Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Holidays, Humanities, Weather +Climate

The Residue of Sacred Time

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Beltane                                           Full Planting Moon

I’ve done some weeding, well, a good bit of weeding, but the heat, now 89 and direct, drove me back inside.  At least the dew point is reasonable, but over 80 and I begin to wilt.  Three cheers for central air conditioning.  Over the years I’ve adapted to the Norwegian lifestyle, that is, living like we were in Norway with no windows or doors.  Now it’s important to me.

That holiday penumbra has fallen over time, a sense that fireworks and hot dogs, or gods on pedestals carried by shouting crowds, or parades with car after car of  young women doing the wave or a hushed night filled with candles and quiet might break out at any moment.   Sacred time comes to us in many guises and its residue, as we grow older, collects on our soul, offering us a taste of eternity each holiday, birthday, anniversary.  This residue is one of the unexpected and great joys of aging.  I can hear the marching bands passing, the quiet congregation praying, family members talking while decorating the offrenda, the winter winds howling on a solstice night.

A weekend to remember.

Great Work, Politics

Pssst. Hey, Buddy! Wanna See An Oil Spill?

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Beltane                                     Full Planting Moon

I’ve tried various ways to embed this here, but couldn’t succeed.  This is a link to a curious p.r. move by BP, a live video feed of the oil as it gushes out of the broken well head.  There is, too, a clicker that gives news about the quantity of oil released by the hour, since the accident and projected into the future.

horizon-oil-spill.html

Media, Memories

A Drive Down Mainstreet of My Hometown

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Beltane                                      Full Planting Moon

Ah, the internet.  It can suck you in and keep you in place longer than you intended.  I found this quirky video, a drive on Harrison Street, the main street of Alexandria.  If you notice the Masonic Lodge he shows about halfway through, our house was just behind it, flanked by two nearby funeral homes.

The character who took this I don’t know, but he’s real familiar anyhow.

Aging, Friends, Garden, Memories

Small Towns

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Beltane                                             Full Planting Moon

As a cold winds down, the body’s defenses leave sludge from the war behind, most of it right now parked  behind my cheek bones.  I don’t know whether I really haven’t had a cold in two years or whether my memory isn’t what it was, but I know it’s been a while.  I remember why I don’t like being sick each time I get sick.  It feels yucky.  My plan is, next cold, 2012, just in time for the apocalypse.

A classmate from Alexandria High wrote on my facebook wall inquiring about my health.  Larry Maple has gone to a lot of effort planning a big reunion for our class, our 45th, this fall.  To have someone from home ask about my health created an unexpected warmth.  In a small town like Alexandria people know you, know how you are, care about how you are.  These small gestures, inquiring about health, being aware of a child’s graduation or birthday, remembering communal events create a web of concern that is community.

(Larry volunteers here, as did my Dad.)

In the teenage years this scrutiny can seem overwhelming and intrusive, invasive, so it’s no surprise that many small town teens, myself included, can’t wait to leave and to leave for a more anonymous environment like a big city or a big college campus.  As we age, though, those small gestures can make the actual difference between health and illness.  Then, the small town doesn’t seem invasive, rather it seems supportive and caring.

Of course, neither end of the continuum is the truth.  Small towns are networks of caring; they are also webs of prejudice and rigidity where your past never leaves.

To the weed front.  With hoe and clippers.

Garden, Health, permaculture

Planting During the Full Planting Moon

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Beltane                                    Full Planting Moon

Ah, the sweet feel of being in synch with the moon.  I planted Scarlet Nantes carrots and golden beets amongst the green onions and the radicchio.  Threw in a few zinnias for good measure.  Next in the onion bed with storage onions, dill, marigolds and some other flower I can’t recall, I planted more carrots, more golden beets and some Red Russian Kale.  Over in the bed with the Russian sage, some leftover onion and garlic and the bok choy, I planted Swiss Chard, beets vulgaris (I love that), the deep red ones, arugula and flame lettuce.

At that point the direct sun got to me so I retreated to the garage to turn on the zone for the area I had just planted.  The beds seemed dry to me, so I wondered about its time and its arc.  Sure enough, it’s going 360 when I want 180.  That means the veggies only get half of the water they need.  Later on the drip irrigation will provide most of what they need, but now, in drier conditions and with seeds starting over-head watering is the best.  I’ll change the arc when it finishes this round.

The cold also leaves me more exhausted than the work would usually suggest.  Now I’m inside for the siesta time period:  lunch, a nap, perhaps some Latin.  As the evening cools, I’m going to go out and at least dead head the grasses and other weeds that are about to go to seed.  Then I can take them out with a hoe at my leisure.

Aging, Dogs, Friends

Sheepshead

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Beltane                                      Full Planting Moon

Sheepshead tonight.  We get in lots of jokes and laughing during the game.  The best story came from Dick Rice, who says he got it from a relative of Flannery O’Connor.  He told it in response to Bill mentioning Vega and the rabbit.

This guy’s dog brought home the neighbors pet rabbit, a pet she prized.  The rabbit was dead and the guy felt embarrassed, wasn’t sure quite what to do, so he wiped off the rabbit, washed it off in the sink and dried it carefully with a towel.  His neighbor had not come home from work at this point, so he snuck over to her house.  In her backyard he carefully took the now clean, but obviously still dead, rabbit and placed it in the house she had built for it.

The next day he saw her crying and went over to her yard.

“Oh, my.  You’ll never believe what happened!” she said, tears streaming down her face.

