Portland Boys

August Eve

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Some people spend weeks preparing elaborate rituals to celebrate the sabbats, complete with memorized scripts, special clothes and props. I am not one of those people. As with my summer solstice "ritual", I didn't really know I was celebrating August first until I was up to my eyeballs in it. It turned out exactly perfect, though. It always does.

The first day of August is the date often given for Lughhnasadh or Lammas, the cross quarter day marking the end of summer and the first harvest. On that morning I posted a John Payne poem on Facebook, one of his series of month poems that I love so much because they seem to just perfectly reflect the way I feel about a given season. "And the sun blazing in the blue o'erhead, "Would God that it were night!" is apt to say And "Would the summer-heats were oversped!""

As I've told you, summer is a strung out, crazy time for me, and posting that poem was about all I could put together in terms of "celebrating" the festival. I can hardly get it together to clean the bathroom after a day of work and play, let alone plan or execute an extra celebration. And anyway, I was getting ready to go to a Timbers's game that weekend.

Portland boys, we are here – Whoa, Whoa
Portland boys, we are here – Whoa, Whoa
Portland boys, we are here
Steal your women, drink your beer!
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa

Timbers Joey! I'm leaning over the railing just out of frame to the right.

The Portland Timbers are the city's Major League Soccer team and are kind of a big deal around here. Years ago, when the Timbers were a little known, minor league team, a group of fans formed themselves into a supporters group that came to be known as the Timbers Army. Wikipedia claims it all started with 8 guys in 2001, but today the Army claims eight SECTIONS of the soccer stadium. Timbers tshirts, jerseys, hats, bumper stickers and other swag are de rigur for a certain type of Portlander and the waiting list for Timbers Army season tickets makes them coveted status markers in this town. The games themselves include loud and constant chanting, scarf waving, drums and trumpets, and other hooligan-esque characteristics of soccer supporters around the world.  

Burn, destroy, wreck and kill – Whoa, Whoa
Burn, destroy, wreck and kill – Whoa, Whoa
Burn, destroy, wreck and kill
Portland Timbers bloody will!
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa

I personally am not much of a sports fan so have not really followed this aspect of my city's culture over the last few years, but lately I've been more and more aware of the Timbers situation. My dad got a job working at the stadium a couple years ago, and lately I have made a number of friends who are Timbers Army fanatics. I have been thinking of trying to go to a game but without connections you have to pay through the nose for a seat not in the Army. What's the point of that? Finally, though, one of my friends got me a ticket for a game.

August Eve is the time in the wheel of the year when we celebrate All that is Manly and Good in the World. It is a time for competition and feats of physicality that show off strength, daring and skill. It is a time for celebrating the "bright, positive, masculine principle". I have been surrounded by young boys this summer at my work and see first hand how deeply ingrained being loud and physical, shooting and clashing is in them. In our feminist influenced culture of child rearing, we tend to want boys to be quieter, gentler and more in control of their bodies but without letting them experience their physicality, they will never be in control of it. And male physical power and testosterone driven competition are necessary elements in this world. Fatherlove and warrior power do not solve all problems, but we have enough problems in this world that we need all the tools in our toolbox. Including those brought by little boys who build forts, pretend sticks are guns and punch each other when they are frustrated.

Timbers Army! I'm visible on the lower left.

An afternoon in the Timbers Army is a full sensory immersion in the world of All That is Manly and Good in the World. Yes, there are many women in the Timbers Army, but the whole thing is so testosterone driven as to be essentially male in essence. The day was one of the hottest days of the summer so far, and the Army section is on the north, very sunny, part of the stadium. After a trek to get to the field, we proceeded to chant and cheer for two hours straight. It was a good game in a terrible season and the Portland Boys came back from behind to a draw. A highlight was the goal that tied the game up in the second half, complete with dark green smoke bombs and a crowd gone completely batty. I'm a tourist in the Army, here for the atmosphere and the fun, not the game or the players, but I couldn't help but being on the edge of my seat (er, leaning over the railing.. no one sits in the Army) when the play moved closer to the goal and the ball went zipping back and forth. Those men are strong and fast and skilled, Manly and Good. 

