Du Fu, Li Bai and Wang Wei

August 8, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

79 bar steep drop 29.95 0mph S dew-point 54 sunrise 6:06 sunset 8:30 Lughnasa

First Quarter of the Corn Moon moonrise 1326 moonset 2226

Each day of the Olympics I will post a poem from a famous Chinese poet. Du Fu, Li Bai and Wang Wei are the three most admired T’ang dynasty poets. It is so easy to forget that this last century is only a tiny portion in the sweep of Chinese civilization. In all the sturm und drang about the rise of China the fact that China has risen and fallen many times over the last 5,000 plus years often remains buried. That’s right, 5,000 years of a continuous culture, sometimes dominant, sometimes ruled by foreigners, many of whom embraced Chinese civilization.

It is arrogant of us to judge China by our standards, standards that have stood nowhere near the test of time. In China the collective always comes before the individual, at least that has been true historically. This is not to say that there have not been individualists in Chinese history. Taoism tends to produce them, as does the famous literati system of rule by intellectuals. Many painters and poets also walked their own distinctive paths.

Well, anyhow, China doesn’t need my defense. I just want to add a bit from the depth of Chinese culture as we go through Olympics which often seem more about air pollution and human rights than sport.

Yes, I know. This seems like a conservative position, but in reality it is a position informed more by anthropology and history, a position not too different from walk a mile in the other person’s moccasin.

I spent an hour or so this morning admiring the work of the Irishmen who dug ditches. Put the shovel in the earth, push it down, lift it up, heave. Repeat. Not back breaking, but a workout. I had a good nap. The fire pit has begun to appear. It will be deep enough for a fire when the Woollies come, though whether the area around it will be is another matter.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Great Work, Holidays, Writing

How I Work

August 8, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

76 bar falls 30.01 0mph SW dew-point 58 sunrise 6:06 sunset 8:30 Lughnasa

First Quarter of the Corn Moon moonrise 1326 moonset 2226

“More Americans are likely to suffer kidney stones in the coming years as a result of global warming, according to researchers at the University of Texas.” Agence France-Presse, July 2008

N.B. All these quotes about global warming come from this website: The Warmlist. Here’s the webmasters explanation:

“This site is devoted to the monitoring of the misleading numbers that rain down on us via the media. Whether they are generated by Single Issue Fanatics (SIFs), politicians, bureaucrats, quasi-scientists (junk, pseudo- or just bad), such numbers swamp the media, generating unnecessary alarm and panic. They are seized upon by media, hungry for eye-catching stories. There is a growing band of people whose livelihoods depend on creating and maintaining panic. There are also some who are trying to keep numbers away from your notice and others who hope that you will not make comparisons. Their stock in trade is the gratuitous lie. The aim here is to nail just a few of them.”

So, don’t say I didn’t fess up. The Star-Tribune turned me onto this site.

Shifted focus. Gonna work on that firepit. I decided Kate can help me transplant day lilies when she gets home and I’ll still have time to transplant the iris. I get on a task and sometimes don’t lift my headup to check whether it makes sense. Heresy Moves West is an example.

The research alone would take a good bit of time, I knew that. That meant I could not hope to research and write it in the week prior to September 14th. Knowing that I began to develop this knot in my to do lobe. It began to insist, get it done. Get it done now. Right now. This even though the date was 8 weeks away at the time. Anyhow, I finally opened up and let the lobe have its way.

Once begun, research and writing, at least for me, need to be one fluid motion, the research followed by the writing. In my case this is because as I research various ways of slicing and dicing the information comes to me throughout. At night before I go to sleep the data often floats up and demands consideration. Sometimes I make note of these patterns, sometimes not. Often I don’t because I want the order and interpretation fungible to the last possible moment.

Why? In between the research and the writing there is a creative time in which the data and the various arrangements of it begin to pull other information, other paradigms out of my memory. This process can change the data’s relevance. Let me give you an example.

At first I imagined a straight chronological presentation. The Unitarians began at such and such a place at such and such a time. The westward expansion of the US began in this time period. It rolled out according to these stages, in this place at this time and another place at another time until the whole shebang ended up encountering Minnesota. This came to me first because historical movement often seems cleanest presented in chronological order.

