Day of the Gap, 17th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Electra): The vigil continues.

Day of Dusk, 16th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): White Ferlinghetti clouds are scudding over Lowell today and in the Merrimack’s shrouded waters, the birch-white face of a madonna is shadowed by streetlight. In a secret garden in a private place, a nightbird's song echoes outside a Lowell window. 

The deep sound of a woman singing a broken melody in a shuttered room in an old wood house in Lowell as the world cracks by, thundering like a lost lumber truck on a steep grade.

These words are adapted from Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Canticle of Jack Kerouac, written in 1987. Today, they resonate with me, even in this bastardized form, as I think of my elderly mother, her lungs filling with pneumonic fluids, her body refusing to accept the oxygen the hospital provides, still clinging to life despite the fact that she's crossed a point of no return. There's nothing more we can do for her, they tell us, and are providing her with comforting hospice care and company and morphine. Sadly, she's been in this agonized state for some five days now.

For the record, she's in a private room in a hospital in Methuen, Massachusetts and not some old wood house in nearby Lowell. But still, the mood of the imagery seems to fit the current situation. It's so lonely here in Atlanta, I guess (to misquote another bard), with her in Methuen, it's almost like living in Lowell.

To quote (correctly) a third bard, David Berman, "When the dying's finally done and the suffering subsides, all the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind."

 

Day of the Left Hand, 15th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Castor): Mom is now in hospice care and is being provided comfort and care in her final hours in this world.

Impermanence is swift. Zen Master Dogen taught that our dew-like life flows by swiftly day by day and changes moment by moment. This is the reality before our eyes. We don't need the words of teachers or philosophers to see this. In any moment, we cannot expect tomorrow to come and should think only of this day and this moment. 

Since the future is very much uncertain, and we cannot foresee what will happen, we should resolve to live selflessly, if only for today, while we are still alive. To live selflessly, Dogen said, is to give up our bodily life and act to bring benefit to all living beings.

 

Day of the New World, 14th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Nothing, of course, is certain but today appears to be my 91-year-old mother's last day on Earth. She's in the hospital right now on 1:1 medical supervision but her oxygen levels are dropping and her heartrate keeps racing. The doctors say they'll let us know when it's time to transition to comfort care.

Life-and-death is the great matter and impermanence is swift. All other topics seem insignificant today.

 

First Ocean, 13th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Atlas): The Atlas days after the 12th, 24th, and 36th days of the year (First Twelve, Second Twelve, and Third Twelve) are for some reason called First, Second, and Third Ocean in the Universal Solar Calendar. After that, the Ocean days seem to be more random and indiscriminate for the rest of the year. Today is First Ocean, even though yesterday, the First Twelve, is known for some reason as Day of the Thought Market. Mysteries of the Universal Solar Calendar.

I took my alternating-day walk today. There's nothing like the temperatures in the low 30s last weekend to make the mid 50s feel warm. I was probably overdressed and might even have sweated a little bit. But the warmer temperatures are obviously allowing the Earth to expand again - my mileage today was 6.3 miles, even though the exact same route last week was 5.9 miles.

The soundtrack for my walk today was provided by Dave Lombardo (Slayer), James McNew (Yo La Tengo), and composer Sarah Davachi on NTS internet radio. The site provides an amazing slate of live curated playlists by a diverse roster of musicians, as well as archived sets from the previous ten years, and before I left the house to start walking I was listening to the live set by Claire Rousey. NTS is an incredible resource for discovering new music and doing deep dives down various rabbit holes. There's no advertisements, even with free access, and they pay their musicians ethically (the same BMI and ASCAP royalties that over-the-air radio pays). You can subscribe if you so choose for additional content, and 50% of their subscription income goes to the artists who curate the playlists. There's no algorithm or AI-generated playlists - it's all, in their words, music for music lovers by music lovers. 

Much better that Spoti-you-know-who, although as I was out and away from wi-fi, the NTS signal frequently dropped and buffered, which got annoying. To test if it was them or me (my equipment), I switched over to Spoti-you-know-who and it played fine - a steady stream of music with no buffering or losses. But I'm back home now and listening over my hard-wired internet connection to an archived NTS playlist by the eccentric Japanese avant-garde artist Phew, and it's playing just fine.

Bonus points: the Phew playlist includes a track by the criminally underrecognized minimalist composer Jon Gibson, who I saw at Big Ears in 2018, two years before he passed away. To give you an idea of the eclectic nature of the playlist, it also includes Jonathan Richman.   

