El Dia de los Muertos was moved atop our Day of the Dead/New Year....

There was an altar for a poet friend who died last year, Francisco Alarcon, and a woman posting it said: "Dear White People: Día de los muertos is not your Halloween!" Not knowing the background as to why El Dia de los Muertos was moved to our Day of the Dead/New Year....

I wrote back:

Hallowe'en/Samhain is when we Celts celebrate the end of the year (it's our New Year), and it's a day we also honor our visiting ancestors with food, song, and storytelling. It's a time when the doors to the Otherworld are open. Francisco was a longtime friend, and he would've also honored our traditions as well. FYI, El Dia de Los Muertos was moved atop our holiday, and there are also shared traditions. Francisco would've also honored that.

On Jack O Lanterns and squashes

This was a diatribe against a medievalist's "scholar" post, who conflated pumpkins, New World squashes with old world species.The author also lumped the Renaissance with the Medieval world. We (imperially speaking) came undone. These are from my notes to Medievalist.net. I had reposted some of my comments on Facebook. I always meant to make a blog of it, but never did, so this is a placeholder.

I wrote: Did something get lost in translation? We don't call cucumbers squashes. Citrullus was the other form eaten. Melons are not called squashes. Lagenaria was mostly inedible (gourd, clalbash). The word cucurbita means "gourd".

 Most squash as we know them, came from the New World. Note the country of origin in the list below.

"squash, pumpkin, or gourd depending on species, variety, and local parlance,[a] and for their seeds. First cultivated in the Americas before being brought to Europe by returning explorers after their discovery of the New World, plants in the genus Cucurbita are important sources of human food and oil....Cucurbita fruits have played a role in human culture for at least 2,000 years. They are often represented in Moche ceramics from Peru. After Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World, paintings of squashes started to appear in Europe early in the sixteenth century. " —Cucurbita- Wiki

The genus Cucumis in the Cucurbitaceae family, including some gourds, do not include New World squashes. Most gourds are inedible, and you can't eat a loofah! Some gourds (calabashes), and several melons were native to the Old World.

Cucurbita – squash, pumpkin, zucchini, some gourds
Lagenaria – mostly inedible gourds
Citrullus – watermelon (C. lanatus, C. colocynthis) and others
Cucumis – cucumber (C. sativus), various melons
Luffa – the common name is also luffa, sometimes spelled loofah (when fully ripened, two species of this fibrous fruit are the source of the loofah scrubbing sponge)

"Six cucurbit crops are represented in 23 Byzantine-era mosaics from Israel, these being round melons (Cucumis melo), watermelons (Citrullus lanatus), sponge gourds (Luffa aegyptiaca), snake melons (faqqous, Cucumis melo Flexuosus Group), adzhur melons (Cucumis melo Adzhur Group), and bottle gourds (Lagenaria siceraria). Cucurbits are represented in 23 of the 134 mosaics containing images of crop plants." —Cucurbitaceae - Wikipedia

The Cucurbits of Mediterranean Antiquity: Identification of Taxa from Ancient Images and Descriptions

"By ancient times, long-fruited forms of Cucumis melo (melon) and Lagenaria siceraria (bottle gourd) were selected, cultivated and used as vegetables around the Mediterranean and, in addition, bottle-shaped fruits of L. siceraria were employed as vessels. Citrullus lanatus (watermelons) and round-fruited forms of Cucumis melo (melons) were also consumed, but less commonly. A number of cucurbit species, including Bryonia alba, B. dioica, Citrullus colocynthis and Ecballium elaterium, were employed for medicinal purposes. No unequivocal evidence was found to suggest the presence of Cucumis sativus (cucumber) in the Mediterranean area during this era. The cucumis of Columella and Pliny was not cucumber, as commonly translated, but Cucumis melo subsp. melo Flexuosus Group (snake melon or vegetable melon).

Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples

"The cucumber was much cultivated in Egypt in Pliny's day and known in Early ... Apicius cooked them with brains, cumin, honey, celery seed, liquamen and oil, ... "

Triskeles, whiteface, and woad, photos

Celtic triskeles and spiral inspired by La Tene art in whiteface and woad—I mean Maybelline. As to the usual: Yes, but what are you supposed to be, my answer was I am that I am. If you need a name, the hag cycle of the Morríghan, the phantom queen, goddess of fertility, war and death; or the Cailleach, the divine crone, a creator/weather/ancestor deity. (From caille, mantle, the veiled one.) The feather growth on the side of my head is part of a plaster bandage mask/cast of my face—also in whiteface and spirals. But prettier. The maiden aspect. I couldn't wear my scary face when I taught kids poetry, so the mask was a compromise. I either wore the mask on my face, or on the back of my head—which really freaked people out. They couldn't tell whether I was coming or going. Nor could I, apparently. 

