Category Archives: Book of Days Calendar

First of the Ember Months, or Your September Book of Days

It’s September –– equinox month and first of what I like to call the Ember Months: these closing months of the year that share mostly the same sounds as their names roll off the tongue: September, October, November, December. The seasonal shifts here in Lake Worth are subtle to be sure, but I can remember summers drifting into autumn in Maine and there is, in my experience, a distinct shift once September rolls in.

And no wonder. As the Wheel of the Year turns, we find ourselves today, on this First of September, just three short weeks away from the planet’s equinox, and once that moment passes, our Northern Hemisphere’s nighttime hours begin to overtake our daytime hours. It is our autumnal equinox. The nights will grow increasingly longer through the Midwinter solstice in December, at the tail end of those Ember Months. This is our time for gathering in. Our time for shifting attentions inward, to hearth and to home.

And so it is a new month and here is your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for September. It is a month for wine (Our Lady of the Grape Harvest, or the Nativity of Mary, on the 8th), a month for apples (Johnny Appleseed’s birthday on the 26th), and a month for angels (Michaelmas on the 29th… which then leads us to the Feast of the Guardian Angels on the 2nd of October).

In choosing a cover star for this month’s calendar, I’ve settled into the idea of apples. Our September painting, “Apple Tree with Red Fruit” by Paul Ranson, captures the apple aspect, plus the very golden hew of September. Oil on canvas, 1902, [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

AUTUMN SHOP!
You won’t believe all the great new items for autumn and the spooky season we have in our online shop and our brick & mortar shop. We’re pretty excited about what we’ve gathered for you. Plus, you may use discount code PUMPKINHEAD to save $10 on your $85 purchase, and get free domestic shipping, too. That’s a total savings of $19.50. Spend less than $85 and our flat rate shipping fee of $9.50 applies. CLICK HERE to shop; you know we appreciate your support immensely. And yes, you may use that $10 discount when you visit us in the store, too!

Our new shop is open on Saturdays from 11 AM to 4 PM, and by appointment, too (we’ll be happy to open for you). We’re located at 1110 North G Street, Suite D, Lake Worth Beach, FL 33460. From I-95, exit 10th Avenue North eastbound; make a left at the first traffic signal onto North A Street, then at the first stop sign, turn right onto 13th Avenue North. Cross the railroad tracks and turn right again onto North G Street. We’re a couple blocks down on your left side in a blue-roofed building. Plenty of street parking on G Street and there are a parking spots in our little parking lot, too. If our OPEN TODAY sign is out, we are open.

NEW! IN-HOUSE WORKSHOPS!
One of our goals for our new Lake Worth shop is to create a space that is about community and a place where you can come learn new things. Our first summer workshops series was a big hit, and there is one more workshop in the series yet to come: Instructor Kim Spivey will be teaching Exploring Monoprints on Saturday September 14.

DATES TO SAVE
Once autumn rolls in, we start planning out our busy fall and winter pop-up market calendar… plus now we’ve got our own shop for events, too. Here’s what’s currently on our calendar for September and October: BOO BAZAAR is our official Hallowe’en Preview Event at Convivio Bookworks on Saturday & Sunday, September 28 & 29, with great spooky shopping and tarot card readings and fortunes told by Madame Marie-Claire. Then, we return to OKTOBERFEST MIAMI for the second and third weekends of October (October 11, 12, & 13 and October 18, 19, & 20). That’s at the German American Social Club in Miami. The American German Club west of Lantana in suburban Lake Worth holds their OKTOBERFEST the same two weekends, and we plan to have a small tent there, as well. It’s their 50th Oktoberfest!

 

To Mark their Shining Passage, Good Angels Flew Before

In May of 1774, a woman called Ann Lee, along with a small band of eight followers, set sail from Liverpool upon an old ship called the Mariah. Barely seaworthy, the Mariah sailed west, across the Atlantic, bound for the British colony of New York. These folks called themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, and as for Ann Lee: they called her Mother Ann. Mother Ann had had a vision that beckoned her to gather her small flock and to leave behind the persecution they’d been facing in England and to begin anew on the other side of the ocean.

The captain of the ship didn’t necessarily enjoy the presence of this oddball religious sect, but paying passengers are paying passengers. Still, two and a half months’ passage is a long time, especially when all one sees is water and folks dancing and whirling in ecstatic prayer. There were some tense moments on the voyage, especially during one treacherous evening when the leaky old ship nearly went down in a storm. As the Mariah took on water, Mother Ann calmly approached the captain and told him, “Captain, be of good cheer; there shall not a hair of our heads perish; we shall all arrive safe in America. I just saw two bright angels of God standing by the mast, through whom I received this promise.”

