Veterans Day

I say thanks to all the veterans of the United States military, first responders, law and order officials, hospitals, etc.  Volunteers and employees guard our public health and safety.  We thank them all.    We pay our respects to our fallen comrades.

Young and old we cheer for peace, prosperity, longevity.

I volunteered to serve in the United States Air Force from 1969-1973.  I was assigned to Air Training Command, Personnel, Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, Mississippi.  Hurricane Camille hit Keesler in August of 1969.  I was honorably discharged as a Staff Sergeant (E5).

I don't say much in my blog about current politics.  

I am a Independent who votes mostly for Democrats. I am a Liberal; support diversity, equity and equality; and have a secular Woke Epicurean Pragmatic outlook. 

I strongly disagree with the current (2025) ideas of Trump Republicans who are cutting programs and services for Veterans. Mr. Trump has shown disrespect for and dishonors our USA Veterans; and he is himself a rich draft dodger.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Day 2024

Best wishes for a peaceful and happy day to all.

Happy Father's Day

A day to say "Thank You" to all the good fathers in our lives, our communities, our nation, the world.  Their hard work, generosity, kindness, courage, and steadfastness have helped us all lead better lives.  The good men who have supported, nurtured, raised, and properly educated their children (their own offspring or children they have adopted) are very important in our lives.  These good fathers (past, present, and future) deserve respect and praise. 

For those men who have been poor, bad, absent, or evil "fathers" we shake our heads with disapproval and disdain.  They squandered their opportunity and left the challenge to other women and men to do good towards their children and our communities.  Their irresponsibility is so shameful. 


So, to all these good men, "Happy Father's Day!"  
You deserve the praise. 
Three Cheers to You All !!! 

My own father, Michael James Garofalo (1916-1997) provided well for his family, was very hard working, and was very reliable.  He stressed giving a full effort as a worker, fulfilling one's duties, obedience, and respect.  He was a hard taskmaster at times, but I learned a lot from living with him.  He was a decent man, and a fine grandfather. 
After he retired as the Chief Piping Engineer at the Fluor Corporation, he and my mom enjoyed traveling in their trailer in the Southwest.  

My father-in-law, Delmer Eubanks (1912-2002) was a good father, grand-father, and great-grand-father.  He worked as a Union Millwright in Los Angeles. He was a decent man and friend of many.




The above family portrait was taken around 1987.
Yes, being a good father and grandfather was and is important to me.

Father's Day, 2018, Vancouver, Washington.



Lifestyle Advice from Wise Persons

Heathen Holidays

Holiday by Madonna, 1983

"If we took a holiday

Took some time to celebrate
Just one day out of life
It would be
It would be so nice

Everybody spread the word
We're gonna have a celebration
All across the world
In every nation

It's time for the good times
Forget about the bad times, oh yeah
One day to come together to release the pressure
We need a holiday

If we took a holiday
Took some time to celebrate (come on let's celebrate)
Just one day out of life (holiday)
It would be
It would be so nice

You can turn this world around
And bring back all of those happy days
Put your troubles down
It's time to celebrate

Let love shine
And we will find
A way to come together
Can make things better
We need a holiday ..."

Heathen Holidays

Winter Solstice-Yule-Saturnalia

Young women and men dancing, bouncy, carefree, juvenile, lively, celebrating.  

Happy Holidays

In December 2021, I plan to yurt camp for four days at Cape Disappointment State Park, walk more each day, assemble a large cedar pergola behind my house, and join in many holiday festivities.  Here is a repost of blog post of mine from 2020, Vancouver, WA.

Enjoy the many celebrations that center around the Winter Solstice.  Best wishes to everyone.

Merry Christmas, Party at Saturnalia, a Happy New Year, beneficent Yule Celebrations, and more Winter Lore!  

Karen and I enjoy this season.  We decorate a lighted tree, and set out Christmas decorations.  We exchange presents with family and friends.  We prepare special holiday meals: cookies, tamales, Italian dishes, pies.  We light fires in our fireplace.  We play and sing Christmas carols.  Many Pagan and Christian celebrations overlap in America, just like in ancient Rome in 100 CE.  Retails stores and markets are busy and Christmas decorations and colored lights are in evidence everywhere.  

Lately, our typical weather here in Vancouver, Washington, has been 35F low and 48F high, with light rain and fog, and no snow. As for gardening, we bring many frost sensitive potted plants indoors for warmth.  

Yule Celebrations  A hypertext notebook by Mike Garofalo.  

Yule, Winter Solstice, Christmas, Xmas, Saturnalia, Wassail Blot, December 20th - 31st
Festival of the Fires, Feliz Navidad, Birthday of Mithras, New Year Celebrations, Santa Claus, Brumalia, Christmas Eve, Father Christmas, St. Nicholas, Las Posadas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, 2nd Celebration in the NeoPagan Holy Day Annual Cycle or Wiccan Wheel of the Year.


