My New Name For A Blog

What dirk gently said.

I Am Just Saying

Hmmmm. That gives me an idea for a magical working.

My New Name For A Blog

What Ross Gelbspan Said.

From A Dress A Day

Gorgeous

Oh! Shiny Things!

Isaac Bonewits has a Cafe Press Store. With v. cool stuff. How cool is that?

First Of The Month Bazooms Blogging

It's the first of the month and, yes, even though we just did it, I'm going to repeat bazooms blogging. Why? Because, as Sia notes, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Let me give you some advice, if you're going to get breast cancer, don't do it just before National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It will drive you fucking nuts.

And I'll just say ahead of all the "pink" ads for yogurt companies that will donate 2 cents to Susan Kormen and the car companies with pink convertibles and the goddamn motherfucking pink mixers, and blenders, and toasters, that, hey, glad to be able to make your companies a buck by getting sick. No, really. No problem and thanks a whole hell of a lot for the 2 cents and the "awareness" advertising. Asses.

Go read Sia's excellent advice.

Happy Birthday, Rumi!

In comments at Eschaton, Moonbotica reminds me that today is the birthday of my favorite poet, Rumi.

It would take a whole day to post even some of his best poems, but here, in honor of his birthday, are just a few:

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.



THE PHRASING MUST CHANGE

Learn about your inner self from those who know such things,
but don't repeat verbatim what they say.

Zuleikha let everything be the name of Joseph, from celery seed
to aloes wood. She loved him so much she concealed his name
in many different phrases, the inner meanings
known only to her. When she said, The wax is softening
near the fire, she meant, My love is wanting me.
Or if she said, Look, the moon is up or The willow has new leaves
or The branches are trembling or The coriander seeds
have caught fire or The roses are opening
or The king is in a good mood today or Isn't that lucky?
or The furniture needs dusting or
The water carrier is here or It's almost daylight or
These vegetables are perfect or The bread needs more salt
or The clouds seem to be moving against the wind
or My head hurts or My headache's better,
anything she praises, it's Joseph's touch she means,
any complaint, it's his being away.
When she's hungry, it's for him. Thirsty, his name is a sherbet.
Cold, he's a fur. This is what the Friend can do
when one is in such love. Sensual people use the holy names
often, but they don't work for them.
The miracle Jesus did by being the name of God,
Zuleikha felt in the name of Joseph.

When one is united to the core of another, to speak of that
is to breathe the name Hu, empty of self and filled
with love. As the saying goes, The pot drips what is in it.
The saffron spice of connecting, laughter.
The onion smell of separation, crying.
Others have many things and people they love.
This is not the way of Friend and friend.


I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.

Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
"What a bargain, let's buy it!"

Yes

It is related, for example, of the sage Huen Sha that he was one day prepared to deliver a sermon to an assembled congregation, and was on the point of beginning, when a bird was heard to sing very sweetly closy by; Huen Sha descended from his pulpit with the remark that the sermon had been preached. Another sage, Teu Tse, one day pointed to a stone lyng near the temple gate, and remarked, "Therein lie all the Buddhas of the past, the present, and the future,"

A.K. Coomaraswamy, quoted in Fall 2007 Parabola Journal.

Art found here.

Relevant Poetry Blogging

Night Thoughts Over A Sick Child

by Philip Levine

Numb, stiff, broken by no sleep,
I keep night watch. Looking for
signs to quiet fear, I creep
closer to his bed and hear
his breath come and go, holding
my own as if my own were
all I paid. Nothing I bring,
say, or do has meaning here.

Outside, ice crusts on river
and pond; wild hare come to my
door pacified by torture.
No less ignorant than they
of what grips and why, I am
moved to prayer, the quaint gestures
which ennoble beyond shame
only the mute listener.

