As the Energy Turns

As usual, a much-needed haircut and the full moon rejuvenate me. Undoing the Christmas tree, which has served  its  peaceful purpose for more than a month, like my haircut, gets all the accumulated stagnant itchy residual energy of 2011 moving forward toward the Year of Dragon (by sweeping away hair clippings and pine needles).  So Sunday I overcame my lethargy to get to the Art Academy for the show of landscape paintings on loan from the Forbidden City.  The exhibit opened two months ago, partly in connection with November's APEC event, but I put it off and off and off until the last moment.  I'm sorry I did that because I would go again and again and again if I could.  But it has inspired me and I'm looking forward to my new painting class with my Chinese teacher starting on the Chinese New Year.

At the Academy I followed the docent tour that really didn't tell me much I didn't already know, and which presented the Yuan-to-Qing works from a very political perspective.  These were no longer Imperial paintings, commissioned by the Emperor, but paintings of the people, by the people, and for the proletariat.  I suspect this angle was imposed by Beijing, reluctant at first to lend 150 valuable scrolls (from a collection of thousands, and not counting the ones in Taipei) to a small (but lovely) art museum in the middle of the Pacific.  But there was that APEC thing.

"Okay, we'll let you use them, but be sure to point out the political implications."  Never once did the docent make any specific reference to Taoism or Buddhism, in which all of these shui mo images are steeped, or certainly flavored.

I explored the installation, twice, then bought the exquisite catalogue to have something to copy.  (Baroness Radon, Xiong Shan Di,  in the style of Wen Zhengming.)  Then, completing the cultural afternoon, off to the piano store to find some music other than hymnals to play on my new keyboard. "Do you have any easy Bach?" 

"There is no easy Bach," the lonely man said. (Who shops for grand pianos on a Sunday afternoon after Christmas?) "Maybe you'd like lessons?" he leered. (Memories of Ludwig.)  I picked a couple of easy collections from baroque to new age--they LOOK easy--and then the guy asked me if it was a full 88-key unit.

"No.  Sweetwater told my husband I didn't need it unless I played Chopin."  Which I don't. The guy was sceptical, but ran my Visa anyway.  A blog post can be expected wherein I discuss how something that looks easy isn't.  (I discover George Winston is fond of F# Major...six sharps.  That doesn't look easy.  But he makes it sound so easy.)

Arrest me sometime;
here's my cell number.

Then a less cultural evening immersed in a contemporary Korean drama with Song Il-gook, uncharacteristically scruffy and sassy (but still utterly arresting) as a detective on the Seoul Homicide Squad.  Like a "Law and Order: Kim Chee Unit," it was such a strange contrast to his addictive sageuks.  Like any day in Asia, everyone is on their cell phone all the time and the ubiquitous devices provide creepily efficient ways to track victims and criminals and wayward squad members.  And if the cell phone GPS locators don't work, "Get me the surveillance footage!" No swords, no archery, no horses. Big Techno-Brother is alive and well in South Korea.  Still, when this series is done, I will find it difficult not to follow Mr. Song into the next drama, about kim chee and tofu restaurants, called "Fermentation Family." 

I'm awakened at 4 a.m. by the light of the full moon and go to the lanai for a little meditation time to soak that energy up. And indeed today, the first regular Monday back in the office (but wait, MLK Day is next week!) I feel strangely energized and fresh. I'm in the mood for background music, and I brew some oolong in the pretty little gaiwan I bought last May in Wudang. An affectation to be sure, sort of the six sharps of tea brewing. But it feels so elegant, the tea tastes so good after pushing away the leaves with the lid, like a graceful concubine or a cool and collected martial artist in a Chinese historical drama.

What Goes Up

...will come down, eventually.

So today, I finally attack the chore of undoing the Solstice/Christmas sacrifice (in preparation for Year of Rabbit and Lent). What in early December was a pleasant task (even if I didn't quite throw myself wholeheartedly into it) now is just another tedious housekeeping job. (The lazy part of me just wants to torch the whole thing, but that would be so arsonistic, and I do love the ornaments, some of which are nearly personal antiques.) I AM glad I didn't put ALL the accumulated holiday crap on it. But in the end, we did get our money's worth out of the tree, to say nothing of considerable light and joy. Which is the point.

