FEBRUARY--NATURE WARMS--PLANTS and ANIMALS AWAKEN
The sky is a deep blue, the sun is getting higher and heating up surfaces and the air now, and the plants and animals are waking up. My red-eyed box turtle of forty or so years has come out of hibernation and eaten a first-of-the-season hearty meal. He luxuriates in the sun which heats his leather-brown, hard shell. My Gulf box turtle of fifty years is almost awake but not quite ready to eat yet (still under her heap of leaves). It is always rewarding to see that in their Natural wisdom these creatures have survived six or seven months of cold sleep. How do they do it? From my boyhood, the awakening of the turtles has always been a time of regeneration, a resurrection, a reassurance that the grass and plants will grow again, always. Death and rebirth are a marvelous mystery.
The word, February, derives from the Latin 'Februarius" month of purification and expiatory offerings. I can understand that; the first thing that my turtles do is to soak in their pond, expell winter's wastes, and drink an inordinate amount of water. Then they eat. February also means fever. All of nature has a slight fever, and the plants and animals are heating up, and do not forget that the purpose of a fever is to cleanse, both the body and the Soul. Heat and passion go together.
I have planted sets of kale, romaine (two varieties), napa cabbage, and collards. The onions are about a foot tall, and today I shall plant garlic, that magical, healing herb, which will come to maturity in late August. I don't know why people are so against, squeamish, with garlic, garlic which has served people since before the Egyptians. Maybe they have no concept of good food or of the exotic. Or mayby they forgot how to cook, or are too lazy to do it. Good cooks know that cuisine does not exist without garlic. My Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Mexican daughters- and son-in-laws, and other relatives all use it. The Parsis (a branch of the Persians) make a wonderful mixture of ginger and garlic which they incorporate into many foods. Bombay cooking can't exist without it. The Parsis who came from Persia over a thousand years ago created a unique culture and cuisine, first on the island of Diu off the Indian coast and then in Bombay (Mumbai, Bombathia) itself. There is a well written, wonderful book of honest first-hand experiences by Niloufer Ichaporia King that gives recipes and the history of the Parsis in Bombay. It is called "My Bombay Kitchen". I have learned so much (about cooking and about myself) from it and am grateful to her. She has the cuisine and culture in her blood and psyche. All recipes and cookbooks should be genuine first-hand accounts of cooking and culture. Not imitations of other people's words. Nor should they be Quickie-Stuff to be thrown together in a couple of minutes.
Garlic heals. It corrects insulin and glucose levels. I know that from living experience, it improves blood circulation, and cuts down cholesterol. It's a proven fact. But for me, there is nothing more savory than the scent of garlic and olive oil in any food, especially on roasted slices of eggplant, i.e., melanzana, or melangeana as we say in Sicilian, sprinkled with grated Pecorino Romano cheese. Now that really wakes me up! I shall never forget one afternoon nap in Agrigento as the scent of garlic and meleangeana came drifting through our rooms---the landlord was cooking one of those marvelous late noon lunches! You can guess what we ate for dinner that night.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
JANUARY---TRANSITIONS of SEASONS
Here it is the middle of January and the season is changing. Seasons are the moods of the world or the cosmos, or even more to the point the Feeling of Sophia, the world Soul.
I see the little changes even now this mid-January. The lateral leaf buds on the roses are beginning to swell up now partly because the the canes have been reduced by at least half. All good rosarians prune roses in January. This allows the plant energy to go downward into the roots, thereby forming a well of power for the leaves and blossoms to come. Plant energy must return to the earth to be re-manifested in leafage and flowering. This January, again, I bought two new roses; "Mr. Lincoln," and " Peace". As I look through the bare-root rose bins, I muse on the futility of assigning names to roses. I try to forget their names as soon as possible, and more recently I do! What is a name compared to the qinitessentially feminine of fleshy rose petals and their redolent scent--that mysterious enclosing vortex of of deep, yearning beauty to which Yeats and Rilke wrote poetic witness. How can a plastic plant tag evoke feeling? All poetry and creativity of any sort is praise of the feminine because creativity comes to the poet through the warm soul-embracing hands of the Muse. And, believe me, we are not entitled to it nor are we self-annointed. It is a matter of waiting and Grace---
And so, the planting and growing of roses is natural, as the Earth is the source of the Sophianic as Robert Sardello explains with skill, clarity, and intelligence. So, in taking care of our gardens and our plants, we express care and feeling for the earth. Every time I dig a hole into the earth to plant a rose, I evoke Sophia.
January is named for Janus, the god who faces both ways. Usually, his double-faced visage is placed over arches through which people pass. I thought about this phenomenom as I stood one wintry, bright sunny day on the Via Appia Antiqua, that ancient Roman road, The Appian Way, that leads out into the farthest ends of the Roman Empire. The massive oaks (leafage like live oaks) were still in green leaf, and the earth was strewn with their fallen acorns about to burst into growth. I collected a few as I always do when there are seeds free for the taking. Evelyn and I stopped at a little, cozy, empty coffee stand where the women were ever so happy to chat in that friendly Italian manner. No one had come in all morning. We were all cold, but the warmth of true meeting kept us all warm, and I began to feel an uncanny atonement with those men who where marching out from the Roman "civilized" world as they knew it. I felt in a timeless moment: "What will I find out there, who and what will I see? What experiences will I bring back to Latium, if I am even fortunate ever to return alive?" As the Roman legions marched through the arches, they passed under Janus's two-face head as a potent reminder of transitional destiny.
