Here There Be Dragons

Areuse Gorge
Switzerland

The Alsace-Lorraine/Metz branch of my family tree (via my maternal grandmother) had its origins in Switzerland.  That's all I knew until a year ago when I came across an envelope filled with papers relating to the Metz Family Tree that my Great Aunt Edith sent me years ago.  I mean, Years Ago -Pre-Internet/World Wide Web. 30+ years ago. I remember glancing through then, but I must not have really have been thorough, because there was an article I overlooked. It was about a purported ancestor of mine, Sulpy Remond ---or as I like to think of him: The Dragonslayer. The Gerald Metz referred to in the article is a cousin. Here is more detailed account of the battle on page 12.

I tend to take things like this with a grain of salt- especially when genealogy is involved. It's such an inexact science and it's so easy to follow wrong leads which can lead the unwary genealogist to delusions of grandeur or some other genealogical terra incognita- places that cartographers used to label as Here There Be Dragons.  I saw a lot of those missteps as a fledgling librarian. It discouraged me from working on my own genealogy. I didn't want to become like the far too many of the genealogists I encountered at work- snarling at or blaming sweet, innocent young librarians when the ancestor they were seeking wasn't on the reel of the Soundex or Census Microfilm  they'd  specifically requested.  I didn't give too much thought to ancestors who lived in far-off lands.3/4 of my ancestry involves people who came to this country fairly recently in the great scheme of things. To do genealogy at the time, I'd have had to cross an ocean and travel to archives and research. I lacked both money and passion for the project. Besides, what could I possibly have in common with those dead ancestors?

I searched the faces of great uncles and aunts and great grandmothers I never met in few really old photographs my family had for any family resemblance and found none. At best, I found a glimpse of the family mischievousness in the slight smile and the eyes of a child who wasn't following the photographer's instructions and, thus, showing that there was a real person being photographed. His mother and his brother showed that blank, dead stare so prevalent in photographs of the time. James would grow up and go to sea as a sailor. He was the great uncle I'd heard about from childhood who was reportedly lost at sea. But, seeing him in that photograph made me feel a kinship.  I knew that look.  I'd seen it in my Grand-dad's and my mother's faces. I knew I was related to that child. Or when I looked at the photograph of my great grandmother, her husband (the formidable J.K.), and my two half-great uncles. Everyone in the photograph looked fierce, except Brian. He looked nonchalant and relaxed- not trying to be anyone but himself.  I could see the resemblance to my grandmother, his half sister. I met him when I was 6 years old- a big bear of a man who was genuinely happy to meet me (children can tell) but whose size and exuberance intimidated me.  I would love to reach back in time and counsel the little girl that I was- "It's okay.He's really related to us and we really are glad that he is." But, those long dead relatives from long ago?  What could I find out that could possibly be of interest to me?

And, yet- a Dragonslayer in the family! Hmmmmmm. The article - I have the longer

European Water Dragon

version in my possession- puzzled me. Was it an allegory with the river as the dragon or was it a shining legend on par with St. George? I asked a friend and former Genealogy librarian (who, also, has a lot more Swiss blood than I can claim). She shrugged it off saying the versions were basically the same thing. This exploded a Swiss stereotype for me- that of precision.  Dragonslayer, 14th Century Hydraulic Engineer.  Potato, po-tah-to. Really? No difference? Seriously?

Either way, this point remains- Dragonslayer or River Tamer, he was a hero. Not a monarch, or a great leader, or a captain of industry. Just someone who died removing a source of great danger and fear- making life much easier for many in his part of the world. That's a relative to be proud of! 

And then I consider the Dragon.  If there were dragons, I would have expected my ancestor through his heroic actions also chancing incurring the wrath of a Medieval Wildlife Protection Agency, not to mention the Environmental Protection Agency for burning the dragon's carcass. I think of the dragon, one of the last of a fast disappearing species of reptiles, protecting itself against the encroaching humans and operating only out of an instinct for survival. I feel a sense of loss, a sentiment that I doubt my ancestor would appreciate. Does the survival of one species depend on the annihilation of another? Isn't there a better way to handle this?  

"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.  Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."  ---Rainer Maria Rilke

Bird Is the Word, Part Two.

This summer, my church is offering a Sunday School class in The Artist's Way- based on the book by Julia Cameron. One of the features of this course of study is that you are encouraged to take at least one Artist's Date a week. At this writing, I am on Week 8 of the course and my first Artist's Date of the week was at my church- Painting with Dale- with Dale Child as our instructor.  The subject of our acrylic painting was Bird on a Branch.

