Imbolc is here again: the old Celtic celebration of women, poetry, milk, and fire. I've tossed back a celebratory mug of hot chocolate, sent off a few letters to women I admire, and stoked the wood stove... so now it's time for poetry!
Here's a haiku almanac of the last few months on the farm:
HARVEST SEASON:
Our thirteen guineas
fed dogs, hawks, and foxes too.
"Free-range" comes with risks.
Chanterelle shining
Amidst shadows in deep woods:
Gold in them there hills!
Celtic year's turning
small lights guide along dark paths
Tonight, we shall sing!
Old Celts used turnips
To light the dead home. Pumpkin's
A New World trade-up!
Into year's dark half
We delve. Opposite of Spring
Isn't Fall, but Root
Brought home hay today
So pigs can burrow and build
a grand storm-proof nest
Come, sweet autumn rain:
All the tools are put away
And pig's got a roof!
O, well-carved pumpkin
Weep not. Full of light you go,
Now to join the saints.
Rural peace of mind:
high woodstacks, jam-full pantry,
Pig's jolt-squeak (fence works).
Bare witness of trees
documents the naked truth
at the branch office.
November closes
Wet snow swells the woodland streams
in shade, mushrooms bloom
Little Shiitake,
such goodness in such small space:
Edible haiku!
WINTER SETS IN:
Ice-rime all around.
Farmstead feathers stir, birds cluck:
Tea-time for chickens!
(Holiday Dollmaker's Lament:)
Artisan's eyestrain
overtakes. Help! Need some elves
to finish more elves!
Ah, Christmas! Warm fire,
Frozen fields, frozen streams, and...
Frozen shower drain.
Oh, pipes, won't you sing?
Warm, uncrystalize and flow.
I need a shower!
Drink deep, my cattle.
Hose uncoils, fills trough to brim
Before ice returns.
Subzero at dawn
hens huddle in nestboxes
laying eggsicles.
Ah dinnae ken gin
Ye can screeve haiku in Scots;
Thocht I'd hae a gae!
(I don't know if / you can write haiku in Scots / Thought I'd give it a try!)
Dawn o Rab Burns Nicht
Craitures blether poetry
tae toast Scotia's bard.
(Thoughts on retrieving wayward livestock after nightfall:)
We heed neighbor's call,
with rope and boots in snowstorm.
Wanna buy a bull?
Alright, folks: your turn! 'Tis the season for poetic inspiration and creative merry-making. Leave a comment with a haiku or two!
Showing posts with label fire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fire. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
In The Dark: A Celtic New Year Sermon
(I was invited to be a "guest preacher" last Sunday at my home church. It always seems a bit funny to serve the role of a guest when I'm already part of the family there! Since this month marks the start of the "dark half" of the Celtic year, and since one of this Sunday's lectionary readings talks a lot about light and darkness, it seemed natural to dwell on the interplay of shortening days and lengthening nights.)
Sermon for Proper 28A: In The Dark
(based on I Thessalonians 5:1-11, NRSV)
Every morning, as the light reaches in between the dark spines of the trees on the ridge, we watch and wait. First the rays of pale gold stretch across the dark hollow of our farm to touch the trees on Gloucester Ridge. Then, slowly, the angle of the light changes and dips down to gild the empty branches of the ash tree, the oaks, and the maples on our own land. Finally, the light spreads to the cold earth itself, and the hard edges of the frost begin to melt off the pasture grasses.
One of us ambles down to survey the situation, then returns to the wood-fired warmth of the house. Every morning, lately, the other one asks the same question: “how many legs?”
We've been waiting for calves to be born. We know what day the bull arrived, but—I hope you don't think I'm being indelicate here—there are certain other details we seem to have missed. It's just as Brother Arnold warned us last year, when we went over to the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community to discuss their own herd of Highland Cattle and get some ideas. We'd told him our tale of woe, about the challenge of finding and affording a vet who could work around those wild-looking, big-horned beasties of ours, to say nothing of the challenge of timing. Brother Arnold nodded his head knowingly. “You won't see many signs of readiness,” he said, “Highland cows are...well, they're very subtle.”
Subtle, indeed. So, here we are, ten months after the bull moved into the pasture. It takes nine months for a calf to be ready, just like a human baby. Ten months have past and our two round-as-a-barrel cows show no sign of imminant calving. So, we wonder. We worry. We ask ourselves what went wrong, and what could still go wrong now. Sometimes, we dream: a new calf could offer so much to our farm: the expansion of our herd, the proof of their capacity for new life, and the promise of another fine full-grown animal to transform into needed income or good, homegrown meat.
So, each morning, we cast hopeful eyes out towards the pasture, and we count legs, looking for a sweet gangly little body tucked alongside one of the cows. “How many legs? Still twelve?” “Still twelve.” There's nothing we can do to hurry it along, and—although there are signs we can watch for—there's no way we can predict the exact moment of the herd's increase. We're kept in the dark about it. It's subtle. We have to keep wondering. We have to hurry up and wait.
This morning's scripture comes from another bunch of people-in-waiting. Paul is writing to the fledgling church in Thessalonica. That little church was caught up in in the fashion and fervor of the day, waiting for the Rapture, the Day of the Lord. There were signs all around them: earthquakes, floods, plagues, riots in the streets, cities being destroyed, governments shifting and falling, and different religions battling it out, each claiming to have exclusive access to the “Truth.”
Sound familiar? And if you weren't sure what to believe, there were street preachers to tell you where you'd go and street vendors to sell you just the right handbasket!
It's hard not to be afraid when everyone around you is talking like that. It's hard not to let all the fear-mongerers and doomers get to you. When the loudest voices cry out, “pain and suffering! Death and destruction!” no matter how much you try to laugh it off, it gets a little harder to sleep at night, a little harder to keep peace in your heart.
Remember how the Rapture was predicted by a radio preacher, who declared Judgement Day for May 21st, 2011? Did you hear about this? Did you find yourself checking your calendar? After the day came and went, he recalculated for October. When November came, did you breathe a sigh of relief, or did you get a little nervous, because now we're almost to December, rapidly honing in on the next big date for the End of the World...?
A good teacher once said, “What you contemplate, you imitate.” Whatever stories you tell yourself, whatever dramas or sitcoms you watch on television, whatever magazines you read, whatever ads flash in front of your eyes—all these things echo around inside you, the images shimmer and reflect, until it all becomes part of the way you understand the world. We can't help it—what we contemplate, we imitate. We tend to copy what we see and repeat what we hear. Now, that's one thing when you're a new Christian sorting through the competing tales of Roman politicians and travelling preachers. But there's a whole extra layer of difficulty in an age of mass-media and instant communication.
What if the stories we hear and and the images we see are mostly lies, carefully crafted by marketing experts? What if every commercial is a lie, a message that, by yourself, you're a weak, ugly nobody, but if you buy whatever they're selling, you could be SOMEbody, even somebody strong and beautiful? Bit by bit, the carefully-crafted lies eat away at us.
