A Small Victory?

I've been really bad about taking my Prozac for the past several days, and it started taking its toll this morning. I don't know why I've been such a dork about it, probably because I've been very caught up in thoughts about houses, moving, and traveling. The new house closes tomorrow at 1 in Athens. The old house still isn't on the market, which is a long and annoying story. On Thursday, we leave for the Southwest; we'll be gone for a week. Admittedly, choosing to travel right now was probably foolish, but we both really wanted to go away, and there's a Steve Roach concert in Tucson on Saturday, so it seemed a good excuse. It will work out OK, I know; hopefully, we can have some of the contracting on the new house done while we're away.

But I digress, as usual.

So, this morning, I realized that the non-Prozac'd state had caught up with me. Lethargy, anxiety, generally dark thoughts, and more abounded. First, I took my Prozac for the day (I notice the lack within 3-6 days of no pills; it usually takes 1-3 days before I'm back to 'normal.' Yes, this is somewhat atypical, but I have always responded to SSRIs, in particular, very, very quickly.) Barbara & I made a list of what needed to get done today, and that gave me some structure. But the thought-loops, as I call them, were still out of control. I was sure that meditation -- which I was determined not to forgo -- would be impossible.

I was wrong. Actually, it seemed to help. I've been slowly learning to be able to step back from my thoughts, to observe them without being overwhelmed by them. It's still very hit and miss, to say the least, but I can recognize improvement. One of the challenges is to experience the thoughts/feelings without being overwhelmed by them. Denying them winds up giving them more power, and keeps me from bare attention.

Today, I was able to watch the thought loops, the narratives, the sensations of anxiety and self-loathing, and step back from them enough that they no longer had power over me. The catch, of course, is that this was within the formalized meditation experience, where I could be very mindful of breath and external sounds, and could detach myself from worrying about what was and what will be. Outside of meditation, of course, that's much harder -- I'm stuck in the phenomenal world of time and necessity. So the test will be if I am able to maintain that equanimity throughout the rest of the day, at least in some small form. I'll report back later with the results.

Where There's Magic, There's Buddha

From The Japan Times Online.

I dunno about this.

Two scholars, David R. Loy & Linda Goodhew, have written a book called The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons, whihc attempts to find Buddhist messages in modern fantasy stories, including Tolkien and Pullman.

Tolkien, for example, was a devout Catholic and, as Loy and Goodhew note, his "fantasy world is built on a radical and quite un-Buddhist dualism between unredeemable evil (Sauron, Saruman) and uncompromising goodness (Gandalf, Frodo)." He created, though, a modern myth, and, as the authors point out, "myths have a way of growing beyond their creator's intentions."

Tolkien might have been surprised to learn, for example, that "in Buddhist terms, [Frodo and Sam] become bodhisattvas," but when one considers, with Loy and Goodhew, that Frodo does not choose to have his adventure, but rather that the journey he embarks upon in order to destroy the ring is inescapable, one sees that the authors' argument is plausible.

As wedded to dualism as "The Lord of the Rings" is, the selflessness of Frodo's response to the needs of the world can be read as an example of how one acts when one understands that one is not "other" than the world. Frodo and Sam, having let go of the dualism that separates self from world, become exemplars of socially engaged Buddhism. Readers may have thought they picked up Tolkien solely for the sense of wonder his work can inspire, but even as they are entertained they can learn, from Frodo and Sam, a lesson about how to be in a world often less than wonderful.

This analysis is as convoluted and improbable as the Lorax bit. It reminds me of the way that many, especially new, Pagans will go through their favorite novels, CDs, comics, RPGs, etc. to find the secret Pagan message, blithely ignoring any contrary evidence. For that matter, it's as flawed an analysis as seeing LOTR as purely Christian.

Miyazaki is the only artist considered whose cultural background suggests he may actually be a Buddhist, but religion, Buddhist or otherwise, plays little overt role in his work. Rather, Loy and Goodhew explain, "his deepest spiritual concerns are assimilated into the plots as central themes," and these themes are never simple. His films avoid, for example, the sort of dualities that provide the conflicts that drive so many narratives.

This is an interesting point. Since Buddhism tends to eschew duality, it follows that those from a strongly Buddhist-inflected culture will not be as likely to see the world in purely dualistic ways. But, on the other hand, any great art is going to defy simple, pat dualism in favor of more sophisticated systems. And it isn't as if there aren't Chinese and Japanese stories that don't contain stark duality.

I haven't read Pullman, for whatever reason. I've read more about him, mostly in the form of arguments between online friends over the way he treats religion. So it comes as no surprise that Pullman's works would be problematic for Loy and Goodhew.

Those of us who are not convinced that "generosity, loving-kindness, and wisdom" must necessarily be linked with spirituality will find Philip Pullman's secular and humanistic vision in his "Dark Materials" more congenial than Loy and Goodhew, who worry that Pullman may be "throwing the spiritual baby out along with the dogmatic authoritarian bath water of monotheism."

That disposing of the spiritual baby may be the right move is not a lesson they choose to highlight. As it is not their brief to find secular, materialist lessons in the works they are explicating, this omission is neither surprising nor, in the end, damaging.

It's an interesting idea, all around ... the idea of Western fantasy lit informed by Eastern worldviews. Ursula LeGuin's works often qualify, for example; while the Japan Times article doesn't mention this, the book's catalog entry notes that LeGuin is treated. Since fantasy often treats in issues of spirituality, I think it's interesting to contemplate a fantasy work by a Westerner which is informed by Buddhist ethics and worldview, yet isn't an Orientalist pastiche.

The Secret Alchemy of Dr. Seuss

Why am I not surprised that this is from Endicott Studios?

To say that this article seems to be trying to make a silk purse from a Truffula Tree would be, itself, an overstatement, although it's certainly got some fun stuff. The discussion of the secret of Seussess is valuable, if obvious and incomplete: Seuss's rhymes were brilliant, and liberally coated with mental Super Glue, but there's far more to Seuss than his verbal music.

For one thing, there's his intention to liberate:

In later interviews, Seuss was always quite honest about his rhetorical intentions. He referred directly to the influence of writers like Belloc, Swift, and Voltaire, and did not hesitate to refer to his own radical and revolutionary ideas. "I’m subversive as hell!" he once declared. He said of his Cat in the Hat: "It’s revolutionary in that it goes as far as Kerensky and then stops. It doesn’t go quite as far as Lenin." Seuss was a writer fully aware of his political and rhetorical intentions (much like George Orwell, whose Animal Farm is often read in elementary schools), and he crafted his literary tools to most effectively deliver his charged messages.

