FIN

At the end of summer 2020 we went to a small event called Samhain (a Gaelick word pronounced sow-wen).

Way up in northern Vermont near the border with Canada.  It’s an old Irish ritual held on or near Halloween and has the same origins.  It’s a ritual of remembering the dead and for thanking the summer, the trees, the fields, for the fruits and vegetables as we put the earth to sleep and enter the dark season.  There was a bonfire and a silent supper and a small group sang some old Celtic songs with lots of harmonies.  It was night time.  There was no moon and it was hard to see.  And then we all got up and walked together into the nearby forest, a well-trod area with very little underbrush and towering pines.  The instrumentalists played their deep drums and cymbals as we walked and then they performed a little ceremony intended to put the green world “to sleep.”  Normally they would use torches and create a small fire to symbolize summer and gradually put it out, but the drought was so bad last year that everything was crackling dry and it was too risky.  They used battery powered lamps and flashlights instead. There was some whispering but mostly there was silence and soft drumming. As we walked back to our starting place by the bonfire in the field, a cymbalist tripped over a log and made a big sha-Bang.  Followed by some mumbling and shuffling and disorganized banging.  

It was spooky, but not scary. Fully immersive but not overwhelming.  And a little bit funny.  A few people wore costumes but you could just barely make out the sweep of a cape or the edge of a bonnet here and there. The darkness helped warn away any latent cheesiness.  The crowd size was small because of pandemic ( we all practiced appropriate distancing ) and the medieval weirdness of the Covid-year intensified the feelings of stepping into the unknown.  

Being in the woods after sundown, whether you are tucking in the trees for the long night or not, is extremely invigorating. Alone, it’s terrifying, but with others it’s a thrill.   Some people make it simple and just go camping, but chances are fair the campsite next to yours has a camper with a generator running and it starts to get a little infuriating.  And you forget to respectfully remember the fields you ate from that summer which appears to me to have some value.  I’m not saying that watching shadows in my computer all day is NOT valuable, but Samhain is good too.  

PURELY coincidentally of course, the temperature dropped dramatically the very next day and was accompanied by the first light snow of the year.  We did as many fun things in the fall as we could considering state wide lock down, though it was all very cold because we weren’t allowed inside anywhere.  It starts to make a person feel like a farm animal.  We looked at the big granite quarry in Barre (a little bleak after the leaves have fallen), we put our feet in the Mad River, got some 1500 pound bread loaves from the Eastern European bakery in Barre — the kind that doesn’t cool down for 24 hours — and we got “mixed drinks to go” from a fabulous bar in Montpelier.  Yes, fully legal “drinks to go.”  In your car.  The law is so capricious! We visited a gallery and found these gorgeous prints of imaginary moths made by a Vermont artist who sets an an example as a fully self-sustaining, full-time artist: Polanshek of the Hills.

We sat outside next to a small fire in the front yard and looked up and thought we saw 2 UFOs but we didn’t.  We ate quite a bit of cheese (which is good for you BTW).

No live music though.  So sad. 

We did some portraits too.  I mean Bram did. Of some Plainfield friends.

And there was more cooking than usual, great cooking (not mine).  We drove back ways and byways just to see what we could see.  We got Covid tests.  And we got into previously unexplored subjects like the benefits and evils of Canola oil.  Also Australian indigenous ways of seeing and Vedanta.  Our friend G. got so stir crazy she started taking Classical Greek lessons by Zoom.  Condolences, G!

But we never left Vermont, except at night with our eyes closed.  

How has the pandemic changed us all?  What will be different going forward?  I’m hoping more varieties of weirdness are normalized in the after times.  Like I’m thinking about not talking for 3 weeks straight.  Might be an interesting experiment.  Also thinking of getting a donkey. 

Things got rougher for us as fall turned to winter though.  The human drama requires curve balls.  Odd that we’re always surprised by them, isn’t it?  We should have noticed by now they’re in the DNA of whatever the hell human existence is, or is made of.  You would think we would get old enough to establish an inner eye that just observes the drama without being affected by it, without fully identifying with it.  And maybe we do.  Maybe that’s the blessing of old age (which I of course am nowhere near).  It becomes spooky, but not scary. Fully immersive but not overwhelming.  And (at minimum) a little bit funny.   (A lot funny.)

Now it’s Spring. Except in Vermont where it is still Winter.

And Mayer Hillman says we’re all doomed and should give up now.

While Steven Pinker (and his truly impressive hairdo) says we’re better than ever and getting better every day! Back when we built the Wells Cathedral in 1175, we were poor stupid wretches — savages really — and now we mostly spend our time so well! (Just a reminder: the internet is mostly porn.)

Will we still have these choices in 100 years? Or will we have forgotten even what we were talking about and will there be entirely fresh choices and frameworks to be tortured by?

The cold weather comes. The fruiting landscape takes a break. We sing songs. Next year same thing.