The marketers sling mud until it covers our souls. We lose perspective. We give up our power. We learn to live in doubt and anxiety and fear. What you contemplate, you imitate. Little by little, we forget how to shine. We become children of the darkness.
Writer Jeffrey Pugh imagines a demon, writing a management guide from his basement office in hell. The devil explains his latest strategy:
“As part of my toolbox I’ve always used distraction to deter them from truly considering the world as our opponent wants it. I like it better when they become fascinated with the things that do not feed their souls. In the old days, of course, we had bread and circuses, but in the age of technology we have even more wonders at our disposal...We don’t want them to cultivate ways of living that bring them together. We want them torn apart, polarized, and at each others throats. Any question about how they should live needs to be buried under the scandal of the day... I want an entire planet entertaining themselves to death. No, seriously, I mean it. If they start to think seriously about the world they build and see the possibility that the world could be different, well, it’s time to Release the Kardashians!!”
Now, get that clever devil out of the spotlight and listen to the Good News:
But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake...
Children of the light: that is how God made us.
There was a beautiful mystic tradition among the Jews and early Christians that God was the first, best and brightest light in the whole universe, and everything God made had God's light trapped inside: flowers, weeds, bushes and trees, rocks, rivers, snakes, salamanders, codfish, sharks, woodchucks, camels, even bugs—all just bursting with God-given light, full of sparks of divine fire.
That's true of people, too—not just the wealthy and powerful, but everybody: the bank president with the elegant shoes and the woman in scuffed sneakers at the laundromat. The construction foreman with the gleaming new truck and the greasy-haired guy who works nights at Gas-n-Go. We are—all of us—children of the light, all created with the potential to shine, to brighten the world with hope and healing, possibility and promise. Most of us maybe don't know it. Some of us start out knowing it, but we forget. We let our minds fall on other things. We dwell on failure and fear. We stop shining. We stop noticing all the other divine sparks around us. Our vision gets hazy. We get drunk. We fall asleep.
...we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
Do you hear that? Wake up! Listen up! WE—We, right here, all of us—are full of divine sparks, stuffed almost to bursting with God's beautiful, radiant, powerful light. Fear and anxiety are not our masters—God is! As soldiers discipline themselves for battle, so should we discipline ourselves for the challenge of making peace. Give the muscles of faith a workout. Build up the stamina of your hope. Get ready to love longer and harder and more deeply than you ever have before. Repent—change your ways—because the Beginning is Near!
For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ... so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.
As Paul says, “Build each other up.” In a culture geared to pettiness and appearances, it can be hard to make this change. I suggest an exercise, what they used to call a spiritual discipline: Turn away from the false and intoxicating lights of all the little glowing screens around us. Remember: what you contemplate, you imitate.
In this season of darkness, seek illumination from a different source. Light a candle. Sit with that small flame and pray. Reflect on the light. Make space for God's light to stir and shine within you. Wipe away the mud and clear away the debris until you find the deep smoldering goodness of your own soul. Breathe with it. Feed it. Let the wind of the Holy Spirit stir it, like a sudden gust across the coals of a campfire, until sparks catch fire and dance up into flame. Wake up each morning ready to search the landscape for signs of new life, ready to celebrate the wonders that may be born on this day of New Beginnings. We are Children of the Light. We are brothers and sisters of the Light of the World. Let it shine! Let it shine! Let it shine!!!
(All images copyright Mainecelt 2011 except for Calvin, borrowed from here, and handbasket, borrowed from here.)
Sermon for Proper 28A: In The Dark
(based on I Thessalonians 5:1-11, NRSV)
Every morning, as the light reaches in between the dark spines of the trees on the ridge, we watch and wait. First the rays of pale gold stretch across the dark hollow of our farm to touch the trees on Gloucester Ridge. Then, slowly, the angle of the light changes and dips down to gild the empty branches of the ash tree, the oaks, and the maples on our own land. Finally, the light spreads to the cold earth itself, and the hard edges of the frost begin to melt off the pasture grasses.
One of us ambles down to survey the situation, then returns to the wood-fired warmth of the house. Every morning, lately, the other one asks the same question: “how many legs?”We've been waiting for calves to be born. We know what day the bull arrived, but—I hope you don't think I'm being indelicate here—there are certain other details we seem to have missed. It's just as Brother Arnold warned us last year, when we went over to the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community to discuss their own herd of Highland Cattle and get some ideas. We'd told him our tale of woe, about the challenge of finding and affording a vet who could work around those wild-looking, big-horned beasties of ours, to say nothing of the challenge of timing. Brother Arnold nodded his head knowingly. “You won't see many signs of readiness,” he said, “Highland cows are...well, they're very subtle.”
Subtle, indeed. So, here we are, ten months after the bull moved into the pasture. It takes nine months for a calf to be ready, just like a human baby. Ten months have past and our two round-as-a-barrel cows show no sign of imminant calving. So, we wonder. We worry. We ask ourselves what went wrong, and what could still go wrong now. Sometimes, we dream: a new calf could offer so much to our farm: the expansion of our herd, the proof of their capacity for new life, and the promise of another fine full-grown animal to transform into needed income or good, homegrown meat.
So, each morning, we cast hopeful eyes out towards the pasture, and we count legs, looking for a sweet gangly little body tucked alongside one of the cows. “How many legs? Still twelve?” “Still twelve.” There's nothing we can do to hurry it along, and—although there are signs we can watch for—there's no way we can predict the exact moment of the herd's increase. We're kept in the dark about it. It's subtle. We have to keep wondering. We have to hurry up and wait.
This morning's scripture comes from another bunch of people-in-waiting. Paul is writing to the fledgling church in Thessalonica. That little church was caught up in in the fashion and fervor of the day, waiting for the Rapture, the Day of the Lord. There were signs all around them: earthquakes, floods, plagues, riots in the streets, cities being destroyed, governments shifting and falling, and different religions battling it out, each claiming to have exclusive access to the “Truth.”
Sound familiar? And if you weren't sure what to believe, there were street preachers to tell you where you'd go and street vendors to sell you just the right handbasket!It's hard not to be afraid when everyone around you is talking like that. It's hard not to let all the fear-mongerers and doomers get to you. When the loudest voices cry out, “pain and suffering! Death and destruction!” no matter how much you try to laugh it off, it gets a little harder to sleep at night, a little harder to keep peace in your heart.
Remember how the Rapture was predicted by a radio preacher, who declared Judgement Day for May 21st, 2011? Did you hear about this? Did you find yourself checking your calendar? After the day came and went, he recalculated for October. When November came, did you breathe a sigh of relief, or did you get a little nervous, because now we're almost to December, rapidly honing in on the next big date for the End of the World...?
