Maebius Musings

You know those shirts and posters with “you are here” and an arrow pointing to some speck in the galaxy or some-such?

Here’s a better look at the place we all live, care of NASA’s newest satellite composite images.
Animated: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/4401845574/

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This saturday, I was driving to meet a friend for dinner when I struck and killed a deer. My new car (3899 miles *sigh*) is a bit broken up, and the young button-buck was killed.

It may sound gruesome to some, but we kept the deer and are in the process of preparing it for venison this week.

Additionally, I have plans for a number of bones (and the skull) if I have success in cleaning/preparing them, which is a learning process for me. Prior animal bones I have had access to were found outside and pre-bleached by time, weather, and biological processes.

My pondering now, (and question to any readers here) is how to best preserve the animal remains, both in the literal physical sense, and a more spiritual/shamanic/etc sense.

I’ve honored the spirit of the deer with a quiet candlelit ritual saturday evening, but I’m completely learning-as-I-go in the idea of actually ‘harvesting’ the other parts respectfully. Wish me luck!

My dog has already requested a leg bone, and another is destined for a “talking stick” type of scepter. One rib popped up in my dreams last night as Useful, but no details as to the final use. The skull will hopefully preserve well and be gifted to a friend of mine with a great affinity to Deer. The rest, will most likely join the compost pile and garden for added calcium and to treat the nibbling field mice in our barn.

The car will be repaired, my own physical health is unharmed. I’d like to make the most of the noble animal who was ’sacrificed’ in the accident.

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A bit late for the new-moon musing I had planned to write this as, so forgive a hectic life and sleepy shift-changes (again).

Recently, some relatives of mine who live in a rather suburban town of 9000 people, expressed great joy and wonder at the recent small explosion of wildlife in their yard. They have a small bit of grass to mow, and a tiny creek burbling in the backyard, which has always been home to muskrats and ducks (the muskrats go through annual trap-removals, but always migrate back in to mess up the yard).

Lately, a hawk/falcon has made it’s aerie on the block’s tall pines, Great blue Herons have been seen wading in the feeble stream hunting minnows, and the neighbor’s house got an infestation of rats, with rumors of a raccoon lurking around the garbage pails at night.

On the plus side of this, my relatives happily tell tales of bird watching, squirrel feeding, and muskrat/rodent removal. All that wildlife up-close is great for semi-retired folks sitting on their back porch with a cup of coffee. The nepphews get to share soem of the joy I remember in my youth of feeding squirrels and watching BlueJays fight over peanuts, along with the more “exotic” Herons and hawks swooping around on rare occassions.

Sadly, while I can’t help but smile and delight in these wonders of nature while I visit, there’s a part of me that is saddened and worried for that same wildlife.

They see abundance and natural wonder.
I see habitat decline and forced migrations to a suburban environment. It doesn’t help that the hill I once stood atop of to stargaze with my father in my pre-teen years is now a development of sterile townhouse-clone-rows.

I like stars as much as I like seeing wild birds and critters.

I also prefer going to visit them, instead of the reverse.

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PS: Happy Blue Moon!!! *

Edited note: The photos apparently bork the website layout, so I’ve changed them to links. Click on the links to see the actual images. Sorry!!

Meet the newest members of the Everthorn Farm Family: Jake, and Spot!

The bull brothers were born three days apart, around Dec 23 & 26th, but I forget which one is older. They will hopefully be trained to ride (like a horse) and handle a yoke for some emergency garden-plowing if necessary (you know, in 2012 when the world blows up, hehe)

If the temperment and personality starts to get a bit “Bullish” then they will join their energies to our family as dinner, as ‘Norman’ did in the past.

Also, for your viewing pleasure, a few recent pictures. First, the rare and elusive Tree-monkey, who lives in our lilac bush and enjoys ice-cream and pop-tarts for breakfast.

Next, the vicious Hound of Everthorn, cousin to that one in Baskerville.

Finally, two more of the bull-brothers. Jake’s head,, and another with his half-brother Spot.

Enjoy!

*PS: Pre-Script BlueMoon greetings, rather than Post-script, because it’s one of those kinda days where things are all mixed-up at work!

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I am not a morning person.  Morning people confuse and confound me.  Yet I am becoming one in the very near future due to my job.

In general, I have long maintained that my perfect “work shift” is 4pm-midnight, with the option to sleep in until around 10:00am.  If left to my own devices in one of those sleep-study caves, this is generally the time-frame Iwould gravitate to with my schedule.   I feel most productive just around dinner time, and early evening.

The quiet of the evening, with darkness settling in like a comfortable blanket of non-light, helping to focus my attentions and remove distractions of daily life.  That is zen to me.   Lamplight or candlelight with the soft glow of a monitor is comforting.

Yet soon, within a month or so, I will be adjusting to a completely different sleep cycle.   I had a taste of it these past two weeks.   4am-noon.  Blech!

