Astrology

Total Eclipse of the Heart

adult learning, arkansas, art, Astrology, cosmology, Creativity, Faith, Great American Eclipse, Imagination, inspiration, Light of the World, Love, mystery, nature, Painting, photography, shadows, Spirituality, Travel, Uncategorized, vision

In the Bonnie Tyler song, “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” her rock and roll soul pines for a young man as she sings:

“Every now and then

I know there’s no one in the universe

As magical and wondrous as you.”

Love struck teen heart ballads tend to elevate the beloved to a high pedestal, while hymns lift the praises of God to the highest heavens. If we look at John Wesley’s Notes on the New Testament, one of the doctrinal standards of the United Methodist Church, his commentary on 2 Corinthians 4:6 (KJV) is instructive:

“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

We might be more familiar with this verse in the NRSV, a more modern translation, which wasn’t available in the middle of the 18th century:

For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Bailey’s Ring, from an earlier total eclipse over the South Pacific Ocean

Wesley’s commentary in his Notes on this text is succinct:

  1. For God hath shined in our hearts—The hearts of all those whom the God of this world no longer blinds.
  2. God who is himself our light; not only the author of light, but also the fountain of it.
  3. To enlighten us with the knowledge of the glory of God—Of his glorious love, and of his glorious image.
  4. In the face of Jesus Christ—Which reflects his glory in another manner than the face of Moses did.

What do the Total Eclipse of the Heart and Paul’s words to the Corinthian community have to do with art and faith? We’ve just experienced, what was for most of us, was a once in a lifetime experience. The last time a total solar eclipse was visible across the entire continent was in June 1918, when a total solar eclipse was visible from Washington to Florida, according to the US parks service. Nearly 100 years passed until this present Great American Eclipse.

At the 1878 total eclipse, Maria Mitchell led the Vassar College eclipse party, an all-female expedition from that pioneering women’s institution, which came to Denver in an era when science was a male bastion. Even higher education was deemed risky for the “fairer sex.” In 1873, the prominent Boston physician Edward H. Clarke had warned in an incendiary book titled “Sex in Education,” that the recent push for female colleges and coeducation could undermine women’s health by taxing their brains and causing their reproductive organs to atrophy — leading to “a dropping out of maternal instincts, and an appearance of Amazonian coarseness and force.” Nearly 150 years later some men still concern themselves with outmoded and 19th century views on women’s health concerns.

Eclipse as seen through the hands

I drove over four hundred miles to Kentucky in 2017 for the prior Great American Eclipse and got to stay home to see this second Great American Eclipse in my own front yard. Some folks couldn’t have been bothered about this current grand event, while others were convinced God was informing America of her impending doom. Moreover, multiple conspiracy theories abounded, none of which came true, of course. For instance, the world didn’t come to an end and our cell phones still work. Even the electric grid held up, even though the sun didn’t shine for all of a few minutes as the shadow traveled at over 1,600 miles per hour as it raced along the path of totality. This wasn’t even Y2K, which we all remember was a nonstarter at least and a dud at best.

Eclipse over Niagara Falls, 2024

In art class Friday Tim and I talked about the experience of this celestial event. We humans often elevate our own importance when we measure ourselves against one another and the works of our hands. When we go out into nature, we’re faced with the grandeur of God’s creation, especially when we visit the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls. In Psalms 19:1, we read:

“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.”

We see the beauty of nature and feel a warmth in our hearts. Our spirits soar. This intimacy with nature is one of the reasons we send our children to our United Methodist Church Camps, not just because they’ll have a great Christian experience, but because they’ll have that faith experience in nature with trusted leaders. I still remember my adventures and experiences in nature at those camps as part of my spiritual journey.

Towering Cumulus Clouds

Even in seminary, when I was having difficulty with some of my courses, I could go for a walk on the campus under the tree lined walks and search the skies for hopeful signs. Sometimes I saw the towering cumulus clouds in the Texas sky as a sign God was with me “in the cloud by day.” In those times of difficulty, even the cloistered realm of preparation seemed like a wilderness journey, but I was glad for a guide.

Bill Maxey, from Nebraska, taken at Hot Springs, AR.

When I was actively serving as a pastor, sometimes I just had to get away. I’d drive until I found some nature, a national park, national forest, or some fields outside of town. If it was a hot summer, I looked for some deep woods and cool shade to shelter me. In the cool spring, I drove until I found flowers. Maybe this is why I retired to a lake in a national park. I don’t need a big house, since I’d rather go out into nature instead.

Totality on Lake Hamilton, with sunset in the west, outside the path of totality

It was the heat of summer in 2017, so you’d think I’d remember the temperature drop right before the eclipse was halfway through. This year I was on Lake Hamilton, and the breeze off the lake combined with the cooler air was decidedly noticeable. When we entered totality, the lights on the Highway 70 bridge and at Bubba Brews automatically came on. The distant sky in the southwest, outside the path of totality, looked like a summer sunset. My neighbors and our visitors from afar were cheering.

Bill Maxey: multiple exposure of the Great American Eclipse, 2024

Not everyone can make an artwork that expresses their emotions as well as the shapes of the image. We can learn the rules of perspective and color, but then we have to learn to let our heart rule our head. This is what I call an “artistic leap of faith.” When we were young, we accepted the basic ideas of Christianity. As we got older, life happened, and we might have begun to struggle with our childhood beliefs not being equal to our adult needs. If we keep our childlike faith, we risk losing our faith. If we are able to wrestle with our faith and find a new and more mature faith, we can handle the major challenges of later life. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:11-12—

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

Tim’s Partial Eclipse painting using red, blue and brown to build the sky

Tim experimented with mixing colors to get richer depth. Using the Prang watercolor palette, he mixed the red, blue, and brown to get the black sky of the eclipse event. The red orange of the sun has some brown in it too. He layered the colors with multiple strokes, with a nod to Van Gogh. He worked from a photograph I brought. I pulled many of them off the internet, and many of my friends sent me some too.

Cornelia: Total Eclipse of the Sun

I worked on an image I’d taken from my iPhone. I had placed one of my eclipse glasses over the lens and was wearing another pair. It wasn’t that easy to get the sun lined up with all that blocking! My image looked a lot like a fried egg or an eyeball. I used several jar lids to get the circles painted cleanly. My dark sky is red, blue, and violet. The shape of the corona was not distinct, due to the quality of my camera. NASA has a very high-resolution image, which breath taking. Our tax dollars at work are bringing great scientific research and development to benefit us in everyday life, such as solar panels and heart implants.

NASA: High Resolution Image of the Total Eclipse

Thomas Merton, in No Man is an Island, in a chapter called “Being and Doing,” wrote—

“We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm.”

I was a bit exhausted after all the excitement of this big event. I’d met new people from three different states, visited around our patio, and been gifted crystals that had been dug from Mt. Ida and “energized by the eclipse.” I’m not a crystal person, but I understand from those that are these crystals are “special.” I was feeling every bit of my new age as the calendar flipped over for another year.

Bourbon Codex: Aztec priestly document recording astronomical observations: eclipse

But today is another day, I had a night to sleep, and we had fun in art class. As long as we find joy in life, we know we’re alive. Our joys aren’t just collections of peak experiences, but some are the joy of the assurance of God’s enduring presence in our later lives when our youthful vigor has left us. We need to remember just as the moon eclipses the sun, once it passes, it also reveals the sun’s glory. One day this Bible verse from Philippians 3:21 will be true for each one of us, who has a heart full of love for God and neighbor:

“He will transform our humble bodies that they may be conformed to his glorious body, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.”

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

 

Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse Of The Heart Lyrics | AZLyrics.com

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bonnietyler/totaleclipseoftheheart.html

John Wesley: Explanatory Notes on the New Testament (With Active Table of Contents) [Kindle Edition], first published 1757

John Wesley: Wesley’s Notes on the Bible – Christian Classics Ethereal Library—online free edition of this book

https://ccel.org/ccel/wesley/notes/notes.toc.html

The Solar Eclipse Is the Super Bowl for Conspiracists | WIRED

https://www.wired.com/story/solar-eclipse-conspiracies/

Solar Eclipse 2017: Sun and moon put on celestial performance – CBS News

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2017-eclipse-dazzles-million-watch-celestial-performance-sun-moon/

Thomas Merton—“No Man is an Island” in a chapter called “Being and Doing” [TMHI]: 1955

 A Woman in Eclipse: Maria Mitchell and the Great Solar Expedition of 1878

https://undark.org/2017/08/17/wilo-maria-mitchell-astronomer-eclipse/

NASA: Benefits Stemming from Space Exploration

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/benefits-stemming-from-space-exploration-2013-tagged.pdf?emrc=ca90d1#:~:text=Overcoming%20the%20challenges%20of%20working,information%20technology%2C%20and%20industrial%20productivity

 

Season of Light

art, Astrology, Christmas, Civil War, Faith, Family, Hanukkah, holidays, hope, Israel, Light of the World, Love, Saturnalia, Spirituality, Ukraine

The damaged Drobytsky Yar memorial near Kharkiv, Ukraine after reportedly being hit by Russian artillery fire, on March 26, 2022

As the days grow shorter and the nights lengthen, the chill air adds to the darkness of our world. We can give into this dour outlook, especially this year with devastating wars in Ukraine and Gaza, or we can light a candle against the gathering gloom. Cultures across history have seen the time before year end as an opportunity for reflection, concern, or fear. Others have found reasons to rejoice.

Rainbow Menorah

Hanukkah (inauguration) is the eight-day Festival of Lights, which occurs in 2023 from sunset December 7 to December 15. It’s a moveable festival, for in 2024 the holiday will occur from December 25 to January 2. The Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar, not a solar calendar. This holiday celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple after the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Greeks in 164 BCE. On discovering in the temple a vial of unpolluted oil, with only enough to light the candle for one day, this oil kept the candle burning for eight days. To commemorate this miracle, faithful Jews now light a special menorah with nine candles. The ninth candle is called the “helper” or “shammash” candle. The root word is from the Hebrew for “servant.”

Helping Hand Menorah

While not everyone is Jewish, all persons can learn from the menorah and the shammash candle. We may have only a little to give, but with God’s help it can be multiplied many times over. We can all be a helper candle, and bring a light to the candles who need a light. Many in this season experience a loss of some kind. Some are mourning a loved one, others have broken relationships, or have lost jobs or status. We are not our jobs and we aren’t our paychecks, but we are the beloved children of God. God will love us when everyone else turns aside. God will remember us when others forget we are alive.

Perhaps these darkening days at the end of the year are why people in all parts of the world have brought fire and light to this time of the year. The Yule Festival in German and Scandinavian countries was part of the pagan festival incorporated into Christianity’s Christmas celebrations. It likely began as a winter solstice or year-end celebration. “Yule” became a name for Christmas about the 9th century, and in many languages yule and its cognates are still used to describe that holiday.

Father Christmas and the Yule Log

The burning in a giant fireplace of a large Yule log until it’s reduced to cinders is one of my favorite mythic memories of the season. Alas, growing up in the Deep South, gas logs were the closest fireplace equivalent, and these were the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We rarely turned on the flickering colors of these blue flames because cold nights were few and far between.

By 336 CE, the Christian church in Rome celebrated Christmas on December 25, which coincided with the Roman winter equinox festival of Saturnalia. In medieval England, Christmas was a 12-day festival involving all kinds of revelry, from plays to wild feasts to pageants celebrating Jesus’ birth. Music, gift giving, and decorations all became the norm. Anyone who’s been in a choir singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” with its repetitive “and a partridge in a pear tree” has those ancestors of ours to thank. Some traditions never die!

