Autumn Fire

October 19, 2019--Ocktoberfest at the Whitley Place

Given the weather, our potluck was for a while hunkered around our farmhouse’s kitchen table spilling into the kitchen passageways until the appetites were satisfied; the cold rains abated, or rather metamorphosed into a light snow sufficient enough to permit the October Fire.

Having just done a presentation to the Idaho County Historical Society of Neolithic standing stones and circles in Scotland, the Ockoberfest scene around our table struck me as timeless.  It is what we humans do, and have always done.  Community gathering, sharing collective bounty, visiting family, friends, neighbors…and of course tales and stories, fellowship and joy.

 

Since time immemorial, autumn is a reflection at the fore of winter’s dark arrival.  Ockoberfest fires serve as celebratory reminders of our time on this planet.  How it is consumed and spent and why it is celebrated.  This is, and has always been, for as long as humankind has sought to seek it…ever since fire first was controlled by our distant forebears.  Ocktoberfest speaks to purpose, to the ephemeral and yet also to the permanent. 

 Ocktoberfest is a dance with the seasons, a taking them by the hand in customs so deeply imbedded in us they are primordial, beyond our ken in the ancient and evermore.  The Fest’s fire is a leapfrogging over cold times that are neigh upon Idaho as Winter marches.  We meet it upon the hallowed ground of tradition in an ambitious celebration which looks backward to the giants, our ancestors upon whose shoulders we stand.  And yet it also looks forward to Spring’s resurrection, to its warmth and promise, to an enlightenment of eternity and life itself.

Doubtless Idahoans are elsewhere dismissed as “rednecks” or ruffians, an unbecoming ignorant breed of Americans.  So be it.  That denigration misses its mark wide; it prejudges the book by its cover. 

 

Reading deeper, around our table and in our kitchen’s ways and out to the pasture for the Ocktoberfest fire were gathered a diverse group of well-educated mostly young people, employed in their fields of pursuit with earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees spanning a wide spectrum of human knowledge…from medical and veterinary science to community development, from advanced statistics to earth sciences and to IT.  In other words, we are far from the stereotype which exaggerates underestimation.  These may be country folk.  But they certainly are no hicks.

Too many today, no longer young, wring hands and despair at America’s fate being entrusted to this new generation.  I do not.  The book I read last night in the laughter and banter of these young Idahoans gathered at our farmstead gives me great confidence in our succeeding generation. They are prepared, if not confident, even in the face of a seemingly insurmountably troubled future.  Yet, here they dance.

Tradition’s sinews run as strong in these young Idahoans as in any other generation before them.  Their vision, its fine sharpness, reaches far beyond those who despair, those who refuse to dance with them in the festive fires in their seasons and who thus cannot fathom the nobility of compassion that is strong in these young Idahoans, so strong it will be their generation’s calling card.  Strong too their inherent respect (allowing the wry irreverence of youth on occasion…just enough sass to keep an edge).
 

No.  America’s future is not nearly as dire as those who see only the sleets and snows, those who cannot or will not see beyond; those who lack in faith, trust and indeed in humanity.  Instead, I exclaim Selah!  For we are blessed.  Let us celebrate!  To everything there is a season, a time and a purpose under Heaven.  Hallowed be Thy name, oh Lord, hallowed be Thy name.