A good teacher once said, “What you contemplate, you imitate.” Whatever stories you tell yourself, whatever dramas or sitcoms you watch on television, whatever magazines you read, whatever ads flash in front of your eyes—all these things echo around inside you, the images shimmer and reflect, until it all becomes part of the way you understand the world. We can't help it—what we contemplate, we imitate. We tend to copy what we see and repeat what we hear. Now, that's one thing when you're a new Christian sorting through the competing tales of Roman politicians and travelling preachers. But there's a whole extra layer of difficulty in an age of mass-media and instant communication.
What if the stories we hear and and the images we see are mostly lies, carefully crafted by marketing experts? What if every commercial is a lie, a message that, by yourself, you're a weak, ugly nobody, but if you buy whatever they're selling, you could be SOMEbody, even somebody strong and beautiful? Bit by bit, the carefully-crafted lies eat away at us.
The marketers sling mud until it covers our souls. We lose perspective. We give up our power. We learn to live in doubt and anxiety and fear. What you contemplate, you imitate. Little by little, we forget how to shine. We become children of the darkness. Writer Jeffrey Pugh imagines a demon, writing a management guide from his basement office in hell. The devil explains his latest strategy:
“As part of my toolbox I’ve always used distraction to deter them from truly considering the world as our opponent wants it. I like it better when they become fascinated with the things that do not feed their souls. In the old days, of course, we had bread and circuses, but in the age of technology we have even more wonders at our disposal...We don’t want them to cultivate ways of living that bring them together. We want them torn apart, polarized, and at each others throats. Any question about how they should live needs to be buried under the scandal of the day... I want an entire planet entertaining themselves to death. No, seriously, I mean it. If they start to think seriously about the world they build and see the possibility that the world could be different, well, it’s time to Release the Kardashians!!”
Now, get that clever devil out of the spotlight and listen to the Good News:
But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake...
Children of the light: that is how God made us.
There was a beautiful mystic tradition among the Jews and early Christians that God was the first, best and brightest light in the whole universe, and everything God made had God's light trapped inside: flowers, weeds, bushes and trees, rocks, rivers, snakes, salamanders, codfish, sharks, woodchucks, camels, even bugs—all just bursting with God-given light, full of sparks of divine fire. That's true of people, too—not just the wealthy and powerful, but everybody: the bank president with the elegant shoes and the woman in scuffed sneakers at the laundromat. The construction foreman with the gleaming new truck and the greasy-haired guy who works nights at Gas-n-Go. We are—all of us—children of the light, all created with the potential to shine, to brighten the world with hope and healing, possibility and promise. Most of us maybe don't know it. Some of us start out knowing it, but we forget. We let our minds fall on other things. We dwell on failure and fear. We stop shining. We stop noticing all the other divine sparks around us. Our vision gets hazy. We get drunk. We fall asleep.
...we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
Do you hear that? Wake up! Listen up! WE—We, right here, all of us—are full of divine sparks, stuffed almost to bursting with God's beautiful, radiant, powerful light. Fear and anxiety are not our masters—God is! As soldiers discipline themselves for battle, so should we discipline ourselves for the challenge of making peace. Give the muscles of faith a workout. Build up the stamina of your hope. Get ready to love longer and harder and more deeply than you ever have before. Repent—change your ways—because the Beginning is Near!
For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ... so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.
As Paul says, “Build each other up.” In a culture geared to pettiness and appearances, it can be hard to make this change. I suggest an exercise, what they used to call a spiritual discipline: Turn away from the false and intoxicating lights of all the little glowing screens around us. Remember: what you contemplate, you imitate.
In this season of darkness, seek illumination from a different source. Light a candle. Sit with that small flame and pray. Reflect on the light. Make space for God's light to stir and shine within you. Wipe away the mud and clear away the debris until you find the deep smoldering goodness of your own soul. Breathe with it. Feed it. Let the wind of the Holy Spirit stir it, like a sudden gust across the coals of a campfire, until sparks catch fire and dance up into flame. Wake up each morning ready to search the landscape for signs of new life, ready to celebrate the wonders that may be born on this day of New Beginnings. We are Children of the Light. We are brothers and sisters of the Light of the World. Let it shine! Let it shine! Let it shine!!!
(All images copyright Mainecelt 2011 except for Calvin, borrowed from here, and handbasket, borrowed from here.)
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Imbolctide
The wheel of the year turns once more, and we arrive at Imbolc, one of the four "cross-quarters" or turning points of the Celtic agricultural year. This is a festival sacred to Bride (a.k.a. Bridgit)--an Irish Goddess or Saint (you choose!) One excellent reflection on this festival can be found here. Here on the farm, we're celebrating in grand style: we're going to play at yoghurt-making while pumpkin soup simmers on the woodstove. There are also rumours of a whipped-cream cake in the making, to be flavoured with lavender or whisky!
For Northern, pre-industrial folk, this was a hard time indeed, as winter storage foods dwindled and the prospect of new nourishment glimmered and wavered far off in hunger's haze. Imagine, then, the joy that came with fresh milk as lambing time approached and the ewes "bagged up" in preparation! The old name for this cross-quarter is "Imbolc," from old Celtic words for "ewe's milk." Traditional feast items for this time featured milk and cream and butter and cheese. If you don't have time for fancy stuff, celebrate by making a yoghurt smoothie!
In the deep February cold, this was also a time to celebrate fire--the fire of creation, captured in the blacksmith's work as well as the poet's inspiration. Smiths and poets were celebrated along with midwives and dairy animals. In fresh milk and creative fire, the hopes of earthborne people are renewed!
Here is a bit of bardic work for Imbolc, with a nod to Robbie Burns, Violet Jacob, and other Scots poetic forebears. (Hmmm. Haggis & Neeps might deserve a place on tonight's table, as well. They, too, are seasonally-appropriate elements for an Imbolc feast!) The poem incorporates the imagery of the "Cailleach," (pronounced KYLE-yok) or Old Woman of Winter, whose silver hammer kept the ground hard and cold until Spring.
IMBOLCTIDE
When yon Auld Grannie gyres an gimps
an unco dance on cranreuch groond
an gies her sillar curls a crimp,
Ye ken that Imbolc's comin roond.
When sillar hammers, blaw for blaw
fa habber-haird in hinmaist hone
then haud ye fast, for soon the thaw
will prize awa cauld winter's loan.
Nae lang she'll lanesame bide, nor sup
Wi'oot the dochter she lo'es best;
Nae grannie redds the kailyaird up
But for the thocht o some comin guest!
Nae mair the lanesame anvil-drum
Will mark the pace o Grannie's dance--
The Lass o the Lintin Wand shall come
An lowpin lambies hae their chaunce--
For Grannie Cailleach's time grows short
An wee snaw-drappies rowthie ring
for Bridgit cams, blithe hope tae sport
An after Bridgit cams-- the Spring!
