Engaging My Superpowers, Calling my Allies

Full Birth Moon

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Welcome to 2013! I hope your 2012 wrapped up with joy, fun and enough time in the dark to be ready for the growing light. I was happy to get a couple days of work at the Nature Park over winter break, which is always fun and fulfilling as well as an adventure. Two of the days over break were snowshoe adventures on Mt. Hood that were sublime and painful in all the ways taking kids into the woods can be.

Like last year, I spent much of the time between Christmas and New Year's Day reflecting on last year and looking forward to this upcoming one. My theme for 2012 was Grabbing the Tiger by the Tail and one of the biggest lesson I learned is to be careful what I wish for, I just might get it. As I reread my New Year's post from last year I chuckled. Yep, pulled all of that into my life, didn't I? The 2012 Tiger roared into my life and chased me round and round all year. I think I came out on top and have some awesome stories to tell from the year,  like this one, and this one... and OMG this one. It was a crazy year, one of outward focus, of splendiferous adventures and of saying yes, just like I said I wanted. By the time this autumn was coming to a close I felt ragged and overused, but also like I had learned many lessons along with those great stories. 

I employed many of my traditional gwishing techniques these last few weeks to help cast my magic spell for 2013. I have heard many people compliment me recently on things both mundane and sublime and that started my thought process in the direction of looking at my gifts. I'm good at many things, and have much to offer the world but a year of chasing a tiger around didn't get me very far in using many of them. A peek into the Sabian Symbols brought me the images of crowds coming down the mountain to listen to one inspired man and of a group of people entering a large canoe for a journey. Taking what I have learned and sharing it with others, bringing it into the physical, daily realm. Joining with others on a journey of discovery and action. A tarot spread with my Fairy Tale Tarot deck brought me the Seeker/Knight of Wands as the symbol for the whole year. Traditionally the Knight of Wands is a fair haired youth full of inspiration and action, kind of an act first, think later kind of guy. Ambition and desire to do good in the world are his driving motivations. In my fairy tale deck this card is 

Peacock by Today is a good day

Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, a character who moves forward towards her destiny and her adventure despite challenges that plague her. Sounds like a theme for the year is shaping up!

2013 will be:

• Peacock blue, vibrant green and shimmering purple. Or a super suit and cape in bright, primary colors.
• It will sound like footsteps on gravel, like a pen scratching on paper and the chatter and clinks of a happy dinner party. 
• It will smell like sweat and leather and dusty horse after a hard day's riding, freshly tilled still cold earth in the spring and a roast beast dinner that took hours to prepare for my friends and family.
• It will include Bruce reminding me that I deserve to work for and have it all or nothing at all, the Lone Ranger reminding me that "God put the firewood there, but every man must gather it and light it himself", and The Doctor reminding me that I'm bigger on the inside.

I will remember that a goal without a plan is just a wish. That I am too good for half assed. That other people can be my allies on this trip, but they have their own stories and are not just my "sidekick". 

Last year, 2012, was all about gathering experience. I said yes to everything and I think it changed me. It made me less scared of some things and certainly gained me lots of experience doing lots of other things. The theme for 2013 is shaping up to be about discernment, about engagement and about connection. It is 

not enough to do stuff, it has to be the right stuff. When taking a journey in a canoe or to Oz you need to have the right companions and the right supplies, not just any companions and supplies. The people I gather for my companions are the heroes in their own stories and their time spent with me should be as helpful to them as it is to helpful to me to have them. I think the theme of companions, allies and community will come to be an important one for me. I've been thinking about this a lot over the last year or more and it is time to put some concerted effort into building my community into the community I really want. I know a lot, I'm good at a lot, it's time to step up to the plate and do the work requires to reap that harvest, rather than just letting the fruit fall as it may. 

I don't know what this year will bring, but it will be hard work and good work if I play my cards right. If I Engage My Super Powers and Call My Allies.

How have you gwished, set intentions or discovered themes for your upcoming year? What do you need to work on as 2013 rolls through the door and sets up shop? What are your superpowers and who are your allies?  

Happy New Year!

SCORPIO 24
CROWDS COMING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN TO LISTEN TO ONE INSPIRED MAN

You may feel that you have had some wonderful realisations after hearing an inspired message and now you need to bring these understandings down and integrate them into everyday life. People will have many different responses to the messages being given. Not all will be responsive, but the message will resonate with some. What will be done with this new information?

Power to sway the feelings and thoughts of many. Having a large audience. Holding the floor.

The Caution: Naivete, gullibility Feeling like someone else holds all the answers. Wanting everyone to listen regardless of their needs.

CAPRICORN 4
A GROUP OF PEOPLE ENTERING A LARGE CANOE FOR A JOURNEY BY WATER

To embark on a journey with a number of people is to embark on an emotional discovery. With cooperation, there can be great success. You may also find this to be a time when different and separate aspects of your personality come together to explore an emotional situation.

Cooperation. People coming together with a shared goal in sight. Feeling like you're on a journey of destiny. Travelling or living together.

The Caution: Uncoordinated energies. Not wanting to go along with anybody.

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Full Birth Moon 2008: Outer Darkness and Inner Hope

Full Birth Moon 2009: New Year! and A Story for the Birth Moon 

Full Birth Moon 2010: The Dark of the Dark.

Full Birth Moon 2011: The Columber and Grabbing the Tiger by the Tail 

The PB&J Mix

New Birth Moon

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I'm incubating. The new year is coming, my new plan, my new gwish. It is dark, it is wet and I'm not doing too much but thinking. And listening to music. 

"Now, the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do's and don'ts. First of all you're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing."

Here's my Winter PB & J  mix tape. That stands for power, beauty and joy... or peanut butter and jelly. Both make me smile.  Enjoy!

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• We are Star Dust - Symphony of Science

I recently discovered this amazing musician, John D Boswell, who is using auto tune software to turn spoken audio clips into songs. He takes the words of well known scientists like Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawkings and David Attenborough and sets them to music creating inspirational and beautiful music. This one is possibly my favorite, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson reminding us that "we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, the universe is in us."

