November 2006 Archives
In the beginning the earth was a plain of ice and snow. All was dark. There was no life, no death. The sun, the moon, and the stars slept beneath the ice. All the eternal ancestors slept there, too, until at last they woke themselves out of their own eternity and broke through to the surface.
When the eternal ancestors arose, in the Dreamtime, they wandered the earth, sometimes in animal form -- as bears, wolves, and ravens -- sometimes in human shape, sometimes part animal and human, sometimes as part human and plant.
Two such beings, self-created out of nothing, were the Ungambi. Wandering the world, they found half-made human beings. They were made of animals and plants, but were shapeless bundles, lying higgledy-piggledy, near where the ice was warmed, so water holes and salt lakes could be created. The people were all doubled over into balls, vague and unfinished, without limbs or features.
With their great stone knives, the Ungambi carved heads, bodies, legs, and arms out of the bundles. They made the faces, and the hands and feet. At last the human beings were finished.
Thus every man and woman was transformed from nature and owes allegiance to the spirit of the animal or the plant that made the bundle they were created from -- such as the ash tree, the grass seed, the bear, the large and small bird, or the rat.
Then the ancestors freed the moon and stars from their tombs, to shine over the ice and snow. But the humans were cold, so they rose the sun from its bed in the southeast, melting the ice below frostfell.
This work done, the ancestors went back to sleep. Some of them returned to the ice, others became rocks and trees. The trails the ancestors walked in the Dreamtime are holy trails. Everywhere the ancestors went, they left sacred traces of their presence -- a rock, a waterhole, a tree, a glacier.
For the Dreamtime does not merely lie in the distant past, the Dreamtime is the eternal Now. Between heartbeat and heartbeat, the Dreamtime can come again.
The gods and godlings we know now, have come to power over the ages, as they conferred with the Manitou, the spirits of the Earth and her creatures, and learned the powers to be drawn from the Manitou and the Dreamtime.
A former coworker has pointed me to downtownypsi.org, a site dedicated to this fine town I live in, and making it a better place.
Before the October Board of Trustees meeting, I submitted the following letter in regards to my resignation from the General Assembly Planning Committee.
To the Trustees, Moderator, and President of the UUA:
"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty; I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." ~Buckminster Fuller
By this point, I assume you've become aware of my resignation from the General Assembly Planning Committee, filed on September 30th. This letter is my statement to you of what has happened, surrounding that resignation.
"Uncle Bobby is upstairs telling McKinley to hit the bong another time. Somewhere in there my mother said 'I'm sure there's a boy or two downstairs that could help you with that'" ~My Sister (McKinley is 6)
"Ever made Tang out of that [Bong water]?" Cousin Greg
Oh! She called you a phoney and a faker, and I think she said Bitch in there too.
Bye! Have a nice Helmet!
Happy Thanksgiving all!
I came downstairs as soon as My parents left, and wrote this down, so as not to forget. This came from My grandmother. Forgive mis-spellings if I haven't gotten back to fix them.
Everyone on the street trusted my great-grandparents. So during the war, and especially as it came to the end, all the women would bring things to them to store. They'd pour the bottom of the whiskey bottles into larger ones, combine the flour, raisin, currants, sugar, butter, all of it.
Then, on the day that the war was called over (VE day), all the children were sent on a Church picnic to the country. My grandma had been walking across a pond or a stream and cut her big toe open on a piece of glass, so walked in with a bandaged foot. When they came back, they found the table of the Irvine house covered in baked goods of every kind. The men of the area had been hordeing firewood for weeks, and created a huge bonfire in the middle of the street.
That night, as the entire community had stuffed themselves with the goodies, the men burned Hitler and Mosulini in effigy from the lamppost over the fire, and formed a conga line that danced through all of Govan and Glasgow. My grandmother was allowed to leave, bandaged foot and all, and doesn't remember sleeping at all that night.I declare Shenanigans!
That is all.
BBC NEWS | Americas | US pagans fight grave symbol ban
Interesting article. I can only assume that the flaming chalice is allowed on military gravestones, or I'd have heard otherwise.
EDIT: 5 minutes later, here's the link to the list of all approved symbols. http://www.cem.va.gov/cem/hm/hmemb.asp
Douglas Adams wrote that the Nutrimatic Drink Dispenser invariably produced a drink that was almost, but not quiet, entirely unlike tea.
On college campuses, and highway rest areas, you can often find the "Hot Coffee and Tea" machines. You know the ones. Push which drink you'd like, its strength, select your sugar and "whitener" levels, and out comes a drink. I've often said that these machines are the non-sentient equivilents of Mr. Adams literary nightmare, in that the "tea" they produce has a hint of tea, but is otherwise most un-tea-like. Likewise, the "coffee" they produce isn't REAL coffee, but hints that long ago in a far distant dimension, the penultimate parent of Coffee smiled in passing at the great-grandancient of the "coffee" we pay the coin in our pockets for in the middle of the night on Interstate 75 in hopes we can make it through Atlanta before rush hour.
Getting through class today has been a bit rough. We took a break just after 7pm, but sure enough the campus coffee shop closed at 7. I walked over to the vending machines, and there she was: The automated coffee and tea machine. I learned a long time ago: It's not tea. It's not coffee. If you don't expect tea or coffee, and can deal with the fact that "whitener" might just mean "high quality correcting fluid", then these marvels of modern technology can produce Cthuluian Ambrosia. There was a sticky note on the machine, stating the Vienna Roast was not working. No worries, as I wanted the Dark European Roast, Full Strength, one sugar, one whitener. Large.
But no... Cthulu laughs at Me tonight. It's not the Vienna Roast, it's the whole damn machine that's broken! Somehow, I'll make it through.
Take a look at Michigan. Notice anything?
That's right... According to ABC News, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan isn't a part of these elections. On behalf of My fellow Northernly Michiganders I have to say: Hey ABC News! Go back and take Elementary School Geography!
For those of us in the US, tomorrow is an election day.
I don't care who you vote for as long as you vote. Cast a blank ballot if you must, but go out and vote, or turn in your citizenship.
Remember, remember, the 5th of November The Gunpowder Treason and plot ; I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'Twas his intent. To blow up the King and the Parliament. Three score barrels of powder below. Poor old England to overthrow. By God's providence he was catch'd, With a dark lantern and burning match
Holloa boys, Holloa boys, let the bells ring Holloa boys, Holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip Hoorah ! Hip hip Hoorah !
On this All Saint's Day, I am pleased to announce the Great Lakes Universalist Reliquary. The faithful here are collecting the relics of notable Universalists, to be enshrined in a converted lighthouse.
$100 bounty for anyone that can produce a bone from the forefinger of Thomas Starr-King's dominant hand.