Soon though, as the pieces began to swirl, it became clear to me that the historical progression would have to start earlier, then even earlier. I wrote about this a while back, my need for context. When I realized there were big ideas at play here, the order of things changed again. Then it was a history of ideas approach that made more sense, capturing the development of the peculiar notion of religious freedom in the US. As that became clear, a second important dynamic rose to the top, the rolling dialectic between orthodoxy and heterodoxy.

To highlight the ancient character of this dynamic I decided to find its beginnings in the Abrahamic tradition with Abram’s call away from polytheism to allegiance to YHWH.

Both of these decisions meant that the data in the presentation would have to show how the westward movement of heresy (the rolling dialectic of orthodoxy and heterodoxy in Unitarian history) advanced thanks to the first amendment and how it continued the long arc of dogma challenged by new thought. This lead to the realization that the westward expansion of heresy intensified in the atmosphere of freedom and pioneer energy found on the frontier. So, when we end up in Minnesota, the presentations show how religious freedom and the rolling dialectic not only manifest themselves here, but in fact gain strength and intensity.

Finally, that lead to a desire to push the dialectic one step further, beyond the bland everything’s in bounds soup of current day Unitarian-Universalism to the articulation of a new heterodoxy, one opposed to the dogma of one size fits all faith-lite. This piece is the unwritten one at this point.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Weather +Climate

It Forces Me Into the Present

August 7, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

60 bar steady 30.03 0mph NNW dew-pooint 54 sunrise 6:06 sunset 8:31 Lughnasa

First Quarter of the Corn Moon moonrise 1219 moonset 2200

If you’ve ever wondered why I put all this weather and astronomical data first, good question. The immediate answer is because I can. My weather station gives me all the top line data with the exception of the Celtic calendar period, but I know those by heart now. The moon names fascinate me so I have several lists of names from all the over world, and I choose one that feels right for the next month. The lists that usually have the one I want are the Celtic, medieval English, and neo-Pagan, although I always feel a little strange with the last one because I don’t understand the roots. The moonrise and moonset I got from a Naval Observatory website that creates a list for your location.

The secondary answer lies in weather history. When I read back over my entries, I want to know what the conditions were like on the day in question. Again, you ask, why? Sometimes for gardening reasons. Sometimes to jog my memory. Sometimes just for fun.

The tertiary answer, though it may be the primary one, is this: it forces me into the present, right down to the temperature and barometric readings. I like the reminder that this moment is this moment and no other. Right now is right now.

Kate’s in Denver. The dogs are asleep and the HD box has a so-so sci-fi movie on record so I can finish when and if I want.

A wonderful night and a good looking day tomorrow. See you then.

Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Writing

Moving

August 7, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

78 bar falls 30.03 4mph NNW dew-point 53 sunrise 6:05 sunset 8:31 Lughnasa

First Quarter of the Corn Moon

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize that half of them are stupider than that. George Carlin, RIP

Finally. The first drafts of Heresy Moves West and Heresy Moves West II are in the digital file cabinet. They did not end where I had hoped though they cover in very broad strokes the topic I set myself in the beginning. There is a third, unwritten piece that will continue the Heresy, adding one of my own, or, at least, one articulated in my own voice. I will not start on that one anytime soon, however.

Tomorrow AM I plan to take shovel in hand and get to work moving day lilies. This is so I can clear a raised bed of its iris and true lilies by moving them where these hemerocallis live right now. Kate wants hemerocallis to fill the bed out front because she’s tired of weeding that large island east of the driveway. Can do, and I’ll get a start on the morrow.

Onto the treadmill.

Faith and Spirituality, Writing

A Romantic Hymn to the Universal and the Particular

August 7, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

72 bar rises 30.07 1mph N dew-point 57 sunrise 6:05 sunset 8:31 Lughnasa

First Quarter of the Corn Moon

“The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.” – Virginia Woolf

In this case you have to remember that Virginia put rocks in her pockets and drowned herself in the closest flowing water.

