Beltane ushers in May & the beginning of summer / Time of the Sacred marriage of god & goddess
World Press Freedom Day / Pete Seeger b.1919
Santa Cruz Valley Heritage Alliance foods workshop  www.santacruzheritage.org
Kent State, Ohio, 1970, Nat’l Guardsmen kill 4 students during anti-war protest
Zuni Green Corn dance welcoming back the corn maidens
New Moon in Taurus @ 5:18 a.m./ Aquarids meteor showers
‘Last frost’ date for Arivaca
8 White Lotus Day: Helena Blavatsky d. 1891
9 Iroquois Corn-Planting ceremony in thanks for seed corn
Victoria Woodhull, first woman nominated as candidate for president of US , 1872
Mother’s Day / Rain ceremony commences in Guatemala
Day of the Mischievous Maverick
Isis day
San Isidro day, patron saint of farmers. Bless your fields and garden.
Need not who needs not thee
Greek feast of Pan honors male fertility
Full Moon in Scorpio @ 7:11 p.m./Moon of the Faeries/Anne Boleyn executed, 1536
Socrates b. 469 BCE
First bicycle ride in NYC, 1819
J. Krishnamurti b. 1895
24 Bob Dylan b. 1941 // Judi Bari car bombed, 1990
27 Rachel Carson b. 1907
Ian Fleming b. 1908
Joan of Arc burned, 1431
Memorial Day – day to contemplate the stupidity & horrors of war

“Those who are successful must have dreamed of something.” –Hopi

May planting dates:
Above ground crops – 5,8,9,15,16,17,18,19
Root crops & perennials –1,4,22,23,27,28,29

Planets visible in the morning sky: Venus through the 3rd, Jupiter
Planets visible in the evening sky: Mars, Saturn, Mercury through the 29th

The Navajo say that there is nothing so eloquent as a rattlesnake’s tail.
Just when I was lamenting the lack of snakes in the neighborhood, I found four all in the same place.
I wasn’t actually looking for snakes at the time. On a cold February day, I decided that a certain space needed cleaning up, so I began sorting boxes and picking up debris in dim light. In a corner stood a rake quite out of place and when I went to grab it, I saw movement behind it, stepping back as a familiar buzz sounded. “Isn’t it a bit cold for this behavior”, I asked rhetorically? I could swear I heard the reply, “Yes, it is, so go away!”
I called for my snaring partner to bring the “noose” and ice chest. In a short time we snagged the snake and put him into the ice chest, lid closed tight. Mr. diamondback wasn’t very happy but everyone was safe. I returned to my original task finding three more hibernating snakes of various sizes in the process. We put two others into another ice chest and left the last one under the flanged board where we had found him. Our intention was to move the snakes, unharmed, to more appropriate places when the weather warmed. They are great at their job of eating rats and mice, you know, and we have fewer rodents when there is a healthy snake population on the land. Snakes are active when the temperature is between 60-80 degrees. When the weather warmed, we relocated all four snakes to individual territories, finding that the last one was the biggest. When I carried him (in an ice chest) out to his new home and put him on the ground he puffed into his fully present mode and warned me to move away. I counted 11 rattles while imagining his glistening snake beauty after he sheds that winter skin.

Summer gardening season begins this month since our traditional last frost date is May 6th. You might wait an extra few days for planting out the most tender plants just in case the weather plays tricks again. Row cover will protect plants with a few degrees worth of insulation. Basil, beans, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, and squash are very frost tender.
Feed seedling vegetables a week fish emulsion and compost tea every 2 weeks for optimum growth.
Garlic planted in November should probably be dug up and dried by now. Keep checking your plants for pests such as aphids and cucumber beetles. A strong jet of water from the hose should knock off and drown aphids. Crush cucumber beetles with your fingers.

I think of a healthy life as living with Nature in a dance that seeks, not balance, so much as finding center with every cycle of the wheel. Imagine that the wheel is more an ellipse than a circle and things rock along in a beautiful rhythm that occasionally includes syncopation. The dancers swing out into unknown territory every so often, staying on their feet most of the time and coming back around to find center, only to swing out again later. One cannot be entirely thrown out of the dance, but some tunes work better than others. The best dance is when the music pleases both partners (human and Nature) and they dance all day and through the night, remaining strong and energetic into the next dawn.
We’ve been pretty out of step lately and the music is sounding cacophonous. Calling it unharmonious would be understating things. Certainly it has become intensely interesting – like the Chinese curse. Can we regain the rhythm to keep the wheel turning?

Great love, great remembering, great forgiveness, great peace
Meg Keoppen

“When your spirit is battered and your energy is depleted, and you feel like you can’t go on, you can go on. In fact you can surpass all you’ve ever done before and reach a new level of accomplishment. It is amazing what you can do when you know you must. It is incredible what you can accomplish when it means everything to you. But how could you ever be that passionate and so totally committed that you would endure any difficulty in order to reach ever higher? That’s a good question, and one that would be very much worth your time, your thought, your effort to answer. Somewhere in you is something you sincerely care about enough that you would transcend any obstacle in order to give it life. Somewhere in you is a burning passion ready to be ignited. You’ll find clues in the things that make you happy, sad, angry, frustrated, joyful, serene, in the things that make you feel most alive. Pay heed to those stirrings, and listen to what they have to say. The power of passion is somewhere in your life. Let yourself know it and live it.”
Ralph Marston

Just the Same by John Zarski of Aviatik

This precaution ties us down
From our ambition to be weightless
Here we’re tethered to the ground
While our hearts lead us to fly
And the unity we seek
As we attempt to integrate this
No one sees the implications
We must coalesce or die

And the loss, look at what it cost
Couldn’t this fly before the wires got crossed?

Breaking down is just the same
As blank submission
Compromise is just the same as giving up
When we’ve finally lost ourselves
It breaks me, so shake me
Compromise is just the same as giving up

In defense of things untried
Innovation can seem daunting
Held by walls of fear and pride
While the wicked love to lie
In the failures of the past
There’s a hint of something haunting
No one sees the implications
We must coalesce or die

Left inside and we never could tell
This was true
When it breaks you
There’s nobody left here but you
You’ll never see what’s in me
’til we break ourselves apart
You’ll never see what’s in me, what’s in me

So you took me from the ashes
And your eyes could see right through me
It breaks me, it shakes, me
It breaks me, I’ve done my time here
So you took me from the ashes, it’s another lie
It breaks me, it shakes, me it breaks me,
I’ve done my time with you

We’re not forgiving, not forgetting
I’ve never been the way that I feel right now

Stand strong and fix bayonets boys
We used to raise our torches to ignite this light
Illuminate this emblem for tonight we fight
When your last ambition dies
Close your windows, shut your eyes
Your light shines shorter than a shooting star

