So turns out, the Neanderthals didn’t die out naturally. Nope. Sapiens happened. I recently read a fascinating book by a French archaeologist Ludovic Slimak, based on his 30+ years of studying Neanderthal remains and sites in the field. Apparently, geneticists recently discovered that some of our DNA is actually Neanderthal, leading to the speculation that […]
Winter lasted two weeks, and spring is already well underway, and yes … it’s lovely, and yet. And yet. Oh, yet. Regular followers of this blog know I am a fan of winter, of long dark nights and cold days and even snow. And even though all of that stuff wears out its welcome after
Well, it happens sometimes, doesn’t it? We need to hole up and be hermits for a while, us introverts anyway. I can’t seem to recharge enough lately, and I’m not sure why. It might be atmospheric, social, political, environmental, solar storms … could be anything, honestly. But the struggle is very real, and I’m sorry
There’s a beautiful tradition about the Goddess Brighid (Celtic Minerva) that I try to observe as often as I can. On the night before Imbolc, which is generally observed on February 1 so the night of January 31, she walks the land, spreading her blessing over the fields and through the homes, touching all the
Everywhere I look blank pages The world becomes invisible with it’s coating of brilliant gleaming . . . Nothingness . . . It’s been over a week since I have seen, really seen, brown or gray or tired green and the cold is a constant ache you’d think we’d be used to by now But
I’ve had occasion lately to write things based on parameters that weren’t my own. A short story and a song, both with specific purposes that were not part of what I ordinarily think of as my central emotional … thing. Stuff. Doo-dad. Mojo. Whatever. I didn’t write from some emotional or intellectual realization or epiphany,
Oh, funny humans. So obsessed with milestones and new years and the ready-set-go. We get all excited about stuff, like the fact that the last day of 2023 was 12-31-23, or 123 123, like it meant something. People, the Julian calendar was slammed together by a bunch of self-serving Roman jerks who were so far
My inbox overfloweth with promotions for dealing with holiday stress and depression. Again. Covid may have done us a few favors, really. Maybe what it did was help us, by forcing us to stay the hell home for a year, to learn that the holidays, as celebrated in Materialist-Dominator Culture, are really not all they
So yeah, turned 59 a couple days ago and … surprise surprise, I have some thoughts … First of all, I am not handling it particularly well. 30 was a blur. 40 was actually pretty great. 50 was really good. But the prospect of turning 60 in a year is leaving me … I don’t
A rooster crows somewhere in Mesa in the tangle of Phoenix This anomaly wakes me up makes me chuckle Mesa seems to be mostly gray-haired Iowans sick of the cold who come here to Never Be Cold Again But it’s November and I miss the cold and I miss our modest-sized bed where we brush
