jabel

The future is always unknowable but sometimes its impenetrability is tangible. As I plan for my mom, I have literally no idea how her life will proceed. My accountant brain wants to lay out the possibilities. Yet at every approach to the granite block of the future, it gently but firmly tells me no.

Robinson Jeffers: As for us: We must uncenter our minds from ourselves; We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident As the rock and ocean that we were made from. How does living in a full cosmos affect my daily life? As dear old Robinson says, it unhumanizes my views a little; it de-centers me. In an empty cosmos, humans alone have agency. Humans can be acted upon by impersonal forces, certainly, but those actions are definitionally meaningless. Only agency imparts meaning. In a…

One week ago, at about this time of day, our lives went topsy-turvy. I took mom to the ER for treatment of a serious fall and it became clear as we’ve stayed with her this week how weak she has become. That, plus several others issues, have resulted in her qualifying for hospice care. We’ll also be moving her into assisted living in the coming days. I’ve had so many surreal, hard conversations this week. Rachel has been amazing, pushing herself past her comfort zone in physical care and pushing…

Fascinating visualization of the change in how 25-35 year olds use their time over the past century

Wendell Berry, “Two Economies”: Some time ago, in conversation with Wes Jackson in which we were laboring to define the causes of the modern ruination of farmland, we finally got around to the money economy. I said that an economy based on energy would be more benign because it would be more comprehen­sive. Wes would not agree. “An energy economy still wouldn’t be comprehensive enough.” “Well,” I said, “then what kind of economy would be comprehensive enough?” He hesitated a moment, and then,…

I write to you from within a constrained world. Caring for my elderly, injured mother, thinking only of the next task, I make phone calls and listen for her stirring in the night. What do I have to do with the world of presidents and wars? I dimly recall the Strait of Hormuz as I fill my gas tank and worry about Medicare coverage. There was a spot on Stumphole Bridge Road where long ago (last week?) the world opened up. Wide farmland stretching up to misted hills, folding and folding and…

Now that offices have re-opened, it’s been a day of phone calls and a visit to a new doctor for mom. Note-taking, list-making, and plenty of stress. On the way to the doctor I thought, “I’m trusting the strong powers.” At which point I drove past a handmade roadside sign: “We are not alone.”

I’d appreciate prayers, etc., for my mom, Rachel, and me. Mom has been falling increasingly often, culminating in a serious fall yesterday that required an ER visit. Rachel and I have been staying with her since then. Mom needs to recover and we need to figure out how to get her more help.

I see UFOs are in the news again. I haven’t been paying much attention; I’m waiting for the episodes of Why Files that explains it all. I will only note in passing that I recently heard someone (maybe Neil Degrasse Tyson?) condescendingly point out (it had to to Neil Degrasse Tyson) that UFO sightings only happen in the English-speaking world. Poppycock. They’re described in the English-speaking world as UFOs because that is our cultural language. Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality: It is widely…

Today in letting the machines talk to the machines: Copilot just helped me build a process that will convert a report from our new payroll system into a GL import file. It took me 90 minutes to build the tool and accompanying procedures. The process itself will require two minutes of work on the part of the end user–a huge time savings compared to doing this conversion manually. Now if I would have already been fluent in Power Query, I could have built it in even less time. The advantage…

On Tuesday evening, Rachel and I were discussing the extent to which members of a certain personality cult are responsible for their actions. As we talked, Rachel said that the root of our disagreement was probably in a disagreement about free will; namely, she thinks people have more freedom of will than I do. At the time, I agreed. I thought about it more on Wednesday and I have a more satisfying framing for this. The “personal responsibility” point of view sits in a too-empty cosmos. The…

Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld … I will be outlining a way of perceiving the world which, while it does not explain the appearance of strange images, renders them intelligible. It is a way which requires, first of all, not that we believe, but that we suspend disbelief, as in the enjoyment of a theatrical production; a way which asks us to foster what Keats called “negative capability–that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts,…

"In an era where everything is bullshit and crime..."This was an off-the-cuff remark I made today, but it resonated with the audience. Feel free to use it.Then, do things that are neither bullshit nor crime. Fix things. Protect things. Consider the long term. Care about somebody.Todd https://social.lol/@todd/116597343444455581

Squirrel in the neighbor’s mulberry tree. Photo by Rachel.

Today I learned that the East Fork of the White River (which runs south of town) is called Aankwaahsakwa Siipiiwi by the Miami people. This translates to “Driftwood River”–which is a far better name that East Fork of the White River!

Andrew Lang’s introduction to The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies: [The author, Robert Kirk] died (if he did die, which is disputed) in 1692, aged about fifty-one; his tomb was inscribed– ROBERTUS KIRK, A.M. Linguæ Hinberniæ Lumen. The tomb, in Scott’s time, was to be seen in the east end of the churchyard of Aberfoyle; but the ashes of Mr. Kirk are not there. His successor, the Rev. Dr. Grahame, in his Sketches of Picturesque Scenery, informs us that, as Mr. Kirk was walking…

Gordon: “So a broken heart is also a heart that is breaking open so that it becomes larger, so that it can hold more of the grief and the love and the joy and the pain of the whole cosmos. That is what it is for. That is what you are for.” Brother Ali: “I’m using my heart for / what hearts are for.”

