Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to December 2023

Apocalypse, architecture, art, Bethlehem, Christmas, Civil War, Faith, Family, Healing, holidays, Holy Spirit, hope, inspiration, Israel, Light of the World, Love, Ministry, poverty, rabbits, shame, Spirituality, Stress, trees

“Gloom begets gloom,” my daddy always said, “so if you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, it’s best to go back and get out on the other side.” Some folks today don’t have much of the Christmas or holiday spirit, for they’re only looking at the dark side of world events or at the shrinking purchasing power of their dollar.

Unemployed people sold apples on the street corner in the Great Depression

Since the Civil War, the United States has endured thirteen depressions or recessions large enough to get noticed by those who study such things (see list below). This is an average of one about every dozen years. Of course, those of us who experience these events don’t have to study them, for we directly participate in the event. As the old saying goes, “If my neighbor loses his job, it’s a recession, but if I lose my job, we’re in a depression.” Instead, we plan for them and expect the good times won’t last forever.

Because we human beings are wont to think “our situation is unique,” we’re also great at forgetting the lessons of history. The first lesson is life is cyclical and what goes up will come down. The second lesson is what goes down will eventually go back up. My long experience suggests when folks are in the “down cycle,” they forget upward progress is possible. In college we used to joke, “been down so long, it looks like up to me!”

Some say recessions are “necessary” in economic cycles to remove excess, reprice assets, and tame risky behavior. None of these negative factors would exist except for human greed. When Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem to register for the census, they were also enrolling for the purpose of taxation. The Romans practiced tax farming in their provinces. Whoever had the account had to raise a certain amount for the empire, but could keep whatever excess they raised for themselves. Excessive taxation on the conquered land and people stoked their hopes for a messiah to rid them of this evil. No wonder the signs and wonders attending the birth of Jesus were fulfilling the ancient prophecies, as Matthew wrote (2:6):

‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.’

Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem. Star over the Grotto

In the times of darkness, we always look to the light as a reason to hope. As the magi saw a star rising in the east and believed an important person would arise in the land of Israel, we today look for glimmers of light to give us hope for the day to come. Some people see the wars, earthquakes, and crookedness of people and think we’re entering the end times. Churches and radio preachers are making hay with the Book of Revelation, forgetting it was a specific book written for a unique audience and time. We have been in the “end times” since Christ arose from the dead. As Matthew (28:20) records his words to the disciples in Galilee:

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

Since we’re always with Christ, we will always have his light, as Zechariah prophesied in Luke 1:78-79–

“By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

The famous Banksy’s Armored Dove of Peace, the painting of a peace dove wearing a flak jacket. The dove is painted on a wall near the separation wall between Bethlehem (Palestinian Territories) and Israel. Nov. 18, 2023.

In the midst of wars in the Ukraine and in Gaza, where people are suffering and dying, we can lose sight of the vision of light and peace, while we focus on darkness and death. The Christian community in Palestine, which usually hosts hordes of Christmas pilgrims in Bethlehem Square, won’t be celebrating this holy season this year in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Instead, they’ll set up a small nativity scene covered with rubble. It’s a reminder when the Christ child came into a suffering world over two thousand years ago, his birth was a hope for the oppressed and the poor. Every Christmas we have the opportunity to care for those who struggle to make ends meet.

In the Great Depression, families lost homes, farms, and lived in shantytowns called Hoovervilles. President Hoover spoke of a childhood Christmas memory:

“I do vividly recollect a Christmas upon that farm when the sole resources of joy were popcorn balls, sorghum, and hickory nuts; when for a flock of disappointed children there were no store toys, no store clothes; when it was carefully explained that because of the hard times everything must be saved for the mortgage. The word ‘mortgage’ became for me a dreaded and haunting fear from that day to this.”

1950’s Christmas Tree: we kids were Team Tinsel, but the folks were Team Ornaments. Our tree never looked like this!

I have some ancient memories of the cyclic hard times experienced by my family. I recall the late 50’s Eisenhower influenza recession dimly because it was the only time I ever saw my daddy cry. We had a brand-new Ford station wagon, but couldn’t afford to drive it except on Sundays. My dad brought money home daily from his office, so mother and we kids would walk to the local grocery to buy food the next day. He cried because he kept his office full of patients, but half of them couldn’t pay for his services. Mother was very practical and reminded him, “This too would pass. Trouble is only temporary.” In the fall, she took a schoolteacher position to help out. That Christmas we hand decorated sequins on felt shapes the “Twelve Days of Christmas” for a tree skirt. I passed this extravagance on to a nephew when I downsized my home.

We decorated the early days more than the later days. Time management wasn’t our best gift, but we had a great time doing this together.

I also remember the 1970’s economic slowdown very well. I got married during this time. After my husband and I bought our silver wedding rings, we had $16 left in our pocket. I was certain we had jumped off a height with no parachute, but we somehow managed day to day. To keep up “appearances,” we gave away some of our wedding gifts as Christmas gifts to other family members. I thought it was wrong, but now I realize I don’t care about those items today. I was more concerned about “saving face,” since someone might recognize we were regifting. We managed with food from our organic garden and meat from a deer my husband harvested in the autumn. But I no longer eat tuna casserole, having lost my taste for this staple of my poverty years. Gifts aren’t important, but people are.

The 1980’s had a slump related to the oil embargo. When oil money dries up, art teachers lose their jobs, as do all the other “frivolous employees” elsewhere. I got an insurance sales position, with a guaranteed six-week paycheck. I was amazed I had a talent for sales, but I was good at discovering needs and matching products to people’s ability to pay. My best sales close was, “If you’re not here to provide for your family, how will they be able to keep their current lifestyle?”

Having a simpler Christmas this year? Consider an alternative tree…

I lost my house to foreclosure during the 1990’s subprime mortgage crisis. I lost my credit cards and almost lost my daughter to suicide. I learned some things are more important than achievements or possessions. In the depths of the worst of times, gifts aren’t necessary. Being a light for others, helping others, giving yourself to those who need hope in these seemingly hopeless times is important. During this time, I drew hope from God’s words to Nathan in 2 Samuel 7:5-6—

“Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle.” I drew hope, for if God didn’t need a permanent home, but stayed with God’s people, then if I had no home title, God would still go with me wherever I laid my head.

As a people, we always want to tie God to a place or to locate the Spirit to a site, but God is always bigger than our imagination and our attempts to circumscribe God’s existence. We want to restrict God’s love to a few, but God insists on loving those from whom we look away and exclude. In the midst of the chaos of my losses and suffering, I discovered God was calling me to the ministry.

Gislebertus: Flight into Egypt, 1120-1130, Stone Capitals at St Lazare, Autun, France.

Why does God call the least, the last, or the losers to God’s work? God wants to be glorified, not the person who does the work. God needs people who understand suffering and have been seasoned by it, rather than hardened by it. The wounded know the wounds of others, but they also know the path to healing. This is why we find the Christ child in a stable, not in a palace; and have shepherds and foreigners come to visit, but not his family or friends. It’s also why the Holy Family flees to Egypt as refugees to avoid Herod’s death sentence for the Jewish newborns. If we’re having a less than “perfect” holiday this year, perhaps we’re only having a bad hair day in comparison to the suffering of that first Christmas.

