Maebius Musings

At church yesterday, the theme was of the coming Harvest Holiday, we here in the USA call Thanksgiving.  As part of this, our UU Minister read a few words from Rev. Max Coots, relating to friendship, community,  and gardens.  I’d like to share that here, since it really was awesome.

Garden Meditations

by Rev. Max Coots

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people.

For children who are our second planting, and though they
grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may
they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where
their roots are.

Let us give thanks;

For generous friends…with hearts…and smiles as bright
as their blossoms;

For feisty friends, as tart as apples;

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers,
keep reminding us that we’ve had them;

For crotchety friends, sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and
as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as
potatoes and so good for you;

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and
as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes;

And serious friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle
as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as
dill, as endless as zucchini and who, like parsnips, can be
counted on to see you through the winter;

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time,
and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold
us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;

And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past
that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that
we might have life thereafter.

For all these we give thanks.

So, for all of you reading this, be ye garlic or rhubarb, or corn or zucchini. Thank you, and may your Thanksgiving season be as blessed and bountiful as possible.

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I agree with the thought to living each day as if it were a celebration. I also like the winter holiday season, with cheery music, decorated trees and all sorts of commercially viable gluttony.

What I do not like is radio stations that switch over to Christmas music 24×7 starting on November 1st.

Case in point? Mix 102.5, the local radio station that played something other than country or hard rock in my area.

At least I still have NPR for news and such, but I’ll have to start downloading more music for my MP3 player to listen too if I want actual eclectic music this month.

*sigh*

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I sometimes am astounded that I have been at this blog for about 3 years now, and it all started with a Story of the Birds.

As much time has passed, I still remember.

Our decorations are up, our costumes are completed, and this weekend we prepare for the annual feast of Candy! (I am a robot and the kid’s a vampire, not sure which of 3 ideas the wife is planning)

Beside that celebration of gluttony and glee however, I also prepare for a nice quiet meditation out on our porch, under the silvery light of the moon, thinking about my relatives beyond the Veil.

Have you celebrated their lives lately, even though they are no longer living? Say hello again, this weekend if you get a chance. Reconnect, even if their spiritual beliefs are different from yours. Remember them, if even for this one day.

After all, you’ll be meeting them eventually, and might as well have them remember you too.

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UPDATE: The images are not showing on my work PC, but can be viewed from outside the network. Here are the links to the images directly, if they are not displaying for you.

Maebius Ghost Pumpkin

Kid Spooky Pumpkin

Kid Spooky Pumpkin (dark)

Kid by himself Pumpkin

This weekend (after church) we did a lot of work outside, raking, decorating with corn stalks all around the mailbox, porch, and house, and all the various “post-harvest” type of things.   Still have a few potatoes to dig up that will get done tonight probably, but the rest of the garden is gone, and frost has taken the majority of the weeds down to root.    And in further signs of the season, we carved our annual pumpkins for next weekend’s Halloween/Samhain celebration.

First, my rather spartan and simplistic “Boo to you!” ghost.  It turned out pretty good, but seems rather lacklustre for some reason, especially compared to the kid’s Awesome spooky-face!

Here is the Spooky Face. He drew on the pumpkin with a pen, then helped Mom use the sharp knife to carve out the face he drew. Turned out Awesome, if I do say so myself, and is seriously spooky!

Last but not least, we found the somewhat more kid-safe pumpkin saw and let him carve whatever he wanted, entirely without assistance (except for helping scoop out the innards). This also turned out pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

The goblins should be properly frightened from our doorstep this year!

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There comes a time in everyone’s life when we must step back, take account of our situation, and endeavor to improve it. It’s a natural human way of thinking, to continually challenge and improve ourselves.

Such thoughts brought humanity from the fire-lit caves of ancient times to walking on the moon (and deforestation and pollution, but I’ll discount that aspect for this post).

And so, tonight I will take up my bookbag, hoist a notebook and pen, and step forward into the frightening realm of Academia once more.   I hope you’ll join me later this weekend, as I regale you with tales of higher learning, wrenched from the inner sanctums of Herkimer Community College.

…

Or, more accurately, I signed up for 4 non-credit courses at the nearby college, taught by someone I know and have on my blogroll!

Tonight is the class “Local and Bioregional Herbal Remedies“,  followed by “Herbs of Children and Family” on Oct 22nd,  the exciting “Preparations and Kitchen Herbs” in November, and finally one in December that does not appear to be updated on the site yet. 

I havn’t been to ‘school’ for years now, so am just a wee bit nervous. Gotta get my brain in gear to do some Serious Learnin…

Still, I’ve heard the teacher is kinda hot. 

Green blessings from my yard to yours.

