All Soul's Day

Taken directly from International House New Orleans

All Souls/All Saints Day
In heavily Catholic New Orleans, All Saints Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2) have been observed for centuries through rituals celebrating life over death.

During the Yellow Fever epidemics in eighteenth century New Orleans, death always loomed close. It's presence left the lasting impression on this city and its inhabitants that life is a gift, perhaps fleeting, and should be enjoyed to its fullest each day. And so, on All Saints Day and All Souls Day, New Orleanians honor the lives of their dead loved ones by painting tombs with brilliant whitewashes, placing yellow chrysanthemums and red coxcombs on graves and ringing statuary with immortelles (wreaths of black glass beads). On these days, cemeteries throughout the city are alive with the flickering glow from fields of candles, as death is forgotten and lives lived are celebrated.

It is one of the many rich New Orleans' traditions we observe annually at International House, for we can imagine no other city which has turned such tragedy into such a joyous celebration of life.

Music for the Equinox or a Full Moon

World Premiere of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings conducted by ArturoToscanini

New York on May 11th, 1938

Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings conducted Leonard Slatlin

(who conducted in New Orleans from 1977-1979)

London September 15 2001

Shadowfest Cemetary Visit

Today I took my daughter to the cemetary with me...
She was late for school...
Excuse? Religious Holiday.
All Saints Day and visiting the cemetaries is (well was) a big deal here.
I told her stories of the ancestors.

Now that's Scary!!!!!

Take a close look... especially all you folks who live where it is cool....
There is mold... black mold in the eyes and white fuzzy mold in the mouth.
The pumpkin was carved only 2 days ago and was inside the whole time...
I took its picture and then tossed over the side into the trash can.

Festivals

New Orleans is a strange and wonderful place.

There are 2 "modern" (less than 100 years old) festivals unique to New Orleans that mark our seasons:

Jazzfest - which takes place the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May. This festival is full of music and dancing and food and arts. It's guaranteed to fall over the May Day period. This festival typically takes place right after our "cold" season ends and before our HOT season begins. It brings people of all ages and interests together.

Voodoo Fest - which is ending today. Is a newer offering, only 10 years old this year. But it survived the apocalypse surrounding Hurricane Katrina and is now firmly embedded in New Orleans existence.
How do I know. Voodoo Fest now has a Kid's Stage. Once a festival appeals to all ages it somehow manages to lock itself into the essence of the city.

It is strange and wonderful and some how natural that both these festivals are aligned with the 2 pagan festivals that mark the time when the veil is supposed to be thin: May 1st & Holloween.

Thanksgiving Prayer

I give thanks
for this sink of dirty dishes;
we have plenty of food to eat.

I give thanks for this pile of dirty, stinky laundry;
we have plenty of nice clothes to wear.

I would like to give thanks
for those unmade beds;
they were so warm and comfortable last night.
I know that many have no bed.

I give thanks,
for this bathroom,
complete with all the splattered mirrors,
soggy, grimy towels and dirty lavatory;
they are so convenient.

I give thanks
for this finger-smudged refrigerator that needs cleaning.
It has served us faithfully for many years.
It is full of cold drinks and enough leftovers for two or three meals.

I give thanks,
for this oven that absolutely must be cleaned today;
It has baked so many things over the years.

The whole family is grateful
for all of the outdoors we are able to enjoy.
Children are healthy and able to run and play.

The presence of all these chores awaiting me
says "My family has been richly blessed."
I shall do them cheerfully and I shall do them gratefully.

Even though I clutch my blanket and growl when the alarm rings,
I give thanks, that I can hear.
There are many who are deaf.

Even though I keep my eyes closed against the morning light as long as possible,
I give thanks that I can see.
Many are blind.

Even though I huddle in my bed and put off rising,
I am grateful that I have the strength to rise.
There are many who are bedridden.

Even though the first hour of my day is hectic,
when socks are lost, toast is burned and tempers are short, my children are so loud,
I give thanks for my family.
There are many who are lonely.

Even though our breakfast table never looks like the pictures in magazines
and the menu is at times not balanced,
I give thanks for the table and the food on it and the people around it.
There are many who are hungry.

Even though the routine of my job is often monotonous,
I am grateful for the opportunity to work.
There are many who have no job.

Even though I grumble and bemoan my fate from day to day
and wish my circumstances were not so modest,
I give thanks for life.

Written by "anonymous". Modified from original post on another blog.

For the God - inspired by Shadowfest 1999

Papayas from seed - really

I think the plant looks a bit like Diana at Ephesus.

Beautiful Day

It's been raining.
It's been raining a lot.
Fall just can't seem to get here.

The plants are transitioning from summer to fall.
The camelias are setting buds. The red clover is coming up.
But Fall just can't seem to get here.