Our family stitched and sequined one exactly like this.

Christmas is better known for decorated trees, however. The use of evergreen trees and wreaths in religious ceremonies dates from ancient Roman times, if not earlier. However, the first documented use of a tree in a winter Christmas celebration wasn’t until 1510. In that year, members of a merchant’s guild in Riga, Latvia, placed a tree in the town square. They decorated it with flowers, ribbons, and dried fruit. After the festivities—which included the singing of songs and dancing—were concluded, they burned the tree as a great bonfire to close out the celebrations.

The Grinch Torches Whoville’s Christmas Tree into a Bonfire

Christmas trees gained popularity in Germany and other parts of northern Europe by the 1700s, but the practice of decorating a pine or fir tree during the holiday season remained virtually unknown in the English-speaking world prior to the 19th century. When Queen Victoria married her German cousin Prince Albert in 1840, the Christmas tree became widely accepted and practiced throughout the British Isles.

1836 edition of The Stranger’s Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Present

In the United States, the practice of placing a decorated tree inside the family home was most likely introduced by German immigrants who arrived soon after the Revolution. The otherwise unassuming volume seen above, the 1836 edition of The Stranger’s Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Present, is significant for it’s the first book printed in the Americas containing an image of a Christmas tree. Franklin Pierce in 1856 was the first president to erect a tree in the White House. In the United States, Christmas wasn’t celebrated with much gusto until after the Civil War, which reinforced for many the importance of home and family. In 1870, after the war’s end, Congress made Christmas one of nation’s first federal holidays.

Franklin Pierce in 1856 was the first president to erect a tree in the White House.

Light has always been a part of winter festivals, with their signature long, dark nights. Electric Christmas lights are a modern spin-off of the old-fashioned candles that Germans and Scandinavians placed on their trees. Thomas Edison, inventor of the lightbulb, also invented the first strand of lights and hung them outside his Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory in 1880. In 1882 his business partner, Edward H. Johnson, created the first Christmas tree illuminated with colored lights. In 1895, President Grover Cleveland placed multi-colored electric lights on the White House tree. Since electricity wasn’t available except to the wealthy, most people didn’t have electric lights on their trees at home. Not until the end of the 1920s were electric lights affordable for the average family.

Fast forward to the 1950’s and the postwar period of rural electrification and large family gatherings, colored electric lights of every kind were readily available to the middle classes, not just the wealthy. This was the era of big bulbs and bubble lights, but in a few years, inexpensive miniature colored and white lights imported from China would become popular. Now even single parent households could decorate both the house and tree to their hearts’ content.

Untitled (Lux in tenebris inest—Light in the darkness)
Elisa Sighicelli 2003/2003

The lights bring out our hope of what’s good and wonderful in this world. Christmas and Hanukkah are times when the light burns bright, even when the days are dark. If these holidays didn’t exist, we would need to invent them, for we need the reminders of what is light and good in the world. As Baruch prophesied (5:9):

“For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.”

While we don’t know exactly what the Christmas star was, one theory is it was a conjunction of Jupiter, Regulus and Venus. Another possibility includes a set of conjunctions of the planets Jupiter and Venus, and the bright star Regulus. In this case, the mythologies associated with the objects become important. Jupiter in Hebrew is known as ‘Sedeq’, which is often translated as meaning righteousness. Jupiter is also often viewed as being the ‘king’ of the planets. Regulus is Latin for ‘prince’ or ‘little king’, and Venus is often viewed as a symbol of love, fertility and birth. Therefore, the combination of these objects close in the sky could have led to the interpretation of the birth of the ‘King of Kings.’ We do know Matthew records the visit to King Herod:

“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
(2:1-2 NIV)

Gerrit Dou: Astronomer by Candlelight, oil, late 1650s, J. Paul Getty Museum

The magi were astrologers, those who studied the heavens for the star signs of rising and falling influences in the ancient world. Herod died soon after their visit, but not before he tried to consolidate his power. He meant his dire deeds to benefit himself, but God spared his son by sending a message to Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt with Mary and Jesus. The magi were warned not to return to Herod also.
This one who John wrote about in the opening chapter of his gospel (1:5):

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Gerardo Dottori: Nativity, 1930/1930, Museum of modern art

As we celebrate the holidays of light this year, remember to be a “shammash”, or a servant of light, and don’t let this present darkness overwhelm you. Your one light shining may be the brightness that brings someone safely home. Today I wore my bright pink exercise pants, even though I’m sinusy and achy all over. I made at least one person’s day when I said, “They’re stretchy, so I can eat more Christmas cookies!” We spread the joy even when the Grinch has stolen ours. This is a way of taking the darkness back, by making others feel better.

God bless and shine 🕯️on,

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Jewish Festivals |Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jewish-festivals

Shammash | Judaism | Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/shammash

Yule Festival | Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yule-festival

O Tannenbaum: Or, a Brief History of the Christmas Tree | The New York Public Library
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/12/12/christmas-trees-arrival

Who Invented Electric Christmas Lights |
https://www.eei.org/en/delivering-the-future/articles/who-invented-electric-christmas-lights

A Look Back: 100 Years of Christmas Tree Trends

https://www.bhg.com/100-years-christmas-trees-6751023

Megiddo at the Crossroads of History

911, Academy for Spiritual Formation, Apocalypse, art, Astrology, Faith, Healing, hope, Imagination, inspiration, Israel, Megiddo, Painting, pandemic, purpose, Spirituality, vision

Archeological Remains of Tell Megiddo

On a visit to the Holy Land, I walked in the ruins of Tell Megiddo and also climbed the hills above the Jezerell valley. From this vantage point, I could imagine the great battles of nations warring to conquer land and control trading routes. Megiddo lies at the crossroads and therefore in the crosshairs of international politics, both in ancient and current times.

 

Valley of Megiddo

The plains of Megiddo, the breadbasket of Israel, also were known as a great battleground in ancient times. Egypt came more than once to fight the kings of Israel and Judah. The world’s earliest recorded battle occurred here between Syrian princes and Pharaoh Thutmosis III (ca. 1469 BC). Judah’s king Josiah was fatally wounded when he confronted another pharaoh, Neco II, near Megiddo ca. 609 BC (2 Kings 23:29-30). Although Megiddo is only mentioned in the Old Testament, the New Testament refers to it once in Revelation 16:16 as Harmagedon (mountain of Megiddo), the final site of the battle between the forces of good and evil at the end times of the age. Of course, scholars have different interpretations of when these “end times” are at hand.

 

Map of First Recorded Battle

The final book of the Greek New Testament is ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ, or the Apocalypse of John. The word apocalypse means “disclosure of truth, instruction, or reveal, disclose, uncover.” It especially refers to Jewish and Christian writings of 200 BCE to 150 CE, which are marked by pseudonymity, symbolic imagery, and the expectation of an imminent cosmic cataclysm in which God destroys the ruling powers of evil and raises the righteous to life in a messianic kingdom.

Chariot Sculpture at Megiddo Battlefield

I remember a presenter on an Academy for Spiritual Formation retreat saying she had difficulty saying the prayers in the psalter, for the psalms of lament meant nothing to her, since she had no griefs to bear. Her spiritual adviser reminded her, “We pray these prayers for others, not just for ourselves alone.” As an artist of faith, I sense the needs of the world: it’s longings, fears, hopes, and dreams. I don’t always paint “art for art’s sake.” Certainly the conflict our beloved United Methodist Church has been experiencing lately factored into this “end times vision,” for too many on both sides of this dispute have resorted to calling the other “evil.”

Megiddo: Bronze Version

I felt called to paint the landscape of Megiddo in these recent weeks. Beginning in mid August, I was working on several paintings using Google map views of the landscape around the ancient site, with inspiration from my personal photos from my visit several years ago. I struggled over it, with the colors changing from bright to earthen tones. I left it alone for a time, to look at it and take time to live with it. Doing this allows me to see if I got too interested in noodling about making different colors, rather than considering the whole area as one unit. It didn’t take long before I came to the conclusion I didn’t have unity in my work. I had no overarching focus. My life has been like this for a while, with multiple distractions.

Megiddo: Blue Version

In our broken and fallen world, I find people today are in a rush to run to the extremes. Cooler heads don’t always prevail. The moment disorder rears its ugly head, folks run around like Chicken Little screaming, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” They might as well scream, “The end times are here!” I’m reminded of the Y2K hysteria with everyone panicking about filling up their cars for fear the gas pumps wouldn’t work, getting cash in case the credit cards wouldn’t swipe, and buying generators for fear the grid would crash (computers not able to recognize all those zeros). As I recall, my antique VCR kept recording on schedule, and the local Walmart took back loads of panic purchases in January.

The latest outbreak of hostilities in Israel and the Gaza Strip have added to the apocalyptic atmosphere and thinking of those who are given to extremes of thought. America has sent two of its eleven aircraft carriers into the Mediterranean Sea as a deterrent to all the other nations to rethink their plans to join the fighting now going on. For the apocalyptic thinkers, this is a sign of “It’s going down!” For those of us who have calmer heads, we realize the United States is the only one of six countries with more than two of these floating armed cities. Every other country has a single one only.

General Eisenhower (R) confers with French generals French 1st Army Corps Headquarters November 25, 1944 Ranking allied leaders look over a situation map outside of French 1st Army Corps Headquarters.

It’s been the habit of American presidents and their advisers in the gamut of crises since World War II to move aircraft carriers around as a “Geopolitical Chess Piece” to demonstrate American concern, resolve, or outright anger. Because carriers are operate on the high seas where permission to move is not needed from other countries, and because they carry their own fuel, weapons, and maintenance, they’re ready on arrival at the scene of a crisis to deliver power. Moreover, since modern U.S. carriers are large and imposing, and have been unchallenged on the seas, they “show the flag” to great effect. They provide excellent “visuals.” In fact, if one carrier doesn’t do the job, sending a second with several attendant ships along is a sign of “we mean business.”

Since this is a habit, and not a novel occurrence, it’s not the sign of the end times. As the gospel of Mark records in 13:7-8:

“When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

Benjamin West: Death on a Pale Horse, oil on canvas, 1817, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Will these carriers be used for their traditional purpose—a floating airfield—and will our military aircraft and service personnel actually join in the actual combat operations in the MidEast? That seems unlikely, given the Just War principle taught in American War Colleges. The moral concept of Just War begins with a good reason to go to war. A reasonable cause is to right a wrong, recover stolen property, or self defense. Not liking someone isn’t a good reason to go to war.

The just war must be fought proportionately to the harm that was done to the aggrieved. Today, if someone were to insult you or cut you off in traffic, honking your horn is acceptable, but shooting a pistol isn’t. That’s a disproportionate reaction to the harm, or an unjustified assault. Responding in anger usually leads to regret, but our emotions often get the best of us.

I remember my first year in the classroom. I was making a grand total of $8,250 a year—the extra $250 was for my master’s degree—and the school wanted to know if I wanted this pittance in 10 or 12 checks. “Oh, make it ten! I’ll figure out summer some how.” The first day of class in 1982, I had well over fifty students in the high school sign up for art because the former teacher had taught elementary lessons to the older students: she had fifty ways to draw turkeys. I brought the principal in: “This isn’t going to work. Let’s get half of them in another class.” He was good with that.

