I am looking forward to going to see
Waiting for Godot, a play the script of which I really enjoyed reading as a kid. Not as much as Animal Farm, but nearly. The lines flowed effortlessly one to the next, so I never put it down and read right through to the end. Now I want to see how it is to watch, and ruthi has made it happen.
The Pagan Moot went well! Or I thought so. Four people there, all nice, in a real ale pub that also serves food during the day. All four have an interest in permaculture, the first permaculturalists I've found in Bolton so far. I also learned there's a Frog Parade at Moss Park where they dunk a Frog King dressed as a frog, to help promote conservation and breeding of frogs. Not pagan at *all*, no. Oh, and they're handing my number on to geographically closer pagans, which would be cool.
Geographical boundaries and paganism is something I think about. Another post came up, on bipolypagangeeks, about cultural appropriation and mix-and-match paganism, a subject which is thorny at best, given the whole 'individual self-sought paths' aspect to a lot of the faith. New Agers are the quintessential stealer-of-parts but there's a really, really fuzzy line between New Age and Pagan. I'm uneasy about yoga these days, having not realised before that it was originally part of religious expression, rather than, say, a useful set of keep-fit exercises. The closest I'd come was to wondering why Sun Salutation was so called. Pilates does the same thing, but without ripping off a colonised people's religion to do it. The use of 'chakras' also makes me uncomfortable, for the same reason. (Speaking of which, Norse runes: they're not random pretty marks. And Thor's hammer is *not* a healing symbol. It's a hammer. Thor uses it to hit things. I do not think He has ever used it to give CPR.)
The Nethernet. There's a class there called Benefactors, who spend their whole time giving away the DP points that the site gives as prizes. Where other people are searching out crates and loot, Benefactors are quietly giving away said crates and loot. You have to get those DP from somewhere, and the way to do it is missions. So... one of the Benefactors has put up a mission, of all the sites where you click and real people get freebies. Things like
Free Rice and the like. I thought this was an awesome use of a game ethic to help real people and to still be within the spirit of the game. I just... it's neat, somehow.
Mafia. My head is fuzzy. Bah. I am not giving good value as a player.
I got complimented yesterday on a poem I wrote as a riff off
Litany by
Billy Collins, a poet who does good things.
This is my riff. It's about being a special snowflake:
You are the pen and the strife
the crystal teardrops and the whine.
You are the slump in the morning bed
and the burning pain of the heart.
You are the wide yearning of the acher
and the harsh words suddenly in fight.
However, you are not the mind in torment
the words in the poem
or the house of hearts.
And you are certainly not the pine-wasted love.
There is just no way that you are the pine-wasted love.
It is possible that you are the waters under the bridge
maybe even the worries in the general head,
but you are not even close
to being the yield of nostalgia at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the slave in the corner
or the waif asleep in its poorhouse.
It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of pain on the hoof.
I also happen to be the special star
and the evening pauper cowering down an alley,
and the basket-case of madness on the surgeon's table.
I am also the loon in the trees,
and the mind woman's crackpot.
But don't worry, I am not the pen and the strife.
You are still the pen and the strife.
You will always be the pen and the strife,
not to mention the crystal teardrops and - somehow - the whine.
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