Imbolc\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New (Bloodroot) Moon<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 His answer coincided with a local master gardener, “Bloodroot blooms.”\u00a0 Since that should happen within the waxing and waning of this moon,\u00a0 I’m choosing Bloodroot Moon for its name.<\/p>\n
The snow began to come down this morning and has some legs.\u00a0 The sky has turned sheet metal gray and the wind blows in from the northeast.\u00a0 If I recall correctly, such wind direction can foretell deep snow.\u00a0 Not predicted though.<\/p>\n
This is the half-way point in my stay here at Blue Cloud.\u00a0 I’m feeling it, too.\u00a0 I’ve been working almost twice as long each day as I usually do when I write at home.\u00a0 Though I love it, I’m getting tired.\u00a0 Might be another 10 am nap coming on, too.<\/p>\n
Conspirata, a novel about Cicero’s life, has been my casual reading.\u00a0 I’ve finished 60% of it; I know this because the Kindle gives you a percent read number for each page since you don’t have the sense of the book’s length but its heft.<\/p>\n
The other reading I’ve been doing is Livia Kohn’s introductory text on Taoism.\u00a0 As with most things that interest me, I find as I get deeper into it that my opinion begins to change, split along certain lines where my own sensibilities face challenges.\u00a0 In the instance of Taoism I find myself drawn more and more into the mystical, physical aspects:\u00a0 the Dao, the exercises, meditation practices and pushed further away from the political implications, or wuwei (inaction) applied to political affairs.<\/p>\n
This doesn’t bother me as I’ve learned, quite a while ago, that I don’t have to swallow the whole message to be enlightened by a school of thought.\u00a0 Part of the creation of dogma comes as an institutional base emerges around any school of thought.\u00a0 The dogma supports the creation of certain organizational structures, then the structures become a conservative force clinging to the original dogma, thoughts most often far removed from what Max Weber called the original “charisma.”<\/p>\n
Thus, by the time most of us enter into a body of religious or philosophical thought the original genius behind it is hidden by layers of defensive structure and dogma hardened over time, often hardened against the danger of the original charism.<\/p>\n
And so forth. Time to pick up the tablet and get to work.\u00a0 Bye for snowy now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imbolc\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 His answer coincided with a local master gardener, “Bloodroot blooms.”\u00a0 Since that should happen within … Continue reading Hail, La Nina<\/span>