October 15

I saw the bear sign this morning – wow!
The dogs told me all about it,

“Look!! Bear poop!”

And then they took me down, down a path that was “so lovely!”
That’s what they called it, “A Mhamaidh Glaiseun, come see! It’s so lovely!”

They say things like that.

Lucky me 🙂

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Moon beyond the westward trees nevertheless reaches across to tempt the small stars to rest in her embrace,
Only a few, stronger stars remain on watch.
Eastward, sun calls the others to her.

Hunter, Big Dog, Little Dog, Twins, these only remain to guard the sky.

Mist rises from river and beaver bog up into perfectly clear sky.

Balance everywhere.

Gods chuckling with delight at a plan come together.

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