Backcountry Almanac
October 9, 2007
You may not be able to change the world but at least you can embarrass the guilty. – Jessica Mitford
Month dedicated to Fides – goddess of faithfulness Pima: the month of dry grass
01 Day of Oya // Annie Besant b.1847
02 Mohandas Gandhi b. 1869
Gore Vidal b.1925// Thomas Wolfe b.1900// Woody Guthrie d.1967
Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, b.1181, d.1226 // Pancho Villa b.1877
World Teacher’s Day // Vaclav Havel b.1936, Czech intellectual
Mad Hatter Day
Joe Hill b.1879, IWW organizer
Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the US. Ask any Indian.” -R. Orben
John Lennon b.1940, Musician, composer. Imagine.
New Moon in Libra @ 10:01 pm/ Draconid meteors
Eleanor Roosevelt b. 1884
12 Aleister Crowley b.1875
13 Herb Day / Patagonia Fall Fiesta all weekend
Indigenous people’s day
15 It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. -David Hume
16 Be playful
17 Arthur Miller b. 1915, playwright
18 Nicholas Culpepper b.1616, radical apothecary & herbalist
19 Horn Fair in England (celebrates the Green Man)
21 Ursula LaGuin b.1929
22 Timothy Leary b.1920
24 United Nations Day
Full Moon /in Taurus @ 9:51 p.m.
St. Demeter’s Day // Roman Festival of Pamona
Daylight Savings time ends
Feast of Baal – the Sun god of Egypt
Stock Market Crash, Wall Street, 1929
Mischief Night// F. Dostoevsky b.1821 // Orson Wells broadcasts the ‘War of the Worlds’ 1938
Holloween/ Samhain, summer’s end // death of Harry Houdini 1926
When the veil between worlds is thinnest
“Most lives are spent putting on and taking off masks.” –Gore Vidal
Planets visible in the morning sky: Venus, Mars, Saturn, Mercury from the 30th
Planets visible in the evening sky: Jupiter, Mercury through 18th
October days:
Plant above ground crops- 11,12,13,17,18,22,23
Plant root crops & perennials- 2,3,4,9,10,26,27,30,31
Cultivate- 1,5,6,7,8 Can- 2,3,4
Brew- 2,3,4
“The mind of the gardener is, in a way, the mind of a chess player. He makes a move after having thought out what the ultimate effect of that move may be. He visualizes the end of the game.” –Richardson Wright
Garlic, allium sativum , is now found only in cultivation. Its wild progenitor is thought to have originated in the high plains of West-Central Asia, possibly in the Kirgiz Desert of Western Russia. Garlic may have derived from the Central Asian species A. longicupis. The plant spread east and west with nomadic tribes and is known to have been cultivated in the Middle East 5,000+ years ago.
Allium, the ancient Latin name for garlic is derived from the Celtic all, meaning hot or burning. The word garlic originates from the Anglo-Saxon ‘gar-leac’ or ‘spear-plant’.
Garlic has been consumed as both food and medicine from the time of the ancient Egyptians and earliest Chinese dynasties. As many as two or three garlic cultivars were known at the time of Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.) the Roman naturalist.
Pliny praised the virtues of garlic. “Garlic has powerful properties, and is of great benefit against changes of water and of residence…” He recommends its use as an antidote for dogbites, snakebites; it neutralizes the poisonous plants aconite and henbane; it is useful in the treatment of asthma, coughs, and expelling intestinal parasites. Recent interest has focused on the use of garlic for the treatment of high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, digestive ailments, colds, flu, bronchitis, plus its antibacterial, antifungal, serum cholesterol-lowering and anti-thrombotic activity.
Garlic supplies are abundant, inexpensive and generally recognized as safe. It is also easy to grow in many climates. Wise folk will use garlic freely in their daily diet for maintaining health and adding wonderful flavor to their food while encouraging their friends to do the same.