When I get to struggling, for the aches and pains of age are catching up to me, I can get in a low mood thinking, “I used to pop out of bed and do 12 things before lunch.” Now I need six cups of coffee to get my lunch going! Of course, I’m past my platinum anniversary and my hair color matches my age. On days like this, I look to Paul’s admonition in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, which rings across the ages as a clarion call:

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances;
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

I wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year. I plan to take a sabbatical from my Rabbit-Rabbit series in 2024, since I’ve neglected my sci-fi blog and my pandemic project quilt needs stitching together. I’m going to work on my art more and write about the spiritual intersections of the creative life.

Joy and Peace,
Cornelia

You can keep up with my other writing and thoughts:

SOULJOURNIES: sci-fi spiritual formation blog
https://souljournieswordpress.wordpress.com/author/artandicon/

ARTANDICON: blog on the intersection of art and faith
Www.Artandicon.com

CORNIE’S KITCHEN: blog on healthy eating and spirituality
http://www.cornieskitchen.wordpress.com

List of depressions and recessions since the Civil War:

the Panic of 1873,
the Great Depression when 13 million people were out of work,
a recession after WWII,
another after the Korean War,
the Eisenhower influenza recession in 1957-58,
a recession in the auto industry in 1960-61,
and another year long recession in 1970-71 under Nixon.
In 1973, OPEC quadrupled oil prices, and that shock along with the stock market crash sent the world economy into recession.
In 1980, energy prices continued to rise, so when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to curb rising prices, the economy contracted. Once again, unemployment rose to 11% and business output suffered.
We had a recession in the Gulf War from 1990-91, and then maintained the longest period of economic growth in American history up until
the Dot Com Bubble in 2001. The tech-heavy NASDAQ ended up losing nearly 77% of its value and took over 15 years to recover its losses. September 11, 2001 wasn’t a sunny day for the stock market or for America. Many people have had a pessimistic outlook on life from this date forward. It changed how we see ourselves.
In 2008-2009 another recession hit hard, making it the longest economic downturn since World War II and the deepest prior to
the following COVID-19 Recession of 2020. The former was triggered by the subprime mortgage market collapse, while the latter was the quickest and steepest of them all. While more than 24 million people lost their jobs in the US the first three weeks of April 2020, this shock was quickly ameliorated by government interventions, such as zero interest, income payments and other supplements.

Christmas During the First “Great Depression” – Hoover Heads
https://hoover.blogs.archives.gov/2020/12/16/christmas-during-the-first-great-depression/

Milestones: 1921–1936 – Office of the Historian
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/great-depression#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20stock%20market%20crash,cause%20a%20global%20financial%20crisis.

Understanding America’s Labor Shortage | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage

Major Financial Crisis History
https://nationalarchives.nic.in/sites/default/files/new/Final_Major_Financial_Crisis-i_0.pdf

A Brief History of U.S. Recessions – Weatherly Asset Management
https://www.weatherlyassetmgt.com/a-brief-history-of-u-s-recessions/

How One of the World’s Biggest Ships Jammed the Suez Canal – The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/world/middleeast/suez-canal-stuck-ship-ever-given.html

Inspired by Autumn Leaves

adult learning, art, Attitudes, autumn leaves, cognitive decline, Creativity, Enneagram, Imagination, inspiration, Matisse, Ministry, Painting, Spirituality, trees, Van Gogh

I returned from a spiritual retreat at Mount Eagle, at which we studied the Enneagram. This is our United Methodist camp site dedicated to holy listening. Of the nine spiritual personality types, I happen to be a Four: The Creative. I’m “The Sensitive, Introspective Type: Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental.” Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They’re emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but also can be moody and self-conscious. Fours sometimes feel vulnerable and defective, so they’ll withdraw from others, and they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. A Four typically has problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity; but at their best, they’re inspired and highly creative, and they’re able to renew themselves and transform their experiences.

One of the things I’ve learned over my years of teaching art is every student is unique. They all aren’t Creative Fours, even if they have an interest in art. When I taught in schools, some of the students didn’t even have an interest in art at all. It was a requirement, and they were unwilling prisoners, who were set on rebellion because they knew they wouldn’t succeed. In most education classes, this would be true. Art education classes teach young teachers how to make lesson plans with distinct outcomes and a list of steps. This makes grading easy: did the student follow the steps and how close did their product match the model?

I don’t teach art this way. Children learn to walk by crawling, but they have to roll over and pull up first. Each step is an improvement over the first one. As long as a student keeps working and learning, their work will improve. We adults have to silence the judgmental voices in our heads that tells us, “You aren’t any good.” Instead, let’s listen to that inner voice of joy which says, “Wow, we’re having fun playing with the colors and making shapes appear—it’s like magic!”

We first looked at a few images of leaf paintings to get some ideas. Often by Friday morning, my brain needs some extra caffeine as well as extra jolts of creative input to get an inspired thought to percolate through the fog. We don’t all learn just by listening, but by seeing also. Sometimes students need a demonstration or hands-on experience to figure out the best way to use the materials. I always try to let them manipulate the materials themselves, since the best way to learn is by doing. This isn’t brain surgery, so we won’t harm anyone. We also won’t lose our salvation if the paint gets out of hand. We can always save our old works and say, “Look where I started from!”

Tim was entranced by the Yayoi Kusama Leaf painting (1990), so he began to work on drawing a leaf in this manner. He’s recovering from carpal tunnel surgery, so smaller movements are better therapy for his hand.

Not everyone is focused on details. Milton Avery is a modern colorist who simplifies the landscape into its essential elements. His trees often look like large leaves.

The bright colors of the autumn leaves in the landscape provided Mike’s color scheme for his one brilliant tree. Mike has exuberance in all he does.

Henri Rousseau was famed for his jungle scenes. These were green in every shade possible. He visited the botanical gardens in Paris for his inspiration.

Van Gogh favored yellow and orange, especially in his later years. The Mulberry Tree from 1889 is a lovely example.

Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena, CA

Gail went outside to grab an actual leaf, rather than work from her imagination. She has a direct connection with nature, maybe because of her years with the national parks.

Repeating this leaf shape, she covered the canvas with it, allowing it to overlap in some areas and run off the edges in others. Using a monochromatic color scheme, she gave the illusion of shadows and light.

Matisse sought to reunify humans with each other and with nature. As the great painter said, “What I dream of is a balanced, pure and quiet art which can avoid the trouble of frustrating subjects. This kind of art gives everyone’s mind peace and comfort, like a comfortable chair where they can have a rest when tired.”

Viewers in Matisse’s day thought his brightly colored painting of dancers was quite daring, but today we can appreciate his work as an ode to life, joy and nature.

As I’ve been watching the brisk winds blow the gold and red leaves from the trees this fall, I’ve also watched them dance against the bright cerulean sky. When the sun shines on these dancers, they glow even brighter than before. They don’t have a care for tomorrow, much less for today. Now and this moment is enough for them. They remind me of the Lord’s advice to us on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:34—

“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

I painted the back side of the leaves with a thin coat of acrylic paint and laid them one by one down on the white surface of the canvas. Then I gently hand rubbed the top of each leaf until I thought I’d transferred the paint. The hansa yellow was least successful as a print color, so I over printed it at the end. I mixed the green ground with the cerulean blue and two yellows. The sky has cerulean, violet, Ultramarine, and white. These I mixed as I painted, so the sky wasn’t an even color. (All skies change color due to atmosphere and distance: they get lighter toward the horizon).