• Happytown (All Right With Me) - Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer

Before he died in 2002 Dave Carter collaborated with Tracy Grammer to produce three albums of folk singer songwriter music that are often called Buddhist Cowboy music. His mystical experiences and study of psychology, myth and mysticism show clearly in his music. I heard it said that no one could fit more words into a song than Dave Carter and this song is an excellent example of all of that. "I walk the occam razor way through priests and circus clowns. Am I a missoner of faith or grace or vision or another grinning prisoner of Happytown?"

• Happy Little Clouds - Remixes for the Soul 

The guy who did Symphony of Science has turned his talents to turning other celebrities to rock stars with his Remixes for the Soul compilation. This one stars Bob Ross from the PBS show Joy of Painting and makes my heart sing. Anyone who has ever watched an episode of the show has seen just how full of love and encouragment Bob Ross is and how it radiates through the TV screen right at you. It feels like spending an hour with a beatific nun or the Dalai Lama, only with painting instead. "You can almost paint with anything, all you have to do is practice. There are no limits here, start out by believing here." Thanks Bob Ross, I will believe! 

• Gentle Arms of Eden - Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer

The first time I heard this song was at Winterfest, a folk benefit for Sisters of the Road Cafe, in maybe 2001 or 2002. I cried as Dave and Tracy performed it on stage at the Aladdin. It has remained an important song ever since... "On a sleepy endless ocean when the world lay in a dream, There was rhythm in the splash and roll, but not a voice to sing. So the moon shone on the breakers and the morning warmed the waves, till a single cell did jump and hum for joy as though to say...  This is my home! This is my only home. This is the only sacred ground that I have ever known. Should I stray in th dark night alone Rock me goddess in the gentle arms of Eden.

• We are All Connected - Symphony of Science

Featuring Richard Feynman on the bongos, Bill Nye thinking about the vast emptiness of space, Carl Sagan waxing poetic about star stuff and Neil deGrasse Tyson's statement that "we are all connected; To each other, biologically, to the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically." One of the most popular Symphony of Science videos for a reason. 

• Shelter from the Storm - Bob Dylan

The apartment I lived in for three years in college was called Shelter from the Storm. "Not a word was spoke between us there was little risk involved, everything up to that point had been left unresolved. Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm, "Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm" The link above is to the album version that I love most, but this live performance is amazing. Harder, harsher, but Dylan at his best.

• Peace Train - Dolly Parton and Ladysmith Black Mambazo

I first knew Ladysmith Black Mambazo from their work with Paul Simon on Graceland. This version of Cat Stevens' song combines their haunting harmonic style with Dolly's clear voice and makes me just wanna get on that train. Check out Ladysmith Black Mambazo's Amazing Grace.

• Onward to the Edge - Symphony of Science 

Possibly my very favorite of the Symphony of Science tracks. "There is a powerful recognition that stirs within us, when we see our own little blue ocean planet in the skies of other worlds... onward to the edge, we're moving onward to the edge. Here we are together on this fragile little world."

• Road Goes on Forever - Joe Ely

A truly pronoic tale of adventure, trial and redemption. The road goes on forever, and the party never ends. I like the Joe Ely version above best, but here's another one with Joe featuring Joel Guzman (who makes the accoridan seem like the sexiest instrument ever), here's one by Robert Earl Keen - the guy who wrote the song, and here's the Highwaymen's version (ya know, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, et al). It's a good song.

• Mud on the Tires - Brad Paisley

A truly unironic celebration of the simple pleasures in life - a new truck, the moon and stars, a campfire and a pretty lady. It makes me smile. 

• Mysterious Ways - U2

When I was in high school I was bona fide obsessed with U2. I listened to the Achtung Baby cassette tape on my Walkman on the bus to school, during passing periods, spent the afternoon watching the concert footage on VHS tape and fell asleep listening to the tape again. Some U2 songs send me into that weird place you find yourself when you look at your high school year book, awkward and embarrassed and emotional. This song, though, has stood the test of time and is still in regular rotation.  

• Don't Stop Believin' - Journey

When this came on at the bar the other night, my friend said "I feel like I only hear this song at Goodwill." I said, he isn't living life right then. "Some will win, some will lose. Some were born to sing the blues. Oh, the movie never ends it goes on and on and on and on..... don't stop believing. HOLD ON TO THAT FIEEELLAAAYING!"

• My City of Ruins - Bruce Springsteen  

I think it is curious that I chose to end my PB and J mix with such an intense song. It is sad, yes, but not dark. It brings tears to my eyes, but not always tears of grief. In August of 2003 I watched a full moon ruse over the Oakland Hills as Bruce entreated us to rise up. In November of that same year I visited St. Paul's Chapel in lower Manhattan and cried as the words ran through my head... my city of ruins. I sang this song to my puppy years later, the emotions still fresh but her wagging tail and excited cuddling adding a new layer of association. And of course, any Bruce is all mixed up with my dad, an "it's complicated" relationship if there ever was one. But the take home message is not one of sadness, it is the pronoic belief that every experience allows you to grow, even the painful, terrible and horrific ones. "With these hands, lord, with these hands, I pray for the strength... I pray for your love, lord, with these hands."

What are you listening to in this dark time of the year? What plans are you making, what are you incubating? What PB&J is rocking your world? The photos are images from the Hubble Telescope turned into holiday cards. View all of them at Hubblesite.org  and download your own for spreading holiday PB&J. Blessed winter! 

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New Birth Moon 2008: Waiting

New Birth Moon 2009: Advent, Awaiting the Birth

New Birth Moon 2010: Winter is Dark, Yet Each Tiny Spark

New Birth Moon 2011: Wolves at the Gate

The Bone Moon

Full Milk Moon

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It is the full moon (er.. a little past) of the month that Annette Hinshaw calls the Milk Moon and Jessica Prentice calls the Hunger Moon. It is late in the winter and in milder climates spring may be hinting at it's arrival, but it is not yet here. There is an old saying in New England, though, "half the wood and half the hay you should have left on Candlemas day." In those northern places winter is only half over. Both Annette Hinshaw and Jessica Prentice write about how we can manage our resources during these hard times through our choices and our connections in order to nourishing what is growing in our lives.

