"The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crack in the teacup opens A lane to the land of the dead."

-W.H. Auden

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

The Landscape Dreams Uneasy

It's that time of year when the horrors begin to creep. Not the thrill of Halloween or the romance of falling leaves, but the cold landscape sleeping.

If you can call it sleep.

You can feel trouble gathering out here in the country, between the lowering skies and the rocks that jut out like bones. It's not personal, it's just November, and the Goddess of Thorns will not make it easy.
In the cities, it's safer. All those people and the lights and the shops. You can ignore the hostility that seethes beneath the surface, the landscape that wants rid of you.
It's tired. It's had enough. If you listen closely, you can almost hear it moan. It's not personal. You mustn't think I haven't tried to be friends. But I was born here - I know it like my the back of my hand.

The bleached grass, the bone chill, the grim specter of the sleeping earth.
It always makes me sick to my stomach, this feeling. It gives me the cold grue and no mistake. Yet I tried not to fight it today, tried to see what it would teach me.

In my mind, I could see miles of limestone and windblown earth, swept by overwhelming dread.

I never did like the sight of those hills in the distance.
There are certain cold days when the clouds are low and the atmosphere wraps you like a blanket, safe from the landscape's uneasy dreams. But not today. Most definitely not today.
Days like today are the thorns and spines and psychic wounds that come with the dying of the year.

Friday, November 16, 2018

Black Madonna

After this week's frost, as I sat watching my usual patch of woods, I saw the suggestion of a dark figure watching back.

I can only hope she means well.

Monday, November 12, 2018

Gravity Wave

Things that make me happy:

The fact that one morning above a baseball field in Iowa, a weather cam captured these marvelous clouds.

Saturday, November 10, 2018

Web of November

The other morning, I dreamt the town was covered in spiderwebs, including a massive one in the sky.  This was a good dream, which is a bit of a surprise. I'm not the biggest fan of spiders.

After reading up on it, I understood a bit better. A spiderweb can be a sign of creation and self-determination. After all, the spider creates the web under its own power. Which is something I'd been thinking about, one way or another. How much I act versus how much I'm simply reacting to others.

Spoiler alert: not enough and way too much.

And of course there is also Indra's Web. Or maybe there is only Indra's Web. Who knows?

The months of November and December are always difficult ones, and this autumn is determined to be nothing but rain and fog. The only thing to do is keep walking.

In the meantime, I think about making my own web, weaving thoughts and actions into something useful.