Author Archives: Autumn

More Powerful Than You CAn Possibly Imagine

Never underestimate the power a single lightbulb can have. No, that’s not a pun; I’m serious. Yesterday I picked up two of those new-ish GE Reveal lightbulbs, the ones with a faint blue-violet tint to the glass. I put one in the light that hangs over my computer, and there’s a world of difference. It’s much more like natural light.

My next trip to the hardware store will involve the purchase of a club-pack of these things to put in every single socket in the apartment. I’m not kidding.

My husband made an official date with me to see Matrix Reloaded tomorrow after I teach. I anticipate much gleeful geeking out with colleagues next week, just as much geeking as X2 got. Well, maybe not; Matrix Reloaded doesn’t have Hugh Jackman, after all. Keanu’s just not in the same league, you know?

Playing Away The Desensitisation

The cello section of my chamber orchestra has rather shrunk. Or perhaps the proper term to use would be “refined”, which suggests a reduction with a positive result. There’s four or five of us now, as opposed to the ten we had at the beginning of January. Our sound is now more focused, and certainly more dynamically accurate.

I’ve written polite rants before on how I feel regarding the devaluation of certain over-played pieces of classical music, so I won’t repeat myself now. To my dismay, I found several of these “pops” on our Canada Day playlist: Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite no. 1 featuring “Morning” and “The Hall of the Mountain King”, and Bizet’s Carmen Suite no. 1. When I hear these on the radio, I cringe, and they leave me cold. Desensitisation will do that.

Playing them, however, is a different matter, I have discovered. When I played Strauss’ Also Spracht Zarathrustra two years ago, I was blown away by the power and the building chords as they wove back and forth between the sections. As we’ve worked on Peer Gynt, I’ve discovered the uniquely Nordic harmonies and beautiful phrasing. Besides, it’s just plain fun to be sawing furiously a haute volume by the final crashing chord of “Hall of the Mountain King”; everyone’s grinning at the end. When you’re actively engaged in the production of music, you hear it in a completely different way: from the inside out, as opposed to hearing a smooth unified product. The complexities and the various musical lines all become clearer, and I appreciate them more. Playing “pops” is redeeming them for me, somehow.

The only drawback is that we play Grieg over and over, faster and faster, and when I sat down this morning to practice, I couldn’t because my fingers were too tender. Looks like I’ll have to work on my calluses.

Puttering

I’ve had a busy couple of days: renewing my health insurance card and my driver’s license, doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping, lunches and barbeques, and a full-blown Beltaine ritual that was a bit late but wonderful nonetheless. (Kudos to my husband for solo-leading a ritual for over twenty people for the very first time, and for giving me shivers when he read the Charge of the God.)

In various waiting rooms, I began and finished Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Forest House, which I hadn’t read since it came out. I remember being disappointed with it at the time, and I can’t understand why, now. Perhaps because I read it directly after I finished The Mists of Avalon, which is altogether a very different book.

We’ve finally constructed and arranged the various bits and pieces of furniture we picked up at Ikea this weekend (hot tip: if you have to go to Ikea, do it at 9 AM on a Saturday morning. There is no one there. No one. It’s spooky.). We now have a pantry, and a cabinet under the bathroom sink, and a cupboard to store our towels. The best of all: we have a hanging iron rack for our pots and pans. I’ve always wanted one of these.

I still feel restless, and I can’t sit at the computer for more than about fifteen minutes at a time, which rather limits the amount of work I can get done. If it were sunny out, I wonder if I would feel more focused, or just as unsettled.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my black and white cats’ birthday! Yes, Roman and Maggie are twelve years old today. And if you think I didn’t sing Happy Birthday to them, you’re mistaken.

This was a weekend of feasting, and I still feel stuffed. We had sushi on Saturday night, and last night we went over to the South Shore and my father-in-law made his famous barbequed ribs for Mother’s Day. There were suspiciously few bones among the ribs; there just seemed to be plenty of tender, juicy meat heaped on the platter. Not that I’m complaining.

My own mother, on the other hand, spent Mother’s Day in Rome. My parents have finally taken a two-week trip over to Italy, as they’ve been wanting to do for a while now. The last e-mail my dad sent me before they left included an attachment of a photo he’d taken, of my mother reading my blog. So of course, I just had to post it:

How self-referential is that?

Indulgence

Much to my joy chagrin surprise, the little upscale deli/grocery around the corner sells Stewart’s Key Lime soda, among the other fabulous Stewart’s flavours. And it’s cheaper than the two places I know that sell it downtown.

I must exercise great self-retraint so that lime soda remains a treat, and does not become a daily indulgence.

Mmm. Lime soda.

Restless

I’ve been strangely restless the past week or so, and full of contradiction: I’m tired, but I can’t sleep; I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t want to be with people; I want to do something, but I can’t settle down and concentrate on any one project.

“It’s spring,” people tell me, but I’m not satisfied with that.

“Maybe you feel unfulfilled because you no longer have a defined nine-to-five job,” my husband suggested. That’s not it either. I’m very happy to make my own hours, thanks.

Last night as I lay awake in bed, I think I might have hit on it. My spirituality is evolving again. True, spirituality is by definition an eternally changing process, as you grow and redefine your connection to the Divine. This time, though, I think my focus is shifting away from Celtic mythology where it’s been firmly entrenched for the past eight years. This doesn’t mean that all the work I’ve done so far is to be discounted; not in the least. I’ve grown and learned and exercised certain mental and spiritual muscles, so to speak, and I cherish every day of those eight years for the connections I’ve made and the knowledge I’ve gained, both spiritually and lore-wise. It simply means that there’s another area of focus to which I now need to direct my attention. This isn’t as sudden as it might seem, either; it’s been nibbling at me for about five months. It’s taken me that long to figure it out.

Well, I’ve figured out there’s something I need to focus on. Now, figuring out what I’m supposed to be focusing on; that’s the hard part.

Paganism With Homework

Found completely by accident while researching ISBNs on Amazon.com: a recommended reading list for Teutonic mythology and religion entitled So You’d Like to be a Heathen Lore Whore.

This list includes the classic phrase, “A lot of people have called Heathenry “Paganism with Homework”.

(If you’re into Norse/Teutonic lore, this reading list kicks some serious ass, by the way.)

It just caught my eye and appealed to my whimsical love of language and the study of world religion – a Heathen Lore Whore. Not necessarily the words I would have chosen, but apt in my case nonetheless…