Janus is the god who faces two ways, the god of the limen or threshhold. He is the god of doorways and gateways, entrances and exits. Which are which? The word "limen" signifies the bi-directional experience of Janus. Through doorways we pass, mostly, both ways. The image of the limen began far earlier than with the double faced Janus. Cardea, as Robert Graves tells us in "The White Goddess", is the goddess of the doorway and limen. She is both post and socket of the hinge that opens and closes both ways. A neat fit. Our lives are sequences of Cardea moments. When I think of the most significant turnings or events of my life, they all have the "ring" not the slam of Cardea's door; a circle life that could have gone either way, but the destiny of the future turned, swung, to me to make me what I am now.
As side note, and take it as you may, I find it touching that Samuel Palmer, the wonderful English, romantic painter always bowed down and kissed the threshold of William Blake's doorway as he entered Blake's work room. Knowing Palmer as I do from his ensouled paintings and drawings, I believe it, and I think that the story is truely given because of its source. I wish I could study and handle Palmer's work in the British Museum as did my brother Salvatore Joseph La Rosa, a sensitive, very fine and devoted artist.
Well, my garden is cleaned up, the shrubs and trees are trimmed. The kumquat fruits are starting to ripen, and warmth increases each day. I can explain that, but how do I tell you that there is a certain plumpness to the earth I walk upon, a kind of softness and springyness that my foot feels? But you know what I mean. The earth feels spongy and damp and alive, and the earthworms are making little mounds of pure earth-detritus. Even my red-eared water turtle Sempre peeps his beautifully enameled chartreuse eyes and green nose out of the water very early in the morning to see if the rising Sun tells him to crawl up on his rock. It is as though the water surface, the water line between his world and that of air through which he breaks momentarily is a liminal membrane-like lens (a meniscus) between his winter hibernaculum and Spring which always feels eternally new.
I see the little changes even now this mid-January. The lateral leaf buds on the roses are beginning to swell up now partly because the the canes have been reduced by at least half. All good rosarians prune roses in January. This allows the plant energy to go downward into the roots, thereby forming a well of power for the leaves and blossoms to come. Plant energy must return to the earth to be re-manifested in leafage and flowering. This January, again, I bought two new roses; "Mr. Lincoln," and " Peace". As I look through the bare-root rose bins, I muse on the futility of assigning names to roses. I try to forget their names as soon as possible, and more recently I do! What is a name compared to the qinitessentially feminine of fleshy rose petals and their redolent scent--that mysterious enclosing vortex of of deep, yearning beauty to which Yeats and Rilke wrote poetic witness. How can a plastic plant tag evoke feeling? All poetry and creativity of any sort is praise of the feminine because creativity comes to the poet through the warm soul-embracing hands of the Muse. And, believe me, we are not entitled to it nor are we self-annointed. It is a matter of waiting and Grace---
And so, the planting and growing of roses is natural, as the Earth is the source of the Sophianic as Robert Sardello explains with skill, clarity, and intelligence. So, in taking care of our gardens and our plants, we express care and feeling for the earth. Every time I dig a hole into the earth to plant a rose, I evoke Sophia.
January is named for Janus, the god who faces both ways. Usually, his double-faced visage is placed over arches through which people pass. I thought about this phenomenom as I stood one wintry, bright sunny day on the Via Appia Antiqua, that ancient Roman road, The Appian Way, that leads out into the farthest ends of the Roman Empire. The massive oaks (leafage like live oaks) were still in green leaf, and the earth was strewn with their fallen acorns about to burst into growth. I collected a few as I always do when there are seeds free for the taking. Evelyn and I stopped at a little, cozy, empty coffee stand where the women were ever so happy to chat in that friendly Italian manner. No one had come in all morning. We were all cold, but the warmth of true meeting kept us all warm, and I began to feel an uncanny atonement with those men who where marching out from the Roman "civilized" world as they knew it. I felt in a timeless moment: "What will I find out there, who and what will I see? What experiences will I bring back to Latium, if I am even fortunate ever to return alive?" As the Roman legions marched through the arches, they passed under Janus's two-face head as a potent reminder of transitional destiny.
Janus is the god who faces two ways, the god of the limen or threshhold. He is the god of doorways and gateways, entrances and exits. Which are which? The word "limen" signifies the bi-directional experience of Janus. Through doorways we pass, mostly, both ways. The image of the limen began far earlier than with the double faced Janus. Cardea, as Robert Graves tells us in "The White Goddess", is the goddess of the doorway and limen. She is both post and socket of the hinge that opens and closes both ways. A neat fit. Our lives are sequences of Cardea moments. When I think of the most significant turnings or events of my life, they all have the "ring" not the slam of Cardea's door; a circle life that could have gone either way, but the destiny of the future turned, swung, to me to make me what I am now.
As side note, and take it as you may, I find it touching that Samuel Palmer, the wonderful English, romantic painter always bowed down and kissed the threshold of William Blake's doorway as he entered Blake's work room. Knowing Palmer as I do from his ensouled paintings and drawings, I believe it, and I think that the story is truely given because of its source. I wish I could study and handle Palmer's work in the British Museum as did my brother Salvatore Joseph La Rosa, a sensitive, very fine and devoted artist.
Well, my garden is cleaned up, the shrubs and trees are trimmed. The kumquat fruits are starting to ripen, and warmth increases each day. I can explain that, but how do I tell you that there is a certain plumpness to the earth I walk upon, a kind of softness and springyness that my foot feels? But you know what I mean. The earth feels spongy and damp and alive, and the earthworms are making little mounds of pure earth-detritus. Even my red-eared water turtle Sempre peeps his beautifully enameled chartreuse eyes and green nose out of the water very early in the morning to see if the rising Sun tells him to crawl up on his rock. It is as though the water surface, the water line between his world and that of air through which he breaks momentarily is a liminal membrane-like lens (a meniscus) between his winter hibernaculum and Spring which always feels eternally new.