It's also been hotter than we'd like.
Warm and Wet is not our typical fall.
Granted we are happy to have had a mild hurricane season.
But it is time for the seasons to change.

Today as I drove over the bridge to the 9th Ward where the levees broke
there was, for a split second - just enough time to crest the bridge
come down the rise and go a few blocks,
a beautiful sunrise.

The clouds were dark purple shades of grey
the sun was a bright not quite day glow orange ball
there were wisps of grey clouds over the face of the sun
and the hole in the grey clouds was pale yellows, pinks and oranges like a Peace rose.

It was beautiful, surprising and surprisingly hopeful.

Come on Fall. We're ready.

Nature Boy

This is a haunting tune that never fails to take me off to mystical places. The song reminds me of the God's cycle through the Wheel of the Year and seems esspecially appropriate at this season. It also reminds us that Love is the Great Attainment.


Lyrics source

There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy
And sad of eye
But very wise
Was he

And then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"

(instrumental interlude)

"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"

The song has a unique history and author.

And because I'm a New Orleans girl, here's a shameless plug for another New Orleanian who put Nature Boy on her 2008 CD

1st Day of September

We can't usually start thinking about a break in the summer heat until WAY after the equinox. But we've had a rare treat.

"The arrival of September is usually more of a psychological change than a meteorological one in South Louisiana.

But today, the calendar and the weather find themselves in unexpected harmony. It's not exactly sweater weather, but the break in the heat and humidity are enough to make fall seem within reach.

The arrival of a second front in the waning days of summer is golden. And we deserve a cooler-than-expected end of summer after the abnormally scorching, dry weather in June.

Summer has just worn out its welcome by September. School is in session, football teams are playing and everyone is ready for a change -- for weather that actually fits what we're doing. The fact that these weeks are the most active of hurricane season is all the more reason to be impatient for autumn.

We're more than ready to trade mosquitoes for love bugs and afternoon deluges for clear skies and crisp temperatures.

We're glad you're here, September. Why don't you stick around a while?"

Please?

Seasonal shift

I know, right now in other parts of the country and northern hemisphere this is prime summer growing season. I live in New Orleans which has and I hope always will be slightly out of phase with the rest of the world. Now is the start of our inbetween season. Watermelons are ready and the okra is going crazy. But many summer plants are finishing up. Oh the eggplant and peppers will produce into the fall but it is time to think about pulling up the tomato plants. We can start harvesting and keep harvesting basil for pesto until the first frost. But the basil is at its prime now. It is also time to think about planting our fall crops.

While this process can seem wildly out of phase with other parts of our county it is in keeping with the mythos that is part of my tradition. Autumn Equinox is when our God dies. Here in New Orleans we start to see the signs earlier than most. It actually makes sense with our agricultural seasons for the God to die and go into the earth at the equinox. Seed crops like sugar snap peas, dill and root crops like onions, leek, radish, carrot are what we'll plant. We can plant other crops too like kale and parsley.

One of the things that I love about my tradition's wheel of the year is that it works with what passes as seasons here in New Orleans. This year I've decided to go with organic heriloom seeds instead of seed packs from Lowe's or Home Depot. I've placed the seed orders today. The seeds should be here in a week or 2.

Fall in New Orleans

Many of you live in places where the weather changing from summer to fall is bold, and obvious.

Here Fall is subtle.
The humidity drops.
The breezes blow.
The air is more active.

Some of the summer flowers that have died back in the heat of Summer return.
The Roses bloom again. The Chrysanthemums bud.
The Basil seeds that fell to the ground in the heat of summer, sprout.
The Lion's Tail blooms. The Camellias bud.
The Figs put out their second crop.
The Kumquats grow plumper and, later in the season, start to get orange.

The Live Oaks here are essentially evergreen.
But the Sycamore drops its large, brown, plate like leaves.
The Bald Cypress will begin to slowly
let is soft carpet of needles cover the ground.
The Crepe Myrtle leaves begin to turn blood red and slowly drop.
It will take months to before all the leaves are gone.

The light changes.
There is less of it, fewer hours.
The angle of the light is different and
so it is more likely to be polarized by the clouds.
Things brighten as a result of this polarized light.
Colors are more vibrant.
It’s a great deal like the flush of life that precedes human death.