"Reclaim Santa Claus as a Pagan Godform. Today's Santa is a folk figure with multicultural roots. He embodies characteristics of Saturn (Roman agricultural god), Cronos (Greek god, also known as Father Time), the Holly King (Celtic god of the dying year), Father Ice/Grandfather Frost (Russian winter god), Thor (Norse sky god who rides the sky in a chariot drawn by goats), Odin/Wotan (Scandinavian/Teutonic All-Father who rides the sky on an eight-legged horse), Frey (Norse fertility god), and the Tomte (a Norse Land Spirit known for giving gifts to children at this time of year). Santa's reindeer can be viewed as forms of Herne, the Celtic Horned God. Decorate your home with Santa images that reflect His Pagan heritage. Honor the Goddess as Great Mother. Place Pagan Mother Goddess images around your home. You may also want to include one with a Sun child, such as Isis with Horus. Pagan Goddess forms traditionally linked with this time of year include Tonantzin (Native Mexican corn mother), Holda (Teutonic earth goddess of good fortune), Bona Dea (Roman women's goddess of abundance and prophecy), Ops (Roman goddess of plenty), Au Set/Isis (Egyptian/multicultural All Goddess whose worship continued in Christian times under the name Mary), Lucina/St. Lucy (Roman/Swedish goddess/saint of light), and Befana (Italian Witch who gives gifts to children at this season)."
- Selena Fox, Celebrating the Winter Solstice 

"It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind."
-  H.P. Lovecraft

Are not costumes so fascinating?
The Ice King and Ice Queen from Russia.

"Before the time of Constantine the ancient world was a virtual cornucopia of different religions and cults that existed all over the Roman Empire and eastward into China and India. As a result of these competing doctrines "when Christianity was only one of several dozen foreign Eastern cults struggling for recognition in Rome, the religious dualism and dogmatic moral teaching of Mithraism set it apart from other sects, creating a stability previously unknown in Roman paganism" (Mithras in the Roman Empire). The striking parallels to Christianity in Mithraism have long been pointed out, for Mithras was said to have been: born of a virgin birth, had twelve followers or disciples, was killed and resurrected, performed miracles, and was known as mankind's savior who was called the light of the world and his virgin birth occurred on December 25. Indeed, the resemblances are so striking in that all of the Christian mysteries were known nearly five hundred years before the birth of Christ that later church fathers claimed that Satan had created all of this prior to Christ's birth so as to confuse the laity. In regard to Mithras Nabaraz wrote: 'According to Persian traditions, the god Mithras was actually incarnated into the human form of the Saviour expected by Zarathustra. Mithras was born of Anahita, an immaculate virgin mother once worshipped as a fertility goddess before the hierarchical reformation. Anahita was said to have conceived the Saviour from the seed of Zarathustra preserved in the waters of Lake Hamun in the Persian province of Sistan. Mithra's ascension to heaven was said to have occurred in 208 B.C., 64 years after his birth. This birth took place in a cave or grotto, where shepherds attended him and regaled him with gifts, at the winter solstice. This is based on an older myth about birth of Mithra, that his magical birth at the dawn of time was from a rock from which he formed himself using his Will. He holds in his hand a dagger and a torch. A statue from Housesteads shows Mithras being born from the rock while the twelve signs of the zodiac surround him, showing his image as a stellar god who rules the cosmos even at his birth. A serpent [is at} times shown to be coiled around…Mithras or [his] birth stone/egg. (Mithras and Mithraism).' "

- Christ, Constantine, Sol Invictus: The Unconquerable Sun By Ralph Monday

Yuletide Customs: Family Gatherings in Oregon and Washington



Thanksgiving Day, 2012, Oregon
Betty Eubanks-Yarber, R.I.P., 2017
Family Gatherings are popular at Yuletide in America, or later at Chinese New Year Week.

2015 Christmas, Oregon

2020 Washington

2020 Washington

Happy Thanksgiving Day

(This Post was made in November of 2017.  Families enjoy gathering in the warm kitchen area on cold November days in North America. We look forward to Thanksgiving Day.)

Happy Thanksgiving Day!!

T   hanks for time to be together, turkey, talk, and tangy weather.
H  for harvest stored away, home, and hearth, and holiday.
A  for autumn's frosty art, and abundance in the heart.
N  for neighbors, and November, nice things, new things to remember.
K  for kitchen, kettles' croon, kith and kin expected soon.
S  for sizzles, sights, and sounds, and something special that about.
    That spells THANKS for joy in living and a jolly good Thanksgiving.       
-   Aileen Fisher, All in a Word

"They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty.  For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercising in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion.  All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees).  And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc.  Besides they had about a peck of meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion.  Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.”-   William Bradford, 1621 

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln, declared the last Thursday of November to be a National Day of Thanksgiving.