Monday, December 3, 2012
WHEN DOES THE CHANGE OCCUR?
"There is the constant rhythm of day and night, the lunar cycle, and the yearly cycle of the sun. The significant aspect of these ocurrences within which we are constantly immersed is that they are rhythmical. Rhythm is the essence of the world as feeling."
"Love and Soul" by Robert Sardello
The season and we ourselves are progressing to the nadir of the year, the winter solstice December 22, when sunlight will be at its minimum in terms of hours. So, when does the actual change occur, the tipping of the balance from one side to the other, the nanosecond when we are no longer in days that are shorter, when the light is ascendent? Or, is the shift too subtle for us to perceive. However, it is reassuring to realize that the days are getting longer and that the eternal rhythm is evident in an upward direction.
I am fascinated with changes happening in Nature, so I watch for them very focusedly with attentiveness that requires on my part reason, feeling, sensitivity, patience, and most of all as Sardello says, Love and Soul. But, in Nature, seeing the change is truly difficult. All that we think we will see, or do see, is a result. But, if we are open in our observence, in the moment and the experience, we can see It. Then, we are a part of It. There is no separation between us and what we see, and yes, I agree, this is hard to do sometimes. I suppose this is what Krishnamurti means where he says that intelligence is borne of Compassion. There can be no intelligence without compassion.
The garden chores are easy and enjoyable now, as I collect as many leaves as possible to spread in the plant island beds. And, there is calm and meditation as I prune trees and shrubs and slowly cut up the trimmings with hand clippers into one inche or less pieces, spreading them in the plant islands. This takes time, but what is that in contrast to the eternal, eternity? Trimming and cutting is like writing with pen and ink--it slows down the mind to an idle like a finely tuned engine so that an essence can emerge. Lawrence said he could write only with his fountain pen, and Shelby Foote wrote his six volume history of the American Civil War with a dip pen. That is why I write all my first drafts with pen and ink. There is a magic in the ink, a magic in the dark depths of the liquid ink as I dip into it. I'll bet there are a lot of pen dippers among us out there.
As I rake, sometimes I find a type of leaf , like thousands of it I've seen before, but this Liquidambar leaf is mysteriously new, its reds bleeding out into halos of amber, yellows, oranges and brown at it perimeters--it is all new, I cannot explain! The leaf in it richness of color is like a crystalline lens of burgandy and amber. And if you hold it up to the sunlight, that is exactly how it is, like a piece of stained glass. I stand there and stare--who cares whether I get the leaf raking job finished? The leaves, the birds, the wind strummed branches don't care.
Season is also ritual. I go to my favorite, family owned nursery to buy onion sets. I've gone there for thirty-five years now, and I've noticed, (have you?) that the nursery clerks and I are all getting old. The son owner, a Swede, now looks exactly like his father looked of years ago. This stuns me for a moment, as I remember his father well after all these years, standing tall and serious in his usual blue jeans and brown shirt. He had that Nordic calm, a little distant as was his way, but certainly a kind man and a lover of plants who always warmed to plant-talk. I liked him and miss him. There is a certain rhythm to all of this.
My thoughts wander---'this December will they have yellow, white, and red Italian onions, and will they still be $2.99 a scoop and will they be plump and ready for planting and will there be a few of my gardener-clerk-friends milling about with whom I may "chat-kibitiz" as I go about the heady business of onion purchase'? "Yea, we gotta buy these onion sets before they all get sold out and the weather warms too much, then where the hell will we be for green onions, eh? There's time yet, but we gotta get on with it". "you're right man, just what the wife has been tellin' me". These questions, like the ritual, are always the same, almost.
When I get home, the onion area in my vegetable garden is ready; I sit on the same wooden stool, poke holes into the fecund earth with a treasured, old olive wood dibble, much like the ones my grandfathers and father used. I have a great sense of continuity. Will my children and grandchildren do this one day? Each hole---each earth-moist little receptive womb of darkness welcomes its charge of germinative life as I drop each bulb in place. I smooth the earth into the holes and the ritual is almost complete; I pause for some moments and feelingly worry about the sleeping onion bulbs; when has the change from so-called dormancy to the quickening of life occurred in the secrecy of earth's darkness which I must trust--when I first bought the bulbs, when the bulbs first touched the earth? I don't know. I must await another rhythm; the pointed leaf spears penetrating upward from the earth, and growing, thrusting out into the sun like burning, curved green swords.
"Love and Soul" by Robert Sardello
The season and we ourselves are progressing to the nadir of the year, the winter solstice December 22, when sunlight will be at its minimum in terms of hours. So, when does the actual change occur, the tipping of the balance from one side to the other, the nanosecond when we are no longer in days that are shorter, when the light is ascendent? Or, is the shift too subtle for us to perceive. However, it is reassuring to realize that the days are getting longer and that the eternal rhythm is evident in an upward direction.
I am fascinated with changes happening in Nature, so I watch for them very focusedly with attentiveness that requires on my part reason, feeling, sensitivity, patience, and most of all as Sardello says, Love and Soul. But, in Nature, seeing the change is truly difficult. All that we think we will see, or do see, is a result. But, if we are open in our observence, in the moment and the experience, we can see It. Then, we are a part of It. There is no separation between us and what we see, and yes, I agree, this is hard to do sometimes. I suppose this is what Krishnamurti means where he says that intelligence is borne of Compassion. There can be no intelligence without compassion.