In our post industrial, urban world many of us don't even notice that there is a seasonality to the abundance or lack of food. The farmers markets may not be open this time of year, and we may be missing tasty peaches and strawberries, but everything else is still available in our local mega mart. I visited a small produce market near my new school last week that focuses on local foods and found a vast abundance of good looking produce. As expected they had lovely apples from this autumn's harvest stacked in crates out front and piles of local hardy greens but they also had bell peppers, celery, fresh herbs and even a few hot house tomatoes. We never have to fast to conserve resources and when people in our country are hungry it is from lack of money, not the unavailability of food.

Menudo by scaredy_kat

Traditional cultures knew the value of foods that stretch resources and can provide nourishing food even when the stores are low.  Dried grains, root crops, fermented vegetables, hard cheeses and soups are the staple foods of most European cultures and the winter foods of Asia and North America are similar. The hearty soups that people across the globe eat during hard times to keep nourished and elevate into high cuisine in the good times are all based on one important food source - animal bones. Chinese egg drop soup, Korean gomguk, Thai tom yum, Norweigian cabbage soup, Russian shchi, Irish mutton stew, French onion soup, Mexican menudo and Cherokee pepper pot stew are all traditional soups that start with animal bones and end with a warm, nutritious meal perfect for late winter. In the Cherokee calendar, this month of the year is called the Bone Moon. I think that is fitting.

I make stock out of chicken, beef and whatever other bones make their way through my kitchen on a regular basis. I collect bones, both raw and cooked, along with vegetable scraps in a plastic zip bag in the freezer and make stock when I have about a gallon of scraps. The stock can simmer for a few hours, or a few days before you have to deal with it again, and the finished stock can stay in your fridge for a few days or your freezer for a few months. We use it to make soup, stew, polenta, rice and many other dishes that are infinetly more delicious and nutritious when made with home made stock. In fact, last weekend, my sister made a most delicious white bean and kale soup with homemade stock. 

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Home Made Bone Stock

1/2 -1 gallon of assorted chicken, pork, beef or other bones (use mostly chicken, with some others... for beef stock see these instructions)

4-6 cups of assorted vegetable scraps from carrots, onions, garlic, celery, mushrooms or other non-cruciferous (cabbage family) vegetables

1 onion, cut in half with skin (if not enough onion in the veggie scraps)

2-4 cloves of garlic, smashed with skins (if not enough garlic in the veggie scraps)

2 tbs cider vinegar or 1/4 cup white wine1 tsp whole pepper corns

1-2 tsp salt

fresh or dried herbs including thyme, rosemary, sage or bay (optional)

Put the bones and veggies in a large stock pot (spaghetti pot or larger) and cover with cold water. Add the vinegar or wine and slowly bring the pot to a boil. If your bones are frozen, you can turn the heat to medium until everything is defrosted and warm, then up to high to boil. As it comes to a boil, skim any foam that rises to the top off and discard (don't skim too much fat off if you have it on top of the pot, that's good stuff!). Add the salt, peppercorns and optional herbs. Put a lid on the pot, turn the heat down to low or medium low to maintain a slow simmer.

Kale and White Bean Soup by little blue hen

Chicken stock is ready to strain and use after 4-6 hours, but can also be cooked considerably longer. I often simmer for a few hours, put the lid on and turn the heat off, then bring back to a boil and simmer again the next day. I've never gotten sick, yet, but if you are worried, just strain and refridgerate your stock whenever you are done letting it simmer. I strain my stock through a colander with or without a wire sieve in it (depending on how lazy I am feeling - I don't mind a cloudy stock) and pour it into various sized plastic containers to go into the freezer. 

White Bean and Kale Soup

2 quarts home made chicken stock, or a mix of stock and water

2 tbs olive oil, chicken fat or bacon fat

1 linguica sausage, chopped

1 onion, chopped fine

3 cloves of garlic, sliced, chopped or pressed

2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp Italian seasoning

Salt and pepper to taste

1 can white beans, drained and rinsed or 2 cups homemade white beans

1 quart of kale, trimmed and chopped 

1-3 tsp lemon juice or cider vinegar

In 4 quart soup pot, heat the oil and fry the linguica until it has rendered it's fat and is starting to brown. Add the onion, pepper flakes and Italian seasoning along with some salt and pepper. Fry until the onion is soft and golden and add the garlic, frying another minute or so until fragrant.

Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and add the white beans and kale. Cook for at least 10 minutes or until the beans are hot and the kale is wilted and soft. Adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper and lemon juice. Serve with cheese toasts, croutons, sauer kraut or whatever garnishes you like on soup. 

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Every Jewish grandmother knows that chicken soup will cure what ails you, from colds and flu to a broken heart or wrinkley face. Modern science is piling up more and more evidence that she is right. The connective tissue in bones and carcasses is full of gelatin and other nutrients that support healthy bones, joints, skin and hair. Gelatin is also a very nutritious and soothing protein that people of all ages and health levels can digest. Bone marrow, the fatty middle part of long bones, is an especially nutritious food that might support immune function but definitely supports a delicious meal. You can ask your butcher to cut long bones into

Silky Healthful Fat by Sifu Renka

2-3 inch slices, roast the bones and then pull the marrow out and spread it on toast. The marrow course was the highlight of my sister and I's recent trip to a fancy restaurant in downtown Portland. 

In addition to being good for the body, making stock is good for the soul and spirit, too. It is recycling at it's best and a truly respectful way to treat the animals we use for food. Bart Everson speaks eloquently of this transformation and what it means to him on the blog Humanistic Paganism. I know, too, that there is magic in taking the leftovers, the scraps and the ends and turning them, through long simmering, into a wonderful elixer of health and flavor. This can be a hard, hard time of the year especially if we are disconnected from our community and support. Using ancient and wise techniques like fasting, sharing or making bone soup reminds us that we do have the resources to nourish ourselves and each other, even when it looks like all we have is a picked over plate. 

