Clans (Summer Solstice 2014)

Clans - a reading (on YouTube)

Every four years at the summer solstice, world clans gather in a friendly competition. They huddle beneath banners bearing symbols like heraldic devices: Three Lions, Black Stars, Super Eagles, the Red Fury, the Samurai Blue.

The games are like a quadrennial family reunion where some years one clan makes it, some years another but always the same perennial core. Some clans bring only a small contingent, some are downright massive. We recognize many of the same players, the same coaches, sometimes the same fans. There are fresh faces mixed in among the familiar. In the interim, a venerable handful have gone missing while a few noted mercenaries have switched allegiances entirely.

Each clan has its own tradition. Europeans sing, South Americans drum and whistle, Africans dance while warlocks throw magic on the field. Our native contingent prefers to chant. But they all don brightly-colored party clothes and smile for the camera whenever one pans by.

Most Americans don’t understand this clannishness. I do. Clans provide a sense of the familiar in a strange new world. Their presence comforts us so far away from home. More importantly, should someone throw a road flare (as they sometimes do), these are the people who will guard your back.

We have an instinctive need to identify the people we know and know that we can trust. We mark each other to set ourselves apart. Totems and tribal colors form a secret language shared only by the select.

We are creatures drawn to symbolism. We festoon ourselves with ornaments and trinkets, shiny baubles, items imbued with meaning only to ourselves and the ones who know us best. We adorn ourselves in these emblems to express our ancestry and individuality all at once.

My mother’s family collects such symbols spanning at least three generations. From a young age, we were each encouraged to choose our totem, the marker of who we are. For our matriarch it was elephants. For my aunt and my mother, teddy bears and whales. For me, it alternated between wolves and dragons. Owls, angels, mushrooms, musical notes, cats and hearts could all be found scattered throughout the family field.

This was an enforced pattern of behavior, the family marking us with its brand. If you did not pick a symbol, one would be chosen for you. Your choice needn’t be permanent. You were allowed to change, though not too often. As long as you didn’t choose nonparticipation. Then a default choice would be reinstated based on what the others thought suited you best.

We made our choices carefully. Our chosen symbol would decorate our bookshelves and bedroom walls. These were the gifts we would receive for the rest our lives. It’s the way that we relate, the shorthand by which the rest of the family could identify and interact. I can’t help but remember my grandmother when I see any representation of an elephant. I can’t help but think of my aunt and cousin when I see a teddy bear or Winnie-the-Pooh.

I’m not a natural collector. I’m quite particular in my taste in symbols. Nothing too cute or with too much popular appeal. I don’t even logos visible on my clothes. Though I must admit that when I was growing up and Izod shirts were all the rage, one department store countered the alligator with an off-brand dragon. I couldn’t wear those shirts enough, in a semi-ironic, pre-hipster, fantasy counter-culture kind of way.

At this stage of my life, the only symbols I collect are griffins. They capture the three distinct facets of my clan: family, tribe, and individual. It is the device that graces my father’s family crest, though only one uncle ever paid much attention to it. It is a lesser known symbol of our Welsh heritage. I was drawn as much by that as the creature’s fantasy nature. It also serves as the banner of my brand.

Griffins are notoriously hard to come by in this country. To my knowledge, no one prints a griffin calendar. I’ve never seen any stuffed toys. I’ve haven’t run across any foreign coins or jewelry. Even pewter figurines with any decent artistry are difficult to find. Most of the griffins in my office were custom-made: a banner, a pair of stained glass bookends, a leather notebook and paperback cover, a ceramic tile. All but the last were made by my wife. Some date back from our time in college. Since we’ve been married, she identifies the symbol as another aspect of her heritage just as she adopted my surname as her own.

Clans, by nature and necessity, are exogamous, taking in through marriage only with outsiders. But once those strangers don our tartan, they become accepted as one of us. That doesn’t mean they have abandoned their connections to their first families. Our clan just becomes another face on their polyhedron die. Another charm on their mental Pandora bracelet.

So, if you catch even a glimpse of a game crowd this summer from the corner of your eye, remember that web of diversified acceptance. If you’re lucky, you might witness a Brazilian samba band drum and whistle their way through an entire match. Or watch the tribal-clad women from the Ivory Coast dance and sway in unison, then turn to shake their backsides toward the field as a taunt. Or hear thousands of voices spontaneously erupt in a chorus of La Marseillaise or Rule, Britannia. Or see the players weep openly as the stadium plays their national anthem. For many, this is the only positive recognition their country will ever get.

Some say Americans learn geography only through our wars. If so, the rest of the world learns theirs from the clans attending the beautiful game. As we bask in the light of the summer solstice, which would you say provides a better model on the world stage?


© 2014 Edward P. Morgan III

Summer Solstice 2010

Summer Solstice 2010 - a reading (on YouTube)

It is winter in the Southern Hemisphere. The crescent moon tilts in the wrong direction, a shallow bowl whose water spills as moonlight across the plain at night.

Clans gather beneath an evening star, its golden torchlight guiding them through the long, dark journey back to summer. There are new shields and some long lost emblems interspersed with standards present from the beginning, sigils as immemorial as time. Totem animals adorn each tent, lions, elephants and eagles, pegasi and dragons, guiding spirits their people pray to through the night as they invoke the numen of their ancestors. They all celebrate in tribal colors, in dance as well as song.

The battle horns have sounded, drawing each clan's iconic warriors onto the field to engage in ritual combat. Their feet flash like lightning off a spear point, their footfalls echo like thunder across the plain. While their prophets murmur each name like a touchstone, the clans draw comfort from the repetition as the battle performs its rosary across the field. Veterans will fall as fresh, young warriors fill the gaps and are lifted onto the shoulders of their companions, paraded around the field.

While only one will lift their voice in victory, for a moment all the clans stand together, united beneath that distant star. Ubuntu: there can be no lauded victor without a host of the honorably defeated.

Slowly, the orange and blue, the furious reds, greens and golds will wash away into a savanna sunrise, the quadrennial danse macabre suspended for four more peaceful years. Until the battle horns sound again and recall those far-flung clans to another field half a world away to celebrate a summer festival beneath a winter's moon.

© 2010 Edward P. Morgan III