The garden chores are easy and enjoyable now, as I collect as many leaves as possible to spread in the plant island beds. And, there is calm and meditation as I prune trees and shrubs and slowly cut up the trimmings with hand clippers into one inche or less pieces, spreading them in the plant islands. This takes time, but what is that in contrast to the eternal, eternity? Trimming and cutting is like writing with pen and ink--it slows down the mind to an idle like a finely tuned engine so that an essence can emerge. Lawrence said he could write only with his fountain pen, and Shelby Foote wrote his six volume history of the American Civil War with a dip pen. That is why I write all my first drafts with pen and ink. There is a magic in the ink, a magic in the dark depths of the liquid ink as I dip into it. I'll bet there are a lot of pen dippers among us out there.
As I rake, sometimes I find a type of leaf , like thousands of it I've seen before, but this Liquidambar leaf is mysteriously new, its reds bleeding out into halos of amber, yellows, oranges and brown at it perimeters--it is all new, I cannot explain! The leaf in it richness of color is like a crystalline lens of burgandy and amber. And if you hold it up to the sunlight, that is exactly how it is, like a piece of stained glass. I stand there and stare--who cares whether I get the leaf raking job finished? The leaves, the birds, the wind strummed branches don't care.
Season is also ritual. I go to my favorite, family owned nursery to buy onion sets. I've gone there for thirty-five years now, and I've noticed, (have you?) that the nursery clerks and I are all getting old. The son owner, a Swede, now looks exactly like his father looked of years ago. This stuns me for a moment, as I remember his father well after all these years, standing tall and serious in his usual blue jeans and brown shirt. He had that Nordic calm, a little distant as was his way, but certainly a kind man and a lover of plants who always warmed to plant-talk. I liked him and miss him. There is a certain rhythm to all of this.
My thoughts wander---'this December will they have yellow, white, and red Italian onions, and will they still be $2.99 a scoop and will they be plump and ready for planting and will there be a few of my gardener-clerk-friends milling about with whom I may "chat-kibitiz" as I go about the heady business of onion purchase'? "Yea, we gotta buy these onion sets before they all get sold out and the weather warms too much, then where the hell will we be for green onions, eh? There's time yet, but we gotta get on with it". "you're right man, just what the wife has been tellin' me". These questions, like the ritual, are always the same, almost.
When I get home, the onion area in my vegetable garden is ready; I sit on the same wooden stool, poke holes into the fecund earth with a treasured, old olive wood dibble, much like the ones my grandfathers and father used. I have a great sense of continuity. Will my children and grandchildren do this one day? Each hole---each earth-moist little receptive womb of darkness welcomes its charge of germinative life as I drop each bulb in place. I smooth the earth into the holes and the ritual is almost complete; I pause for some moments and feelingly worry about the sleeping onion bulbs; when has the change from so-called dormancy to the quickening of life occurred in the secrecy of earth's darkness which I must trust--when I first bought the bulbs, when the bulbs first touched the earth? I don't know. I must await another rhythm; the pointed leaf spears penetrating upward from the earth, and growing, thrusting out into the sun like burning, curved green swords.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
NOVEMBER, the MONTH for PRUNING and CLEAN UP
It is true, I have been working steadily on the trees and shrubs, working over the branches, making sure that they are structurally in good shape for the rains and winds that may be coming. It is so important to have them opened up so that there will not be broken branches, and even branches that are too long and insecure that have the possibility of breaking and falling onto the house.
I started with my palms, especially the Queen palms because the fronds do not fall off cleanly from the main trunk. The long pole cutter with a combo sharp saw and cutter-pruner at the end is a wonderful tool and it has saved me countless dollars. I can reach high up into the palm fronds and cut them off. Sometimes I use the saw fixture on fronds that are in postions too awkward for the pruner. I like to have all my palms pruned so that the winds will not lash them about. There is someting nerve-wracking about not having them secured as the winds mount while I try to sleep.
And then, after I've done the pruning, I spend a puttering-morning caring for my tools; sharpening the blades razor sharp, oiling the pulleys and chains, replacing worn ropes. I cannot live with poorly cared for tools, of any kind. I think you can know a lot about a person by how he or she cares for tools. My daughter-in-law is the best beautician I know, and she lays out her tools on a clean white clothe as would a surgeon. And, my carving tools, some from my grandfathers, are always razor sharp, oiled with camillia oil, and stored in individual sectioned drawers. The handles have the patina of old leather. I can hear the comments now, but that's how I care for tools, and that is why I shall pass them on to my children.
Also, the non-palm trees have gotten my pruning efforts. I have cleared out all of those wispy, crossing inner-tree brances that can bring a tree down in heavy winds. It is hard work, but I feel good at the end of the day. You,ve heard it before; "I didn't realize that tree had grown so large". Now the tree is broken, or worse, down, and one has to call the tree trimmers at some big expense, when all this could have been avoided with some care.
