Frond Forward

Photo show and tell

I. Fronds

Babies! Fern babies!
I'd ripped my Boston fern into four and chopped the greenery all the way back earlier this fall, you may remember. It'd all felt so brutal, I'd wondered if I'd killed the fern. 
But no! A while ago fresh new fronds appeared in each pot.

This morning, this one in front looked like a lamb, its little green face framed with ears:

Life returns, if it can.

II. Spirits on the Move

Out life goes, too...
Yesterday the 95-year old husband of a neighborhood pal died. Not a surprise, but...  We only die once, so it's always sort of a shock.
They'd been together more than 50 years. His loss is  a great sadness to her. 
She's 15 years younger than he was--'only' 80. She feels lively to me--she may sprout some fresh fronds.

I phoned her last night--(I rarely phone anyone anymore)--and she told me  about the arrangements she's in the middle of. She and her husband had already signed up to donate their bodies to the U Medical school, and they will take his body. 

This is a great deal--the U handles everything (free, of course)--including cremation--and you get to help out Team Human, even though you're dead! (Medical students get their own cadaver for a semester, I think is how it goes.)

 I should sign up for this. Godforbid I need it very soon, but you never know. Good to be on record.

Personally, this feels like a good time of year to depart. 
Lots of traditions say the "veil is thin" between life and death around now.  
In more mundane terms, yesterday was the last Farmers Market on the walk/bike Greenway path near work. Fallow time begins.

I was kind of shocked that someone told me there are "lots of evil spirits" around now. 

I don't literally believe in Life after Death, but The Dead always seem like friends to me--having dropped their attachments and illusions. I feel they are on our side, with a mix of awe and angst.

But I shouldn't be naive--no doubt there are some pissed-off energies out there. There certainly are among The Living!

Here are some Happy spirits:
The Global Market near my workplace has a Dia de Muertos offrenda (Day of the Dead altar). Walking through the other morning on the way to work, I liked that this big skeleton wearing a skirt of monarch wings is by the pop-up Voting tables--the guy holding the US flag is helping set up. 
Good citizens.

Toys at Work and at Home

I sent the above photo ^ of Panda to Marz who said, 
"No! I'll take him!"

I am excited that she and her sweetie, Q., are coming here for Thanksgiving. (They are not toys, of course, they are humans.) Q. is her first serious, long term sweetie. 
They were here for the bonfire this fall, but that was just a few hours. 
I'm looking forward to a family Thanksgiving--that's what it feels like to me.
Low-key, I'll make the standard basics.
_____

I counted the God's eyes remaining on the fence yesterday. 
There are 87.

A month ago I'd hung 125 with friends, and I have added at least 25 since then... So, people have taken 60+ God's eyes.
Nice!

Must make more, but today is Costume Day.
MT gave me some green and gold fabric for it.
 I may have enough to make a trio of Boy King Jameses--Age 8.

Tootle-oo to you all!
As Auntie Vi always signed her emails:
Enjoy life! 
________________

I have been intrigued with philosophy and religion since I was a kid, I kid you not, but I know some readers do not care for talk of church and God, so here's a 

CONTENT WARNING

This Is the [sort of] Theology Bit Ahead

 I haven't mentioned church yet, so–– re the call to Enjoy Life–– I'll add that the pastor had said that these are such hard times, there are people who say we shouldn't smile, we shouldn't savor life. 

He thinks it's okay to savor life. But I felt he was struggling a bit to affirm that. That's what I mean about the Puritan-within remaining. I like it, actually, wrestling with the sinful nature of humanity. 

Liberals don't talk about 'sin' anymore; 
we talk about our carbon footprints, our cholesterol, 
historical reparations, "we are on stolen land", 
epigenetic trauma,  
emotional regulation, healthy boundaries,
cognitive biases, implicit biases, microagressions,
animal suffering in our food production, 
being complicit in capitalistic structures, imperialism, 
. . .  “are we doing enough?”—
and all that stuff like that. 

Different ways of talking about the damage we inherit, and do, and pass on.

We print this stuff on bumper stickers to display on our cars.
"If you're not [x, y, z], you're not paying attention." 

My favorite bit of muddled  thinking is the bumper sticker that says,
 LOVE YOUR MOTHER, 

 with a photo of Earth.

 I can’t think of anything much worse for Mother than cars.

Well... nuclear war. 
There's a new movie out!

What's the carbon footprint of a Hollywood movie?
Oooh--Time magazine reports. It's big. One "tentpole" production uses "up to 3,370 metric tons of CO2 , the equivalent of powering 656 homes for a year".

We are a confused species. 
Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

No kidding.

But those people who say we shouldn't savor life in these times are not Sicilians like Auntie Vi who know life is always awful. If it's not awful for you at the moment, it is for someone, somewhere. If you wait till it's not, you will never smile. 
You will never peek your fronds out.

I walked past a feminist sex shop, Smitten Kitten, the other day. Their signage advertises that they are 
"Pleasure forward, Trauma informed."

(Language of our times, it would be obscure even twenty (ten?) years ago. And still is to plenty, no doubt.)

Borrowing from that, I say with Auntie Vi... 
in traumatic times, which are all times,
Enjoy life! Frond forward!