How do you nourish yourself and your community during this dark time of late winter? Do you make stock at your house or have any memories of a lovingly made soup? What other recipes do you like for turning leftovers and left-behinds into loving nourishment? Do you prefer tom yum or french onion soup?

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Full Milk Moon 2009: Nourishing Self As Well As Others

Full Milk Moon 2010: The Full Wolf Moon

Full Milk Moon 2011: The Positive Feedback Loop of Love

Check the recipes and soup tags for more posts with yummy food. 

** This winter was tough and I got messed up in my calendar. I wrote this thinking it was the Fasting Moon but it was really the Milk Moon. Since the post itself is more about the the Bone Moon, I just changed the tags and labels. For more on my thoughts about this, see this post. **

Playing Games

Birth Moon

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The low winter sun streams through the Douglas fir and cedar branches along the Wildwood Trail. The trail winds along a contour line out in the deep wooded heart of the park and I am alone. Well, almost alone. Around a bend in the trail my comes my dog, running full out, her ears flapping and mud flying out behind her. She skids to a halt in front of me, her doggy face practically grinning as she hops up to touch my hand with her nose, spins and darts off up the trail. I can’t help but laugh.

Tumalo

I laugh out loud, my voice muffled by the ferns and fir tree foliage all around me. I laugh at her silly antics and goofy ways. She’s not a clown of a dog, but her little hop, flapping ears and flying leaps make me crow with laughter. I giggle uncontrollably at her yipping and yowling in her sleep. Is she dreaming about giant squirrels or flying tennis balls? Goddess only knows what goes on in the mind of a dog.

My laugh softens into a chuckle and a grin as I catch sight of a flock of chickadees tumbling their way through a stand of cedar and hemlock trees. The sheer joy she gets out of living her dog life makes me laugh, too. She is never self-conscious about her pleasure at a smelly fence post, at a sunny spot in the lawn or a good chase. She is never anything but herself, without reservation or apology. The chickadees come closer, chipping and chirping at each other, completely oblivious of my presence. They, too, are fully present in their lives, not worrying or pretending. They simply are. One flits from one branch to another, doing a somersault over the new perch, hangs upside down and digs in the needles for bugs. I can’t help but grin.

Me ant Tummy

I heard an interview with Brother Guy Consolmagno, a Jesuit priest and astronomer, recently in which he tells a story about his mother. When he was about 9 years old she played cards with him one rainy Saturday afternoon. They played for hours and she let him win more often than not. Of course, she could have beat him every hand but that wasn’t the point. Playing the game was a way for her to say she loved him and Brother Guy sees exploring God’s created universe as a similar game. He is an astronomer and a mathematician so super novas and equations explaining planetary orbits are the game God plays with him to show his love.

I am a naturalist and a dog person so God plays a slightly different game with me. She shows me how to stop worrying and just be through a muddy Labrador. She shows me how she cares for every being through a flock of chickadees. She shows me that she will light my way with a big bright moon rising over the mountain as I drive home. She shows me that she loves me by making me laugh. 

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I wrote this for my Quaker Meeting's journal, Minding the Light. The querie this season was "When has god made you laugh?" I think this story about my dog, about chickadees and about the games God plays with us fits well with the theme of the Birth Moon. This is a time when the light of the Sun Son is new and feeble, but growing stronger each day. The Goddess watches over that growing light, protecting it, loving it, giving it what it needs to become the Light of The World as the summer waxes. I think she is doing that for all of us, giving us exactly what we need exactly when we need it... be that a muddy dog, a giant full moon or another dark, rainy night. 

You can read past issues of Minding the Light online here. My previous posts written for the journal can be seen by checking out all the posts tagged Minding the Light.

Grabbing the Tiger by the Tail

Full Birth Moon

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Welcome to the first full moon of 2012, the Birth Moon. Happy New Year! Did you have a wonderful holiday weekend, full of friends, parties and maybe a few more thoughtful moments? Have you been savoring the darkness of this time of year, incubating plans for the coming season of light? Or have you been trying to drown out the dark with lights and liquor, food, parties and go go go, fun fun fun? Yeah, I've been doing some of both, too.

Last year at about this time, I looked over the year before, did some gwishing and came up with a theme for 2011: Building a Better Teacher. As I look back on this last year I see how that theme really filled out the year. I really enjoyed my coursework, did a lot of processing with the deeper themes of equity, child development and how our public schools work, and actually spent some time in a public school classroom. I

Winter Sky

feel like so much of the rest of what I did this year helped me build a better teacher, too. The play and poetry I engaged in during the spring and summer, my trip to visit my family in Southern California, working through all the hard stuff and then more hard stuff and every bit of reading and writing I did this year all helped me become a stronger, clearer person and more ready to be a friend, mentor and leader to teenagers. 

The days between Christmas and Epiphany are considered the 12 Days of Christmas and there are many esoteric beliefs and traditions associated with these dark nights. Some people believe that the weather of the twelve days associates with the weather of the corresponding months in the upcoming year, and others use that correspondence to do meditation or planning for those months. Other people use the 12 nights to focus on the upcoming year in a more general way, on their own spirituality or on inner work they might want to work on in the coming year. No matter what, it is a time of sinking into the deep dark, bringing the magic of the Christmas rebirth into the new year and getting ready for the Epiphany, the lighting up and insight, that can come if you are ready for it. I spent some of the 12 days, and some before and after, pondering about this upcoming year, 2012.

As I worked through what I want 2012 to look like and listened intently to what the Universe was hinting at, I used some old techniques and some new. I read my Fairy Tale Tarot deck and looked at Sabian Symbols. I prayed in Meeting and in my car. I listened to the conversations I had with my friends and examined what stories were really speaking to me during this time. I brainstormed qualities and imagined scenes from the year. It took a lot of pondering and meditating and thinking, but finally… I am ready to unveil 2012.