Actually, a garden that is well pruned has an incomparable, special living Form. The most beautiful garden that I have ever seen, structurally, is the Butchart Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia in the dead of winter. Butch-art, eh? as the Canadians would say. The Gardeners there have the aesthetics of paintings and woodcuts by the English mystics Samuel Palmer and John Craxton. The Butchart pruner-artists know how to bring out the line, texture, and structure of old tree trunks, making them beautiful in themselves and also setting off the overall structure of the garden geography and its confines. Winter light is never so lovely as it is on those carefully pruned tree branches and trunks; a winter light so very bright but without warmth. The great English potter Michael Cardew said that is how old age is.But today, many of our gardens do not possess trees of age because we pop 'em in and pop 'em out. The oldest trees in my neighborhood are only 30-35 years old, except for the olives which are probably 60-70 years because they were moved in. I've seen countless trees in my neighborhood sacrificed to the so-called gods of progress, remodels, and renovations, what "they" call "moving on up". For a few weeks, I cannot bear to walk by those places where trees I have loved for years have been cut to the base of their trunks. Still, no excuse. Any tree or shrub can be pruned with care, concern for natural beauty, and love. It all depends on whether or not one cares about such things.
I started with my palms, especially the Queen palms because the fronds do not fall off cleanly from the main trunk. The long pole cutter with a combo sharp saw and cutter-pruner at the end is a wonderful tool and it has saved me countless dollars. I can reach high up into the palm fronds and cut them off. Sometimes I use the saw fixture on fronds that are in postions too awkward for the pruner. I like to have all my palms pruned so that the winds will not lash them about. There is someting nerve-wracking about not having them secured as the winds mount while I try to sleep.
And then, after I've done the pruning, I spend a puttering-morning caring for my tools; sharpening the blades razor sharp, oiling the pulleys and chains, replacing worn ropes. I cannot live with poorly cared for tools, of any kind. I think you can know a lot about a person by how he or she cares for tools. My daughter-in-law is the best beautician I know, and she lays out her tools on a clean white clothe as would a surgeon. And, my carving tools, some from my grandfathers, are always razor sharp, oiled with camillia oil, and stored in individual sectioned drawers. The handles have the patina of old leather. I can hear the comments now, but that's how I care for tools, and that is why I shall pass them on to my children.
Also, the non-palm trees have gotten my pruning efforts. I have cleared out all of those wispy, crossing inner-tree brances that can bring a tree down in heavy winds. It is hard work, but I feel good at the end of the day. You,ve heard it before; "I didn't realize that tree had grown so large". Now the tree is broken, or worse, down, and one has to call the tree trimmers at some big expense, when all this could have been avoided with some care.
Actually, a garden that is well pruned has an incomparable, special living Form. The most beautiful garden that I have ever seen, structurally, is the Butchart Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia in the dead of winter. Butch-art, eh? as the Canadians would say. The Gardeners there have the aesthetics of paintings and woodcuts by the English mystics Samuel Palmer and John Craxton. The Butchart pruner-artists know how to bring out the line, texture, and structure of old tree trunks, making them beautiful in themselves and also setting off the overall structure of the garden geography and its confines. Winter light is never so lovely as it is on those carefully pruned tree branches and trunks; a winter light so very bright but without warmth. The great English potter Michael Cardew said that is how old age is.But today, many of our gardens do not possess trees of age because we pop 'em in and pop 'em out. The oldest trees in my neighborhood are only 30-35 years old, except for the olives which are probably 60-70 years because they were moved in. I've seen countless trees in my neighborhood sacrificed to the so-called gods of progress, remodels, and renovations, what "they" call "moving on up". For a few weeks, I cannot bear to walk by those places where trees I have loved for years have been cut to the base of their trunks. Still, no excuse. Any tree or shrub can be pruned with care, concern for natural beauty, and love. It all depends on whether or not one cares about such things.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
OCTOBER INSOUCIANCE
To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close-bosom friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eve run. . . .
John Keats, 1819
This October, the figs of various varieties are ripening: "Tiger Panache" like yellow and green stripped minarets; "Green Genoa" of opulent form; "The Grande Ilse" of my wife's ancestors' fig tree from Louisiana and Mississippi. Yet, as these figs come our way, the leaves of the trees that bear them are yellowing, falling one by one to the ground around their trunks bringing a promise of earthy decompostion and renewal. I think that the fallen layered leaves are as sensuous to my eyes as are the figs to my tongue and palate. Both have a delicious scent of Autumn.
October is our 10th month according to the Gregorian calendar, but it was the 8th month for the ancient Romans, and it still is for me. The Romans tried to rename it after emperors and prominent families, but none of the names ever stuck. Perhaps this is because October as 8th month carries with it the potentia of the number 8, the symbol of the Lemniscus which is a figure eight of pointed or connected circles touching each other. A lemniscus is defined as a bundle bands or fibers located in the brain. It is composed of a fascia, bands. Leminiscate forms are ribbon-like bands that look exactly like a rubber band that is twisted once in the middle. It is the symbol for infinity. Once one gets the image in the mind, in the imagination, it pops up all over the place and is seen everywhere. I see it all the time in vines, clouds, streams, and especially in snakes.
. It is thought that the Lemniscus derived from a very ancient symbol-form known as the Ouroboros; the Lemniscus is a kind of double Ouroboros. The etymology of Ouroboros is that "uro" means tail, and "ors" or "os' means mouth, (both from Greek); that is, a tail devourer. So, an Ouroboros is that wonderful ring image of the serpent devouring it own tail. Metaphorically, the serpent devours itself so that it can be reborn. I always encounter shed snake skins on my walks, and I say, "that snake has been reborn, it has a new skin, a new life". We do exactly the same thing when we cast off old mental-emotional chains. Like the Lemniscus, the Ouroboros is an image of spontaneous, continuous flow, one curve flowing with energy into another, and that is October; one time or season flowing into another season. October brings fruits, figs, and the falling of leaves to enrich the earth for the next season's "mellow fruitfulness."