I always painted my face up as the grotesque Celtic hag with triskeles, but people complained, asked, can't you do something nice....I just wasn't into "pretty" so this was as good as it got. Only once, and once only. I got tired of explaining my character/costume. A New Age Pierrot-Columbina character?

Halloween Traditions (notes for the UICC Samhain series)

Oíche Shamhna! Happy Samhain. Hallowe'en, aka All Hallows Evening, has its roots in an Irish Catholic tradition that supplanted ancient pagan Celtic Samhain customs. It was introduced to Scotland ca. the 16th century, and came to America in the 19th century via the Irish refugees.

Oíche Shamhna ( night of Samhain) Hallowe’en is the evening before the Feast of All Saints (The Hallowed Ones). But it wasn't always so. In 608 AD, Pope Boniface IV decided to commemorate all the martyrs, so the 13th of May was

designated as the Feast of All Holy Martyrs. In 837 Pope Gregory IV extended the festival to remember all the known and unknown saints. The festival was renamed the Feast of All Saints and the 1st of November was chosen for the festival. The Martyrology of Oengus written circa 800 records the Irish keeping All Saints on the 1st of November but additional feasts of All Saints of Europe on the 20th of April and All Saints of Africa on the 20th of December. Later the 1st of November became the sole commemoration date for All Saints in Ireland. The 2nd of November is the feast of All Souls a day which commemorates the faithful departed. The feast began in the 11th century and was connected with Christian concerns with death and purgatory. Later a popular belief developed that the souls in purgatory could on this day appear back on earth to haunt those who had wronged them. The souls would take the form of ghost, witches or toads. (Farmer 2011, 14). It was also believed one could help the dead on this day by giving alms in the form of coins or food (ibid). In Britain a small round cake called soul cake was made and the cakes were given out to soulers (mainly consisting of children and the poor) who would go from door to door on Halloween, singing and saying prayers for the dead. (BBC)

All-hallows or All-hallowmas (Middle English Alholowmesse: All Saints' Day) the night before was called All-hallows Eve, shortened to Halloween. Pope Gregory IV in 83 AD, moved All Hallowmas to November first. Another harvest holiday was co-opted, one celebrating a Roman Harvest Goddess (of apples) Pomona. Later, the New World Aztec holiday, which shares a remarkable amount of customs with Samhain, El Dia de los Muertos, was moved from August, and added to the melange.

The first historical reference of Hallowe'en in America dates back to 1919, The Book of Hallowe'en. A Massachusetts librarian, Ruth Edna Kelley, credited the Famine Irish with bringing Hallowe'en customs to the new world.

On Irish Saints' Names and Family Names

Molly posts a photograph of the two churches in Nevada City, stranded  on opposite sides of the freeway, St. Canice's & Trinity Episcopal. If you stand just so, you can see both spires at once. Two churches separated by road and by faith.

Few know that Canice was an Irish saint, Cainnech moccu Dalánn, he was born in Glengiven, Ireland, and was a close friend of St. Columba's. Helped convert the Picts. 

I'm sure everybody mispronounces the church name. That's Canice, not Candace—which drove my aunt Canice crazy. Just. Don't.

My aunt Canice, the last child in line, was named after a dude. Yep. That would be Kenneth, in English, or Anguish as my grannie would say... 

The name gave my aunt Canice much anguish during her lifetime. She gave up trying to correct people and eventually went by the handle of Candy. People couldn't screw that name up. How sweet.

Sort of like why I cowped to using Mo vs. Maureen after resisting for decades. Not that there was a Saint Maureen, but it means Little Mary, or bitter herbs. Take your pick.

It's a good thing my granny didn't choose St. Kevin. Can you imagine what would've happened with the moniker, Caoimhín, in the mouths of the English speakers? 

Keeping in the family tradition of unpronounceable Irish names, Canice named her only daughter  Sinead, after my grandmother. You'd think she would've known better.  I guess it could've been Siobhan. St. Joan.

My cousin Sinead doesn't let anyone read her nametag at work, their eyes get all tangled up in the random assortment of vowels. And she won't give her real name out to baristas—it comes out as Sin-head, or Sineed! We liked Sinhead. It makes us laugh. 

All this naming after saints in my family to keep us in line. Not that it ever took.

So long, Tom Hayden

So long, Tom. May the roads rise up to meet you...