Soon after, as the story goes, a great wave struck the ship and the force of it slammed a loose plank into place, sealing the ship and stopping the leak. After witnessing this, the captain gave his strange passengers full liberty to worship as they wished. When they finally reached New York Harbor after the long, treacherous passage, the captain declared that “but for these people we never would have reached America.”

As with any group that is a bit different, they were met with suspicion and distrust, and because of their whirling and dancing in worship, some people here in the States began calling them Shaking Quakers. That was meant to be derogatory, but the United Society of Believers, in one of the earliest acts of empowerment, took the name for themselves, and began calling themselves Shakers, too. The movement gained a foothold. The Shakers ultimately founded 21 Communities in the 18th and 19th centuries, stretching from Maine to Kentucky, with even a short-lived Community here in Florida, at Kissimmee.

That Sixth of August, 1774, when Mother Ann first stepped foot on American soil, is marked to this day by our friends at Chosen Land, the Shaker Community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, as The Glorious Sixth or as Arrival Day: the Arrival of the Shakers in America. Chosen Land is the only remaining active Shaker Community anywhere. And this year, being the 250th anniversary of Mother Ann’s arrival in America, is extremely special to them. For months now, thanks to our love for Chosen Land and the people who call that place home, I have known exactly what the Convivio Book of Days Calendar for August would look like. August begins with Lammas, and it brings the end of the Dog Days of Summer, and it brings Obon, the enchanting Japanese celebration honoring the dead, and it brings Ferragosto to Italy and the Bartlemas Wayzgoose, too… but the Shakers are the stars this month for me, and Arrival Day is what I want to talk about in this chapter of the Convivio Book of Days.

You can read about the history of the Shakers elsewhere, and you can read about their wonderful contributions to classic American design (you can even buy a set of commemorative stamps right now from the US Postal Service, celebrating 250 years of Shaker design). Me, what I love best is a good story, and for Seth and me, our Shaker story begins with the fact that Seth grew up in the town in Maine adjacent to the town where Chosen Land is. At Gray-New Gloucester High School, Seth had classes with names like “Shaker Studies,” and he spent summers working in the Shaker gardens and giving tours at the museum there at Shaker Village. And it was Seth who suggested to Brother Arnold Hadd that opening his printshop (and heart) to a quirky young guy who was interested in letterpress printing and bookbinding and history might be a good idea. Brother Arnold decided Seth was right. And so I spent the summer of 1996 at Chosen Land, researching, designing, printing, and binding, with Brother Arnold, a book about Deacon James Holmes, the very first printer there at Chosen Land. Deacon James was probably a bit quirky, too. He’d come to the Community as a young man himself in 1783. He remained there all his life. When he was in his 80s, he came into possession of some cases of metal types for printing and decided (naturally) the only thing to do was to build himself a printing press, which he did. Deacon James went on to print books and broadsides and seed packets for the Shakers’ new garden seed industry. My kind of guy.

The Shakers that summer––and there were eight of them at the time, just like the band of eight that followed Mother Ann to the New World––made Seth and me so welcome into their Community. The greatest privilege I had that first summer, and one of the greatest privileges of my life, was to be welcomed into their August 6 celebration of Arrival Day. I’ve told this story many times before, but it is so much a part of me and my Shaker experience, that I beg of you to let me tell it again. But those are the best stories, no? The ones we tell again and again. So, here we go:

That Sixth of August celebration in 1996 began no differently, I imagine, than they always did and always do: With a wonderful meal, in community with all gathered. Now, nearly 30 years later, there are but two Shakers: Brother Arnold and Sister June, Elder and Eldress by default, I suppose, but certainly there will be many friends of the Community at table with them for the meal. The meal will be at the end of the day, and then, as night begins to fall, the small band of believers will move from the Dining Room to the Chapel. Not the 1794 Meetinghouse, for Sister June can no longer make the passage across the road to that enchanted building, but to the Chapel that is in the Dwelling House and that was, originally, reserved for Shaker Meeting during the winter, when it was too cold or snowy to use the old Meeting House.

But on that August 6th night in 1996, it was to the 1794 Meeting House that our small band of believers went. The building is beautiful in its simplicity. There are no column supports to interrupt the openness of the main room, which gave the early Shakers plenty of room for their dancing. And while the Shakers today do not dance, 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 those floorboards. I look at the beams painted with blueberry milk paint, the original paint from 1794, still blue, still the hue of sky at dusk.