So I thought I was finished, poking around in the branches to make sure I didn't leave something sentimental behind, and there it is.

The pickle!

Tucked away in a hollow of the branches, a green glass dill, looking a little like a curiously diseased limp penis, that I bought maybe 20 years ago in "Germany" at Epcot Center, locus of world culture and commerce (by Disney). It was referenced to some legend (likely of the urban variety) that my Bavarian friend insists he never heard of --who would hang a pickle on a Christmas tree? And why? (Amanita mushrooms I get, but pickles?) I predict someday a Disney Christmas animation, to rival Polar Express, The Sour Legend of the Christmas Pickle. Or The Pickle vs. the Mushroom. A walking talking holiday pickle. Sounds obscene. As out of touch as I usually am, I suspect it has already been done. If not, I am conceiving a screenplay* and copyright for the concept. I had another one of these silly dills, probably acquired at Wal-Mart, given to me by my German/Druidish mother-in-law, but I passed it on (I think) to my son in a tradition-building sort of way.

Still, the dill has become an odd little element in my personal Christmas tradition and makes me recall the whirlwind Epcot ersatz trip to Germany, England (where I drank several pints of Bass), Morocco (where I ate a nice couscous), Canada, China (where I bought some tea), France, and the Global Future (where I got kinda sick on some crazy ride--shouldn't have drunk all the Bass followed by the couscous). I see Epcot "Theme Park" continues as a perpetual Disneyfied world's fair.

But wait...undoing the tree, I'm wrong, I'm not finished...I find yet another ornament tucked away, a hippie-style love bug****, another German artifact, more or less. The Volkswagen done up in a transformed tradition. (I never had a Volkswagen, not my style really, British roadsters** are more me, although I have a friend who has a new VW and it's a nice enough car. It has a vase for a flower on the dashboard.)

The VW and the Pickle.*** The Christmas tree is a German tradition after all.

Froeliche Weihnachte

*The plot for which is pickling. Any child who ever lived remotely near Pittsburgh, home to Theresa Heinz, the Pirates, the Steelers, the Penguins (but with no team ever named the Pickles--maybe a debate team in my screenplay), got a field-trip to the Heinz 57 catsup and pickle factory. And came away with cute little larval-looking pickle pins. These petite plastic pickles were my son's, but I think, as a child, I got cute little tin ones. Next year, these go on my tree...should send to him, but he doesn't do a Christmas tree. But now I think, they might make nice earrings. For a pregnant woman.

Pickle Larvae

**Speaking of which, I saw an old right-drive Morgan, dill-pickle green, in the parking lot at Starbuck's the other day. I walked around it, looking at the wooden dash, the tiny windscreen, the way Bob Dylan circled around Johnny Cash, and said "Yeah."

***Which also recalls to me an obscene limerick a friend and I concocted concerning a nun and pickle. Since she really deserves the copyright on it, I will not quote it here except to note the rhymes involving "dilly," the nun named Millie, whose affection for God was quite silly. It also involved jerkin' gherkins.

****Which is the name for some annoying insects which splatter on your windshield and radiator at a certain time in Florida; I had to scrub their remains off after that visit to Epcot in 1990-whatever.

Tree Progress

I put an ornament on it now and then as I walk by. I should be done by Christmas Eve, and it will be fine for the 12 days of Christmas after which I will remove an ornament now and then as I walk by, hopefully undone by Chinese New Year. But tonight, something special. A dear departing co-worker passed his farewell ginger-ti lei to me (he was allergic to it) so I strung it on the tree like a garland of snow. The combined fragrance notes of white ginger and fir are quite intriguing. And real, not something concocted in a perfume laboratory. Yes, that is a gecko in a Santa hat peeking out from the branches.