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This weekend we attended a wedding reception for a good friend of my wife.   We unfortunately missed the actual wedding due to prior schedules for a cousin’s 4yr old twins’  birthday bash, and the horrid traffic which turned our hour drive between the events into a bit longer than we anticipated.  Le Sigh. 

The reception though, was awesome.   I’ll keep names out, since they really won’t matter to most of my readers, but the events were nice enough to blog about here.

We arrived and the kid immediately ran out of the car to go wrestle and run with a group of other young boys around 4-10 years old.  This was a nice change of pace, since usually our son tends to be shy and hover around us for the first 45 minutes of any party and only then gets the courage to interact more.   This time, he ran off, listened half-heartedly as we told him where We would be, then vanished among the woods and fields.

The weather was warm and sunny, perfect for outdoor festivities, and there was a local band setup under the pavilion tent.  Great music, gobs of smiling people, and kids running around on the outskirts of the party.  Couldn’t have asked for a better setup.

The happy couple, of course, were glowing and beautiful/handsome, and all the guests chatted easily, and snacked on the delicious TexMex Grill food.

We chatted quite a lot with some friends who we hadn’t seen for years, trading stories of recent life, and feasting “more than we needed to eat”.   The chatter eventually drifted toherbal studies, nature spirituality, and various sundry topic, and we traded blog addresses.  Shameless plug: Go visit the lovely Lisa and her herbal supplies over by Earth, Root, and Flower.

From time to time, our little one wandered near us to check in, ask for a snack/drink, or otherwise relate some story of adventure he was having with another boy, then dashed off to play again.  His clothes were rather grass-stained and muddy, but I wouldn’t have traded clean clothes for that smile in his eyes.  It was nice to see, and reminded me that we really do need to get out more and socialize with friendly kids outside of school.  The campouts and pagan-friendly festivals are nice, but local friends are important too.

As the sky darkened, the kids started to get closer to home-base, and a huge batch of sparklers appeared from some wise woman.    Suddenly, the backyard field was filled with swirling flames, glittering sparks, and a haze of blue-tinged smoke which held the band’s music and laughter of myriad kids and young-at-heart.   This particular moment struck me as powerful Magic.  Probably not intentionally, but I had to stop and smile in awe.  No better ritual of prosperity could have been formulated, than that group of happy kids and the hand-help fireworks.   Our kid loved it!

Eventually, the band played the “first dance” (by Jack Johnson, I forget the actual song), then struck up a rousing rendition of The Who’s “The Seeker”, and rolled onward from there.   Sadly, it was rather dark then, nad our little one was starting to stagger sleepily into us when he came over for another drink or snack.   We decided to call it a night.

On the way home, as we traveled down the Parkway, we saw more fireworks directly ahead of us.  We found a nice pull-over spot in the parking lot of a nearby business, close enough to see the shadow of the people with flares actually launching the rockets, which meant the aerial explosions were huge and overhead.   The kid hopped into the front seat of the car, we rolled down the windows, and gazed sleepily into the night sky.   Once the finale had boomed all around us, we started back home.  The kid was asleep before I even re-buckled him up from the firework display.

My wife and I smiled on the way home, sending happy wishes and firework awesomeness to the happy couple we had just left.    All in all, a great and festive day, full of love and joy and a bit of magic.

Ain’t life grand!?! 

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Well, I must sadly admit we missed the festivities this year.   Not sure how it happened, but here I find myself glancing at the calendar, and thinking, “Hey, it’s already August 3rd?!..um,  Yay harvest! …um  w00t for seedy goodness gone to grain!  We won’t starve this winter!”

We did have a busy weekend, with a birthday party for the 4-yr old twins, followed immediately by one of the most rocking Wedding receptions in the history of awesomeness (blog post to follow soon).  Our friend got married, and at the reception we ran into another friend of hers we hadn’t seen in years, and jsut really enjoyed ourselves.  I’ll consider that event a serendipitous Celebration of the harvest, because there was good food, good music, and a semi-magical event involving kids and sparklers.

So, not much in the way of deeper musing today.   I’m thinking I’ll toss together something fun and festive tonight for dinner, then go outside and launch off a bit of meditation on our many and varied skills we’ve trained this summer.   Horray for Lugh of the many skills!

From gleaning & canning beans, to jellying rhubarb, to drying Nettle for infusions, this year has been the most productive we’ve ever had in terms of stocking the pantry with garden-goodies.   All this, and our actual personal garden on our property has not actually produced anything except a continued stream of fresh rainbow Swiss Chard!  Granted, the beets and corn are setting up nicely, and the ubiquitous potatoes are still not quite ready, but it’s a good year so far.

I’m thinking more and more each year that the traditional celebrations described in most wiccan/pagan calendars are not entierly accurate for our climate, so need to be celebrated more in spirit than in practice.  Only Mayday and the maypole seems to work for us as “traditional” events. 