Rise up, lift your voices
We’re not giving up

Copyright 2008 Meg Keoppen

Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It’s good to be silly at the right moment. –Horace
Kanamara Matsui-Tokyo (look it up) // Charlemagne b. 747 / Buddy Ebsen b. 1908
Jane Goodall b. 1934
Maya Angelou b.1928 // Martin Luther King murdered in Memphis, 1968
New Moon in Aries @ 8:55p.m.
Get your kilt on! It’s Scottish Tartan Day.
Bless seeds // Billie Holiday b.1915
Paul Robeson b.1898 – singer, freedom fighter
Samuel Hahnemann b.1755, originator of homeopathy
Emiliano Zapata assassinated, 1919
International Labor Organization formed, 1919 // Elephant Man dies, 1890
Thomas Jefferson b. 1743
War Tax resistance day
Green Tara, consciousness of compassion
Benjamin Tucker b.1854, publisher of the journal Liberty
Cuban people defeat CIA sponsored invasion at Bay of Pigs 1961
Full/ Seed moon in Scorpio @ 3:25 a.m.
John Muir b.1838, naturalist & conservationist
Earth Day – day to honor Mother Earth
Roy Orbison b. 1936 // Will Shakespeare b.1564, d. 1616
Mumia Abu-Jamal b.1954- journalist, prisoner // Tojan Horse 1184 BCE
TV Turnoff Week, 21-27. Turn off the TV and gain clarity of mind.
Chernobyl nuclear power plant melts down, Kiev, 1986// J.J. Audubon b.1785
Ralph Waldo Emerson d. 1882
Floralia// Jean Redpath b. 1937 // Terry Pratchett b.1948
Arbor Day // Pirate Festival, Lake Charles LA
Beltane Eve // Willie Nelson b.1933 – beloved & notorious

Planets visible in the morning sky: Mercury till the 8th, Venus, & Jupiter
Planets visible in the evening sky: Mars, Saturn, & Mercury from the 24th

April planting days:
Above ground crops- 7,8,11,12,18,19
Root crops & perennials- 3,4,20,21,22,25,26,27,30

For in a hard-working (money focused) society, it is rare and even subversive to celebrate too much,
to revel and keep on reveling: to stop whatever you’re doing and rave,
pray, throw things, go into trances, jump over bonfires, drape yourself in flowers,
stay up all night, and scoop the froth from the sea.
-Anneli Rufus

Thanks to some well-timed winter rain, it has been a fine and flowery spring. The fair weather and color could last another month if April doesn’t have too many mood swings. As anyone who has lived here through a spring season knows, there can been sudden change-ups in temperature and precipitation in April. This is the month that initiates the growing season in the Northern Hemisphere and the sun is right on time, making the days longer than the nights and jump starting everything living. Though sometimes I can hear the rocks humming, too. Nature is transforming in a very immediate sense. It’s good to be alive in this place learning about transmutation while creating some of my own.

Rob Brezny says, “people have been transforming all around. Be alert for the possibility that they are not who they used to be. Your ability to shape reality creatively in the coming weeks depends on you being able to recognize that some of the old truths about them have been replaced with new ones.”

immediately think that this is all to the good, but then realize that this truth could go in any direction at all. They may be choosing to live their darker dreams or, perhaps, they are struggling to break out of a cocoon and become brighter. And I wonder, if a person changes, will those that have known them a long time allow those changes to be real in their experience of them? Or will they insist on ‘keeping’ the program they have memorized about that person? It may be that those who stagnate in their own lives refuse to allow for the changes in other people.

T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party:
“We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting stranger.”

In my ramblings in the hills, I’m finding increasing footprints from strangers. This part of the valley had enjoyed a two-year hiatus from large numbers of nightwalkers. Are they catching on to what happens to those who board the slave ships and avoiding the roads again? Maybe it’s a phenomenon of the full moon week.
We are living the Chinese curse of ‘interesting times’. The whole world is beginning to rock from economic instability and we are seeing prices rise on everything from gas and utilities to food. Will we continue to blame the victims and look to the perpetrators of the collapse for answers ( a bit like the Fox guarding the henhouse), or will we wake up to the fact that people of wisdom must be put in positions of authority? Time for a major tax revolt and demand that our money be spent on the homeland infrastructure. Take back your country. Sleeping ones awake! Vote with your money by choosing carefully how you invest it and spend it if you want to change the world.

Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of most people.” -Thor Heyerdahl
Long Life, Honey in the Heart, No Evil, 13 Thank yous.

Next came fresh April full of lustyhed,
And wanton as a Kid whose horne new buds:
Upon a Bull he rode, the same which led
Europa floting through th’Argolick fluds:
His hornes were gilden all with golden studs
And garnished with garlonds goodly dight
Of all the fairest flowres and freshest buds
Which th’earth brings forth, and wet he seem’d in sight
With waues, through which he waded for his loues delight.
-Edmund Spenser (c. 1552 – 1599), English poet;
Faerie Queen, The Cantos of Mutabilitie

Copyright 2008 Meg Keoppen

Gender equality month: time to honor both genders

Matronalia: day of Juno, goddess of womanhood
Whuppity Scoorie Day
William Godwin b. 1756. First modern anarchist writer.
Last witchcraft “trial” in England, 1712
Day to honor Isis as Lady of the moon/ Taoist Lao-Tzu b.570 BCE
Forgive an error
New Moon in Pisces @ 9:14 a.m.// Billie Holliday b.1915
International Women’s Day
Slavery outlawed worldwide, 1927 /Kuan Yin, goddess of compassion
10 Explain nothing
11 Johnny Appleseed day, 1845/ Doug Adams b.1952 /Watergate 7 indicted, 1974
12 Jack Kerouac b.1922
Algerita & Elm trees bloom this week
Ed Abbey d. 1989
Lightnin’ Hopkins b.1912
Mylai massacre, 1968
Festival of the Green Man
18 Edgar Casey b.1877
19 Spring Equinox: spring begins, point of equal daylight & darkness, suns rises and
sets in due east and west
Full/Seed Moon in Libra @ 11:40 a.m. //Feast of Ostara, celebrating annual rebirth
22 1965 March from Selma to Montgomery, AL
23 Easter Sunday
Aretha Franklin b.1942
Joseph Campbell b.1904

Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 1979
29 The last US soldiers left Viet Nam, 1973

Caesar Chavez b.1927

I pledge allegiance to the Earth, One planet, many gods, & to the universe in which she spins, with sustenance and respect for all.

Planets visible in the morning sky: Mercury, Venus (brightest), Jupiter
Planets visible in the evening sky: Mars, Saturn

March days:
Plant above ground crops- 7, 10,11,15,16
Plant root crops & perennials- 1,2,3,6,22,23,24,25,29,30
Cultivate soil- 4,8,9,12,13,17,18,26,27,28

Old New Year
Historically, March 1 was considered to be the beginning of the year. The names of some months reflect this. (September = Seventh, October = Eighth, November = Ninth, December = Tenth). If the days of the year were counted from March 1, till the next March 1, each date of the year would have the same number every year, unlike counting from January 1.

“How might we begin to reweave our web – to reorient ourselves?
I believe we need to reinvest the knowing of our hearts, hands and intuition.
To connect with the quiet and profound intelligence that surrounds us.”
- Nina Simons

Unpredictable March is the first full month of spring. The wind may blow, the days can get very warm, and the frosts will come often at night; but the daylight hours are longer and plants emerge from hibernation in earnest.
This is the time to get serious about gardening if you plan to do some this year. Put soil amendments like manure out on the garden and around fruit trees and shrubs, turn over the garden soil and rake it in preparation for planting, lay out the drip line and soaker hose, gather your plants, seeds and mulching materials.
Succession plantings of peas, radish, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, Swiss chard, spinach, dill, parsley and all the cool weather crops can be planted. It’s too early for frost tender beans or basil. Start chiles, eggplant, tomatoes, basil, thyme and such indoors for transplanting out in early May. Our last frost date is approximately May 5. Corn can be planted in April if you wish because it will survive a light frost when young.
It’s true that gardening can be tough work and sometimes goes un-rewarded by bumper crops for the table, but do not overlook the benefits from cooperating with the natural world. Folks that spend a lot of time in Nature are more perceptive on every level and usually enjoy superior health, have many friends and constant material for conversation.

