Friday Cat Blogging

No, Really. This Time I'm Serious. Come On. Really. Don't Play Games. It's Me, Your Many-Times-Great Grandaughter. Talk To Me. Seriously. Guys?

Driving home this evening from pizza w/ Son and G/Son, while my beautiful DiL was at a meeting at G/Son's school, I finally felt it. The thinning of the veil. It won't be complete for another few weeks, but it's beginning. Perhaps it was waiting for our first blast of true Fall weather to usher it in. Whatever triggered it, it's here. You can feel it, smell it, almost see it, as the darkness comes earlier and earlier and as the acorns hitting the roof tap out a message from the Isle of Apples.

This is the time of year when I have conversations with my ancestors -- the farther back, the better. (No, really. If you knew my family, you'd agree. The farther back, the better. Some other poor witch, born centures from now, can try to hold a conversation w/ my parents. Blessings and good luck upon you, Dear Descendent. It will help if you can speak Crazy.) I talk about whatever's on my mind, what's worrying me, what I plan to do for the next year, what I think about the year now ending, about anything that I need to talk about. I talk, well, my rising sign is Gemini, so, I talk a lot. I have a lot to say.

Son once, as a v. little boy, maybe three years old, was fascinated with a National Geographic story about the Vikings. My mother told him, "The Vikings were your ancestors." Son asked what an "ancestor" was, and my mom explained that they were his relatives, but that he'd never meet them because they were already dead. It made Son inordinately sad. I've always found that, first, very endearing, and, second, very true, in the "larger truths" sense of the word.

Most of us do long to know that we are part of a line, part of a clan that transcends time, someone with, not only a past, but also, the possibility of a future. And, of course, we are, each of us, someone with a long, long line of ancestors stretching back to African Eve, each of us the result of a long line of people who, no matter what else they did, or failed to do, managed to survive and to pass their mitochondrial DNA, the cleft of their chins, some archetypes, and the will to live down, down, down, through the centuries, through the Ice Ages, and wars, and droughts, and cracking of ice walls leading to floods, and long migrations, all of it passed down to -- us.

To today's survivors. To the ones who will, one day, feasting in the Summerlands, drowsing on the Isle of Apples, notice the Veil getting thin and peer across to see someone who looks, and smells, and sounds . . . familiar, in the original sense of the word. Someone who seems insistent on reaching across the veil to touch our hand, hear our voice, get some kind of important message from us. When that time comes, may we be kind.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite passages, ever, from Ursula LeGuin. A woman importunes her ancestors for help. "Oh, it's That One. In trouble, again," the Ancestors chuckle to each other. It's what I imagine some Viking thrall saying to some settler from ancient Rus and to the barefoot old crone, the one who died lighting fires at the edge of the cave to keep the winter wolves away from the smell of placenta and mother's milk. "Oh, it's That One. In trouble, again."

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

Update: A point made in comments reminds me that I should have noted that I often talk to many-times-great aunts and uncles. I don't think that a lack of direct progeny prevents one from hearing calls through the veil once in the Summerlands. We're all related somehow.

Wednesday Poetry Blogging

SEKHMET, THE LION-HEADED GODDESS OF WAR, VIOLENT STORMS, PESTILENCE, AND RECOVERY FROM ILLNESS, CONTEMPLATES THE DESERT IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

He was the sort of man
who wouldn't hurt a fly.
Many flies are now alive
while he is not.
He was not my patron.
He preferred full granaries, I battle.
My roar meant slaughter.
Yet here we are together
in the same museum.
That's not what I see, though, the fitful
crowds of staring children
learning the lesson of multi-
cultural obliteration, sic transit
and so on.

I see the temple where I was born
or built, where I held power.
I see the desert beyond,
where the hot conical tombs, that look
from a distance, frankly, like dunces' hats,
hide my jokes: the dried-out flesh
and bones, the wooden boats
in which the dead sail endlessly
in no direction.

What did you expect from gods
with animal heads?
Though come to think of it
the ones made later, who were fully human
were not such good news either.
Favour me and give me riches,
destroy my enemies.
That seems to be the gist.
Oh yes: And save me from death.
In return we're given blood
and bread, flowers and prayer,
and lip service.

Maybe there's something in all of this
I missed. But if it's selfless
love you're looking for,
you've got the wrong goddess.

I just sit where I'm put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
that the deity who kills for pleasure
will also heal,
that in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion
will come with bandages in her mouth
and the soft body of a woman,
and lick you clean of fever,
and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck
and caress you into darkness and paradise.

--Margaret Atwood

Who Would Jesus Frag?

Jason Pitzel-Waters, at the Wild Hunt, covers the disturbing story.

Terrifying

OMFG, just go read this First Draft post. What a psychopath, to be handing out souvenir coins.