This was a country school. Most of the kids would marry right after graduation. Many of the seniors already had jobs, so young art teachers weren’t high on their respect list. I was fortunate to have taught in an inner city school back in the Northeast where the boys play ice hockey. Like an aircraft carrier sent to the Mediterranean Sea, sometimes I’d have to throw my short body into the middle of two factions who were about to throw punches. These boys were usually over six feet tall, so there was no likelihood I’d ever get hit, but just my presence would cause them to reconsider and pull their punches.

Just because we send war ships to the Mediterranean doesn’t mean we want to wage war. We Americans have a track record of showing up to keep wars from breaking out all over. World leaders know how our military is trained and the rules by which we engage in conflicts. This is why as a person of faith, each of us has to search our hearts to discern how we respond in times of conflict, whether that’s a war or just a disagreement with our neighbors.

In addition to a just cause, we must have the right intentions, the possibility of success, and enter a conflict only as a last resort. Those who follow the Just War Principles aren’t “trigger happy,” but are inclined to gather community support, decide their limits ahead of time, seek to resolve the conflict in other ways first, and if that fails, then enter the fray. The USA didn’t enter WWII until the 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, even though the war in Europe had been going on since September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Up to that time we were supporting Great Britain with armaments.

A plan for after the fighting is done

Theologically speaking, scholars are of two minds: the end times are already here or the end times have yet to come.

1. The end times are already here—Scholars who believe this understand Matthew 24:6-8 as an ongoing event, which began with the ascension of Christ:

“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

For some, the tribulation will happen beforehand (pretribulation), while others believe this suffering will occur after the return of Jesus (post tribulation). I remember as the year 2000 approached, many of the faithful were excited about the camera facing the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, since this was the place from which he ascended, therefore it would be the place from which he would return. Daystar Ministries setup the camera so “everyone could see it firsthand.”

We humans tend to think our Gods are small, even if we ascribe to them “infinite powers.” We don’t realize the power of an almighty who can interrupt and reveal all of the past to be nothing but dust and introduce a new age with his appearance. No one will need a computer or video screen to view the in-breaking return of the messiah. Everyone around the world will hear the thunderclap at one moment in time, and the flash of lightning accompanying his appearance will brighten even the darkest night. This day will be overwhelmingly bright. Most of us will hide our eyes so we won’t be blinded by the brilliance of a thousand suns.

The Jesus Cam will most likely melt when Christ does return, but his return wasn’t on the first day of 2000. That wasn’t the millennium anyway, but a year early for the math challenged hopeful. It was also the year 1420 for the Muslims and 5760 for the Jews, so who’s counting matters anyway, since numbers aren’t what God depends on, nor the stars (astrology).

Durer: The Four Horsemen

2. The end times are yet to come—While pandemics, stock market crashes, and rumors of war may all sound apocalyptic, the Temple at Jerusalem has yet to be rebuilt. Complicating this task is the Dome of the Rock, a major Islamic holy site built on the same location. A Pew Research Center study in 2010 found most Americans believed war, terrorism and environmental catastrophes were at least probable by the year 2050. Nearly six-in-ten (58%) saw another world war as definite or probable; 53% said the same about the prospect for a major terrorist attack on the United States involving nuclear weapons. An even higher percentage (72%) anticipated the world would face a major energy crisis in the next 40 years. This fits with the theme of “apocalypse as the collapse of environment or society.”

Other characteristics of the apocalypse include:

1. Literal battle between physical armies under supernatural leadership—These are battles of extremists, who are convinced they have a holy calling to fight. The Crusades were fought as “Christ’s army against the infidel.” Their purpose was to restore the Christian holy sites in the Middle East and resanctify them for holy Christian worship. This mentality doesn’t respect the humanity of the enemy. The war may have a just purpose, but not be fought with just means: eradication of the enemy is unjust.

2. Holy wars against non-believers—This is an unjust war, fought with unjust purposes, with excessive force, and seeks to exterminate the enemy, who are reduced to non-persons because they don’t share the same belief system. When opposing sides can’t recognize the common humanity of one another and rage rules decisions, the lust for blood feeds upon itself. Shakespeare said it best when Marc Anthony came upon the body of the just assassinated Julius Caesar in Act 3, scene 1:

And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,

With Ate by his side come hot from hell,

Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice

Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war,

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth

With carrion men, groaning for burial.

My final reworking of Megiddo includes streaks of rockets in the dark night sky and swirls of chaos which churn the world’s peoples, just as Ate, the Roman personification of recklessness and folly incites the passions of Caesar’s bereaved followers. We don’t know when Christ will return, no matter how many may prophesy or calculate the date. As Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 24:36,

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

This present darkness is only momentary, for if we’re in the end times, we also have a promise we can hold on to in Matthew 28:20—

“Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

 

 

Armageddon / Harmagedon – CDAMM

https://www.cdamm.org/articles/armageddon

 

Aircraft Carriers by Country 2023 – Wisevoter

Aircraft Carriers by Country

 

Public Sees a Future Full of Promise and Peril | Pew Research Center

Public Sees a Future Full of Promise and Peril

 

 

Robert C Rubel: The Future of Air Carriers

https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1551&context=nwc-review

 

Rubel, Robert C. (2011) “The Future of The Future of Aircraft Carriers,” Naval War College Review: Vol. 64 : No. 4 , Article 4. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol64/iss4/4

 

Case Study: Just War Doctrine

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=122406

 

Messiahcam at Y2K

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jan/01/jamesmeek

 

‘Cry ‘Havoc!’ And Let Slip The Dogs Of War’: Speech & Analysis

https://nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/famous/cry-havoc-let-slip-dogs-war/

Brookdale Community College Eisenhower Collection

https://www.brookdalecc.edu/center-for-world-war-ii-studies/the-meserlin-gallery/witnessing-history/

Left to right, French 5-star General De Lattre De Tassigny, commander 1st French Army; U.S. Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, commander, 12th Army Group; French 4-star General Marie Emile Bethouart, commander 1st French Army Corps; U.S. Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers, commander, 6th Army Group; and General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander.

Rabbit! Rabbit!

art, Astrology, autumnal equinox, brain plasticity, change, cognitive decline, coronavirus, cosmology, Creativity, Family, Great American Eclipse, greek myths, Helios, nature, Painting, pandemic, photography, rabbits, Reflection, The Lord of The Rings, trees, vision

Welcome to August!

In the long summer evenings, after an extended car trip, and way beyond the too many times I’d asked my mother and daddy rabbits, “Are we there yet?” I would get their firm reminders I wasn’t to bother them any more, for they too were hot, tired, and daddy had to pay attention to the road. In the gathering darkness, I’d rest my blonde curls on the door near the open window. We had God air conditioning back then. We rolled down the window glass of our old Pontiac and drove as fast as the road would allow.

Go Faster!

I’d watch the darkening shadows as the landscape passed by this opening, noticing how the kudzu vines changed the trees into strange and monstrous shapes in the growing gloom, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of these apparitions. I was certain if I did, they’d begin to make their way toward our family car. I think I was at the age of magical thinking, for I believed I could keep these haints at bay by my will alone.

The soft flup flup of rubber tires half melting on the overheated concrete road, combined with my brother rabbits’ body heat in the seat beside me, and the enforced silence of our parents who’d had a long day with their hyperactive bunny brood finally had an effect on my eyelids. Try as I might, I would fall asleep at my watch, only to be awakened by my daddy’s sing song voice as he tickled my toes:

“This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home.
This little piggy ate roast beef, and this little piggy had none!
And this little piggy cried wee-wee-wee all the way home!”

I’d rub my eyes as he picked me up to carry me into the house and into my bedroom. On the way, I’d always say,

“I see the moon, and the moon sees me,
God bless the moon, and God bless me!”

Perhaps this is a generational gift in my family, for when my own dear bunny child was small, we repeated these same scenes until she was too heavy for me to carry. The moon blessing dates from 1784 and the little piggy rhyme is even older: 1728.

That latter date is when horses and carriages were banned from Boston Common. Since I went to school in Boston, I can attest no horses, carriages, or cows are now on the grounds of the Common, which is now a 50 acre public park. The Common dates from 1634, when William Blaxton sold the remainder of his land to the Puritans, receiving six shillings or more from each shareholder to purchase the land for this public land. This was the site of the Boston Massacre, in which five people died. One good thing about going to school in an historic community, everywhere you went, you weren’t far from history.

When I think of history, I think not only of the stories we pass down to the next generation, but also of the stories we weave for ourselves. How do we remember our childhood or our families of origin? This is a generational gift of privilege, for those who lost their families when they were young may not have memories to weave together. Refugees from wars and violence might not want to recall traumatic experiences. Yet Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, is remembered as “My ancestor was a wandering Arameam” (Deut 26:5).

Some of us choose to write about our better days, for they outnumber our bad days. Everyone has imperfections, but each of us rabbits are still going on to perfection with the help of the good God above. Perhaps when we see the beauty of the full bright moon against a dark, clear night, our heart leaps inside and says,

“I see the moon, and the moon sees me,
God bless the moon, and God bless me!”

For some of us rabbits, nature brings us closer to God than anything else. The majesty of the summer thunderclouds rising in the heated air, and giving way to either refreshing rain or flashing floods, reminds us once again of the powers of God unleashed in God’s creation. The rainbow after the storm is the promise once again of that covenant made so long ago: the earth will never be destroyed by floods again. In the rainbow, in the light of all the colors, we hear God’s promise of love and care for God’s creation and God’s creatures.

DeLee: Blue Moon

I’m looking at a full super moon tonight, July 3, but August will have TWO super moons. Looking ahead to September 29, we’ll have our FOURTH super moon in a row. The moon on the 31st of August will be a blue moon. This is the second full moon in the same month. We won’t have another blue moon until May, 2026. This is why things that don’t happen often are called “once in a blue moon” events.

Once upon a time, we were agrarian people who eked out a subsistence living on the land. The persistence of The Old Farmer’s Almanac and other ancient weather wisdom lore is proof you can take the bunny out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the bunny. Yet as our alphabetical generations accumulate beyond the boomers, like Lucy on the Honeymooners, we often “got some explaining to do” to make ourselves understood.

Sirius in the Night Sky

We can count the “Dog Days of Summer” among the sayings folks don’t understand today. The term has nothing to do with the four legged creatures known as our best friends, but instead, it’s an astronomical term. The name comes from Sirius, the Dog Star, which rises before dawn. We find it on a vertical line below the three stars of Orion’s Belt. Sirius was named from the Greek Seirios, which means ‘glowing’ or ‘scorcher.’ This is an apt description of the warmest days from mid July to mid August.

Crepe Myrtle Bark Peeling in the Heat

Aratus, a Greek 3rd BCE poet wrote in his astronomical poem Phaenomena, (p. 328 ff, trans. Mair):

“A star that keenest of all blazes with a searing flame and him men call Seirios (Sirius). When he rises with Helios (the Sun), no longer do the trees deceive him by the feeble freshness of their leaves. For easily with his keen glance he pierces their ranks, and to some he gives strength but of others he blights the bark utterly. Of him too at his setting are we aware.”

These Dog Days of Summer in the ancient Mediterranean were marked not only by heat, but also by drought and pistelence. This year, with an El Niño weather pattern, wild fires, floods, and extreme heat have settled on the area due to a heat dome, which the European meteorologists have named Cerebus, after the three-headed dog guardian to Hades. The ruins on the Acropolis now close from noon to late afternoon to prevent heat illness.