This subversiveness is another staple of kidlit, but Seuss twins it with an all too rare quality: true whimsy. Further, it's not a cruel subversion, but a liberating one. This liberation doesn't rely on arcane anagrams or esoteric symbolism.

L O R A X is an anagram that breaks down into three symbolic clusters: AO, RX, and L. AO represents Alpha and Omega (O -- Omnicron -- here is a substitute for W -- Omega -- in keeping with the transformation of the Greek to Roman alphabets). These two letters, as we know, symbolize Christ, who said, "I am the Alpha and the Omega." RX (as I discuss in my column on the Caduceus), is usually taken to mean "prescription" as in the pharmacist’s symbol, but it actually comes from another transformation of Greek to Roman alphabets; the R and X represent Rho and Chi, which in the Greek alphabet are P and X. Chi and Rho are the first two letters in Christos, or Christ. The X written over the P is the typical Chiro recognized as the symbol for Christ.

I am reminded of painful high school explorations of Christ symbolism in every piece of literature that appeared in the syllabus. I am also reminded of Alan Sokal's infamous hoaxing of post-modernism.

Seuss's genius is that of the trickster, who is both irresistibly lovable and insanely irritating. Even when there is darkness or destruction, as in The Lorax or The Butter Battle Book or The Sneetches, it is also both funny and aesthetically beautiful. One of the weaknesses of Fenkl's article is that it only attends to Seuss's words, with only occasional acknowledgement of the weird beauties of Seuss's art. I don't think you can separate the two. The Cat in the Hat is every bit as visually iconic as he is in terms of character or action. Seuss's artistic world is weird and beautiful, liberating the viewer from conventional perspective and reality, but without becoming ugly.

At around the same time Seuss was coming up with the Cat, the wacky loons down at Termite Terrace were refining and perfecting the art of American animation. It was in the late forties and fifties that many of the best of the Warner Brothers cartoons were made. Recently, Barbara & I picked up both of the Looney Tunes DVD sets. I had been having a major hankering for some good toons, and so I glutted. I hadn't seen many of them in decades, and it was amazing to me how many of them were so incredibly, beautifully surreal. There's a whole toon where Bugs enters Elmer's dreams, after Elmer decides to give up on hunting Bugs, and tears up his WB contract. It's trippy!

Coincidentally, a friend posted a picture of the "new" Bugs Bunny. Oh, yes ... in an attempt to pump ratings, WB is retooling Bugs, Daffy, Taz, Wile E, the Road Runner, and Lola Bunny, as Dark and Dangerous (tm) superheroes. If The Dark Knight Returns hadn't been so good, I'd want to kill Frank Miller right about now. But I digress.

This caused much outrage among those who saw the pic, and there was much discussion about how the original Looney Tunes characters were gentle icons of childhood & how Bugs never started anything, but just responded to those who were out to get him. These new ones were an abomination against that sweet memory of yore.

Bah.

One of the greatest things about the Looney Tunes is that they don't overly sugar coat; there are strong helpings of both love & cruelty. In that sense, they're more like Grimm's fairy tales than the Disney versions of the same stories (which I generally dislike as painfully flattened, sugar-coated, and overall reduced to the lowest common denominator.)

What I dislike about the Loonatics is that they go in the exact opposite direction as Disney -- in order to be appealing, they are dark rather than light, sharp rather than soft, and generally seem to repudiate any of those gentler qualities. It's the same error in the opposite direction. The best Looney Tunes chart a pitch perfect course between the two poles.

Seuss does the same thing. That's why he's brilliant, not because of some cockamamie Dr. Seuss Code.

[Thanks be to Tim Boucher, Occult Investigator, for the link to The Secret Alchemy of Dr. Seuss. Go read his blog. It's ultraterrestrially good.]

Bow wow wow

I always bow after I meditate. It's strange to think about, because I'm both fully prostrating myself, yet, at the same time, I'm not bowing to anyone. I won't. But, still, it's profoundly moving to me to do so; sometimes, when my actual sitting was very rough, when my mind was on everything except my breath, the bowing is particularly profound. It's a reminder of why I am doing this -- not because I want to be a Spirichul Guy, but because I want to be a free, clear and open conduit, to be able to give fully of who & what I am to all that is. Bowing is that, in microcosm. All the nervousness, the aches, the self-admonitions that I can't get out of my head sometimes -- often -- when I sit, I can just release, let go, when I bow. It's a peculiar alchemy.

Kinda dodgy 'round here

I'm frustrated, because there's a lot of stuff I'm wanting to write about, but I'm feeling really pushed for time to do it. I want to talk about some of the things Carl MacColman's been writing about, about magic, about my iPod, about karma, about mysticism, about Pagans In Recovery...but I'm also in the middle of a move. We close on our new house on Monday, then we're travelling to the southwest (Tucson, Santa Fe & Taos) on Thursday, we'll be gone for a week, and then the packing (which I've been really, really bad about) begins in earnest, aiming for a move at the end of March, beginning of April -- meanwhile, working on getting some work done in the new house, and, as soon as we're out of here, getting it cleaned up & on the market.... oy!

So I'm distracted by a particularly frenetic whirl of maya. But I'll do what I can, and post when & what I can.

A Spotter's Guide to Heathens

From Thorshof comes this amusing list of Heathen types.

I'm kind of distressed that neither Fredegar, Marion, or Erni are on the list. Perhaps because Thorshof is a UK site & they're more US types? Certainly, I know that Asatruar have told me that they know these individuals, so I'm not too concerned about my lack of verismilitude.

But the Svens certainly are represented -- twice:

In it for the beer Heathen

Slides under the table during moots, only attending when the pub serves their favourite real ale. Their rituals are often indistinguishable from their piss-ups. Watch for the pained expression as they pour beer in the blessing bowl.

and

Scary Viking' heathen

These heathens milk the 'Big bad viking' image for all it's worth. A table cloth and a plastic horned helmet is just the job to transform their biker gear. They believe they have let the side down if no panicking local headlines appear the day after a ritual. These heathens hold all the best parties and are easily to spot in their local pub waving a four pint drinking horn. They are masters of the art of quaffing.

Unfortunately I have run across one too many Loki worshippers to have any patience whatsoever for them, although the archetypical one was also an Arsonist, and certainly would have hurt a fly, Loki or not.

A Spell for Hemorrhoids

Carl MacColman writes, in The Interfaith Hazelnut, Part Five:

One thing is for sure: I'm pretty much over the idea of writing any more pagan-specific books. For me, the thought of writing a book of magical spells is about as exciting as the thought of getting a root canal while suffering from hemorrhoids.

Can I get an "amen"?