We are green, we are white – Whoa, Whoa
We are green, we are white – Whoa, Whoa
We are green, we are white
We are bloody dynamite!
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa

The evening ended, as all good evenings do, with a party and a trek. After playing some bar basketball and drinking some more cheap beer my friend and I set off back across town. The day had topped out at 95 degrees, the first day to get so hot all summer, and evening was coming on. It was still warm, but lovely as we wove our way through downtown towards the river. We splashed through Salmon Street Springs, lingered on the Hawthorne Bridge and stopped at a food cart for late night poutine and people watching. By the time we got home, we were sweaty, beat up and physically and emotionally exhausted. Just as you should be at the end of a good festival, right? 

In the week since my Timbers Army Experience I have been enjoying noticing the subtle turning of the season into autumn. The days are getting shorter, the sun is lower in the sky and more leaves are tinged gold or russet. The harvest is in full swing with markets full of berries and tomatoes. And the Timbers fight on, maybe they'll win a game or two before the end of the season. Even if they don't, though, they will have fought the good fight and that's what All that is Manly and Good in the World is really all about. 

We’ll sing for you Timbers
‘Til you finish the fight
There’s a party in Portland
No one’s sleeping tonight

How did you celebrate the August festival? How are you celebrating the masculine principle in your life and the world around you? Have you ever been a rabid supporter of a sports team or known people who were? How are you celebrating the first harvest in your life? 

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August Eve 2011: An August Journey

August Eve 2010: August Eve, The Subtle Turning

August Eve 2009: August Eve In the Woods!

An August Journey

August Eve

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August is here! It is the time in the Wheel of the Year when the Father God sacrifices himself again so that all life may continue to live. It is the time of the first harvests, yellowing grass, ripening fruits and the shorter but hotter dog days. It is the time of manly and physical energies, of Lugh and Osiris, Adonis and Jesus as he fights, lives and dies for his beloved (that would be you, me and all of creation!). Each of these deities go on a journey, leaving their life behind and traveling into death only to reemerge alive again. August is a time for all kinds of journeys, mythical and physical, magical and mundane, godly and very, very human.

One of Portlander's favorite ways to spend a hot summer day is to float down one of our many beautiful rivers. On the weekend closest to August Eve I set out with my sister and a couple friends to float down the Clackamas, a river named after one of the original native peoples of the area. It flows down off the slopes of Mt. Hood through old growth forest and lush farmland into the Willamette, the river in the center of Portland itself. It is a beautiful river that runs swift and clean for many miles just outside the Portland metro area.

The day started out like any other hero's journey, with a call to adventure. This happened to take the form of some phone calls and text messages, but hey, even hero's are subject to 21st century technology. After acquiring our tubes, some river safe sandals and sustenance for the trip we were off!

By the time we finally arrived, packed our backpacks, blew up our tubes and slathered on the sunscreen we were very, very ready for the river. Our first challenge was to face the threshold monster in the rapids right after the boat ramp. We were hardly wet yet and the rapids looked very, very scary. I believe I screamed "we are all going to die" repeatedly as the current took my tube and sloshed it down the rapids. We did not die but were rewarded with a lovely deep pool and rocks to jump off of right after the rapids.

Onwards we went, paddling or floating, through rapids and calm water. It was a beautiful warm day and the water was pleasantly cool, but not too frigid. We saw trout in the river and vultures, bald eagles and osprey overhead. I love how fully immersed in the river you have to be when tubing, both literally and psychologically. The rapids on this stretch of the Clackamas are not so dangerous that doing them on an inflatable tube is foolhardy, but they do pose a genuine risk if you treat them flippantly. You have to watch the water, choose your line through the rapid and paddle your body appropriately to avoid hitting rocks or overhanging trees. One friend banged an elbow pretty bad on one rapid and my sister got tossed arse over teakettle in another. I hit my bottom hard on a rock, but luckily it is well padded and no one was seriously hurt. It makes me feel really alive to feel the river like that, to be so fully engaged with the physics of the universe.