Earlier, I had thrown a nut/shell/ti leaf lei into a fall/Thanksgiving arrangement that seemed aesthetically pleasing, if not completely traditional.

The custom of lei-giving in Hawaii is something really special. I wore a lei presented to the Wizard a few days ago, a beautiful complex green and purple orchid thing, here a little wilted, but when it was fresh, I dressed to the lei: green pants, a burgundy top. Everyone commented on it.

"Is it your birthday?"

"No, that was last week."

"Well, I love it when folks wear lei for no particular reason."

Which made me think of a comment I made to a blog-o-pal about the curious integration of pagan traditions like Santa (the Wild Man) and amanita mushrooms and bunny rabbits and chicks with the Christian icons of the creche and crucifix. Like language, our traditions evolve and conflate, to the point where no one really knows what anything really means. But they are all quite delicious, hinting at secrets of love and lust and spiritual longing, expressed in these tangible ways. Very natural things, flowers and fecund rabbits point to immortality, the promise (fulfilled or not) of spiritual aspiration.

Christmas Tree 2010

The tree has been sitting naked in the living room for a week. Every morning I comb through its branches with my arms to relax it, unfurl it. It's beautiful. It smells divine. I wonder if it really needs ornamentation. The cats love it. Fifi, la plus belle chatte de la maison, lurks under it, I'm sure feeling like she is outside.

We missed getting a live tree last year, and I wasn't sure we would do it this time, but we did. This year, a trip to our favorite tree vendor, who sends us a discount coupon every year, was fruitful. We were greeted in the lot by a guy who was clearly a casual hire, probably from the Salvation Army, toothless, but full of energy and more customer service-oriented than anyone in Bangalore.

"What are you looking for?"

"A six-foot Noble." (Like Song Il-Guk as Jumong, Muhyul or Yum Moon.)

"Follow me. ... here's one," he said, stripping off the plastic net, propping up the heavy tree for our consideration.

"Beautiful, we'll take it."

The Wizard went off with the coupon to pay for it, leaving me with the casual hire to bounce it free of needles (with a curious vibrator that shook all the loose shit out...I wanted to sit on it, that six-foot Noble) and package it up to take to the roof of our car. He looked at me, "Are you sure this is the one?"

This very hard-working guy then told me he just had a woman come in who made him take 18

(eighteen) trees out of the Matson** container, unwrap them, display them...and she didn't like any of them. And then she left.

"We like this one, it's just fine. I hope this makes up for that," I

said. He took it to the car, the Wizard tipped him well (fresh trees are really heavy) and now we have a truly lovely tree, still waiting for decor, but perfect.

All of which made me recall tree selections of the past:

---going to a "lot" at night near my grandmother's house, strung with lights (kinda like a used car lot) with my father, who in my memory resembles Gregory Peck in "To Kill A Mockingbird," (at right) when I was as tall as maybe his mid-thigh, stomping around in the snow. The tree had to be short enough to fit on the "platform" (wrapped in brick-printed crepe paper) for the American Flyer train and village under it (wish I still had that).

---finding a little tree on December 23, just after our Solstice wedding, also from a snowy lot, decorated with tacky glass ball ornaments from Woolworth's that I still use, (they are on their way to becoming antiques) and a paper-cut snowflake made by my aesthetics professor who said at our wedding that I looked like a snowflake; the tree sat on top of a blond '50s era B&W TV-set, a hand-me-down from the in-laws.

---cutting our own tree on a snowy Pennsylvania hillside, celebrating with champagne many things, particularly 100K miles on the Honda station wagon, a recent birthday, an upcoming anniversary, and the fact that we didn't get caught because we cut down someone else's tree, marked with a tag earlier in the season. My perpetual apologies, we never saw the tag until the tree was felled.

--driving around in the Idaho wilderness with a permit to cut anything we could find. Mulled wine and friendship and a poorly wildly shaped but very fresh tree made that holiday memorable.

--waiting for an hour or so with a few other desperate last minute folks like us, for a tree to be trucked in from Makaha: "They didn't sell well out there."

