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Monday, March 25, 2013

Curiosity

Curiosity is a fine name for a cat.  A friend of mine has a wizard character with a familiar named Curiosity.  Curiosity is an elven cat and a tracker, and leads her to clues, riches, and trouble.  We all appreciate the art in her irony.



I'm sitting in the library of Wossamotta U, watching the snow fall like flakes of ash from an eruption, and I'm considering the matter carefully.  I remember the old saying they'd say every spring, "March: in like a lamb, out like a lion; in like a lion, out like a lamb."  I haven't heard that in years now, and no wonder.

March used to be the month of Spring.  April was known for its rain, May for its flowers, and March for its transitional period.  You could count on March to be cool like a couple of little Fonzies at night, bright and warm by day, and to have its dilemma sorted out by the time May rolled around.  Because lucky for us March didn't want to kill us, it wanted to help us.  Generally, anyway.  Surety is a myth, but every myth has some seed that gave it its power.  We've had a couple of springs this year, and now we're finally getting our winter's snow.  In March.

"Normally, both your asses would be dead as fucking fried chicken . . ."
Doomsayers are calling for a change in how everyone lives (I wouldn't mind), and Naysayers are insisting that it's all just nature's way and that we should do nothing.  As long as they can keep the argument going both sides will be set for life as lakes dry, and storms rage, and seaside cities drown. And in the meantime, keep a pocket full of posies so it doesn't happen to you.

I was born in March.  To say that having it snow on my birthday was unusual would be like saying that a poultry doesn't usually have a full set of teeth.  Could it happen?  Of course, this is Kansas.  But it was bloody rare.  By the time March ended, we were usually well into spring weather.  Now polar bears are facing extinction for the ice caps melting, shore lines are being redrawn for the rising water, ice cliffs that hasn't melted for aeons or more are suddenly vanishing.  According to samples taken from Antarctica, this type of change, to this degree and rapidity, is unprecedented.

And the bees are dying.

In this Feb. 12 file photo, honeybees cluster on top of the frames of an opened hive in an almond orchard near Turlock. Commercial beekeepers and environmental organizations filed a lawsuit Thursday against federal regulators for failing to suspend use of two pesticides they say harms honeybees.

In addition, I remember how I was very unusual growing up, because I got sick as much as I did.  There were three mildly overweight kids in my grade (after 1st grade I was one of them), and arthritis was a thing for old people.  But lately I have met teenagers with arthritis, and it's not unusual any more.  Childhood obesity is considered practically an epidemic, right along with childhood diabetes.  When I was a kid, diabetes was a mystery to almost anyone who didn't have diabetic grandparents.  Now almost everyone, of all ages, knows about it - it's a grade school problem.  I run into twenty-five-year-olds who complain they're too old to do things that I do for fun.



Ashes, ashes.

The snow looks like an eruption, and the world is full of people who are dying or just not living.  The current generation of teens to twenty-somethings are the first known generation that are expected to live a dramatically shorter lifespan than their parents.  Some of it is the garbage they eat, some is the lack of movement in their lifestyle.  But why all the ADD and ADHD?  Why the spike in autism?  In autoimmune disorders?  In cancer?  Yes, in some cases it's just because medical technology is advanced enough to identify more illnesses, but that doesn't account for an upswing this dramatic.

So I watch, and I wonder, and I try not to feel too disaffected.  Humans are not separate from their planet, after all.  And it is ironic that so many struggle to be a social gestalt while insisting that they are biological islands.  It all feels to me like an overarching system breaking down somewhere.  Season balance, ecological balance, medical balance.  And if it needs be said, emotional, mental, and spiritual balance.

Something is breaking down, and I think it has been for a very long time.  On the one hand, I think it is far more important to focus on fixing things than argue how they got broken.  On the other hand, I really don't expect that to happen.  Instead, curiosity leads me to wonder how it all did get started, what the system might look like from the outside, and what will happen next as it all falls down.



And in the meantime, I help things grow.

Sometime again,

--Coyote.