Grabbing the Tiger By the Tail

• 2012 will be a year of saying yes to adventure, of facing the fearsome, of just doing it, no matter what "it" is.
• 2012 will look ballsy and awesome, effortless and amazing! Sometimes it will look as challenging as it feels, but it will always look real. 
• 2012 will feel exciting and terrifying, hard but do-able, good like a hard work out or a tricky puzzle. 
• 2012 will be bright orange and zebra striped. It will smell like cinnamon and snow. It will sound like big bells, the crack of a bat and the roar of a crowd, it will sound like the Rocky Theme song (being played by a Hawaiian marching band... which will follow me everywhere this year. Get ready).

2012 is going to be full of adventures. I am student teaching at a middle school, looking for a job in the spring and summer and good Lord willin’ start as a classroom teacher in the fall. I might have to move and will definitely be meeting new people all along the way. I have no idea what adventures this 

The Tiger's Stripes

summer holds for me, in fact, I don’t even know where June rent is coming from. I am going to need to step up to the plate this year and grab each tiger by the tail as it comes my way or I might miss an opportunity, either material or otherwise as they zoom by.

There are other kinds of tigers lurking in 2012, though, too. The story that I shared with you earlier in the month is a story about a man who runs from a tiger that is more about emotions than about the material world. Stefano is terrified of the columber and spends his whole life running, ending up a sad and lonely man. Almost immediately after my motto for the year came to me I had a situation where I realized that I was running from a columber. Something was scary to admit, hard to feel and I ran away from it through blame and anger. As hard as Grabbing the Tiger of jobs and teaching By the Tail might be, turning to Face the Columber is even harder.

Over the last year I’ve been thinking a lot about courage. Courage is not necessarily not feeling afraid of what you are facing, but it is working through that fear and doing something anyway. The last time I really examined courage, I realized that it is the root of all other virtues. To be generous, or loving, or loyal, kind or grateful all require facing fear of being laughed at, or rejected or judged and acting anyway. This year, I will need to draw on all of my courage to Grab the Tiger and Face the 

By Don Kenn

Columber. The Mission Statement I wrote a couple years ago declares that I am an ambassador of the Universal Divine and ambassadors are always under the protection of those who send them. I have the full backing of god in my work, and I have nothing to fear. 

“My life, glowing with integrity, shines a bright light out into the world. I am filled with the light of god and others around me see it and respond.”

What does 2012 have in store for you? Did you do some gwishing or dream decreeing during the 12 days of Christmas or at some other time this winter? What is your motto for the upcoming year, what is your year going to look like or smell like? Do you have a story about gathering your courage and Grabbing a Tiger by the Tail or Facing a Columber? Happy New Year!

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** This winter was tough and I got messed up in my calendar. I wrote this thinking it was the Milk Moon but it was really the Birth Moon. Since the post itself is more about the the new year of 2012, I just changed the tags and labels. For more on my thoughts about this, see this post. **

Full Birth Moon 2008: Outer Darkness and Inner Hope

Full Birth Moon 2009: New Year! and A Story for the Birth Moon 

Full Birth Moon 2010: The Dark of the Dark.

Full Birth Moon 2011: The Columber

Some Birth Moon posts are dated for a Gregorian year but are a part of a lunar year that mostly takes place in the Gregorian year before. Confusing.

This post is about new years, a topic I discussed in the posts The Quaker Year, New Year and New Milk Moon.

The Columber

Full Birth Moon

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The Colomber

Dino Buzzati, translated by Lawrence Venuti

     When Stefano Roi was twelve years old, he asked his father, a sea captain and the owner of a fine sailing ship, to take him on board as his birthday gift. 

     “When I grow up,” the boy said, “I want to go to sea with you. And I shall command ships even more beautiful and bigger than yours.”
     “God bless you, my son,” the father answered. And since his vessel had to leave that very day, he took the boy with him.
     It was a splendid sunny day, and the sea was calm. Stefano, who had never been on a ship, happily wandered around on deck, admiring the complicated maneuvers of the sails. He asked the sailors about this and that, and they gladly explained everything to him. 

    When the boy had gone astern, he stopped, his curiosity aroused, to observe something that intermittently rose to the surface at a distance of two to three hundred meters, in line with the ship’s wake.
     Although the ship was indeed moving fast, carried by a great quarter wind, that thing always maintained the same distance. And though the boy did not make out what it was, there was some indefinable air about it, which attracted him intensely.
     No longer seeing Stefano on deck, the father came down from the bridge, after having shouted his name in vain, and went to look for him.
     “Stefano, what are you doing there, standing so still?” the captain asked his son, finally perceiving him on the stern as he stared at the waves.
     “Papa, come here and see.”
     The father came, and he too looked in the direction indicated by the boy, but he could not see anything.
     “There’s a dark thing that rises in the wake every so often,” Stefano said, “and it follows behind us.”
     “Despite my forty years,” said the father, “I believe I still have good eyesight. But I see absolutely nothing.”
     And the boy insisted, the father went to get a telescope, and he scrutinized the surface of the sea, in line with the wake. Stefano saw him turn pale.

     “What is it? Why do you make that face?”
     “Oh, I wish I had never listened to you,” the captain exclaimed. “Now I’m worried about
you. What you see rising from the water and following us is not some object. That is a colomber. It’s the fish that sailors fear above all others, in every sea in the world. It is a
tremendous mysterious shark, more clever than man. For reasons that perhaps no one will ever know, it chooses its victim, and when it has chosen, it pursues him for years and years, for his entire life, until it has succeeded in devouring him. And the strange this is this: No one can see the colomber except the victim himself and his blood relations.”
     “It’s not a story?”
     “No. I have never seen it. But from descriptions I have heard many times, I immediately
recognized it. That bison like muzzle, that mouth continually opening an closing, those terrible teeth. Stefano, there’s no doubt, the colomber has ominously chosen you, and as long as you go to sea, it will give you no peace. Listen to me: We are going back to land now, immediately; you will go ashore and never leave it again, not for any reason whatsoever. You must promise me you won’t. Seafaring is not for you, my son. You must resign yourself. After all, you will be able to make your fortune on land too.”
     Having said this, he immediate reversed his course, reentered the port, and on the pretext of a sudden illness, he put his son ashore. Then he left again without him.
     Deeply troubled, the boy remained on the shore until the last tip of the masts sank behind the horizon. Beyond the pier that bounded the port, the seas was completely deserted. But looking carefully, Stefano could perceive a small black point which intermittently surfaced on the water: it was “his” colomber, slowly moving back and forth, obstinately waiting for him.

