Monthly Archives: August 2015

Aug 15 2015
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Feast of the Assumption, Ferragosto

Ferragosto or, Dog Days are Over

While in Japan it is the time of Obon, in Italy it is the time of Ferragosto. Woe to American tourists who travel to Italian cities at this time of year, for chances are good they will find the majority of shops and restaurants closed. Most Italians have headed to the sea for the Ferragosto holiday, a practice that dates back to ancient Rome where this time was known as Feriae Augusti, or “Holidays of the Emperor Augustus.”

The sea is the logical destination as these sultry Dog Days of summer, the hottest part of the year, ruled by Sirius, the dog star, come to a close. There are many schools of thought as to the meaning and the timing of the Dog Days, but if we have to choose one, I’ll subscribe to the version that has them begin each year in early July and end about now, around the 15th of August. For all these Dog Days, Sirius and our sun have been rising together in the morning sky. It was thought in times past that the combined heat of the two made for our hottest days. But in the constant rearrange of the stars and planets, now Sirius begins to emerge from the sun’s bright light and heat to rise independently. The two forces separate.

In the Catholic Church, today is the Feast of the Assumption, marking the day of Mary’s ascent, body and soul, to heaven. Mary, human like us. It is also my grandmother’s birthday. Because she was born on the Assumption, her parents named her Assunta, in honor of the day. Ferragosto and the Feast of the Assumption go hand in hand.

In Lavagna, Italy, yesterday brought a festival that features a cake that stands 21 feet tall! It is the Torta dei Fieschi, a wedding anniversary celebration that dates all the way back to 1230. Tomorrow, on the 16th, it is Il Palio in Siena, the famous horse race that runs through the entire city. This Ferragosto tradition is accompanied by celebrations throughout Siena and, of course, great quantities of food and wine.

In short, if you are in Italy, Ferragosto is not a time to stay home. But this seems not unusual. Some years ago, my mom’s cousin Tina visited from Italy. We had never met her before. She arrived in Miami for a one week stay with three very heavy suitcases, and while she was with us, she changed outfits more than once a day. One of her morning robes had feathers on it. We had never seen such a thing except maybe in glamorous old Hollywood films. Feathers floated into the air in her wake as she floated down the hallway. On Sunday during her visit, we did what we always do: Mom made a big dinner while Dad puttered around the house. Tina asked in Italian, “But what do you do on Sundays here?” Mom answered in the best Italian she could muster. “We cook, we read the paper, we relax.” Tina was not impressed. “In Italy,” she said, “we go out. We go dancing.”

This is what I imagine Italy to be like during Ferragosto, at least if you are in the right place at the right time. If you are in a touristy part of Florence or Rome during Ferragosto, you’re probably in the wrong place at the wrong time. But if you are in Siena, or in Lavagna, or in Napoli (where Tina is from)… well, there’s probably a lot of celebrating and dancing to be done. Get you to the sea or get you to a festa. Summer is coming to a close and it is time to send it out with a bang. Florence + the Machine have got that down pat. The dog days are over, the dog days are done.

DogDays

 

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Aug 13 2015
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Obon

Honoring the Dead & Honoring Obon

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In Japan, it is the time of Obon. At least in some parts of Japan… for this festival honoring the dead is one of shifting dates depending on region and calendar. Some places, like Tokyo, celebrate in July (this is called Shichigatsu Bon); others in August (Hachigatsu Bon). And then there is Kyu Bon (Old Bon) and this is based on the lunar calendar. Hachigatsu Bon and Kyu Bon are typically celebrated around the 15th of August. But the celebration lasts for three days; most likely things are getting started about now for a celebration that will probably peak on Saturday.

Obon is an outdoor festival that rings with the sounds of street vendors, taiko drums, and the music of set dances. The drummers and their accompanying flutists may be set up atop a yagura, an elevated platform decorated with red and white streamers. Lanterns are strung from the yagura to illuminate the scene once night falls. Around the yagura go the dancers, their motions slow and graceful and very methodical, the dances communal, old and traditional. They are called bon odori: familiar steps, familiar sights each year.

Thanks to the presence of the Morikami Museum in Delray Beach, Obon used to be a big part of the summer cycle here in South Florida. The beach, the heat, the humidity, thunderstorms most afternoons, and Obon: these were the things we could count on as part of what is constant about this land where summer lingers long. Since it is an outdoor festival, the heat and humidity assured you that it would be a sweaty time and the afternoon thunderstorms lent an air of excitement to Obon each year: Would there be a downpour? Wise Obon goers at the Morikami kept an eye open for the nearest shelter should the weather turn.

Eventually the Morikami built a shelter to contain the yagura and dancing, and while that protected everyone from the good chance of rain, it also protected us from the expansive night sky: the stars and the clouds and the evening breeze. It was the beginning of a downward spiral of protection. Nowadays the Morikami doesn’t even let us sweat: they’ve moved the festival to October, when it is cooler, and they call it Lantern Festival. In their good intentions, they’ve made Obon safe and also devoid of meaning, for it has lost its connection to the wheel of the year. Summer here is no longer the same: our local Obon celebration has become one of the dead we honor at this time of year.

