enough
love is enough

A gray morning on Shadow Mountain. Cooled down yesterday, feels good. The painting and staining are done. Next up is the downstairs bathroom. Zero entry shower. Some quiet here right now.

Kate finished a project begun after my 2013 trip to the Pre-Raphaelite show at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. This needlepoint came from the museum shop for the Pre-Raph show. When we get it framed, it will have a small plaque that reads, Vega.

Jon starts back to his work tomorrow. He’s the art teacher at Montview Elementary in Aurora, an eastern suburb of Denver. It’s been a summer of lawyers and courts, frustrations and doubts for him. He’s looking forward to getting back to work with his students. The commute from here to his school, we’re some distance west from the west edge of Denver and Aurora’s on the eastern edge, is substantial, but common for folks who live in the Conifer area.

While at the Denver County Fair, I got this photograph of three young Latinas dressed up to party.

Latinas at the Denver County Fair

 

 

Commentary on Religion, Great Wheel, Holidays, Myth and Story

Lughnasa 2016

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Lughnasa                                                                        Superior Wolf (new) Moon

IMAG0882Lughnasa opens the harvest season, celebrating the Celtic God of arts and sciences, bright Lugh. Its emphasis on the harvest, however, comes in honor, not of Lugh himself, but of his foster mother, Tailtiu. (most of the information here comes from Myth*ing Links Lammas page.)

Tailtiu was, in a mythic rendering of Ireland’s ancient history, one of the Fir Bolg, the fourth of six peoples to invade and settle Ireland. The first three groups left the island or were eliminated, each one leaving an empty country for the next invasion. Tailtiu was a royal lady, a ruler among the Fir Bolg, captured when the Fir Bolg fell to the Tuatha de Danann, the fifth of the invaders. The Tuatha de Danann are a supernatural race who became the primary gods and goddesses of pre-Christian Ireland.

The conquering Tuatha de Danann forced Tailtiu to take on a decidedly unroyal task, the clearing of a great forest to create fields for agriculture. She succeeded, but in the process exhausted herself and died. Her body, buried beneath a hillock, the mound of Tailte, gave fertility to the newly made grain fields.

IMAG0718As the first year’s grain crops began to ripen, Tailtiu’s foster son, Lugh, decreed funeral games be held in her honor. They were held, in the beginning of August, at the mound of Tailte. Over time these games at the start of the harvest season became common throughout Ireland.  Market days and ceremonies that honored not only the grain harvest, but the work of those who farmed the earth, became part of Lugh’s original celebration of his foster mother.

Tailtiu might have been an earlier goddess of the earth. In this understanding, which makes mythic sense, Lughnasa gives prominence to the sacrifice of the soil, necessary for a crop to grow. Myth*ing links quotes an article by Mara Freeman on an earlier name for the festival, Brón Trogain, which refers to the painful labor of childbirth.

The funeral games for Tailtiu, and the subsequent extended festival known as Lughnasa, have continued life in the U.S. as county and state fairs. The early Irish and Scots immigrants to this country brought their harvest celebrations with them. The last of the three harvest celebrations, Samhain, the end of the harvest and summer’s end, we celebrate as Halloween.

Family, Latin, Our Land and Home, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Journal July 30, 2016

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Last Day of Summer                                                           Park County Fair Moon

chiefhosa300We’re glad to be doing this, having Jon here, seeing the grandkids more often as they come to be with him. It’s important, as important as anything we could be doing right now. It does remind me, however, that we’re used to a somewhat more, ok a lot more, sedate style of daily life. The change is good for us though, keeping us engaged. And, a bit tired.

Yesterday we hit 90+ here. Even with the lower humidity it was downright unpleasant. Ruth was sick, Gabe, too, so we didn’t go to the Denver County Fair. This morning instead.

Jon worked on the walnut top shelf for the three lower sections of shelving in the loft. With the staining process he’s chosen, the walnut will show off its dark, close to black color and create a strong contrast with the birch bookshelving that now lines the loft. He’s also preparing the final coat on the art cart’s distressed oak table top, the oak that came from the bed of a junked tractor-trailer. Once both of these are done, I plan to spend a good bit of time rearranging my library, putting up or placing art, getting this wonderful space Kate found for me into its final (for now) configuration.

I am back at work on Superior Wolf. After I reimagined the story, taking it back to its deep origins in the primordial gods and goddesses of ancient Greece, things seemed to fall into place. I have two novels that I’ve been using as models, the sort of big thing I’d like to produce: The Historian and Jonathan Strange and Dr. Morrel. They both took a quirky, but deeply researched approach to, on the hand, vampirism, and on the other, black magic. They were original within an often cliched genre, surprising in their treatment. That’s what I want for Superior Wolf and Jennie’s Dead.

Still nothing on the Latin. I won’t leave all those years of work on the side, I know it, but I’m finding the discipline difficult right now.

 

Colorado, Family, Great Wheel, Holidays, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase, US History, World History

The Harvest Season Is Nigh

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Summer                                                                    Park County Fair Moon

Jon, Ruth, GabeInto Denver for the Denver County Fair today with Jon and the grandkids. Our county and state fairs, stocked with canned goods and quilts and wholesome teenagers with Guernseys and prize boars, are in the Lughnasa spirit. Lughnasa, starting on August 1st, is a Celtic holiday of first fruits. Also called Lammas in the Catholic tradition, villagers brought bread baked from the first wheat to mass.