I got to hang out with the “Chicago 7” anti-war activist Tom Hayden at the Santa Anita Irish Faire, in 1997, his anthology, Irish Hunger just came out. I tried to buy it, he said No, poets shouldn't have to pay for this book. And he signed it with a flourish.

I used to run into Tom when we lobbied for the arts at the state capitol in Sacramento. Tom's office was always open, a refuge for artists. Tom, former husband of actress Jane Fonda (17 years), tried to make change from within politics. He was a real mover and shaker.  The radical inside the system. He worked both sides of the floor. Tom was elected to the assembly in 1982, and in 1992, Hayden was elected to the state senate.

We kept in touch via Facebook and Twitter, but he'd been quiet for a while, he had a stroke in 2015, I guess it was a long illness. He died year minus a day just shy of Maureen O'Hara (2015).

Wow, 2016, helluva year for our cultural icons. May the righteous roads rise with him and may he rest in justice.

Hayden legislated the Great Hunger be included in curriculum 1997 

Napa Poetry Conference cartoon

Once upon a time we were an extraordinary group of poets who met each summer in Napa. Organizing poets for this photo shoot was like herding cats. My photo traveled far and wide, so I made a parody drawing of it. Can you recognize any of the poets? It's 1985. Some of the poets no longer walk with us.

Napa Valley College English Chair, Dave Evans founded the Napa Poetry Conference in the summer of 1981. It began as a collective of Berkeley poets and students who came together to share their expertise and perfect writing skills. 

I'm not sure how I got roped in, probably to do a potential story. But I attended most. if not all, the conferences through 1987; Dave kept the tuition low. In my case, he waived it entirely in exchange for photographic documentation. At first, I merely observed, but then, Dave brought me in as a participant and presenter. My writing life was irrevocably changed.

Word got out and poets from all over the US and beyond attended the workshops. Several came from the Bahamas, of all places. So during the spring of 1985, we all packed up and flew south—to Nassau, for an international conference. Extraordinary times.

One of the unique aspects of the Napa Poetry Conference was that we were all housed within the community, no motels. I stayed as some extraordinary homes, one place on top of Mt. Veder, another ranch in the Mayacamas, replete with lake and rowboat, our hosts were a medic and a combat helicopter pilot, each was carrying on a secret affair, so life was intense. Because we were all poet-roommates, we made deeper bonds.

After Dave died, John Leggett took over, and the direction of the Napa Poetry Conference drastically changed. It became the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. Some of the old guard were invited back; Frank Bidart, Robert Pinsky, but the flavor had changed, with Dave Evans gone, there was no community housing offered, and tuition was stiff. A tony new era was ushered in. I never went back.

Stay tuned, I found a large box of photos from NPC, and am scanning old memorabilia.

Another photo, Poets on the landing. Still can't get everyone's attention.

River of Words Workshop with Pam Michael

Warm up, blind contour line drawing of an object in a paper bag. Using your finger as your  new "eyes" trace along the edges of your object, and make a drawing from what you feel. 

I had to laugh, Pam also used rubber bands to keep our non-drawing hands inside the bag, and so we couldn't peek. Also, snails have weird eyestalks very much like little fingers, art imitating life imitating art.

When you're done with your drawing, make a word cluster. Any words that come to mind. Don't censor, don't think. I didn't use any of them in my poem, but it was pleasant to warm up by drawing...

Then unmask your object, after you've speculated as to color, texture, etc. Share the drawing with the class. I speculated the stripes but not the brown color. I went for pink. Sometime what you  already know isn't useful. begin fresh each time.

POETRY LINE PROMPTS

write down 5 images

1. Outdoor setting

2. weather

3. something lost

4. something found

5. final line, wrap it up: comment, compare, contrast, complain, question. Revise. Read aloud to class.

The wind plays the barbed wire 

with its ghost fingers

The trees hiss and sigh 

while the grass whispers secrets

Cumulus clouds gather on the horizon

ladened with the promise of rain

Looking for remnants of lost childhood 

on this lonesome ridge

Garnered the wisdom of experience,

remembering then, and now, as one thing.

What other secrets does the wind dream up?

10/15/2016
Berkeley


Pam also gave us a historical perspective and slide show of River of Words highlights. An amazing annual international poetry and art contest for children and a program that reached students from around the world. Fantastic art and touching stories of students in refugee camps sending in their artwork. Perhaps the saddest story is that Pam turned over the project, her life's work, and all the memorabilia to St. Mary's College, and they've let it go defunct. Tossed 20 years' worth of art out.  But the ROW website is still up. Check out the website and download her free PDF River of Words Teacher's Guide.