If I'm sounding like a zealot, then yes, I did just discover NTS today. It's been around for since 2011 and I don't know how I've managed to miss it all this time but I'm glad that I did finally discover it. I'm not a fan of internet radio in general - never cared much for Rhapsody or Pandora and their ilk - but this one works for me. To some degree, all radio is as Steely Dan once put it, "somebody else's favorite songs," but this one seems to work for me.              

Day of the Thought Market

Day of the Thought Market, 12th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): Today marks the second Helios (last of the six days of the week) of this year, the 525th year of the Modern Era. In the timeframe of the New Revised Universal Solar Calendar, the Modern Era began at the end of the Middle Ages and the previous Common Era began at the start of the so-called Axial Age, or what is generally considered 500 B.C. The Common Era, "common" because it marks the rise and prominence of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and other religions, lasted until the end of the Middle Ages, or the year 1500. The current Modern Era began 525 years ago, or in 1500 A.D.

One of the many accepted peculiarities of the conventional calendar is that the years before 1 A.D. are counted backward, while the years afterwards are counted forward. That is, 500 B.C. occurred earlier that 100 B.C., but 500 A.D. occurred later than 100 A.D. How absurd! How confusing! 

In the NRUSC, the year 500 B.C. is considered Year One of the Common Era, or 1 C.E., and years are counted forward to 2000 C.E., or what's commonly called "1500 A.D."  The years prior to 1 C.E. (500 B.C.) are considered the Vedic Era and date back to 1500 B.C., so that Year One of the Vedic Era (1 V.E.)  is 1500 B.C., and 500 B.C. is the year 1000 V.E.  

Before the year 1 V.E. is the pre-Vedic Era and I used to think that due to the scarcity of historical documentation, those years could be discussed simply as years before the present without reference to an  Era, e.g., "1975 B.C." could just be called "4,000 years ago." But it's not like there wasn't history 4,000 years ago - the pharaoh Senusret I launched a military campaign against Lower Nubia that year and Erishum I became the thirty-third ruler of Assyria.    

The oldest known calendars date back to 3100 B.C. in Mesopotamia and  around 3000 B.C. in Egypt. I suppose if we have to fix a start date to the pre-Vedic Era, it could be 3000 B.C. (instead of 3100 BC to keep it simple), so the pre-Vedic period from 3000-1500 B.C. can be called the "First Era." 

To summarize:

First Era: 1 F.E. to 1500 F.E. (3000 B.C. - 1500 B.C.)

Vedic Era: 1 V.E. to 1000 V.E. (1500 B.C. - 500 B.C.)

Common Era: 1 C.E. to 2000 C.E. (500 B.C. - 1500 A.D.)

Modern Era: 1 M.E. to present (1500 A.D - present)  

Anything before that, well, you're on your own, man. Good luck.  

Sorry. I was going to discuss other stuff today - the cold weather here in the South, my alternating walking/sitting practice, music, games, or maybe politics ("Orange Man bad!") but my attention got sidetracked by the dateline to this post. Old men are easily distracted. 

Today is the Day of the Thought Market.  

A Winter Walk

 

The Ecstatic Alarm, 11th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Electra): Apparently, I survived yesterday's snowfall in Atlanta without a power outage. Frankly, I'm surprised. There were lots of other power losses here in the Atlanta region, I heard on the news, but the old trees around here managed to hold up against this latest assault. This time.

I stayed home and in the house all day yesterday. I didn't see any reason to go out into the cold and snow-freezing rain outside, and had food, television, video games, and books inside.   

"Hey!," a neighbor texted me last night. "When I was walking by your house, I noticed your snow is undisturbed. You all good?"  

No footprints on my driveway, I suppose. I was touched that she was checking in on me and felt a sense of community and security knowing that we neighbors have each others' backs. I'm reminded of the kindness in this world as the power company linemen brave the cold, wind, and snow to replace downed lines and restore electricity to those in the dark without heat. The police and firemen and other first responders who still have to go about their work despite the conditions. The truck drivers and grocers who are even now restocking shelves and replenishing our food supplies. There's a lot of cruelty in the word, true, but there's also a lot of kindness if we look for it. 

Despite the cold today, it being the alternate day, I took my walk this afternoon - 5.8 miles, the same as  last time. I made sure to take several pictures of the rare snow cover in Georgia. The picture above is Tanyard Creek from a footbridge along the Beltline path. 

At some point during the day, the clouds broke up and the sun finally came through, which was brilliant and helped accelerate the snowmelt along the roads. The roads appear to be generally navigable for the most part. Fortunately, though, it's clouded back up. Fortunately, since an overnight cloud cover caps in the little warmth accumulated during the day, instead of letting all the heat radiate out into the darkness of space on a cloudless night.