Out in the wild parts of our desert you’ll find Algerita, gold poppies, lupines and many other wildflowers blooming this month. If you have a sharp eye you may also notice shy Pasque Flower (anemone tuberosa). Algerita (mahonia trifoliata, and cousins) or barberry is a shrubby tree of the middle and upper elevations of the southwest desert. It blooms in many yellow flowers this month, maturing into small round edible berries. The roots are a deep yellow color indicating berberine and other related alkaloids. Pieces of root and stem bark can be gathered from summer to winter for use either dry or tinctured in alcohol as an alterative medicine. Its three main functions are as a bitter tonic, a stimulant to liver function, and as an antimicrobial for the skin and intestinal tract. It’s a great substitute for goldenseal and works well combined with echinacea. (Please consult Michael Moore’s or Charles Kane’s Medicinal Plants books.)
May St. Fiacre, Irish patron saint of gardeners be with you as you tend your garden. A 7th century monk, St. Fiacre was renowned for his gifts of herbal healing (particularly hemorrhoids, renal troubles, and venereal diseases) and gardening. The vegetables he grew around his monastery were said to be superb. In images created of him, he always holds a spade. He is the saint who’s aid may be implored in clearing weeds and brush and stones from the garden, and if he does not help with the heavy lifting and digging, he can at least grant patience and persistence in labor that is never done. He is a saint for lowly things and for increase and his blessings are welcomed by those who love springtime, planting, summer, and harvest, the smell of turned earth, and the joy of a flowering land.

Disappearing dirt rivals global warming as an environmental threat. The planet is getting skinned. While many worry about the potential consequences of atmospheric warming, a few experts are trying to call attention to another global crisis quietly taking place under our feet. Call it the thin brown line; Dirt. On average, the planet is covered with little more than 3 feet of topsoil — the shallow skin of nutrient-rich matter that sustains most of our food and appears to play a critical role in supporting life on Earth. “We’re losing more and more of it every day,” said David Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington. “The estimate is that we are now losing about 1 percent of our topsoil every year to erosion, most of this caused by agriculture. “It’s just crazy,” fumed John Aeschliman, a fifth-generation farmer who grows wheat and other grains on the Palouse near the tiny town of Almota, just west of Pullman. “We’re tearing up the soil and watching tons of it wash away every year,” Aeschliman said. He’s one of a growing number of farmers trying to persuade others to adopt “no-till” methods, which involve not tilling the land between plantings, leaving crop stubble to reduce erosion and planting new seeds between the stubble rows. Montgomery has written a popular book, “Dirt,” to call public attention to what he believes is a neglected environmental catastrophe. A geomorphologist who studies how landscapes form, Montgomery describes modern agricultural practices as “soil mining” to emphasize that we are rapidly outstripping the Earth’s natural rate of restoring topsoil. “Globally, it’s clear we are eroding soils at a rate much faster than they can form,” said John Reganold, a soils scientist at Washington State University. “It’s hard to get people to pay much attention to this because, frankly, most of us take soil for granted. The National Academy of Sciences has determined that cropland in the U.S. is being eroded at least 10 times faster than the time it takes for lost soil to be replaced. The United Nations has warned of worldwide soil degradation, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where soil loss has contributed to the rapidly increasing number of malnourished people. Many vegetables for the European market are grown there. Why is sustainable farming such a hard sell, given what we know?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/348200_dirt22.html

Long life, honey in the heart, no evil, 13 thank-yous.

“SERVICE is the act of doing what you love for the sake of loving it. This is
the highest work you can do in the world. Service is the divine multiplier.
When you perform an act of genuine service, giving of your time, energy, and
resources as an act of love, the universe will multiply what you do and
reward you with greater results than expected. Love sparks the fires of
passion. Passion leads to spontaneity and creativity. Spontaneous creativity
is a supreme act of trust. When you trust yourself and the universe enough
to give yourself over to the passion of what you love, you are serving
humanity and the Divine.”

Late Fragment
And did you get what
You wanted from this life?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
Beloved by the Earth
–Raymond Carver

Leiah Bowden
yes@lightspeak.com www.energyportraits.com

No matter what has gone wrong, our eyes can rejoice in the new day’s rising sun, our hearts in the burbling of our babies, in the victories of the heart and spirit in every way they come to us. Everything is needed in the healing of the self and of the world: singing, weeping, caring for our friends and even strangers, writing to our Congresspeople, meditating and praying, the making of powerful art, making casseroles, bringing medicine and support to our wounded brothers and sisters.

Rejoice. Sing. Pray. Hold each other closely and send messages of hope in every way possible. Claim the sweetness that will not melt. Name it. Send it into every space around you and listen for its homecoming.
——————————————————————————-

“All this was inspired by the principle – which is quite true in itself – that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes. …”
Hitler, Mein Kampf

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
-Joseph Geobbels

Bush, Other Officials Issued Hundreds of False Statements Before Iraq Invasion

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012308K.shtml

Douglass K. Daniel reports for The Associated Press, “A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.”

Study: Bush, aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war (January 23, 2008)

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/

Copyright 2008 Meg Keoppen

01 New Beginnings
02 Imbolc/ Candlemas: transformation from death to life.
Festival of Brigid: blessing of fields and seeds
03 Income tax imposed 1913
04 Rosa Parks b. 1913
05 Feast of Isis, the healer / Shrove Tuesday
06 Bob Marley’s birthday// Wm Burroughs b.1914//
New Moon in Aquarius @ 7:44 p.m.Lunar Eclipse
07 Chinese New Year, year of the Rat
08 Celebration of the Triple Goddess: Virgin-Mother-Crone
09 Pluto discovered, 1930
10 Celebration of the tripple goddess: Virgin-Mother-Crone
11 Lourdes apparition
12 Abe Lincoln b.1809 “You have to do your own growing
no matter how tall your father was.”
13 First draft card burning, 1947
Lupercalia, St. Valentine’s Day: celebrating love
Selma march to Montgomery, 1965
Prohibition repealed, 1933 (time to legalize all drugs)
Audre Lord b. 1934 // Toni Morrisson b. 1931
FDR sends Japanese US citizens to concentration camps, 1942
Full Moon in Virgo @ 7:30 p.m., total Lunar Eclipse
Anais Nin b.1903
Frederic Chopin b.1810

Feast of Aphrodite & Eros – honor love and passion
26 Johnny Cash b. 1932
29 Leap day// Dee Brown b. 1908, author

Planets visible in the morning sky: Mercury from the 13th, Venus, Jupiter, & Saturn through the 24th
Planets visible in the evening sky: Mars, and Saturn from the 24th

February planting days
Above ground crops: 8,9,12,13,16,17
Root crops/perennials: 3,4,23,24,25,26,27