The Christmas tree is indeed a sacrificial thing. I get very upset with indiscriminate tree slaughter. I have ambivalent feelings about the Christmas tree industry. But at the same time, I remember all those trees of the past, their aroma, the bedecked glory, and...now it's time to put on the lights.

**I am not an employee of Matson, but I love the company's logotype. I don't know if it is intentional, but the "T" looks like an anchor. Perfect for a marine shipping company.

Sacrificing a Ritual

A concatenation of circumstances has led to the third time in my life I have not had the pleasure of a real Christmas tree with which to mark the season.  And a long one...I usually get my money's worth out of the tree...it has been known to last far beyond the 12 Days of Christmas (12/25 to 1/6), sometimes through to Chinese New Year,  Valentine's Day or Ash Wednesday.  (It's always been gone by Easter; that would be doubling up on sacrifices.)

The shipments of Oregon produce to Hawaii this year were smaller than normal...and some of the containers (they come on container ships) were rejected because they were infested with bugs and slugs, illegal aliens wisely not admissible through Hawaii's agricultural inspection.  I personally would have accepted the vermin (having come to accept the local ubiquitous cockroaches, cane spiders and lizards), but the State is cautious about such things.  Our usual vendor did arrange a last minute shipment of trees, flying in 600, for a line of folks who started queueing at 3 a.m., like fans trying to score rare concert tickets.  The Wizard called me after visiting this vendor to say, "They just announced there are 30 trees left and there are 200 people still in line ahead of me."

"Come home now," I said, "that's potential riot."  It wasn't, Hawaii people being generally patient and orderly, and I am satisfied to know there are some children who have a tree that we didn't buy out from under them.  I do wonder if there were tree scalpers.  I hope not.

The alternative is an artificial tree. My first qigong instructor said that plastic plants fulfill the same feng shui function as real ones, although that may just be disinformation spread by the Hong Kong silk and plastic flower industry.  But a fake, more like furniture or a decoy, doesn't have the sacrificial quality that a real tree does, and I don't want to pay money for another thing to store...it's bad enough to store all the ornaments.

The other alternative is a locally grown Norfolk/Cook pine, above, a tropical evergreen that is lovely to look at, and available as a Christmas tree, but lacks the density of the traditional Northern Hemisphere firs, spruces, pines. (I once had one as a potted houseplant in Appalachia; I would decorate it, but it was second string to the spruce we usually cut ourselves.)  The Christmas tree tradition is after all a Northern European, old religion sort of thing. I expected a big rash of illegal Norfolk pine rustling,  and I may actually scavenge some ironwood branches, below, which have a kind of oriental pine look about them, to do at least some greenery decor.

So no tree. We will donate the money we would have spent to our local homeless charity.  And in a sour grapes spirit, I don't have the CHORE of acquiring, decorating, and undecorating, to say nothing of time-consuming visits to the storage locker.  In the meantime, I will be content with the lighted ceramic tree, which reminds me of one my Victorian-esque Aunties had;  the little orchestra is a family heirloom, the figurines are marked on the bottom: "Made in Occupied Japan."

There's also a tiny tree, below, 2.5 inches, smaller than our usual 7-foot Noble fir,  with awestruck mice (the Wizard has a thing for these tiny miniatures), and a clever hand-made crocheted tree, right, bought from a local crafter.  It is on my desk in my office, cozily displayed next to a ceramic fireplace, chair, bag of gifts and, again, some mice, a cat in a Christmas stocking hat, and a Chinese dragon.

So in lieu of the actual sacrifice, I at least have some tangible references to it. (Sort of like crucifixes, but more cheerful.) And I do have lots of lights on hand, not in the storage locker,  to string all over the place.

In the meantime, while burning scented candles and playing holiday music,  I will offer incense to the memory of the albizias that were pointlessly sacrificed, destroying the view from my lanai and the habitat of a lot of birds.  I know this seems all contradictory and conflicted.  That's the nature of sacrifice.