As at any Shaker Meeting, there are 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. The song, called “Mother,” was written in 16 verses by Elder Richard McNemer and published in 1813 in the first Shaker songbook, Millennial Praises. Aside from the readings and set songs at the beginning, there are testimonies from anyone who is moved to stand and speak, followed always by Shaker spirituals inspired by those testimonies. And through it all, at least for that August 6th evening in 1996, despite the lanterns that were illuminated at the start of Meeting, night slowly descended upon the Meetinghouse and the Community gathered, wending its way, weaving its magic.

I don’t think I will ever forget 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 Shaker sisters throughout time. I knew I was looking at Sister Frances and Sister Marie and Sister June and Sister Ruth and all the other women gathered there with them, but their visages seemed to shift in the twilight, so I could see Sister Mildred, too, and Sister Aurelia and Sister Elsie McCool and countless others whose names I’d never know. We may have entered the Meetinghouse in 1996, but it didn’t seem to remain 1996. Sacred spirit filled that sacred space.

If you’ve stayed with me all this time, through all these paragraphs, perhaps you, too, love a good story. My life has been filled with so many moments like this. I’m a very lucky guy, I know it.

And if you’ve stayed with me through all these paragraphs, you deserve a reward. And so here is your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for August. It is, as are all Convivio Book of Days Calendars, a printable PDF, and a fine companion to this blog. Aside from Arrival Day coming on the Sixth, today brings Lammas (Lughnasadh in the Celtic calendar). It is a day not much celebrated here in the States, but this is our loss, for the value of Lammas is in its gentle reminder that summer is ripening, maturing, shifting to hues of gold, as we make our way toward autumn. It is, in fact, a cross-quarter day: we find ourselves, with Lammas, in the Northern Hemisphere, at the halfway point between the Midsummer solstice and the Autumnal equinox. This, to me, anyway, is a day worth noting. It is known as First Harvest, and it is traditional to bake a loaf of bread on Lammas, and to enjoy perhaps a wee dram of whisky (which is also made from grain).

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WAYZGOOSE CELEBRATION
We’re planning a small Bartlemas Wayzgoose celebration at our new shop the weekend of Saturday August 24 & Sunday August 25. What we know so far is it begins with a book arts workshop focused on non-adhesive bindings that I’ll be teaching, called Pure Bookbinding. That’s on Saturday August 24 from 10 AM to 1 PM, and currently there are only 3 seats left. We’ll continue the celebration probably from about 3:00 on Saturday, into the evening, then again on Sunday with whatever interesting and fun ideas Seth and I can come up with. Details still to come…. watch the blog and our social media channels through August so you don’t miss it.

Everything we offer at Convivio Bookworks has a story, and now you know (in case you didn’t before) why we sell culinary herbs and herbal teas from the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community. The Community’s herb industry began in 1799. Find the Shakers’ rose water, potpourri, herbal teas, and culinary herbs at our online shop or in store, when you come see us in our new shop at 1110 North G Street in Lake Worth Beach.

Bonus Materials for you: A Facebook Live broadcast from August 5, 2020, called Book Arts 101: Simple Gifts, featuring Seth and me talking about our time with the Shakers. Plus a full library of early Book Arts 101 talks, before they moved from Facebook Live to Vimeo, is available by clicking here. (Should you need a rabbit hole to fall into.)

A YELP STORY ABOUT CONVIVIO BOOKWORKS
A few months ago, I answered some questions that the folks at Yelp Broward/Palm Beach sent, and just tonight they published a “Meet the Owners” feature about us. Click here to check it out on Instagram (or visit their page at @yelpbrowardpalmbeach).

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Our cover star for today’s chapter and for this month’s Convivio Book of Days Calendar is a Shaker gift drawing called “Tree of Life.” It was painted on paper by Sister Hannah Cohoon in 1854 at the Hancock Shaker Community in Massachusetts. Gift drawings were indeed seen by the Shakers as gifts: visions handed to them from the spiritual realm.

 

 

 

 

Star Telegram, or Your July Book of Days

Now it is July, and summer enters its mature phase, which, for us here in Lake Worth, is summed up in a small vocabulary: hot, humid, languid, stormy. This is the time, for us, of daily afternoon thunderstorms: consistency. Nothing will change here very dramatically for several long weeks to come, and it will be October, most likely, before we feel any shift in the pattern.

In Japan, the Star Festival approaches: Tanabata comes on the Seventh Day of the Seventh Month. A day for writing wishes on strips of paper that are then tied to the bamboo and given to the wind, to the elements, to the universe, in hopes that those wishes will come true. And it is a lovely old woodcut about Tanabata that is the cover star of your Convivio Book of Days calendar for July. The calendar is our monthly gift to you: a printable PDF that you may pin to your bulletin board or keep handy at your desk, and a fine companion to this blog.