We had a wonderful time, horsing around and enjoying the sights until someone asked if we had passed the pull out where our car was. Oh no. We asked some other rafters if we were past McIver park and they laughed at us. Yup. Crap. In an inspired moment of group-think, the four of us decided to deflate our rafts and head up the bank of the river towards the highway, which we assumed would be close. Like Odysseus facing Charybdis and Scylla or Luke Skywalker and the rebel fighters battling AT-AT walkers on Hoth, we valiantly fought that river side slope. It was covered in blackberries and stinging nettle. We lost sandals in knee deep mud and fell off fallen logs. We were sure we could make it all on our own!

But then we couldn't. We realized that we were not going to get out of this with only our own abilities and wits. Frodo finally decided to trust Gollum and we decided that we were going to have to trust the river and the luck of the hitchhiker to get back home. We re-inflated our tubes and headed on to whatever we might find downriver. Lady Luck was faithful and sent us a guy with a truck to bring us up to the highway from the boat ramp. We walked along the road for a while, worried that we would have to hike the whole way back but then, joy of joys, a car pulled over! It was another river floater who had been picked up by a hitchhiker herself earlier in the day. She drove us all the way back to our car with a smile and a kind word for our weary crew.

Our hero's journey ended, like all good rituals, with a feast cooked over an open fire. We grilled hamburgers and sat on the deck, aching, stinging and sunburned but happy. We had faced the challenges and, with the help of some luck and blessing, made it out alive and better for it. August in Portland is a magical time, and our day on the river was a perfect way to start it off.

What journeys have you made this summer? Which male deity is your favorite and why? When have you ever trusted and had your trust repaid with a boon? How did you spend August Eve this year? What rivers are near your house and how do you enjoy them? Happy beginning of the harvest season!

Photos by brx0, Tom Clifton and Matt.Picio. Click on the photos or on their names to see more of their Clackamas River photos and other photography. Thanks!

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August Eve 2009: August Eve In the Woods!

August Eve 2010: August Eve, The Subtle Turning

This post is also about the Hero's Journey, which I also discuss in the post from this past Journey Moon, Perseus and the Journey Moon.

August Eve, The Subtle Turning

When I first started celebrating the seasonal holidays of the Wheel of the Year some were easy and comfortable while I found some others harder to get a handle on. Winter Solstice and Halloween were two that seemed easiest because I use variations on childhood celebrations as my current celebrations. February First and August Eve have been two of the hardest for me to find resonance with. These are subtle holidays. They don’t have the glitzy trappings or big star appeal. They aren’t at major, even-the-muggles-notice-them seasonal markers. They are the gateways into the transitional seasons. Like I said, they’re subtle.

There was a time in my life where I asked everyone I knew what their most and least favorite months were. My theory is that people liked the months they were born in most but the evidence did not support the theory though the subject certainly merits more research. I found that people disproportionately dislike February and liked the summer months. Summer is fun, they would say. Swimming and sunny days and no school! February is dreary and cold and you just want spring to come. I never had much of a beef with February but have always disliked August.

Celebrating February First as a holiday has transformed my indifference about February into full blown excitement. February is when spring starts! It is when trees start budding and the green parts of crocuses and daffodils start showing up. The days start getting longer! Yes, these are subtle signs of spring that come well before the showy signs in April. I think celebrating August Eve is doing the same thing with August. In the past I’ve always felt worn down by August. It’s hot, the days are getting shorter, the grass is getting browner. It’s the time right before my birthday and it has been pretty awful some years. But last year to some extent, and this year even more so, it’s much better. It’s the sublte turning into autumn, my favorite season. Awesome!