But the Lemniscus with its two connected, touching circles has a more profound meaning. The two circles are the two worlds--this one and the Spirit world. They meet up or touch each other at All Saints' Eve and at All Souls' Eve. The point at which the two orbs touch is magical! You know, it's that time of year when there is other worldly magic in the red, oranges, and yellows of fallen leaves, and there is that moist, earthy evening smell of dew kissed fallen leaves and sheaves of straw, all with more than a hint of cold, even with perhaps a whiting of frost. All Hallows Eve, is my favorite time of year partly because it conjours up polarities of orange sunsets and frosty nights.
Halloween in its non-commercialized version is All Saints' Eve which falls on the night of October 31rst, and All Saints' Day is November 1rst, one of the ten days of Holy Obligation in the Church. All Souls' Day is November 2nd and is called the Day of the Dead. It is the day for honoring the recently dead and all the dead, and prayers are offered so that their Souls may reach heaven. It is also a day to remember them--they should not be forgotten.
All Hallow's Eve or Halloween incorporated many traditions from pagan (paganus simply means farmer, as in paesano) harvest festivals and of those honoring the dead. People believed, and still do, that it was a time when the material and supernatural worlds are closest and magical things would happen. The Lemniscus again. They believed that a Faery Host of the Souls of the dead was flying through the sky. People dressed up in frightening costumes to scare off the evil spirits. and the lit huge bonfires as well. I always associate Halloween with smells of burning leaves, flames, smoke and flickering figures and shadows. Modern popular society thinks of Halloween in terms of a holiday of horror and of the sales accrued from "halloween stuff'" sold in stores.
In reality, Halloween resides deeply seated as an archetype in the human psyche because the seasons are still with us! They have not left us. I don't think they can package a piece of the sky and put a price tag on it.
These special seasonal days have a tight grip on many people and rightly so; people love the magical, the mysterious jutaposition of the two worlds in Autumn, and even though they are unaware of the traditional antecedents, the mystique still exists. And, I assure you, not to worry--there will not be a quiz on the scholarly antecedents and traditions. I no longer do that sort of thing.
So, my garden proceeds into a mild and gentle stasis. Plants need to be watered properly during this extremely dry time before the rains come, but only enough to keep the roots alive. It is also a time of cleaning up, pruning, opening up the trees so that the winter rains and winds (when they come) can breathe freely through the branches. I watch and enjoy this gentle October seasonal mood. I become an observant dawdler, a flaneur. October--a delectable time of Insouciance.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
SEPTEMBER--THE MONTH THAT DIVIDES
". . .we earn the right to enter into the spring season of growth only if we can also enter into the time when summer wans and autumn draws on: the season of sinking down and dying that comes with winter." From the book "The Archangel Michael" by Rudolph Steiner.
A September Essay
September is the turning point month that divides summer from fall. The astrological change occurs with the Autumnal Equinox beginning with September 23rd or so. Right now, even well before the 23rd, the days are hotter in the afternoons because the sun's angle is more oblique, and the evenings and nights are cooler by contrast. The hues and tones of the late afternoon light are already of a definite orange, yellow cast.
September is the 9th month of the Gregorian calendar, but it is the 7th month of the Roman calendar, and is named "September" after the Latin for seven, 'septem'. I wonder if the similar sounding word 'septum' from Latin saeptum, a thin dividing membrane that is a partition as in the nose and other tissues would provide a better etymology? With its Autumnal Equinox, isn't September the month of the balance sign of Libra, and the balance that Saint Michael carries at his belt? Why not? This etymology (septem and saeptum) is more fun, and being linguistically correct isn't everything, even though the word September does derive from the Latin seven, 'septem'.
The heat loving plants of my garden have absorbed all of the sun's energy that they need in order to bloom before the the heat subsides. Gardenia japonica is is full bloom now, scenting the air with inimitable ambiant fragrance. Gardenia japonica var. "Augusta" blooms and grows stronger if it is grafted on Gardenia thunberbgia stock. When "Augusta" grows on its own roots it doesn't flourish. I have made it a point to get some Gardenia thunbergias; I grafted a G. japonica on one, and I have allowed the other plant to grow freely. So, my Gardenia thunbergia is a very large shrub now and in a few more years it will be be a small tree. If you want to see a good specimen of G. thunbergia, visit Walter Andersen's Nursery in Point Loma. Go into the back yard by the fish ponds against the left wall, and there it grows as it has for many years. It is the only one that I know of in this area.
My G. thunbergia produces three inch, nine-petalled flowers of the most delicate scent. The morning scent lasts until the sun gets hot, and the flowers last only one day, and there is a definite dividing line for their lives, and they don't even know it. Why cannot the gardenia perfumes ever replicate the exact scent of the actual flowers? Easy--they are chemical concoctions, imitations. They are like embalmed scents, beautiful as they are, but nevetheless artificial. It is for the same reason that sopranos such as the great Beverly Sills, who has beautiful overtones to her voice, never sounds the same on disk as she did in an actual concert setting. So, grasp the flower, (and the voice) and its scent before the balance shifts and it is gone.
The music of my night garden tells me that a great seasonal change is about to happen. I hear the musical chirping of the crickets--they are exuberant in their singing. Moreover they are antiphonal. I hear one singing close by my window, and then I hear another one (sometimes others) singing at a distance. The two pulses of sound start off as separate sounds, but then they gradually synchronize or merge, finally becoming one sound of a chordal nature, and then they gradually separate or divide again into two sounds; the one chirping near and the other chirping far away. This phenomenon, that I first discovered for myself, is what Gaston Bachelard talks about in "L'intuition de l'instant". He says that all Nature is a constant flowing of "inward and outward", "back and forth", "far and near," of "retreat and expansion" and of a spiral, vortex quality at that. Lucio Alberto Pinheiro dos Santos, a Brazilian philospher, (1889-1950) says the same thing in slightly different words. And Henri Lefebfre says that the so-called noises of the world are not noises at all. All the murmurs (reumers) have meaning, and he implores us not to forget to listen to the Silences between the notes: isn't that really what music is? These Silences are what I listen to or for as they happen between the far and near, among the alternate and simultaneous singing of the crickets. What beautiful, varied silences they are, and they soothe my Spirit as I lay in my bed. The Silences, like the negative spaces in sculptures, are lovely and mysterious.