Porch of the Maidens, Acropolis, Athens

Although the ancient Greeks and Romans believed Sirius was the reason for summer’s intense heat, we know now that star is too far away to affect our weather. What does affect our weather today is the result of human activities. Back in the Eemian period, around 116,000 to 129,000 years ago, the earth’s axis was tilted more towards the sun than now. This caused our northern polar region to be warmer and grow trees, which kept snow from accumulating. As a result, the earth’s temperature was 2 degrees C hotter than preindustrial levels, while today’s temperatures average 1 degree C warmer.

Today, we have evidence of geographic drift caused by climate change in our crops. Areas once known for coffee or wheat are shrinking, moving further north or to higher altitudes. We also see shrinking polar ice sheets, which cause ocean levels to rise. More water, combined with more heat leads to more intense storms. We also have rivers of wind, aka the jet stream, which lock in the heat domes. These can persist for days, while the rest of the earth gets flooding and storms.

Not a Watermelon Chart: Similar to the National Weather Service’s heat index chart, this chart translates combinations of air temperature and relative humidity into critical environmental limits, above which core body temperature rises. The border between the yellow and red areas represents the average critical environmental limit for young men and women at minimal activity.

Extreme heat is the number-one weather-related cause of death in the U.S., and it kills more people most years than hurricanes, floods and tornadoes combined. Despite the fact that extreme heat has been the number one cause of weather-related deaths in the United States over the last three decades, the federal government has repeatedly declined to declare extreme heat a federal disaster. The US government has never issued a federal disaster declaration for an extreme heat event in the three times it’s been requested, even as heat domes and long, uninterrupted stretches of 100-plus degree days have claimed lives in cities and states across the country in recent years.

The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2010 and the month of June alone in the USA has broken over 1,000 high temperature records. The combination of El Niño, a warming ocean current, and climate change is the cause. The excessive heat in the oceans are causing coral diebacks, which have negative implications for future hurricane shore losses, since coral reefs break the incoming waves.

We bunnies can blame the Stafford Act for this. Natural disasters in the USA are handled by FEMA—Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, PL 100-707, was signed into law November 23, 1988 when Congress amended the Disaster Relief Act of 1974, PL 93-288. Named for the Vermont senator who was instrumental in its passage, this is one of the 100 laws a President can use to declare a national emergency or disaster. Former President Trump used it to declare the COVID pandemic an emergency. It’s this Stafford Act that defines “Emergency.”

According to Congressional laws, a disaster emergency is “any occasion or instance for which, in the determination of the President, Federal assistance is needed to supplement state and local efforts and capabilities to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in any part of the United States in a Major Disaster.

The act defines “major disaster” as any natural catastrophe (including any hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, winddriven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought), or, regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion, in any part of the USA, which in the determination of the President, causes damage of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance under this chapter to supplement the efforts and available resources of states, local governments, and disaster relief organizations in alleviating the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering caused thereby.

Fires of Mordor have nothing on Phoenix Heat

To get heat relief, it will require an Act of Congress. In plain speak, we’ll see snowfall before heat relief legislation becomes law in today’s divided and polarized congressional body. In the last century, we bunnies weren’t thinking about climate change, extreme weather events, or even naming our winter storms. Perhaps next summer we’ll begin naming our extended heat waves and treat them with the same seriousness as we give to hurricanes and blizzards.

In the meantime, this bunny has set her AC to cool and is keeping the ice bin filled and the tea jar full. I’m feeling the siren call of the school supply aisle, so I’ll find a cool morning in mid August to go buy ink pens, notebooks, and some postynotes. A bunny who keeps learning will always stay young. Building new pathways for the neurons is like cleaning out the clutter in our brain box.

Write now, Edit later. The stories are more important than the form.

I always recommend picking up a new skill or renewing an old one, for not only do creative activities give us an opportunity to focus on something other than how hot it is, but also we can enjoy our progress as we continue to work. If you’ve ever wanted to write about your family history, begin now, for the day will come for all of us when we won’t remember the ones we love. This bunny hopes you have bunnies who love you and honor you for who you’ve always been, even if you become the “one who comes to kiss me every afternoon at 4 o’clock.”

Pluto: Now a Dwarf Planet

I’ll probably go buy my journal supplies on August 24th, and sit in my favorite coffee shop for a bit to drink in memory of Pluto, who was worthy enough to be a planet for my generation,but has been demoted to a dwarf planet because it hasn’t cleared its neighborhood of other objects.

I look forward to cooler breezes, falling leaves, and Pumpkin Spice lattes. See you in September!

Joy, peace, and iced tea,

Cornelia

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gammer Gurton’s Garland, or, The Nursery Parnassus, by Joseph Ritson.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34601/34601-h/34601-h.htm

Teaching Early Math to Children—This Little Piggy
https://www-tc.pbs.org/parents/earlymath/pdf/LittlePiggy.pdf

Origin of This Little Piggy
https://www.rhymes.org.uk/this_little_piggy.htm

Boston Common Master Plan
https://www.bostoncommonmasterplan.com/history

Super Moons, Blue Moons
https://www.fullmoonphase.com/

What is a blue moon and when will the next one occur? | Royal Observatory Greenwich https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/what-blue-moon-how-often-does-it-occur

SIRIUS (Seirios) – Greek God of Dog-Star https://www.theoi.com/Titan/AsterSeirios.html

THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER: European heat wave takes toll on tourists – Travel Industry Today
https://travelindustrytoday.com/the-dog-days-of-summer-european-heat-wave-takes-toll-on-tourists/

42 U.S. Code § 5122 – Definitions | U.S. Code | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute FEMA STAFFORD ACT
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/5122
https://www.fema.gov/disaster/stafford-act

Extreme Heat Is Deadlier Than Hurricanes, Floods and Tornadoes Combined – Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/extreme-heat-is-deadlier-than-hurricanes-floods-and-tornadoes-combined/

From Japan to Louisiana to Rome, Here Are Ten Heat Records Earth Has Broken Since June | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ten-heat-records-earth-has-broken-since-june-180982562/

Rabbit! Rabbit!

arkansas, art, Astrology, Civil War, cosmology, elections, Faith, Forgiveness, haiku, inspiration, Lost Cause, Painting, Pi Day, rabbits, renewal, sleep, Spirituality, Spring Equinox, St. Patrick’s Day

Welcome to March 2023

This rabbit was shivering during the last week of February.

March is here and the wild hares of the rabbit clan have come to visit. I’m shivering on a cold, dreary, and rainy day, but I’m about to have a cup of steaming hot tea and put dinner on the stove. While I waited for the water to boil, I visited the open AI project out of curiosity. My old daddy used to say, “curiosity killed the cat,” but I think he was trying to keep me safe by not poking my nose into some dangerous places. Without curiosity, we never learn anything new or stretch our horizons. We’d live a sad, constricted life if we always stayed inside the lines and never pushed the boundaries.

The chat bot took my name and combined it with that of Cornelia Adele Strong Fassett, who painted the Florida Case Before the Electoral Commission, to describe the importance of “Cornelia DeLee, artist.” Also according to the chatbot, I am long dead, so I must be communicating from “yonder.” Fassett’s painting was about the contested presidential election of 1876.

The Florida Case before the Electoral Commission
Oil on canvas, by Cornelia Adele Fassett
This painting now hangs on the third floor of the Capitol.

In January, 1877, when the Electoral College met, 20 votes were contested, but neither side would concede the election. Congress passed a law empowering the Electoral Commission at the end of January. Ten days of deliberations passed before the 20 votes passed to the Republican candidate, an act which the Democrats protested until they received assurances federal soldiers would leave the Southern states. With Reconstruction at an end, Congress declared Rutherford B. Hayes the new President of the United States on March 2, only two days before his term began.

The Civil War and the Reconstruction years have marked our nation with an ongoing trauma, which has passed from generation to generation. At some point in time, we’ll have to heal, for continually pouring salt into that old wound will keep it festering and it won’t ever heal. Then we’ll pass it down to another generation once more. However, if scripture has any truth to teach us, humankind continues to reenact the sins of our ancestors, even when we know their stories and have the God given gifts of redemption from these shackles of death and shame. But now this rabbit is preaching, and some would say, “meddling once again.”

Update: Heather Cox Richardson, a noted writer of American history, reminds us once again how Southerners rewrite our history to make us more heroic and powerful. The Federal Army didn’t leave the south right away, but stayed in some states for awhile. See the note below.

I’ll change the subject. I’m not much on poetry, but I thought I’d ask ChatGPT to write a “Poem in Praise of March.” After all, World Poetry Day is March 21, so I thought I’d give the ChatAI a run for its money (it’s free right now, while in training stage). The Artificial Intelligence project was delighted to instantly produce the following example:

March, the month of windswept skies,
A time when winter softly dies.
The earth awakens from her sleep,
As days grow long and nights grow deep.

The snows of winter start to thaw,
And nature’s beauty starts to draw
A tapestry of green and gold,
As springtime’s treasures now unfold.

The birds return with joyful sound,
Their melodies now all around.
The trees bud out, the flowers bloom,
And life returns to end the gloom.

March, the month of change and hope,
A time to cast off winter’s scope.
The promise of new life and growth,
As nature’s beauty takes its oath.

So let us praise this month of light,
For all the wonders it brings to sight.
And may we cherish every day,
As we welcome spring in every way.

I was so amazed the Artificial Intelligence ChatBot could spit this out so quickly, I typed in, “Thank you.”

AI Enhanced Image by Jos Avery: Erik’s Escape

It immediately answered, “You’re welcome! I’m glad you enjoyed the poem. If you have any other questions or requests, feel free to ask!” I quickly closed the application before it became sentient and asked for my hand in marriage or social security number and tried to enroll me in a monthly cryptocurrency investment program. Yikes!

Speaking of poetry, even the folks at Bloomberg News are writing haikus about global food shortages:

Onion shortage looms.
Prices rise, nutrition wanes,
Governments take aim.

When I was a child, my brothers and I amused ourselves by lining up dominoes in artful patterns all morning long. After lunch and before our required afternoon nap, we’d touch the first domino in line, and have a wicked joy of watching our entire morning’s work fall one after another. A food shortage (or a toilet paper shortage) happens much the same way in our global economy. Onion prices are still soaring across the globe and fuelling inflation, so countries like Morocco, Turkey and Kazakhstan have taken action and secured supplies.

Close to 40kg of smuggled produce was discovered in the luggage of Philippine Airlines crew members on Friday.
(photo credit: PHILIPPINE CUSTOMS OFFICE VIA WALLA NEWS)

Because onion prices are going up due to scarce supply, the price of other fruits and vegetables (such as carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, and apples) also are rising and hampering their availability across the globe, according to the United Nations and the World Bank. In fact, prices have increased so much that onions briefly cost more than meat in the Philippines, and some flight attendants were caught smuggling them out of the Middle East.

This didn’t end well for either the attendants or the produce, since the food was sent out for destruction (it’s illegal to import food, except through proper customs) and the personnel got reprimands and retraining. Word to the wise: hoarding onions isn’t a good idea, since whole, raw onions will last two to three months when stored in a cool, dry place (between 45 and 55 degrees F). Places that provide these conditions may include your cellar, pantry, unheated basement, or garage. Usually, at room temperature, onions last only 2 to 3 weeks. Over the long term, the frugal shopper will buy some scarce items at a higher prices and other items at lower cost when the product is in season and at a surplus. The average price over a year will even out.