Here are some notes. A new direction for liberal religion. Cosmology: a nature centered (including humans) faith that has local manifestations, i.e. this galaxy, this solar system, this planet, this nation, this province, this place, this particular location. (Our Town) Anthropology: we are universes, one self, many selves. Whitman. We grow toward a Self that can contain and nourish all of our many selves, yet paradoxically extinguish them all. Existentialism. Nexus. Ethics: the Iroquois medicine man at Theology in the Americas. Soteriology-see ethics and anthropology. A decadent salvation, from stardust to stardust.

We must answer the thin faith of the empiricist, the sad faith of the secular humanist, the mad faith of the fundamentalists and the mind-only faith of those outside the faith traditions of their youth. Our response, our new direction folds together the empiricist and the humanist with a pagan lovesong, a romantic hymn to the universal and the particular. Its flower symphony trumpets forth from home altars all across the globe, a fragrant and colorful melody that weaves us all together, a magic fabric with each individual, yet each part.

This has legs in my heart, it wants to run and jump and play with others.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, GeekWorld, Great Work, Writing

Just When I Discovered the Meaning of Life, They Changed It.

August 6, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

64 bar rises 30.00 0mph NNW dew-point 60 sunrise 6:05 sunset 8:32 Lughasa

Waxing Crescent of the Corn Moon

Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it. George Carlin, RIP

Kate takes off tomorrow for Grandparent land. In our world that means Pontiac Avenue in Denver, just across Quebec Avenue from the old Stapleton Airport now enjoying a rebirth as Yuppieville. She will visit with Gabe whom she hasn’t seen since his birth and Ruthie. Ruthie runs up to her and says, “Grandma!” Enough to make a grandparent keep coming back for more.

An electronic distress signal has sounded three times since I came down to make this post. It finally dawned on me that it might be my cell phone. Yep. It needs juice and has used some of its last to tell me so. Good boy! Since I have a computer, a UPS, a router, two printers, a weather station and a modem all close by, it took a bit to sort out.

Writing has occupied me three days in a row full time. That’s draining, at least for me. I’m about 3/4’s done, perhaps a bit less. As always, I have learned far more than I can compress, in this case even into two presentations. There is a tendency to use all of it, or at least try, but that makes the piece turgid, reportorial. It needs to have drama and depth, not breadth and length.

There is a cosmology kicking around, a soteriology, an anthropology, an ethic, a tradition with an American twist and the energy to work on it. This is the stuff I tried to get at when I took the Paul Tillich course a couple of years ago. Not yet finished.

And, to finish this post, an alien reaches for the sky. (our wisteria)

Memories

The Nature of Memory

August 6, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

74 bar steady 29.96 0mph NNW dew-point 60 sunrise 6:05 sunset 8:32 Lughnasa

Waxing Crescent of the Corn Moon

“Brothel owners in Bulgaria are blaming global warming for staff shortages. They claim their best girls are working in ski resorts because a lack of snow has forced tourists to seek other pleasures.” Metro, a British newspaper, March 2007

Now there’s a motivator for action!

In my list of very American I knew I put it out there as the world of a Midwestern white male raised in the 1950’s. I just watched an Easy Rollins movie with Denzel Washington as Easy. It reminded me that my view has a certain perspectival bias; that does not make it wrong, of course, just limited. From the others point of view, a girl’s or a woman’s, Latino or Latina, Chinese or Japanese immigrant, member of a First Nation or gay turns the kaleidoscope, changes the color chips through which the nation comes into focus. What might seem bucolic to me could be oppressive or dangerous to another. A comfortable place depends on who seeks comfort.

I’m glad to have that reminder.

Memories

The Old Barber with the Pump Chair and Slick Black Combs in a Pink Bath

August 6, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

79 bar steady 29.95 2mph N dew-p0int 60 sunrise 6:04 sunset 8:32 Lughnasa

Waxing Crescent of the Corn Moon

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” – Thomas Paine

What does it mean to be an American? This is the question I’ve set for the Woollies on August 18th, the gathering here. Paine offers a perspective. An American stands with his country in a time of trial, does not flinch from action when the stakes are high.

We’ve not had times like that often in the American experience, but enough. The revolution. The Civil War. Reconstruction. The Great Depression. WWII. The second Civil War, fought over Civil Rights and our presence in Vietnam. There have been other, less heated moments, still difficult like the temperance fight and women’s suffrage, perhaps the feminist movement’s main time in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.