Next Friday we’re going to make stamp prints. You may have cut your own design in a potato once upon a time in scouts or used vegetables to make prints. We can also use leaves, natural materials, metal objects, or found objects to create prints. Art is a time to explore and experiment. We’ll find out what works and what doesn’t!! Curiosity and the willingness to experiment and explore are all aspects of creativity. We can all learn to stretch our boundaries and learn resilience, which are experiences that help us address the stresses and challenges of daily life.

I learn something new every day. Today I learned a starfish has a brain that covers its entire body. Its whole body is made up of brain nodes! There are days I wish I were a starfish: I would have loads of brain cells!

Joy, peace, and happiness to everyone!

Cornelia

Type Four: The Individualist — The Enneagram Institute

https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-4

The 9 Enneagram Types — The Enneagram Institute

https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-descriptions

Art Analysis: Dance by Henri Matisse – Artsper Magazine

Art Analysis: Dance by Henri Matisse

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to November

Abraham Lincoln, All Saints Day, Altars, art, change, chocolate, Civil War, Constitution, Day of the Dead, exercise, Faith, Family, Food, generosity, Habits, Health, holidays, inspiration, Love, nature, poverty, pre-diabetes, pumpkins, rabbits, Thanksgiving, trees, Ukraine, Uncategorized, US Constitution, Van Gogh

My parents would often say, “Time flies when you’re having fun.” If this is so, I’ve had a one whale of a time in 2023. I don’t know where the time has gone, for I’d swear I just woke up in the bright new year of 2023, and now this year has grown a beard of some length. Indeed, the ground was bare, awaiting the warm breath of spring, and now it has experienced its first freeze.

Autumn is a time of transitions. Not only do the trees change colors, and then lose their wardrobe altogether, but we rabbits go from Halloween’s sugar high on October 31^st to overstuffing ourselves and the roast beast at the Thanksgiving feast on the Fourth Thursday of this new month. Then we segue into Christmas somnolence with yet more cookies and egg nog (spiked and plain). On occasion we tramp out to decorate the house or scour the woods for greenery, but those days are long gone for most urban dwellers. We’re going to buy from local providers or have it delivered online.

Some of us on the first day of November will still have some of the 35 million pounds of candy corn which are still produced each year. That’s about 9 billion pieces — over a billion more than there are people on Earth. As far as this bunny is concerned, this is 8,999,999,999 pieces of candy corn too many. I’m not a lover of this form of sugar; give me dark chocolate any day. Fortune reported the “dangerous” amount of sugar consumed by kids on Halloween — three cups of sugar in 7,000 calories of candy. For context: That’s 675 grams of sugar, or the same as chomping down almost 169 standard sugar cubes, according to a Fortune article published in 2017.

When I was a young bunny, sugar was so restricted in our home, my friends and I would escape our parents’ notice during fellowship time at church to go to the empty adult Sunday school classrooms. We knew where they kept the wonderful Domino Pure Cane sugar cubes for the coffee the grownups drank. We didn’t care for coffee, which was already gone, but the sugar we fell upon like pirates on buried treasure. We didn’t ever consume 169 cubes at once, since that would’ve destroyed the entire stash.

If these had been the 35 million pounds of candy corn, which are still produced each year for Halloween, neither I nor my bunny friend would have ever touched them. The idea about 9 billion pieces — over a billion more than there are people on Earth—are still produced today is incomprehensible to my bunny brain. I think the texture of corn syrup and gelatin isn’t my first choice.

Of course, when the weather turns colder, our bunny bodies sense the need to stoke our internal fires. We do this by consuming more calories, especially the quick acting carbohydrates we find in the sugars and starches that provide the instant “heat” boost our bodies crave. Actually, any food will heat us up, but fruits and vegetables don’t have the same appeal as warm, savory, and fatty foods do in colder weather. The shorter days and the decrease of light in the winter cause problems with our body’s biological clock and lower the levels of the brain chemical serotonin. Plus, many of us reduce our physical activity, so our exercise induced levels of serotonins drop.

We can overcome this loss by planning to be outside during the daytime and making sure to exercise at least 30 minutes daily. Having protein rich snacks and fiber rich soups with complex carbohydrates will help control our hunger spikes. Perhaps this transition time into longer nights and shorter days is why the First Wednesday in November is always National Eating Healthy Day (November 1). If we do only one new healthy choice per week, and add a new healthy option each week thereafter, we can transition our lifestyle into “Eating Healthy.” As a bunny, I remind my friends, it’s also National Vinegar Day—have compassion on yourself and on others. We can love ourselves and others into a better life with kindness rather than harshness. As my grandfather Bunny always said, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”

All Saints Day and Dia de los Muertos both are celebrated on November 1. Both recognize the departed loved ones. All Saints recognizes both those who have worked miracles as well as those ordinary saints who have lived among us and given quiet witness to their faith. Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, is a three-day festival to remember the ancestors and friends who predeceased us. People decorate altars with marigold flowers, photos, and skulls in memory of the dead. They make special food offerings in their honor also.

All Soul’s Day on November 2 is a Catholic holiday to pray for the souls which aren’t yet in heaven, but are in purgatory. Protestants don’t believe in purgatory, so we don’t attend upon this day as holy.

Many of us do celebrate Cookie Monster Day on November 2, because who doesn’t like cookies?! The same goes for National Sandwich Day on November 3, for hot or cold, almost anything can be slapped between two slices of bread and get slathered with avocado or mayonnaise, and it’s good to go.

Sandwiches first appeared in American cookbooks in 1816. The fillings were no longer limited to cold meat, but the recipes called for a variety of things: cheese, fruit, shellfish, nuts and mushrooms. After the Civil War sandwich consumption increased and were sold both in high-class lunch rooms and in working-class taverns. A typical turkey sandwich in the 1980s contained about 320 calories, according to a report from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Twenty years later, a turkey sandwich contained about 820 calories. Choose whole grain bread if possible.

We seniors have more than time on our hand

“Fall Back” on Sunday, November 5, when Daylight Savings Time Ends. We get another hour of sleep on this day when the clocks go back 1 hour at 2 am. I won’t be awake to notice it, but I suggest those of you who aren’t good sleepers begin to look at your evening routines. Set a wind down time on your clock, watch, or mobile device. Let it remind you to turn on quiet music, read inspirational books, or begin your bedtime routine. Sometimes taking off our outside clothes and wearing our “at home” clothes is a signal to our mind to let go of the cares of the world.

Fighting over Van Gogh Pokémon Gifts at the Museum

Go to an Art Museum Today Day and National Chaos Never Dies Day are both celebrated on November 9 this year. I don’t normally consider chaos and art museums as being in the same category, but Disney has made several Night at the Museum movies that revolve around the trope of ancient Egyptian gods awakening to cause havoc. Actual chaos recently erupted at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam when visitors realized the gift shop had already sold out of the Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat promo card, which was modeled on the Vincent self-portrait. Evidently a small group of fans descended on the gift shop, causing a ruckus, and buying out the merchandise. It’s now for sale on eBay.