I knew that Carl had a LiveJournal, but I hadn't known what it was. A friend forwarded a link to the LJ, although it was to another entry, about Paganism's Best Kept Secret. I scanned a little lower on the page, and found out that MacColman is being drawn away from a pagan path, and returning to Catholicism, specifically in its mystic forms. I've always appreciated Carl's writing and his perspective, and I found myself nodding along quite a bit with what he was saying.

This was right on the heels of reading this quote about Pantheacon from Watching Rats Abandon Ship (although I first saw it at the Wildhunt.org blog):

For those that don't know, Pantheacon is a pagan convention in its second decade of life (though it shows). This is the third time that I've been and I always have a good time. That being said, I do find my pagan coreligionists (when I'm not a Buddhist) a bit odd or scary in a geeky sort of way. When a professional geek finds you odd or scary, it is not a good sign...Lots of aging boomers in tiedye and bad hair.

I laughed and laughed. Pantheacon must be a lot like Starwood, although Starwood adds in a thick dollop of pasty-faced Goths vying with a generous slice of BDSM exhibitionists for the title of Most Overwrought Amateur Dramatics.

I'm beginning to think that maybe there should be a place for recovering Pagans to share, vent, and discuss how & why they've left Paganism, and the sorts of questions of identity that seem to occur.

More Forteana -- this time, it's the End Times meets the Illuminati!

I've been following the Faithful Progressive's blog recently, and I'm very much enjoying it. FP is currently doing a series of posts critical of the Christian Right (especially of the Reconstructionist flavor) from the perspective of a deeply spiritual, although politically liberal, Christian. Now, some of the things that FP has been surprised to discover were well known to me, but when I read that Tim LaHaye was obsessed with the Illuminati, I was more than a little taken aback. FP quotes a passage from an article by Rob Boston on the Americans United for Separation of Church and State site which talks at length about LaHaye:

When he's not knocking religions he doesn't like, [he referred to Pope Paul VI as as "archpriest of Satan"] LaHaye obsesses over off-the-wall conspiracy theories. He believes a secret society called the "Illuminati" has engineered world events since the 18th century. The Illuminati, a frequent obsession among conspiracy buffs, was supposedly founded in 1776 by a cabal of power-hungry Europeans. As the story goes, over the centuries its members have sparked wars and manipulated financial markets to enrich themselves and bring about an atheistic one-world government.

In Rapture Under Attack, LaHaye writes, "I myself have been a forty-five year student of the satanically-inspired, centuries-old conspiracy to use government, education, and media to destroy every vestige of Christianity within our society and establish a new world order. Having read at least fifty books on the Illuminati, I am convinced that it exists and can be blamed for many of man's inhumane actions against his fellow man during the past two hundred years." [emphasis mine]

Hey! It's an IRAB Christian! Oh...wait...um...nevermind. Granted, this is a guy who doesn't need evidence for his beliefs (he buys into the 6,000 year old earth, for example) but ... wow.

This was entertaining, too:

Conspiracy-theory thinking and contempt for religions that differ from fundamentalist Christianity run through LaHaye's non-fiction works. His 1983 book The Battle for the Public Schools contains a drawing of a tree whose trunk is labeled "Secular Humanism." Some of its roots are labeled "Hinduism," "Buddhism," "Taoism" and "Confucianism." Branches and leaves coming off of the tree are labeled "Crime," "Divorce," "Abortion," "Homosexuality," "Rape," "V.D.," "Public Schools" and "Liberal Politicians."

Yup. Hinduism ... that's secular humanism, alright. I'd think that LaHaye would feel a great deal of kinship with the Hindu nationalists & the BJP. Oh, well, except that them Hindoos are trying to form a theocracy based on DEVIL WURSHIP! (A diabolocracy?)

The most beautiful thangka I have ever seen

I picked up this month's issue of Tricycle magazine because it talked about two things close to my heart: solitude & art. I'm sitting in Borders, reading along, listening to Rabih Abou-Khalil on my new best friend, er, iPod, and suddenly, I am whacked upside the head by this incredible image. Unfortunately, it's nowhere online that I can find, but it is a modern thangka painting by Raj Prakash Tuladhar of Acala, or Chandramaharoshana. I've seen quite a few thangka before, but for whatever reason, this one just floored me -- the colors were incredibly intense, and the detail was phenomenal. Artistically, it was also interesting because it used shading & highlights in a way I've not seen done in thangka before (although that may well be my own lack of broad experience.) There was also a great deal of movement, while most thangka, to me, are fairly static.

I've only been tangentially interested in Tibetan Buddhism in the past, generally gravitating more strongly to Zen, although this experience, as well as author Robert Beer's discussion of tantric art that the thangka illustrated, is making me quite curious. I have to admit I've been put off by Tibetan Buddhism because it seems very complex & daunting, but also because it's so trendy. (You know, because Zen isn't trendy or anything.)

Yet, I really enjoyed Miranda Shaw's book Passionate Enlightenment, which is about the female spirits known as dakini, and was the inspiration for my image, Dakini:

(click to see larger image)

I also have read Lama Yeshe's book Introduction to Tantra a couple of times, and been very intrigued by it, but I haven't pursued that interest because I feel, strongly, that Tantra is a path that really needs to be taught from a responsible teacher.

Forteana collides with the MSM. Hilarity ensues.

From The New Republic Online: Alien Nation

They're right. The world really is coming to an end.

Now we have this: a major network, producing a two-hour special--airing this Thursday--which argues that, as Peter Jennings, the show's host, gravely repeats over and over again, "we are not alone," that we get "visited" by aliens on a regular basis.

I had to read this several times for it to really sink in. Peter Jennings is telling us (well, not me; I don't watch network TV, and rarely even watch cable) not only that there are UFOs, but that they are extraterrestrial in origin.

Hasn't Jennings read John Keel, or Jacques Vallee, or Patrick Harpur?

Oh, wait. "Read." Yeah ... ok. Nevermind. Onwards...

To me, what has always been interesting about UFOs, and other Fortean phenomena, is that they are modern folklore. Like folklore, they are reflective of a cultures beliefs, worldviews, dreams, hopes, and fears. And, like folklore, there are some remarkable similarities of theme and content, which, depending on how you look at it, could mean that there really is something out there (or in here) or it could mean that human brains process unfamiliar experiences in certain common ways. While the latter is certainly true, the former is more intriguing.

But the extraterrestrial theory is really the purview of the bottom feeders of UFOlogy. So why are Jennings & ABC going on about it? Well, there's ratings, sure. But here's another thought:

Jennings is very respectful to the "witnesses" who claim to have seen aliens flying over their barnyards etc, or who insist that they've been abducted (they should be so lucky). There is something in Jenning's open attitude to all of this of the new deference to so-called religious people that suddenly seized the commentating classes after the election last November. These true UFO-believers, after all, are animated by some kind of religious-ish impulse, some thirst for ultimates; or maybe some wish to be jolted out of their dulled senses--in that sense, they are also like generations of vanguard artists, yearning to shock and be shocked.

