In This Condition | Weeknotes 3/4
Mardi Gras, runes, pine needle baskets, hand talk, surrealism, Mayan beekeeping, and the James Webb telescope.
Comrades—
Honestly, it’s been a busy two weeks, as I’m sure the rest of you noticed with …astrology changes? Probably? We’re just guessing.
Volunteering at her local Makerspace is buoying Jess through a tumultuous job hunt. There is something very chop wood, carry water about teaching people to mend clothes. It also feels really good just to be part of an in-person community again. I also held a true dinner party for the first time in a long time. It was so good to have a big group of friends around a table again. We worked up a one-pot tortilla soup and some Mexican chocolate mousse. For Mardi Gras, J made her first King Cake and delivered slices. (Yes, I ended up with the baby in my own slice, so I guess I’ll be doing it again next year.)
B fulfilled the obligations of his Northern European ancestors with pancakes (there is no greater disparity in all of Christendom than Carnival v. Shrove Tuesday). B has always found Lent useful, particularly as an additive practice. This year he is reading a poem each day and singing, feeling the way music balances the harmonies of the world.
We took a trip to Salem, MA to do magic and see friends.We worked a ritual from Diana Paxson’s excellent Taking Up the Runes, while downstairs at the Best Western Plus, a Pentecostal church had their service. It was a busy crossroads. Later we gave our ritual offerings to the sea…by which we mean were mobbed by gulls almost before we finished the prayers.
Both of us are writing more. B’s working on a new set of poems, and J is working up some nonfiction. All of it stitches together: friends, food, ritual, anticipation of spring.
Chop wood, carry water.
—Jessie & Brian
Earth
Extremely soothing: this video on traditional Choctaw pine needle basket-making. -J
"Sorcery is not something that comes from humans, but that it is everywhere on earth, and even in the universe. So, if you want to study it and work with it, I think you should go into nature, into the forest in particular, to see what forces are at work there." -J
Cutting boots in half may be the best way besides wearing them to get to know what they’re made of. This History of White's Boots really inspired me to think again with how we make things that last, and the value of craft. -B
Really enjoyed this documentary on Freyr: Arith Härger offers an excellent examination of what it means to be a god of kingship, peace, and the sacred relations we have with each other. - B
Sea
A useful lay-person’s summary of why the “serotonin hypothesis” of depression is false – and how new research is changing our understanding. -J
This documentary on Hand Talk, the Plains Sign Language developed by the indigenous peoples of North America, is an exciting look at a language that bridges culture and requires new ways to think. Which also led me to think about poetry in signing languages: what does it mean to rhyme with your hands? -B
Sky
Leonora Carrington: The Lost Surrealist. There are a few of these television documentaries about Leonora – this one is better than most, and includes some good footage of her working in her studio that I haven’t seen anywhere else. -J
The woman working to save Mexico’s indigenous honeybees and sacred beekeeping traditions. -J
The James Webb telescope discovered old massive galaxies “that shouldn’t exist.” I love things that “shouldn’t exist” because it means a whole new way of seeing the world is waiting for you, right there. And I love the James Webb telescope for it giving my friend Hannah to write beautiful poems like Three Body Problem. -B
In This Condition
by Lydia Davis
Stirred not only by men but by women, fat and thin, naked and clothed; by teenagers and children in latency; by animals such as horses and dogs; by certain vegetables such as carrots, zucchinis, eggplants, and cucumbers; by fruits such as melons, grapefruits, and kiwis; by certain plant parts such as petals, sepals, stamens, and pistils; by the bare arm of a wooden chair, a round vase holding flowers, a little hot sunlight, a plate of pudding, a person entering a tunnel in the distance, a puddle of water, a hand alighting on a smooth stone, a hand alighting on a bare shoulder, a naked tree limb; by anything curved, bare, and shining, as the limb or bole of a tree; by any touch, as the touch of a stranger handling money; by anything round and freely hanging, as tassels on a curtain, as chestnut burrs on a twig in spring, as a wet teabag on its string; by anything glowing, as a hot coal; anything soft or slow, as a cat rising from a chair; anything smooth and dry, as a stone, or warm and glistening; anything sliding, anything sliding back and forth; anything sliding in and out with an oiled surface, as certain machine parts, anything of a certain shape, like the state of Florida; anything pounding, anything stroking; anything bolt upright, anything horizontal and gaping, as a certain sea anemone; anything warm, anything wet, anything wet and red, anything turning red, as the sun at evening; anything wet and pink, anything long and straight with a blunt end, as a pestle; anything coming out of anything else, as a snail from its shell, as a snail’s horns from its head; anything opening; any stream of water running, any stream running, any stream spurting, any stream spouting; any cry, any soft cry, any grunt; anything going into anything else, as a hand searching in a purse; anything clutching, anything grasping; anything rising, anything tightening or filling, as a sail; anything dripping, anything hardening, anything softening.