Armistice Day marks the November 11,1918 anniversary of World War I, a war which began in August 1914, that few expected to last beyond Christmas. In 1921, an unknown soldier was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This First World War was “the war to end all wars,” but we’re an overly optimistic nation. We’ve had a Second World War since then, plus many a regional conflict. Every time our battle ships show the flag somewhere, people think it’s going to be WWIII. Fear mongering doesn’t help the nation. We’re better and stronger than that. Plus, we have the moral duty of leadership: our country needs to show the world there’s a better way.

As I recall, both the North and the South expected the great Civil War to last just a short while, just as Putin entered Ukraine believing his army would roll into Kiev in mere weeks. Yet WWI lasted four years, WWII was six years (the US was involved only the four years from 1941-1945), and our Civil War was another 4-year slog. Wars aren’t so much “won” as lost by attrition: one side loses more men, materiel, and willpower so they surrender to the other. War is the most brutal way to settle our differences.

Armistice Day now is Veterans’ Day, November 11, but observed a day earlier (10^th) this year. We celebrate our veterans who do the difficult and challenging work of using judicious force against enemy combatants, rather than civilian populations. All of our enlisted personnel take the same oath to protect and to defend our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic:

I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God).”

We are an unusual people, we Americans, for our loyalty isn’t to a party, a president, or a person. We are loyal to the constitution, which protects our democratic institutions, values, and freedoms. We can be thankful for those who were inspired to write it, heard the prophetic call to amend it, and have the wisdom to keep us on the straight and narrow.

National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week is November 11-19 this year. While the economy is recovering, the loss of pandemic assistance funds Is hurting lower income households. They are making hard choices: food or rent, medicine or food. The number of homeless veterans has decreased, but so has the overall population of veterans. The bad news is veterans are still overrepresented in the homeless population. As you prepare for your own feast this year, I hope you remember the hungry in your community. The best way to help is with a financial donation to the local food bank. The bank can purchase food from the warehouse food bank at greatly reduced prices, thereby providing more food per dollar than individuals can purchase on their own.

World Diabetes Day is November 14. Diabetes is a disease on the increase in the world today. In the US alone, over 37 million people have this disease and over 8.5 million have it but are undiagnosed. Over 96 million US adults have prediabetes, a condition in which their insulin doesn’t take the sugar out of the bloodstream well. Switching to whole grains, less processed foods, and adding more fiber to the diet usually helps lower the blood sugar. So does daily moderate exercise.

National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day is November 15. This is a good day to practice this task, since you’ll be filling it up with excess foods if you’re hosting the feast, or you’ll be traveling away from home. If the latter, you don’t want to return home to spoiled food if the power goes off for any length of time. Ugh: I won’t regale you with the story of stench of the refrigerator in the garage which didn’t power back on after a power outage. Those outlets need to be reset manually because they’re in a “might get wet” zone. The refrigerator inside will come back on automatically. (This turned out to be a get rid of the refrigerator day.)

National Stuffing Day is November 21. If you bake your bread mixture outside of the great bird, it’s called dressing, but if you cram it into the bird, it’s stuffing. It’s safer to cook the bird without stuffing, also quicker. When baking stuffing inside a turkey, it can get get wet and mushy. If you make a flavorful stock from the turkey neck and giblets, you can make your stuffing moist and flavorful without turning it into mush.

If you live in a giant pumpkin, buy a smaller pumpkin for your pie

Pumpkin Pie Day is also November 21, so you can prepare this ahead of time if you wish. You can make a handmade crust or use a store-bought crust from the grocery. Pre bake it and fill it with the pumpkin mixture.

National Cranberry Relish Day is November 22. You can easily make your own with the juice of an orange, some sugar to taste, and cinnamon combined with a package of rinsed cranberries. Heat over medium in a saucepan, stirring frequently to keep from sticking. When the berries burst, reduce heat to simmer and reduce the liquid. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Take off the heat and put into container for icebox. Chill overnight to let seasonings combine. Serve cold as side dish.

Thanksgiving Day is Thursday, November 23. You’ve baked the turkey, and it smells amazing! Let me introduce you to pan gravy from the drippings. You need a little flour, about 2 Tbs; some pepper, about ½ cup of drippings, and 1 cup of hot water. Put the drippings in a heavy saucepan or skillet, add the flour, stirring constantly over medium high heat until flour turns caramel color. This is a medium roux. Slowly add hot water, stirring so no lumps form. Keep stirring till smooth, reducing heat. Add more water slowly if gravy thickens too much. Pepper and salt if necessary.

The idea of “thanksgiving” for the harvest is as old as time, with records from the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. Native Americans in North America celebrated harvest festivals for centuries long before Europeans appeared on their soil and before Thanksgiving was formally established in the United States.

In the 1600s, settlers in Massachusetts and Virginia had feasts to thank for surviving, fertile fields, and their faith. The Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts, had their infamous Thanksgiving feast in 1621 with the Wampanoag Native Americans. The three-day feast consisted mainly of meat: wild fowl procured by the colonists and five deer brought to the feast by the Wampanoag. A a stew called sobaheg was most likely served as a side dish to the main course. It was an easy way to make use of seasonal ingredients, for the stew often included a mixture of beans, corn, poultry, squash, nuts and clam juice. All are used in the traditional dish today, and all would have been available in 1621.

Potatoes weren’t around in 17th-century New England, but corn was plentiful. Natalija Sahraj

Corn and cornmeal were the main carbohydrates on the first thanksgiving meal. The first New England crop of potatoes was grown in Derry, New Hampshire in 1722, so no mashed potatoes were on the menu. Corn bread, corn mush, and corn puddings abounded, since the Native Tribes had shown the colonists how to plant beans, squash, and corn together to maximize growth of all three. The harvest of 1621 likely included beans, squash, onions, turnips and greens such as spinach and chard. All could have been cooked at length to create a green, pulpy sauce that later became a staple in early New England homes. Sweet dishes concocted from sugar or maple syrup weren’t on the menu, nor were honey sweetened deserts. At least, the Pilgrims didn’t have to save room for pie.

After the Pilgrims, for more than two centuries, individual colonies and states celebrated days of thanksgiving. The first national celebration of Thanksgiving was observed for a slightly different reason than a celebration of the harvest—it was in honor of the creation of the new United States Constitution! In 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation designating November 26 of that year as a ”Day of Publick Thanksgivin” to recognize the role of providence in creating the new United States and the new federal Constitution. During the Civil War, President Lincoln called for a national Thanksgiving Day on the last Thursday of November after the Battle of Gettysburg. In the Great Depression President Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving Day to the next to last Thursday in November. After two years of public unhappiness, Congress passed a law in 1941 setting Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November.

Thanksgiving, 1858, by Winslow Homer, Boston Public Library

During the week of Thanksgiving, from November 19-25 or 26, we have the holidays of Church/State Separation Week and National Bible Week. If you haven’t been giving thanks for your blessings up to this time, take a break, breathe, and rejoice that you are alive. Give thanks for your hands, your food, your breath, and your heart of love. Share this thanksgiving with someone else. If each of us gives a bit of hope to someone else, we can help others have something to be thankful about.

