My Bibliographic Obssession

Pierre Auguste Cot,  "Young
Maiden Reading a Book."

I love books. New books, old books, slightly used books. I love the smell of freshly printed ink. I love the way old pages turn yellow and musty. I love reading a novel for the first time; I love revisiting old favorites. There are some books I've read hundred times. I love tiny, local book shops with their obscure titles and large used-sections and all the other random, unique trinkets you can find there. I love huge bookstores that overwhelm me with their quantity of glossy volumes and sterile shelves. I love reading outside in the summer, I love reading by the fire in the winter, and I love reading during any season at a coffee shop. I love love LOVE LOVE books.

Unfortunately, I rarely have time to actually read anymore. That said, I still possess an ever-expanding library of texts, novels, references, anthologies. This past weekend, one of my friends was heading out to run some errands, and asked if I wanted to come along. I replied it depended on what her errands entailed...as soon as she mentioned, "There's a book I've been meaning to buy," I was sold. We went to the closest bookstore, and I bought six new books: Stephen Hawking's special 10th year anniversary edition of A Brief History of Time, Leonard Susskind’s The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics, Joseph J. Ellis’s Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, Nujood Ali and Delphine Minoui’s I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced, Troy Taylor’s The Haunting of America: Ghosts and Legends of America’s Haunted Past, and a recently released novel from my favorite author (Juliet Marillier): Heart’s Blood. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into the knowledge, adventure, and righteous anger contained within these books. I imagine reading Nujood Ali’s assisted autobiography will thoroughly piss me off. Not surprisingly, I happen to have a huge hatred for the whole institution of child-marriage in certain areas of the world.

I also recently joined a book club, mainly because they made an offer I could not refuse: if I joined, I could purchase five books at 99¢ each, and then one book at $4.99, plus free shipping. Half of the shipment came in yesterday, to include another book on Tarot, a book on dream interpretations, and a novel of Victorian-era aristocracy semi-historical fiction. I’m pretty excited, as you can tell. While I would love to ramble on and on about my new books and gush over how fabulously smooth the new pages feel as I flip through them, I have class in about fifteen minutes and need to grab my textbooks for that. If I get a chance, I may write a review of one of my new books. We’ll see. No promises.

One Foot in the Now, One in the Future

I’ve been feeling a little radical lately.

I’m usually at least borderline as it is, but lately, I’ve been looking around me and seeing so much that’s wrong with this institution, with the country, with the world. So few people are doing anything to make a difference. I know I’m certainly not contributing all that much yet. The whole reason I joined the Military was to try to put myself in a position where I could change things, where I could put wrongs right and have a positive influence on people’s lives. I’m not doing that. I need to be doing that.

I’ve been slacking on the job, I think. I’ve passed up leadership positions because I didn’t want to have to deal with the headaches involved, and especially not all of the paperwork. I even let the application process itself get in my way. No longer. I’m not backing down anymore, and I’m not backing away from the challenges ahead. It’s time I stand up, step up, and face the future.

I have an interview this afternoon for a higher level position, which while it would not technically be a command post, if I get it, I’d be the person behind the scenes controlling (in theory) the schedules and training and everything for our Battalion. I’m torn between hoping I get this one so that at least I’ll be working with those technically in command and in a position to institute changes so that perhaps I can have an influence higher up, and hoping that I don’t get it and instead can enter the running for Company Command. Regardless, the whole situation is mostly out of my control. I will control how well I perform in the interview process later today, but I cannot control the decision the boards make on whether or not to pick me. I suppose we’ll just have to see what happens. Whatever happens, I hope it’s for the best.

When I woke up this morning, I was mid prayer. I’m not sure how it happened, or if I started praying when I was still asleep, but I remember whispering words of devotion to the Lord and Lady, of light and darkness, and asking for guidance, wisdom, strength. I remember clearly when one of my roommates said my name, drawing me out of my reverie. As I opened my eyes, I realized I’d been praying in my sleep. I closed them again, finished what I’d been saying, just letting the words flow out of me of their own volition without any explicit direction via logic, just words straight from the heart, from the soul. My soul, apparently without the knowledge or consent of my brain (not that my brain, now aware of the activity, is objecting much), decided I’d need a spiritual boost today. Based on the way this morning is going, I think it may have been right.

Updates and Random Musings on Tarot

Can't wait until the last movie comes out! Picture from here.

In customary fashion, time and my million daily demands got the better of me this weekend, and I did not get to writing and accomplish everything I wanted. However, I have several items of very wonderful news! First and foremost on my mind right now, is the results of our branch night! I managed by a miracle to get my first choice, so now after graduation I’ll be commissioned as an officer into the Military Police Corps. I am incredibly excited. I actually cried during the ceremony when we finally got to find out our branches. Most of my friends were happy with their fates as well, so all in all, a very emotional weekend, but a very good one.

In other news, I did a New Moon tarot reading for some insight into the month ahead, and I’m pleased with the results. I just did a three-card spread, with no particular position designations beforehand, to better see the relationships between the cards themselves. The first card I pulled, which I placed in the center, was the Hierophant. The second, which I placed to the left of that, was the Nine of Chalices. The final card, placed on the right, was the Eight of Chalices. None of the cards were reversed. The spiritual undertones of all three cards said pretty clearly to me that my inner well-being will be the focus for the coming moon. I got a very positive feeling from the cards, and since deeper spiritually is precisely where I want to go, we’ll see how this pans out. I’m looking forward to the journey inward (although the presence of the Hierophant, to me at least, seems to suggest some sort of traditional perspective or religious authority, which could perhaps complicated the otherwise tranquil, blessed state implied by the other two cards).