No one hears. A dry wind shifts
dry snow, indifferently;
the roof, rotting beneath drifts,
sighs and holds. Terrified by
sleep, the child strives toward
consciousness and the known pain.
If it were mine by one word
I would not save any man,

myself or the universe
at such cost: reality.
Heir to an ancestral curse
though fallen from Judah's tree,
I take up into my arms my hopes,
my son, for what it's worth give
bodily warmth. When he escapes
his heritage, then what have

I left but false remembrance
and the name? Against that day
there is no armor or stance,
only the frail dignity
of surrender, which is all
that can separate me now
or then from the dumb beast's fall,
unseen in the frozen snow.

My New Name For A Blog

What Jamison Foser Said:

Looking back over the last few presidential elections, there are numerous examples of wildly disparate coverage of analogous controversies. Bill Clinton's draft record received a huge amount of coverage in 1992; George W. Bush's was given little attention in 2000. A years-old investment in which the Clintons lost money was hyped as Watergate and Teapot Dome and the Kennedy assassination all rolled into one, then the media completely ignored newly revealed evidence during the 2000 campaign that suggested Bush had insider information for a stock sale in which he made about $800,000. Al Gore's lies, which weren't, were a dominant theme in campaign coverage that year, while George W. Bush's, which were, were ignored. Same for flip-flops in the 2004 campaign.

Additional Air & Life Is Good Pictures

Too Many People

From today's NYT: Studies by different scientists have concluded that the rising water demands in the North China Plain make it unfeasible for farmers to continue planting a winter crop.

You might want to stop for a minute or two and just think about what that means.

Friday Cat Blogging

There's Always A Pair Of Panties On The Altar. It's Never The Same Pair.

Hillary PWN3S Timmeh

Air

The last few days, my buddelia bush (often known, for obvious reasons, as a butterfly bush) has been full of pumpkin-orange Monarch Butterflies. This afternoon, I counted six of them at once. The purple flowers on the budellia smell exactly like sun-warmed honey. I've also been seeing big fat honey bees (thank goodness) and other small polinators.

Bazooms Blogging

It's a few days early for bazooms blogging, but I just got back from my mammogram, ten years to the day after being diagnosed with breast cancer. My boobs are, I'm happy to report, "perfect, A+" in the doctor's words. (OK, she was only looking at films, but they're not bad at all in the flesh, either!)

So today seems like a perfect day to remind everyone that breast self-exams (BSEs), along with an annual mammogram, can save lives. BSEs are easy to do. Here's how.

Women, send the kids to your mother-in-laws, tell your husband to pick up dinner, forget about whatever chores you think that you "have" to do and go give yourself a BSE. When you're done, have a lovely cup of tea, take a nap, do some yoga to your favorite music, do something (else!) nice for yourself.

Men, are there women you'd miss if they died from breast cancer? A lover, wife, sister, mother, aunt, daughter, friend? Remind them to do a BSE and see what you can do to give them the 15 minutes or so that it takes.

Lying About Liberals

But the most intensely religious Americans of both traditions also tend to be the most conservative on moral issues such as abortion.

Really, Michael Gerson can bite my intensely religious ass.

And the biased pictures need to stop.

I Have Always Been On The Side Of The Reindeer

The Fall of Rome
by W. H. Auden

(for Cyril Connolly)

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.


Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.


Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.


Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.


Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.


Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.


Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast


From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden, renewed by The Estate of W. H. Auden.

Beyond Paying Attention

Just Because

It's the slight raising of the shoulders whenever he tells you the real truth that makes you want to take him to bed and make it ok.

Definition Of Insane

"It is insane – by which I mean out of touch with reality – to promote industrial activities that harm the real world. Because the real world is the source of life," Jensen asserted.

Well, yes. More, here.

Attention Must Be Paid

Yes! No!
Mary Oliver

How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout
lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I
think serenity is not something you just find in the world,
like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.

The violets, along the river, are opening their blue faces, like
small dark lanterns.

The green mosses, being so many, are as good as brawny.

How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly,
looking at everything and calling out

Yes! No! The

swan, for all his pomp, his robes of grass and petals, wants
only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond. The catbrier
is without fault. The water thrushes, down among the sloppy
rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination is better
than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless
and proper work.

