Sacred & Profane Mystery Solved

About a week ago I posted a photo of some creature who crawled up on my statue of Mary and died.  It was hideous and looked rather demonic.  To refresh your memory, here it is again.

I asked a friend who knows all things related to plants and animals and learned that this is a cicada, member of the insect choir of Summer.  From treetops they contribute heartily to the ambiance of Summer, making that unmistakeable churling noise that rises and falls like auditory waves in the air.   

Primarily tropical creatures, the cicada thrives in the American South, which tells you how tropical it is here.  The cicada begins as an egg burrowed in the bark of a tree that eventually emerges as a nymph.  The small cicada then goes underground to live most of its life (nine months to 17 years), sucking the sap of tree roots for nourishment and occasionally shedding its skin.  Upon reaching adulthood the nymph digs up to surface earth, climbs onto a tree trunk (or a statue of Mother Mary), sheds its skin one last time, leaving behind this horror I found attached to Mary's head.  Over the course of a few days to a few months, the cicada then mates, lays eggs, sings a little and dies.  All in all, not a bad arrangement.

The cicada has a fascinating symbolic history having attracted the imagination of humans since the first person saw a cicada emerge from the earth to sing and die.  To the ancient Greeks the cicada symbolised resurrection, rebirth and immortality because it came back to life from the ground.  The Greeks thought that this insect lived off of dew or dew and air because the cicada discretely eats without revealing its food source.  In  Taoism the cicada is the symbol of the hsien, or soul, disengaging from the body at death, but in the Christian faith the cicada has been seen as a symbol of the newly baptized and even Christ himself.  In ancient China the cicada was a symbol of immortality and purity (due to its imagined diet of dew).  Chinese jade amulets were placed in the mouth of the dead to assure immortality.  Even the Zuni Indians had a legend surrounding the cicada teaching the coyote to sing, and an ancient Indian belief states that rain will occur about a week after locusts begin to sing at night (sometimes cicadas are referred to as locusts). 

So Mary's visiting cicada was no monster after all, rather an insect that has been the subject of poetry, art, sermon and legend.  I suppose it is fitting that this little guy chose the Holy Mother's head on which to shed its skin and emerge to fly off, sing and die.  

Remembering Places

As years pass we collect and carry with us clutter, physical and emotional; some refer to this as baggage.  Lately I have become particularly sensitive to the presence of memory clutter as I ride down the road in a small town.  Now that I have been in the same small town, in the same neighborhood, for 17 years, the familiarity is almost overwhelming for a person who moved so frequently until 17 years ago.  How I longed for a place to stay.  As I told a friend the other day, every corner and bush has a story.   Some stories are worth sharing, but most are as personal as the clutter left inside a purse when switching to another.

One of my favorite songs by the Beatles is In My Life (aka There Are Places I Remember), written by John Lennon and sung by George Harrison, now deceased.  I was a big fan of the underrated Beatle and remember thinking that the Episcopal Church was surely the church for me when George Harrison  was included in Prayers of the People after his death.  In My Life was of tremendous value to me when I was very young; it has grown to be more valuable over time, but now my left brain threatens to analyze out some of the meaning.  It seems to appreciate memory clutter so long as, through comparison, the greatest meaning in one's life is in the here and now.  I used to clearly get that, but it isn't that easy.  

Now I think that the meaning of one's life is the sum of accumulated experiences, and you cannot say that you love someone more than another.  This endless effort to analyze such things will wear you out, and assuring someone that they are loved the most in my life is downright stupid.  I suppose it is because I now know that love is not a feeling; love is an action, and only the passage of time can determine whether in my life I will have loved someone more than another.  In other words, the jury is always out, and how I will act always remains to be seen....    

Still, while shopping the other day I heard In my Life and hummed along and felt like I was hearing the voice of a dear old friend.  I guess the song and the voice are just entwined in my memory clutter: 

There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never ever lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more

Fair to Mitylene

There are many Southern terms that are simply disappearing...similar to the way bones are disappearing from chicken.  One of those is fair to mitylene.

MITYLENE is a name that signifies or is derived from "purity" or "cleansing".  In the South the term is used as such:

Question:  How are you doing?

Answer:  Oh, fair to mitylene.

I may be wrong, but I have heard that fair to mitylene is a term that was used in the production of cotton.  Cotton that was very clean was graded mitylene; fair cotton would be a little less clean; fair to mitylene would be cotton less than perfect, but close to pure. 

There is a community named Mitylene on the eastern outskirts of Montgomery, Alabama, where I grew up.  Actually this community has now been incorporated into Montgomery, but if you ride down I-85 you will still see the signs announcing that you have reached Mitylene.  It is the site of land that was near a huge old cotton plantation.  Small patches of cotton continues to be grown there dotting the countryside with little white patches that somehow look something that dropped there rather than came forth out of the ground.  I have heard that the community was named for the best cotton, the pure cotton, mitylene cotton.  I do not know for sure, but it would make sense that the railroad would have named it in honor of the commerce in the area that would use the rails. 

