Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First Moon of the Winter Solstice<\/p>\n
In February I will turn 65.\u00a0 And I’m happy to do it.\u00a0 Not that I have much choice in the matter.\u00a0 What I mean is that I like this time of life and anticipate with pleasure the next decade or two or three.<\/p>\n
This transition has already begun to cause changes.\u00a0 Once back from our cruise in late November, I realized I needed to step back from the Sierra Club and focus on home, family and my work.<\/p>\n
Home and family have obvious content, kids and grandkids, wife, gardens, bees.\u00a0 Remaining active and engaged with all of them.\u00a0 Not that I haven’t but recognizing that the grandparent and long married aspects of those relationships alter past patterns and demand new ones.\u00a0 Just what those are will become evident as I live into them over the next few years.<\/p>\n
My work has three ongoing facets:\u00a0 a series of novels set in the Tailte mythos, reimagining faith and translating Ovid’s Metamorphoses.\u00a0 To this last I have added creation of commentary similar to Pharr’s for Vergil.<\/p>\n
The portion of my life dedicated to art will also to need to change, but I have not yet paid attention to it.\u00a0 At a DAM site, the Palette Restaurant, Kate and I discussed how my relationship with art could transform.<\/p>\n
Art could become a larger part of my writing, using techniques or artists in my fiction.\u00a0 Just how, undetermined right now.<\/p>\n
Reimagining faith has as its long term hope the redefining of our relationship with nature.\u00a0 One way of rethinking, or seeing anew, our current relationship with the world we live is to investigate how artists portray nature across cultures.<\/p>\n
A third way of integrating art in a different way might involve selecting a research project focused on an artist, a movement, a period, a culture.\u00a0 This might have some written work as a component or end product.<\/p>\n
In service of all three I could begin taking art history courses.<\/p>\n
A significant thread of all these changes is a pulling back or away from the world, shedding responsibility to others or for others and concentrating life more at home.\u00a0 This feels age appropriate and is a definite inner drive for me right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First Moon of the Winter Solstice In February I will turn 65.\u00a0 And I’m happy to do it.\u00a0 Not that I have much choice in the matter.\u00a0 What I mean is that I like this time of life and anticipate with pleasure the next decade or two or three. This transition has already begun … Continue reading 65 Ahead<\/span>