--copyright Mainecelt 2011
Glossary: unco=strange, cranreuch=frosty, ken=know, Imbolc=Celtic Feast/source of Groundhog's Day, blaw=blow, fa=fall, habber=stutter, hinmaist=last, haud=hold, prize=pry, awa=away, wi'oot=without, dochter=daughter, redds the kailyaird up=cleans the place, thocht=thought, comin=coming, Lintin Wand=glinting wand of Bridgit, lowpin=leaping, chaunce=chance, Cailleach=crone/Celtic Earth-Goddess, snaw-drappies=snowdrops, rowthie=abundantly, cams=comes, blithe=joyous
For Northern, pre-industrial folk, this was a hard time indeed, as winter storage foods dwindled and the prospect of new nourishment glimmered and wavered far off in hunger's haze. Imagine, then, the joy that came with fresh milk as lambing time approached and the ewes "bagged up" in preparation! The old name for this cross-quarter is "Imbolc," from old Celtic words for "ewe's milk." Traditional feast items for this time featured milk and cream and butter and cheese. If you don't have time for fancy stuff, celebrate by making a yoghurt smoothie!In the deep February cold, this was also a time to celebrate fire--the fire of creation, captured in the blacksmith's work as well as the poet's inspiration. Smiths and poets were celebrated along with midwives and dairy animals. In fresh milk and creative fire, the hopes of earthborne people are renewed!
Here is a bit of bardic work for Imbolc, with a nod to Robbie Burns, Violet Jacob, and other Scots poetic forebears. (Hmmm. Haggis & Neeps might deserve a place on tonight's table, as well. They, too, are seasonally-appropriate elements for an Imbolc feast!) The poem incorporates the imagery of the "Cailleach," (pronounced KYLE-yok) or Old Woman of Winter, whose silver hammer kept the ground hard and cold until Spring.
IMBOLCTIDE
When yon Auld Grannie gyres an gimps
an unco dance on cranreuch groond
an gies her sillar curls a crimp,
Ye ken that Imbolc's comin roond.
When sillar hammers, blaw for blaw
fa habber-haird in hinmaist hone
then haud ye fast, for soon the thaw
will prize awa cauld winter's loan.
Nae lang she'll lanesame bide, nor sup
Wi'oot the dochter she lo'es best;
Nae grannie redds the kailyaird up
But for the thocht o some comin guest!
Nae mair the lanesame anvil-drum
Will mark the pace o Grannie's dance--
The Lass o the Lintin Wand shall come
An lowpin lambies hae their chaunce--
For Grannie Cailleach's time grows short
An wee snaw-drappies rowthie ring
for Bridgit cams, blithe hope tae sport
An after Bridgit cams-- the Spring!
--copyright Mainecelt 2011
Glossary: unco=strange, cranreuch=frosty, ken=know, Imbolc=Celtic Feast/source of Groundhog's Day, blaw=blow, fa=fall, habber=stutter, hinmaist=last, haud=hold, prize=pry, awa=away, wi'oot=without, dochter=daughter, redds the kailyaird up=cleans the place, thocht=thought, comin=coming, Lintin Wand=glinting wand of Bridgit, lowpin=leaping, chaunce=chance, Cailleach=crone/Celtic Earth-Goddess, snaw-drappies=snowdrops, rowthie=abundantly, cams=comes, blithe=joyous
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Fifteenth Night at the Ceilidh Palace
...and a glorious time was had by all.
Not to be confused with Caesars Palace (I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him), the Ceilidh Palace is the long-awaited addition to the home of our dear friends, F. and J. (For those still unfamiliar with the term, a ceilidh [pronounced "KAY-lee"] is a sort of musical pot-luck, where the entertainment tends toward the home-grown, free-range and organic.)
These two extraordinary musicians had long dreamed of building a splendid space for bardic gatherings. They poured the foundation years ago, but challenges all-too-common to the life of working artists made their plans go aft a-gley. This past year, though, they finally tackled the task's completion. We compared construction notes along the way. We merrily joked with them about our "competitive housebuilding," but many's the time we shared mutual congratulations over clever requisitions and creative use of cast-offs. We encouraged each other, commiserated over the "joys" of trimwork and drywall, and blessed each other's households with gifts of food, music, and friendship.
This weekend, they inaugurated the new space during their annual Twelfth Night Ceilidh & Conflagration. (Technically, counting from Christmas, it was Fifteenth Night, but the evening was too perfect to be bothered by technicalities.) In the past, this event has consisted of a fragrant, steamy elbow-to-elbow potluck in one room and a jam-packed music session in another, with scarcely room to butter one's bread or draw a fiddle bow. Folks took turns going out to gather around the snow-banked bonfire. They braved the frigid January night not just for the spectacle of the high-leaping flames, but also for the brief freedom to swing their arms and move easily about.
This year, the bonfire got off to a very good start with two crackly-branched Christmas trees.
As in past years, many guests brought something to contribute to the fire, from tiny wish-enscribed slips to multiple file-folders of burdensome paperwork. (The year I graduated from seminary, I contributed a small papier-mache effigy I dubbed "the algebra monster." I gleefully threw it into the fire, thereby declaring my symbolic freedom from long years of abject algebraic failure in a host of mathematics classrooms. I felt cleansed by the act and willingly endured the bemused and befuddled looks of those standing near me.)
Inside the house, a new hearth was blessed and another fire kindled, this time in the chilly but welcoming space of their new greatroom: the ground floor of the soaring post-and-beam Ceilidh Palace. With a canvas hung to divide the space and trap the heat, a set of old church pews set around the edges, and a fire blazing merrily in the grate, the new room was beckoning. Our hosts called everyone in for the blessing. F. played a haunting tune on his flute. The blessing was pronounced, and all drank a toast to hosts, hearth, and house. Then J. cried out, "Let the wild rumpus begin!"
First came the Scottish smallpipes, then fiddles emerged from cases along with harp, whistle, bodhran and guitar. It was tentative at first. Someone led off with "Mairi's Wedding." Then it was "Atholl Highlanders" and "Calliope House." "Lark in the Morning" took wing. Fiddles and whistles wove around each other in "Jenny Dang the Weaver." After a few more tunes, a banjo appeared in the mix. Soon an accordion squeezed in. After years of dreaming, of hoping, of saving and striving, the room came to life and thrummed with rollicking, lilting, toe-tapping, spirit-lifting music. It was a realized vision, a creative conspiracy--literally, a breathing-together--and our hearts beat together to the rhythm of this shared creation.
The evening rolled on. The musicians became more venturesome. In a household full of musical inventions and oddities, someone emerged with one of the oddest: a double-chantered Tunisian bagpipe whose maker had made no effort to disguise the material: goatskin.
Attempts to play it engendered uproarious laughter as the awful little goat-bag inflated to an alarming proportion, then emitted one tentative, goose-like *honk.* Although we could all plainly hear the air escaping from the loosely-tied bag, we all cried out for more, each squeak and squawk further incapacitating us with laughter.