Plant garlic this month for the fullest bulb development and storability or ‘keeping quality’. Garlic can be gown here during the summer, though bulb size tends to be small and not good for long storage. Grow garlic in raised beds and space cloves in the soil at least 8 inches apart in every direction. Keep weed-free, mulched with straw, and irrigate regularly – it wants about 1” water per week. Garlic planted in October will be ready for harvest in April. Obtain seed garlic from an organic grower such as Filaree Farms.
Epazote (chenopodium ambrosioides) is an herb well-known in Mexico and the Caribbean. The name is from the Nahuatl word, epazotl. Also called Mexican tea, it is known as a garden pest owing to its tendency to self-sow easily. It is closely related to goosefoot/ lambsquarters ( chenopodium berlandieri, c. fremontii) but is highly pungent and an acquired taste for most. The dry leaves are commonly used in small amounts in black bean recipes as a carminative to allay the flatulent effects of bean eating. As an herb, epazote (wormseed) is used with caution as an agent for expelling intestinal hookworms. This herb can be poisonous in large doses. Epazote can be found in Mexican grocery stores and at Native Seed/ SEARCH in the dried form. Sow seeds at any time of the year. It grows from April through October and will gift you with a zillion seeds in the fall.
Sow native wildflowers late this month.
“Apples be ripe, nuts be brown,
Petticoats up, trousers down.”
Samhain is pronounced Sah-wen and means summer’s end. This Celtic holiday is the beginning of the year and recognizes the God of the Dead, sometimes called Mater’s Night for the Mother Earth who receives the dead. A new fire was brought from the sacred fire and the people had an orgiastic feast. Evils of the past year were sent away. The ghost appropriately represents the holiday, dedicated to those who have gone before us into the next life. This is a time to show respect and gratitude for the life you have in you and to those who have made it possible.
“Life is not separate from death. It only looks that way.” – Blackfoot
Long life, honey in the heart, no evil, 13 thank yous.
Meg
Again and again
Some people in the crowd wake up.
They have no ground in the crowd
And they emerge according to broader laws.
They carry strange customs with them,
And demand room for bold gestures.
The future speaks ruthlessly through them.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. – Mark Twain
“You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself flowers in your veins,
till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and
perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than
so, because men and women are in it who are every one sole heirs as well
as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight, as misers do in gold, and
kings in scepters, you never enjoy the world.”
- *Centuries of Meditation,* Thomas Traherne
“Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology,
even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are
not absolute truth.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh
+
Live at the empty heart of paradox.
I’ll dance with you there, cheek to cheek.
-Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
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A Riddle
I am born on May Morning – by sticks, bells, and ribbons
I am the sap – in the dark root
I am the dancer – with his six fools
I am the tump – behind the old church
I am the lost soul – under the misericord
I am the oak – against the stars
I am the face – that peers through the leaves
I am the fear – in a child’ s mind
I am the demon – on the roof-boss
I am killed in October – and laid on church altars
I am the guiser – on the bright bonfire
I am the old grain – sown with the seed
I am the flame – in the pumpkin ‘ s grin
I am the spirit – in the kern-baby’s bosom
(the Green Man – spark of life)
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Trick or treating by star sign
Author unknown
~ Aries pushes the others aside to get to the door first.
~ Taurus will only eat the finest of Swiss chocolates.
~ Gemini goes around the neighbourhood once, changes costumes and goes around again.
~ Cancer stays at home and gives candy to the other trick-or-treaters.
~ Leos plan their costume for months, then won’t go out because someone else had the same idea.
~ Virgo wears a neatly-pressed suit and tells everyone they’re a bookkeeper.
~ Libra is still standing in front of the closet trying to decide on a costume.
~ Scorpio isn’t in it for the candy.
~ Sagittarius will manage to wander to the next town.
~ Capricorn makes a list of all the houses that give good candy and the optimal route to take.
~ Aquarius builds the costume out of spare flashlights and spends all night tinkering when it shorts.
~ Pisces skips the whole thing to compose poetry to the Moon.
Copyright 2007 Meg Keoppen
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