Fall Waxing Harvest Moon Let’s try darkness again. In Taoism the familiar Taiji makes my point about the essential and complementary nature of light and dark. Taoism gives equal weight to the yin and yang* represented in the taiji, the small circle of yin within the yang and of yang within the yin, emphasizing the […]
Read the rest of this entry »How We Discover Who We Are
Summer Waxing Grandchildren Moon Sl-o-w-i-n-g dowwwnn. Ah. Life returns in the emptiness. Doing gives us fuel, puts us in life, covers our lives with experience, action, momentum. Without doing we would not live, not be different from the rock in the garden. But. Without emptiness, without ceasing from action, from planning, from expecting, from measuring […]
Read the rest of this entry »Beltane: 2010
Beltane Waning Flower Moon The old Celtic calendar divided the year into two seasons, Summer and Winter. Summer began on Beltane, May 1st, and ended at Samhain, Summer’s End, at October 31st. Summer is the growing season, the time when a subsistence farming economy like that of the Celts in Britain and Ireland raised food […]
Read the rest of this entry »Don’t like the weather? Tough.
Imbolc New Moon (Wild) We have more snow. Not a lot, maybe a couple of inches. It makes the whiteness fresh. Some folks have begun to complain that this winter has gone on too long and that this snow insults us. The weather is. It neither goes on too long, nor stops too soon. Our […]
Read the rest of this entry »Leaving Denver
Winter Waxing Cold Moon The decompression has begun. My suitcase awaits only my dopp kit to be ready to go. A shower, final packing and I’ll be ready. Ready, that is, to drop off the rental car before noon then spend three hours at the Denver Airport before my 3:00 pm flight back to the […]
Read the rest of this entry »The Tea Ceremony on Tour
Beltane Full Flower Moon Two tours this morning. The first, a Visual Thinking Strategies, for third graders from Maxfield school in St. Paul went well. The kids attention petered out after about 45 minutes and we went on search of things they found interesting like guns (flintlock rifles) and a painting of a small dead […]
Read the rest of this entry »Eat a Peach, Live Forever
75 bar falls 29.75 1mph WSW dewpoint 41 Beltane New Moon (Hare Moon) I chose the English medieval name for the moon this month because of a wonderful incense burner in the Weber Collection. It is a bronze bunny, eyes lifted toward the moon, ears erect. There are holes where the ears meet the head […]
Read the rest of this entry »A Burning Tree
65 bar falls 29.94 0mph S dewpoint 30 Beltane New Moon (Hare Moon) The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life and activity; it affords protection to all beings. (Buddhist Sutra) Though this comes from a […]
Read the rest of this entry »The Wollemi Pine–Live From the Carboniferous
33 bar steep rise 30.06 5mph N dewpoint 22 Spring Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing The workshop I attended today had two co-sponsors, The Institute for Advanced Studies (UofM) and the Arboretum(UofM). This was the culminating workshop in a two-year long effort by the Institute for Advanced Studies to explore time from many perspectives. […]
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Hail, La Nina
Imbolc New (Bloodroot) Moon A while back I asked John Harstad, then the naturalist at Cedar Creek Nature Center, a wonderful place run by the University of Minnesota and only about 15 miles from home, about first signs of spring. His answer coincided with a local master gardener, “Bloodroot blooms.” Since that should happen within […]
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