100

I had something worth writing, on the topic of fasting and fellowship and atonement. I've lost all that. It was a genuinely peaceful day, full of repose, prayer, thought, and excellent friends. But what ideas have I left at the moment? Few. I was asked countless times today (while watching Star Trek) - are you happy?
This stems not from an expectation of "no", but from a nervousness at no longer being around much, and knowing little of my current experience. Am I happy? I think I'm happy. I don't feel unhappy, and I'm enjoying my life. Am I content? I think I'm content.

I expect there are moments on either side, like I'm tiptoeing across a balance, and it shifts with each step.  I'm happy I'm happy whoa whoa whoa I'm in trouble! Oh, things are good again! And so on. I remember thinking once, at one point in my life: "does sanctification mean loneliness?" I think that is what people think, sometimes. Solitude, setting yourself apart, distance - are you lonely? Are you okay?

This is why, I think, that Yom Kippur denotes a little bit of loneliness, in my opinion. Fasting always seems a little bit like solitude. Does it mean I'm not okay or unhappy? Of course not.

I learned some things in my holyday meditations and reflections. I think the holy days prepared in the Old Testament sometimes are my favorites, simply because they exhibit a different viewpoint, a world we've mostly forgotten. Anyway, I've rambled enough. This is what happens when you don't eat for a very long time, play soccer, bike around, and then eat as much as possible when your body is falling to pieces - you go a little loopy.
Maybe that is just me. Happy 100.

Peace I leave with you

Soccer was quiet, tonight, and not full field. But the people were just as fulfilling. Next week I'll return to full field soccer. Still, afterwards P came over and we lazed around on couches and discussed magic and stories, rest and birthdays, love and silence. He asked me what I was going to do on my Sabbath, since I'd mentioned recently that I hadn't had a day to myself for a week and a half, and Saturday was my day. I told him I'd like to read a book and maybe write a story and P said, "Can you write a story about clouds? And not-people?"

Immediately this popped into my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a6Pe1ovKHg

We were both sleepy at this point, and usually my stories don't stem from such, but I think it may be fun writing with a vague, dreamy prompt. Perhaps there will be a cloud story tomorrow, perhaps not. Either way, I'm excited to write about "persons and the death of a salesman" which I've got all stored up in my head. I almost wrote it in my journal, but I've got to save that for the writing that doesn't make me groan - it is harder to edit journal pen, so it has to be marvelous the first time. Blog entries can be terrible for a while, and that's fine. It is super casual writing anyway.

Well, it's bedtime, so peace I leave with you. Grace and peace be with you. 

So begins my Sabbath.

All over the place and nowhere useful (+Ragnorak Editing)

It was a silent weekend, perhaps a necessary one. I went on a walk, biked around a while, wrote at a small park where a small stream ran past a couple of picnic tables and a candy purple playground. Every other weekend until early September contains at least one wedding event, so the relaxation should compose me - but all I wanted was another delightful wedding.
I woke up early, wrote later into twilight than desired, played soccer with a boisterous bunch, visited some coffee shops for tea, writing, and reading, went to church, talked on the phone to distant friends, talked on skype to other distant friends, watched a show with roommates, picked roommate and his girlfriend up at the airport - all this, and I felt like nothing happened. I'm ready for a weekend adventure: backpacking, hiking in the woods, weddings, climbing a mountain, kayaking down a river with friends, canoeing on a lake, more soccer. Sometimes it feels like, what with the weddings and general busyness, everyone's lives are leaving me behind, so they've no time for stories anymore. I always want time for stories.

Today's sermon was on the topic of fear, something which everyone, at some juncture, interacts with: anxiety, stress, panic attacks and so on. With the amount of times God says: "do not be afraid" or "be anxious for nothing", one might expect Christians would possess greater skill against these debilitating psychological foes. Often, we do not. I don't consider myself an anxious person. Work is friendly, my friends are kind, even intense social situations often don't stress me out so much as making me step back, and evaluate from a different vantage.
There are some things that I do fear, one of which I even ran away from this very weekend. I'm still working those out. I remember as a kid dealing with fear as though I was a protagonist in a fairy tale. Nothing could really hurt me (this is not a Game of Thrones tale), as I knew the hero of the story would prevail in the end. You'd think I'd be a fearless child with that, but I was quite shy of people. I felt like it wasn't the hero's lot to die, but he could be tortured by uncomfortable scenarios. I suppose it is safe to say that once in a trial, I felt less fear than before. That's often the truth of things though, isn't it? Sometimes, the unknowing is the most intimidating portion. It's amazing how mystery can be both unnerving and fantastic. In the case of the northern lights, which I saw just a while past, I find myself more fascinated by the mystery of the event than the knowing. But other things, darkness, public speaking, spiders under the bed - the unnerving unknowing can be more frightening than the thing itself.

Just another throwaway post, huh? I'm well beyond the tl;dr portion of this mental surgery. I'm in that stupor before sleep, that unsleeping dreamy territory well before true unconsciousness. I should stop, while I'm behind.