An intriguing idea; if the 'reality based community' has to accept one sort of faith, it has to accept them all. And, given that extreme secularism flattens the distinctions between any sort of so-called non-rational belief, UFOs are on the same plane as Jesus, all of which can be similarly treated in a patronizing fashion. Except it's safer to piss on nutty UFO cultists than it is to piss on Christians.

But there is something else in Jennings' preening solemn tones (his megalomania is extra-terrestrial; so is his tendency to pronounce words like "project" two different ways). There is in Jennings' voice this surging American love for the absurd, and therefore contemptible person. From politics to reality shows, we seem to like to be surrounded by people ruled by greed, hampered by stupidity, blinkered by obsession. These sad bored UFOers, their faces blank, their land-locked figures full-sail with heartland-obesity, their eyes shining with their earth-centric, mundane, child's fantasy of a populated universe--the spatial, secular version of the religious, temporal dream of a populated eternity--these people are easy to laugh at, and therefore easy to accommodate. In America, attention must be paid! Attention, that is, to everything freakish, inadequate, unthreatening and thus usefully supportive of a shaky sense of worth, of identity.

How interesting that absurd goes along with contemptible. I think the author is correct in making that equation; absurdity is non-conformist, non-conformism is contemptible, therefore absurdity is comtemptible. But it's a contempt that can be couched in humor, because those who are held in contempt have no power. Those "sad bored UFOers, their faces blank, their land-locked figures full-sail with heartland-obesity," can be safely laughed at -- unlike the angry, enervated radical Christian Reconstructionists, their faces alight, their bodies full-sail with faith and fury.

Sadly, this misses the most fascinating parts of the UFO phenomena, the wonder that the world is not so neat and comprehensible, the search for the impossible, and the wrestling with mysteries. At best, it's looking at blind faith, and missing engaged, questioning, people of faith. At worst, it sets up a straw man which allows the comfortable, assured citizen to denigrate anything that requires thought or merits inquisitiveness.

The Lonely Lemming

I gave into a meme.

My Bloginality is INTP. Not surprising, really:

As an INTP, you are Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Perceiving.
This makes your primary focus on Introverted Thinking with an Extraverted Intution.

This is defined as a NT personality, which is part of Carl Jung's Rational (Knowledge Seeking) type, and more specifically the Architect or Thinker.

As a weblogger, you might not be as concerned about popularity, but more with the ideas and theories that you strive to understand. Because routines aren't your strong point, you might be more likely to work on the concept of how to do a blog, but not be as excited to keep it up.

Hehe. They said "keep it up." Heh.

I also gave into another lemming-like activity: I got an iPod. I am so in love.

Breathing, colors, numbers

I've always wished I was synaesthetic. In a small way, I already am; I've always, for as long as I can remember, had very strong associations between colors and numbers, seeing specific colors with specific numbers. It hasn't helped my math skills, but that's beside the point. The associations have been consistent for as long as I can remember. My color sense is very precise; three isn't just yellow, it's a very specific shade of yellow, and the purplish hues of seven and eight are quite distinct.

In trying to meditate, I've attempted not to locate my awareness in any specific place, although I have found I am more successful when I am aware of my breath around the area of my center or hara. It gets me out of my head, and the thought loops are less persistent.

Since I am working with a generally Zen style of meditation, I am also counting breaths from one to ten. As you can imagine, that means that the colors come in, as well, whether I want it or not.

I realized something today while I was sitting: The number-colors I have roughly approximate the colors of the chakras and so, on a whim, as I did each count/breath, I focused my attention on that area. Here are the colors & areas that seemed to naturally associate:

[note: Scroll down for the rest ... for some reason, Blogger is inserting a huge amount of whitespace before the table. I have no idea why. Sorry.]

Number	Color	Location
one	white	below me (initially, anyway)
two	dark red	base chakra
three	sun yellow	center
four	bright green	heart
five	royal blue	throat
six	rose pink	third eye
seven	maroon	top of head
eight	rich purple	surrounding body
nine	very dark pine green	physical surroundings
ten	black and white	expanding outwards & inwards simultaneously

Thus, my attention cycled. Also, on "one," it became a sort of clarifying experience, sort of resetting the sensation, bringing it fully inward and unified. Then, it would move up, and eventually, out farther & farther, to return to the center again.

It was a very intense experience, but I don't want to get caught up in that intensity, however. On the other hand, I was able to remain very focused. My intention is to try working with this technique, and then eventually to drop the sensual focus, then (as much as I can) the colors, and eventually, the numbers, until only the breath is left.

I expect it will take some time ... like, years. Should I ever get a good teacher I can work with, I'd try their technique, although that option isn't open to me right now.

Running Scared

This sitting thing is hard.

I've tried regularly sitting zazen off & on (mostly off, I'm afraid) for years. The longest stretch I'd managed was this past summer, and then Barbara miscarried, and I stopped just about everything, including sitting.

But I'm back at it, and determined not to stop, no matter what, this time. I did miss the past couple of days, and so I expected today to be difficult -- which it was. It's not called "practice" for nothing -- if you miss, you know it.

Anyway, although I do try not to fall into thought loops or narratives, it's hard. Impossible, most of the time. But for the first time, today, I realized that my mind was moving so wildly because it was scared. I've read this before, but feeling the reality of it is very different. The more still my mind, the more anxious I became, and then the sun came out.

It touched the wall I was facing, gilding the sky blue paint with aureate light. For a moment, I stopped moving, and the sunlight moved across the wall, and was gone.

Immediately, my mind started running again. And it was then that I realized that it wasn't the stillness that was causing the anxiety, it was that the running mind was carrying the anxiety, not running away from it. When I felt I was becoming still, but becoming more anxious, I wasn't really becoming still -- I was just focusing on the nervous energy. When I could contrast that with a surprising moment of real stillness, the contrast was so clear.

Then I felt this sorrow, sorrow that I carried this, that I was hurting myself.

I also realized that part of that anxiety -- a lot of it, actually -- was the result of putting things off. By making those choices, I was causing myself pain, unnecessary pain. It seems so stupid, trying to put things off to avoid unpleasantness actually causes more unpleasantness. Of course, I know this, intellectually, in a sort of, "Yeah, right, of course," way. But I felt it viscerally.

From the sorrow came a desire to be gentle, loving.

I'm writing this down so that I can remember it, so that it isn't washed away in the torrent of thinking.