I’ve started another batch of random liqueur bottles, from raspberry, to elderflower, and am waiting for my local hops to flower later this month to try a batch of True Homebrew beer (local barley & honey, our well water & hops!). Once the elder berries are ripe, we’ll make our annual gluttonous pile of jelly again, plus a bottle or two of cough syrup and cordial, since last year’s got used up faster than we expected.

On other smithy crafts, I’ve gotten much more comfortable with blogging software, and macros.  Also have been spending much more time at the Vernon Park where the kid is now swimming underwater with confidence.

It’s not really earth-based spirituality, but skills are skills, so I’ll celebrate what we got. 

Happy belated harvest to all of you!

((PS:  Now that I’m back off the horrid swing-shift night schedule, I’ll be sleeping and actually musing a bit more.  Feel free to suggest any topics of interest to spur on my imagination!))

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I’ve hesitated to keep this entry private, or post it for commentary, because it’s a bit more personal and still feels a bit scary for me.  Paradigm shifts are tough.     Forgive any rambling uncoordinated phrasing and paragraph structure. I’ve re-written it twice now since last Tuesday…    It’s a wall of text.

I’ve always loved fire circles.  Sitting around a campfire,whether roasting marshmallows with friends and family, or drumming and dancing for alchemical transformation, are soothing and soul-healing events in any flavour. Continue Reading »

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As a followup to this post, I’d like to describe a bit of the awesome magical experiences that were, well, experienced there.

First, let me just say that the Four Quarter Farm is one of the nicest places I’ve ever attended a festival, both mundane or pagan-friendly.  It’s a bit hilly, and my legs were a bit put off by the walking on Friday, but it was a good kind of sore. Continue Reading »

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We just returned from a weekend at Four Quarter Farm, as regular readers of this blog have already known, so I won’t keep re-linking the page.   Suffice it to say it was, by far, the best festival experience we had ever attended.  Seriously.

For this post, I’ll stick to the mundane summary.  Further details and some pictures to follow once I get a bit more free time to dump the camera and blur out any necessary faces and such (we had permission to take photos of the group events, but some people didn’t want their faces on public forums, so I need to edit images slightly before uploading).

We left the house on Friday morning just before 4am and drove to pick up our friend Nettle at the Harrisburg train station, arriving just after 9am.  Made it to 4QF a little bit before noon, and setup the camp, tend and kitchen pavilion.

Friday, we mostly just hung around touring the place, swimming in the swimming hole (awesome!), grilling hot dogs for lunch, and making more finalized plans for what things to do on Saturday, then a steak feast from the grill for dinner.  The area we camped had a giant swing setup between two trees, that was continually occupied by kids or families, and hte shower house was a very short walk to the opposite side of the little circle we camped at.  All very nice and local, with the main area of merchants and stone circle a short climb uphill to those areas.

Friday night, we slept the deep sleep of the relaxed and over-tired in our tent. 

Saturday, we shopped a bit, met some new friends (Sprogling particularly enjoyed meeting Yellow Bear, who was an awesome grinning 2yr old still learning to talk, and had a totally Kodak-moment with the two of them holding hands and running off to some adventure while his mother and I chatted our introductions) and just enjoyed the festivities.

My wife and our friend Nettle went to do their own things for Saturday afternoon while the kid and I did some kids workshops and jsut wandered around swimming/playing.  We both painted a dragon scale for the evening’s Chinese “Dream Dragon”, and generally hung out at the poi/hula-hoop stand for about two hours playing with the toys and other kids who accumulated in that field.

Later, I attended one of the workshops with Nettle, and then we all ate dinner, the two women went and did some more stuff together, and then it was evening.    The kid and I wandered up to the top of the hill for the evening festivities, which included all the kids helping carry the Dream Dragon, or large puppets or decorated poles for a parade.

Following the parade was fireworks (Literally! the last group of the parade was slinging firecrackers and sparklers) which were pretty nice.  I’ve seen some small-town displays that didn’t quite get as impressive as these, which was a nice surprise.

Then, after the fireworks, we met up with “mom” again and the kid went back to the tent very sleepy and content.

Darkness brought another round of awesome drumming from the fire circle, which I joined until about 4am the next morning.  Whoo!

Sunday, we basically woke up, ate breakfast, and started the process of breaking camp.   There was much crying from numerous kids across camp, whcih I suppose is a good sign that things were fun for them too.

We left around 2-ish, bought 10 bottles of wine from the local on-site vintner, and dropped our friend back at the train station, then turned north for home.   We arrived back to Everthorn Farm around 10:30 pm.    Long weekend, but totally worth it.

So, more deeply pondering posts will be made.  There was a lot to integrate from this weekend.  but they will have to wait until I get a bit more sleep, and job-work lets me collect my thoughts. 

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