Tarot is something I’m starting to put a little more stock in than when I first started. I’d fiddled around with online Tarot sources, but it always bothered me that so much of it was random algorithms, and I figured I would get more out of the experience if I were able to physically throw my own energy in there…so I bought a book (Tarot for a New Generation by Janina Renee) and a deck (The Celtic Tarot) and just threw myself into it. At first, when I did random readings for myself, I always felt like the Tarot was telling me more what I wanted to hear, than what necessarily was true or what I needed to hear. However, as I practiced a little more, and as I gained more experience reading for other people and being able to look objectively—but still intuitively—at the cards and filtering their traditional meanings through a case by case lens, I think I’ve developed a way to distance myself from, well, myself when reading. Thus, I think my personal readings are getting a little more on track and catching up to the accuracy of my readings for others.

I’m not sure which theory of Tarot’s origins I buy into. There’s so many floating around, all of them interesting, most of them entirely implausible. The one that seems most likely to me is that the cards originated as simply a card game, depicting different symbols and societal structures at the time of their origin (perhaps Egypt, as I’ve sometimes read, or perhaps Italy, as what seems to be said most often). Then, over the years, roundabouts the time of the Neopagan resurgence in Western culture probably, someone saw something, liked it, found a system that worked, and now we have the Tarot as a means of divination. Regardless of its origins, I think it’s a pretty fabulous process that opens the world of divination to almost everyone willing to try. I know it’s helped me in my other areas of divination as well. Since I’ve started reading the Tarot, I’ve been actually seeing things now in then when attempting to scry in crystals or glass or water. I’m not REMOTELY what I’d call adept, but I feel like I’m making progress, and that if I could only devote more time to my practice, I’d maybe one day move closer towards something like what my ancestors must have been able to do. I truly believe that humanity has a well of power within us, if only we knew how to properly access it. That said, I doubt I’ll ever tap into my full potential. I don’t think anyone can, except for perhaps Olympic athletes. I certainly don’t rank among them. I certainly don’t rank among the great mystics of the ages, either, nor will I ever. That is not my calling. My calling is somewhere between Warrior and Huntress and Scholar and Bard and Artist and one of these days, I’ll know what everything means. In the meantime, I’m just Anden, trying to figure it all out.

Temporary haitus is ending!



Who I'm currently listening to while I write this entry!



First and foremost, I'll be cleaning out some sections of my blog this weekend and updating things, including posting the below song lyrics to my poetry section. It's been a hellaciously busy few weeks, complete with more than one all-nighter thrown in there (not entirely my fault, but also not entirely out of my control, ans goodness knows I'm a proffessional procrastinator).

The song is titled "Uncompromising." I hear the melody in my head for it already, but I haven't written any music yet, per se. I'll be adding a guitar line this weekend, and maybe over our winter leave I'll actually record something again. In the meantime, enjoy reading the lyrics!

I try to fight it, that silly warming glow

That fills me every time I’m with you.

I’ve got a destiny, you know.

I don’t need you interfering. I can’t take the pain

Of letting go of what I never

Should have let myself gain.

But in the end, the separation

Becomes my friend.

I’ll stay distant, try as hard as I can,

And if you’re smart, you already know

That you should not follow.

Because I’m going down, and this path that I tread

Goes on and on into forever:

The cycle never ends.

I try to fight it, but the way you look at me

In such perfect silence, it makes me forget

That I’m my own worst enemy.

For everything I’ve done, everything I’ve yet to do

Is far more important than my happiness with you.

But in the night, the separation

Burns too bright.

[CHORUS]

The cycle never ends.

This is my final decision;

This is what I have to do.

I can’t compromise my position,

No, not even for you.

I don’t care how good it feels,

Or how bad goodbye hurts;

I can’t let you weaken my resolve,

For failure would be worse.

I’ll stay distant, try as hard as I can,

And if you’re smart, you already know

That you should not follow.

Because I’m going down, and this path that I tread

Goes on and on into forever:

The cycle never ends.

[Repeat CHORUS with BRIDGE overlay.]

I wrote the first verse of that in the shower last night, and then finished it up in my Political Philosophy class this morning. Don't worry, I managed to still take plenty of notes on today's lesson material. We were discussing John Locke's Second Treatise on Government, which I found pretty interesting. I think it was the revolutionary aspects, which should come as no surprise if you've read my *not remotely unbiased* piece on Virginia's gorgeous flag. Anyway, Rusalka, my Russian cadet, will be leaving Monday morning, so my life will be returning to some semblance of normal after that. Furthermore, I'm not doing anything extravagent this weekend, so I should have plenty of time to devote to my blogging :)


So with that, happy Friday! I'll be celebrating the New Moon tonight with some stargazing.

Samhain Reflections

Pretty Raven on top of pumpkin from here

I am the end and the undoing

I am the voice of the hidden sky

The seed of destruction, the shadow within you

Dark and dangerous am I

I will break you and your system

I will bring your tyrants down

By the time the blood-sun rises

I will have stripped you of your crown

A poem I wrote, dedicated to Lady Virginia, so proudly standing over the slain tyrant. Sic Semper Tyrannis. The words just kinda came to me, as my poetry so often does, in the middle of a class in which I should have been doing anything but scribbling words in a spirit of rebellion in the margins of my notebook. Yet, alas, there they were written.

I don’t have much time to write, and I probably (and very regretfully, as this is my favorite time of year and one of my favorites Sabbats, if not my favorite Sabbat of all…it’s a tough call between Samhain and Mabon, for me) won’t have much time to reflect, divine, meditate, or otherwise get-my-Pagan-on tonight. Nonetheless, I will try. In the meantime, blessed Samhain to all. Enjoy your day to honor the beloved (and sometimes not so beloved) dead.