Arab Superheroes Leap Pyramids in a Single Bound

Arab Superheroes Leap Pyramids in a Single Bound (WaPo)

I think this is an interesting followup to the transcreation post I made a few weeks ago. Instead of repurposing (to use tired corpspeak) an American hero, AK Comics, of Cairo, is creating completely new, specifically Arab, superheroes, although Spider Man isn't completely absent from the thoughts of its managing director, Marwan Nashar:

"I grew up reading 'Spider-Man' and loved him," says Nashar. "But I couldn't get into Peter Parker. I mean, he lived in New York. I always wondered why there weren't any Arabs leaping off buildings."

I have to admit finding myself grinding my teeth at a few of the writer's "cute" comments about Islam and the Middle East, like,

Because Egypt has no homegrown tradition of comic strips (unless you count illustrated hieroglyphics), AK Comics decided to outsource the drawings to a studio in Brazil. English dialogue is honed by a writer in California. [emphasis mine]

How clever! How droll! How patronizing!

It is fascinating to see that this creation relies on globalization. It challenges provincialism.

Also, there are two male and two female heroes. One of each gender is tied as the most well received characters by readers. Unfortunately, the female characters were a little too well endowed for the censors on occasion. There have been problems even after the editors put the bosh on the Brazilian art team's original designs, which incorporated extreme bodaciousness coupled with the barest whisper of butt-floss.

And, of course, there are the obligatory nods toward current events. I found it significant that, the heroine Jalila protects,

the City of All Faiths (read: Jerusalem) from the warring Zios Army (the Zionists) and the United Liberation Force (the Palestine Liberation Organization). Both forces, according to a description of Jalila's activities, cling "to their extreme views, both wanting to solely control the City of All Faiths."

So the next time some winger tells you there are no Arab moderates, you can say, yes there are ... and they wear tights and have superpowers!

Boo.

New design.

New title.

(Although the links will all stay the same.)

More later ... now, to be Romantic.

I want to be a flute.

A shakuhachi is made from bamboo. Bamboo is a grass, and, although it seems like a stand of bamboo is many individual plants, in fact, it is a single organism, united beneath the surface by a complex interlacing of roots and runners. Most shakuhachi leave the root-end of the stalk intact; the reasons given are various, the most popular being that many of the komuso, the 'monks of nothingness' who wandered Japan playing the shakuhachi, were ronin, and, prohibited from carrying swords, they used their flutes as clubs, with the knobby root ends adding extra authority, if you will. It might also have been aesthetic, or it may have been to take advantage of the shape of the inside of the bamboo as it descends into the root.

For me, it's something else. It's a reminder of that interconnectedness, that, while it is beneath the surface of my everyday reality of finite things and distinct moments, is, nevertheless, its foundational reality. The shakuhachi, if you will, springs up from that subterranean web to lend a voice to the individual which calls the listener back to that primal awareness.

They're also very beautiful; I've been known to sit & stare at the patterns and whorls that calligraph the surface of the bamboo for endless moments of wonder.

There's a saying in the Native American flute community that the maker, when he hollows out the wood to make a flute, removes the heart of the flute, and the player puts it back in. Bamboo, of course, is naturally hollow, but the sentiment is still there for me. If anything, it's even more powerful with a shakuhachi; with a Native American flute, the timbre, range, pitch, and most of the other musical possibilities of the flute are determined by the maker. With an NAF, the music isn't really created by the breath, it's created by the hands. Nothing could be further from the truth with a shakuhachi.

A shakuhachi is nothing more than a stalk of bamboo with five fingerholes poked in it and a blowing edge cut across the top. Because it is an end-blown flute, the shape of the player's mouth cavity, the angle of breath, the velocity and pressure of breath, the shape of the player's lips, all have a profound impact on every aspect of playing, even moreso than the more common transverse flute. Because there are no keys, the holes can be fractionally covered; this, in combination with techniques involving the blowing angle (eg., lowering the head, raising the head, moving it from side to side) allows a range of over two octaves with the ability to play microtones (notes between the keys on a piano) as well as the ability to play the same note in a variety of ways, which gives it a different timbre.

It's a tremendously simple instrument, but the techniques are extremely demanding. The sound is arresting, vocal, able to go from the barest whisper to an elemental shriek. It requires tremendous focus, but not tension. While not all shakuhachi players view their practice as religious, the shakuhachi has a venerable tradition as one of the Zen arts; the term suizen refers to the practice of achieving enlightenment through the breath -- playing the shakuhachi.

When I took up guitar, back in 1986, I learned a couple of chords and started banging out songs. I learned the basic blues scales, but was lackadaisical about practicing them, to say the least. I took lessons sporadically, and rarely learned anything note-for-note, trying instead to find my own personal voice, devoid of undue artistic influence from other players. It was a really stupid plan; although I've played guitar for almost twenty years, now, I'm less technically facile than players with half my experience, and can play maybe a handful of songs. I do mostly free improvising, but if I play something, it's gone. I can't generally repeat it.

What a waste.

When I finally committed to learning the shakuhachi last year, I decided I was not going to make that mistake again. It's a seductive one, only playing what's easy and fun, but I've struggled to resist it. The discipline hasn't paid off handsomely with my playing yet, but I accept that; it's said it can take ten years just to get a good solid tone. To some extent, this is an overstatement, but I've never struggled so hard with an instrument in my life, and I've picked up quite a few.

But when it flows ... I am empty, the flute is empty, and we are filled with each other, with all that is, with the sound of the wind in the trees and the sound of my lover's voice on the phone downstairs. I want to give that sound, that feeling, to anyone who will listen. The shakuhachi is often compared to a temple bell, calling one back, serving as a reminder.

A moment of beauty, a flicker of clear sight, a whisper of the one breath, ebbing and flowing from me to flute to you to me to flute to you, around and around.

Gwenduh was da name of dis gwin demon

Film notoriety awaits Beowulf

Not one, but two versions of Beowulf are on the way. The first is described as, "a $12m co-production from Britain, Canada and Iceland, starring the Scots actor Gerard Butler. Filmed in Iceland, it is described by its producers as a 'spiritual film'." Are we talking spiritual, like The Snuffing of the CHrist, with all the blood & gore & stuff? More likely it's spiritual as in it takes itself too damned seriously.

The other choice, though, really made me cringe.

The second film, Beowulf, is a $70m Hollywood production financed by the American millionaire Steve Bing and Sony Pictures. Its director is Robert Zemeckis, whose crew will use the stop-motion technology recently employed in the children's film The Polar Express.

Beowulf is no children's film, however. The script, co-written by Roger Avary, Quentin Tarantino's collaborator on Pulp Fiction, has been described as "... a sort of dark-ages Trainspotting [as in the film], filled with mead and blood and madness".