To celebrate August Eve I try to do something physical or competetive to commemorate the manly and physical energies of the God at this season. One story associated with the holiday is that of Lugh Lamfada and his foster mother Tailtiu which clearly illustrates the connection between games and this seasonal festival.

Tailtiu was the royal Lady of the Fir Bolg. After the defeat of her people by the Tuatha De Dannan, she was obliged by them to clear a vast forest for the purpose of planting grain. She died of exhaustion in the attempt. The legend states that she was buried beneath a great mound named for her, at the spot where the first feast of Lughnasadh was held in Ireland, the hill of Tailte. At this gathering were held games and contests of skill as well as a great feast made up of the first fruits of the summer harvest.... (For the rest of the story and commentary see this page by Kathleen Dupree)

This year my physical activity celebration was a rafting trip on the North Umpqua, a beautiful river in Southern Oregon. The river is a popular rafting river and the section we rafted was difficult enough that I was glad I was with friends who have worked as river guides. There was one memorable moment when I screamed “We’re all going to die!” and five seconds later we were on flat water. “Oh, I might have over reacted.”

Feeling the river working it’s way through the mountains under my paddle was such an amazing experience. Setting up the raft, carrying it, paddling and putting all the gear away was hard work. We cooked hot dogs and veggie kabobs over the open fire and I slept soundly under the fir trees and summer stars that night. One of the highlights of the trip happened just as we were pulling the raft into our take out. We had been watching an osprey overhead for a minute or two when it folded its wings and dropped into the river only to emerge with a good sized trout in it’s talons.

Maybe it was the cool early summer, or maybe it’s the grand adventure to ring in the month or maybe it’s just a maturity as I reach my 30th birthday next month but I’m actually looking forward to August this year. I’ll look for the subtle signs of autumn’s approach in shortening days, turning leaves and changing sunlight. I'll enjoy the harvests as they come, one after a nother. The hay harvest was already well underway as I drove down to Roseburg and back. The first tomato should come out of my garden any day!

What did you do to celebrate your physicality this summer? What seasonal holidays or celebrations have changed your outlook on a particular time of year? When was the last time you spent a day on the river?

AUGUST, thou monarch of the mellow noon,
That with thy sceptre smit'st the teeming plain
And gladd'nest all the world with golden grain,
How oft have I, beneath thy harvest moon,
Harkened the cushat's soft insistent croon,
As to the night she told her soul in pain,
Or heard the corn-crake to his mate complain,
When all things slept, beneath the sun aswoon!
The world with sun and sheen is overfed
And the faint heart, its need once done away,
Soon waxes weary of the summer-day
And the sun blazing in the blue o'erhead,
"Would God that it were night!" is apt to say
And "Would the summer-heats were oversped!"
-John Payne

The beautiful photos are by Kenneth Moyle and heritagefutures. Thank you so much! Please go check out their Flickr streams.

August Eve, In the Woods!

In the heat of the summer comes the festival of Lammas, Lughnassad or Teltane - the festival of the first harvest. In the Great Story this is the time when the Father God accepts his duty to sacrifices himself so that all life may continue to be reborn. One story of this time of year is that of John Barleycorn, who as he dies turns into the seed which will be planted so he can grow again the next year. The grain's sacrifice allows nourishing bread to be made.

Another god associated with this time of year is that of Lugh, a celtic diety who's many names refer to his "long arm" or "skilled ways". There is a story that his foster mother, a royal by the name of Tailtiu, was set to the task of clearing a forest so grain could be planted but died of exhaustion in her attempt. Lugh declared a feast in her honor and organized games to be played during the feast. This feast and games are in some way the predecessor of our modern county fairs with rodeos and family picnics with potato sack races.

