JJ Fanagh's blog

The act of squeezing my harvest (which was increased by another large pot-full the next day) was itself squeezed into one of the busiest weeks I've had in ages. How can a simple thing like washing and squeezing grapes become an all-day project? Ah - I should know better than even ask the question. It did become an all-day project, relaxing and tedious by turns.

In the end, other than a third-degree burn on one fingertip, I suffered little for the enormous value from my homemade grape... soup. The pectin was insufficient, even if the grapes were as stinging tart as the semi-sweet wild-picked apple I cooked into the tasty concoction, along with a dusting of cinnamon. So my grape "sauce" (which is vibrant beyond belief) will function more as a syrup than a jelly, and I'll spread it under my butter instead of on top. How's that for a creative solution?

I went out and profusely thanked the vine wrapping itself around my front porch. What a gift! And how 'bout that compost, eh?

Fruits of Work

Compost of the Grape

Sometimes a force of nature gets a Dionysian boost

Across the Atlantic, stronger winds are picking up... lashing Ireland, Scotland after working their way up the seaboard of the U.S. and Canada. The ways of hurricanes are still capricious. No one would have thought Hurricane Hannah would re-form after she left Nova Scotia to come back into a fully loaded cyclone, spiralling down upon Mayo coasts with winds exceeding 100 kilometres per hour.

In the old days it was said that the climate, the health of livestock and the productivity of the fields rested upon two things - the stature of the rulers (in their ethics, generousity and courage), and the balance and health of the people... in acknowledging their kinship and indebtedness with each other and with the spiritual forces moving through the land.

We have a wonderful opportunity and challenge before us, to remind our leadership through our own example... that we can lift our own lives with good works, good consciousness, good intentions, good relations. As we apply ourselves (without looking around to see if someone else is doing it first) we may see the effect spilling outward... outward... outward... through our children, our community and our nations.

And maybe even in our weather. So may we all have a stimulating and rewarding autumn. Equinox comes!

 Every year (save for last year, when I made the concession so I could focus a full week on a very special commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima) for almost the past two decades I've spent the first weekend of August on the shores of Lake Champlain, Vermont... as staff or volunteer area assistant at the Champlain Valley Folk Festival.  So off I go... camping and canoeing around the edges of my assignment of checking in the performers.

 As the options for display settings increase, I've borrowed a larger printer capable of wider test prints from my nephew.  I'm aware that just as when I took on the showing of thirty-two .8 x 1 metre prints in Montréal at Optica, I'm in the end going to have to hire a commercial printer.  A one metre x six or ten metre print is beyond my capacity here.  

Presenting these electronically will be easier than presenting them in a gallery setting, and I'm just getting going with the "easier" ones, the early landscapes.  Time to explore grants again.

(Camera CCD has been slightly "off" for some time, must be repaired before I do any new large work.)

Hello and I hope you find this visit rewarding.

As I move about upon Ireland either as a researcher, as a person visualising its ancient ritual landscape, or as a modern walker appreciating the embrace of hillside, valley and stream - I am struck by how alive and how "talkative" it is.  The land has a language and a quiet murmur running under it, and in some places it rises almost to a roar... which can be decidedly unwelcoming if one has arrived at the wrong time or through "the wrong door."  

There is a right way and a wrong way about all things, with some room for interpretation and the multiple layers of meaning that pop up everywhere.

Regardless of the simplicity or the complexity of a place, I no less than anyone else can become unsettled and unfocussed.  For the influence and attempted guidance, of this struggling student, by my dedicated teachers I am most grateful.  I continue to benefit from whatever small lessons of Buddhism have penetrated through my obstinate clouds.