I understand, intellectually, the concept of waking with hte sun bringing a promise to a new day, and all that.  I admit I’ve heard the “whole day before you” inspirations.  But I found I still don’t like it.

Mornings are when everything bustles up, revs into gear, and starts moving.  The birds sing, Life Happens, and folks start their day.    With this new shift, those things mean I’m halfway through and get to go home soon.

If I want to spend any time with my family on this new shift, I try to stay awake until dinner time, to join in on board games, book reading, and such.    I’m finding that this also means I get around 5 hours of good sleep, and taking a short nap from 1-3pm just makes me over-tired and washed out during dinner.

So if this blog starts to ramble a bit or sound slightly incoherent in January, blame early mornings.

I plan to. 

I’ll take the sunsets any day. [pun intended]

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**edit: still  trying to fix formatting. Blog exploded again.  Must be a weekend thing….

I have been reading an interesting book, which I referenced in a prior post, called “Dies the Fire“, which describes a post-apocolyptic world where humanity is struggling to survive after an Event causes technology to fail.

After finishing the first book in the series, I vividly recalled the poem by Robert Frost, pertaining to the end of the world.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Now, the physisist in me always reads this and thinks the poem relates to how the universe will end, either collapsing upon itself in a reverse Big-Bang, or expanding forever into a cold infinity.

Then, I realize that in speaking of desire and hate, perhaps it relates to how the earth itself will end for us.  Either in the cold calamity of a Nuclear Winter, or some unknown firey ending that has to do with passions overwhelming rationality?

Yet, then beyond these things, the Druid in me realizes that the poem itself is slightly flawed.  The world will not really end, not really.

It may be absorbed into the churning inferno of our star, which may in turn collapse within the Universe itself, or we may explode it with a Doomsday Device, but it will not end.  No more than the leaves that fall on the ground each autumn are gone.   They merely transform and rejoin the bio-stream as compost and creature.

A wise man once said, “We are all Star Stuff”, and I agree.  To stardust we will all return, and when the stars fade, we’ll still be Universe-stuff.   We just might not recognize it as ourselves.

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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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Got you with that title, didn’t I? 

If it weren’t so rainy, I’d hang out my clothes to dry more days than not, and underwear displays be darned.

Sadly, this probably makes me a poor slovenly wreck of a human being, if I were to live in a more suburban area.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/fight_to_legali.php?dcitc=th_rss

Thankfully, though, states are starting to, as the article says, “hanging clotheslines was against the rules in so many communities nationwide that state governments are being forced to step in and make it against the law to ban them.”

*sigh*    Sometimes, I welcome the zombie apocalypse.

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Sandy over on Though Soup just posted an interesting bit on Initiation practices.  I’ve often mused about such topics, but after searching my own blog, I don’t think I ever really wrote them out here.

I agree that for many, the concept of initiation in simply a membership into a group.  This pans out when you look at the accepted Definition of the term:

I think many people forget part C.2 above, where the initiate is “invested with a particular function or status“.   Initiation is both for the benefit of the group being joined, as well as the person joining.   It is a sort of liminal, transitional, empowering state.

For myself, I was active in the local Boy Scouts of America program in my youth.  One facet of that organization is a sub-group called “Order of the Arrow“. You do not apply for this group, you are invited.  (The mission statement for this group: The mission of the Order of the Arrow is to fulfill its purpose as an integral part of the Boy Scouts of America
through positive youth leadership under the guidance of selected capable adults.)

It is steeped in a cloak of not-quite-authentic Native American symbolism and pseudo-morality, but I’ll forgive that since I never considered it when I was first made a member.  At that time, it was the “cool mysterious group who got to go on extra camp-outs and do more stupid work-projects in the community“.

The group itself had a number of ritual trappings, from the dramatic “invitation” itself, to a number of service-oriented events.  Yet the one thing I really connected with was the “initiation” camping trip.   As Sandy mentions, a Good Initiation prepares the initiate. They do not simply join up.   The initiate is held accountable for their actions and decision.

In my case, the invitation was made, I attended the usual initiate’s camping trips, complete with a bit of good-natured hazing, but also with lots of personal decision making.  We were given a history of the group, told what to expect, and then told to find a project to work on.

It’s a classic example, in my mind, of how “leadership training” should work.  We weren’t given projects, we were told to go find a project and complete it. The details of what project, necessary materials, and even what constitutes a project, were left unsaid.  The initiate had to organize the pool of non-initiates, formulate a plan to complete something, and then do it.

The end result of this, which was felt to be “stupid making us do all the work” by some, was that those who finished all the tasks requested of them, were able to undergo the Initiation and join the ranks of this leadership council.

To those of us who did it, more than one of us realized in hind-sight that after all we did, we already were in the club.  The ordeals and lessons and challenges provided to us just helped us realize that fact.

And in realizing it, that was the shift.

The big ceremony afterward was more for the group and those spectators attending it.  To the initiate, the ‘lines of energy’ were already set  in place.   We were initiated, and then just had to formalize it in a ritual setting to let the others know.  

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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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