“You can’t hoard fun. It has no shelf life.” – Hunter Thompson

February is here and the earth is waking up. You might call the first of this month the quickening; when new life stirs. You can detect it in the lengthening days and in the bits of green peeking up in moist places. The Latin root word for February means purification. Ancient world traditions call for bonfires to burn away the old and to welcome the Sun in triumph over darkness.
Plants long in dormancy begin to show signs of life. Newly planted seeds sprout and grow more quickly now. This is the time that gardeners in southern Arizona begin the spring gardening season in earnest. Though you may have some crops growing under row cover already, growth will pick up speed now. Plants that grow quickly tend to have a sweeter flavor and be tenderer. It’s time to sow lettuce, carrots, beets, turnips, radish, mustard, Chinese greens, peas, Swiss chard, cilantro, onions, and parsley in the garden. Set broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower plants outdoors. Nights will get quite cold still. Be prepared to cover plants with floating row cover or old sheets as protection. Plants suffer from strong wind, too, so put up barriers to deflect it. Straw bales are effective, as are hedgerows of taller plants.
Start peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, and calendulas indoors now. Potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes and onion sets get planted early in March. Depending upon your elevation, the last frost date is around May 5 in Arivaca.
We’ve known for half a century that gardening organically is the responsible way to go for the sake of the consumers and for the soil. Now there is more supporting evidence for such a statement come from Britain.
A study carried out by Professor Carlo Leifert, at the Tesco Centre for Organic Agriculture at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, has found that food grown organically – particularly fruits, vegetables and milk – are more nutritious than those produced by conventional methods.
According to the four-year study, the organic foods contained up to more than 40 percent more antioxidants than non-organic. The study also found high levels of minerals such as iron and zinc in organic produce.
With milk, the advantage increases. Organic milk provides up to 60 percent more antioxidants, as well as more of the healthy omega-3 fatty acids. In addition, researchers found less of the bad fats.
The differences in soil will likely be the main factor. Enriching soil with organic matter provides not just the basic nutrients but micronutrients as well. Organic matter supports microorganisms that are involved in nutrient uptake. And perhaps something in pesticides and herbicides themselves affects a plant’s ability to absorb nutrients.

“A psychotic is someone who just found out what’s going on.” -William Burroughs

You cannot get the real news from the major media, however you can find it via the Internet. The bad news is that the world House of Cards is falling fast. The good news is that thousands of people are aware and working to solve or mitigate the crisis.
The Guardian ran a story on January 5, 2008 called ‘50 People who could save the planet’. The nominees are varied and interesting. You will recognize Cormac MacCarthy as author of a number of excellent novels about the southwest border country.
“The Road, by the 74-year-old American writer Cormac McCarthy, imagines a father and his son trudging south through a landscape where nature and civilization are in their death throes. It’s oppressive, horrifying and poetic, and is widely seen as both a parable and the logical extension of the earth’s physical degeneration. His predictions may be scientifically fanciful, but the book, published last year, may have far more influence in the next 30 years than any number of statistics and front line reports. It was nominated by George Monbiot, who says, “It could be the most important environmental book ever. It is a thought experiment that imagines a world without a biosphere, and shows that everything we value depends on the ecosystem.” To see the list of the other 49 names go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/05/activists.ethicalliving
A couple of years ago I shared the fluoride story with readers. Now there’s more proof.
An industrial by-product consumed by millions of Americans, fluoride lowers IQ and causes cancer. A major new Scientific American report concluded that “Scientific attitudes toward fluoridation may be starting to shift” as new evidence emerges of the poison’s link to disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland, as well as lowering IQ. “Today almost 60 percent of the U.S. population drinks fluoridated water, including residents of 46 of the nation’s 50 largest cities,” reports Scientific American’s Dan Fagin.
97% of western Europe has rejected fluoridated water due to the known health risks, In Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg fluoridation of water was rejected because it was classified as compulsive medication against the subject’s will and therefore violated fundamental human rights.
Good water is one of our treasures. Guard it well. Show gratitude for having it.
Long life, honey in the heart, no evil, 13 thank yous.

“If you suffer your people to be ill-educated and their manners corrupted from infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded, sire, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?”
-Thomas More, Utopia

From ‘Redemption Song’
Bob Marley

Won’t you help to sing these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had redemption songs,
Redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Yes, some say it’s just a part of it
We’ve got to fulfil the book …
———————————————

Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Or woods or steepy mountain yields.
-Christopher Marlowe; ‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’

Brigid went out in the early dawn,
And saw a horse with a shattered leg.
Bone to bone she knit, flesh to flesh,
Vein to vein she sewed, sinew back to sinew.
Brigid, by her woman’s power, healed.
And by my woman’s power, I can heal myself.
-Traditional Irish Song

Professionals Urge End to Water Fluoridation

http://science-community.sciam.com/thread.jspa?threadID=300005929

New York – December 4, 2007 — In a statement released August 9, 2007, over 600 (now 1,200) professionals urge Congress to stop water fluoridation until congressional hearings are conducted. They cite new scientific evidence that fluoridation, long promoted to fight tooth decay, is ineffective and has serious health risks. (http://www.fluorideaction.org/statement.august.2007.html) Signers include a Nobel Prize winner, three members of the prestigious 2006 National Research Council (NRC) panel that reported on fluoride’s toxicology, two officers in the Union representing professionals at EPA headquarters, the President of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment, and hundreds of medical, dental, academic, scientific and environmental professionals, worldwide. Signer Dr. Arvid Carlsson, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Medicine, says, “Fluoridation is against all principles of modern pharmacology. It’s really obsolete.” An Online Action Petition to Congress in support of the Professionals’ Statement is available on FAN’s web site, http://www.fluorideaction.org

Copyright 2008 Meg Keoppen

01 Joyous New Year // Inanna- Queen of Heaven & Earth
02 Open a New door
03 J R R Tolkien b. 1892
04 Quadrantids meteors
05 Avian Day, to honor all creatures of the air
06 12th Night // Alan Watts b. 1915
07 War Tax Resistance, first national congress, 1972
08 Elvis, the King, b. 1935// New Moon in Capricorn 3:37 a.m.
09 Richard Nixon b. 1913 (looking good in comparison)
10 Festival of Dreams – Iroquois
11 Feast of Hecate
12 Play
13 Depths of Winter
14 Murray Bookchin b.1921 // The Simpson’s debut, 1990
15 Martin Luther King b. 1929
16 Bush I launches first Gulf War on Iraq, 1991
17 Ben Franklin b. 1706
18 Traditional “Wassailing the apple trees” ritual
20 ACLU founded, 1920
21 Leadbelly b. 1885 // Martin Luther King day
22 Full Moon/Cold moon in Leo @ 5:35 a.m.
23 John Hancock b.1737
24 Warren Zevon b. 1947 // Granny D b. 1910
25 John Dillenger captured in Tucson, 1934
27 Feed the birds
28 Thomas Paine b. 1737, held that the Diety is consistent with nature & reason
29 Ed Abbey b.1927- environmentalist, writer // Concordia-peace festival, birthday of Pax
30 “Listening to the land” is not a metaphor”- Jeanette Armstrong
31 Eve of Imbolc/ Brigid’s Day // Fr. Thomas Merton b. 1915

Planets visible in the morning sky: Venus, Jupiter from the 15th,
Planets visible in the evening sky: Mars, Mercury from the 16th,

January days:
Plant above ground crops- 11,12,13,16,17,20,21
Plant root crops & perennials- 2,3,7, 27,28,29,30

