As an ancestral Celt, I have some spookiness around me. I grew up with eight seasons, each one with its own sacred day. The next one is mid-summer's eve, on the day halfway between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. That's just math and astronomy. The spookiness comes in because of Grandma Kiernan, my grandfather's mother, and through both and my own mother, I'm the ancestral keeper of a sacred relic that has a role on those days -- among others. Shakespeare's Midsummer was the summer solstice. But the scientist in me has that as the start of summer. The Catholic Church, which sanctified a lot of Celtic spookiness, has midsummer as August 15, and a holy day sacred to Jesus's mother.
Irish immigrant to Boston, Margaret Kiernan, shepherded the family each August 15 to Revere Beach, where rain or shine, participants entered the water to take the cure the spirits -- the fairies, The BVM; the fairies and the Blessed Virgin Mary -- stirred into the water that day. The cure was undefined. "It's good for what ails you," her son, James, who continued the tradition declared each year.
Metacognition.
In order to get to Revere Beach on August 15, with family, friends, and sacred objects requires metacognition. The first piece of metacognition was to note the date on the 2026 calendar. At that point, it wasn't a commitment. It was an aspiration.
We're coming up on three weeks. Last week, we looked at the uncertainty of doing a thing you've identified as important, even in the next few days. Three weeks is as long out we can plan something and have a strong statistical likelihood of its happening. Before you say, oh no, we have to plan further out, there's an exercise in metacognition for that. On a Friday or Monday, make a copy of what's on your calendar for the next week. At the end of the week, bring that copy forward and compare it with your actual. What changed and why? Then dig a little deeper. What commitments did you keep that, in looking back, you wish you hadn't made in the first place. Now apply anticipation, activation, and reflection each week for three weeks.
Now maybe you need to reserve Madison Square Garden for your wedding, or Yankee Stadium for your performance. You have to make commitments well in advance. It's nonetheless aspirational. In March 2020, a lot of big, in-person events got cancelled. And maybe we won't know if the participants in an event like this woke up the next day thinking, "That didn't work out as well as I'd hoped."
For Saturday, August 15th, Carolina, Seanachi designate for her generation, and I plan to take the cure in the water at Revere Beach. One recent year, we had a lovely summer's evening, friends from different spiritual traditions who brought their culture's prayers and sacred objects. We blessed the waters with sacred tobacco from one, and remembered beloved Uncle Arthur, also a descendant of Margaret and James, who had died that week. We think he attended nonetheless.
The following year, as we were converging on Revere Beach, warnings of a large lightning storm centered over the beach, flashed on everyone's warning media. We redirected to Carolina's apartment in Somerville, and accepted the soaking of the deluge as we made our ways from car to door.
We felt blessed.
It was good for what ailed us.
Warm regards,
Francis Sopper