**************************

I think that Mary Oliver is (and this is vast presumption on my part, presumption beyond what I ought, to imagine that I can add anything to what Mary Oliver, who, like Euclid, has looked on beauty bare, has to say) half right. Half of our work is to pay attention. I spent years and years working out as a spiritual truism just how crucial it is for us to pay attention, just how much Deity, embodied in the Earth, needs for us to pay attention, what an act of sustaining worship it is for us to pay attention, how much Deity loves it when we appreciate what's here. And one can spend several lifetimes honing that skill -- truly learning how to pay attention.

But I am convinced, here, as the Wheel of the Year slides toward Samhein, that we are called, as well, to pick a spot and to try to make it, in the words of the Beatles' song, better. To repair the web, to heal the world, to create beauty, to give comfort to the sick, to move forward the great, brave ideas of liberty and equality and sorority. To pick up trash, make art, teach mathematics, write clear prose, set an example, do Reiki on the ground beneath our feet, pick herbs for the unwell, write poems, father a child, drum a rhythm, find the ley lines, make soup, have sacred sex. To plant trees, engage the Ents, save the forests.

I can't imagine that we were put here only to pay attention. There must be a point to all of that paid attention, a reason why the Goddess chose to experience life in each of these particular forms. My reason, oddly enough, is to write clear legal prose in the service of good energy policy, to mother and grandmother interestng men, to serve a circle of brilliant women. What's yours?

I'm Sorry About Your Penis

I've an odd notion that YouTubes such as this one could save the world. Every war depends, for its success, upon demonizing the people in the country to be attacked.

Iran reminds me oddly of LA and its environs, a geography close to my heart. Fashionista that I am, I'm always intrigued by how fashionable Iranian women manage to make their headscarves.

Anharita is one of the Goddesses of Iran. May she turn the hearts of those who believe that dropping bombs shows that they have big penises. Ever since the September 15th march for peace, I've been using res ipsa's phrase: "I'm sorry about your penis." George Bush, Norman Podhertz, Dick Cheney, I'm sorry about your penii. But bombing Iran won't make them any bigger than did bombing Afghanistan or Iraq. Turn back. These are not the droids you're looking for.

Sunday Relevant Poetry Blogging

The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope

WHAT dire Offence from am'rous Causes springs,
What mighty Contests rise from trivial Things,
I sing -- This Verse to C---, Muse! is due;
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchfafe to view:
Slight is the Subject but not so the Praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my Lays.
Say what strange Motive, Goddess! cou'd compel
A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle?
Oh say what stranger Cause, yet unexplor'd,
Cou'd make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?
And dwells such Rage in softest Bosoms then?
And lodge such daring Souls in Little Men?

Saturday Goddess Blogging

Crone

My New Name For A Blog

What Molly Ivors Said.

Friday Cat Blogging

Miss Thing on the Coffee Table

Friday Morton's Blogging

Mabon

I swear by all that's holy (and, let's face it, I'm a witch. I think that it's all holy. The pretty stuff: the flowers and the mountains and the flowing river and the sunlight on the water and the softness of a baby's cheek and the maiden's blush and an eagle and waves and firelight and brave deeds, and the widdershins stuff: the worms and the decay and the mold and the spiders and the cold and the dark and the crone's greed for the warm spot by the fire and the fear and the death. So, it's a lot to swear by.) that yesterday, when I drove home from work, the trees along the Potomac River were green. And, tonight, literally overnight, they've begun to turn yellow and brown. As if Mother Earth were saying: here. Here's the boundary. Summer's off on one side and, here, on this side, we're beginning the slide into darkness, and coldness, and death.