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Mid-height and not a penny more, with a penny-colored nest of hair, and penny eyes, and he wasn't worth scarce a penny in a fight.  Yet it was this man who threatened the world with apocalypse. This man, with eyeglasses precariously perched on nose, fingertips pattering as raindrops across a keyboard, was about to destroy the world in a flood, a flood of media silence.  Discarded pizza boxes and crumpled soda cans carpeted, and stained, the floor.  Jak’s only focus was the computer screens, the array of eight screens, on which highlighted code scrolled in tropical-candy colors on a black background as Jak prepared his worm, the greatest worm of all time. He called the program Jörmungandr, and tonight it was ready.

                It was genius, he suspected, a titanic achievement.  It systematically destroyed media outlets from the highest level down, leaving all vital functionality until the end such that each increasing level of chaos was captured perfectly as phones, television, radio, and eventually the internet itself disappeared in a whisper, and the world erupted in a bang.  His finger hovered over the button from whence Armageddon would commence. It was the ultimate prank, he thought with a wicked grin, his ultimate prank.  The world would remember him for this, oh certainly, if they ever found out who did it.

                He pressed the button.

               

                An ancient wood hides from searching eyes, under the sea.  Eldritch and petrified, it still silent sits, shamelessly pacified. Before Atlantis was even dreamed, a glade formed inside spherical reef, a punishment, eternal grief. The water hung at neck level, always neck level, clear as a mirror.  Grapes and ambrosia hovered scarcely out of reach, his fingertips brushing the leaves on his highest leaps.  The glade  was edenic, full of crystal waters and abundant fruits, though he despised its… tantalizing, elusive deceit.

                The almost god still reached when the branches swooped close, still dipped his head for a drink, and the fruit and waters receded. Famished, agonizingly parched, the ab-god waited, not patient, not passively.  The bowels of the earth, hell and hades, were not his alone.  Another’s anguish resonated from the deeps, troubling the earth in violent sweeps.

                But today, while the fire in his gut seethed in unremitting pain, a great power hurricaned through the glade, blasting the ab-god from his feet.  A great light, an aura of flashing pain struck him in his temples, and he saw:

                A cavern, pitch and drab, pockmarked with caustic holes.  Around a great stalactite was wrapped an eternal serpent, mouth hissing wide and dripping with sizzling venom.  Beneath, on a circular platform lay a god on an altar, bound in entrails beneath the serpent. From above, the serpent’s venom dripped towards his face, only impeded by a tiny, ceramic bowl, held by a silent, patient woman.  The god cursed the woman, and still she faithfully protected his face, until the bowl was filled and she carried it to the edge and spilled it into the vast, cavern depths. 

                And suddenly, the cave rippled with power, and the god’s eyes widened with surprise.  In a sudden feat of strength, the entrails were snapped apart, and the god was in the cavern no more.

                When the ab-god awoke in his glade, he was not alone. Another stood in the water beside him, bowl in hand.  The god proffered him the bowl with a broad, mischievous smile. The bowl was filled with water, and for a bowl of water, the ab-god would have sold his very soul. 

More mere musing

Some of the most commonly used terms in fantasy literature involve shade: shadow, black, darkness. The follow-ups are equally dire: war, blood, death.  I suspect this speaks a great deal about the most avid followers of the genre, though I’ll avoid that speculation for the moment.  I think, embedded within many, is an uneasiness and tension regarding light and dark.  Fantasy stories are thus: darkness and hopelessness covers the world with umbrage, and only a spark remains. Slowly, steadily, the hero cossets the flame, coaxes it into a defiant candle against a stygian tornado, the thrumming nimbus of storm that adumbrates a once edenic land.

Is this story familiar?

A salvation: possibly a sacrifice, likely a great battle. Much drama exists en route, but the most frequently ends in familiar fashion: good overcomes evil. Silly isn’t it, but this story sells countless novels, and we beg to hear it again and again. Often, a little love spices up the story, twisting a romantic element into our familiar tale. If there is a sacrifice, this is often its mode of entrance.

I find myself enthralled with light. Its prismatic qualities, its saturations and hues.

U  u      /        u        /    u

In the rests and rhythms

U    /   u    u       u     /    u     u

Of resonance and renaissance

U   u     /    u   u     /   u   u

In the magic and melodies

U    /    u   u    /     u

Of music and muses

This is another spontaneous night. My minds races through nothing in particular and pretends that it’s racing through important topics. There is nothing of importance tonight. Nothing of writing importance, anyway.