     From then on, with every expedient the boy was dissuaded from his desire to go to sea. His father sent him to study at an inland city, hundreds of kilometers away. And for some time, distracted by his new surroundings, Stefano no longer thought about the sea monster. Still, he returned home for summer vacations, and the first thing he did, as soon as he had some free time, was hurry to the end of the pier for a kind of verification, although he fundamentally considered it unnecessary. After so many years, even supposing that all the stories his father told him were true, the colomber had certainly given up its siege.
     But Stefano stood there, astonished, his heart pounding. At a distance of two to three hundred meters from the pier, in the open sea, the sinister fish was moving back and forth, slowly, raising its muzzle from the water every now and then and turning toward land, as it anxiously watched for whether Stefano was coming at last.
     So the idea of that hostile creature waiting for him day and night became a secret obsession for Stefano. And even in the distant city it cropped up to wake him with worry in the middle of the night. He was safe, of course; hundreds of kilometers separated him from the colomber. And yet he knew that beyond the mountains, beyond the forests and the plains, the shark was waiting for him. He might have moved even to the most remote continent, and still the would have appeared in the mirror of the nearest sea, with the inexorable obstinacy of a fatal instrument.
     Stefano, who was a serious and eager boy, profitably continued his studies, and as soon as he was a man, he found a dignified and well-paying position at a store in the inland city. Meanwhile, his father died through illness, his magnificent ship was sold by his widow, and his son found himself the heir to a modest fortune. Work, friends, diversions, first love affairs- Stefano’s life was not well under way, but the thought of the colomber nonetheless tormented him like a mirage that was fatal and fascinating at the same time; and as the days passed, rather than disappear, it seemed to become more insistent.
     

     Great are the satisfactions of an industrious, well-to-do, and quiet life, but greater still is the attraction of the abyss. Stefano was hardly twenty-two years old when, having said goodbye to his inland friends and resigned from his job, he returned to his native city and told his mother of his firm intention to follow his father’s trade. The woman, to whom Stefano had never mentioned the mysterious shark, joyfully welcomed his decision. To have her son abandon the sea for the city had always seemed to her, in her heart, a betrayal of the family’s tradition.
     Stefano began to sail, giving proof of his sea-worthiness, his resistance to fatigue, and his
intrepid spirit. He sailed and sailed, and in the wake of his ship, day and night, in good weather and in storms, the colomber trudged along. He knew that this was his curse and his penalty, and precisely for this reason, perhaps, he did not find the strength to sever himself from it. And no one on board, except him, perceived the monster.
     “Don’t you see anything over there?” he asked his companions from time to time, pointing at the wake.
     “No, we don’t see anything at all. Why?”
     “I don’t know. It seemed to me…”
     “You didn’t see a colomber, by any chance, did you?” the sailors asked, laughing and
touching wood.
     “Why are you laughing? Why are you touching wood?”
     “Because the colomber is an animal that spares no one. And if it has begun to follow this
ship, it means that one of us is doomed.”
     But Stefano did not slacken. The uninterrupted threat that followed on his heels seemed in fact to strengthen his will, his passion for the sea, his courage in times of strife and danger.
When he felt that he was master of his trade, he used his modest patrimony to acquire a small steam freighter with a partner; then he became the sole proprietor of it, and thanks to a series of successful shipments, he could subsequently buy a true merchantman, setting out with always more-ambitious aims. But the successes, and the millions, were unable to remove that continual torment from his soul; nor did he ever try, on the other hand, to sell the ship and retire to undertake different enterprises on land.
     To sail and sail was his only thought. Just as soon as he set foot on land in some port after a long journey, the impatience to depart again immediately pricked him. He knew that outside the colomber was waiting for him and that the colomber was synonymous with ruin. With nothingness. An indomitable impulse dragged him without rest, from one ocean to another. 

     Until one day, Stefano suddenly realized that he had grown old, very old; and no one around him could explain why, rich as he was, he did not finally leave the cursed life of the sea. He was old, and bitterly unhappy, because his entire existence had been spent in that mad flight across the seas, to escape his enemy. But the temptation of the abyss had always been greater for him than the joys of a prosperous and quiet life.

     One evening, while his magnificent ship was anchored offshore at the port where he was born, he felt close to death. He then called his second officer, in whom he had great trust, and ordered him not to oppose what he was about to do. The other man promised, on his honor.
     Having gotten this assurance, Stefano revealed to the second officer the story of the colomber that had continued to pursue him uselessly for nearly fifty years. The officer listened to him, frightened.
     “It has escorted me from one end of the world to the other,” Stefano said, “with a faithfulness that not even the noblest friend could have shown. Now I am about to die. The colomber too will be terribly old and weary by now. I cannot betray it.”
     Having said this, he took his leave of the crew, ordered a small boat to be lowered into the sea, and boarded it, after he made them give him a harpoon.
     “Now I am going to meet it,” he announced. “It isn’t right to disappoint it. But I shall
struggle, with all my might.”
     With a few weary strokes of the oars, he drew away from the side of the ship. Officers and
sailors saw him disappear down below, on the placid sea, shrouded in the nocturnal shadows. In the sky was a crescent moon.
     He did not have to work very hard. Suddenly the colomber’s horrible snout emerged at the side of the boat.
     “Here I am with you, finally,” Stefano said. “Now it’s just the two of us.” And gathering his
remaining strength, he raised the harpoon to strike.
     “Uh,” the colomber groaned, imploringly, “what a long journey it’s taken to find you. I too
am wasted with fatigue. How much you made me swim. And you kept on fleeing. You never
understood at all.”
     “What?” asked Stefano, with the point of his harpoon over the colomber’s heart.
     “I have not pursued you around the world to devour you, as you thought. I was charged by the King of the Sea only to deliver this to you.”
     And the shark stuck out its tongue, offering the old captain a small phosphorescent
sphere. Stefano picked it up and examined it. It was a pearl of unusual size. And he recognized it as the famous Perla del Mare, which brought luck, power, love, and peace of mind to whoever possessed it. But now it was too late.
     “Alas!” said the captain, shaking his head sadly. “How wrong it all is. I managed to
condemn myself, and I have ruined your life.”
     “Goodbye, poor man,” answered the colomber. And it sank into the black waters forever.
 

