Notes from an island
May 1, 2002 - Beltane

At twilight a few nights ago  I searched the skies for the five planets currently aligned in our heavens.  Venus, that brilliant jewel, dangled just above the trees across our west field.   Jupiter, serious and steady, hung much higher -- just to the right of the poplars.  Consulting a photograph in The Ticket, our more radical island newspaper, I soon determined that of course that small red gem was Mars, and neighboring it  (at least from my perspective) was my dear friend Saturn. Years ago my harp partner Deb Knodel and I had taught a weekend retreat in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.  In the midst of the Appalachians, a retreat attendee had set up his telescope and pointed it to the skies.  There, for the first time, perhaps, I viewed the rings of Saturn and a moon or two of Jupiter.  Awed by the hugeness of what I saw -- in both literal and psychic terms -- I'd hopped up and down, and exclaimed in excitement, and I've never gotten over the experience.

Now I searched for the final planet of the five, tiny Mercury, who was on the verge of setting. Triumph and delight: so I've found you too!  Five planets arrayed on the elliptic, at the brightest they'll be together until 2040.

I wrote in my journal:

That tilt of the elliptic.  Gazing at that band of planets I imagined where they were in relation to us here on earth.  And I felt dizzy, on the verge of falling off the earth and tipping over into the galaxy.  I could see how the stars and planets could become our friends.  The Big Dipper always above offering a drink to Polaris.  Orion pacing beyond the poplars.  The full moon rising.  We are tilted toward the sun, turning toward, turning away.  In the "away" the stars reveal themselves, the planets slip like beads on an abacas.  We too ride along the same plane.  Now, the silence of the stars.  Then the music of the frogs begins ...

Today is May Day,  an important pivot point in the Celtic year.  Last night, a young friend of ours set up a tiny May pole in his family's garden, for the fairies to dance 'round.  He dangled ribbons from it, and set out a little feast of herbs,  and arranged twiglets for a tiny bonfire.  He created mud puddles, hoping that the fairies would cross it and leave footprints (they did).  At our house, my 7-year-old daughter Amri perched a pine cone in one of my herb planters.  This morning,  as she studied the fallen pine cone (knocked over by the frollicking fairies?) she rubbed her hands in sage and oregano and thyme, and the scents followed us into the car and down the quiet roads to the farm where she goes to 'school' two mornings a week.

Stars to herbs, planets to fairies -- it seems an auspicious day to bring this web book into the world.  I hope you enjoy browsing it, and that you will visit again to see what I've added.    Please feel free to share your thoughts as this book unfolds -- it is assuredly a work-in-progress (my email is jtk@zendo.com)!  I'll share background information on  some of the pieces in future pages.
 
 

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