After the rush of Thanksgiving, some of us bunnies may need medicinal chocolate. November 29 is Chocolate Day. Depending on your personality, you can buy fancy chocolate to share, or you can enjoy it by yourself along with a good book and some lavender tea. If Thanksgiving Day was really overwhelming, National Personal Space Day on November 30 might be calling your name. We all have times in our lives when we don’t need hugs, either because of physical or emotional distress. Besides, we bunnies need to catch our breath before we dash into the Christmas season.

I’m thankful for each of you who read and share my stories.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Thanksgiving Pan Gravy From Scratch

2023 November Holidays Information from Holidays and Observances

http://www.holidays-and-observances.com/november-holidays.html

15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Halloween Candy Consumption in the US

https://www.businessinsider.com/halloween-candy-consumption-usa-facts-statistics-2019-10

Control Your Winter Appetite

https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/control-your-winter-appetite

History of Thanksgiving in America | The Old Farmer’s Almanac

https://www.almanac.com/www.almanac.com/content/when-thanksgiving-day

What the first Thanksgiving dinner actually looked like

https://theconversation.com/what-the-first-thanksgiving-dinner-actually-looked-like-85714

Is Stuffing Your Turkey Safe?

https://www.marthastewart.com/8163046/is-it-safe-stuff-turkey

Wall Street Journal: The American Diet Has a Sandwich Problem – Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE)

https://chibe.upenn.edu/news/wall-street-journal-the-american-diet-has-a-sandwich-problem/

History of the Sandwich | The History Kitchen Blog | PBS Food

https://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/history-sandwich/

Van Gogh Museum pulls its Pokémon promo card after opening day chaos

https://www.engadget.com/van-gogh-museum-pulls-its-pokemon-promo-card-after-opening-day-chaos-083349757.html

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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/

New Eyes, New Visions

art, Attitudes, cataracts, Faith, Healing, Health, Holy Spirit, Imagination, inspiration, Medical care, nature, Painting, renewal, Spirituality, trees, vision

This week as I recovered from cataract surgery, a memory from my childhood finally surfaced. In the late 1950’s in my hometown, I had met an artist who could barely see to paint anymore because of her vision loss due to cataracts. Doctors hadn’t yet invented the modern replacement lenses and use of small incisions for implantation. Complications back then were common, rather than rare. I can still remember my dad’s response to my desire for contact lens, “What? Put a foreign object in your eye? You’re asking for an infection!” Perhaps this was why I worried myself to exhaustion while waiting for my first surgery.

Unknown Artist: Inlay in the Form of an Eye, Glass and gypsum, Egypt

As it turns out, I can now see my television set without my glasses and I read my iPad with my untreated eye. I’ve always had my glasses within arm’s reach of my bed or my chair for over sixty years. It feels strange not to put them on first thing in the morning.

If there were things I could not see before, I could always feel them if I were still enough to notice their subtle movements. Most of the time I, as many others do, stress over what “might happen,” instead of being present to the moment in which the important stuff is actually happening.

Luke Howard: Graph of wind, rain, and temperatures from 1815-1832

After I worried myself into an exhausted heap on my couch, I woke up in a different mood. I realized I’d been going “from house to house” to borrow a cup of trouble for a cake I didn’t need to bake or eat. It was going to be a decadent cake with multiple layers and a. rich icing. If it were autumn, I’d probably get first prize in the cake competition at the state fair.

But no one needs a Trouble Cake. I saw all my ingredients were as nothing, for I had a great doctor, people who would care for me, and this was a new age in medicine. Moreover, the Spirit of God would sustain me in my recovery and remind me my wellbeing depends on following my doctor’s instructions. As we read in John 3:5-8 NRSV—

Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Sometimes we need to feel the wind and not try to know from whence it comes or why it goes, but merely thank it for arriving to be with us in this present moment.

Utagawa Hiroshige: Yokkaichi: Mie River, 1833-34

Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by.

Sometimes we need a fresh wind blowing through our hearts and minds to get a new outlook on life. We can’t be wedded to the past like the old farmer who said of the new fangled plow he saw at the farm supply store, “My daddy plowed with a two pronged plow, so a two pronged plow is good enough for me.” He never bought the new and improved three pronged plow.

Bernard Evans: Cannock Chase – ‘When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, and they did make no noise’, circa 1885

Much like the church that can’t recognize the fresh movement of the Spirit moving through the world today, if we can’t feel that wind, maybe cataract surgery would help us see the movement in the leaves.

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

NOTE: The Greek word for Spirit and wind are the same: πνεῦμά. Strong’s Greek Concordance 4151 pneúma – properly, spirit (Spirit), wind, or breath. The most frequent meaning (translation) of 4151 (pneúma) in the NT is “spirit” (“Spirit”). Only the context determines which sense(s) is meant. When used with Holy, the word is Holy Spirit, not holy breath!

Christina Rossetti: Who Has Seen The Wind? Source: The Golden Book of Poetry (1947). https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43197/who-has-seen-the-wind

Utagawa Hiroshige: Yokkaichi: Mie River (Yokkaichi, Miegawa), from the series “Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi no uchi),” also known as the Hoeido Tokaido, wood block print, 1833-34, Art Institute of Chicago.

Luke Howard: Graph detailing prevailing wind directions, rain depth, and mean temperature over a period of eighteen years, 1815-1832, in London. The Royal Society.

Bernard Evans: Cannock Chase – ‘When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, and they did make no noise’, circa 1885, watercolor. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sidney, Australia.

Unknown Artist: Inlay in the Form of an Eye, Glass and gypsum, Egypt, (9/16 × 1 13/16 × 3/8 in.), 1540–1070 BCE, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA.

Wayne Thiebaud, Cakes, 1963, National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C.

Winter Solstice 2022

arkansas, art, Faith, Food, hope, inspiration, Light of the World, Ministry, New Year, shadows, Spirituality, Stonehenge, trees, winter solstice

This shortest day of the year is the Winter Solstice, which is on Wednesday, December 21, at 4:48 P.M. EST, in the Northern Hemisphere. Some think of this as the Longest Night, but I’m a person of the light, not the darkness. I always prefer to look to the light, no matter how dim or feeble it may seem.

Yet darkness is a necessary experience in our lives. We do not yet live in the land of the “unclouded sky” or the heavenly realm:

“And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” —Revelation 21:23

In the darkness, growth often happens: germination and rooting are two types of unseen activity that help produce the plant we see above ground. Without adequate light, the visible plant won’t thrive. So both darkness and light are at work to produce fruit in our lives.

“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” —Romans 8:28

Rejoice! The days will get brighter soon!

The Winter Solstice in Hot Springs is at 3:48 pm CST on Wednesday, December 21, 2022. In terms of daylight, this day is 4 hours, 37 minutes shorter than the June solstice. In most locations north of the equator, the shortest day of the year is around this date. The good news about the Winter Solstice is the days will begin to lengthen, although imperceptibly at first: one minute, four minutes, seven minutes, ten minutes, thirteen minutes, sixteen minutes, and so on.

In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated Yule from December 21, the winter solstice, through January. In recognition of the sun’s return, fathers and sons would bring home large logs, which they would set on fire. The people would feast until the log burned out, which could take as many as 12 days. Today we recognize the source of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song in this festival. The Norse believed that each spark from the fire represented a new pig or calf that would be born during the coming year. Prosperity for all in the New Year!