Former President Carter signing First Women’s History Week Proclamation

March is Women’s History Month. In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8th, 1980 as National Women’s History Week. In 1987, Congress passed Public Law 100-9, designating March as “Women’s History Month.” Every president since then has recognized the gifts, graces, and achievements of America’s women by presidential proclamation. Other important women’s days in March we recognize are International Women’s Day (March 8), Harriet Tubman Day and National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (March 10).


The Jewish celebration of Purim begins on March 6 at sundown and ends on the 7th at sundown. The festival recalls Queen Esther’s faithfulness to God and God’s saving providence for God’s marginalized people. We should always remember God’s grace is wider than ours, even if the faithful seemed to be “assimilating to the current culture.”

Sleep/wake/cycle

Daylight Savings Time begins March 12, with all of us rabbits settling our clocks forward one hour before we go to bed the night before. If you have difficulty remembering which direction, there’s a motto for this event: “Spring forward, and Fall back.” No one falls forward and springs back—silly rabbits maybe, but not the smart rabbits, who have the good sense to “Spring forward, and Fall back.”

National Pi Day March 14— Not all pies are square

The Ides of March 15 were bad luck for Julius Caesar, but originally the Ides of March once signified the new year, which meant celebrations and rejoicing. Two years before his death at an assassin’s hand, Caesar himself had changed the Roman calendar so the Romans celebrated the new year in January. Some people really don’t like change at all. Plus they don’t like military dictatorships.

People celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on March 17 all over the world, whether they’re Irish or not. While the San Antonio River runs green downtown, Hot Springs National Park will have its First Ever 20th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade on the 98 foot long Bridge Street, which is the world’s shortest street in everyday operational use.

Map of Hot Springs St. Patrick’s Day Festivities

Spring Equinox on March 20 can’t come soon enough for this rabbit. Just knowing the light will become stronger with each passing day is a medicine for my spirits. So what if the pollen follows soon after? Eventually, that too will be history and we bunnies will find something else to fuss about. After all, nothing is certain except for change. None of us can stop the circuit of the stars in the heavens above or cease the changing seasons.

The Three Graces of Spring

We can adjust to these great cycles of change, just as we can grow in love for one another and learn to forgive both ourselves (for our falling short of perfection) and others for harming ourselves. If we rabbits wait till the last moment for our death bed reconciliations, we may not have the time or opportunity to make amends with the ones from whom we’ve estranged ourselves.

If you think you’ll be foolish doing this, I suggest you desensitize yourself and celebrate International Talk Like William Shatner Day on March 22. I asked ChatGPT for a haiku in the voice of William Shatner. On the third try, I got something I thought resembled his breathless cadence and broken phrase delivery. I could almost hear him emphatically delivering the words GO and MUST!

Breathless stars above,
Silent darkness, vast and deep,
Boldly go, we must.

Ramadan starts during the evening of March 23 and lasts until sundown on Thursday, April 20. Muslims commemorate the gift of the Koran to Muhammad by fasting if physically able, declaring their faith, prayers, charity, and pilgrimage..

BRITON RIVIÈRE, UNA AND LION, NINETEENTH CENTURY

Remember, if March comes in as a lamb, it will go out as a lion, or so the ancient weather proverb goes. The saying may have its origin in the stars, for at this time of year, Leo is the rising sign; by April, it’s Aries. (“Kid” or “ram” doesn’t have quite the same ring as “lamb,” though.) Also, this is the season Jesus arrives as the sacrificial lamb, but will return as the Lion of Judah. Both mean, weather-wise, a false spring.

The Beast with Two Horns like a Lamb by Albrecht Dürer We don’t want March to enter or exit in this Apocalyptic vision.

To sum up, as I finish up this note on the last day of February, the high today will be near 80F and I’ll most likely turn my air conditioner back on before March comes to visit. Looking ahead to March, the Weather Channel outlook has only three days in the 70’s for my location, so Mr. Air Conditioner won’t get much of a work out. I only see one night in the 30’s, so even Mr. Heater will get light workouts in March. As one wag put it on their restaurant sign:

That was February; I don’t think think we’ll see 80’s in March

Until next month, I hope you have onions and potatoes in abundance, and you enjoy green eggs and ham, or green beer, or green tea.

Joy, Peace, and welcome to Springtime,

Cornelia

NOTE from Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, March 2, 2023—this corrects my research.

What did not happen in 1877, either before or after the inauguration, was the removal of troops from the South.

That legend came from a rewriting of the history of Reconstruction in 1890 by fourteen southern congressmen. In their book Why the Solid South? Or Reconstruction and Its Results, they argued that Black voting after the Civil War had allowed Black people to “dominate” white southerners and virtually bankrupt the region and that virtuous white southerners had pushed them from the ballot box and “redeemed” the South. Contemporaries had identified the end of Reconstruction as 1870, with the readmission of Georgia to the United States. But Why the Solid South identified the end of Reconstruction as the end of Republican rule in each state.

In 1906, former steel baron James Ford Rhodes gave a date to that process. In his famous seven-volume history of the United States, he said that in April 1877, Hayes had ended Reconstruction by returning all the southern states to “home rule.” In his era, that was a political term referring to the return of power in the southern states to Democrats, but over time that phrase got tangled up with what did happen in April 1877.

During the chaos after the election, President U.S. Grant had ordered troops to protect the Republican governors in the Louisiana and South Carolina statehouses. When he took office, Hayes told Republican governors in South Carolina and Louisiana that he could no longer let federal troops protect their possession of their statehouses when their Democratic rivals had won the popular vote.

Under orders from Hayes, the troops guarding those statehouses marched away from their posts around the statehouses and back to their home stations in April 1877. They did not leave the states, although a number of troops would be deployed from southern bases later that year both to fight wars against Indigenous Americans in the West and to put down the 1877 Great Railroad Strike. That mobilization cut even further the few troops in the region: in 1876, the Department of the South had only about 1,586 men including officers. Nonetheless, southerners fought bitter congressional battles to get the few remaining troops out of the South in 1878–1879, and they lost.

The troops did not leave the U.S. South in 1877 as part of a deal to end Reconstruction.

It matters that we misremember that history. Generations of Americans have accepted the racist southern lawmakers’ version of our past by honoring the date they claimed to have “redeemed” the South. The reality of Reconstruction was not one in which Black voters bankrupted the region by taking tax dollars from white taxpayers to fund roads and schools and white voters stepped in to save things; it was the story of an attempt to establish racial equality and the undermining of that attempt with the establishment of a one-party state that benefited a few white men at the expense of everyone else.

Clarence C. Clendenen, “President Hayes’ ‘Withdrawal’ of the Troops: An Enduring Myth,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 70 (October 1969): 240-250.

Cornelia Adele Fassett | History of American Women
https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2015/08/cornelia-adele-fassett.html

ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue
https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/

“Shortage of Onions Threatens a New Chapter in Global Food Crisis” by Bloomberg News

Onion shortage could trigger a global food crisis. Here’s what’s happening – India Today
https://www.indiatoday.in/business/story/onion-shortage-global-food-crisis-whats-happening-across-the-world-2339214-2023-02-24

Gnomologia: adagies and proverbs; wise sentences and witty sayings, ancient and modern, foreign and British : Fuller, Thomas, 1654-1734, comp :
Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/gnomologiaadagi00conggoog

Here’s How Long Onions Last if You Store Them Properly
https://www.allrecipes.com/article/how-to-store-onions/

March Holidays and Observances 2023: Full Calendar
https://www.today.com/life/holidays/march-holidays-and-observances-rcna64226

Viral “Photographer” Reveals His Images Were AI-Generated
https://hyperallergic.com/803915/viral-photographer-reveals-his-images-were-ai-generated/

Chaos and the Order of the Day

911, adult learning, Altars, art, Astrology, Creativity, Faith, Imagination, Israel, Leonardo da Vinci, Ministry, Painting, Spirituality, vision

Morse Peckham, author of Man’s Rage for Chaos, believed “Order is humanity’s freedom; but the rage for order creates its own limits on that freedom.” Art, he maintained, enabled the artist to fight that rage, which destroys what it would create. Only the rage for chaos can balance the rage for order.

Stellar Bones: Aries zodiac sign. Horoscope. Illustration for souvenirs and social networks.

As one who was born under the Aries sun, with an Aries moon, and a Virgo rising sign, I fully understand this rage for chaos and order within my own body. I somehow always have fifty-eleven projects and and even more ideas I’d like to accomplish, but I too have the same limits as all other people: we all have only 24 hours on any given day. Some of these moments must be given to the life giving nurture of the body, which carries our great mind and imagination and the hands which do our good works. Some days the balance scales of Virgo call my chaos into order, while on others my Aries excitement causes the balance to quaver. This tension shows up in my work.

Venus and Saturn at Early Sunset: follow the line of the building

I mention my astrological signs, for once in ages past, people believed the stars ruled their lives. The heroes ascended into the stars—Sagittarius, the archer, while other constellations were named for animals or the humans who were turned into animals, such as bears and swans. Some got their names for resembling objects—the dippers, while others were named for legendary persons—Cassiopeia’s chair and Orion’s Belt come to mind. In the time of dark skies, our ancestors could pick out these sky patterns with ease. Light pollution in our cities makes these shapes harder to discern every year. Our national parks may be the only places our city dwelling future generations will be able to see the night sky in all its glory.

The Ancient Greeks believed the gods ruled their fates. The writer Pausanius listed the many shrines to the deities in Athens, including “in the Athenian market-place among the objects not generally known is an altar to Mercy, of all divinities the most useful in the life of mortals and in the vicissitudes of fortune, but honored by the Athenians alone among the Greeks. And they are conspicuous not only for their humanity but also for their devotion to religion. They have an altar to Shamefastness, one to Rumour and one to Effort. It is quite obvious that those who excel in piety are correspondingly rewarded by good fortune.”

Altar to an Unknown God, Athens, Greece

The apostle Paul even noted the Athenians had a temple to an “unknown god,” just in case they didn’t cover their bases with offerings to all the other deities (Acts 17:23). Yet, you already know him, he said, for

“The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.” — Acts 17:24-25

Our creation story in Genesis 1:1-2 begins with familiar words:

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

Milton addressed the same Spirit of God, which was at creation, in his epic poem, Paradise Lost:

“And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all Temples th’ upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou know’st; Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread. and with mighty wings outspread. Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss And mad’st it pregnant.”

William Blake: Temptation of Adam and Eve, Pittsburgh Univ.

God is always creating order out of nothingness, but human beings have a tendency to create disorder wherever they go. We aren’t God, or even “as gods,” as the first humans hoped to be in the garden when they ate that fateful fruit. Even knowing “good from evil” doesn’t seem to keep us from our propensity to engage in chaos. I don’t live in a messy home, but because I put away some of my projects when I lose interest, I can forget where I “hid them.” I know what they look like, I can find others like them, but I might need several days to find the intended object of my desire. I’ll put all of these in ONE PLACE when I’m done with them. This will guarantee I’ll lose them all at once the next time I go looking for them!