     Two month later, pushed by an undertow, a small boat came alongside an abrupt reef. It was sighted by several fisherman, who drew near, curious. In the boat, still seated, was a sunbleached skeleton: between the little bones of its fingers it grasped a small round stone.
     The colomber is a huge fish, frightening to behold and extremely rare. Depending on the sea and the people who live by its shores, the fish is also called the kolombrey, kahloubrha, kalonga, kalu-balu, chalunggra. Naturalists strangely ignore it. Some even maintain that is does not exist.

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I first read this story in the journal Parabola: Myth and the Quest for Meaning. I found their May 1983 edition in a library and the story sang when  I read it. I found it a number of places online (like here, here and here). The images are Gustav Dore prints done in 1876 to illustrate Coleridge's epic The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I found them at this site, where you can purchase them, if you are into that sort of thing. I clearly don't own any of these pieces of art, and am clearly not making any money off reposting them here.

I will post more about my thoughts on this story soon. I promise. 

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** This winter was tough and I got messed up in my calendar. I wrote this thinking it was the Milk Moon but it was really the Birth Moon. Since the post itself is more about the the new year of 2012, I just changed the tags and labels. For more on my thoughts about this, see this post. **

Full Birth Moon 2008: Outer Darkness and Inner Hope

Full Birth Moon 2009: New Year! and A Story for the Birth Moon (these posts are dated 2010, but are for the year that took place mostly in 2009)

 Full Birth Moon 2010: The Dark of the Dark.

Wolves at the Gate

New Birth Moon

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    “Lose the bobcat?” she asked him.

    “No, lost you. For a while.”

    “Not for long, I see.”

    He was wearing his hat again, with the brim pulled low. She found it harder to read his eyes. “You weren’t after that cat today,” he accused. “That trail’s a few days old.”

    “That’s right.”

    “I’d like to know what it is you’re tracking.”

    “You’re a man that can’t hold his horses, aren’t you?”

    He smiled. Tantalizing. “What’s your game, lady?”

    “Coyotes.”

    His eyes widened, only for a second and a half. She could swear his pupils dilated. She bit her lower lip, having meant to give away nothing. She’d forgotten how to talk with people, it seemed – how to sidestep a question and hide what was necessary.

    “And bobcats, and bear, and fox,” she piled on quickly, to bury the coyotes. “Everything that’s here. But especially the carnivores.”

    She shifted, waiting, feeling her toes inside her boots. Wasn’t he supposed to say something after she finished? When he didn’t, she suggested, “I guess you were looking for deer the other day?”

    He gave a small shrug. Deer season was many months over and gone. He wasn’t going to be trapped by a lady wildlife ranger with a badge. “Why the carnivores, especially?” he asked.

    “No reason.”

    “I see. You’re just partial. There’s birdwatchers, and butterfly collectors and there’s gals like you that like to watch meat eaters.”

    He might have known this one thing could draw her talk to the surface: an outsider’s condescension. “They’re the top of the food chain, that’s the reason,” she said coldly. “If they are good, then their prey is good, and its food is good. If not, then something’s missing from the chain.”

    “Oh yeah?”

By Jerolek

    “Yeah. Keeping tabs on the predators tells  you what you need to know about the herbivores, like deer, and the vegetation, the detritovores, the insect populations, small predators like shrews and voles. All of it.”

    He studied her with a confusion she recognized. She was well accustomed to watching Yankee brains grind their gears, attempting to reconcile a hillbilly accent with signs of a serious education. He asked finally “And what you need to know about the shrews and voles would be what, exactly?”

    “Voles matter more than you think. Beetles, worms. I guess to hunters these woods seem like a zoo, but who feeds the animals and cleans up the cage, do you think? Without worms and termites you’d be up to your hat brim in dead tree branches looking for a clear shot.”

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The new moon this month is the new Birth Moon in Annette Hinshaw's calendar and the new Wolf Moon in Jessica Prentice's. It is the dark of winter, the testing place of the wisdom and support we gathered over the last summer both physically as well as emotionally and spiritually. Did the fields and herds provide enough food for us this year? Did we store enough food to last the winter? Do we have the friend and kin support to get us through the dark times?  

Humans are like other large animals top predators in that we require huge amounts of land to support our needs. Each one of us requires entire armies of farmers and ranchers, crop plants and livestock animals, food packagers, butchers and cooks to meet our food needs. Estimates of how much land a human needs to meet their food needs range from 1/5 of anacre to over 10 square miles, depending on the climate and intensity of agriculture, but no matter what, we are resource intensive creatures. In the last 50 years agriculture in the western world has changed drastically with the input of petroleum fuel and chemical fertilizers, reducing some of the human labor required to feed our growing population that now tops 7 billion souls. Unfortunately, this oil based food system is not sustainable in the long term. Unlike natural ecosystems, it both requires an in put that is not renewable and 

By Ricky NJ

it also produces waste that is not useable by the system. In fact, the waste and destruction caused by our modern agribusiness practices makes the entire ecosystem unhealthy for both humans and many other animal and plant species.