“The lesson that life constantly enforces is ‘Look underfoot.’ You are
always nearer to the true sources of your power than you think. The lure
of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is
where you are. Don’t despise your own place and hour. Every place is the
center of the world.” –Naturalist John Burroughs

We drove on the Interstate highway from Tucson to where it ended in the little town of Green Valley and then took the two-lane Nogales Highway past a bustling Halfway Station and turned west between the Cow Palace and corner gas station. Our journey took us down the newly paved road across 23 miles of wide-open spaces to Arivaca. It was January 1975; clear, sunny and cold.
Gas cost $.55 per gallon and the truck burned one gallon every 12 miles- about the same as the popular Ford Torino. The Eagles sang out from the radio, interrupted now and then by the John Fogerty, the Marshall Tucker band, John Lennon or Olivia Newton John. Newscasts informed us of the popularity of Godfather II, the latest ‘streaker’, the unfolding Patty Hearst drama, Ford pardoning Nixon, Solzenitsyn’s exile from the Soviet Union, war in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, amnesty being granted to Vietnam War draft evaders, and gas shortages as the giant oil companies net profits rose 93%. The world population was 3.8 billion and the minimum wage was $2.10 ($6.12 equivalent).
There was a mile of dirt road curving downhill into Arivaca that we had to slow down for. Main Street was one sparse block with McElrath’s house set back from the road, the town’s only church building, Saint Ferdinand’s, the Posnecki house, and the Mercantile in a row on the north side. The mercantile building contained the store and corner post office with gas pumps in front. Helen Poznecki was postmaster and her husband, Bill, ran the store. Down the block was Helen Gregore’s large block house and Schwanderlick’s house at the turn to Sasabe. On the south side of the street were Schaffner’s place, Tony and Marge Prevor’s impressive compound, La Gitana Cantina with bar in front and a large dance floor- Bill and Ruth Larson proprietors, old adobes, Harvey Riggs’ house, and Townsend’s at the west end of town. There was a scattering of homes belonging to rather independent entrepreneurial types in the townsite to the north, a few with Hippies not welcome signs in the yard.
We passed one car on the drive in from the Cow Palace.
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell. -Edward Abbey
Peace, quiet and open spaces under the wide blue sky are the most precious things. I’ll leave the hustle-bustle to urban areas and choose the natural world for my home.
Lately the place has the feel of an invasion in full swing. Where did we get the idea that all these agencies with their noisy presence are needed by anyone for any reason? When did we loose our respect for the land and her creatures? What does it mean to “feel safe”?
I felt quite safe and perfectly happy out here in the Heart of the World from the beginning. The sound of an engine was rare and caught my attention. Visitors were infrequent. Aircraft seldom seen. Bobcat and larger cats, coati, ringtail cats, fox, badger, deer, antelope, javelina, skunk, coyote, raccoon, and many kinds of birds were common sights. Strangers out in the hills were usually rockhounds or hunters. Smugglers of various goods were invisible and benign transients. Mexican Nationals were hired routinely as day labor.
The Machine kicked into gear in the mid-eighties during the reign of Reagan. Economic wars were raging in Central and South America under the guise of ideology. (Aren’t all wars economic?) Mexico’s economy was faltering. ‘New’ drugs were introduced to the world and made illegal for sale or use. The Border Patrol and U.S. Customs began to grow in size and aggressiveness. Fortune’s were growing in the drug trade. Clinton’s NAFTA in 1994 was the clincher. All hell broke loose and now we have the new slave trade included in the Border Wars. Make no mistake. It’s all about the money and you cannot tell the good guys from the bad guys. Who, exactly, is pushing this agenda? Who are the players?
In the words of Paul McCartney, “Money can’t buy me love…” It can’t buy me peace, quiet, open spaces, or safety either.
As war and government prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases. -Edward Abbey
The long nights of winter are the perfect time for reflection upon our life and our place in the world.
Big love, big remembering, big forgiveness, big peace.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Common Sense, 1776, ‘Introduction’ by Thomas Paine

Recorded history is largely an account of the crimes and disasters committed by banal little men at the levers of imperial machines.
Edward Abbey

Orthodoxy is a relaxation of the mind accompanied by a stiffening of the heart.
Edward Abbey

I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving.
Edward Abbey

If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.
Edward Abbey

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze
than it should be stifled by dryrot.
I would rather be a superb meteor,
every atom of me in magnificent glow,
than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.
Jack London, American novelist, born on January 12, 1876

“Nature exults in abounding radicality, extremism, anarchy. If we were to
judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn’t believe the
world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one stock in trade. The
whole creation is one lunatic fringe . . . No claims of any and all
revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe.” –Annie Dillard,
*Pilgrim at Tinker Creek*

We have a duty to look after each other. If we lose control of our government, then we lose our ability to dispense justice and human kindness. Our first priority today, then, is to defeat utterly those forces of greed and corruption that have come between us and our self-governance.
Granny D (Doris Haddock), American nonagenarian activist born on January 24, 1910

Copyright 2008 Meg Keoppen

Goddess Vesta, guardian of December // Universal Human Rights month

01: The first drive-up gasoline station opened, Pittsburgh, 1913
02 1988 Benazir Bhutto became the first woman elected to govern a Muslim nation when acting President Ghulam Ishaq Khan nominated her Prime Minister of Pakistan.
03 Hopi & Zuni Shalako festival welcoming Kachinas // Charles Fourier published his utopian Universal Harmony
04 1981 USA: President Ronald Reagan authorized CIA spying on its citizens. The CIA charter originally banned domestic surveillance to prevent it from becoming a Gestapo.// Crazy Horse b. 1849, Native leader // Stew Albert b.1939, Yippie founder
05 Hanukkah // Walt Disney b.1901, E pluribus unum rodentae
06 Feast of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus) // 1917 Halifax harbor explosion
07 Noam Chomsky b.1928, social critic & intellectual //Harry Chapin b.1942 //
Tom Waits b. 1949
08 John Lennon assassinated in NYC, 1980 We will all shine on
09 New Moon in Sagittarius @ 6:40 a.m.
12 Our Lady of Guadalupe Day / Feast of the great Mystery
13 Geminid meteor showers 12/7-15 // Lucia’s Day
14 Nostradamus b.1503
15 U.S. Bill of Rights ratified, 1791 Now eroded by the Patriot Act
16 Boston Tea Party, 1773 – civil disobedience over taxation
17 Saturnalia
18 Clean Air Act, 1963 Show gratitude if you’re breathing good air
19 Ursid meteor showers 12/17 – 24
20 Yule Eve Billy Bragg b.1957, musician & activist
21 Winter Solstice // Soyaluna (Hopi) Calling back the Sun
22 In the depths of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.-Albert Camus
23 Full Moon/ Wolf Moon in Cancer @ 6:16 p.m.// Unhewn Stone: denotes the quality of potential in all things.// Day of Hathor (Egypt)
24 Festival of Isis
25 We are all divine
Compassion and love – those are the real jewels. Put the most beautiful dress on a closed face and it serves no purpose.
- The Dalai Lama, who fled his holy city of
Lhasa on Christmas day, 1950
28 Endangered Species Act, 1973 – Mourn loss of relatives
29 Massacre of Sioux at Wounded Knee by U.S. troops // Marianne Faithful b.1946
31 New Year’s Eve – Vigil for the new year, night of self evaluation and resolution

It’s better to have something to remember than nothing to regret. -Frank Zappa

Planets visible in the morning sky: Venus, Saturn, Mars through the 24th
Planets visible in the evening sky: Jupiter through the 10th, Mars from the 24th
Geminids meteors: 7 – 17th (max 14th)
Ursid meteors: 17 – 26 (max 23rd)

December days
Plant above ground crops: 10,11,12,15,16,20,21
Plant root crops & perennials: 3,4,5,6,7,24,25,30,31
Make wassail: 15 Unlock the mind: 18
Bake sweets: 19 Light Yule log: 21

The feast of Thor, which was celebrated at the winter solstice, was called giul from iol, or ol, which signifies ale, and is now corrupted into yule. The Yule festival continued into January.