Frank Hinder: Bomber Crash, 1941

In art class, we began our projects by thinking about the contrast of order and chaos. The emotional experience of the disruption chaos brings to our sense of order can change our perception of our position in the world. When Frank Hinder was serving in World War II, his bomber was shot down. As part of his therapy, he painted his memory of that occasion. That chaos in his life got channeled into a painting, for art allows us a safe haven in which we can experience cognitive dissonance.

Most of us wouldn’t willingly chose to experience such an event first hand, but we can imagine it in art, poetry, music, or fiction. This is why we exercise our creative freedom. Dealing with raw emotions in paint or other media is better than stuffing them inside, from where they can fester and harm us, or worse, break out and inflict terrible wounds upon others. We seek to center our emotions and focus our energies in a more balanced, positive manner, much like the renaissance genius, Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo: Virtuvian Man

Lauralei is finishing up a drawing and is going to work the famous Leonardo Virtuvian Man into it somehow. I can hardly wait to see this. Virtuvian Man is a classic Renaissance image of order: Leonardo saw the great picture chart of the human body he had produced through his anatomical drawings and his Vitruvian Man drawing as a cosmografia del minor mondo (cosmography of the microcosm). He believed the workings of the human body were an analogy for the workings of the universe. That’s seeing order in the many details.

Mike has been called away from class the past two weeks to take care of courthouse business. He has a 9/11 work in mind, if the judge ever lets him go. He has many images in his mind, so simplifying the many into a few might help him get his ideas out of his head and onto the canvas. He’s got business to attend to, however, so all things will come about in God’s good time.

Gail’s Painting of Creation

Gail chose the first day of creation as her inspiration. The tiny words are photocopies from a child’s Bible, which are plucked from the first chapter of Genesis. They read more as white directional or linear strokes than actual words, but I have a major cataract in my right eye, and my judgment on readability is suspect at the moment. Others may be able to see the words better than I. She used a sponge on this canvas, a new technique for her. She also wants to use gold leaf flakes to finish it out, so she may yet have another step to it.

First Work: Overhead View of Ancient Jerusalem

This small square painting began from an image of an old Jerusalem map with the surrounding walls of the city. This site was destroyed numerous times over the centuries, notably in 587 BCE by the Babylonians, in 70 CE by the Romans, while the walls were destroyed by the Muslim Calif in 1250 CE, but Suliman the Magnificent rebuilt them in 1538-1541 CE. In addition to the sacks of war, earthwakes and other disasters have rendered the era of Christ to the deep basements, which are only accessed today by descending narrow, spiral staircases. The era of the prophets of the Babylonian Exile are deeper yet. The famous Western Wall of the Herodian Temple, rebuilt after Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, is only the upper third of the structure.

The people of Israel believed God’s favor rested upon them because of their proximity to God’s Temple. The prophets were quick to remind them, “They were to be holy, as God is holy,” for the Temple wasn’t a magic token like a rabbit’s foot. The book of Joel probably was written in the post exile period, around 350 BCE, but could be as early as 650 BCE, due to its description of an eclipse. The prophet reminds the people:

“So you shall know that I, the LORD your God, dwell in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it.” (Joel 3:17)

When the king and his court, the learned priests, all the educated tradespeople, and anyone who had any skill or knowledge was taken into slavery far distant from the sacred land where they worshipped their tribal god, the people had to wonder if God was still their god in this foreign land. Would God hear their prayers? If they could no longer offer sacrifices or make the required pilgrimages to God’s altar, were they faithful to their god anymore? In their grief, they wrote Psalms 137:4-5:

“How could we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!”

During the Exile, the Hebrew people developed the synagogue as the focus of their worship of God and the study of scripture, as well as a place of prayer and fellowship, and the site of life’s transitional rituals. In 538 BCE, Babylon fell and the Jewish exiles eturned to their homeland to rebuild the walls and the temple. For the people, the earlier promise of God from the prophet was finally being fulfilled:

“Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” —Joel 3:13

Back home, both the synagogue and the Temple prospered, but when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple in 70 CE, all of the pious acts transferred to the synagogues and the homes of the faithful. Never again were sacrifices made for Passover, but the thought of the Holy City remained. The closer one came to the Mount where the Temple once stood, because the area was more holy, so the person coming near had to be more ritually pure. They may have chanted from Psalms 125:1 in unison as they made their ascent:

“Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever.”

God’s Love Flows Beyond The City Walls

Today, Mount Zion is holy to the Muslim faith, for there Mohammad is said to have received the words of the Quran and also to have been lifted into heaven from here. This is also the traditional site of the Binding of Issac (Genesis 22), and it’s holy also to Christians because this is the temple where the boy Jesus was found in “his father’s house” (Luke 2:41).

The three great monotheistic faiths have fought for generations within their families of origin over who has rights to be included in the family, beginning with Abraham and Sarah’s attempt to fulfill God’s promise of an heir by using the slave woman Hagar. When God showed up to announce the birth of Isaac, it was unbelievable. When Sarah had her promised child, Hagar and Ishmael were sent out to die in the desert. God saved them, however, but the two blood relatives haven’t gotten along since.

Christians accept the promised messiah, but those years of crusading and crushing the “Muslim infidels” have left a bad taste in their mouths for us, and for some of us too. We all keep fighting, even though we’re all branches off the same tree. We all claim the same holy sites and we’ll fight over them “till the last dog dies.”

As Jesus reminded the Samaritan Woman in John 4:21 & 23:

“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.”

Remember the lesson of the exile: God is everywhere and not fixed to one altar or site. The same God who led us through the wilderness also leads us through the ups and downs of our daily lives, wherever we find ourselves. No disruption or chaos can move the steadfast God of love and mercy from our side.

Joy and peace,

CORNELIA

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Astronomical Myths, by John F. Blake, 1877.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36495/36495-h/36495-h.htm#Page_269

PAUSANIAS, DESCRIPTION OF GREECE 1.17-29 – Theoi Classical Texts Library

https://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias1B.html

Milton: Paradise Lost, DjVu Editions E-books, © 2001, Global Language Resources, Inc.

http://triggs.djvu.org/djvu-editions.com/MILTON/LOST/Download.pdf#page5

The Vitruvian Man – by Leonardo da Vinci

https://www.leonardodavinci.net/the-vitruvian-man.jsp

STARS AND THE WINTER SOLSTICE

adult learning, art, Astrology, chocolate, Christmas, cosmology, Creativity, Faith, Family, greek myths, grief, holidays, hope, Icons, Imagination, incarnation, Marcus Aurelius, Ministry, nature, Painting, Philosophy, poverty, Spirituality, Stonehenge, trees, winter solstice

Stonehenge at Winter Solstice

This is a time of year when we look to the night sky for a sign. It’s not for nothing the depths of darkness are the beginnings of hope and our desire for the return of the healing light. People around the world and over the generations of time have celebrations of feasting, family reunions, and honoring their culture’s gods on the darkest day, or the Winter Solstice. The term solstice derives from the Latin word “sōlstitium”, meaning “the Sun stands still”. On the Winter Solstice, the sun reaches its southern-most position, shines directly on the Tropic of Capricorn, and seems to stand still there.

We’re all familiar with Stonehenge, a Neolithic stone monument in England built about 4,500 years ago to track important moments in the solar year. A later custom is the blazing Yule Log, a Norse tradition. The family would drag a huge piece of wood into their house, set it into the main fireplace, and let it burn for several days. It was a type of sympathetic magic to encourage the distant and faint sun to return, reinvigorated. The family often wrote down their desires for the new year as an offering to the gods. These were then burned in the fire. Afterwards, the family scattered ashes from the fire in the corners of every room in the house for good luck.

Hiroshige: The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō

The Chinese also have a Winter Solstice festival, which once was a new year’s festival. The family gathers to eat traditional foods, and they honor their ancestors, as well as the old ones still living among them. This poem by Ruan Yue, in the late Northern Song Dynasty speaks of this:

罗袜新成，更有何人继后尘。
The socks for elders are newly woven;
the custom should be handed down.

A later poet of the Song Dynasty, Fan Chengda, had a more optimistic outlook on the dreary and dark days before the Winter Solstice, or perhaps he was using “positive pep talk to reframe his grumpy mind.”

休把心情关药裹，但逢节序添诗轴。
Don’t be thinking about medicines all the time;
write a new poem at the solar term.

I can relate to Fan Chengda, for I find I have difficulty waking up without the sun streaming into my bedroom windows. I’m also more irritable and mopey on these dark days. It’s probably Seasonal Affective Disorder, which is a form of depression related to the lack of light in this season. I tend to think dark thoughts, feel more pain, and lose my appetite, except for medicinal chocolate, which I consume under the Tim Allen mantra, “If some is good, more should be better!”

For Medicinal Purposes Only

When I get this type of mood on, the commercial Christmas we see on television and in the movies strikes a discordant note in my soul. I think about the ancient text, which reminds us when the parents of Jesus went to Bethlehem to be counted in the census: “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7)

What most of us glide right over is Joseph had kinfolks galore in this town, but none of them opened their home to Mary, for she was pregnant before he married her. The innkeepers in town weren’t going to risk their reputations for these two either. Only one innkeeper took pity on them and let them stay with the animals in the stable. This marks the birth of the Christ child as an outsider to his whole extended family, the House of David.

Botticelli: Nativity, 1475

The Magi, or Wise Men, came from the East to visit King Herod, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.”( Matthew 2:2)

Herod was worried he would be deposed, so he sent the Magi to find this child, then return and report to him. The Magi followed the star until it stopped over the place where the family was staying. They offered their gifts and returned home, without telling Herod where the baby was. Jesus was an outsider to the Roman occupation which propped up the local kings. He was a threat to the way governments rule the world.

Shepherds are the epitome of outsiders in the Bible, for they live outdoors among sheep and goats, neither of which are clean. In fact, anyone who’s gone camping knows how hard staying clean is. Glamping isn’t camping, and neither is RVing. My youthful experiences in Girl Scout camps of pitching tents and digging rain gutters is the closest I’ve ever been to living on the land. Even then, we had outhouses and cold water showers. The biblical city folk who could keep the ritual rules of cleanliness looked down on the shepherds as a lower class group, or outside of society.

Imagine a group of shepherds sitting around a nighttime fire, eating a simple meal, and chatting about their day or their families at home. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified (Luke 2:9). I’d be terrified also, as I imagine you would be too! There’s a good reason the first words out of angels’ mouths are “Do not be afraid!”

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:10-12)

Giotto: Nativity at Padua

If ever the outcasts of the world needed good news, if ever the hopeless needed a savior, if ever the least of all needed one just like them, it was these lowly shepherds, who went to find a newborn child lying in an animal’s feeding stall. No fancy crib for the newborn king, no royal robes or golden crown, just ordinary swaddling clothes. He looked just like any other child, except his birth was proclaimed by angels, honored by Magi from afar, and given a place through the grace of a kind innkeeper.

Those of us who will celebrate Christmas with our families, our extended friends, and our relations in a wild, chaotic buzz of coming and going, feasting and drinking, and perhaps exchanging of gifts, don’t know the quiet and holy night when the light of the world entered “to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:79)

We keep our homes lit inside and out with megawatts of electric lights, both colored and white. Some of us even cue our lights to blink to seasonal music. Those of us who live beyond the great urban areas, can better see the stars at night, since there’s no light pollution. This is one reason we need to keep our national parks as close to nature as possible, for one day, these may be the only places people can marvel at the bright stars against the dark canopy of the sky above.