It is the month of Canada’s national day (July 1) and of ours (July 4), and of France’s, too (le quatorze juillet), and a month of many saints’ days (Swithin, James, Ann, and Martha, mainly). The Dog Days of Summer will begin on July 3 as Sirius, the Dog Star, begins rising with the sun. And by month’s end, we will find ourselves at the eve of the cross-quarter day known as Lammas, and with its arrival, we will have our first true inklings of summer’s waning. Ah, but that is a story for a time yet to come, as summer’s verdancy only deepens in these early weeks of July, a richer green comprised of leaves and fronds and stalks that have weathered a few storms in their time. Already the youthful green of Midsummer is maturing.

As for Tanabata: the written wishes come down to us from an old, old story; a story descended from the sky: the story of Orihime (Vega, the Weaver Star) and Hikoboshi (Altair, the Cowherd Star). Orihime was the beautiful daughter of the Sky King, Tentei, and Orihime spent her days weaving beautiful cloth on the banks of the Amanogawa, the Milky Way. Her father loved the cloth she wove, and so Orihime worked very hard to make enough for him so that he would always a good supply of it. But she worked so hard at her weaving that she never had time for anything else. As much as Tentei loved the cloth Orihime wove, he knew she needed some balance, some time away from her work, and so he arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi, the Cow Herder, who lived on the other side of the Amanogawa.

Well, I don’t know if you believe in love at first sight but it’s been known to happen, and for Orihime and Hikoboshi, this was the case. The two were just crazy about each other, and very soon, Hikoboshi asked Tentei, with the greatest respect, if he could marry Tentei’s daughter. Tentei gave his blessing; the two lovers were married, and that was wonderful, but Orihime pretty much gave up her work at the loom, and as for Hikoboshi’s cattle, well, they were soon roaming all over Heaven. This went on for some time and it proved upsetting for Tentei, who grew angrier and angrier, until finally, he decided enough was enough. He separated the two lovers on either side of the Amanogawa and forbade them to see each other. Naturally, Orihime despaired over the loss of her husband. Moved by his daughter’s tears, Tentei relented. But he allowed the two lovers to meet only once each year, on the Seventh Day of the Seventh Month. And so it goes each year.

There are variations of the story, and even variations of the day of celebration. In some parts of Japan, Tanabata is celebrated in August. Obon, another Japanese summer celebration, is also celebrated at different times in different parts of the country.

Here on Earth, below the heavens, we celebrate Tanabata by writing wishes on strips of paper and tying them to the trees. The trees at Tanabata are decorated not just with wishes on paper, but also with origami and other decorations made of paper. Bamboo is traditional, but any tree will do. And any wish will do. If the wish is yours, write it down, place it in the branches. Perhaps your wishes will be made known to the elements, and perhaps your wishes will come true.

VISIT OUR SHOP!
Our new shop is open on Saturdays from 11 AM to 4 PM, and by appointment, too (we’ll be happy to open for you). We’re located at 1110 North G Street, Suite D, Lake Worth Beach, FL 33460. From I-95, exit 10th Avenue North eastbound; make a left at the first traffic signal onto North A Street, then at the first stop sign, turn right onto 13th Avenue North. Cross the railroad tracks and turn right again onto North G Street. We’re a couple blocks down on your left side in a blue-roofed building. Plenty of street parking on G Street and there are a few spots in our little parking lot, too. If our OPEN TODAY sign is out, we are open.

NEW! IN-HOUSE WORKSHOPS!
One of our goals for our new Lake Worth shop is to create a space that is about community and a place where you can come learn new things. To that end, our first four workshops are now on the calendar. Over the course of this summer, you may come learn about linoleum block printing, paper quilling, non-adhesive bookbinding structures, and monoprints. CLICK HERE to learn more about these workshops and to register. We begin on Saturday July 13 with Monstera Leaf Linoleum Printing on a Canvas Tote with instructor Nicole Beatty, then on Saturday July 20 it’s An Introduction to Paper Quilling & Origami with instructor Allyson Daley. I’ll be teaching Pure Bookbinding on Saturday August 24, and instructor Kim Spivey will be teaching Exploring Monoprints on Saturday September 14.

SHOP OUR SUMMER SALE… both online and in-store!
At our online catalog right now, you may use discount code BLOSSOM to save $10 on your $85 purchase, plus get free domestic shipping, too. That’s a total savings of $19.50. Spend less than $85 and our flat rate shipping fee of $9.50 applies. CLICK HERE to shop; you know we appreciate your support immensely. And yes, you may use that $10 discount when you visit us in the store, too!

 

Image: “The City Flourishing, Tanabata Festival” by Hiroshige Ando. Ukiyo-e print on paper, 1857, [Public domain] via WikiMedia Commons.