Sunday, for one day, everything will be in perfect balance: day and night; darkness and light. And, then, Monday, we begin, will we or nill we, ready or not, the decent into the underworld. And, no less of us than it did of Innana, the underworld will demand that we gift it with all that we hold dear. It will take more from us than we are really prepared to give. It will end with us hanging, naked, from meathooks in our evil sister's kingdom. It will end with me tired of winter and bulky clothes, sick of worrying about slipping on the ice, desperate for a taste of spring greens. And, as a witch, I celebrate this process every bit as much as I celebrate Springtime when everything is new, and fresh, and, as my G/Son says, "hap-py!" I celebrate it as much as I celebrate Summer, when the sun makes the most passionate love on this planet to the tree leaves and photosynthesis happens, when tomatoes and blackberries and peaches and corn and crabs and basil explode in the garden and on the table of my screen porch. As a witch, I am eager to stand once again at the gate to the darkness and offer up my earrings, calling, "Sister of Darkness! I've left Dmuzi on the throne; here I come!"

Balance, the Wheel of the Year teaches us, is seldom found. Two days out of 365. The other days, it's all about movement, trends, the turning of the wheel. Here's a spot worn smooth. Come put your shoulder up there against it, with mine. A witch's job is to turn the wheel, and round and round the wheel must turn. It's turning now towards darkness. How can you help it to turn? Next Eostara, it will shift, and turn again towards light. What secret wlll you bring out of the darkness, clutched, bloody and weak, but glowing, to your breast? What is it that you need to learn during the next six months of germination? What do you need to leave behind to decay and be slowly transformed in the permafrost of the dark northern nights?

My New Name For A Blog

What trifecta said.

Batshit Insane And They Can't Sing

We Should, More Often

My New Name For A Blog

What echidne said

Patriarchy

Notice his jewelry.

My Girl Medea

From WaPo: As about 150 peace activists gathered by an entrance to the building on First Street SW, chanting slogans and singing protest songs, a dozen officers took up positions by the doors, a duffle bag filled with plastic handcuffs at their feet.

But getting arrested wasn't on the agenda.

Before leading the group into the building, one of the protest organizers, Medea Benjamin, a founder of the antiwar group Code Pink, approached the officer in charge, Capt. William Hanny of the U.S. Capitol Police.

"Okay, if we do anything you don't want in there, would you give us a warning first?" she said. "We don't want to get arrested today. We've got people catching planes tonight."

"We will give you a warning," Hanny replied. "But it's going to be up to you."

"Because sometimes people want to get arrested," she said. "They do what they have to do to get arrested. This is not one of those days."

The captain nodded. "Just don't block the hallways. Don't blow whistles. Don't cause a disturbance. Don't do any of that, and we'll be okay."

"Will you tell them to put the cuffs away?" Benjamin, 55, asked, smiling. She believes the Iraq war is criminal. So she said, "You can take those cuffs to the White House."

Hanny did not smile back.

And First, A Word From Our Sponsor

/Hat tip to Shawk Kenawe at Atrios

We Have Just Begun To Fight. And, We Are Many. They Are Few.

Shut it down.

Encampment in front of Congress.

October National Mobilization to End the War

Download some leaflets here.

Listen to NTodd's podcast here.

Listen to me you dirty, fucking hippies who run the peace movement! Start putting the code for a button to your sites in IN AN EASY-TO-FIND PLACE ON YOUR FRONT GODDAMN PAGE. And, no more long speeches before the marches start! Don't make me call out the flying monkeys!

And A Few Final Pictures From The March

Sunday Relevant Poetry Blogging

Barbara Fritchie by John Greenleaf Whittier

Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple and peach trees fruited deep,

Fair as the garden of the Lord
to the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When Lee marched over the mountain-wall;

Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind; the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;

In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.

Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.

Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced; the old flag met his sight.

"Halt!" the dust-brown ranks stood fast.
"Fire!" out blazed the rifle-blast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.

She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.

"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag," she said.

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;

The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman's deed and word;

"Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on!" he said.

All day long through Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet:

All day long that free flag tost
Over the heads of the rebel host.

Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;

And through the hill-gaps sunset light
shone over it with a warm good-night.

Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,
and the Rebel rides on his raids no more.

Honor to her! And let a tear
Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.

Over Barbara Frietchie's grave,
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!

Peace and order and beauty draw
Round thy symbol of light and law;

And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town!