Okay, the mead & blood & madness part -- that's groovy. But stop motion photography a la The Polar Express? Let's forget a thin story, the graphics on that movie were just horrid. The characters looked like mannequins with dead eyes. Woody from A Toy Story -- a figure who really WAS wooden -- was more believably alive than anything in PE. And, for the love of Harryhausen, don't tell me that means Tom Hanks is going to play Beowulf AND Grendel.

I might have to go out & grab my speauh and magic heuhmut.

Magic & Mysticism

In this blog, in my LJ, in 9LMM -- in a lot of my general online conversation -- I feel as if I'm only expressing half of who I am. Although Paganism has been a major part of my life for more than twenty years now, for almost ten years, it has seemed to become a more and more ill-fitting garment. It's not that I'm growing out of it, because that would imply that Paganism is, to me, a childish belief that adults develop past, and I don't hold with that at all.

My way has always been to ask questions. That was what drew me to Paganism in the first place, the idea of the Craft of the Wise; not the Order of the All-Knowing, or the Cult of the Incomprehensible, but the never-ending practice of seeking, evaluating, and learning. It was idealistic, of course, as are the beliefs of most fourteen year olds. Be that as it may, to this day, my only truly holy writ was penned by Theodore Sturgeon: "Ask the next question."

I can identify where the break began. It was, actually, a synergy of two events. In the early '90s, I went through an extremely challenging series of life experiences (to be coolly euphemistic; it might be more accurate to say, "I was dragged down into hell, and barely managed to claw my way out again.") At the same time, I happened to pick up a book by Wes Nisker called Crazy Wisdom.

During my personal harrowing, I did a great deal of magical work, and my life was very much informed by a magical view of the world. Not only did it not make a damned bit of different, but it was, in fact, a liability. I've struggled throughout my life with mild to moderate depression and anxiety, and magical thinking allowed me to construct a worldview wherein I had some semblance of control, while, at the same time, distracting me from actually getting my hands dirty and doing the work that needed to be done, and recognizing that there were some things I could not do, no matter how much I wanted to or how hard I tried.

I would read my Tarot cards to figure out what was likely to happen, and give me advice on how to deal with the approaching events. I would do ritual to attempt to enforce my will on the universe, to modify that possible course of events. I did a lot of shamanic journeying, seeking some wisdom or solid ground in imaginal worlds.

None of it could stop the inevitable, nor comfort me when it occurred. If anything, it seemed to increase my anxiety, because not only did I have to deal with the events themselves, but I had to cope with the failure of my Will.

And, then, Crazy Wisdom.

I picked up the book on a whim, while wandering through Barnes & Noble. I'd never heard of the author, and a lot of the works referenced in the book -- the Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu, Rumi, Coyote -- were also unfamiliar to me. But, always interested in the figure of the Fool, I was interested in the idea of religion tightly wound up with the idea of the Trickster, the eternal questioner, who laughs, not cries, when he gets answers (or doesn't.)

That book, and the others that it led me to, inspired a lot of Journey to the West, which, in many ways, for all its silliness, is probably the most personal work I've ever done.

But, since magic had first caused me to question what I believed in, and how I practiced, it was to magic that I first turned when I started to rigorously question those beliefs. In my bitterness, it was easy to just say, "Oh, magic is just a bunch of superstitious bullshit." Of course, that didn't stick; I knew better, for one thing. For another, it seemed a cowardly dodge.

That's when I began to look at, and ask, why people did magic, not how. Being an overly analytical type, I categorized magic roughly into instrumental and intrinsic. Instrumental magic was magic that's done for a purpose. Intrinsic magic was a lot fuzzier, but was related to classic mystical experiences, and was rooted in an idea of immanence. Intrinsic magic is, on some level, transcendental and dualistic. Even if you don't create a magic circle, it involves the creation of a metaphorical reality, over which one can exert control, with the idea that the metaphor will form a sympathy, a correspondence, with the real world, and thus effect that world. Intrinsic magic isn't about creating a subreality or a metaphor, but about removing metaphor -- directly experiencing All that Is.

Ultimately, I felt like many of my Pagan beliefs and practices were taking me away from experiencing the immanent divine, and towards my ideas or wishes for or about them. For a creative, easily distractable person like myself, it seemed I'd been willing walking through a field of landmines.

At the same time, I felt very guilty about these things. (I was raised Jewish; guilt is as natural to me as breathing.) I felt like I was turning my back on who I was, completely disassembling my own self-identity -- perhaps, more importantly, what I wanted my self to be. And, I felt like I was being judgmental of the beliefs and practices of others (which, honestly, I was, more often than I'd like to admit. Sometimes very deservedly, perhaps, but I felt guilty nonetheless.)

I began to talk and debate a lot in a variety of Pagan fora. This led, eventually, with many twists and turns, to me creating 9LMM. At the same time, I was working hard to create a personal practice which was based in Buddhism (primarily Zen.) I felt very ambivalent about the strip. Although in a social sense, I was pretty heavily involved in a number of Pagan communities, online & off, in a spiritual sense, my beliefs and practices didn't feel very Pagan at all.

Yesterday morning, I realized that a lot of the talking & writing & drawing I was doing wasn't just an argument between serious Paganism and fluffyism, or considering the balance between individual sovereignty and communal responsibility -- although those things were certainly present & accounted for -- but it was an internal argument I was having. To whit, did I really consider myself Pagan, and what would be the consequences of the answer to that question?

Of course, that resulted in me thinking a lot about what being a Pagan means, which ultimately resulted in the essays on my LJ, the culmination of several years of thought, observation, and discussion. It could be argued that my preference for a cultural definition of Paganism over a theological one amounts to a sort of attempt at special pleading; how someone who really doesn't consider themselves religiously Pagan can still be a Pagan. On the other hand, I think I made some valid observations, perhaps particularly because I was observing the problem from a (heh) liminal position.

It would be easy to say, "Well, those labels don't matter. You are what you are." Except, well, I don't know what I are -- or so I've been trying to tell myself. Except -- I do. That's the rub: I feel like I've been dishonest, in presenting myself as something I'm not. Now, we can go back to that "Will Feel Guilty For Rising of Sun in the East," business, but that's a little too facile.

The Buddha suggested a way to be in the world which was direct, without mediation or metaphor. He offered this way, and said, "Give it a try. You have nothing to lose except your self. If it doesn't work for you, then don't do it."

It's high time I stopped thinking, "That sounds like a really great idea, but..."

The only way to find out if it's really a great idea is to test it, fully and without reservation. To follow my own dictum, to ask the next question.

To be continued, breath by breath.

Is it really Hollywood's fault?

Dispelling Myths: from the Iowa State Daily

If people believed in everything they saw in movies, then they would believe in the existence of flying cars and talking monkeys.

