Climbing back from the edge of the earth.
No, I haven't been on vacation nor been swept away by some cute masculine type. The computer has been working just fine and no one has been ill or died. I can't really say I've been especially tired or busy but I have been using my social quota to train my new employee. My reading has mainly involved finishing a Charles deLint novel and searching out vegetarian food I want to try. So, my absence has merely been one of being elsewhere.
To get work out of the way, yes, it's there; they still pay me to show up. I lost another person, the Math-major bodybuilder, to the quest for a greener pasture. May he find some hard truths without too many bruises. So now I have Jen, an Environmental Studies major, who has been working for an Engineering firm pushing paper. I had to explain what a microliter was and how it is related to a milliliter, on her second day in the department, so we are building an Instrumental Chemist from the ground up. It has been three weeks and she is spending most of her work day independently producing real data, now. I am very proud. I am also hoping that a couple more prospective employees show up before the department gets too overwhelmed with work. The majority of samples lately have been for instrument set-ups that I run (which I have had to keep going while I train Jen and do the management stuff, also) so it has kept my days from being boring. I am very much looking forward to my three-day weekend for the Easter holiday, even as I celebrate something else altogether.
I want to write something about the current state of politics in my region but, as usual, I get thinking and gather in the threads of other ideas so that a larger whole is created. For example, this evening I spent awhile looking for some of the books I have on my Amazon wishlist over on Ebay. (I have an outstanding Ebay purchase which hasn't arrived and had logged on to reassure myself that it really hadn't been all that long to be waiting for it.) So I'm moving from Self-Sufficiency titles to Agrarian thought to Environmental issues and I am amazed, yet again, at how interconnected the ideas I keep returning to are and how certain things echo down the years of experience. I was on Amazon looking at the books of Wendell Berry, who I can sum up as prescribing 'back to the land' for many social ills, when I spotted a link to Eisler's "The Chalice and the Blade." This latter book is on a certain druidic organization's 'do not read' list (I'm sure it's called 'not recommended' but I call a spade a shovel) which of course tells me it must have some great subversive idea in it. In a relationship do we follow a 'dominator' model or a 'partnership' model? Is there fear or respect? Do resources flow in one direction, provided by one party for the benefit of the other, or is there sharing or trading involved? I was struck by the idea of 'dominator' religion and how I have seen this perpetuated by pagans in both informal and organized ways, especially by the people who deemed Eisler's ideas unworthy. Of course mainly her citation of some version of the prehistoric matriarchy is what is used against her but my quick traipse through the synopses of a number of her books leads me to conclude that there is much more here than unsupported supposition about humanity's past.
No, I haven't gotten back to politics - I'm easily distracted.
Today is the 7th anniversary of Dad's passing into the other lands. I was wondering what the significance of the day was - you get that nagging sensation - and then it struck me. The Spring Equinox is virtually upon us - it will happen overnight - and then there is a full moon on Friday. I will be doing some personal rituals over the next couple days to celebrate and to look forward to the new growing season that is just beginning. I am itching to get out and play in the dirt and already have some seeds planted in little pots.
I guess I could say that I'm hopeful this evening.
To get work out of the way, yes, it's there; they still pay me to show up. I lost another person, the Math-major bodybuilder, to the quest for a greener pasture. May he find some hard truths without too many bruises. So now I have Jen, an Environmental Studies major, who has been working for an Engineering firm pushing paper. I had to explain what a microliter was and how it is related to a milliliter, on her second day in the department, so we are building an Instrumental Chemist from the ground up. It has been three weeks and she is spending most of her work day independently producing real data, now. I am very proud. I am also hoping that a couple more prospective employees show up before the department gets too overwhelmed with work. The majority of samples lately have been for instrument set-ups that I run (which I have had to keep going while I train Jen and do the management stuff, also) so it has kept my days from being boring. I am very much looking forward to my three-day weekend for the Easter holiday, even as I celebrate something else altogether.
I want to write something about the current state of politics in my region but, as usual, I get thinking and gather in the threads of other ideas so that a larger whole is created. For example, this evening I spent awhile looking for some of the books I have on my Amazon wishlist over on Ebay. (I have an outstanding Ebay purchase which hasn't arrived and had logged on to reassure myself that it really hadn't been all that long to be waiting for it.) So I'm moving from Self-Sufficiency titles to Agrarian thought to Environmental issues and I am amazed, yet again, at how interconnected the ideas I keep returning to are and how certain things echo down the years of experience. I was on Amazon looking at the books of Wendell Berry, who I can sum up as prescribing 'back to the land' for many social ills, when I spotted a link to Eisler's "The Chalice and the Blade." This latter book is on a certain druidic organization's 'do not read' list (I'm sure it's called 'not recommended' but I call a spade a shovel) which of course tells me it must have some great subversive idea in it. In a relationship do we follow a 'dominator' model or a 'partnership' model? Is there fear or respect? Do resources flow in one direction, provided by one party for the benefit of the other, or is there sharing or trading involved? I was struck by the idea of 'dominator' religion and how I have seen this perpetuated by pagans in both informal and organized ways, especially by the people who deemed Eisler's ideas unworthy. Of course mainly her citation of some version of the prehistoric matriarchy is what is used against her but my quick traipse through the synopses of a number of her books leads me to conclude that there is much more here than unsupported supposition about humanity's past.
No, I haven't gotten back to politics - I'm easily distracted.
Today is the 7th anniversary of Dad's passing into the other lands. I was wondering what the significance of the day was - you get that nagging sensation - and then it struck me. The Spring Equinox is virtually upon us - it will happen overnight - and then there is a full moon on Friday. I will be doing some personal rituals over the next couple days to celebrate and to look forward to the new growing season that is just beginning. I am itching to get out and play in the dirt and already have some seeds planted in little pots.
I guess I could say that I'm hopeful this evening.