In this present darkness, a small light still shines brightly

In this time of stress and strain, grief and gripes, let’s look to the in-breaking light, and the renewal of life and love. Here’s a “Winter Solstice Chant” by Annie Finch, for your pleasure:

Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, growing, now you are uncurled and cover our eyes with the edge of winter sky leaning over us in icy stars Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, growing, come with your seasons, your fullness, your end.

Of course, if you can’t get your travel plans together at the last minute to visit Stonehenge, England for the winter solstice celebration, you can always make Rice Krispies Bars in the shape of the ancient monument. The recipe link is at the bottom of the page. Hint: don’t turn the heat up high or your treats will be hard. Due to high carbohydrate count, one “pillar” of Stonehenge Krispies is actually two servings.

Joy and peace and a Good Yule log,

CORNELIA

Sunrise and sunset times in Hot Springs https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/@4115412

The Original Rice Krispies Treats™ Recipe https://www.ricekrispies.com/en_US/recipes/the-original-treats-recipe.html

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to April 2022

adult learning, art, Carl Jung, Creativity, Easter, Faith, holidays, hope, Ministry, mystery, nature, Painting, rabbits, renewal, shadows, trees

What a difference a month makes! Only a few weeks ago, I was speaking with a rabbit pal, who was ground down by her constant caregiving in this pandemic world. She cares for elderly rabbits in a nursing home, a vulnerable population, plus she’s grieved the passing of several of her own family members lost to COVID.

“I’m not getting another shot,” she said. “I’m so tired of COVID, I could scream.”
“I know,” I replied, “but this isn’t over. As long as we have hosts—those who either can’t or won’t get vaccinated—COVID is going to mutate and stick around.”

“Oh, don’t tell me that! We’ve been through alpha, beta, and gamma. We’re on omicron now. What’s next?”

I laughed. “It doesn’t matter. It could be gigatron, megaton, or atragon—they’re all monsters and we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. We’ll do what ever it takes to beat those monsters, just like in the Japanese movies.”

Her mood lifted somewhat, for in these hard times a friend has to be a support. I was only returning the favor, for she’s been my rock when I’ve been down.

Speaking of monsters, I love Japanese films. I once had a boyfriend in college who had a fondness for Japanese films.

“Oh, me too!” I exulted.
“What’s your favorite ?” he asked.
“I really like Mothra and Godzilla,” I replied to his frozen face.

He favored more arcane fare, such as The Burmese Harp, Rashomon, and others with samurai military themes. We did share a common love of pasta, but his military service took him elsewhere, and my artistic sensibilities took me to a different place also.

We rabbits like to escape from reality when life gets too real at times, as it has this past month. The Bible speaks of “the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle,” in 2 Samuel 11:1. When the sap rises and the light gets brighter, some circadian rhythm must kick in that sets off a power struggle amongst the powers that be. When I taught school back in the day, all my rabbit students were wild as hares from April Fool’s Day until the last day of school in May. During my first year teaching, we got an extra week of spring break, since we didn’t use any of our snow days.

My old daddy found me crying on that Monday morning.
“What’s wrong, honey?”

I sobbed, “We only have one more week of vacation before school starts again!”
“It’s all downhill from here, honey. You can do this,” he said, encouragingly. “Dry those tears and let’s share a cup of coffee at the breakfast room table.”

Life is always better with coffee, and with an older bunny to talk some sense back into you. At least my daddy was always willing to listen to my tales of woe. I must have been a real drama queen back when I was young, but surviving those “bad old days” meant I could take my turn later on and help other young rabbits through their peaks and valleys. As the apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:10—

“Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

One of the ways I would escape reality was to watch those Japanese monster movies. They weren’t always long on plot or character development, but you could count on lots of action. Atragon, a huge monster of the Mu empire, an underwater civilization that was supposedly extinct, resurfaced in one movie to declare war against all nations. The sole hope of humanity seemed to lie on Captain Hachiro Jinguji, who refused to surrender, and his atomic super-submarine, the Gotengo. When the Mu and their evil Queen kidnapped his daughter, he decided to attack them. Earthquakes and battles between submarines and the great sea monster ensued.

I’ve always found watching monster movies and the concomitant destruction they cause easier than watching the actual mayhem reported on the evening news, but then I grew up in the Vietnam era. I always had difficulty with the people my parents’ age who wanted to “bomb the North Vietnamese back to the Stone Age.” Now when I see a Russian dictator doing this very deed to Ukraine, an independent nation, I have even more distaste for this activity. I’m reminded how easy it is for us to project a demonic nature on those who do terrible, unprovoked, and unimaginable deeds on others.

Krampus: The Punisher of Bad Children at Christmas

In the years after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese worked out their fears of another nuclear horror or the after effects of that first one with their mutated monsters by atomic radiation. Today, we have movies which deal with our fears of robots taking over the world or artificial intelligence throwing over its creators.

These aren’t new themes, of course, for Greek mythology tells of the early Titan king Chronos, who swallowed all his children, so none would fulfill the prophecy of taking his throne. When Zeus was born, his mother spirited him away. When he grew up, he came home, caused his father to vomit up his siblings, and together they defeated him. This is how the gods came to rule the heavens, the oceans, and the underworld. These gods were made in the image of human kind, so while they were more beautiful, stronger, and immortal, they were also given to the same passions and consequences as those besetting humanity.

The Greeks and Romans were always in a contest of power, whether between the gods, gods and humans, or humans alone. Nothing was ever in a steady state. Their great leaders were known both for their military successes as well as their political prowess. They were leaders both in peace and war. The Ancient Greek philosopher
Heraclitus said, “War is both king of all and father of all, and it has revealed some as gods, others as men; it has made some slaves, others free” (no. 22 fragment B53).

Native American tribes have a story of the warring nature we each carry within us. It’s commonly known as “the two wolves” or “the grandfather story.”

“I have a fight going on in me,” the old man said. “It’s taking place between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

The grandfather looked at the grandson and went on. “The other embodies positive emotions. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. Both wolves are fighting to the death. The same fight is going on inside you and every other person, too.”

The grandson took a moment to reflect on this. At last, he looked up at his grandfather and asked, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee gave a simple reply. “The one you feed.”

We each have a wolf or a Godzilla within ourselves, but sometimes we fail to notice it. Instead we see it only in the outsiders, in our enemies, or those whom we’ve excluded from our privileged circle. How we manage this “darkness” within us, how we the battle the “enemy within,” is the great work Jung spoke to when he proposed the presence of the Shadow within each of us.

When the world is falling apart, we too feel unmoored. When a dictator attempts to redraw the borders of another country, our cognitive maps also fall apart. If that part of the world isn’t safe, is our world at risk also? Even though we know change is inevitable, will the apple cart be set on fire or just dumped over? We rabbits aren’t the bravest animals, so we can borrow trouble from the morrow, as well as from the next half hour. Somehow we have to revision our old lives, shed our old cocoons, and renew our selves for the new world to which we find ourselves awakening.