Two Hundred Species A Day

We Can Do Way, Way Better Than Empire

Happy Samhein

La Revolucion Is Dead. Long Live La Revolucion.

Che Guevra was executed by firing squad forty years ago today, according to Wiki, in Bolivia, where he was captured in a military operation supported by the CIA and the U.S. Army Special Forces. He had some Celt in him, as well as Basque, and he wrote poetry.

In his notebook, taken when he was executed, he had written the following poem by Cesar Vallego:

The Black Heralds

There are blows in life, so powerful . . . I don’t know!
Blows as from the hatred of God; as if, facing them,
the undertow of everything suffered
welled up in the soul . . . I don’t know!

They are few; but they are . . . They open dark trenches
in the fiercest face and in the strongest back.
Perhaps they are the colts of barbaric Attilas;
or the black heralds sent to us by Death.

They are the deep falls of the Christs of the soul,
of some adored faith blasphemed by Destiny.
Those bloodstained blows are the crackling of
bread burning up at the oven door.

And man . . . Poor . . . poor! He turns his eyes, as
when a slap on the shoulder summons us;
turns his crazed eyes, and everything lived,
wells up, like a pool of guilt, in his look.

There are blows in life, so powerful . . . I don’t know!

My New Name For A Blog

What SarahSutterfield Winn Said:

But if anything, at this time in our spiritual history, it is the darkness that we ought to be cultivating in the gardens of our hours, making pockets of space and time in which the small things can creep back in, restore the old wells, rekindle wildernesses, spark the gift of storytelling, and make safe haven for secrets. If anything, we should be breathing darkness into our bodies and making places of rest in our bones.

Almost Heaven

I was born in the mountains -- Boulder Community Hospital -- and carried home in my mother's arms to a home with a picture window onto Pikes Peak. And so it's no wonder that, to me, the mountains, any mountains, have always felt like home. I live in Washington, D.C., as close to the coast as to the mountains, and lots of my work involves LA, again, as close to the coast as to the mountains. Yet, even when I'm in LA, I'd rather head for the hills than head on down to the coast.

This weekend, Son, DiL, G/Son and I made the two-hour trip up to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, the closest mountains that there are to Washington, D.C. I love those goddamn mountains. It's been such a hot summer and fall that few leaves have started to change, although there were a few red, red maple trees. All the rest of the trees, and there are a lot of trees there, are still a dull, late-summer green. But the mineral water still bubbles out of the original stream and the woodpeckers are still huge and the trees are still so thick, in spots, that no sun makes its way to the valley floor. Son took us on a brilliant detour through some of the high hills with a lovely view of the small town in the valley and of the wonderful next mountain over. Views like that are a huge part of what I love about mountains.

I'm a witch and a huge part of what I "do" is to ground -- in the Starhawk sense of the word. And all that I can tell you is that when I ground in Berkeley Springs, I sense both a deep beauty and peace and a deep, deep sorrow. The sorrow comes from the Celts who came here and allowed their lives to be ruined. You can see them everywhere in this small, sad town. It surprises me that this much sorrow can pile up in, say, a mere 300 years. But it's everywhere in the ground when you sink your roots down; it's everywhere.

I think sometimes about buying a patch of mountain in West Virginia, probably near Berkely Springs. I could get cell phone reception and log onto wireless with my cell phone, this time, unlike five years ago when I could only get cell phone reception at the very top of the mountains. There are, it's clear to me, witches up here. Could I ever move? Maybe not. I'm really a city witch.

Oddly, When You Spend A Generation Acting Like A Bunch Of Asses, Young People Grow Up Disliking You

Recently, both Atrios and Jason Pitzl-Waters have blogged about a study showing that today's young people (16 to 29 year-olds) have a less favorable view of xianity than did previous generations. The study attributes this change to: a growing sense of disengagement and disillusionment among young people. I assume that means a "disengagement" from xianity and a "disillusionmnet" with xianity among young people. But that's not really an explanation, it's merely a restatement of the results of the study.

I'm willing to take a wild guess and suggest that the change in attitudes is due to a change in xianity, at least in the version of xianity that's been shoved relentlessly down America's throat for the last few decades. That version of xianity is a far cry from the "care for the sick/judge not lest ye be not judged/blessed are the meek" version of xianity that, for example, I grew up with during the sixties and seventies. I didn't like xianity's view of women, but I generally believed xians to be good people who cared for others, tried not to do evil, attempted to convert by example. And, to be clear, there are still many, many xians who believe in and follow that version of xianity. But they're as invisible today as St. Paul wanted women to be.