In exploring how I celebrate this festival I been drawn time and again to this idea of gathering together to play games or be outdoors. One year I organized a picnic at the beach for my Americorps team that included crazy bat races, rain gear relays and water balloon tosses. Like most of my Wheel of the Year celebrations it was not explicitely a Lammas celebration, but the meaning was just the same. This year I organized a camping trip to Central Oregon. It was glorious!

I took two whole days off work and spent three night camping along side beautiful lakes outside of Bend, Oregon. A group of friends came out to meet me and we spent our days swimming, lounging, napping and preparing food together and our evenings eating and drinking around a campfire (and moaning over our sunburned shoulders and thighs!). And of course we cooked things over the campfire. You would never believe how good a can of Dinty Moore stew is when cooked in a wood fire and eaten in the woods. We also made a giant batch of veggie packs, a perennial favorite campfire fare.

Camp Fire Veggie Packs

To bring with you camping:

*A big roll of heavy duty aluminum foil

*Cooking oil of your choice (or strips of bacon, if you do that sort of thing)

*A cutting board and knife sharp enough to cut your veggies

*Vegetables - onions, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic, broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms, eggplant, brussels sprouts, green beans. Whatever is in season and tasty.

*Salt, pepper, garlic powder and/or other seasonings of your choice

To assemble and cook:

*Cut your veggies into relatively uniform size pieces, about 1 inch square. Keep harder veggies a little smaller than softer ones so they cook in about the same time.

*Tear off relatively large square sheets of aluminum foil and lay two on top of each other. Add a little cooking oil to the top square and add a selection of veggies. Mix and match your favorites as you would like - try carrots and mushrooms, or brussels sprouts and onions - or just add a little of everything. You don't want to overload the foil pack with veggies or they will steam and not cook evenly. Imagine the square of foil divided into a 3x3 grid and you don't want your veggies to take up too much more than the center square. Stir the veggies gently to oil them all up and sprinkle with salt, pepper or other seasoning. Alternatively, lay slices of bacon on the foil, add veggies on top and then maybe another slice of bacon. Try this with potatoes or eggplant. Wow.

*Fold the foil over the sides of the pile of veggies and then bring the top and bottom up and crimp it down over itself to seal the packet. It should be pretty securely crimped up.

*Place the sealed up packet of veggies either in the coals surrounding the fire or on a grate over top of a hot coal bed. You don't really want to place the foil over licking flames but instead over hot coals that you rake away from the flames. Leave the packets for 20 minutes or longer, depending on how hot the coals are and how big your veggies are. You can use tongs to pull one pack out, open it up (carefully so the steam doesn't get you) and taste. Crimp it back up and throw it back in if they aren't done to your liking. It's best when they get a little charred around the edges. That's how you know you're camping!

I realized as I was getting ready to leave on Sunday that I hadn't looked at a clock, except incidentally as I drove to and from the swimming beach, in close to 48 hours. I was living according to the natural rhythm of summer camping - wake up when the tent gets too hot, go to the lake when the campsite gets too hot, nap in your tent when the thundestorms hit, cook over the fire as it gets dark and fall asleep when you are tired.

In her book Slow Time, Waverly Fitzgerald writes about how our artificial time of seconds and days and months came into existence and offers activities to help us jump off the hamster wheel and into the river of natural time. It's hard to do in a 40 hour work week when I have to be somewhere at a specific time and get to leave at another specific time but it feels wonderful when I can break away from it.

Like the natural time of waking when the sun comes up and resting when it goes down the festival of August Eve reminds us that a time will come, quite soon, for the year to rest in the darkness of winter. August Eve reminds us that the fields must rest in the darkness of the fallow season and eventually our bodies must rest in the darkness of death. But not quite yet. We still have a glorious harvest season ahead of us including the hot, lazy Dog Days of summer.

How did you celebrate August Eve? When was the last time you broke away from artificial time and swam in the river of natural time? What is reminding you of the upcoming harvest and subsequent winter? What's your favorite thing to cook over a campfire?