Long nights and waning sun are the two most obvious indications that winter is here. We can’t tell the season by temperature because it is still unseasonably warm as of this writing. Leaves cling to trees looking as forlorn as the brown grasses, while insects are active in the day. Rain has been absent for months as told by the rustle of the breeze through summers’ dried plant bounty. Santa will have tough sledding unless our weather changes drastically before Christmas. Maybe we should let him have a vacation and take care of holiday gifting ourselves. Do we really want more unnecessary plastic objects? What with the price of hay and gas, we could go easier on the environment and save money, too. Wouldn’t you rather give something made with your own hands or by someone whose story you know than by enslaved Chinese persons? Imagine hearing, “Honey, I found something lovely for you made by impoverished people in a country I’ve never heard of. Hope you like it!” Personally, I’d rather break those chains.
Gifts from the garden are like getting summer in a jar. A suggestion for gifting someone whom “has everything“ is to offer your time. For instance, give a card that says you will spend a certain number of hours babysitting, house cleaning or will cook a dinner, or perform some other service appropriate for that person. Certainly, time is our most precious thing, Spend yours doing something that feels good.
Have you heard John Fogerty’s latest album, Revival? Our local community radio station, KXCI, caught my attention by playing Don’t you wish it were true? from that album. So I found it on YouTube to listen again and then discovered other recent Fogerty performances. I encourage you to give it a listen; perhaps sing it at the next party.
If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.
-John Lennon
Garden and yard work will be at an ebb this month. Days are too short for reasonable growth rates of plants so I recommend waiting until January to start most spring things from seed. Exceptions would be wild flowers or a barley cover crop that you forgot to sow in November, dill and onions in flats. This is a good time to repair and oil your tools, mend fences, consider what crops and ornamentals you will grow next season. Order seed potatoes and seeds for early spring vegetables. Prune fruit trees and ornamentals the last week of December. Put a 40 watt (or equivalent) light bulb in with your chicken flock to extend the daylight so they keep laying eggs in the dark of winter.
Now, while the pace slows down, spend some time in reflection upon the year just passed. What will you do differently from now on? Who is there that you need to apologize to? With whom will you spend more time?
Choose joyful things and show affection to those you love.
Long life; honey in the heart, no evil, 13 thank yous. All Blessings.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful,
is the basic building block of the Universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and it is the basic building block of the Universe.
-Frank Zappa

‘The Thirteen Days of Solstice’
- Shekhinah Mountainwater
On the first day of Solstice the Goddess sent to me,
some healing to set me free.

On the second day of Solstice the Goddess sent to me,
Gifts from my love
and some healing to set me free.

etc.

1. Some healing to set me free
2. Gifts from my love
3. A helping dream
4. A branch of evergreen
5. Joyous song!
6. Greetings from my neighbors
7. Magick for the year
8. Fine conversation
9. Nine pearls of wisdom
10. Candles for the lighting
11. Deep contemplation
12. Showers of abundance
13. A grand celebration

Yule Fires
By John MacKinnon
(the tune Greensleeves

In ancient days the folk of old
When chilled with fright by winter’s cold
Did kindle up a great Yule fire
With leaping flames in its great pyre;
So to entice the waning sun
To rise again and wider run;
It’s fiery course across the sky,
To warm them so they would not die.

So we, whose minds now sense a chill
Of anger in the evil will,
The human conflict, hate, and strife,
Which hold a menace over life;
Would kindle up a flame of love
That we within our hearts may move,
In Yuletide joy, with love embrace
And thus abide in peace and grace.

‘2012- According to occult scientist Terence McKenna (1946 – 2000), the end of the world as we know it will occur on December 22, 2012 at 11:10 PM. His Timewave Zero theory claims time to be a fractal wave of increasing novelty that ends on this day.
“[McKenna has] worked out a computer model based on an intuitive decoding of the I Ching to prove it mathematically. Before you scoff at McKenna’s claims, bear in mind that the ancient Mayan calendar, a calendar accurate to within MINUTES for THOUSANDS of years ends at precisely the same time… But McKenna is no mere doomsday prophet and once you’ve been exposed to the psychedelic mindscape of the man referred to as ‘the Timothy Leary of the Nineties’ (by Leary himself!), your worldview may never be the same ever again….” Source, Wilson’s Almanac.
Aztec calendar [McKenna’s Timewave Zero calculations differ from the Mayan calendar’s ‘last day’ only by hours.’

Copyright 2007 Meg Keoppen

Étienne de La Boétie

November Backcountry Almanac 2007
Topaz – fidelity Tree – Reed

Now we remember.
Now we reawaken,
Now we become who we really are.
For now is the time to do so.

1 All Hallow’s Day
2 El Dia de los Muertos make a soul cake
3 1957 death of Wilhelm Reich. US gov’t confiscated his writings and jailed him. He
died in federal penitentiary in PA. Why?
4 Will Rogers b. 1879 in Oklahoma// Walter Cronkite b. 1916
5 Ida M. Tarbell b.1857, investigative journalist
6 Selection Day // Feast of St. Atticus
7 Joni Mitchell b.1943 // Lewis & Clark reach the Pacific Coast in Oregon 1805
8 Taurids meteor showers (Nov 3-13)
9 New Moon in Scorpio @ 3:03 pm
10 Reason Day (International Day of Rational Thought) // Richard Burton b.1925// Ken Kesey d.2001
11 Armistice Day, Pray for healing// Feast of St. Martin of Tours, patron saint of conscientious objectors
12 Paracelsus b.1493, great Swiss alchemist// Elizabeth Cady Stanton b.1815// Neil Young b.1945
13 Karen Silkwood dies, 1974// Jack Elam b.1916// Robert Lewis Stevenson b.1850
15 1848, California Gold Rush began // Georgia O’Keeffe b.1887// 1969, 500,000 demonstrate in D.C. against the War in Vietnam
16 Night of Hecate, Greek goddess of the Underworld// Internat’l Day of Tolerance
18 Sojourner Truth b. 1797
20 Nuremberg Trials began
22 Thanksgiving
24 Full Moon in Gemini @ 6:30 am
25 Day of Oya
27 Jimi Hendrix b. 1942
28 William Blake b. 1757
29 Petra Kelly b.1947, German Green Party
30 Mark Twain b. 1835- anti-war, anti-imperialist, novelist// Abbie Hoffman b.1936
1895 The Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth (called the Equality Colony) founded near Blanchard, WA. By 1900, 500 people had planted crops and built cabins, apartment houses, barns and a sawmill at their new colony near the Skagit River.
November planting days
Above ground crops – 10,13,14,15,18,19,22,23
Root crops & perennials – 6,7,8,9,26,27
Planets visible in the morning sky: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn
Planets visible in the evening sky: Jupiter

