There is really nothing new from the Middle East. Islam continues its assault on American liberty, Western Civilization and all persons or things Jewish, and most of all rages at the fact the proud women of Westernesse have never (even at the times they were most exploited) been forced to wear the cloak of self-loathing that is the burka or suffer the genital mutilations prescribed by gleefully sadistic mullahs.
Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., and throughout the land it governs, there is really nothing new either. An economic crisis looms at the gas pumps, but the politicians continue their assaults on each other, on taxpayers, on the Constitution, on the very intelligence of the human species and – most of all – on the ability of America to defend herself, no matter whether the assaults are deliberate expressions of subversive intent or coincidental exclamations of simple incompetence.
In other words, though Sunday was Mother’s Day (the modern echo of a very ancient holiday originally convened to honor the Great Goddess, the Mother of All Being), nothing has changed during the weekend. Hence – precisely to counteract the karmic Standstill of changelessness (readers of the I Ching will understand) – today’s focal points are expressions of change: change of focus, change of face, change of pace, yes and perhaps also a microcosmic and entirely positive version of the typhoon that is said to result when some Taoist butterfly is unusually vigorous in winging from blossom to blossom. Hence what we have here today is a summertime variant of a thoroughly secular but nevertheless utterly delightful Christmas song: “these are a few of my favorite things.”
The first link is to a dog story. Dogs are unquestionably my most favorite of all living creatures, genuinely down-to-earth and truly magical all at once, and this story illustrates some of the more wonderful attributes of canine consciousness and being. I caution that it will probably not leave you dry-eyed, but whatever sadness it evokes, it seems to me it is the kind of sadness that is more blessing and inspiration than cause for depression, close kin to the triumphant sadness of a life ended in some heroic cause or victory, and thus an undeniable expression of profound gratitude that such benevolence exists, however ephemeral it might seem. The story – of a very special dog who served a very special need – is here.
In one of the more intriguing accounts that surfaced during the weekend’s flow of news, a British newspaper reports that 100,000 Greeks are attempting to revive classical paganism. The revivalists may even include rural folks who never abandoned paganism, though the story merely implies this and does not make it clear. In any case, these pagans are encountering all sorts of obstructions from the fact Greece is officially a Greek Orthodox Christian country. Among the obstructions is an absurd ban on using the Parthenon – a temple of Athena – for its original purpose. Once again we see how infinitely blessed we were by our Founders, who gave us a Constitution that protects religious liberty (the recent efforts of the Left to pervert the Constitution into a weapon against Judaeo-Christianity not withstanding). The Grecian link is here.
Last is the sort of story you should keep to show your children or grandchildren when they lament that there is nothing left anywhere on earth to investigate or explore. It is a description of a recently discovered phenomenon in Africa – a widespread, curiously repetitive circular formation that is apparently a creation of nature but nevertheless stubbornly refuses to yield its secrets to science. It is thus a bit like the Appalachian balds (said by the Cherokee to be the mountain-top shrines where the fair-skinned Old People invoked their gods – magically kept clear of trees even now in anticipation of the gods’ return) or the Mima Mounds of Southwestern Washington (about which local Indian myth says absolutely nothing – at least nothing that has been shared with White Eyes). The African link is here. I hope you appreciate my whimsical mood and eclectic choices.
posted by on May 10, 2004 02:01 PM