The bird in question turned out to be a cardinal.  Very pretty bird- also known as redbirds in this neck of the woods. Also a very determined, "don't mess with me" sort of bird as confrontations and heated aerial battles in my backyard have revealed. The wise squirrel will let the cardinals and blue jays have their turn at the seed pile unmolested. Unfortunately, the neighborhood squirrels aren't known for their wisdom, courtesy, or adaptation to avian manners. Tweets, chirps, and chatter have been exchanged and the matter of who is the most entitled to the seed has yet to be settled.  (Hint to the squirrels in my 'hood- The label on the bag reads BIRD SEED. BIRD SEED. Get it?  No, I really didn't think you would.)

Cardinals aren't easy to draw.  It's the crest that gave me the greatest problems.  Their slanted high top fade. I wanted mine to look like a cardinal- not a kingfisher or a woodpecker re-imagined  in red.  I tried the old drawing shapes trick to form the bird, but it didn't seem to work for me.  I found a photo of a fluffed-out-against-the-cold cardinal that I liked and tried to draw that.  I had a bit more luck than I did with the shapes method. Audubon isn't rolling over in his grave in fits of jealousy, mind you. I sketched it out on my prepared canvas and hoped for the best. Keeping between the lines is not as easy to do with a paintbrush as it is with a marker or a crayon.  And the crest of my bird kept getting bigger as I attempted to indicate feathers on his noggin.  I decided my bird is a young bird. Perhaps, he will grow into his crest as he gets older.  Or he's just stylin' with his high top fade.

The Artist's Way teaches us that In order to do something well, we must first be willing to do something badly. When we accept this, we widen our options.  Part of me wanted my bird to look more cardinal-like.  But I know myself well.  I can rework and tweak a poem, a drawing, a story, or a painting into something uninteresting or pedestrian -- another lesson from The Artist's Way.  Art is never finished. It simply stops in interesting places. Letting go is a normal part of creativity.

Or as Rumi observed back in the 13th Century: "Fihi ma fihi".   It is what it is.

Bird Is The Word: Part One

Pentecost Birds

In preparation for Pentecost at my church this year, congregants were invited to help make 400 origami doves out of construction paper in a multitude of fiery hues- reds, shades of orange, and  shades of yellow. These would be displayed on a chandelier of sorts in the sanctuary on - June 8th (2014).


This is what they looked like - unstrung, as it were:

This was the brainchild of Kathy Stark, artist and fellow church member who has substantially "fired up" Riverside's Pentecost commemorations with awesome installations. There was a row of tables set up in the Bittinger Fellowship Hall. Those folding birds would start at the first  station - STEP 1- and continue to the next station and the next step until each bird was finished and could join the flocks forming in the basket. Once each bird folder had a bird done, they would circle back to the first station and start again. I managed to fold 21 of them.  Can you spot the ones I folded in the photos below? (Hint- the tails are slightly different.  Yes, there's one. There's another.  No, no- that's definitely not one of mine.)  

The Pentecost Birds in Flight

Sometime before Pentecost Sunday, they were joined by white doves which huddled together down the center of the "chandelier".  There they all turned and swayed in the air conditioned breezes for nearly a month and a half.  If my attention wandered during the service, I would watch the Pentecost Birds. The flock elegantly migrated together to the right, then to the left while each string of birds softly turned and swayed in their assigned vertical rows. They danced in time to the preludes, hymns, the anthems, the offertories, and the postludes or to the music only they could hear in their little paper heads.

From Pentecost Sunday on, there were signs that the "chandelier" wouldn't be a permanent fixture. Some in the congregation hoped that the birds would stay through the summer until Rally Day. But the Pentecost Birds clearly had ideas of their own.  They would shimmy down their wires and land on the backs of the birds beneath them, eventually crowding close together at the end of the wires. There they would sit in uncomfortable-looking clumps.  They looked like concert-goers crowding the entrance doors wanting to get in and get the "good seats".  The sexton reported that he would find birds that escaped their wires on the sanctuary floor. Yet, no matter how many slipped down and away, it seemed were more than enough of them left to dance above us through several Sundays.

And, then, last Sunday, they were gone.  Without a good-bye coo. Without a farewell flutter.

Symbolically, I suppose it was apropos. The Holy Spirit descended on Pentecost.  It didn't swirl decoratively above the heads of the faithful.  It wasn't content to dance on the wind forever.  The winds the Spirit danced on were the winds of change. And change doesn't and shouldn't linger in one place. Change is a word of action. In the case of Pentecost,  it sallies  forth and multiplies and spreads the Word.  

While I know the Pentecost Birds weren't Forever Birds, I'll still miss them and their soulful saltation.