October 12th

Can a tree be a poem?
I think that tree right there is a poem
and I will try to tell you about it:

Yellow, so yellow, the sun at sunset, so rich that it shifts toward orange
with stark, dark limbs
which reach eastward toward the gap between the sister-trees
which reach toward the pale yellow-green and the orange and the red and the pine and the nearly black hemlock
as though declaiming.

Can a tree be a poet?
I think that tree right there is a poet
and I will try to translate for you:

Sweet rain,
Dark, soft earth,
Sun, sun, sun,
Dance with me, sisters,
in the breeze.

October 7th

The sky was full of pale, pale amethysts this morning when I stepped out.
They had been ground fine enough to hang in the clouds, no more massive than a bit of water vapor,
casting purple – or the hint of purple – across the sky and my eye and the day.

That was lovely.
Here’s to a lovely thing this morning.

October 4

The dogs and I walked in a world of black and white and grey and it was magnificent!
Familiar things in an elegant mode.

It’s October and the First Frost (not Robert, older) will come soon.
I don’t think it was last night, there lay no sign on the grasses this morning.

But soon.

Things are still blooming in the meadow – hardy things, whose names I do not know.
One of them called to me – a tall-ish stalk that split into three long-ish stems the top halves of which bore little flowers like starbursts along the length – in the manner of lupines or delphinia but in miniature, do you see?

Of course in the dawnlight, these flowers were grey or white and could have been any color paler than grass.

This morning I fell under the enchantment of a fairy-wand plant, emitting starbursts, growing in threes all the better to do magic.

Third of October

Why is it hard?
I get it, leaving cozy blankets and pillows and house is hard,
but the reward is fresh and deer tracks and mist on my face
and happy dogs.

I’ll keep trying, that I promise.

Though you break your vows a thousand times, come yet again, come.

~ Rumi

October First

Marvellous, fantastical, otherworldly mist this morning
I breathe.
As deeply as I can.

Moist and magic heal nose, mouth, throat, lungs, blood, muscle, sinew, bone.

Grey, grey, my beautiful grey lifts up gold and bronze and orange and salmon and red and just-over-the-line-unbelieveable-red-that-makes-me-think-of-purple. What color is that, that shade of red? The color of the tupelo leaves?

Grey, grey, my beautiful grey lifts these up and reveals their numen.

A Magical Education

I will be speaking today at Signum University’s New England Moot, a reflection on twenty years as a religious educator. Specifically, I will address how the finest schools of magic influenced my work.

Here’s a link to my slides!

And this is the non-exhaustive list of books which I’ve been known to recommend on the general topic of ethical development:

Riddle Master of Hed (and sequels) by Patricia McKillip

Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin

everything by Ursula K. LeGuin

Snow Treasure by Marie McSwiggan

Number the Stars

Matty Doolin

Jenny Nimmo’s Snow Spider Trilogy

The Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan

Tamora Pierce, Song of the Lioness Quartet 

Star Wars.  Episodes 4, 5, and 6 

Howard Pyle:

Robin Hood.

Men of Iron.

Otto of the Silver Hand.

the Sherlock Holmes corpus, 

Frankenstein, Lewis Carroll, 

Swiss Family Robinson, 

Treasure Island! 

Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky by Sandra Dallas

Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engel

A Night Divided by Jennifer Nielsen

In the Sea There Are Crocodiles: Based on the True Story of Enaiatollah Akbari by Fabio Geda.  

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley 

“ABCs in Zero G” a short story by Elizabeth Moon; 

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold)

 Everything by Lois McMaster Bujold

Star Trek. 

Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper.  

“Omnilingual” by H. Beam Piper.  

“Nodsaunce” by H. Beam Piper – 

Life As We Knew It & The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer.   

everything Joss Whedon ever produced

The Curse of Chalion and especially its sequel, Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold. 

The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold.

The Darwath Series, by Barbara Hambly

The Ladies of Mandrigyn, by Barbara Hambly

“The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin

“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K. LeGuin.

The Little Prince

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente 

Vivian Apple at the End of the World by Katie Coyle

Speaker for the Dead  by Orson Scott Card

everything by Agatha Christie, but especially the mysteries solved by that strong female protagonist Miss Jane Marple

27 September

The leaves are dripping onto each other wetly, but I wonder if they are telling a fib.

The sky is so clear and the stars are so sharp and the air is so crisp that I could embroider on silk with this morning.
Orion, Big Dog, Little Dog right there above me, clear, clear, clear sky limned with dawnlight.

Wait.

First, have I told my dogs about those dogs?? We might need Dog Storytime tonight – it’s Friday!

But second, he has two dogs, Big and Little – I have two dogs, Big and Small. In Orion can I see my reflection? Even in part?

It’s the Dark of the Moon, and Things Happen during the dark of the moon, ye ken well what I mean.

Very well, then. When the Hunter Moon rises fresh, I will learn, study, read, write, follow, discern, listen to the lessons of the Hunter in the sky. My goodness.

26 September

Something very, very woofable was out there this morning.

We walked particularly early, particularly briefly, because the mundane world somehow filled up our Thursday.
Ridiculous world.

But, world aside, something very, very woofable needed woofing.
I must admit that I am not terribly convinced of the rightness of that statement, as Big Dog went two ways and Small Dog went two other ways with their sure and certain woofings.

If they didn’t know where it was… then… was it there?

Perhaps it was A General Woofing, Such As Might Demonstrate the Qualifications of the Woofers.

Here nor there, it was too damned early to be woofing and the Samoyeds next door answered, possibly waking my dear neighbor; then the collection of dogs across the street chimed in, possibly waking those dear neighbors.

I am truly sorry that you were wakened.
I think that they woofed for no reason, because that amount of woofing usually means “Deer in the meadow!” and we heard no retreating hoofbeats.

To paraphrase a wonderful writer, “This dog comes equipped with a woof.”