“First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys. Not that all months aren’t rare. But there be bad and good, as the pirates say. Take September, a bad month: school begins. Consider August, a good month: school hasn’t begun yet. July, well, July’s really fine: there’s no chance in the world for school. June, no doubting it, June’s best of all, for the school doors spring wide and September’s a billion years away.”
~ Something Wicked This Way Comes, Prologue
Drip drop, water in the well. She peers down between the moss stones and half-shadows to the water’s tenebrious surface casing ripples with each drop of dew gathering in the chill of the dark before it casts itself downward, a suicide plunge to rejoin the well of spirits gathered below.
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for all our gaudy riches,
longing is the incense
which lingers after we wake
A poem prompted by a randomly selected Elder Futhark rune.
Today’s rune is fehu, which has a core meaning of “cattle” or a more generalized “livestock”, which was a representation of personal wealth or earned prosperity. Sometimes luck played a role. Wealth and prosperity was valued, but was looked down upon when material accumulation appeared to be excessive, greedy, miserly or turned to hoarding, especially when those around you were lacking.
Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.
I’ve decided that I need to get out into the real world and step away from my man cave in the basement more often. Although I am not much of a people-person, I have been feeling the need for face-to-face human interaction from people other than family members.
Essentially, I’m looking to take a break from extreme isolation that has been the hallmark of my existence since I elected to sober up. Over the past 16 years, I’ve largely forgotten how to socialize, which is starting to wear a bit on my psyche.
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Which cuts deeper: midwinter’s rime or a big empty?
lizard tails and tail feathers
our hearts lined in trees
bloodstone inside and
marching square toes
in steel rings and bootblack
down the horizon roads
scented with burnout:
come night, she sings
we are all immigrants
here, in the unbelonging
all swarthy and sullied
by drifter dust and road
with bold farmers' tans
and gravity frowns
dragging us down
we only wanted world
nothing terribly profane—
we only wanted love
drag boot scrape shoe
we shuffle the broken road
heedless of the dreamless slumber
where nightmare monsters wear
faces we call neighbor
i watched as the shallow boat
carried two dead lovers
into the mists and away
to the place of apples at
the hands of destiny's child
wiping away tears,
i bid them goodbye
rest well
rest well
until the end of time
I’ve been spending some time in Sacramento for the purposes of checking out a laboratory that my company uses to analyze environmental samples to either better understand a site we are actively trying to remediate, or as part of the actual remediation process. Yes, my day job is part of a team cleaning up other folks’ messes.
And while I was pleasantly surprised that it was not purely for show to visit the lab and make sure they were on the up and up (checking the box, as it were) and not “dry-labbing” their results (e.g., making up some reasonable numbers and putting them into a report as results when they never actually analyze the samples; and yes, I’ve seen it happen in the distant past), I got several bonus out of the affair that were unexpected: a better understanding of “exotic” service offerings that have come up on my radar in the past that I couldn’t find a lab to perform, some good chatting about other possible partnering opportunities, discovering some of the best Thai food that I’ve had in years (dinner was even better than lunch!), getting something on the order of 30k steps in and getting to see a lizard (gecko?) in the process, and (best of all), getting to meet someone in person I had only previously known via WordPress, Bridgette White.
(more…)even cities, oft disparaged
provide plenty nature
if only one would
get out of the car
and look