[...]

"We live in a day and age where we have the media representation of paganism that is Hollywood-ized. All witches are beautiful; all magic works. I think the most disturbing [representation] is the idea that this is going on behind our backs," says Victor Raymond, vice president of the ISU Pagan Community and graduate student in sociology.

Am I the only one who gets a disconnect here?

The biggest PR problem facing Pagans is Hollywood? Moreso than the Satanic business or the perception that Pagans are just angry kids rebelling against Mom, Dad, and God? That Pagans believe in a lot of wacky, ridiculous, superstitious junk?

Really, these seem to me to be more pressing issues, and probably more intractable ones: From a certain theological perspective, if you ain't followin Jesus, you're worshipping Satan -- no matter what you call it. There are more than a few Pagans who are in it for the transgressive thrill, or are struggling to individuate, while simultaneously seeking a community of like-minded spirits. As for the charges of superstition, yeah, there's plenty of that, too.

"America wants a quick fix, so there is a big market for that kind of crap. [Meaning, "kitchen witchy spell books."] A lot of pagans and witches are kind of amused by that," [ISU professor Nikki Bado-Fralick] says.

"You are going to find your low-level, immature people in all religions; movies just suck that stuff right up. But nobody talks about the hard work it takes to better yourself. That's what magic is really about."

That's really good to see -- one of the best parts of the article, in my opinion. But Bado-Fralick has some interesting views on Pagan magic.

Bado-Fralick says more serious magic is similar to what Christians might know of as prayer or visualization and involves a strong focus and a positive attitude.

Well, yeah, kind of. Except it isn't usually petitionary, it's participatory, and there are plenty of other attitudes cultivated other than positive ones.

This points to another, much more insidious, PR problem: Attempting to make Paganisms safe for general consumption by defanging them. Or, perhaps more accurately, making them like harmless, mainstream Protestantism with different window dressing.

And, of course, there's the continual conflation of Pagan and Wiccan:

There is much diversity among individuals and groups that consider themselves to be pagan, Bado-Fralick says. The practices and beliefs vary depending on the person or the group they may belong to, but some generalities emerge.

Pagan rituals and holidays are generally tied to an agricultural or lunar calendar. Women and men generally have equal roles, and pagan beliefs tend to be about balance between male and female aspects, Bado-Fralick says.

Translation: There are lots of different kind of Pagan, all of whom are Wiccan.

Arg.

This made me giggle, however: "'[Pagans] are just as normal and just as weird as anybody,' Bado-Fralick says."

But this whole, "It's Hollywood's fault!" seems like a shallow attempt to grab the coattails of the Religious Right's crusade against the Evils of Jewish Hollywood. Without the anti-Semitism, of course; Pagans seem more likely to just have a broad disdain of anyone whose religion springs from the Bible.

Or, looked at another way, it's a variation on the "quick fix" problem. It's much faster & easier to blame the problems on someone else -- particularly someone on the outside, over whom you have no power -- than it is to center the responsibility closer to home.

Sure, there are people who, no matter what Pagans do, are going to belittle, delegitimize, or even attack them. There isn't a damn thing that can be done about that. Accept, move along.

But for most everyone else, there's wiggle room, and the most effective thing that anyone can do is to be a reasonable, ethical, responsible individual. It doesn't always work, but it goes a lot farther than whining about the way Hollywood is making it impossible for you to get Samhain off work.

Blinding them with science

Intelligent design theorists and their claims to scientific legitimacy aside, the only reason the vast majority of people who want intelligent design taught in high school want it is because they believe it will undercut the corrosive effects of evolutionary biology on the religious beliefs of their children. They don't know and couldn't care less about the scientific details of the evolution of blood cascades—they just want Darwinism kept away from their kids.

So, when fluffies breed, will they want to keep their kids away from Hutton?

It's easy to say, "Oh, those so-called fluffies. They're just going through a phase." Often, that's true. But they're also setting up a foundation based on willful ignorance, and then working to inculcate others to that ignorance. Not all of them wash out or get distracted.

So what to do? It is not the role of public schools to confirm the religious beliefs of their students. Parents who want their children to benefit from the latest findings of science would reasonably be irked if evolutionary biology were expunged from the public school curriculum. There is another way around this conundrum. Get rid of public schools.

There's a great idea. That way, everyone can stay in their own comfortable enclave, never being exposed to new ideas or perspectives.

This proposal lowers political and social conflict, and eventually those made fitter in the struggle for life by better education will win. At least that's my theory.

Oh, if only social systems worked so neatly.

It's not easy being green

A lot of Pagans are environmentalist, to some degree or another. Many (although by no means all) perceive themselves as earth-worshippers. Gaia is mentioned often.

By the same token, many evangelical Christians are dispensationalist, believing that Christ is going to come back Any Day Now, and, as a result, earthly resources are disposable. Indeed, according to the Doctrine of the Curse, because of Adam's sin, "The ground will therefore be cursed because of you." (Gen. 3:17). The phenomenal world -- nature -- is inherently tainted.

So what to make of evangelical environmentalism, or, as it's commonly known, creation care?

I first learned about this from a WaPo article, but it got me thinking, and it made me curious. So, I started digging.

Of course, as these folks will go to great lengths to say, they most certainly are not, "liberal, pagan, New Age earth-worshippers." More fully (again from the WaPo):

"While evangelicals are open to being good stewards of God's creation, they believe people should only worship God, not creation. . . .This may sound like splitting hairs. But evangelicals don't see it that way. Their stereotype of environmentalists would be Druids who worship trees."

Which, undoubtedly, means that actual Druids who worship trees [sic] likely aren't welcome travelers.

This begs the question: Which is more important, working to better the environment, or refusing to bed down with "the enemy"? Even the Evangelical Environmental Network itself says:

At the same time that we condemn nature worship, we must not let our zeal to avoid idolatry prevent us from our biblical call to care for all of creation. Indeed, one cannot fully worship the Creator and at the same time destroy His creation, which was brought into being to glorify him. Worshiping the Creator and caring for creation is all part of loving God. They are mutually reinforcing activities. It is actually unbiblical to set one against the other.

That seems to imply some wiggle room; sure, they're evil heathens, but serving as responsible stewards of creation is more important than battling infidels. I have to admit to being skeptical as to how this would play out in real life, but, honestly, I don't expect that there are any Pagans who'd have the chutzpah to give it a whirl. (Feel free to take that as a challenge, rather than a condemnation.)

Besides, you have to give props to the folks who came up with the What Would Jesus Drive? campaign.

