This is What Gothic Architecture is All About
Does this: Remind you of this? The forest lane photograph was snatched from a marvelous web site called PhotoBotos. If you subscribe you get an inspiring picture like this in your email box every day.
Category: Uncategorized
Truth or Fiction? or Yes, I’m Still Working with Temperance.
A few months ago Clio, my six-year-old grandniece, let me read a story she was in the process of writing. It was about a group of owls, and about how the smallest owl decided to leave. I was hooked until I came to the part about the little owl flying away in the middle of a bright sunshiny day. “Clio,” I said, “this is a great story, but owls don’t like to be out in the daytime. Why did the little owl leave at high noon?” “I don’t need a reason,” she replied. “It’s fiction, and I can write anything I want.” And she is absolutely correct. Everyone knows that fiction isn’t true. However, if you want to write fiction that keeps your readers turning pages, you must convince them that perhaps it could be true. Or, at the very least, convince them to suspend their disbelief for the duration of the story. This won’t happen if they spot glaring errors in your work. How… Read More »
Ten Things I Learned Playing Spider Solitaire
1. The game can be easy or hard depending on the cards you are dealt. 2. You have no control over the cards you are dealt. 3. A game may look hard, but if you make the right choices, it becomes easy. 4. A game may look easy, but if you make the wrong choices, it becomes hard. 5. Sometimes you have to start again…and again…and again. 6. You can’t win them all no matter how hard you try. Get over it. 7. There are no bad cards. Whether a card is good or bad depends on where it winds up in the spread. 8. When the game is difficult, a little help from a friend either puts things right or at least reassures you that you are not totally stupid because he couldn’t do it either. 9. It’s just a game. Enjoy it. 10. When the cat jumps up on your lap it is always a good idea to take time out from the… Read More »
Samhain
May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night, and the road downhill all the way to your door. Death comes on silent wings. Click here for an amazing video of an Eagle owl swooping in on its prey.
The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey, Death, Part II
Tomorrow night is Samhain, the Celtic New Year’s Eve; or the Christian All Hallows Eve. The time, as a Scottish prayer says, of “ghoulies and ghosties, and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night.” A time, as I’m sure you’ve heard ad nauseum, when the veil between the worlds grows thinnest. A perfect time to talk about Death. The tarot Death card is macabre enough to satisfy even the Gothiest of Goths. It almost always features a skeleton. In the RWS version, Death is astride his traditional pale horse. Other decks show death swinging a scythe and reaping a field of heads and hands and feet. But the message of the Death card is actually quite uplifting. The Hebrew letter nun signifies Death. Nun’s meaning is fish, an ancient symbol of fecundity and reproduction. The early Christians chose the fish or vesica piscis as the icon of their new religion because it symbolizes that fertile threshold between the material world and the… Read More »
Why does Greek Mythology Read Like a Soap Opera?
I found the following comment on my “Virgin Mary, Isis, The High Priestess, and the Empress” blog: “I’ve never really liked the Greek myths….(and I’ve)……always loved Egyptain paganism, because the women have much better and stronger roles, and their gods just seemed more like more ethical, more pleasant people.” Fond as I am of Greek mythology, I had to agree with him. Zeus and most of the other male gods are obsessed with fighting and sex and spend way too much of their time raping women. Artemis is a spiteful man hater (with good reason, it seems); and Hera, Zeus’s wife, is often portrayed as a jealous, nagging spouse (with good reason, it seems). Apollo and Hermes have the same father, Zeus, but different mothers. They are constantly fighting. Even Athena, goddess of wisdom and weaving, gets so pissed at Arachne, a mortal weaver who claims to be more talented than her, that she turns the woman into a spider. The Greek gods detested hubris,… Read More »
The Virgin Mary in COSTCO
I dread going to COSTCO. It’s a huge, echoing void that begs to be filled even though it’s already jammed full of stuff. Unfortunately, the prices (at least on some things) make it irresistible. I had to make the sacrificial journey last Friday to get tested for new hearing aids. COSTCO charges over two thousand dollars less than the last place I went. I needed to pick up a few things so I tucked a bright yellow shopping bag with the Virgin Mary printed on both sides under my arm and ventured into the void. It was a normal, mind numbing COSTCO experience until I put a box of contact lens solution into my bag and headed back to the cheese cases for a COSTCO sized portion of fresh mozzarella to go with our tomatoes that have just now started ripening. A sad looking, elderly man’s eyes focused on the colorful BVM print and he looked up at me and grinned. A young woman glanced… Read More »
The Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey: The Hanged Man, Part I
This tarot image is only one of many mystical hanged men. The one that comes most readily to the American mind is Christ, who was hung on a wooden cross till he died. But he returned to life so that all his followers could have eternal life. The Norse god Odin pierced himself with a spear and hung upside down for nine whole nights on wind-rocked Yggdrasil, the World Tree. On the ninth night he saw the runes arrayed below him and knew their meanings and was free. Odin gave the runes to humanity to guide us in our spiritual quest. The Buddha had it a bit easier, he merely sat beneath the Bodhi Tree. But he went without food and water until he gained enlightenment. He went forth and shared his insights and the rest is history. The Native Americans of the central plains dance the Sun Dance every summer to obtain life renewal, visions, and assistance from the Great Spirit. After the dance… Read More »
The Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey: Justice, Part II
The Ancient Greeks’ concept of Justice was more pragmatic than the Egyptians’. According to Egyptian mythology it was Maat, or Justice that set order to the universe at the moment of creation, and so Justice is the primary force of their world. (see Justice, Part I) The Greeks claim that it was Ananke, the primordial goddess of compulsion, inevitability, and necessity, that set everything to order. She emerged fully formed at the very beginning of time, a serpentine spirit intertwined with her mate, Khronos, or Time. Together, Time and Necessity hold the egg of the universe fast in their powerful coil. She is the mother of the Fates, or Moirae and although even mighty Zeus defers to her, she’s not a popular or commonly worshiped goddess. Nobody, except perhaps a politician, enjoys bowing to her. As far as we know, only one temple to Ananke ever existed. It was in Corinth, and this most powerful of all goddesses had to share it with Bia, meaning… Read More »
The Hero’s Journey and the Major Arcana: Justice, Part I
Maat is the Egyptian goddess of truth, justice, balance, and harmony. She regulates the stars, seasons, and the actions of both mortals and the deities and set the order of the universe from chaos at the moment of creation. She is a most ancient goddess; archeologist have found depictions of her from the middle of the Old Kingdom, c. 2600 BCE. To the ancient Egyptians, she was not just the goddess of truth and justice, she was truth and justice. The early kings described themselves as “Lords of Maat” who spoke aloud the Maat they conceived in their hearts. The Pharaoh’s Vizier, who was a combination of Prime Minister, Chief Security Officer, and Chief Judge, was the High Priest of Maat. Paul Doherty’s fascinating ancient Egyptian mystery series features Chief Judge Amerotke as its sleuth. He not only invoked Maat everyday before he entered the courtroom but also had a very rich and fulfilling relationship with her. In the underworld, Anubis weighs the deceased’s heart… Read More »