I walked today with my headphones on and listened to Perverts, the amazing new dark ambient drone album by Ethel Cain. Highly, highly recommended and it brings up the question, can an AOTY be dropped on the 8th of January? After the 90 minutes of Perverts, I continued my walk listening to Joy Guidry's decidedly more upbeat Amen, and then the country-ambient Rave Angels by Jules Reidy. I hadn't set out intending to listen to all transgender musicians, but I just got lucky, I guess. Anyway, an amazing soundtrack for a cold and moody day.

Day of Quartz

Quartz Day, 10th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): The throat of winter is upon us. It's the rare snow day here in Atlanta. I woke up at 7:00 am and snow was already on the ground, and it continued to fall until 10:00. They say three inches have fallen, although accumulations are highly irregular. They say more precipitation is coming, but in the form of freezing rain and ice. They say to expect power outages as limbs and whole trees fall from the accumulated weight of ice and snow.  

They say tomorrow will be sunny with highs in the mid 40s, so hopefully the ice will melt off the branches and roads. Hopefully.

I'm prepared to lose power and heat. I'm expecting the next 24 hours or so to suck. 

Oh winter, winter, winter, are you but a servant of the Bad One?

The Cold

 

Morning and Evening Asylum, 9th Day of Childwinter, 525, M.E. (Castor): Fuck, it's cold outside. It was 24° F when I got up this morning and warmed up to barely 35° by noon. The forecast calls for snow tomorrow, turning to freezing rain and ice, and overnight temperatures staying down in the 20s for the next week or more. This may not sound all that cold to friends and readers in northern climes, but here in the American South, that's a catastrophic forecast. Our infrastructure here isn't build for these occasional cold snaps, and this drafty old house of mine with its cracker-jack AC system struggles to keep up with sub-freezing outdoor temperatures. 

Despite the perfectly adequate excuse of the weather outside and despite the warmer comforts of home, I still got my alternate-day walk in this afternoon - 5.8 miles for the same route that was 6 miles earlier this week, 6.9 miles last weekend, and 7.7 miles last month. I guess the Earth isn't the only ball that shrinks with the cold.   

It's not lost on me that while we're facing a frozen hell here in the South, Los Angeles in Southern California is in a more traditional hellscape, with out--of-control wildfires fueled by Santa Ana winds destroying homes and property. It's heartbreaking and devastating. 

Xfinity sent me an email last week saying that due to ongoing work on service upgrades, I should expect internet outages today.   

Jimmy Carter's funeral is being held today in D.C. 

2025 is already giving off 2020 vibes.

Day of Granite

Granite Day, 8th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): "Also know this, that in the last days perilous times will come," Paul the Apostle allegedly wrote to Timothy, a fellow missionary. In Chapter 3 of the Second Book of Timothy (King James version), Paul prophesized that in the end times, "men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." Paul advised Timothy, "from such turn away." 

I'm not a Christian and don't believe the Bible in any but the most allegorical sense. I don't put any stock in prophecy, biblical or otherwise. But doesn't the one whom Paul is describing sound a lot like Donald Trump?

If lover of his own self, boastful, proud, and unthankful don't describe the president-elect, I don't know what does. If you disagree with that description, fine - you're free to have your own opinion - but I suggest you examine your own self-delusion and cognitive dissonance. His narcissism, self-aggrandizing, and reluctance to credit others are essentially his defining characteristics.

"Blasphemer" and "disobedient" are example's of the Judeo-Christian emphasis on patriarchal authority and control and no small part of my quarrel with that belief system, so we'll set them aside for now.

Without natural affection: I see no evidence in Trump of genuine affection for his children, other than an unseemly lust for his daughter and reliance that his sons will remain loyal to his needs. I see no evidence of affection between him and his immigrant trophy wife in what appears to be more of a business arrangement than a marriage. He has no close friends other than business associates whom he turns on when it's convenient or profitable for him, and he famously doesn't even have any pets.

Trucebreaker: The 75-year-old NATO treaty is in dire jeopardy and Trump has almost gleefully broken or withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement, the Trans-Pacific partnership, UNESCO, the Iran nuclear accord, and the UN Human Rights Council. You might not agree with the value of all these treaties and accords, but you can't deny that the man is a trucebreaker.

False accuser: "They're eating the dogs!" is but the start of a long, long list of false accusations by Trump, far too numerous to catalog here. If you're somehow still unaware of his many, many lies, you might want to start at the Wikipedia page about his numerous false and misleading statements.

Incontinent: I love that Paul included incontinence in his list of faults. By scent alone, we can follow the trail of prophesies to the present-day wearer of Depends adult undergarments.