Further, the movement appears to be growing, and they have significant influence. According to David Larsen of the University of Chicago:

Although primarily an educational outreach organization, in 1996 the EEN waged a successful campaign to prevent congressional Republicans from weakening the Endangered Species Act. At a press conference heavily covered by national media, EEN representatives called the Act the "Noah's Ark of our day," and charged, "Congress and special interests are trying to sink it." Influential Republicans, who thought they could count on the support of evangelicals, were caught off guard and quickly distanced themselves from the proposed changes. The Sierra Club later acknowledged the EEN as instrumental in this fight. Such political activity raised the ire of prominent members of the Religious Right, who sought to counter the EEN and the NRPE by forming the Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship in 2000.

One thing that Larsen doesn't mention (but that the High Country News does) is that

House Resource Committee Chair Don Young, R-Alaska, and Richard Pombo, R-Calif., chair of the House Endangered Species Task Force, issued a joint statement suggesting that the evangelicals were a "front group" for President Clinton’s re-election campaign.

Which, of course, was bullshit, but hardly an unknown entry in the political playbook.

Further, although the High Country News article, from 1997, notes that none of the major evangelical players had signed on (specifically mentioning James Dobson), an article from the July 4, 2004 LA Times (quoted here) tells:

Declaring that caring for the environment is part of following Jesus, a group of 30 evangelical leaders has agreed to work for faith-based environmental activism among the nation's most conservative Christians.

[...]

Participants represented a cross section of mainstream evangelicalism in America, including the president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals, ranking officials of evangelical denominations, development and relief organizations such as World Vision, prominent evangelical scientists and theology professors, and senior editors of Christianity Today magazine.

...and then the WaPo elaborates on this; apparently there was another, similar, meeting in October of last year:

"The environment is a values issue," said the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals. "There are significant and compelling theological reasons why it should be a banner issue for the Christian right." In October, the association's leaders adopted an "Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility" that, for the first time, emphasized every Christian's duty to care for the planet and the role of government in safeguarding a sustainable environment.

"We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part," said the statement, which has been distributed to 50,000 member churches. "Because clean air, pure water, and adequate resources are crucial to public health and civic order, government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation."

Signatories included highly visible, opinion-swaying evangelical leaders such as Haggard, James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

To underline the fact that creation care evangelicals are not a fringe group, the WaPo notes that

Polling has found a strengthening consensus among evangelicals for strict environmental rules, even if they cost jobs and higher prices, said John C. Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. In 2000, about 45 percent of evangelicals supported strict environmental regulations, according to Green's polling. That jumped to 52 percent last year.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not ignoring the fact that these folks are also generally opposed to gay rights and are virulently anti-abortion (although their pro-life stance is at least consistent, unlike the pro-lifers who are also pro-death penalty and have no compunction about murdering abortion providers.) By the same token, Peter Illyn of the Christian Society for the Green Cross notes that, "The Bible says much less about abortion and homosexuality than it does about caring for the planet."

All in all, it paints a fascinating picture of a religious movement that, although it seems monolithic from the outside, isn't, in fact, so homogeneous. And, again, I still can't help but wonder if those of like goal -- environmental action -- can't put aside their other differences towards achieving that goal.

Cryptid Soup

My wife, for those of you who don't know, is a professional chef. In two weeks, the North Market will be holding a Fiery Foods Festival, which is going to include an amateur salsa context, and a chili cook-off. Now, were it summer, I'm sure Barbara would be entering her justly famed Calico Salsa, but without heirloom tomatoes, that's a pointless endeavor. On the other hand, she makes a number of great chilis (yes, I know, anything that isn't Texas red isn't real chili, but let's pretend to be magnanimous briefly.) The one she settled on to enter is called Chupcabra Chili, after the famous cryptid of the same name. Why is it called Chupcabra Chili?

The complete story of Chupacabra Sunday can be found at her blog, Tigers & Strawberries.

Don't ask me -- I just do the art.

O mighty Isis!

I loved Isis as a kid. It's odd that it was only on for one season, in 1975. But I can remember watching it & loving it. And I totally forgot that Isis was a science teacher in her "normal identity"!

Apparently, VH-1 did a Where are They Now: Superheroes, which included Joanna Cameron (Isis) and Erin Grey (Wilma Deering, from Buck Rogers...also a crush back in the day.) That would have been fun to see.

I always was tremendously interested in the Egyptian myths .... I think it was the art as much as anything. I loved the look of them, the strangeness and beauty. They've never grabbed me as personal deities, however, nor've I ever been drawn to Kemetic practice.

But stories of Isis, Osiris, Set, Horus, and the gang filled my early childhood; the TV Isis no doubt filled it out as something that could leap into the modern world.

Niceness pays ... about $900

My friend Noddy pointed me to this absolutely astounding story. I'm more than a little on the curmudgeonly side, but, sometimes, the sheer venality and pettiness of humanity still manages to take my breath away.

Let's remove from consideration the distinct possibility that girls named "Taylor" and "Lindsay Jo" probably deserve every little bit of misery they suffer, purely for being insufferably wholesome whitebread, because, really, we don't know that. They may, in fact, be wonderful, dear, innocent girls. Or, they may just have convinced their parents of that.

Even if they were a pair of latter day Heathers, who are being karmically punished for their crimes against the unbeautiful and unpopular, that still doesn't make Ms. Wanita Renea Young any less of a repugnant, selfish, self-righteous, and generally ignominious lump of protoplasm.

I'm with Noddy: Send the bitch a cookie. Send one to the judge. Send one to anyone who's trampling on others' attempts to spread a little kindness in the world.

Of course, nasty jackanape that I am, I say make 'em chocolate chip -- made special with Ex Lax.

Bad blogger, no posts!

Okay ... I'm going to start rectifying that.

First, while my little blurb talks about music, I haven't. I listen to a broad variety of weird stuff, but I'm particularly fond of various world & electronic genres, as well as post-rock & new surf.

Right now, I'm pupmed because we've just decided that we need a vacation, and what better vacation than to go to the Southwest, where I've always wanted to go & never been? How does this connect to music, you ask? Because one of the high-points of the trip is going to be going to a Steve Roach concert.

If you're unfamiliar with Roach, he's a pioneer of ambient music, who's had a long-standing interest in creation of mystic or sacred space with music. He's done a number of collaborations with musician & shamanic practitioner Byron Metcalf. My favorites are Serpent's Lair and Wachuna's Wave. His work was a major soundtrack for me while I was doing "Journey to the West."

Anyway, the concert is on March 5, and I am so excited. As you can tell from the link, there's going to be a lot going on -- music, visuals, a reception. Given my interest in music as a force to create a space, and my interest in doing multimedia work at some point, I'm particularly jazzed. It's nice to have something to look forwards to, and to take a vacation.