Hurricanes & Fall Blessings

The last week of August, the 29th to be exact, was to mark the 3rd Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Instead we got Hurricane Gustav, followed a week later by Hurricane Ike. Gustav formed on August 25th and made landfall in Louisiana west of the Mississippi River on September 1st. While Gustav was coming ashore, Ike was forming. We spent a week recovering from Gustav and another week watching Ike until it made landfall in Texas on September 13th. That, folks, makes 18 days of more than a little Hurricane stress. Even longer when we consider that Florida got Fay and the East Coast got Hanna. All this hurricane activity fell around a time of year that for most in South Louisiana is the marker for the turning point in our lives. We have PreKatrina lives and PostKatrina lives. So, here in New Orleans, when we woke up on September 14th to cool (by our standards) dry air with a hint of the coming fall, it was nothing short of a miraculous gift from the Gods.

The changing of the seasons here in New Orleans and South Louisiana is a subtle thing. Our weather isn't always subtle, but the change in seasons definitely is. Weather that would be considered summer in Minnesota or Montana or even Massachusetts, can start here as early as March and last until November. While in September we begin to hope for Fall, we rarely get a glimpse so soon and even more rarely so close to the Autumn Equinox. Since Nature is the Great Teacher, I am hopeful that this breath of fall from the Gods is a sign that this year's hurricane season is on its way out. Here's hoping the weather in your world speaks to you as well.

Fall 2005, Spring 2006

Perhaps you will recall the end of August 2005 and what happened in New Orleans. It was all over the news for weeks. But unless you’ve lived through this experience or visited in one of the many volunteer groups or came as a tourist and took the disaster tour, you have no idea what it was really like after the water let into our city by the failed levees was pumped out.

My family had to leave the city in September, 3 days after the storm. We floated and biked out and were rescued by my hero of a brother after tag team phone calls to Chicago, Kentucky and back to Louisiana. We ended up in Austin with in-laws. I returned 10 days later, after making sure our daughter was settled in a new school the day after Labor Day, purchasing a replacement truck for the one the drowned in the driveway and finding a place to stay with family friends so I could get back to work and begin recovering and rediscovering our lives.

We weren’t able to clean the bottom of our house out until October because a second storm caused the National Guard to literally kick in doors and make sure that people were *not* in the city. That would be NO people anywhere in the city.

At the end of 2005 November our lives here in New Orleans were pretty bleak. Everything in our yard was dead except the 2 larger trees and 2 camellia and the rose bushes. Everything had sat in 3 feet of brackish water for 10 days... There was nothing but brown grass, no flowers... no bushes..... nothing alive. Silt had dried to a fine cracked patchwork of crust on the sidewalks and driveways and it crackled the first time it was walked on. It was later either shoveled into what should have been lawns or gardens with a flat head shovel, or swept or hosed away into the drains. We had a mercifully after all that water, very dry November, There was very little chance of rain washing the crust away.

Everywhere in the city you could tell where in the city the water had been by the fact that all the grass and landscaping, while there, were dead brown looking like a drive through sepia photograph of real life. When the debris was hauled away all that was left was dirt. Talk about darkness. Nothing is sadder than a large dead magnolia tree, its large stiff leaves and flower buds brown on the branches.

But our bottom floor was gutted, our top and main living floor was undamaged, we had electricity in the house but no gas to heat it, my daughter’s school was open and the whole family including the dog who had ended up in California and the cat who escaped during our escape and had to be whispered home by my husband, were all back home.

So I planted nasturtium seeds and sweet peas in the bones of the back garden,
Petunias in a pot on the front porch,
Red Clover in our front yard and Rye Grass in my mother-in-law's yard next door…
Mustard, Dill, Coriander, Broccoli, Arugula, Leeks, Carrots, Kohlrabi ... in the vegetable garden.
As I dug in the vegetable garden the dirt looked great. Turns out that standing water is great for fixing nitrogen. And yes we tested the soil and it was fine.

By the spring of 2006 the nasturtiums are a roaming riot of color, yellows, orange, deep russets.
The sweet peas: pink and purple and white.
The mustard is huge! 3 foot long leaves.
The arugula has been great in salads for many weeks and is now going to seed in lovely pale cream flowers.
The carrots are up. The dill and coriander and parsley look great.
The leeks are skinny but growing.
The red clover is starting to bloom. The back yard doesn't look like a yard but a lovely meadow of red and yellow.
Salvia red, white and pink are coming up the yard because it has not been mowed... no lawnmowers, lawnmowers do not swim.... no yard workers for hire either.

Tomato plants have volunteered in one of our patio circle gardens.
Johnny Jump ups have jumped up in the same containers that they shared with now dead kumquats. Wait.... one of the kumquat sticks is starting to leaf.
Now instead of one large lantana we now have (coming up along the periphery of our meadow) 3 lantana plants.
The fig tree is in leaf. The grape is starting to show leaf buds.
Oregano popping up out of the cracks in my patio.
Spring is here and there is life leaping out of the ground.

Out of all that darkness... vibrancy.
Find it in your lives..... Hope. Live.
This is what the Spring Equinox celebration is all about.