The rest of Paul's list (despiser of those that are good, traitor, high-minded, lover of pleasures more than lover of God, etc.) only serve to cement the target that the Apostle already put squarely on Trump's back.

So in all sincerity, I ask Christians how they can support the president-elect. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson once said, "pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That's my worldview." Yet in spite of Paul's clear warning, Johnson is fastidiously supportive of Trump. Even if the words in 2 Timothy 3 aren't a prophesy of Trump, they're clearly a warning against a certain personality type and an unambiguous command to turn away from such people. Why the blind eye then to Paul's words? 

Or is the Bible just a joke to them, a convenient document most of them haven't read but which they can conveniently hide behind whenever it serves their purpose?

Hellscape

Luminous and Ashen, 7th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Atlas): "Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World!” the president-elect claimed last week on social media. But as Peter Baker pointed out in the New York Times a few days ago, by most traditional metrics, America is actually in better shape than at any time since 2001 ("Great," the online cynics noted, "On the last month of his Presidency, the Times finally reports that Biden actually did a pretty good job!").

For the first time in 24 years, no American troops are at war overseas. Murders are down, illegal immigration at the southern border has fallen to even below the level when Trump left office in 2020, and the stock market finished its best two years since Y2K. The economy is growing, jobs are up, wages are rising, and unemployment is as low as it was before the covids. Domestic energy production is higher than it has ever been. 

Not to sound like Steven Pinker, but the manufacturing sector has more jobs than under any president since Bush the Younger, and drug overdoses have fallen for the first time in years. Even inflation has returned closer to normal, although prices still remain higher than they were four years ago.

Trump's dark vision of the U.S. as a hellscape that can only be fixed by purging the government of Democrats simply does not reflect reality. 

We've completed out first week of Childwinter yesterday. Weeks in my New Revised Universal Solar Calendar are six-days long, and the days are named alphabetically for stars: Atlas, Betelgeuse, Castor, Deneb, Electra, and Helios. The F- and G- are skipped so we can name the final, triumphant day of the week for our star, the Sun. Today is the second Atlas of the year 525 of the Modern Era.

I got my second walk of 525 in today, despite the cold (34° F when I started), despite a trip to the supermarket, and despite a 3:15 doctor's appointment (I'm fine, just a routine follow-up). In other words, every excuse to just bag it, but I got 6.0 miles in anyway. My phone measured the exact same route as 6.9 miles on Sunday, and 7.7 miles last month, but the Earth continues to contract, I guess.  

Day of Basalt

Basalt Day, 6th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): The attributes so many American mass killers have in common, from school shooters to terrorists, are gender (I don't even have to tell you which one), a military background, and a history of relationship problems. The urge to dominate those who disagree with them seems to be a common consuming goal. 

The active-duty Green Beret who blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day left letters on a phone found at the explosion site. The letters urged a focus on strength and winning (domination). "Masculinity is good and men must be leaders,” he wrote. “Strength is a deterrent and fear is the product.” He called for weeding out "those in our government and military who do not idealize” masculinity and strength, and urged military personnel, veterans, and militias to “move on DC starting now.”

Explaining why he was performing what he called “a stunt with fireworks and explosives,” he claimed he wanted to “WAKE UP” servicemembers, veterans, and all Americans. The U.S. is “headed toward collapse,” he claimed, and he listed as reasons diversity programs, a weak and corrupt government, an economy that permitted the top 1% to leave everyone else behind, and Americans’ moral failings. 

He wanted others to follow him and occupy (dominate) "every major road along fed buildings and the campus of fed buildings by the hundreds of thousands. Lock the highways around town with semis right after everybody gets in. Hold until the purge is complete. Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary. They all must go and a hard reset must occur for our country to avoid collapse.”

His  thoughts reflect the far-right notion that a government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights crushes the individualism on which America depends.  

The idea of reclaiming the country for white men by destroying the federal government is not a new one. “Is a Civil War imminent?,” Timothy McVeigh asked in a 1992 letter to a newspaper. "Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn’t come to that. But it might.” McVeigh later set off a bomb at a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, including 19 children, and wounding more than 800.

The notion of destroying the government has only grown in the yeas since McVeigh. In 2016, as a Republican candidate for President, Donald Trump insisted that his Democratic opponent belonged in jail and that he alone could save the country from the Washington “swamp.” As president, he attacked the government over the FBI’s investigation of the ties between his campaign and Russian operatives, and then, after his first impeachment, went after any official who tried to hold him accountable to the law. Although many of his critics were Republicans, including his own appointees, he called anyone who crossed him a "Democrat." 

As the incoming president-elect, he continues to vow that he will dismantle the federal government.

(Attribution: much of this post is largely modeled on a longer article by Heather Cox Richardson)