The only kind of xianity that many of today's young people, especially those in their teens, have ever seen is the "hate on gays/hate on abortion/hate on women/hate on Islam" xianity that's gotten oddly tangled up in some bizarre form of American exceptionalism and mad desire to bring on a bloody Armageddon. They've seen that Catholic priests are pedophiles protected, at all costs, by the church. They've seen xians insist that evolution is a lie, that science is bad, and that the myths of Bronze Age sheep herders are the final word in -- well, in everything. They've seen one creepy minister after another turn out to engage in exactly the behaviors against which he's gotten rich inveighing. They've heard over and over again that it's wrong to have sex, use birth control, have an abortion and they know that none of that works in today's real world. The face of modern xianity is mean, hateful, intolerant, relentlessly anti-woman, anti-sex, protective of the privileged, and spiteful to the downtrodden. It's not surprising to me that just 16% of non-Christians in their late teens and twenties said they have a "good impression" of Christianity. Hell, I'm surprised that the xians got 16%.

I'd like to think, as Jason Pitzel-Waters' commenter, Steve Caldwell, suggests, that: [a] shift in Christian cultural and political dominance is possible based on current demographic trends that [Jason Pitzel-Waters post] highlighted and similiar trends posted on the Ontario Consultants for Religious Tolerance web site:

"By about the year 2042, non-Christians will outnumber the Christians in the U.S."

"14.1% do not follow any organized religion. This is an unusually rapid increase -- almost a doubling -- from only 8% in 1990. There are more Americans who say they are not affiliated with any organized religion than there are Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans taken together."

Source:
Religious identification in the U.S.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2.htm

So Christianity may find itself as a minority faith in the U.S. and no faith group will be in the majority. That would, IMHO, be a good thing. It might put an end to the obvious lie, repeated over and over by people who profess to believe that it is evil to lie, that "America is a Christian Nation." When you probe a bit and ask people what they mean when they say that "America is a Christian Nation," there's just not, in the immortal words of Gertrude Stein, much "there, there." Everyone I've asked has responded that it means that "America was founded on Judeo-xian ideals." Forget how odd it is that they never say that "America is a Judeo-xian Nation," what's weird is what they say when you ask what that means. The inevitable response is that it means "respect for life" (sometimes phrased as "respect for human dignity"). And we all know what that means.

Look, I love the idea of America a whole lot. But America was founded by people who owned slaves, kept women as second-class citizens for generations, massacred the Native Americans, and, practiced early forms of abortion to deal with unwanted children. It was also founded by people who said: As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Hopefully, today's young people will be more true to the vision of our Founders than are the likes of Fred Phelps, James Dobson, and America's Bishops.

Hmmm. This City Appears Oddly Unchanged.

Richard II, Scene III
I count myself in nothing else so fortunate,
As in a soul remembering my good friends

For absolutely no reason at all, I have been blessed with wonderful friends and a wonderful, loving family.

I spent this weekend off in the fall-touched mountains of West Virginia, up in the highlands that I love, with my rock-steady Son, my brilliant and beautiful DiL (who is just an am-a-zing cook!), and my wonderful G/Son.

We had a lovely time, from the late Friday night dinner at the Wild Woman Cafe with the v. nice waitresses, to the early Saturday morning small-town parade at the Apple Butter Festival, to the late morning sampling of West Virginia (yes, West Virginia!) vineyards, to the late Saturday afternoon massages at Astasia, to the Ina Garten pumpkin soup that DiL made and the steaks and corn on the cob that Son grilled, to the late morning drive through Virginia horse country.

Meanwhile, my brilliant friend E, author of the best football blog you'll ever read, was taking care of my home, Miss Thing, and my blog. The brilliant women in my circle were having brunch in amazing hats. My wonderful paralegals were making it appear as if I'd never left town.

And, sad as I was to leave, it was good to come home.

Guestblog: Current Administration Scandals, Part So Many I've Lost Count

I don't even have time to go into the whole thing right now, but those of you who care about the state of our country, what's going on in Iraq, our service men and women, and Curious George the Boyking's latest disasters need to check out the Blackwater story:

• Salon.com
• WaPo
• Mother Jones
• Democracy Now

As Al Gore points out in The Assault on Reason: "Our Founders' faith in the viability of representative democracy rested on their trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry...."

So what are you waiting for?

Guestblog: It wouldn't BE guestblogging without a post about music

A few random tidbits:

Best discovery from Jazz Fest this year? Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews. He put out his first album at 17, fronts a quintet that includes two Marsalises (Marsali?), Kermit Ruffins and John Boutte, and founded a band called Orleans Avenue. And he's now all of 21.

After 12 years of classical lessons as a kid, and about 10 years off playing, I've been taking jazz piano lessons for the past year. If you're ever in the DC area, you should definitely check out my teacher, Amy Bormet, at one of her frequent gigs around town. She's awesome!

One of the things Amy has me attempting to do is transcribe recordings. Transcribing is HARD! One of the musicians I'm trying to transcribe is Gene Harris, whose recording of Summertime will change your life. Yeah, I'm definitely going to play like Gene when I don't suck.