Each of the cross quarter days in the Celtic calendar: Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasa and Samhain were the occasion for weeklong market fairs. Goods were sold, contracts for marriage and work made and broken, dancing happened around bonfires, general merriment abounded as individuals tied to the grinding daily labor of subsistence agriculture found themselves with time free for fun.

In our hearts we are a rural country still and there is something deeply satisfying about seeing sheep, cows, chickens, rabbits in competition for some mysterious (to city dwellers, now the dominant fair goer type) prize. Yes the number of family farms is at its lowest point in the nation’s history, but we have a communal memory of the time when most of us lived on the small farms that used to dot the land. In fact that small farming culture was often subsistence farming, very similar to the sort of rural life in the Celtic countries of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Breton, and Cornwall.

It is this underlying sensibility of lives lived close to the land that seems so absent from our political discourse in this election. We are a people of the plow, the barn, the hay rick. We masquerade as global sophisticates, but in truth the itch to grow tomatoes or to have a small herb garden is as American as, well, apple pie, which we will see on display at the Denver County Fair, I have no doubt.

Lughnasa begins the harvest season which continues through the feast of Mabon at the autumnal equinox and ends on Samhain, or Summer’s End. It is one of my favorite times of the year, only the dead of winter is better for my soul.

 

Aging, Family, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Sinking Behind Black Mountain

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Summer                                                                      Park County Fair Moon

The sun is on its way down, sinking behind Black Mountain. I don’t often write in the evenings anymore because I’m usually downstairs in the house. Tonight I came up after a sweatshirt. It gets cool reliably around 7 pm or so.

It also gets quieter here in the evening. The motorcyclists have made it to wherever they were headed. The cars loaded with camping gear have found a spot for the night. The Denver tourists headed to Upper Maxwell Falls trailhead have returned to the city. No bicyclists. No one walking their dog. A few people are still arriving home from work, probably having driven from downtown Denver.

This has been a hard week. Jon’s most recent encounter with the courts got at least part of the divorce mess sorted out. Kate drove home from Jackson Hole. The last of the painting project is almost wrapped up. Kate and I went to the grocery store today, a task that proves physically difficult with our mutual arthritic thises and thatses. The days have been warmer than I prefer, though definitely more tolerable than Denver proper.

A possible arc upward does seem hidden in the detritus. Jon has more predictability now in his life. The long work of staining and painting has all but ended which means no more extra cars and people around during the day. BJ’s injury is healing, headed toward what her surgeon believes will be a good recovery. He says she should be playing again in a couple of months.

Lugnasa lies just ahead, two days. That means the peak heat of the summer has begun to wane. The nights will get cooler, the days shorter. Welcome changes.  Summer is my least favorite season and was so even during our intensive gardening days in Andover. I don’t like the heat, even the more modest heat that we get here. The vegetables and fruits and bees needed it, we welcomed its results, but not its presence.  I’ll be glad to move into August, even more so September.

 

 

Commentary on the news, Politics, US History

A Most Profound Election

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Summer                                                                 Park County Fair Moon

Right now I’m watching the polls, reading analysts, following stories of both campaigns. A political junkie since age 5, this is by far the strangest, the most bizarre Presidential election I’ve ever seen. It may also be one of the most profound.

Not for the candidates. Hardly. Hillary does not represent my politics, nor my vision of the Democratic party. I don’t find her untrustworthy so much as I do unlikable and too centrist. I will vote for her and happily though. Not because she’s not the Donald (sorry about the double negative), but because a Democrat in the Whitehouse is better than a Republican.

Trump represents a worrying trend in contemporary politics: the strong man, the anti-politician, the glib hand, the one whose supposed virtue is in having no political track record. Then there’s the not small matter of his character. He’s a blowhard, a know nothing, petty and mean. Aaaccchhh!

Why profound then, if not for the candidates? Because this election season has laid bare so many fundamentals of our polity, so many fundamentals that have lain unaddressed under Republican and Democrats alike. Wealth and wage inequality of a dimension unseen in decades. The shrinking middle class. The erosion of working class jobs, an erosion so severe that their jobs often no longer exist. The fear of white, uneducated men and women about their economic future. The awful rat-a-tat-tat of violence of all kinds, done by guns of all kinds, by homegrown terrorists, cops, angry African-Americans, garden variety punks and thugs. The still strong pressure to hold women out of real power. The role of immigrants in this land filled by immigrants.

These are not our only issues, but they are ones so stubborn, so apparently intractable that they have been ignored or stalemated. It may be morning in America, but the sunlight isn’t hitting every home. Many people remain in the shadows, their lives contracted and miserable.

As in medicine, if you can’t diagnose a problem, then you’ll have real difficulty trying to solve it. This election, by boiling these issues to the top, and, paradoxically, by handing us two candidates ill suited to the times, underlines the critical importance of the electorate as problem solvers. Now that we’ve seen the fractures in our common bond, we can begin to hunt for solutions and for politicians who can help us implement them.