Still, when I think of what it means to be an American I trend toward adjectives, vignettes, moments rather than political or cultural conflict. Fireworks on the 4th of July. Yellow school buses. Flickering televisions. Traffic jams. Grocery stores with that over abundance. Kids headed to church in ill-fitting fancy clothes. Norman Rockwell moments. The old barber with the pump chair and the slick black combs in a pink bath surround by glass and topped by shiny metal. Drugstores and soda fountains. The Statue of Liberty. The Lincoln Memorial. The Washington monument. American football on Friday and Saturday nights or Sunday afternoon. Hot dogs. Hamburgers with cheese and bacon and fries. Baseball cards. Comic books. Movies. A bright, sunshiny California dreamin. Surfin USA. The Grand Canyon. The Rocky Mountains. The Catskills. Rip Van Winkle. Hudson River School painters. Walt Whitman. Moby Dick. The Scarlet Letter. Those kind of things. Muscular. Proud. Sacrificial. Sad. Arrogant. Salarymen in gray flannel suits. Barely hanging on to the corporate ladder. Milk in glass bottles. The Alamo. Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Log cabins. Maine flannel shirts and lobster. Disney lands. Slave ships. The enslaved. The Emancipation Proclamation. The Monroe Doctrine. The Louisiana Purchase. The Northwest passage. Ice cream and popsicles.

Garden

Wanna See Some Pretty Pictures?

August 6, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

78 bar steady 30.01 0mph NE dew-point 61 sunrise 6:04 sunset 8:32 Lughnasa

Waxing Crescent of the Corn Moon moonrise 12:10pm moonset 10:37pm

“Beer will be (in) short supply, more expensive and may taste different as climate change affects barley production, a scientist says.” News.com.au april, 2008

Now there’s a motivator for action.

Punk Silk on our Country Gentlemen Corn

Our Early Season Onions in the Second Stage of Drying

Kate’s Purple Garden (a small part) in its 4th Year

Faith and Spirituality, Memories, Weather +Climate, World History, Writing

Qin Shi Huang Di

August 5, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

67 bar steady 29.97 0mph NNW dew-point 58 sunrise 6:04 sunset 8:34 Lughnasa

Waxing Crescent of the Corn Moon

Last night I stood outside for a while and listened to the wind rustle the leaves of the poplars and oaks, an invisible hand caressing these giants. Tonight stars dot the sky and the air is quiet, the temperature a cool 66 (dropped a temp since I added the info. bar above.) These nights, summer nights, have stories that reach back in time, memories of cars pulling into neon lit drive-ins, dances in school gymnasiums and midnight rides through the countryside seeking bliss. A special place, the summer night.

Heresy Moves West will have two parts, I see no other way unless I perform drastic surgery on the introductory material, now seven and a half pages. My plan is to finish the second half, the stories and threads of thought that directly result in the building of liberal congregations in Minnesota. This is, of course, the assignment I originally gave myself, but I did not know then the complex of political, theological, institutional and intellectual lines necessary to make the story comprehensible at anything more than a superficial, potted history level. After I finish part II, then I’ll see what can be done with the whole.

The last piece of the whole considers the future, projecting a possible trajectory for the liberal faith tradition in a time of what I perceive as thinness and altogether too disparate a theological base. Here I will begin to answer the problem I addressed in my late night post August 3rd. Ideas have come to me of late and I have a way to go forward, at least one that makes sense to me.

In the build up to the Olympic Games the History Channel and National Geographic have run programs on Qin Shi Huang Di, the unifier and first emperor of China (Qina). His story makes for conflicted reading or watching since he brought the dreadful warring states period to an end by subduing the seven larger states that had survived. He also standardized weights and measures, the width of axels, coinage, language and law. As Chinese history developed after him, both the unification and these measures of standardization contributed to China’s long continuity in culture. In these ways he is the father of China.

He was, however, a cruel man who killed millions to achieve peace. He killed at least a million more building the Great Wall and at least hundreds of thousands building his mausoleum. The legal system he instituted was draconian and ran against the grain of the Confucian thought world that preceded him. His dynasty lasted only one generation beyond his and even that, from his perspective was a failure since he spent the last years of his life in a desperate search for an elixir of immortality.