My own living experiences, the explanations of Bachelard, Lucio Pinheiros, and Henri Lefebre give credence (from perhaps more intellectual statements than mine) to the September sounds of Silence in my own little garden, and in all of Nature. And, the cricket chirps change! As the season cools down to early winter, when ther are fewer flowers, the crickets' singing notes will assume descending cadence becoming slower as well. And finally, they will, one night, cease. As W. H. Auden says in his poem about gardens, "Their Lonely Betters", all of Nature thrives without knowing that it is dying; this insight is only reserved for the existence of "Their Lonely Betters", we self conscious, self aggrandizing humans. But we can be like the flowers and the crickets if we dwell entirely in the experiential moment, sans talking or naming.
The sun enters Libra on the very moment of the Autumnal Equinox, The Scales, and that is another
energy laden change. The Earth and its creatures, plant and animal, have received the sun's powerful energy. They have taken in all they can accomodate. So now it is time for the earth to slow down. Now the Earth needs for the plants to give back, to return the nourishment--what has been taken will now be given back, and that is the deep significance of the scales that Saint Michael the archangel always carries at his belt. His feast day Michaelmas is celebrated on September 29. The season has changed; energies will balance out. The sign Libra is named 'bilancio' in Italian, so symbolic of Michael and the turning season.
Michael is the leader of the angels, and he serves and defends all of those who are in dire distress. He is sometimes shown in paintings and sculptures brandishing his sword, vanquishing the demon, and carrying the scales at his belt. His name, Michael or Micah means "he who is like God". He is the true guardian of the limen or threshold, the doors of change, and the initiator of a new and compassionate relationship between man and the Divine.
A depiction of Saint Michael and the demon dragon by William Blake 1757-1827. Here, Blake shows Michael binding the devil in chain as he holds a very large key in his right hand. The background is that of the ocean waters with birds flying at the left in the sky. The over all depiction is like a mandala of a vortex.
A September Essay
September is the turning point month that divides summer from fall. The astrological change occurs with the Autumnal Equinox beginning with September 23rd or so. Right now, even well before the 23rd, the days are hotter in the afternoons because the sun's angle is more oblique, and the evenings and nights are cooler by contrast. The hues and tones of the late afternoon light are already of a definite orange, yellow cast.
September is the 9th month of the Gregorian calendar, but it is the 7th month of the Roman calendar, and is named "September" after the Latin for seven, 'septem'. I wonder if the similar sounding word 'septum' from Latin saeptum, a thin dividing membrane that is a partition as in the nose and other tissues would provide a better etymology? With its Autumnal Equinox, isn't September the month of the balance sign of Libra, and the balance that Saint Michael carries at his belt? Why not? This etymology (septem and saeptum) is more fun, and being linguistically correct isn't everything, even though the word September does derive from the Latin seven, 'septem'.
The heat loving plants of my garden have absorbed all of the sun's energy that they need in order to bloom before the the heat subsides. Gardenia japonica is is full bloom now, scenting the air with inimitable ambiant fragrance. Gardenia japonica var. "Augusta" blooms and grows stronger if it is grafted on Gardenia thunberbgia stock. When "Augusta" grows on its own roots it doesn't flourish. I have made it a point to get some Gardenia thunbergias; I grafted a G. japonica on one, and I have allowed the other plant to grow freely. So, my Gardenia thunbergia is a very large shrub now and in a few more years it will be be a small tree. If you want to see a good specimen of G. thunbergia, visit Walter Andersen's Nursery in Point Loma. Go into the back yard by the fish ponds against the left wall, and there it grows as it has for many years. It is the only one that I know of in this area.
My G. thunbergia produces three inch, nine-petalled flowers of the most delicate scent. The morning scent lasts until the sun gets hot, and the flowers last only one day, and there is a definite dividing line for their lives, and they don't even know it. Why cannot the gardenia perfumes ever replicate the exact scent of the actual flowers? Easy--they are chemical concoctions, imitations. They are like embalmed scents, beautiful as they are, but nevetheless artificial. It is for the same reason that sopranos such as the great Beverly Sills, who has beautiful overtones to her voice, never sounds the same on disk as she did in an actual concert setting. So, grasp the flower, (and the voice) and its scent before the balance shifts and it is gone.
The music of my night garden tells me that a great seasonal change is about to happen. I hear the musical chirping of the crickets--they are exuberant in their singing. Moreover they are antiphonal. I hear one singing close by my window, and then I hear another one (sometimes others) singing at a distance. The two pulses of sound start off as separate sounds, but then they gradually synchronize or merge, finally becoming one sound of a chordal nature, and then they gradually separate or divide again into two sounds; the one chirping near and the other chirping far away. This phenomenon, that I first discovered for myself, is what Gaston Bachelard talks about in "L'intuition de l'instant". He says that all Nature is a constant flowing of "inward and outward", "back and forth", "far and near," of "retreat and expansion" and of a spiral, vortex quality at that. Lucio Alberto Pinheiro dos Santos, a Brazilian philospher, (1889-1950) says the same thing in slightly different words. And Henri Lefebfre says that the so-called noises of the world are not noises at all. All the murmurs (reumers) have meaning, and he implores us not to forget to listen to the Silences between the notes: isn't that really what music is? These Silences are what I listen to or for as they happen between the far and near, among the alternate and simultaneous singing of the crickets. What beautiful, varied silences they are, and they soothe my Spirit as I lay in my bed. The Silences, like the negative spaces in sculptures, are lovely and mysterious.