A hundred years ago, T. S. Elliott wrote these opening lines of his famous poem, The Waste Land. In the days after the end of World War I, his wife was suffering from mental illness and his marriage was falling apart because she was having an affair with another man. He too was suffering from the shared grief of the loss of so many in the Great War, as well as his own personal relationship problems. He wrote this poem at a sanatorium, where he was taking a “cure” for his own mental health.

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

If we’re ever to understand the great mysteries of faith, we have to meet the darkness within us. That’s what is symbolized by the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ. The loneliness in the garden of Gethsemane, the descent into the grave, and the rising back to life once again. If ever we’ve had this loneliness, emptiness, and sense of rebirth, we’re participating in the Easter mystery. Once we die to our old selves, we can live the Christ life, not just a life assenting to the doctrines of the Christian faith.

Sea Bass by Paul Summer: recycled antique and modern tin, riveted to a hand-carved pinewood base, forming colorful scales

No one will be able to call us rabbits April Fools, even if they call us fools for Christ. Let’s celebrate this month some of the great faith holidays, and don’t forget your taxes are due. That perhaps is “the cruelest” event of April.

April 3—Ramadan begins—revelation of the Koran to Muhammad
April 10–Palm Sunday
April 14–Maundy Thursday
April 15–Good Friday & Income Tax Day
April 16–Passover & Holy Saturday Vigil
April 17–Easter
April 18–Easter Monday (Emmaus Monday)
April 24–Orthodox Easter
April 28–Holocaust Remembrance Day
April 29–Laylat al Qadr is the day in Ramadan that observes the night when the Prophet Mohammad received the first verses of the Koran

Joy, peace, and mysteries,

Cornelia

Atragon (Ishiro honda, 1963)—underwater monster takes Tokyo.

The Burmese Harp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burmese_Harp_(1956_film)

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot | Poetry Foundation
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land

The waste land : a facsimile and transcript of the original drafts, including the annotations of Ezra Pound / T. S. Eliot ; edited by Valerie Eliot. – British Library
http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=BLVU1&afterPDS=true&institution=BL&docId=BLL01010067643&_ga=2.6871095.423095881.1648426637-1262842970.1648307341

Justice and the Justification of War in Ancient Greece: Four Authors
Tristan K . Husby
http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/classicshp/1?utm_source=digitalcommons.conncoll.edu%2Fclassicshp%2F1&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages

The Heart of the City

arkansas, art, change, city, cognitive maps, Creativity, Historic neighborhood, hope, Imagination, mystery, Painting, trees

Cities are growing organisms, each having their central growth from their place of origin. Some begin on a waterfront, as a place of trade. Other communities began along a creek, where people would meet to connect, trade, and settle differences in peace. These were safe spaces, welcoming places, but they existed only so long as everyone acknowledged them.

In our cities today, safe spaces are rare. Some reasons are we don’t know everyone anymore, since our populations are so large. We don’t know who to trust, so we trust no one. If we’re anonymous, we think can do what we want, since no one knows who we are and we don’t know whom we harm. Of course, this is absurd, for if we do harm to another, we aren’t living out our best life, not to mention we’re not living out the wisdom of “Do unto others what you want done unto yourself.”

“Who knows what lurks in the heart of man?” the old radio program asked. “The Shadow knows,” was the answer. Most of what we know as the city is hidden behind the layers of paint, wallpaper, and various accretions of dust in our historic district. In Hot Springs, we can eat hamburgers in buildings where mobsters would hang out, walk the streets where old time baseball players strolled, and take hot baths where our ancestors took the “cure” for every disease known to humankind. They got clean, but the cure didn’t take.

We have a civic interest in renewing our old buildings, for they attract tourists and provide incomes for owners and workers in our restaurants, shops, and hotels of all sizes and qualities. We have dive bars and first-class accommodations within a mile of each other. This is a sure sign of a community in transition. I won’t name either, but if Hot Springs were to be the setting of an old-time radio show, it wouldn’t lack for interesting characters or venues.

During this pandemic era, for it’s stretched long enough now to be called such a lengthy time, I’ve been working on a group of cognitive maps. A cognitive map is any visual representation of a person’s (or a group’s) mental model for a given process or concept. Cognitive maps have no visual rules they need to obey. There’s also no restriction on how the concepts and the relationships between them are visually represented. If we were to take a number of people to the same place, we’d most likely end up with the same number of maps. Some parts might overlap, but everyone would notice different aspects of the landscape.

My own cognitive maps start with a screen shot of a google map of a place I’ve been prepandemic, and work in process through sketches, then several layers of paint, and finally, the end product. This last stopping point sometimes comes only after I think I’ve finished the painting, but I leave it sitting out where I can look at it some more. In the looking, I discover, I’m not ready to release this image out to the world. It lacks unity, power, focus, or some other defining quality I can’t put words to. I only know I am unhappy with it the longer I look at it.

When I cook a recipe, I have a certainty if I follow the directions, I measure correctly, and my oven is true to temperature, I’ll come out with a good approximation of the original recipe. Afterall, I’m recreating someone else’s process and instructions. Making something new, from the imagination is part of the creative process. Sometimes the end product arrives easily, but other times, its birth is a struggle, and the child arrives crying to beat the band.

Creekside Landscape, Hot Springs, 2021 springtime

Most of us are used to seeing the landscape from our upright view, for we walk through our world with our head up every day as we reconnoiter along our daily paths. Some of us keep our heads buried in our phones, so we depend on the good nature of others to keep us from bumping into them, or these people must have particularly good side vision to avoid collisions with other walkers. We don’t have the bird’s eye view of the city, so we don’t see how the streets connect or how they follow the elevation changes. We also don’t get to see the patterns of tree growth, or the hidden waterways. Mostly we have a patchwork vision of just the immediate areas we inhabit, but not a vision of the whole.

Greenway Park Map: Apple Pencil Drawing on Google Map

I saved a screenshot to my iPad so I could draw on it. Color for me has emotional energy, so as I drew, I over laid the first colors with others. The changes the drawing went through prepared me for the changes through which the painting would transition. This pandemic has certainly been a time of change, but life has always been changing. One of my old friends always said, “Human beings are meant to change. We’re brand-new people every 27 days! That’s how often we get a whole new skin.”

I spent many years in the church, an organization not noted for changing. It’s not the organization that doesn’t want to change, but the people. We find those same people resistant to change in NASCAR fans, football fans, and any other group you want to name. As one wag said, “It was the 56th Super Bowl and they finally had rap music in Los Angeles, and NASCAR had Pit Bull at the LA Coliseum for the Clash for the first time in 43 years. If you have a point, it’s time to make it.” If we don’t like change, we should quit washing our bodies, since we’re just hurrying those dead skin cells off to their final demise.

First Stage of Greenway Park Map Painting

Artists must embrace change, however, for the moment we put a mark on a canvas or tap a stone with a chisel and hammer, we’ve changed the surface before us. We can’t be afraid to go into the emptiness or the unknown, for there we’ll find the beauty of the unspoken or the hope of the silence in which we work.

This stage of the painting adheres closely to the drawn image. The blue streets define the city blocks and a few building shapes are notated. It’s a complicated street map from one of our older sections of town.