Finally, the Tipitina's Foundation is still trying to put instruments back in the hands of New Orleans kids through school music programs, a vital incubator of jazz talent in Crescent City, the USA, and the entire world. Help 'em out.

Guestblog: It's GAMETIME, baby!

I'm still at Hecate's, but at my house, Sunday means football. I know most of you are NOT American football fans...but for those who are, my new name for a blog is: what I wrote (in my other blogging life). Check it out - and trust me, you'll enjoy.

Guestblog: This, Also, Is Poetry

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
and nothing else matters

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say
and nothing else matters

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they say
never cared for games they play
never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
and I know

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
No, nothing else matters

--James Hetfield (Metallica)

Guestblog: Jezebel

A little frivolity over your morning coffee:

Jezebel: "Celebrity, sex, fashion. Without the Airbrushing."

Make sure to check out the comments on each entry - they're the best part.

Guestblog: Poetry Blogging

Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, "Speak to us of Eating and Drinking."

And he said:

Would that you could live on the fragerance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light.

But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its mother's milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship,

And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in many.

When you kill a beast say to him in your heart,

"By the same power that slays you, I to am slain; and I too shall be consumed. For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.

Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven."

And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,

"Your seeds shall live in my body,

And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,

And your fragrance shall be my breath,

And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons."

And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyard for the winepress, say in you heart,

"I too am a vineyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress,

And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels."

And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in your heart a song for each cup;

And let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress.

--Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

Guestblog: Saturday Goddess Blogging

So I'm sitting here on Hecate's screen porch, having just fed Miss Thing, enjoying my second cup of coffee, listening to the acorns bounce off the roof, and thinking that I really need to Goddess blog Hestia, since I seem to have offended her mightily. Which is why I'm sitting here on Hecate's screen porch drinking my coffee rather than sitting at my kitchen table with the WaPo.

This past week, in the middle of the night, a gasket in my second floor bathroom decided that it didn't want to be a gasket any more, resulting in a flood of truly epic proportions chez E. Hecate generously offered to let me stay with her, and, after I realized, on Thursday morning, that my walk-in closet floor had also gotten wet and I was going to have to move all my clothes to the last remaining available horizontal storage surface, MY BED, leaving me no place to sleep, I gladly accepted.

Anyway, Hestia, this one's for you.

Hestia, according to Wikipedia (which Science magazine tested and found to be as reliable as the venerable Encyclopedia Britanica), "is the goddess of the hearth, of the right ordering of domesticity and the family, who received the first offering at every sacrifice in the household." It continues to note, "At a very deep level her name means 'home and hearth': the household and its inhabitants." Hestia is the original home fire that was kept burning. Homer called her the chief among all the Goddesses. To quote Homer:

Hestia, you who tend the holy house of the lord Apollo, the Far-shooter at goodly Pytho, with soft oil dripping ever from your locks, come now into this house, come, having one mind with Zeus the all-wise: draw near, and withal bestow grace upon my song.

All hail Hestia! And, Lady, please smile on me once again.

Guestblog: My New Name for a Blog

What Kate Harding wrote.

Make sure you check out the slideshow on Flickr.

Guestblog: Big Conservative Babies, Part One Million

In case you hadn't heard, Clarence Thomas has come out with a memoir, My Grandfather's Son (which would technically be his father, but whatever). Here's the thing - we all KNOW he sexually harrassed Anita Hill, and likely many others. If he'd come out and said: "I did everything she claimed and more. But I'm a Supreme Court Justice and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Suck it, bitches!" I might, might, have had a little respect for him. As it is? He's a creep, a liar AND a whiner. Stopped my nostalgia for Bush 41 right in its tracks. He was just as bad as Curious George the Boyking. What is it with these two and ruining entire branches of the government?

Friday Cat Blogging

I'm off to show G/Son how the leaves in the mountains turn to gold, and copper, and the color of the sun on water.

My brilliant friend, E, will entertain you this weekend.

I'll be back on Monday, if the mountains let me go.

I Do Not Think That The Goddess Loves Me This Much

From TPM

Now, however, one of those leaders, Focus on the Family head James Dobson, has published an Op ed piece in The New York Times clarifying exactly what happened: The group voted almost unanimously not just to "consider" backing such a challenger, but to definitely do so. In other words, Dobson made it official, saying that if a pro-choicer wins the GOP nomination, these leaders will be going third party.

. . .

This could obviously have a major impact on the race by splitting the GOP vote.

Indeed, a new poll out from Rasmussen today says that more than a quarter -- 27% -- of Republicans would vote for such a pro-life third-party challenger. What's particularly interesting about this poll is that it offers GOPers this choice while explicitly naming Hillary and Rudy as the major party nominees -- suggesting that even the specter of a victorious Hillary wouldn't dissuade many Republicans from going third party


Maybe they'll run Dobson himself. Run, Rudy! Run!

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.