November: Quotations, Saying, Poetry

Months and Seasons

Neo-Pagan Holidays

The first photo shows part of our family in 2012, at our home in Red Bluff, on Thanksgiving Day.

Photos of families enjoying a Thanksgiving Day together.  

Happy New Year

My New Year's Day celebrations for the last 73 years have consisted of enjoying time off from work or school for a national holiday, socializing with family and friends, eating special meals, watching football (Rose Bowl) or basketball games, playing in the yard, watching the Rose Parade in Pasadena, playing with children and adults, drinking, laughing, etc.  All this time was spent in California, Oregon, or Washington, USA. 

I have been very fortunate in my life, and I am very grateful.

In 2020, I am planning to enjoy learning more about using vector graphics software, learning how to draw, practicing Tai Chi Chuan every day, walking every day, and keeping a daily journal.  This, of course, is on top of all the chores I have to do for basic daily living in the suburbs of Vancouver.  Fun family activites and local travel also occupy my time in a very pleasant manner.

As for my Lifetime Body I plan to exercise more, eat less, take my medicine properly, and hope for the best.  The many Paths to Fitness and Well Being are also quite pleasurable. 


Best Wishes to All

For a Healthy, Prosperous, Peaceful, and Happy New Year

The Dead and Dying Are About

Halloween, Samhain, Dad of the Dead, End of the Year Coming, Fall

In America, today, we enjoy Halloween festivities.  People dress up in costumes.  Candy is exchanged and given to children.  Activities and games are played: bobbing for apples, scaring people, pranks, walking in corn mazes, pumpkin carving and rolling, nighttime fires, pie making, harvest activities, etc.  Of course, many people in America do nothing unusual today; and could care less about Nature religion and "pagan" Samhain festivities.   

I shoveled up the rotting remains of four pumpkins on our front porch ... limp, blackened yuck.  

We accidentally killed a squirrel on Highway 99, North Main, when it ran from the Red Bluff River Park onto the roadway.

Karen's friend's dog died today.

224 people died today in an airplane crash in the Sinai, Egypt.
Millions are dying from diseases: malnutrition, malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, typhoid, poisoning, cholera, cancer, stroke ....
Many are dying today because of wars and fighting all around the world.
Somebody dying has always been news, everywhere. 

Memories of Ancestors.

Greco-Roman Hellenistic Era
Memories of Traditions, Customs, Religions. Rituals, Languages
Time.  Death or Renewal Rituals

El Dia de la Muerte.
Remember and celebrate our Ancestors.

Halloween Skeletons will walk on the streets tonight.

Macabre.  Play acts and costumes.  

Reminding us of Darkness, Fears, Monsters, Fate, Death!

Happy Halloween!!! 

This post to the blog was first sent out on October 31, 2015.  

Karen at work as Special Education Instructional Assistant

Halloween Party 2014

November 2012

Thanksgiving 2017

November

Seasons

Springtime Celebration

Spring Equinox Celebration, March 20, 2016

"Oh, what a catastrophe for man when he cut himself off from the rhythm of the year, from his unison with the sun and the earth.  Oh, what a catastrophic ...  This is what is the matter with us.  We are bleeding at the roots, because we are cut off from the earth and sun and starts ...  We plucked it from its stem on the Tree of Life, and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table."

-  D. H. Lawrence 

Spring Equinox Celebrations of NeoPaganism

Spring: Poetry, Quotes, Sayings

March: Poetry, Quotes, Sayings

The Green Man: Myths, Legends, Lore

Seasons and Months

One Old Druid's Final Journey

Taoism

The Green Man: Myths, Legends, Lore

Quinquatria, Roman Festival in honor of Minerva, March 19 - March 23.  Minerva is the Roman Goddess, and the Greek Goddess with similar attributes is Athena, Patron of Athens.  This ancient Goddess is associated with civilization, wisdom, strength, strategy, poetry, weaving, magic, music, crafts, justice, and skills.  Her  totem is the owl.  She is a virgin goddess, Pallas Athena, where she is one of three virgin goddesses along with Artemis and Hestia, known by the Romans as Diana and Vesta.  Minerva/Athna is featured on the great seal of the State of California.

We Give Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving Day!!

T   hanks for time to be together, turkey, talk, and tangy weather.
H  for harvest stored away, home, and hearth, and holiday.
A  for autumn's frosty art, and abundance in the heart.
N  for neighbors, and November, nice things, new things to remember.
K  for kitchen, kettles' croon, kith and kin expected soon.
S  for sizzles, sights, and sounds, and something special that about.
    That spells THANKS for joy in living and a jolly good Thanksgiving.                 
-   Aileen Fisher, All in a Word

"They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty.  For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercising in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion.  All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees).  And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc.  Besides they had about a peck of meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion.  Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.”
-   William Bradford, 1621 

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln, declared the last Thursday of November to be
a National Day of Thanksgiving.

November: Quotations, Saying, Poetry

Months and Seasons

Neo-Pagan Holidays