“What?  What happened?” he said.

“Well, my rabbit died the other day and I buried her in the backyard, but somehow she came back and ended up in her house again.”

True or not, it’s a great story.

Holidays, Memories, Weather +Climate

Starting back up with Strib blogs

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Beltane                               Full Planting Moon

“To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.” – Confucius

The dew point has dropped into  northern numbers.  The sun shines, but the heat has not cranked up into Louisiana bayou territory like it did on Monday.  We have good daytime dew points through Sunday, though nighttime dew points will be high Friday and Saturday.

No severe weather in the forecasts for the next few days with the exception of possible thunderstorms later Sunday and Sunday night.   This looks a genuine outdoor grillin’, bike ridin’, gardenin’, relative visitn’ holiday weekend on this the school kids’ usual date marking the beginning of summer.

The Celts, who divided their year into four parts, saw May 1 as the beginning of the summer season while   more astronomically inclined cultures made it toward the end of June with the solstice that has become known as the summer solstice, on or about June 20th.  As a kid in central Indiana, where Memorial Day and Labor Day were the twin gate posts to Summerland, this was the true start.  Funny how it’s remained that way for me over all these years.

cnsw527

Humanities

1:1-20

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Beltane                                            Full Planting Moon

This morning I had scheduled for Ovid.  I’m down to verse 20 of the first book, about 14,980 verses to go.  I’ve not checked 10-20 with my tutor, so my translations are tentative until tomorrow.  Still, I made sense of the Latin in a way that seems right.

Now, my cold and I are going to bed.  See if we can sleep this miserable rhino virus into the afterlife.

Art and Culture, Bees, Friends, Garden, Health

Good for the Crops

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Beltane                                               Full Planting Moon

Much of our garden is a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.  If it doesn’t produce leggy plants that focus on leaves, that should mean increased productivity for the vegetables.  Since we would not have put the honey supers on the parent colony until after the division and since division is normally done on or around May 15th, we’re a couple of weeks ahead on honey production, too.  To paraphrase a canard I’ve seen a lot of late, we write the garden plans in pencil, mother nature, however, controls the eraser.

One of the chief delights of the docent program at the MIA is the number of intelligent autodidacts you get to meet.    I’m sure there are other collecting points for such people, but it takes a person committed to new knowledge to start the two-year training program and its three years after obligation for tours.  Since many of the people, over half I’d say, are retirement age or close to it, this signals a willingness to take on challenge at a point that many people dream of the eternal game of golf or the everlasting fishing expedition, a forever weekend of quilting bees or an eternity of television induced stupefaction.

Summer colds have a special insult, that drug down feeling contrasts sharply with the sunny weather and the pleasant temperatures.  I slept poorly last night, but I got up with the dogs this am because they’re like cattle.  You have to feed them and care for them no matter how you feel.  A good thing, really, but it didn’t feel like it at 7:00 am.

Onto Ovid, then back to bed.

Art and Culture, Family, Friends, Politics

Japanese Armor and Flights West

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Beltane                           Waxing Planting Moon

Up early.  For me.  7 am.  Had to get Kate to the bank and to the airport by ten.  We made it.  Her plane took off at 11:45, (turned out to be 1:15 pm instead) so Delta promised.  I haven’t heard from her yet, but I imagine she’s there and in her hotel and asleep.

The airport always makes me laugh.  The alert level remains at orange.  Does anybody recall what that means?  I don’t.  Also, the sign suggests, report suspicious activity.  Call 911.  Irony aside, I wonder how many calls they get?  After, of course, you screen  out the people who call all the time.  Not that threats are not real, and certainly not that they should be taken lightly, rather the government that gives the same message over and over and over and over while nothing happens begins to look silly, out of touch.  They need to do something different.

Since I live up north, I rarely have the opportunity (challenge) to drive on Hwy 62, but I took it into the Museum.  Boy.  What a ride.  The new ramp that carries west bound 62 traffic onto Hwy 35 sweeps up in a broad, elegant curve.  At its apex, the view offered of downtown Minneapolis has a picture postcard look.  A great way to introduce newcomers to the city.

George Hisaeda, Consul General of Japan at Chicago, offered commendation to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts for its dedication to Japanese arts, and the acquisition of an important suit of armor.  I went to this hoping to hear the lecture by Matthew Welch that I missed earlier.  The Consul General offered kudos to the MIA for its fine presentation of Japanese culture and arts.  He also commended Matthew Welch on his remarkable work building the collection since 1990.

After the Consul’s presentation, Matthew gave an abbreviated version of his explanation of the armor.  Tom Byfield, my seat mate, wrote notes in spite of the dark.  I hope my eyes improve enough to work as well as his do.  In fact, I hope they improve, very unlikely.

After the armor conversation, we had a meeting of the docent discussion group or whatever it is and decided on events for the summer:  a tour on music by Merritt, a public arts tour in July and a photography event with the curator of photography in August.

Back home for a nap.  This cold I’ve got, the first I can remember in 2+ years, made me very tired, so I slept soundly.  Worked out.  Had a political committee meeting with the Sierra Club.  I serve on this one as a non-voting member.  Works out well since I can use the phone.

Talked to Kate whose flight was delayed an hour and a half here and the baggage was delayed an hour in San Francisco.  She got assistance at both airports though and reported a tiring journey, but a successful one.  As only a meeting of physicians can do, registration for her conference is at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow morning.  Perhaps, it is just occurred to me, based on peoples time zone habits.

Over and out.