Gail: Stars across the Sky

Gail brings her love of the outdoors and her experience as a park ranger to her work. Over the trees, a floating band of stars become a pathway across the night sky.

Mike: Sun, Moon, and Stars

Even if our assignment was stars, that never means “only stars.” After all, the sun is a star, which is very close to us, astronomically speaking. If you’re going to have the sun and stars, you might as well have the moon also. I always say, “Why not?” The Tim Allen rule sometimes applies in art class: “More power!” When you go too far on the Tim Allen scale, that’s when his sidekick Al reminds him, “Sometimes less is more.” Mike certainly captures the energy and joy of the celestial bodies in this painting through the bold colors and strong brush strokes.

Sally: The Cosmos

Sally had an idea in her mind, but no image to look at. She wanted to show the cosmos in motion, as if God were looking down upon it. In her mind’s eye, she imagined this from memory. As she worked on the small canvas, she’d add more paint into the areas which weren’t quite dry and got somewhat frustrated at the paint not bending to her will. As a matter of technique, painting into a dry area is better than continuing to add color to a wet area, since the wet brush picks up the wet layers below that. Mike and Gail, having many sessions under their belts, have already crossed this particular bridge. She also learned something significant. It’s easier to paint something when you can look at it. I think it’s a good start and it holds promise: “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory” (1 Corinthians 15:41).

Cornelia: Starry Night

I’m not a fast walker, nor do I get down the road quickly. I’m too busy noting the color of the sky, thinking what colors to mix to get the grey trees of a late December day, or how to paint the towering cumulus clouds of summer. I file these thoughts away in the treasure house of my mind, for one day I’ll need them. I look at the shadows of the leaf clumps on trees, but not at each leaf alone. The tree leaves are communities, not individuals. They exist as groups, so the artist treats them as such.

I’m not sure about others, but many walkers are fixed on their personal best speed, or going a half mile longer. Some people drive to the grocery store and make their list in their head as they go. In the store, they make a new to do list for the home, and once that’s done, they make another list for the next day. The cycle starts all over again. They never once raise their eyes to greet the stars, to note the cycles of the moon, to enjoy the sunset colors, or the sunrise either. They’re probably more productive than I am, but I take time to reflect deeply on the “why of things” rather than repeating the same rhythms over and over. Most people like the familiar rhythms, however, while I question if they still have meaning in today’s world.

Today I saw the Winter Solstice Dawn

In ancient times, the Greeks and Romans thought the stars had a power and energy to determine the fates of human beings. Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor and stoic philosopher of the 2nd century, wrote in his Meditations: “Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” From his privileged location, he could identify with the heroic persons in the astrological figures of mythology.

Some people are “born under a bad sign,” or are unlucky in life. Of course, some say we make our own luck, but people born into harsh circumstances lack the same resources to make choices for good. The deck is stacked against them, from living in trauma filled neighborhoods to a lack of quality foods due to a paucity of grocery stores. As Albert King, the great blues artist once sang, “If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.”

The good news is the bright light of the Christmas star points to the new light, which has come into the world. We hear, amidst the cacophony of commercials and piped in musical carols, the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you” (60:1).

As a gift, you can listen to the great Albert King sing “Born Under a Bad Sign,” by copying the link below to your browser.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=F2IqJtBL6yk&list=OLAK5uy_kRTT9VaZ7Ht_pjIoBhtqhS_99sMi_D5a4

Our art class returns Friday, January 4, 2022, at 10 am. I hope to bring pomegranates, if I can still find them in the store. We’ll make a fresh start in the New Year, so if you want to join, you’ll start where you are. We are a “one room schoolhouse,” so there’s no grade levels with us. We’re all learning and improving from where we are at the moment.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

How to Make a Yule Log
https://www.learnreligions.com/make-a-yule-log-2563006

5 Most Beautiful Chinese Winter Solstice Poems to Appreciate
https://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/holidays/winter-solstice-poems.htm

The New World Atlas of Artificial Sky Brightness | CIRES
https://cires.colorado.edu/Artificial-light

Rabbit, Rabbit, Welcome to June!

arkansas, art, Astrology, change, Children, coronavirus, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Healing, hope, Mental Illness, pandemic, photography, renewal, Stonehenge, summer solstice, Travel

Road Trip, anyone?

Can you believe we’re almost halfway through 2021? My how time flies when you’re having fun! And to think only a year or so ago, we thought our lives were going to be locked up behind closed doors forever and a day! Amazing how following good hand washing practices, not congregating in large groups, and wearing masks managed to stem the larger transmission of this deadly pandemic in most areas, until we could begin getting shots in people’s arms. Now that about half of Americans are vaccinated, the summer months are looking “like the good ole summertime” of memory.

Folks are going en masse on vacation and indulging their pent up travel bug by plane, car, and train, as well as bus and cruise ship. I live in a tourist town, so a goodly number of the 34 million people who kicked off the summer vacation season by traveling in a car are jamming our city streets. We’re thankful for them, however, for they spend money at the local hotels and restaurants, and that means the folks who work there can support their families. The City of Hot Springs has 38,468 people, while Garland County has 96,371. We have year round visitors, with more enjoying our hospitality in the spring and summer. Annually over 2.1 million people visit us to hold conventions, reunions, weddings, and vacations in our fair, historic town. Some days you can’t stir them with a stick. You’d think this was Times Square in New York City, or a rabbit farm.

But I digress. Those who visit us here in the Ozarks seem to be better mannered than those who travel elsewhere. Perhaps because they drive here, they refrain from alcohol until they arrive, unlike the airline passengers who’ve gained their fifteen minutes of infamy on social media and a lifetime ban from traveling on the friendly skies of the major airlines. No one will miss these bad actors on airplanes in these early days of recovering from the pandemic. Instead, we might want to recover some “good old summertime events and activities” in their place.

Vacation Bible School

One of my fondest memories from childhood was Vacation Bible School. I looked forward to it each year for the arts and crafts projects, the singing, and the snacks. I might have remembered the teachings, but I liked being with my friends from across town, who went to other schools. We could see more of each other during VBS. Children who attended my home church always created a traditional craft, the plaster hand cast. I made one in the 1950’s when I put my right hand into a pie plate full of quickset plaster. After it dried, I was allowed to pick one color to paint it. In the 1980’s, my daughter made the same craft, but she could paint it any way she wanted; she always fancied rainbows.

The Helping Hand

Rainbows and Joy

If I learned anything in Bible School, it’s we’re called to give our hands to God’s service for good for all, especially for the weak and defenseless. Also, no hand is too small to serve God. The good news is even if VBS isn’t able to be held inside at one place with the usual songs, skits, and crafts, it could always be held in a park, in a parking lot, or by traveling from backyard to backyard in carpools, or “car pods” as we call them today.

Sidewalk Entrepreneurs

Another fond memory is the neighborhood lemonade or Kool-Aid stand. As I recall, this endeavor was never profitable, but it kept us out of trouble for at least an entire afternoon. If we kids managed to keep our noses clean that long, it was likely a world record. Our parents were glad for the peace and quiet, and the opportunity for adult conversation. We kids worked together to solve our own problems and overcome any obstacles to our sales project. Of course, my brothers usually retorted to my suggestions, “You’re not the boss of me!” To which I’d reply, “But I’m older and I know better!” We’d hash it out and find a middle way.

Sometime in the middle of summer I’d get a break from those ornery brothers and get to go to camp. At first it was YWCA Day Camp, then Church Camp at an old Works Project Administration lake, and on to tent camping with the Girl Scouts. While the water might taste like iron in places, if I were thirsty, I’d drink it gladly. Some places we built our own tables with tree limbs and ropes. I learned knot tying and cooperation out in the woods. I also learned how to cook an entire meal in the coals of a fire by wrapping it in tinfoil. As my daddy would say, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

Father Rabbit

Speaking of Fathers, a major holiday for all rabbits is Father’s Day on June 20th. We all have a father who has guided us in the good paths of life, even if this person wasn’t our birth or adoptive father. Often it’s another outside the family unit, such as a teacher, a coach, a pastor or lay leader in our faith tradition. For those rabbits among us who had distressing experiences with their fathers, this is a fraught day, for our past memories can color current events and relationships. If we cannot change our past, we can change how the past affects our present and our future. This is part of the healing process by which we face the pains of the past and gain power over the memories so we can have a better future not only for ourselves, but also for the next generation. Otherwise, our pain can become an unwelcome generational inheritance.

D-Day Invasion of Europe, World War II, June 6 US troops of the 4th Infantry Division “Famous Fourth” land on ‘Utah Beach’ as Allied forces storm the Normandy beaches on D-Day.

Just as soldiers returning from wars have to put aside the mental and physical wounds of wartime with medical and psychological help, anyone who has suffered abuse at the hands of a father figure also needs healing. PTSD help available through the VA for everyone. They have apps available at the link below anyone can access, but nothing takes the place of a human professional. Your health care provider or clergy person can refer you.

Of course, for fathers, the meaning of “manhood” is always in question, as American historian Timothy Marr wrote in American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia (Sage Reference Publication 1st edition) that in the holiday’s early decades, men ‘scoffed at the holiday’s sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift giving, or they derided the proliferation of such holidays as a commercial gimmick to sell more products — often paid for by the father himself.'” We usually gave Dad a necktie, or handkerchiefs. These are gifts going the way of the dodo bird, so my guess today’s equivalent is sports equipment or tech wearables.

National Iced Tea Day

The 1904 World’s Fair

We have the hot summer of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair to thanks for the popularity of iced tea. In fact, if you believe the tales, more new American foods were invented at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, than during any other single event in history. The list includes the hamburger, the hot dog, peanut butter, iced tea, the club sandwich, cotton candy, and the ice cream cone, to name just a few.

Art Nouveau Gilt Glasses from Austria, mouth blown, 1910

By the First World War, Americans were buying tall glasses, which became commonly known as iced-tea glasses, long spoons suitable for stirring sugar into taller glasses and lemon forks. Prohibition, which ran from 1920 to 1933, helped boost the popularity of iced tea as Americans looked at alternatives to drinking beer, wine and hard liquor, which were made illegal during this period.
Cold tea first appeared in the early nineteenth century when cold green tea punches spiked with booze gained in popularity. Recipes for “punches” began appearing in English and American cookbooks, and called for green tea, rather than the black tea consumed by most Americans today.  

Early Iced Tea Recipe

In 2003, Georgia State Representative John Noel introduced a House Bill proposing that all Georgia restaurants that serve tea be required to serve sweet tea. It was done apparently as an April Fool’s Day joke. Noel is said to have acknowledged that the bill was an attempt to bring humor to the Legislature, but wouldn’t mind if it became law. This is certainly better legislation than some of the recent laws Georgia and other southern states have passed recently to combat the imaginary boogeyman of a stolen election and voter fraud, although there were zero instances of voter fraud in Georgia in 2020, and only 20 total instances in the conservative Heritage Center Voter Fraud Data Base. The ancient, well worn wisdom is “Don’t fix what ain’t broke.”

Summer Solstice

Stonehenge under Snow, 1947, Bill Brandt. Credit: the Museum of Modern Art – MoMa, New York.

We meet the middle of our astrological year on the summer solstice, which will occur on June 20, at 10:32 pm CDT in the USA. The most famous solstice site is certainly Stonehenge, in England. The stone settings at Stonehenge were built at a time of “great change in prehistory,” says English Heritage, “just as new styles of ‘Beaker’ pottery and the knowledge of metalworking, together with a transition to the burial of individuals with grave goods, were arriving from Europe. From about 2400 BC, well furnished Beaker graves such as that of the Amesbury Arche are found nearby”.