Wolves and other large carnivores were some of the first species to feel the effects of western civilization as we developed the technology to take the land we needed for our agriculture. Wolves were hunted virtually to extinction in Europe and North America as industrial agriculture grew and by the middle of the 20^th century there were only remnant populations in the far reaches of their former range. The environmental movement of the last 40 years has changed the way both the public and the government views wolves, however, and in the 1990s there was a program to reintroduce wolves to the northern Rocky Mountain areas of Idaho and Wyoming. By 2004 the original couple dozen wolves relocated from Alberta,Canada to central Idaho had expanded to over 450 animals and some of those were making their way across the Snake River into Oregon. Nearly sixty years after the last wolf bounty was paid in Oregon, the fish and wildlife department confirmed two pups born to the small Imnaha pack, the first in the state. Six more pups were confirmed in the 2009 breeding season and there are two other packs now roam the wilderness of north eastern Oregon.

This autumn big news broke when a young wolf left his home pack and started heading west across Oregon. By December OR 7, as he is known, had traveled over 700 miles and set up camp in the heavily forested land between Medford, OR and Crater Lake. OR 7 is a bit of a celebrity these days and his journey, and the notoriety it is getting, is stirring up the rural/urban, rancher/conservationist divide over the reintroduction of wolves to Western States. Like Eddie Bondo, the Wyoming rancher and hunter in Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer which I excerpted above, many people in rural Oregon view wolves as threats to their livelihood. The irony, of course, is that wolves returning to their mountains are in direct opposition to the real threat to their livlihoods.

By Fremlin

In Kingsolver’s beautiful novel, Eddie learns from the forest ranger Deanna about how important large carnivores are to the entire ecosystem they live in. Yes, large carnivores kill young and weak livestock, but another character in the novel notes that there are 10 other ways she might be responsible for the death of her animals. In fact, the land that supports a healthy population of carnivores can support a larger and healthier population of grazing animals. Even crop farmers benefit from the healthy ecosystems that support wolves, coyotes, bobcats and cougars. Those ecosystems provide clean water, balanced insect populations and habitat for pest rodents to live in so they are less likely to harass stored grains. Turns out, healthy ecosystems make for healthy farms, which in turn allow all people to live healthier lives.

I think one of the hardest things to wrap my city born brain around is just how detrimental our culture is to both wild things and to our own lifestyles. Our current practices of mining the earth’s resources are simply not sustainable – and I don’t mean that in the green washed way that Whole Foods or American Apparel mean it. I mean really, really for real, there is not going to be enough food, clean water, breatheable air or fertile soil to support the human population. We are filling our house with garbage and toxic waste, eating everything out of the fridge and refusing to see that things can’t go on like this.

The struggle for me, an environmentalist who cares about food issues and wildlife issues and really knows all about this stuff, is what to do on a daily basis. How do I make changes in my life that make it more sustainable, without abandoning civilization and living off dumpster diving and walking everywhere? I currently live a life that requires a car, and electricity and buying food at the grocery store. How do I take steps towards a life that this earth can actually support? Jessica Prentice quotes Martin Prechtel, the author of the book The Party’s Over, as he talks about the big, mechanized slug of a culture of progress. This “culture crushing mentality” has left behind a homogenized, lifeless civilization of freeways, big box stores and franchise restaurants. My sister went to India and her traveling partner insisted on eating McDonalds and KFC. It is mind boggling that you even can eat that food 

By Eoin C

so far away from the American heartland where it was invented! How do I fight this overwhelming slug without being a total outsider to my culture and community?

Prentice and Prechtel leave us with a simple, yet profoundly life shifting call to action; to recreate the interpersonal relationships found in our ancestral villages. Not to reject modern civilization (I do truly believe that appropriate technology will be profoundly useful in creating a sustainable culture) but building the human community within our civilization that makes life meaningful, valuable and worth honoring. In terms of food, this community is built through becoming a producer as well as a consumer, and trading with other individual producers. Buying eggs from a neighbor or local farmer, shopping for vegetables at the farmer’s market where you can shake the hand of the woman who grew your cauliflower, trading your dried oregano and wild harvested nettles for your neighbors apples or lettuce. These things allow us to see each other as valuable individuals, not just cogs in the wheel or obstacles on the way to our own fulfillment.

By Wiz411

We can create these webs of relationship in ways that don’t involve food, too. Taking the bus or walking allows us to really see our neighbors (and sometimes hear them, and smell them but that’s how we know they are real people). My group of friends is great at having the kinds of parties that allow us to build relationships, like Christmas lights viewing or cheese and wine parties or trips to the pumpkin patch. My church, like so many other places of worship, is another bastion of community relationships. When I was having such a dark time this last fall I realized that the culture of my church community involved explicitly being open with our needs and equally explicit with our ability to help each other both through encouragement and physical or material assistance. I learned that I had to be equally explicit with my non-church friends and once I did my needs were met quickly and lovingly.

The wolf is at the gate, this time of year. The days are dark and we are lonely, both in our daily lives and in our cultural life. Wolves show us how interconnected we all are and how important strengthening and honoring those connections really is. How connected do you feel these days, to your friends and family, your community and your larger ecosystem home? How do these connections nourish you, ground you or leave you feeling confined? Who do you like to buy your food from or share your food with? Do you have any wolf, coyote or other large predator sighting stories to share?  

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** This winter was tough and I got messed up in my calendar. I wrote this thinking it was the Milk Moon but it was really the Birth Moon. Since the post itself is more about the Wolf Moon, I just changed the tags and labels. For more on my thoughts about this, see this post. **

New Birth Moon 2008: Waiting

New Birth Moon 2009: Advent, Awaiting the Birth

New Birth Moon 2010: Winter is Dark, Yet Each Tiny Spark

My full Milk Moon post in January of 2010 is also about the Wolf Moon, and retells the wonderful story of St. Francis and the wolf of Gubbio.