The most beautiful part of Obon is something we can almost all celebrate in some way, whether as a community or on our own. It is what the Japanese call Toro Nagashi: the lighting of lanterns that are set afloat on the water. It is believed at Obon that the spirits of the dead return to the land of the living for a brief visit. But of course they must return home again. As night falls on the third night of the festival, lanterns––hundreds, or thousands, depending on the community––are illuminated and floated out to sea. At the Morikami, which is far from the ocean, the lanterns float across Morikami Pond. You, too, can make simple lanterns for Obon. A small piece of wood, a bag on top, some sand inside nestling a little tea light: these are all that is necessary. You might write a message on the paper bag or decorate it somehow. Sumi ink is traditional, but not required. Your lantern can be set on a pond, on a lake, on the ocean’s shore. The lanterns carry the souls of the ancestors, back to their homes on the distant shore across the water. We set them on their way, wish them well, look forward to their return.

Image: Electric lanterns at the Morikami’s Obon festival, many years ago, strung in the trees from the yagura and through the ennichi street fair, above the vendors, above the dancers, above the spirits.

 

Aug 06 2015
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Arrival of the Shakers in America

Chosen Land

TreeOfLife

The Sixth of August is an important day for a small group of folks Seth and I know and love in Maine. They call each other brethren and sisters and they respond to questions in the old style yea and nay. They are the Shakers of Sabbathday Lake and there are four of them, currently: Sister Frances, Sister June, Brother Arnold, and Brother Brian.

August 6 marks the anniversary of the arrival of Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee in America. It is a day the Shakers call The Glorious Sixth. Mother Ann and a small band of followers left England and came to New York in 1774. Their official name was the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, but they were ridiculed for their whirling dances and outsiders began calling them Shaking Quakers, which was meant to be derogatory. They embraced the name and soon began referring to themselves as Shakers. The movement found fertile ground in America and Communities were founded in the 1700s and 1800s throughout New England and New York and west to Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, and there was even a short-lived southern Community in Florida, up near Kissimmee.

Don’t let the yeas and nays fool you: the Shakers are a progressive bunch. From the start, they stressed equality of the sexes and the races. They refer to God as Mother/Father and women have always held prominent leadership roles. Early Shakers were quick to jump on board with technology and even invented many early versions of tools we use even to this day. A prominent Shaker motto is “Hands to work and hearts to God,” a tenet of their belief handed to them by Mother Ann. Technology was useful in helping them make the work they had to do more beautiful, more prayer like. To that end, the things that Shakers made in their Community industries over the years have become known for their exquisite craftsmanship. And there have been many things: furniture, of course, as well as oval boxes, poplar ware, even the culinary herbs and herbal teas they package today (which we offer at the Convivio Bookworks website and which the Sabbathday Lake Shakers have been selling since 1783).

And so today it will most likely be Brother Arnold who prepares a big meal for the Community and friends who will gather. Perhaps they will eat out on the lawn or in the dining room of the Dwelling House. Come sundown, they will gather up and head across the street, to the 1794 Meetinghouse, a building so beautiful in its simplicity. There are no column supports to interrupt the openness, which gave the early Shakers plenty of room for their ecstatic dancing. The Shakers today do not dance, but still the building inspires. Whenever I am there, I look at the wide plank floor. I think of all the Shakers who whirled and danced on that floor. I look at the beams painted with blueberry milk paint, the original paint from 1794, still blue, still the hue of sky at dusk.

There will be readings and set Shaker songs. One song that is always sung on this night begins At Manchester in England, this blessed fire began / And like a flame in stubble, from house to house it ran…. There will be testimonies from anyone who is moved to speak, followed always by Shaker spirituals inspired by those testimonies. And through it all, despite the lanterns, night will slowly descend on the Meetinghouse and the Community gathered, wending its way, weaving its magic.

Seth and I were there with them only once for this occasion, in 1996, when I was a printing intern with Brother Arnold. And I remember always what happened as the room filled with darkness and lamplight. The women sat on one side of the room and the men on the other, as is the Shaker custom, and in the faces of the sisters and other women across from me, I could discern the faces of Shakers throughout time. We may have entered the Meetinghouse in 1996, but it didn’t seem to remain 1996. Sacred spirit filled that sacred space.

Seth and I will be thinking of our Shaker family tonight as the sun sets, as we do each Sixth of August and so many times through the year. We will think of them and remember this night and our privilege of sharing it with them. The Sabbathday Lake Shakers call their home Chosen Land. To be there is to understand why. Especially on the Sixth of August: it is one night where this title becomes particularly apparent.

 

Image: This is the most famous of the Shaker gift drawings received from the spirits in the Era of Manifestations: a mid-nineteenth century period of intense Shaker spiritual revival. The drawing is called “The Tree of Life” and it was seen and painted by Sister Hannah Cohoon at City of Peace (the Hancock Shaker Community in Massachusetts) on July 3, 1854.

 

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