Jack Leahy: It is incredible to me that we humans can live a long, full lifetime on this planet and be unwilling to face the brokenness of our lives and the destruction we have caused ourselves and others. I know shouldn’t get angry about it, but I sometimes do. I hope I can do better when my time comes, but who knows? One of the realizations I had while meditating in the cabin was that we humans, so capable of surviving nearly any catastrophe, no matter how horrific are—at our hidden core, in…

George Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal: the trickster is a character type found in mythology, folklore, and literature the world over; tricksters appear as animals, humans, and gods. They have a number of common characteristics, and some of their most salient qualities are disruption, unrestrained sexuality, disorder, and nonconformity to the establishment. They are typically male. Tricksters often deceive larger and more powerful beings who would thwart them; they may be endearingly…

The rich and powerful used to pose with a hand inside their waistcoat, like Napoleon. Now they pose with thumbs up, like Trump.

This morning I was watching Gordon White’s tribute to the recently-departed Peter Carroll. I’ve never read any of Carroll’s books and I doubt I ever will. I was watching for the same reason I read or watched nearly everything Gordon produced: you never knew when he would drop some jewel of knowledge or practice. He ended the video with a prayer that Carroll would be seated as an ancestor of practice. I switched over to my email app and saw an “Announcement” email from Gordon’s Rune Soup…

Patrick Joyce, Remembering Peasants: How little we know about these bodies, these bodies that do the eating! Our ignorance is fed by our assumption that peasant bodies were the same as our bodies. They were not. The difference can be summarized thus: we have bodies, which we carry about in our minds, whereas they were their bodies. The head had not yet won victory over the medieval notion of the bowels as the centre of the body. Food, in the eating, went straight to this centre. In France in…

Patrick Joyce, Remembering Peasants: And here we might step back a moment and consider that something of great weight may be going on here, with this matter of the morality of ordinary life, and with the word ‘grace’ in particular. For a word that is traditionally applied to the lord seems equally and perhaps more applicable to the peasant, one who is decorous, courtly even. Where does being civilized really reside? Where is ‘civilization’ to be found? The anthropologist Julian Pitt-Rivers was…

“The man with an experience is never at the mercy of the man with an argument,” said the Holiness preacher. This line keeps coming back to me this year. It can and did indicate anti-intellectualism. I prefer to frame it, however, in terms of anti-rationalism, the critique of the idea that the rational mode of thought is, or at least ought to be, the clearest path to truth. Fresh out of Holiness churches during my cage stage Lutheranism, my parents, Rachel, and I were having Sunday dinner. I…

Having read the beans section of The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery, I went in search of heirloom seeds. Behold, the Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center. After a bit of poking around, I settled on Doyce Chambers Greasy Cut-Short and some Pine Mountain Greasy. The former because they have a solid reputation and the latter because Pine Mountain is not all that far from my ancestral Kentucky counties. They both should be good for either cooking in the pod or drying as soup beans.

Pete at Just a Few Acres Farm is signing off YouTube. I’m genuinely sad to see him go. Also, unsurprised: being a human being and not an influencer, he’s struggled with the perversities of the platform for years. I’m thankful for the hours of pleasure he’s given us. I’ll keep watching re-runs.

Traditional Irish prayer quoted in Remembering Peasants: With the powers that were granted to Patrick I bank this fire. May the angels keep it in, no enemy scatter it. May God be the roof of our house. For all within And all without, Christ’s sword on the door Till tomorrow’s light.

Patrick Joyce, Remembering Peasants: [In Irish houses of the old style] it is bad manners to knock and for the host to keep you waiting at the door. You go into the house to the fire, the fire the centre of the hearth, the hearth the centre of the kitchen, the kitchen of the house, the house of the farm (‘the home place’), and so onwards goes what Glassie calls a culture of centres, one around which cyclical time revolves. Only illness brings you into the bedrooms in daylight, and being…

We were visiting with my in-laws this evening, talking about all sorts of things. Eventually the conversation turned to our worries about caring for my mom. My mother-in-law had been talking about her experience caring for a relative when, at one point, she launched into the most powerful two-minute sermon about trust in God I’ve ever heard. I had tears in my eyes. If she would have made an altar call, I would have responded. And I’m not sure how much I’m joking when I say that. There was such…

Not going to be a lot of work on projects this weekend. Yesterday I met up with Todd for lunch in Edinburgh and had a great time. Today will be some family visits, being Mother’s Day. I did, however, get the serpentine belt replaced on the truck. Very easy and far cheaper than a mechanic’s bill.