Gratitude

Our late autumn, post-harvest sensibilities of gratitude and abundance certainly embrace the remembrance of ancestors. Those who came before and opened the way for us in this life deserve our thanks and ceremonies of respect. So too, friends who help and encourage us and “noble adversaries” who offer contrast that clarifies desires. Often times we don’t know what we really want until we experience the opposite thing. Acknowledging that what we know and think, what we have, and who we are, come from a foundation of other people’s lives and works enriches us further. Even if those foundations have since crumbled and transformed into a new thing, appreciation of ‘what was’ is expanding for the consciousness of now. Gestures of gratitude and words of thanks open the heart and lighten our spirits. They can work like an “on” switch, allowing joy and feelings of kinship with other Beings. Take a look at your life and trace back to how you came to be where you are now. Rejoice in the kaleidoscope of your meetings and experience, give thanks for who you have been and the person you now are. We are the creators of our own lives. What a marvel!
HANDS THAT HARVESTED YOUR FOOD
“Strawberries are too delicate to be picked by machine. The perfectly ripe
ones bruise even at too heavy a human touch. Every strawberry you have
ever eaten has been picked by callused human hands. Every piece of toast
with jelly represents someone’s knees, someone’s aching backs and hips,
someone with a bandanna on her wrist to wipe away the sweat.”
—Alison Luterman, quoted in *After the Ecstasy, the Laundry,* by Jack
Kornfield

Gardening will slow a bit this month if we allow ourselves time for rest and reflection on the season just completed. Insect pests disappear in cold weather while water needs of plants lessen.
This is a good month to transplant trees and perennials, sow wildflower, poppy, and delphinium seeds, and start a new compost pile. Putting a winter cover crop on unused garden space protects the soil from erosion and frosts while adding nutrients. A crop of weeds, however, is preferable to bare soil. Tend to your garlic crop by keeping it free of weeds and watered regularly. Start onions, broccoli, and cabbage from seed in flats, place them indoors or in a cold frame with plenty of light and protect them from insects and mice.
Greens of all kinds: turnips, chard, spinach, hardy lettuces, oriental greens, beets & carrots can be grown here all winter. It will be slower going with the colder weather and short days, but one can have a garden all year. Floating row cover can be helpful for protecting young plants on cold nights.
This holiday season try incorporating local wild and native foods into the menu. Mesquite flour is a tasty addition to bread products, prickly pear syrup or juice is vibrantly colorful and sweet as are the various native corns. Vary the menu with high fiber and protein packed beans in a multitude of earthy shades from maroon to yellow to brown. If you have yet to try javelina burgers, this year could be the time to do it.
Long life, honey in the heart, no evil, 13 thank yous.

Imagination is the only key to the future. Without it none exists – with it all things are possible.
-Ida M. Tarbell, American journalist

Copyright 2007 Meg Keoppen

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

+

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)

+

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

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end” – Semisonic

Apache Sunrise dance// Lilly Tomlin b.1939
Great Fire of London, 1666 // Battle of Actium, 31 BCE
Labor Day// Treaty of Paris, 1783, ending American Revolutionary War
Geronimo surrenders, 1886/ Tragedy of the Commons 1830
Crazy Horse assassinated, 1887/ Gerrard Winstanley d.1676
La Purisima// Frances Wright b. 1795
Buddy Holly b. 1936// Goat Days, Millington, TN
Naked Gardening Day// Galveston Hurricane, 1900// Star Trek premier, 1966
Wonderful Weirdos Day – you know who you are! // Leo Tolstoy b.1828
Feast day of Asclepigenia, Greek priestess of the Eleusian mysteries, 5th century
Solar Eclipse/ New Moon in Virgo@ 5:44 a.m. /Patriot Day- expose the lies //
CIA assists overthrow of Salvador Allende, 1973 Chile// O. Henry b.1862
H. L. Mencken b. 1880, critic, newspaperman
Rosh Hashana begins
Che Guevara b.1928// Margaret Sanger b.1883
Blame Someone Else Day
Mexican Independence Day (1910 Revolution)
Time’s Up Day: do it now!
Chiricahua Wilderness Area established, 1940
Festival of the Grapes
Emancipation Proclamation 1862// Yom Kippur
Autumnal Equinox/Mabon 2:52 a.m.: equal day & night// Ani Di Franco b. 1970
Don’t be fooled
Full Moon/Harvest or Blood Moon @ 12:45 p.m.
/ Johnny Appleseed b.1774, medicine man, planter of seeds, friend of animals
1954, the US Senate finally calls for censure of Joe McCarthy. Will they ever dump the Patriot Act?
American Indian Day
Lech Walesa b.1943 Polish Nobel Peace Prize winner
Banned Books Week begins- ALA- support the freedom to read anything one chooses

Local forage for September: Devil’s claw (young pods & seeds), Barrel cactus seeds, pomegranates, prickly pear fruit, mesquite beans, seeds of amaranth, certain grasses, & coyote gourds.

The Druids call this celebration, Mea’n Fo’mhair, and honor the Green Man,
the God of the Forest, by offering libations to trees. Offerings of ciders, wines,
herbs and fertilizer are appropriate at this time … Mabon is considered a time
of the Mysteries. It is a time to honor Aging Deities and the Spirit World …
Mabon by Akasha

September days:
Plant above ground crops- 12,13,14,15,16,20,21,24,25
Plant root crops & perennials-1,2,5,6,28,29
Brew- 5,6
Can-1,2,5,6,7
Cultivate-3,4,7,8,9,10
Entertain-7,8,13,14
Harvest crops to dry- 27

Planets visible in the morning sky: Venus, Mars, and Saturn from the 9th
Planets visible in the evening sky: Mercury and Jupiter

“When you lose the rhythm of the drumbeat of God, you are lost from the peace & rhythms of life.”
– Cheyenne

The time is now, don’t put it off; this is the perfect month to be out walking, hiking, horse riding in southern Arizona. Get up early for the cool air and perfect light of morning; the time when early blooming flowers begin closing up and the daytime blooming plants open. Usually there is more wildlife moving and visible also – turn up your snake radar so that all are left in peace. It cannot be predicted when we shall have such a glorious early autumn again, Seize the Day!

“The body seems to feel beauty when exposed to it as it feels the campfire or sunshine, entering not by the eyes alone, but equally through all one’s flesh like radiant heat, making a passionate ecstatic pleasure glow not explainable.” – John Muir

The numbers of wild beings are crashing if my observations may be added to the official count. I don’t hear or see so many frogs, toads, honeybees, wild bees or wasps, carpenter bees and other pollinators as I have in past times. Deer and snakes are scarce, too. Admittedly, the 10-year drought has taken a toll on all desert dwellers and the recent rain has not made up for the accumulated water deficit. This is worrisome to me.

Certainly, we should all be acutely aware by now that everything from the climate to the social order is changing rapidly and those changes are picking up speed. I believe that it is more than appropriate for people to get themselves allied with friends and companions in groups for mutual support and benefit in these next years and decades. Do this with your own knowing and sustainable design. Disregard any government template whatsoever, as this current regime and its minions does not have your best interests in mind. This applies to everything from water resources, food supply, and utilities, to public institutions and law enforcement. Don’t get the picture? Eyes wide shut? Try looking at life in these times as if a Cartel is controlling everything, including water supply, and tell me you cannot see my point.

