"The ball's in my court"

I just got off of a very awkward Skype call with Marie, one which ended with her saying, "So the ball's in my court," and I agreed. She's trying to figure out what she wants to do with our relationship. I am content to let her.

It so happens that this conversation relates to the Tarot reading that I did for her just two weeks ago today. Not that the Tarot reading, all by itself, caused her to question our relationship. But it helped her clarify some things in her mind, I guess. Maybe I'd better start over, and try a little harder to make this make sense.

Not listening and no accident

OK, this story doesn't look good for me. But hell, when have I ever told you stories that do?

This morning I did a Tarot reading for the day. What it said the day would bring me was the Moon reversed. That can actually mean a lot of different things, and some of them are pretty good. (For example, "Change will not be disruptive," or "Deception will be unmasked.") But my immediate, off-the-cuff reading was, "Things are trying to crawl out of my subconscious, but I'm not listening to them." And of course the word subconscious can also be used to describe any planes of activity or existence besides the material plane that we perceive with our five senses and interpret with our rational intellect—in other words, anything that our conscious minds aren't really aware of.

Was this true today? When I saw it, I assumed that it was a statement about my career and that it's pretty much always true. I tend to assume that I don't have a strong intuition, and therefore that my subconscious has to shout if it wants any chance of getting my attention. I thought, "Maybe I can meditate later in the day. Maybe meditation will quiet my mind enough that I can hear the promptings of my subconscious."

In the end, I didn't find time to meditate. Shocker, that.

But evening came, and I didn't go to bed early because I was working on something. Now, the last couple of nights—for what must be almost the first time in a month—I've had no alcohol to drink. And somehow, at a level that isn't strictly ratiocinating, I've clearly known that this has been the "right" thing for me to do right about now. I have sensed that somehow I've been drinking too much, and it's time to pull back. The only thing is, ... booze (or at any rate spirits) give me a real lift in my energy levels when it gets late. If I want to stop drinking, one thing I have to do is to go to bed early. (Or at least more-or-less early.) But I didn't go to bed early tonight because I was working on something.

My latest tagline

I think I've got a new tagline to post on the header of this blog.

It's the punchline to one of Grendel Briarton's shaggy-dog stories starring his time-traveling hero Ferdinand Feghoot. Feghoot has traveled back to the Middle Ages, where, on visiting the Basilica di Santa Sabina all'Aventino, he finds that Thomas Aquinas (who was resident there) has given up theology for the pleasures of the bath. Feghoot confronts him and urges him to get back to work, but Thomas says, "Oh, I could wallow in these baths forever."

"That may be," replies Feghoot, "but one's wallow won't make a Summa!"

That's where I am. I think I've decided that the point of this post-employment period is for me to write, and so I am discovering every possible distraction to prevent myself from writing! So maybe Feghoot is talking to me, too.

It's even six words long, provided you accept the contraction in won't. So I can call it a six-word memoir.

Back to work, dammit.

      

Hosea ... the movie??

I was scrolling through the Internet looking for something else, as usual, and I found out that two years ago someone made a movie about, ... well, ... Hosea. Me, you could say, but not me. A different take on the story.

I haven't seen the movie itself yet: I've only known about it for maybe an hour. Apparently it's available on Netflix, if I want to sign up for an account. The movie is called "Hosea" but it is set in the modern day and none of the characters is actually literally named Hosea. But yes, it's about a man who is in love with, and wants to marry, a troubled young woman in the sex trade. That's not exactly my story with Wife, as you know. But finding out this much made me want to know more.

Magic is afoot, part 2

I wondered how long it would be before I told Marie that I've been working with Tarot cards? Turns out that was tonight.

We were talking about news, this and that. I mentioned Son 2's opportunity to go to graduate school in the same city where his girlfriend recently moved, and Marie thought that sounded pretty great. So then I went on to explain (as I told you in the previous installment) that I had texted Wife to ask whether she had done any magic on Son 2's behalf, and that she had said Yes. I went on to explain that the coincidence seemed too outrageous to have "just happened," and that when I had seen magic appear to work before it always looked just like this.

I'm not quite sure what reaction I expected from Marie, but not the one I got. She got very quiet, and very serious. 

Magic is afoot, part 1

A couple weeks ago, I laid out a Tarot reading in the morning to ask, "What do I need to understand about today?" I got a couple of cards, of which the important one was the Page of Pentacles. So I looked up that card in my handy cheat-sheet, and learned that it is a card for students. Huh? Am I supposed to start acting more student-like? What's this about, or is it just random gibberish?

Not long thereafter, I got a call from Son 2. He caught me up on his news. In the first place, his girlfriend had gotten a job a few weeks ago in a city that meant he now had a considerable drive each weekend to go see her. Actually I guess maybe I already knew that part, because he has been starting to look for jobs in the same city. He's doing it responsibly, to make sure he doesn't endanger his nascent career; still, he understandably wants to be living near her.

Then he added the next bit. The person who was his boss during his internship last year just called. She (the ex-boss) is now teaching at a university in the town where Son 2's girlfriend is working. She has a fully-funded research project that has to get done, and the graduate student who was working on it just bailed on her. She always liked Son 2 and thought he would be the best possible person to do this research. So ... has he ever thought of going to graduate school? Would he like to start now? Can he send her an application pronto, so she can grease the skids and get him accepted?

What do I need to understand about today? Student-hood. OK, got that.

Παλλὰς ὁρμάστειρα

In the Orphic Hymn to Athena, the grey-eyed Lady is called "ὁρμάστειρα" [pronounced "hormá-steira"]. One translator renders this word as "impetuous"; another, as "advocate." How could it possibly mean both?

Technically this is Liberty and not Athena, but the
difference is subtle. Either way, anyone who tries
to make a pass at her is going to die quickly. 
Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Of course really it means neither. It comes from the verb ὁρμάω, which means "to set in motion, urge, push on; to stir up; to rush headlong at," and so forth. So to call Her ὁρμάστειρα is to say She's the one to set people or events in motion, to stir people up and urge them forwards. She's the one to rally the troops, to sound the alarm, to whisper through the barracks or the squad in the field, warming hearts, quickening pulses, putting eyes and ears on alert for the signal to leap into action. This is far more than the work of any "advocate." But it's not "impetuous" either. You are impetuous when your stirred-up energy overrules your reason, and I assume that Athena never once makes a rash or heedless decision. But it can also be the part of rational prudence to understand that deliberation by itself doesn't win battles. Sometimes the most prudent thing you can do is to stir up the kind of passion that allows you to smite the enemy. "Dr. Banner, now might be a really good time for you to get angry." I think that's what the hymn is really saying about Her.

And if She sets armies in motion, maybe it's not crazy if I hope for the same thing for me.