Finally the poor creature was rescued and laid to rest, the gasping musicians wiped away tears of hilarity, and the session revved up again. More uncommon instruments were welcomed into the session and the tunes danced from one culture into another: Irish, Scottish, Quebecois, Breton... on into the dark winter night. Outside the sparks did their own wild dance, swirling and leaping high into the clear cold air. The Ceilidh Palace, work of common folk, bedecked with its faint tracery of plaster dust, was a treasure-trove heaped high. That night, we were all rich as kings and queens.
(All text, images, and video copyright Mainecelt 2010)
Not to be confused with Caesars Palace (I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him), the Ceilidh Palace is the long-awaited addition to the home of our dear friends, F. and J. (For those still unfamiliar with the term, a ceilidh [pronounced "KAY-lee"] is a sort of musical pot-luck, where the entertainment tends toward the home-grown, free-range and organic.)
These two extraordinary musicians had long dreamed of building a splendid space for bardic gatherings. They poured the foundation years ago, but challenges all-too-common to the life of working artists made their plans go aft a-gley. This past year, though, they finally tackled the task's completion. We compared construction notes along the way. We merrily joked with them about our "competitive housebuilding," but many's the time we shared mutual congratulations over clever requisitions and creative use of cast-offs. We encouraged each other, commiserated over the "joys" of trimwork and drywall, and blessed each other's households with gifts of food, music, and friendship.
This weekend, they inaugurated the new space during their annual Twelfth Night Ceilidh & Conflagration. (Technically, counting from Christmas, it was Fifteenth Night, but the evening was too perfect to be bothered by technicalities.) In the past, this event has consisted of a fragrant, steamy elbow-to-elbow potluck in one room and a jam-packed music session in another, with scarcely room to butter one's bread or draw a fiddle bow. Folks took turns going out to gather around the snow-banked bonfire. They braved the frigid January night not just for the spectacle of the high-leaping flames, but also for the brief freedom to swing their arms and move easily about.
This year, the bonfire got off to a very good start with two crackly-branched Christmas trees.
As in past years, many guests brought something to contribute to the fire, from tiny wish-enscribed slips to multiple file-folders of burdensome paperwork. (The year I graduated from seminary, I contributed a small papier-mache effigy I dubbed "the algebra monster." I gleefully threw it into the fire, thereby declaring my symbolic freedom from long years of abject algebraic failure in a host of mathematics classrooms. I felt cleansed by the act and willingly endured the bemused and befuddled looks of those standing near me.) Inside the house, a new hearth was blessed and another fire kindled, this time in the chilly but welcoming space of their new greatroom: the ground floor of the soaring post-and-beam Ceilidh Palace. With a canvas hung to divide the space and trap the heat, a set of old church pews set around the edges, and a fire blazing merrily in the grate, the new room was beckoning. Our hosts called everyone in for the blessing. F. played a haunting tune on his flute. The blessing was pronounced, and all drank a toast to hosts, hearth, and house. Then J. cried out, "Let the wild rumpus begin!"
First came the Scottish smallpipes, then fiddles emerged from cases along with harp, whistle, bodhran and guitar. It was tentative at first. Someone led off with "Mairi's Wedding." Then it was "Atholl Highlanders" and "Calliope House." "Lark in the Morning" took wing. Fiddles and whistles wove around each other in "Jenny Dang the Weaver." After a few more tunes, a banjo appeared in the mix. Soon an accordion squeezed in. After years of dreaming, of hoping, of saving and striving, the room came to life and thrummed with rollicking, lilting, toe-tapping, spirit-lifting music. It was a realized vision, a creative conspiracy--literally, a breathing-together--and our hearts beat together to the rhythm of this shared creation.
The evening rolled on. The musicians became more venturesome. In a household full of musical inventions and oddities, someone emerged with one of the oddest: a double-chantered Tunisian bagpipe whose maker had made no effort to disguise the material: goatskin.
Attempts to play it engendered uproarious laughter as the awful little goat-bag inflated to an alarming proportion, then emitted one tentative, goose-like *honk.* Although we could all plainly hear the air escaping from the loosely-tied bag, we all cried out for more, each squeak and squawk further incapacitating us with laughter. Finally the poor creature was rescued and laid to rest, the gasping musicians wiped away tears of hilarity, and the session revved up again. More uncommon instruments were welcomed into the session and the tunes danced from one culture into another: Irish, Scottish, Quebecois, Breton... on into the dark winter night. Outside the sparks did their own wild dance, swirling and leaping high into the clear cold air. The Ceilidh Palace, work of common folk, bedecked with its faint tracery of plaster dust, was a treasure-trove heaped high. That night, we were all rich as kings and queens.
(All text, images, and video copyright Mainecelt 2010)
Friday, August 7, 2009
Friday Five: Wind in My Sails
Sally, over at RevGalBlogPals, writes:
"... sailing is a family passion, we love the water and the wind, and take delight in the fresh air and quiet, but also in the competition, striving to do our best!
How about you?
1. Is there a sport/ hobby that is more of a passion than a past-time for you?
I've never been one for sports, although I do like salt-water swimming and Messing About In Boats and I adore a good game of Extreme Croquet.
My hobby/passion is the exploration of folk culture and traditions--especially those of the British Isles. (I come by this anthropological bent honestly-- growing up in a multi-ethnic family with three adopted siblings, intercultural study was simply a part of daily life, and provided a goodly portion of our family fun.) With some like-minded friends, we even started a nonprofit organization to support our folk culture habit, although it's in "sleep mode" while we finish building our house. The Piper and I have justified the purchase of many a CD and weighty ethnographic tome by saying, "It's all for the Ceilidh House library, of course--and we'll use these as reference materials when we teach our bagpipe and Gaelic language students!"
2. Outdoors or indoors?
Outdoors: festival-going, "ethnically-correct" gardening and orchard-tending with heirloom plant varieties, and staying close to the salt water that bouys my spirit and connects me to my ancestors. Indoors: delving into books, gathering with other folklore enthusiasts, swapping stories, and having great music session around the woodstove.
3. Where do you find peace and quiet?
Not sure right now-- it's been a hard year.
I seek peace in the slow intake and release of breath, the comfortable closeness of my partner, the gradually-revealed beauty of our almost-finished house and the slowly-emerging health of our land. Quiet is easier to find than peace--I am thankful every morning and every night that I can begin and end my days surrounded, almost entirely, by natural rather than human-made sounds. (I'll relish the quiet more fully when I can find my missing whetstone and "take care" of a couple of extra roosters, if you know what I mean!)
4. A competitive spirit; good or bad, discuss...
A competitive spirit is like fire: a good servant, a terrible master, and dangerous to play with.
I appreciate its ability to overcome inertia and get a person moving towards a goal, but I don't like the way others tend to be left in a person's wake. I should come clean and declare, right here, that I am a vicious card player, but fortunately my commpetitive streak is matched by a tendency toward distraction and terrible bad luck in the dealing of hands.