My advice is to wean yourself from government handouts in any form and become independent producers and consumers of your basic needs. We have been in training for decades for dependency upon a central control by government/cartel for all of our needs and wants – the noose is tightening. What will you do when Central Control begins to dictate what information you have access to, where you may travel or live, if you can pump groundwater for your needs, where your food comes from and what form it will take, which medicines you may use, which drugs are illegal…oh, they already do that…

“What most humans desire is liberty, spontaneity, nakedness, mystery, wildness and wilderness…what we really need now are heroes and heroines—about a million of them. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the Soul.” Ed Abbey

In the September garden it is harvest and planting time all at once. As one crop finishes, make a place for the next one. Compost or burn old plant material so pests do not make homes in the rubbish. The first frost date in Arivaca (alt. 3600 ft.) is traditionally at Halloween, the end of October and day length will be diminishing until January. Plant frost hardy greens such as kale, chard, tatsoi, parsley, spinach, collards, mustard, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce; root crops such as beets, carrots, turnips, and garlic. Most of these crops do best if planted by the equinox. Protect your young crops from pests like grasshoppers.
Start planning tree and perennials plantings and select your plants for setting out later in the fall.
Long life, honey in the heart, no Evil, 13 thank yous

The golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bearing down.
The gentian’s bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook.
From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes’ sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather,
And autumn’s best of cheer.
But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.
‘T is a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget.
Helen Hunt Jackson; ‘September’

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 may not be able to change the world but at least you can embarrass the guilty. – Jessica Mitford

Copyright 2007 Meg Keoppen

Lughnasadh/ Lammas-Celtic feast of Sustenance & Light, mid-summer feasts of the
grain harvest in all northern hemisphere cultures
Enjoy a feast
Wendell Berry b. 1934
Druid feast of the Sun/ Robert Mitchum b.1917 / day to mourn victims of the atomic bombs, 1945, Japan
Gaia Consciousness Day-Mother Earth as a living planet
Northern Delta Aquarid meteor showers / Emiliano Zapata b.1880
Deep calls to deep
Claire of Assisi d. 1253
New Moon in Leo @ 4:02 p.m./ Green Corn Ceremony, Zuni & Iroquois
Diana’s Day / Perseid Meteor Showers
Feast of Flowers
Feast of Father Sky: Thor, Taranis, Ouranos, Haokah, An, El, Svarog
Feast of the Furies- Greek goddess Nemisis, Erinyes
Equality Day, 1920, U.S. Women win right to vote
1968 – police attach demonstrators at the Dem. Nat’l Convention in Chicago
Full Moon/Thunder moon in Pisces @ 3:35 a.m. / Total Lunar Eclipse
Day of Thoth, Egypt’s god of wisdom & magic
St. Fiacre, Irish monk d. 670, patron saint of gardeners
Apache Sunrise Dance
Summer Storms & Ripening

Planets visible in the morning sky- Mars, Mercury thru the 8th, Venus from the 22nd
Planets visible in the evening sky – Jupiter, Saturn to the 4th, Venus thru the 13th, Mercury from the 25th
Perseid meteor showers – 12,13

Best days in August:
Plant above ground crops: 16,17,18,19,20,23,24,25
Plant root crops & perennials: 1,2,5,6,9,10,28,29
Cultivate, destroy weeds & pests: 3,4,7,8,11,12
Brew: 1,9,10 Can: 1,5,6,9,10

Local forage in August: prickly pear fruit, mesquite beans, AZ Black walnut, acorns,
juniper berries, talinum or flame flower leaves, amaranth, tumbleweed, goosefoot

Let the rain kiss you. – Langston Hughes

I can barely wait to go out on my walk first thing in the morning. Chores are done quickly so I don’t miss my time ‘out in the fields’. Heat rises fast in the summer so I must get going while the air is soft and fresh and the birds are still singing their sunrise chorus. Walking early in the morning is the finest way I know to feel entirely alive and well. The dog, Annie, is waiting for me. She jumps up as I start for the barn and I have to tell her, “just a few minutes, girl, the others want to be fed”. When it is at last time to go she darts out ahead, away from our mesquite bosque home, looking back to be sure that this is the direction I intend to go in. It is full summer now and a light breeze carries the fresh breath of cool air to caress my skin and the scent of new greenery to awaken my nose. Birds are singing and chirping to each other while the buzzards lift off on the early thermals for the first cruise of the day. A full waterhole is a joy to see with numerous cloven tracks telling of visitors since the last rain. A water-fat spiny cholla cactus near the path holds a nest of sticks in its embrace so I check to see who is the current tenant. On my last pass I found 2 very blue little eggs and a third one of tan. This morning there is a curve-billed thrasher hunkered down pretending to be part of the cholla, rolling her shiny black eyes to watch me pass. Off to my right I spot a very small mule deer frozen in place among the sacaton while it judges the relative danger I pose to herself, and when she spots the dog she is gone in a blink. Blessings for this lovely verdant world flow across my lips as I walk and when I site Baboquivari to the west with his wide shoulders of mountains I hold up my hand in salute to the ‘Keeper of the Western Door’ of our valley and watershed. Gratitude wells up in me for the great gifts of abundant pure water, clean air, open space, peace and quiet (at least in this moment), rich soil, loving friends and associates, health & vitality…the litany of gifts flows on as I walk until all the surrounding mountains come into view. I feel as though I’m held tenderly in the lap of the Mother in this grassy valley with Cobre Ridge, la Mesa, Las Adascosas, Bartolo, Jalisco ridge, and Los Cerro Colorados all around. A large rattlesnake laid out across the path takes my attention and my breath as I stop short. It is a fine creature and I admire it for a few minutes before choosing a way around it. The dog understands instinctively to make a wide arch. Snake reminds me of my own inner strength and to not dwell upon conflicts and troubles too long, but to focus on where I am in this moment and on where I want to go in this life. As I swing back toward home in the bosque, I survey the mesquite bean crop on the trees in the flat, hoping to harvest some dry ones before they are blown to the ground in a thunderstorm – tricky timing at best. Our first summer storm came with swirling winds and drenching rain. I can still feel the heavy drops pelting me as I paused in opening my gate long enough to get thoroughly and joyfully wet. Those were passionate rain kisses indeed. Now, on the road to home, the dung beetles are busy in their work as part of the clean up crew, rolling up waste into balls. Imagine a world without beetles and buzzards! I can see why the Egyptians admired them as associated with the god Khepri, pushing the sun ceaselessly. Indeed, our sun appears ceaseless – and powerful- now that it is high in the east on this summer day.

Day length begins to wane now and many beans and squashes take the signal to bloom and set fruit. There is time yet for plantings of green beans, squash, some corn, cilantro, radish, lettuce, beets, carrots, various greens, etc. Plant growth will slow somewhat as the days grow shorter but the first frost is not due until Halloween. Bugs will be the biggest challenge for gardeners now. Be vigilant and deal with corn ear worms, cucumber beetles, Japanese beetles, and the great nemesis, grasshoppers.

Copyright 2007 Meg Keoppen