Here we are at Lughnasadh, which Wiccan-influenced Neo-pagans (what a harvest of words!) celebrate as the first-fruits of harvest. While it’s nowhere near Samhain (the meat/blood harvest that was syncretized into Soul’s Eve and Halloween), it already carries undertones of death. The Pagan god, like Christ, dies to protect and nourish his people each year. Sometimes called the barley or corn king, he dies back like a plant only to regenerate through the unseen magic of roots and seeds.
Heavy, right? I guess I get a little mopey every year around this time. I can feel the summer getting older by the second. “How did it go so fast?!” is my annual reprieve. That and, for the past couple of years, it’s the anniversary of my dad passing away. August 3, 2017. This year we celebrated by rushing my mom to EMMC with a possible heart attack. Fortunately, it seems to have been something a bit milder than this, though proper precautions are being taken. Anyone who is an energy sender or prayer, please send. Even if you read this message-in-a-virtual-bottle ten years from now. I’m sure I’ll still be needing help with something!
Before all the horrible, terrible, no good, very bad festivities at the cardiac ward, I was zoom-attending this year’s Glastonbury Goddess Conference. While it is a summer celebration, it also has autumnal themes. Sure, we play with Henna and dance and sing and all that (yes, even on zoom). But, we also talk in smaller circles about ageing, childlessness, assault, death, political injustices, and all manner of other things. I guess that’s life. You can’t prance around on the beach all the time without stepping on a little glass. Probably. Just me?
I have also blogged on my Witches & Pagans spot more about Avalon. I solved the riddle of the Grail quest. Just sayin’. You’ll have to read it to see if you agree.
Meanwhile, to remember my dad. One of my step-sibs and I were just doing so. To summarize:
A childrearing strategy that involved talking way over our heads about Kirkegaard, Wiesel, or Aquinas when we were still on comics.
Wild interactive story telling in the car during short commutes just as much as long drives, which surely made me at least three-quarters of the weirdo I am today.
At his first parish in Nebraska when I was about eight, he started paying me a penny a page to read my kid Bible (like a comic book). I guess he wanted me to seem devout. I don’t think he knew I spent the cash on candy cigarettes, which I regularly let hang off my lips like the grown-ups did while sitting on the steps of the parish house. Sorry, Dad.
Duke basketball, stomping and shrieking and using sporty terms I’m pretty sure he didn’t understand much better than I did.
Various forms of reckless (assertive?) driving that terrified many both in and outside the cars, which he always blamed on the time-frame and rigors of rural parish ministry. Do all parish ministers keep their collars in the glove box in case of speeding stops?
The Cadillacs. Sooo many Cadillacs.
His love of old time blues and gospel. I particularly remember his love for old video clips of Mahalia Jackson, at festivals and singing her guts out with sweat pouring down her face and her hair everywhere. Frikkin. Awesome.
His gusto for food and life. When dining out is was not unusual for us to find ourselves alone in our section while he roared with laughter and told rather off-color jokes. Oh, and sampled everyone else’s food to the point where my step-brother sometimes cried. Of course, my dad’s life-long love for rich food is part of why he’s not here. He occasionally buttered his meat. Just. Don’t.
His sense of fair play. He would always be willing to go to the mat for anyone on any cause that he felt sounded just, and he was a formidable mat-goer. Big, loud, brave, kind.
The parish visit was where the really shone. He loved to work his circuit doing sick-bed visits. He had chaplaincy privileges at every hospital and nursing home and home for the disabled within a hundred mile radius of any place he ever served.
Clown college. He went there. How many of us are willing to wear the nose just to cheer some sick people up?! That’s hard core.
Thrift stores. Ohmygod. The thrift stores. And book stores. Same thing. Many times as a child I literally thought I’d been left behind, he’d lose himself in those shelves for so long. Thank god most of them had cats. Late in life, his fave was the Salvation Army in Oneonta, NY, which he lovingly referred to as “the Sally.”
Being proud to call himself a feminist and raise a tough broad like me. The last vacation we took before he died I chewed his ass for some off-color joke (which was a hundred percent why he told them). He laughed and I, not ready to stop being mad, was like, “What?!” He said, “I’m just admiring the nuclear stealth missile I’ve launched into the world.”
I guess that’s it for this year. I have to save some stories for the rest of my life. I know he was proud of his Viking heritage and he might be hanging out in some Heaven/Valhalla hybrid, but I kind of hope we get to see each other in Avalon.
Wishing all a peaceful and healthy harvest. And much love to my daddy from his little missile.
