It has always been a regretable thing, that American schools leave out so much of history, of our connectedness and relationships with other countries. In a few words, entire cultures are summed up and dismissed, as if they have no significance next to our own. The older I get, the more I want to know, …
Author Archives: Ciel
Tolkien Tribute: Eru’s Gifts
In the cosmology created by Tolkien, there was first Eru, who created a great Music which manifested as the Universe. The Song included strains and themes that manifested as the Powers, and Eru made them the lords of Arda, tasked with preparing the world for Eru’s First Born.One of the Powers, however, in his eagerness …
Privilege and Waking
Sometimes I feel like I am in one of those novels like FARENHEIT 451, where I am one of those proud citizens of one of the world’s best states–suddenly having to confront the evidences that it is not. Comes the waking, the gradually realizing that in fact it is one of the ugliest, most abusive, …
We Might Have Been Friends
Who told youwho I was?Who cast the shadowof their own bitternessacross the visionof your honest eyes? Who was itthat suggestedhurting me with your disdainwas the proper thingto put mein my place? Who was it,made you feel so smallthat to feel big at alland safeyou must diminish me? Does concensusof like-persuaded viewsconvertdelusion into truth? Does being …
In Memorium: 9/11
On the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, many people will have many things to say about sacrifice and heroism. This is the two cents-worth that I have to contribute to the conversation and it applies to terrorists of every kind, of any religion or political agenda, in any nation in the world. On this day …
Drama
Ouch! Ow, I say! OOOh, aaarrgh…! Are you looking my way?How loud must I be to get your attention? I need that and comfort, And it’s my intention To lie here and moan and weep and groan ‘Til you take proper notice though I must miss outon my luncheon! O, woe! 2004
Journal: On the Luck Spectrum
I don’t think I needed a flat tire today. But if I did, I needed to have it in front of the house, which it is. And I needed to have one more AAA service before renewing–next week, which I do. And I needed not to have to be anywhere right away, which I don’t. …
Tolkien Tribute: The Golden Wood
The leaves shine like gold in the long light of autumn, adrift upon the last breath of summer, sailing, like kites cut free, taking their own sweet time to come at last to rest.Years and seasons without number crunch in their layers beneath the feet that wander, among the grey-like-silver trees that stand and sigh …
Tolkien Tribute: The Ranger
JRR Tolkien, in creating the full and profoundly-envisioned Middle Earth gave some of us an entire world to explore and adopt for visions of our own. He hinted and suggested at so much he didn’t ever get around to writing, showing us doorways but not going through them. He expressed it in letters, in fact, the hope that …
Essay: Ownership
Consider… Communities are entities and their inhabitants belong to them, not the other way around. They are composed of everyone in them, they are rich in life and art, in ideas and motions and sounds and smells. Power and wealth create illusions of ownership, but all illusions dissolve in time: lives come and go, all …
LOOSELY SPEAKING... 