5. Is there a song a picture or a poem that sums up your passion ?
I've posted links to Richard Hugo's poem, Glen Uig, in previous posts. It captures some of the essential pain and joy of reconnection to one's past. Here's another poem from Cathal O Searcaigh, translated from Irish Gaelic by Gabriel Fitzmaurice:
A Portrait Of The Blacksmith As A Young Artist
I'm sick and tired of Dun Laoghaire.
Of my bedsit in Cross's Avenue,
A pokey place that cripples my wordsmith's craft
And leaves me nightly in the dumps
Scrounging kindred among the drunks
Instead of hammering poems for my people
On the anvil of my mind.
Almighty God! It's gone too far,
This damned silence.
If I were back in Caiseal na gCorr
I'd not be awkward, half-alive.
No way! But in the smithy of my tongue
I'd be hale and hearty
Working my craft daily
Inciting the bellows of my mind
Stirring thoughts to flame
Hammering loudly
The mettlesome speech of my people.
--found in Writing the Wind: a Celtic Resurgence: The New Celtic Poetry, ed. Thomas Rain Crowe.
Bonus for posting a video/ link.
Heeheehee... I thought you'd never ask: CLICK HERE!
"... sailing is a family passion, we love the water and the wind, and take delight in the fresh air and quiet, but also in the competition, striving to do our best!
How about you?
1. Is there a sport/ hobby that is more of a passion than a past-time for you?
I've never been one for sports, although I do like salt-water swimming and Messing About In Boats and I adore a good game of Extreme Croquet.
My hobby/passion is the exploration of folk culture and traditions--especially those of the British Isles. (I come by this anthropological bent honestly-- growing up in a multi-ethnic family with three adopted siblings, intercultural study was simply a part of daily life, and provided a goodly portion of our family fun.) With some like-minded friends, we even started a nonprofit organization to support our folk culture habit, although it's in "sleep mode" while we finish building our house. The Piper and I have justified the purchase of many a CD and weighty ethnographic tome by saying, "It's all for the Ceilidh House library, of course--and we'll use these as reference materials when we teach our bagpipe and Gaelic language students!"
2. Outdoors or indoors?
Outdoors: festival-going, "ethnically-correct" gardening and orchard-tending with heirloom plant varieties, and staying close to the salt water that bouys my spirit and connects me to my ancestors. Indoors: delving into books, gathering with other folklore enthusiasts, swapping stories, and having great music session around the woodstove.3. Where do you find peace and quiet?
Not sure right now-- it's been a hard year.
I seek peace in the slow intake and release of breath, the comfortable closeness of my partner, the gradually-revealed beauty of our almost-finished house and the slowly-emerging health of our land. Quiet is easier to find than peace--I am thankful every morning and every night that I can begin and end my days surrounded, almost entirely, by natural rather than human-made sounds. (I'll relish the quiet more fully when I can find my missing whetstone and "take care" of a couple of extra roosters, if you know what I mean!)4. A competitive spirit; good or bad, discuss...
A competitive spirit is like fire: a good servant, a terrible master, and dangerous to play with.
I appreciate its ability to overcome inertia and get a person moving towards a goal, but I don't like the way others tend to be left in a person's wake. I should come clean and declare, right here, that I am a vicious card player, but fortunately my commpetitive streak is matched by a tendency toward distraction and terrible bad luck in the dealing of hands. 5. Is there a song a picture or a poem that sums up your passion ?
I've posted links to Richard Hugo's poem, Glen Uig, in previous posts. It captures some of the essential pain and joy of reconnection to one's past. Here's another poem from Cathal O Searcaigh, translated from Irish Gaelic by Gabriel Fitzmaurice:
A Portrait Of The Blacksmith As A Young Artist
I'm sick and tired of Dun Laoghaire.
Of my bedsit in Cross's Avenue,
A pokey place that cripples my wordsmith's craft
And leaves me nightly in the dumps
Scrounging kindred among the drunks
Instead of hammering poems for my people
On the anvil of my mind.
Almighty God! It's gone too far,
This damned silence.
If I were back in Caiseal na gCorr
I'd not be awkward, half-alive.
No way! But in the smithy of my tongue
I'd be hale and hearty
Working my craft daily
Inciting the bellows of my mind
Stirring thoughts to flame
Hammering loudly
The mettlesome speech of my people.
--found in Writing the Wind: a Celtic Resurgence: The New Celtic Poetry, ed. Thomas Rain Crowe.
Bonus for posting a video/ link.
Heeheehee... I thought you'd never ask: CLICK HERE!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Cold Pipes and Warm Ashes
I'm giving up plumbing for Lent.
Just kidding.
If you've been following our story, you know that we've been living without plumbing since early January, when we moved into our unfinished cottage out of a desperate desire to stay warm. After a succession of unfortunate plumbers (or lack thereof), I am cautiously happy to report that we seem to have secured the services of a generous retired plumber, due to start about two weeks hence. Frankly, I'll believe it when I pee it--and afterwards, we'll all be flushed with pride!
Bathroom humour aside, it IS Lent, when many people of faith engage themselves with the spiritual discipline of self-denial. Chocolate is a common choice. Frivolous entertainment is another--though it may mean less to give up movies or tv shows now that they're easily accessed through downloads/Netflix. While I embrace the idea of personal sacrifice readily enough, my Lenten choices are always complicated by my birthday, which usually falls in the early part of Lent. My idea of spiritual discipline does not extend to include the denial of one's own birthday cake. I don't think God would be particularly enriched, honoured, or eddified by this.
If I read the scriptures correctly, Jesus himself was a "life is short; let's have some cake together" kind of guy.
This year, my birthday came on Ash Wednesday. Instead of blowing out candles on some big ol' homemade cake, I went to a pancake supper at our church, helped clear away the paper plates and rearrange the folding chairs, then attended a brief evening service where my forehead was marked with ashes.
"Remember that from dust you came and to dust you will return." Not exactly what one wants to hear on one's birthday. For a brief, macabre moment, I felt sucked into the pages of Lemony Snicket's "Series of Unfortunate Events." In the span of the past few months, I had weathered burst pipes, sub-zero temperatures, huge bills for an unseasonal excavation, missing plumbers, a car crash, and a drastic cut in available hours at my off-farm job. Now here it was, my birthday, and I was being asked to contemplate my personal dustiness? As much as I appreciate Lent and its rich array of symbolism, I just didn't feel ready to welcome the spiritual "journey into the wilderness" this year.