The Cyclone, Coney Island: Roller Coaster Thrills, Nat Norman, 1962

Perhaps in American society we’re at a turning point, just as the days are approaching the summer solstice. It’s as if we’ve been on a roller coaster carnival ride on the ups and downs, and now we’ve chugged our way up to the very heights. We’re ready to throw our hands up over our heads and scream all the way home and get off the ride ready to go again. We can’t forget the rest of the world beyond our shores, for if we don’t defeat the virus abroad, it will come back to carry us on the roller coaster ride again. Besides, the generosity of the American spirit calls us to heal the nations of the world, for the good of all.

Sons who are Fathers and Grandfathers now.

The summer solstice is the longest day of the year of the year, so all good bunnies should remember to reapply sunscreen every few hours if you’re playing in pools or running through sprinklers or enjoying the waves on a sandy beach. A hat is also good. Don’t forget to drink lots of water, for the warm breezes can dry you out, the activity can tire you out, and then you get cranky in the afternoon. Take a nap in the afternoon, or just rest inside in a cool place and read a book. Don’t wait till August to do your whole summer reading program. You’ll thank your old teacher rabbit for this suggestion, as the days begin to dwindle down again and routines require relearning.

Summer Solstice

I’m in the middle of a condo renovation, so I’ve got very busy rabbits coming and going, with hammering and banging noises all day long. We’re down to the bathroom now, so sometimes I have water and sometimes I don’t, but at least I live near others who can open their homes to me. We’ve all been isolated for the past year, so some of us may take time to lower the walls and learn to once again to trust one another. Not everyone should get the welcome mat, especially unvaccinated persons. Yet hope is on the horizon, for two of the main vaccines have sought full approval from the FDA, and children 12 and above can get the vaccine now.

De Gray Lake Resort: a sunset so magnificent I had to stop and photograph it.

As we rabbits always say,
“Sing praises to the LORD, O you his faithful ones,
and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger is but for a moment;
his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.”
~~ Psalms 30:4-5

May your sunrises and sunsets always be glorious,

Joy and Peace,
Cornelia

PTSD help available through the VA for everyone: apps for mindfulness and information at this site, plus links to Veterans Administration
https://maibergerinstitute.com/june-is-national-ptsd-awareness-month/

Face Masks for Children
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/COVID-19/Pages/Cloth-Face-Coverings-for-Children-During-COVID-19.aspx

The 1904 World’s Fair: A Turning Point for American Food
https://www.seriouseats.com/food-history-1904-worlds-fair-st-louis

American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia (Sage Reference Publication): Carroll, Bret: 9780761925408: Amazon.com: Books
https://www.amazon.com/American-Masculinities-Historical-Encyclopedia-Publication/dp/0761925406

Celebrating Iced Tea Day
https://www.nationalicedteaday.com/celebrating-iced-tea-day.html#.YLbJ5y08L4A

Heritage Center Voter Fraud Data Base
https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?state=GA&combine=&year=&case_type=All&fraud_type=All&page=0

History Extra: Stonehenge
https://www.historyextra.com/period/stone-age/10-facts-about-stonehenge/

Charlie Brown Clay Stars

adult learning, arkansas, art, Astrology, CharlieBrown, coronavirus, cosmology, Creativity, Faith, Family, grief, Healing, holidays, Imagination, Israel, Ministry, ministry, nature, pandemic, Spirituality

“Close Encounters of the Third Kind” might best describe my and Gail’s latest adventure at the Oaklawn art class. Pinterest Fail is another synonym for our latest escapade. If my daddy were to describe the result, he’d say, “Close, but no cigar.” That’s a quintessential American expression, which is little used elsewhere in the English-speaking world. The first recorded use of “close, but no cigar” in print was in Sayre and Twist’s publishing of the script of the 1935 film version of Annie Oakley: “Close, Colonel, but no cigar!” I’m very fond of these ancient phrases, which are daily passing from the common parlance, even as new words are invented. These were our first attempts at this craft, so our learning curve resembled the same disastrous, steep ascent of the daily Covid infection chart.

The 1977 movie title “Close Encounters “ was derived from a classification of close encounters with aliens as set forth by the American UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek. Close Encounters of the First Kind refer to the sighting of a UFO. Physical evidence of a UFO are classed as Close Encounters of the Second Kind. Actual contact with an alien is a Close Encounter of the Third Kind. Therefore, our air dried cornstarch, salt, and baking soda clay objects, which should have looked neat, crisp, and clean, instead came out more like visitors from another planet, whose embodied boundaries were disintegrating in an inhospitable atmosphere.

Yes, I blame the recipes, which said “warm water,” rather than naming an actual temperature. Just as science projects and recipes for bread need accurate measurements and temperatures for success, so does cornstarch clay. Gail mentioned her clay began to heat up under her hands as she worked it. Mine never did, but I had to add rock salt to my mix because I ran out of table salt. Don’t do this! The salt crystals won’t melt and I had chunks in my finished pieces. The proportions of the recipe I used are equal amounts of each ingredient, so if you have just a limited amount of one, measure it and give the others to the main bowl in the same amount.

Bowl with Ingredients

Once the dough looks like mashed potatoes, don’t eat it. Instead, turn it out on parchment or waxed paper and knead it a bit. Then use a rolling pin to get the dough about ¼ inch thick. Use cookie cutters to get your shapes. Put them on a clean, flat surface, such as the back of a sheet pan. Take a plastic straw to put a hole in the upper part of the cutout. This works best if the shape is a touch dry, since the damp dough will close up. The hole is for the string hanger. The rolling pin might need flouring with corn starch if it sticks to the clay.

I also took some leaves and twigs from the bushes on the church property to use as embossing. I put these down on the cutouts, gave them a rolling pin once over or twice, maybe three, and made sure not to over flatten the shape. You could also use a decorative rolling pin as the last roll to make an all over pattern if you like that idea. A patterned doily or a scrap of lace would make a good pattern also.

Natural Decorations

When class was over, we cleaned our mess up with hot water and paper towels. I let the water run in the sink to make sure any small remains were washed far down the pipes. All the big scraps should be thrown in the trash. When I got home, I wasn’t in the mood to let these air dry for days and days. They already looked like they belonged on Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, so I put them in the oven at 200F.

Water boils at 212F, so at 200F these shapes would be slowly drying out. I baked them on a cookie sheet for 30 minutes on each side. I did notice a bit of toasting in places, but I planned on painting these, so I don’t think it matters. I did lose the points off a few stars, but in this year of the Pandemic, perhaps some of us may be able to identify with the brokenness and vulnerability of these imperfect objects. We may want everything and everyone to be perfectly normal, but standard operating procedure isn’t on the menu for this year’s Thanksgiving or Christmas. We’re all suffering in one way or another, just like these ornaments.

Broken Stars

I didn’t preheat the oven, for the clay objects don’t need to be shocked into a different temperature. We don’t preheat a kiln before we fire clay pottery, but raise the whole to the same temperature at one time. Of course, if you’re making a recipe with flour, yeast, or eggs, and you need your concoction to rise, you do need a preheated oven. Otherwise, just put the food into a cold oven and let your nose tell you when it’s done. Preheating is a waste of energy if you don’t need it for the recipe. These clay pieces will be hot when you remove them from the oven. Let them cool until you can pick them up without dropping them like a hot potato (a metaphor from the 1800’s).

Painted Star and Bells

I did take a sharp paring knife to the edges to smooth them out. Yes, I didn’t like the raggedy look. You can’t do this cleanup roughly or with big whacks. This is the fine tuning of your shape. I used to help a porcelain doll maker back in my home town. I would sand the final shape of the doll baby’s faces, hands, and feet for her to paint. She appreciated my work because I would keep the anatomical details correct and give the little faces individual personalities. Portraits in porcelain aren’t that easy, but I wouldn’t rush to finish. If we’re always on to the next task, we might miss the opportunity to meet God in the work we’re doing in the moment.

Right now in this current crisis, most of us are limiting our time out and about. If we go to the grocery store, we find our goods and get out. I do the self check out or scan and go wherever I am so I don’t have to stand in lines. I do miss the interaction and chats I used to have with folks. I decided recently even if I were masked, I would begin to speak to others. So far on each outing, at least one person has shared their feelings of grief or loss, which are a result of this pandemic. Because we are forced to limit our contacts, we’ve also lost our opportunities to share our daily joys and our challenges. If we don’t use our words, we’ll lose them. We need time to share our lives and be a community for one another, since we’re all in this together. These are God moments in which we can be a blessing to others, as well as to receive a blessing from them.

This loss of conversation will be even grimmer if our loved ones pass on during this pandemic, for their memories will cease to be available to the younger generation, and their stories will no longer be shared. As these old ones age, and their frailties become like the imperfect points on my Charlie Brown stars, we realize we won’t have them much longer. Even more so, we’ve come to realize this pandemic spares neither the young nor the full of life, as more and more of our friends are struck by this disease. Any one of us could become a Charlie Brown Christmas star at any moment. I have family members who’ve had it, friends who’ve died from it, and my heart goes out to all who suffer with it, especially those who have lost their incomes because of it.

Those who now deal with the persisting side effects of this disease don’t get near the encouragement or assistance they need in their recovery, since the rest of us are too worn down from self care and from caring for those who’re newly ill. Even the health care workers, first responders, and essential workers who have to keep the rest of us safe, well fed, and secure are struggling under the long term stressors of this pandemic. We have a responsibility to care for them so they can keep going under duress. All these folks need a sign from us that they aren’t forgotten.

Christmas Tree Star

Unique stars have always been a herald or sign of unusual events to follow. The gospel of Matthew (2:1-2) records the visit of the magi, astrologers from the east, to King Herod:

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.”

These foreigners recognized the sea change about to happen in the world, for soon earthly kingdoms would recede in importance, and the powerful would lose their sway. If they could see this sign in the sky, we have to wonder why no one in Israel was considering what the star’s arrival signified. Perhaps the learned priests knew, but didn’t want to tell King Herod the bad news:

Thus says the LORD,
who gives the sun for light by day
and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
the LORD of hosts is his name:
If this fixed order were ever to cease
from my presence, says the LORD,
then also the offspring of Israel would cease
to be a nation before me forever. (Jeremiah 31:35-36)

Of course, today most of us no longer believe the stars and planets affect our daily lives, nor are we “born under a bad sign,” as the blues players sing. Once we clean up the Thanksgiving meal, many of us will turn our thoughts to the holiday season. I’ll remove the last of the autumnal gourds and bring out a few winter seasonal objects every week until New Year’s. As the seasons change, we note the changes in our world. If the days are growing shorter and darker, we ourselves can still be lights in the world, as Paul wrote to the Philippians (2:14-15):

Do all things without murmuring and arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked. and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world.

Multiple Layers of Gold and Silver Acrylic Paint on the Ornaments

Even if we’re Charlie Brown stars, our lights will be a beacon of hope for all the world to see.

Joy and Peace,
Cornelia

Air Dry Clay Recipe Using More Baking Soda (better recipe)
https://mamapapabubba.com/2016/02/16/homemade-air-dry-modelling-clay-aka-baking-soda-clay/

Reasons to Preheat the Oven
https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/do-i-really-need-to-preheat-the-oven-article