We frequently, if insincerely, ask folks how they are doing.  "How are you" we say, and often we hope they won't tell us but will politely reply "fine, how are you?"  It's like "have a nice day" and other ice breakers.  Next time someone asks how you are, if you are fairly ok with no major complaints, rather than saying "oh, I'm fine" tell them that you are fair to mitylene.  It will spark sure interest in the state of your well-being, and revive an endangered Southern colloquialism.  

Thank You Tiger (War Eagle VI)

I graduated from Auburn University, so I am supposed to believe that Auburn's mascot is the coolest mascot ever.  But in all honesty, I think I would believe that if I had never stepped foot on the rolling plains of Dixie.  Actually Auburn has two mascots, so to speak.  We are the Tigers, but we have an Eagle that is responsible for our battle cry "War Eagle!"  From an earlier entry, legend says that Auburn's eagle, named Tiger, was first brought to Auburn by a Confederate soldier who found himself and a baby eagle to be the only survivors on a battlefield.  Returning home to Auburn with the little eagle, the soldier named him Tiger, and the bird grew and became a mighty eagle who flew over the stadium during football games.  And Auburn has had an eagle named Tiger ever since.  Tiger IV served Auburn for 20 years and retired last year.  This video celebrates her last flight over Jordan Hare stadium in 2006.

Dove's Blood Red

Dove's Blood red is the richest of reds, very dark in tone and brilliant in clarity. 

And dove's blood also has a rich history.  It has been used for everything from temple purification by the Greeks to healing of leporasy in Leviticus.  The most desired color of ruby is called "dove-blood red" and dove blood ink is used to write love letters, love spells and other communications involving peace and love.

The dove's blood red vase to the left belonged to my ex-mother-in-law, a wonderful woman now deceased,  and is one of a pair.   These are two of the most beautiful objects I have ever seen.  

Celtic Blessing

The Sacred And The Profane

Much has been written about the concept of the sacred and the profane.  I will not wade into those waters, but I will offer an image. 

The Error of Southern Hospitality

Bonita Welcome Plaque

Now anyone who reads this journal knows that I love just about all things Southern, and that includes the warmth of the people in this region of the country.  But today I have an amended observation.  There is such a thing as being cordial to the point of stupidity, and I have certainly been known to make that mistake.  I have welcomed and given of my time, money and talent only to have been stolen blind.  I have witnessed someone from another less gracious place - where boundaries appear not to exist - use, take advantage of, embarrass, offend and undermine my friends and me while we all cringed but were too courteous to say stop, you are not a nice person, get out of our faces.   

In fact, I have decided that the Civil War was unnecessary.  The North simply needed to wrangle an invitation to dinner in the South.  They could have walked away with the farm (including the silver that would not have been buried in the back yard) because Southerners would have felt too much discomfort confronting guests, even if they were thieves in disguise.  Why, Southerners would have never even known that a battle plan was in place while they swished through the room serving homemade food, arranging flowers and making everyone feel welcomed in the spirit of God's love.  Not a single shot would have been required.  No bloody battlefields.  No torn up roads and railroads...only scores of stupid and generous Southern women waving goodbye from the porch saying "Well, I nevah!" while all they held dear was packed onto wagons and moved north on dusty trails.

So we might want to re-examine this hospitality thing and resolve to confront those who rely upon our good manners to invade boundaries and pilage.   While I would not want to eliminate generosity of spirit, I will now sharpen boundaries and reconsider the wisdom of including guests who make me squirm because "Well, you see, it's the right thing to do".  Put another way, trust my instincts and bury the silver when it feels right.

Female Bullies

I think gender differences are very real. Nature/Nurture, I don't know. One area of difference in many men and many women is the way in which they bully. I have read that the way females do in another female is not to tell her they are mad but to get others to dislike her through manipulation. Hmmmm. Fascinating and perverse.

The following excerpt is from an article written by Denise Gray, Manager, Equal Opportunity, James Cook University:

"It may be true that women are less inclined to indulge in vocalised rages - public swearing and shouting - and in physical violence, though I am sure that all of us could think of exceptions. Research indicates, however, that women are inclined towards

• The cold shoulder
• Refusing to communicate with the perceived offender
• Sulking
• Passive aggressive behaviour - which respects neither the perpetrator nor the recipient.

Such behaviour is evidence of women's socialisation: often we do not know how to elicit positive attention, or to assert ourselves so that our views and rights are recognised and respected. So we use inappropriate and ineffectual means to attract attention any way we can. We have been conditioned very early that girls do not shout and scream. No one is surprised, however, if girls go quiet or even sulk.

The problem, however, is that unless people communicate, they will not resolve their differences.

What comes as a shock to many people is just how personally and educationally damaging social and professional isolation and exclusion from networks can be."

The entire article and other articles by Ms. Gray related to this topic can be found at the James Cook University web site.

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply.

From The Harp-Weaver by Edna St. Vincent Millay

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For a non-lover of poetry, I find so much timeless and image intensive in Millay's poetry.  She painted pictures with her words. 

Can you imagine the rain full of ghosts tapping and sighing upon the glass?  That is a thought worth contemplating to make into a visual image.  I will work on that because I, like everyone, have rain, ghosts and windows.