This morning, though, we had communion. Being "deacon of the month" (a title which implies personalized trading cards or a box of treats delivered, every thirty days, right to your door), I arrived a bit early to pour the grape juice into the chalice and prepare the communion bread. In spite of my early arrival, several of the Pillars of the Congregation were already there, calmly tending to devotional details. They wore blues and purples, colours appropriate to the ecclesiastical season. In my dark greens and browns, I hoped I was subdued enough to be "Lenty..." But the effect was somewhat spoiled by my dusty red shoes. I'd opted for them as the only ones clean enough, and in good enough repair, for church, but their jolly colour--even slightly faded--was admittedly inappropriate. I was fretting over this when our minister rushed up to confer on the morning's logistics. I admired her well-tailored black robe and lovingly-handmade quilted stole. Then I noticed her shoes.
Peeking out from underneath her very professional and appropriate preacher's outfit were a pair of red shoes--bright red shoes. Whether she caught my downward gaze or not, I don't know, but she lifted one of her feet and playfully wiggled it. "Maybe I shouldn't have worn these. They're better for Pentecost than Lent." She shrugged, laughed, and--before I could even mention my own footwear concerns--went back to preparing for the service.
Without knowing it, she resolved, by example, my conflicted approach to Lent. Her shoes and her laughter reminded me that, wherever there's smoke (or ashes, or dust), there's fire. Underneath the dark clouds, the somber moods, and the heavy robes, there's a promise of passion and a trace of flame.
This year's journey has taken me into snowdrifts, not the shifting desert sands. While Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, I find the devil in the details: the cost of feed for our animals, the dwindling firewood pile,
and the daily struggle to pay our bills. I need to feel the heat and light of the Lenten story. I need to wrestle angels to get warm. I need to move close to the fire.
They say firewood warms a person four times: once in the cutting of it, once in the splitting of it, once in the stacking of it, and once in the burning of it. As I move into my own Lenten journey, my discipline is this: not to give something up, exactly, but rather to stay engaged: to dwell between embers and dancing shadows, mindful of the passion that binds us and the fire that transforms us all.
P.S. And if some of that transformative fire shows up at the end of a plumber's torch while copper pipes are being soldered, we'll welcome that fire too.
Just kidding.
If you've been following our story, you know that we've been living without plumbing since early January, when we moved into our unfinished cottage out of a desperate desire to stay warm. After a succession of unfortunate plumbers (or lack thereof), I am cautiously happy to report that we seem to have secured the services of a generous retired plumber, due to start about two weeks hence. Frankly, I'll believe it when I pee it--and afterwards, we'll all be flushed with pride!Bathroom humour aside, it IS Lent, when many people of faith engage themselves with the spiritual discipline of self-denial. Chocolate is a common choice. Frivolous entertainment is another--though it may mean less to give up movies or tv shows now that they're easily accessed through downloads/Netflix. While I embrace the idea of personal sacrifice readily enough, my Lenten choices are always complicated by my birthday, which usually falls in the early part of Lent. My idea of spiritual discipline does not extend to include the denial of one's own birthday cake. I don't think God would be particularly enriched, honoured, or eddified by this.
If I read the scriptures correctly, Jesus himself was a "life is short; let's have some cake together" kind of guy.This year, my birthday came on Ash Wednesday. Instead of blowing out candles on some big ol' homemade cake, I went to a pancake supper at our church, helped clear away the paper plates and rearrange the folding chairs, then attended a brief evening service where my forehead was marked with ashes.
"Remember that from dust you came and to dust you will return." Not exactly what one wants to hear on one's birthday. For a brief, macabre moment, I felt sucked into the pages of Lemony Snicket's "Series of Unfortunate Events." In the span of the past few months, I had weathered burst pipes, sub-zero temperatures, huge bills for an unseasonal excavation, missing plumbers, a car crash, and a drastic cut in available hours at my off-farm job. Now here it was, my birthday, and I was being asked to contemplate my personal dustiness? As much as I appreciate Lent and its rich array of symbolism, I just didn't feel ready to welcome the spiritual "journey into the wilderness" this year.
This morning, though, we had communion. Being "deacon of the month" (a title which implies personalized trading cards or a box of treats delivered, every thirty days, right to your door), I arrived a bit early to pour the grape juice into the chalice and prepare the communion bread. In spite of my early arrival, several of the Pillars of the Congregation were already there, calmly tending to devotional details. They wore blues and purples, colours appropriate to the ecclesiastical season. In my dark greens and browns, I hoped I was subdued enough to be "Lenty..." But the effect was somewhat spoiled by my dusty red shoes. I'd opted for them as the only ones clean enough, and in good enough repair, for church, but their jolly colour--even slightly faded--was admittedly inappropriate. I was fretting over this when our minister rushed up to confer on the morning's logistics. I admired her well-tailored black robe and lovingly-handmade quilted stole. Then I noticed her shoes.
Peeking out from underneath her very professional and appropriate preacher's outfit were a pair of red shoes--bright red shoes. Whether she caught my downward gaze or not, I don't know, but she lifted one of her feet and playfully wiggled it. "Maybe I shouldn't have worn these. They're better for Pentecost than Lent." She shrugged, laughed, and--before I could even mention my own footwear concerns--went back to preparing for the service.
Without knowing it, she resolved, by example, my conflicted approach to Lent. Her shoes and her laughter reminded me that, wherever there's smoke (or ashes, or dust), there's fire. Underneath the dark clouds, the somber moods, and the heavy robes, there's a promise of passion and a trace of flame.
This year's journey has taken me into snowdrifts, not the shifting desert sands. While Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, I find the devil in the details: the cost of feed for our animals, the dwindling firewood pile,
and the daily struggle to pay our bills. I need to feel the heat and light of the Lenten story. I need to wrestle angels to get warm. I need to move close to the fire.They say firewood warms a person four times: once in the cutting of it, once in the splitting of it, once in the stacking of it, and once in the burning of it. As I move into my own Lenten journey, my discipline is this: not to give something up, exactly, but rather to stay engaged: to dwell between embers and dancing shadows, mindful of the passion that binds us and the fire that transforms us all.
P.S. And if some of that transformative fire shows up at the end of a plumber's torch while copper pipes are being soldered, we'll welcome that fire too.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Snow Soup
A small girl kneels at the hearth, plastic shovel in hand. Between her and the firebox sit two large stockpots. One is full of freshly-gathered, newly-fallen snow. The other is half-full of water, warm from the heat of the stove. With squeals of glee, she scoops up the snow in her shovel and drops it into the second pot. Each time, she pauses, a bit awe-struck, to watch it melt. This is serious silliness. This is elemental play. We are making snow soup.
Ricita is two-and-a-half. It is a long way from her tropical birthplace to this land of wearying winters, but she embraces each extreme as completely as her Northern parents first embraced her. She is a happy traveler.
It is a good thing. Unease would be easy on a day like this, when downed trees and wild winds have hushed the usual household hums.
Between last night’s nightfall and this morning’s dawn, sixteen inches of heavy, wet snow blanketed our town. The power went out sometime around one in the morning, reducing all of our neighbors to the same sort of basic frustrations that we have lived with for several weeks. Thousands of other folks find themselves forced to reflect on the sources of light and water, the perilous chain of events set in motion--or not--with the flick of a switch or the push of a toilet’s handle.