My own living experiences, the explanations of Bachelard, Lucio Pinheiros, and Henri Lefebre give credence (from perhaps more intellectual statements than mine) to the September sounds of Silence in my own little garden, and in all of Nature. And, the cricket chirps change! As the season cools down to early winter, when ther are fewer flowers, the crickets' singing notes will assume descending cadence becoming slower as well. And finally, they will, one night, cease. As W. H. Auden says in his poem about gardens, "Their Lonely Betters", all of Nature thrives without knowing that it is dying; this insight is only reserved for the existence of "Their Lonely Betters", we self conscious, self aggrandizing humans. But we can be like the flowers and the crickets if we dwell entirely in the experiential moment, sans talking or naming.
The sun enters Libra on the very moment of the Autumnal Equinox, The Scales, and that is another
energy laden change. The Earth and its creatures, plant and animal, have received the sun's powerful energy. They have taken in all they can accomodate. So now it is time for the earth to slow down. Now the Earth needs for the plants to give back, to return the nourishment--what has been taken will now be given back, and that is the deep significance of the scales that Saint Michael the archangel always carries at his belt. His feast day Michaelmas is celebrated on September 29. The season has changed; energies will balance out. The sign Libra is named 'bilancio' in Italian, so symbolic of Michael and the turning season.
Michael is the leader of the angels, and he serves and defends all of those who are in dire distress. He is sometimes shown in paintings and sculptures brandishing his sword, vanquishing the demon, and carrying the scales at his belt. His name, Michael or Micah means "he who is like God". He is the true guardian of the limen or threshold, the doors of change, and the initiator of a new and compassionate relationship between man and the Divine.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
THE AUGUST MONTH
August is a curious month here in the Southern California clime near the coast. Our gardens are in what the English term late "High Summer", and so "Summer's time is finished/ diffused across a path of indifference ", as one poet puts it. It is hot and the air has a subtle rustle of dried leaves that is the harbinger of fall, a fall not yet here but certainly ambiant in the heaviness and fulness of plant being---the flowers are "too heavy with the weight of their own being." They sing queitly to themselves in the morning air. How refreshing.
August is the eighth month of the Gregorian Calendar, named after the Roman emperor Augustus. Here in Southern California the weather is august, but dry, so we need to water if the garden is to flourish and grow and look good. A low water, low maintenance garden is suitable for our rainless clime, but if one wants to savor a beautifully green, flowering garden, one must work hard, be sensitive, and of course, water. What's the use of having a garden that is low maintenance and sterile? The ones that I see in my suburban proper neighborhood are all so fittingly presentable and thusly, depressingly boring or 'noioso' as the Italians so aply put it. I want to walk out into the garden in the morning and observe the emergent leaves, the tiny meristematic buds of growth, and the flower scented atmosphere. If I want low maintenance, I'll go to some corporate office, glassed in entry-way-planting. I want Borodin's Oriental maidens of lovely feet stepping out into gardens of evening cool. But, like all of us, they must step carefully, watching out for poisonous serpents, rattlesnakes. It's their garden too.
The August garden here on the coast is a Mediterranean one of "almost-goodbyes." It is only one degree away from what Giuseppe Lampedusa calls a "garden of partched scents" in his epic nostalgic novel of a lost Sicily "The Leopard". What else can I say--the poets say it so well! Such gardens of heavy roses have the scent and color of Mahler's convalescent slow movements. I experienced this one August in a public garden in Vienna. The roses floated in bloom, their petals in fully opened balls, and the air was warm and sunny of a morning as people strolled on the leaf strewn lawns and walked their dogs among blotches of warm shades, and then the very next morn the cold was there with its final chill, like a stiletto. It was finished; 'Abschied' the farewell until spring, as Mahler says in "Das Lied von der Erde"--"The Song of the Earth". Such gardens have an imploring music all their own singing "wait one minute more before I say goodbye," and that is the essence of Mahler and of August.
We are not quite yet at the season's 'Abschied'-farewell. We will need to wait until late October or perhaps early November for that, and then there is the promise of the Eternal Return.
The August garden here on the coast is a Mediterranean one of "almost-goodbyes." It is only one degree away from what Giuseppe Lampedusa calls a "garden of partched scents" in his epic nostalgic novel of a lost Sicily "The Leopard". What else can I say--the poets say it so well! Such gardens of heavy roses have the scent and color of Mahler's convalescent slow movements. I experienced this one August in a public garden in Vienna. The roses floated in bloom, their petals in fully opened balls, and the air was warm and sunny of a morning as people strolled on the leaf strewn lawns and walked their dogs among blotches of warm shades, and then the very next morn the cold was there with its final chill, like a stiletto. It was finished; 'Abschied' the farewell until spring, as Mahler says in "Das Lied von der Erde"--"The Song of the Earth". Such gardens have an imploring music all their own singing "wait one minute more before I say goodbye," and that is the essence of Mahler and of August.
We are not quite yet at the season's 'Abschied'-farewell. We will need to wait until late October or perhaps early November for that, and then there is the promise of the Eternal Return.
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