Throwaway Post

Philosophy? No. Poetry? Probably not tonight. Commentary on some literary experience or another? I'm tired. I have a stack of poetry books, essay compilations, and classics arrayed around my bed, and I don't even have the vitality for tasting them. Mentally, I desperately want to dive into Maya Angelou's poetry, or Watership Down's articulate descriptions of rabbit's scampering about the wilderness in search of home. I crave Keat's or Blake's romanticism and Gaiman's magnificent mythology, but my physical energy is ghastly low.
How am I still writing this?
I know not.
Today, I finished wedding shopping for one of my best friends' weddings. That exhausted me. Later, I played competitive video games (lame, huh?), and after several punishing losses, we managed to scrape together a win after a tremendously drawn out game (an hour and a half: the others were all around 30 minutes). Afterwards, I didn't get dinner until almost nine, and we ate celebratory steaks. I was in "tired coma" before the steak, which afterwards only exacerbated my coma-condition; postprandial somnolence crashed into my brain like a truck.
Still, the day was a success: bananagrams, burritos, outdoor mall shopping, breathing in the sun, driving with windows down, resting, chatting with good friends, competing with friends, reading, writing, dreaming, watching the hillsides roll by and driving along the Shins road into the valley. Summertime, the living's easy.
I hope everyone has had spectacular days. I'm praying for those of you that have not.
Enjoy the sun, enjoy the stars, dream yourself into mythical days.

Travels and Travails

My most casual blag blather. 

Recently, I've engaged myself in a competition, though the only participant is myself - a trial of restraint, abstinence if you will. The adventure has several stages that I imagine may be generalized to many such odysseys, mental or physical in nature.  Though I have never run, nor even trained, for a marathon, I almost imagine the event in states.

In the first state, the runner trains. The length of this particular stage, existent or not, may significantly alter the difficulty of the others.  Enough training, and the actual trial, the marathon itself, might be softened, or annulled entirely.  For a marathon, the difficulty is exponentially more difficult without training, and, quite possibly, more unpleasant.

The second state I'm going to skip straight to the race itself. Since this is my metaphor, I can do what I want, right? While the first state is somewhat superfluous, I maintain it for explanation's sake. The next few stages all interact with the race entire.  

The race soon begins.  Spandex outfitted racers breathe in the crisp morning air and exhale in tiny clouds.  The sun glances through the trees, splitting dew into rainbows and slanting between buildings to strike the asphalt beneath your shoes. Every fiber of your being is enhanced, stretching, and goosebumps of excitement raise on your skin. In the great distance, a man with a showy pistol: a tip of the hat to traditional races, it fires no actual bullets. Still, as he raises it over his head, a shiver extends over your body, and the training sets in. It is time.

*BOOM*

Bear with me, I'm imagining this on the fly, and enjoying myself immensely in the invention. As the race begins, every muscle in your body rejoices. This is that for which you prepared, this is the glory of toil. You surge forward, perhaps with restraint, understanding the taxing nature of the trial, or perhaps knowing your full strength.  You are young, you are untethered, you are wild and free.

In the second stage of the race, several miles have passed, and the pace becomes steady, directed.  If your training was limited, perhaps already you face the punishment of short breath, lactic acid biting at your muscles with each stamping step.  Either way, the race has many miles remaining, and determination and love binds you, points you at the finish line. You race on.

These next stages, as perhaps all stages, possess aethereal boundaries.  Eventually, however, the body delves into its adrenaline and endorphin reserves, bearing off exhaustion in mental and physical faculties.  Some time, and distance, remains in the race, and each plodding pace is mechanical, exemplary of the love and dedication to the journey.  Still, it is the end of the race that drives you here, the expectation that only a couple peaks and valleys remain along the circuitous route.

Some of these states overlap, some might be spectral, or nonexistent for certain individuals, but certain aspects of these will apply in alternative adventures or instances in life perhaps.  The next stage is that last leg, the final stretch before the end. Every last reserve of energy kicks in, that idiomatic second wind, and perhaps a recursive joy from the race's beginning returns once more. There is joy, there is exhaustion, there is hope.

The last stage is the finish, the completion of the race and its aftermath. This stage I know exists, in some form or another.  There is, at least as far as I know, always an end in some capacity.  

How does this relate to me? I consider my particular trial not dissimilar to a mental marathon.  Let's evaluate my psyche, Cupid. The first stage is interesting, as my preparation was all incidental. This event was unplanned, and any training was likely a failed attempt to accomplish what I formally attempt now.  So, I don't consider myself adequately trained, though perhaps I cannot expect that any training would have been sufficient.

The second stage has past, and the nature of the beast produced interesting, and maybe minimal, quantities of joy. I almost imagine I skipped straight into the third stage, understanding the race's immense distance and dreading the difficult passage. In the third stage, I believe I may be stuck for much time. The eternity before me, only steps behind me, acid seeps into my mentality and burns at my muscles. I expect a false step might tumble me from the race.

The fourth stage is long ahead of me. I wonder if I might discover another stage as I continue my path.  Perhaps my biggest trial is that I chose too many tasks, too many trials at once.  I am not only running the marathon, but trying to learn to juggle, and learn Hebrew at the same time.  The flaming pins rotate clockwise, the letters jumble sinistral, my legs grumble forward. 

And the only thing that endures throughout all the stages is the hope. It twinkles like the stars, but always there, always bright, always guiding me in my chosen direction.  Isn't that what always drives us anyway?