At Ricita’s house, her mother has been fussing with iceboxes—the new-fashioned kind—and wringing her hands over the mountain of laundry and dishes she intended to tackle today. She rants for a few minutes, then catches herself—“Sorry, I know you’re USED to all this, at your house, but I’m just a worried mother who’s about to leave her child in a house with no power…” She smiles apologetically, grabs her bags and heads out the door. She is on her way to a town where the lights still blaze, to a class full of bright screens and power-points.
Ricita wakes up from her nap soon after mama leaves, and toddles blithely out towards the warmth and light. We play by the woodstove and watch the wind hurling snow against the trees outside. “It’s windy.” She says. I agree. Bright-eyed, with an elfin smile and a matter-of-fact little voice, she expands on the concept: “It’s windy. We’re warm. Our house is safe.”
Once satisfied with my mollification regarding this bit of wisdom, she is ready to play. We enter the transformative space where a baby doll becomes her grandmother and a stuffed frog becomes her child. She scribbles runes on scraps of paper to make “train tickets.” We ride easy-chair trains to visit our grandmothers several times over, stopping now and then to make more snow soup.
When night falls, though her parents are not yet home, there is no fear. I light a few candles and we continue playing. At supper time, we lift the stockpot down from the woodstove and wash our hands. Ricita is filled with delight at this: that her many little scoops of snow turn into this wonderful pot-full of liquid warmth. Although there is food on the stove as well—reheated and waiting—she shows no hunger. It is enough to marvel at the Snow Soup, to bathe her hands in its soothing warmth, and return to her playing. I tell her we must eat soon, and I set a time limit, but for the next ten minutes we are free to dance in the encroaching darkness and ride our upholstered trains.
Later, I creep down the road in my all-too-real and not-so-plush car, headed back to an even quieter, darker house. We do not mind the darkness. We have our own runes, our own scribbled tickets, our own ways to play at transformation and escape. Some days, we survive on snow soup.
I type as quickly as I can while savouring my recollections. (This laptop battery won’t last long, and the wait for restored power could last days.) I bank up the fire in our own woodstove and bask in the glow of the little one’s words. May we all be so blessed, to gaze out at the tempest and say, with such certainty, “It’s windy. We’re warm. Our house is safe.”
Ricita is two-and-a-half. It is a long way from her tropical birthplace to this land of wearying winters, but she embraces each extreme as completely as her Northern parents first embraced her. She is a happy traveler.
It is a good thing. Unease would be easy on a day like this, when downed trees and wild winds have hushed the usual household hums.
Between last night’s nightfall and this morning’s dawn, sixteen inches of heavy, wet snow blanketed our town. The power went out sometime around one in the morning, reducing all of our neighbors to the same sort of basic frustrations that we have lived with for several weeks. Thousands of other folks find themselves forced to reflect on the sources of light and water, the perilous chain of events set in motion--or not--with the flick of a switch or the push of a toilet’s handle. At Ricita’s house, her mother has been fussing with iceboxes—the new-fashioned kind—and wringing her hands over the mountain of laundry and dishes she intended to tackle today. She rants for a few minutes, then catches herself—“Sorry, I know you’re USED to all this, at your house, but I’m just a worried mother who’s about to leave her child in a house with no power…” She smiles apologetically, grabs her bags and heads out the door. She is on her way to a town where the lights still blaze, to a class full of bright screens and power-points.
Ricita wakes up from her nap soon after mama leaves, and toddles blithely out towards the warmth and light. We play by the woodstove and watch the wind hurling snow against the trees outside. “It’s windy.” She says. I agree. Bright-eyed, with an elfin smile and a matter-of-fact little voice, she expands on the concept: “It’s windy. We’re warm. Our house is safe.”
Once satisfied with my mollification regarding this bit of wisdom, she is ready to play. We enter the transformative space where a baby doll becomes her grandmother and a stuffed frog becomes her child. She scribbles runes on scraps of paper to make “train tickets.” We ride easy-chair trains to visit our grandmothers several times over, stopping now and then to make more snow soup.
When night falls, though her parents are not yet home, there is no fear. I light a few candles and we continue playing. At supper time, we lift the stockpot down from the woodstove and wash our hands. Ricita is filled with delight at this: that her many little scoops of snow turn into this wonderful pot-full of liquid warmth. Although there is food on the stove as well—reheated and waiting—she shows no hunger. It is enough to marvel at the Snow Soup, to bathe her hands in its soothing warmth, and return to her playing. I tell her we must eat soon, and I set a time limit, but for the next ten minutes we are free to dance in the encroaching darkness and ride our upholstered trains.
Later, I creep down the road in my all-too-real and not-so-plush car, headed back to an even quieter, darker house. We do not mind the darkness. We have our own runes, our own scribbled tickets, our own ways to play at transformation and escape. Some days, we survive on snow soup.
I type as quickly as I can while savouring my recollections. (This laptop battery won’t last long, and the wait for restored power could last days.) I bank up the fire in our own woodstove and bask in the glow of the little one’s words. May we all be so blessed, to gaze out at the tempest and say, with such certainty, “It’s windy. We’re warm. Our house is safe.”
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Phoenix-- A February Praise-Poem
Among her many gifts, the Celtic Saint/Goddess Bridgit is a Keeper of the Flame. She watches over hearths and forges and every flickering hope. She tends the lamp of learning and tenderly breathes life into the dull embers of creativity. She is a patron of midwives, blacksmiths, and poets.This morning, the outside thermometer registered fifteen degrees at 7:00 AM. Amidst the challenge of morning chores, the words of a poem hovered, then gathered around me, a knitted scarf of sparks. The year's Dark Half is more than halfway done. There are whispers of survival...perhaps even a faint murmur of spring!
PHOENIX
Hands slowed and stiffened
in the aching, hushed cold
before sun comes...
My body huddles closer,
unwilling to unfold.
In our small barn, a muffled rooster sounds,
His crowing hesitant and slow.
Other animals stir and wake.
Above the sudden, unleashed flurry
of canine play,
the sensible cat shifts
and returns to sleep.
Once outside, our steps sing
brittle and broken
emptily echoing the shatter and scatter of ice,
the dull ring of zinc and tin,
the trough's frozen rim.
We carry the waterers in
to thaw on the broad black expanse
of the old woodstove.
We prepare the spare and elegant
meal within:
the old news, the splintery sticks,
the handhewn wood,
then strike and introduce the pale, thin match.
Ah! We watch it linger, lick,
then taste and catch.
Flame flickers faster, feeds
on fuel-feast...
Oh, bless this
wild, wee elemental beast!
Oh, murmur and sing
and praise
this sweet, uncurling heat--
this welcome warmth--
this marvelous box of fire!
--copyright Mainecelt 2/17/2009
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