Second Stage of Greenway Park Map Painting

On this repainting, I balanced the colors better, but kept the greens and oranges. I signed it, for I thought I was “finished.” I set it down in my living room to observe it for a while. I often do this with my work, for if it still looks good after six months, I think it’ll survive for a year. If it lasts a year, I think it’ll last longer. If I look at it three years later and it doesn’t survive, I’ll destroy it. This was painted during the winter, with the worst low light of the season. No wonder it looked grim under the brightening light of the returning sun.

Some sunshine has come into my life here in the middle of February. I’m very sensitive to the transition of light across the seasons, so when it begins to leave in October, I start shutting down. When the light begins to return again, I awake, as if from a hibernation. Perhaps this is the reason I took all my yellows and reds and overpainted the other colors on the canvas. Now my canvas is almost monochromatic, except for small streaks and blobs of color in places. You can still see the city blocks and streets, but now the over all feeling is less of a map and more of an energy record of the city area.

This is the city as it grows, as it lives, and as it changes. The dynamics and life blood of the city move and pulse as it transforms. Hot Springs is unique in that we keep as much of our old as possible and build new when we must. I’m thankful for this city, for its love of the arts, and its honor of its history, as well as its embrace of the future.

After all, that’s all any of us can do, is remember who we are, whose we are, and give thanks to the one whose steadfast love remains forever.

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

How Often Does the Epidermis Renew?
https://www.webmd.com/beauty/cosmetic-procedures-overview-skin

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

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!”

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.

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)

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 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.

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 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).

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.

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

Autumn Leaf Prints

adult learning, art, autumn leaves, Carl Jung, Christmas, coronavirus, Creativity, Faith, grief, holidays, inspiration, nature, Painting, renewal, shadows, Spirituality, trees, vaccinations, vision

As the days grow shorter, the pile of leaves grows larger. This is Einstein’s equation for autumn. I know “Energy equals Mass times the speed of Light squared” isn’t really congruent with all those bags of leaves accumulating on the edge of the streets of the front yards in your neighborhood. It just seems that way. When I bought my first little stucco, flat roofed house back in my hometown, the former owners reminded me at closing, “Be sure and rake the roof every autumn.”

Of course I forgot about this, until the twenty something major trees around my little flat roofed house dumped all their leaves on my roof. How did I know? When it rained, those leaves blocked the drainage holes, so water came inside the ceiling light fixtures of my kitchen in the back of the house. As soon as the rain quit, I had the ladder out and was filling the big, black garbage bags with soggy leaves. If you only fill them half way, they’ll stay intact when tossing them over the parapet. I was younger then, and trainable. I didn’t forget when autumn came the next year.

I’ve always thought leaves “fell” off the trees or the wind blew them off, but I asked Mr. Google, “Why do leaves fall?” Turns out, the trees cut them off with scissor cells. The leaves are only useful for making food for the tree. They are the seasonal kitchen staff, so the tree lets them go for the winter and brings in a new crew in the spring. The changing light and cooler temperatures triggers a hormone that makes this happen.

The scissor cells are stained red and mark the boundary between the branch (left) and the leaf stalk.
University of Wisconsin Plant Image Teaching Collection

If the leaves stayed on the tree, they’d wake up during a winter warm spell, start their food production work, and then get frozen when the cold inevitably returns. The tree knows the lifespan of the leaf, and this is the natural course of the life cycle. New growth will come in the spring, after a period of rest and recovery.

Lauralei’s Memories of The Leaves that Were

Our holiday season coincides with darkening days and marketing excess. Most of the commercials show happy families with lots of presents in heavily decorated holiday environments. Statistics show 25% of people are estranged from their families, and one out of every 463 Americans alive at the beginning of 2020 has since died of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. About 1 in 8 Americans say that a member of their family died of the virus; another fifth say that they lost a close friend, according to YouGov polling. These are staggering numbers, for in the US alone, 779,293 people have lost their lives as of November 30, 2021. One too many Thanksgiving tables had an empty place setting for a loved one no longer among us, and this will be a blue Christmas for many families.

If this were a war, maybe folks would get all excited and consider good health practices such as mask wearing , hand washing, and vaccinations their patriotic duty. Instead, they throw themselves into the breach of a thousand tiny viruses as if they were seeking the congressional gold medal for valor, and end up leaving their families with nothing but medical bills, grief, and the loss of their presence. Into this weary season comes Omicron, yet another variant, but an expected event due to the lack of worldwide access to vaccines and the virus’s ability to mutate in immunocompromised individuals. The enemy keeps evolving and the battles continue, whether we’re weary of the struggle or not.

“The Falling Leaves,” by Margaret Postgate Cole of England, is one of the first anti-war poems from a woman’s perspective. It was written in November 1915, during the First World War, when from 1914 to 1918, Flanders Fields was a major battle theatre on the Western Front. A million soldiers from more than 50 different countries were wounded, missing or killed in action there. Entire cities and villages were destroyed, their population scattered across Europe and beyond. The tradition of poppies on Veterans Day came from the red flowers given life from the blood spilled on this battlefield. COVID today is exacting it’s own cruel battle toll, with children left orphaned and spouses left without their mates. The adverse affects on this generation may be equal to those who went through the great flu pandemic of 1918 or the Great Depression.

War may be necessary in some instances, but it’s never to be glorified. There’s always a sadness related to the loss of life, regret over the great expense poured out that might have been used to build rather than destroy, and the cruelties that attend actions when we make others into evil enemies and refuse to see them as human as we are. Her poem speaks poignantly to this human loss:

Today, as I rode by,
I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree
In a still afternoon,
When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky,
But thickly, silently,
They fell, like snowflakes wiping out the noon;
And wandered slowly thence
For thinking of a gallant multitude
Which now all withering lay,
Slain by no wind of age or pestilence,
But in their beauty strewed
Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.

Source: Margaret Postgate’s Poems (1918)

If we want to treat these end of year days as “days of denial” of all that’s grim in the world to focus only on the good and the light, we’s be like people who claim we have no shadow. Carl Jung believed the shadow included everything in the unconscious mind, good or bad. Also, the shadow might include only the part of the personality that you don’t want to identify as self, but still is a part of your unconscious mind. This dark side of your personality contains everything your conscious mind can’t admit about itself.

When we read the birth story of Jesus, we often focus on the angels and the gifts of the magi. We forget these heavenly hosts are God’s armies and the magi came to meet the new king. These were revolutionary acts that caused King Herod to feel insecure and threatened, so he slaughtered the innocent babies born at this time. The Bible never forgets this shadow side of life, for this is why Christ came into our world:

“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

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

Why Leaves Really Fall Off Trees : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114288700

The Depths Of Estrangement: Why Family Rifts Happen And How To Heal
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/12/24/family-estrangement-holidays

[The Washington Post] Analysis | A third of Americans say close friends or family have died of covid-19
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/13/third-americans-say-close-friends-or-family-have-died-covid-19/

Visit Flanders Fields | VISITFLANDERS
https://www.visitflanders.com/en/themes/flanders_fields/

Artandicon's Blog

Crossroads of art and faith

trees

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to December 2023

Inspired by Autumn Leaves

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to November

Rabbit! Rabbit!

New Eyes, New Visions

Winter Solstice 2022

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to April 2022

The Heart of the City

STARS AND THE WINTER SOLSTICE

Autumn Leaf Prints

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