(Elven Cat illustration courtesy of tumblr.com; Jules pic with Fonzie courtesy of whatculture.com; bee pic courtsey of reddit.com;  old/young pic courtesy of bitsandpieces-sonja.blogspot.com; David Bowie created himself, but the Goblin King was a changeling.  All rights reserved by rightful owners and all that.)

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Oh, bloody hell.  Is it now already?

Yes, though it is a day late, I announce to you all that there will be no post this week.  Too many things have come up, and there is too much yet to do.

My apologies for the late notice, good readers, and my assurance that next Monday there will be the usual updates, thoughts, and random jottings.

Until then,

--Coyote.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

A Thought



Greetings, all.

I know this post is a little late.  I got wrapped up in my studies again and lost track of time.  But just the same, I would like to post an invitation.

My readers generally comment to my Facebook page regarding my posts here, but I would invite you all to make an exception if you would.  And those of you who don't usually comment, feel free.  And though this question applies chiefly to the US, I'd like to see if we can start a discussion on this including my international readers.

I heard some time ago that folks were looking at making the Library of Congress a digital database.  And it is no secret that funding for education in the US gets slashed more every year.  Recently, I was grabbing ebooks for my new Kindle (thank you, Dormouse!) and I thought a thought.

What if the Library of Congress maded all non-copywrited works available for download?  It would take time to arrange, of course.  But they could sell ebooks for a small fee each, or charge a monthly membership, and have all proceeds go to fund education.  No, it wouldn't be a huge amount... but every little bit helps.

So there is my idea.  I invite all of you to post your thoughts, knowledge, and whatever else on this.  If it can be hammered into a workable concept, I'll propose it properly.

Are you game?

Sometime again,

--Coyote.



(Infinite library pic courtesy of a post pruittfpgirl made on blog.freepeople.weblinc.com.  All rights reserved by original right holder.)

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

The Doll in the Graveyard



Graveyards are among my favorite places ever.

Some people prefer pubs or taverns, or bright sunny fields, though these days there seem to be few meadows left.  I've heard great things about concert halls and amusement parks.  And don't misunderstand, I also love museums, art galleries, and campuses.  But most any night, give me a quiet night with silent trees and eggshell-white stones that tell the tales of the dead.

Let me dance there skyclad when it storms, let me wander the broken walks in the crisp summer air.  Let me listen to the birds explode in flocks from the green trees when I venture too near, watch rabbits dance in the moonlight, smell the moist earth of a place between Here and There.

And sometimes, just sometimes, my closest friends join me there.

The oldest graves are to the left, along a small creek that chuckles to itself and says its name is Styx.  Often untended, sometimes broken, stones from other centuries watch the Quick come and go.  I wash my hands in the water of a forgotten fountain and dry them on my clothes.  I respect my elders.

Sometimes I bring tobacco or sage, other times flowers.  I leave them one by one, speaking the names of those who have gone before.  Then I wander along the winding roads, past the dedications and titles, military ranks and winged forms, to the very back.  There I look to the mausoleums: dark, locked, and still.

Sometimes I do yoga.

For years now, there has been a small china doll at the door of my favorite house.  Her hair black as sack cloth, her eyes sapphire, skin delicate and slowly yielding to the seasons.  Her pinafore dress befitted a young lady, her lips, once ruby red, faded to a dark rose.  And she sat, back to the door's edge, and we greeted as we passed.  Here was no accident, no bauble left behind and lost in a child's careless moment.  This was an offering.  And she stayed there, watching the trees and sky, for years.

When I visited my refuge last, the little guardian was gone.  Only the old crypt and I knew, the stone showing the place where she had kept her tiny vigil.

It is always possible, I suppose, that someone simply took the doll for want of anything better to do.  Or that someone who was newly employed as grounds-keeper mistook her steadfastness for a bauble tossed aside. But I know that there are many households in my neighborhood with no real money to spare.  And so I prefer to think that perhaps a child, having no beautiful china doll of her own, took her home in complete innocence and treasured her.  For flowers only grow freely on meadows and graves, and the dead begrudge nothing to children.

--Coyote



(Graveyard pic courtesy of thefashionspot.com.  All rights reserved by their rightful owners.)