So I’m here at 4:45 AM, tuning up my blog. Can’t sleep. Probably has something to do with having a glass of red wine, watching an hour of TV, and going to bed at 9 PM last night. When I woke up at 3:30 AM I knew it was game over, but I tried to lie in bed for a little while anyway, in case sleep decided to mosey on back. No such luck. So here I am, with a cat on my lap (if you knew I was using my ergonomic kneeling chair you’d understand how creative this positioning of cat can be), listening to the very first Mediaeval Baebes album, Salva Nos, which I picked up yesterday to complete my set. It has the stunning, show-stopping Gaudete on it, which is one of the pieces of music which can seize me no matter what I’m doing, get my blood flowing and lift me spiritually out of whatever mood I’ve been in. A great track to raise energy, if you put it on repeat and sing along. Assuming you can sing Latin and understand what you’re singing. Which I can, in Gaudete. (Insert smirk here.) It also has the phenomenal title track, Salva Nos, which is, like Gaudete, another chant to Mary, whom we all know is the Goddess anyway, right? (Yes, I’m getting the Latin down for that one too, rather rapidly.)
Salva nos, Stella Maris
Et regina celorum
Que pura Deum paris […]
Salva nos, Stella Maris
Et regina celorum
O virgo specialis
Sis nobis salutaris
Imperatrix celorum […]
Lux cecis, dux ignaris
Solamen angelorum!
Oooh… I just get shivers. Which have nothing to do with being barefoot in the middle of the night when the temperature has dropped twenty degrees (honestly, does anyone remember something called a seasonal temperature?).
I know what this means. It means I’ll have to take a nap this afternoon, or risk falling asleep in the middle of the student round-table discussion I’m co-moderating tonight.
Speaking of students, I pulled off another spectacular workshop Tuesday night. I’m beginning to think that I really am good at this, and people aren’t just saying it to be nice.
CURRENTLY READING:
Wicca: The Old Religion in the New Age by Vivianne Crowley. There exists an interesting phenomenon in the Wicca division of occult publishing. There are hundreds of 101 texts, and very few advanced texts. Why? Because it’s an experiential religion, meaning once the basics are communicated you have to build on them yourself, creating your own relationship with the Divine. No one, published author or otherwise, can tell you how that’s done. They can give you suggestions, but in essence, you become your own 201 text. Which is very cool, but a bit frustrating as well. Anyway, the upshot of all this is I read a lot of 101 texts, partially to become familar with the variety of crap and fluff that’s being published, but also to zero in on the good stuff, the wheat amongst the chaff that I can recommend to seekers when they interrupt – er, ask my help at work. I enjoy it a lot more than people might think. Sure, the basics are repetative, but the interesting thing is how the authors express those basics, what angle they approach them from. You can learn a lot about the complexities of spiritual and religious philosophy from how the same thing is said a dozen different ways. Vivianne Crowley is a nice, solid, British antidote to a lot of the fluff that’s being sold these days. It’s not new; it was originally published in 1996. This is a revised edition; hence the subtitle.
Meeting of the Waters by Caiseal M�r. It says it’s book one of The Watchers. We’ll see if it makes the trilogy potential or not. Alternate Celtic fantasy, set around the Fir Bolg/Danaan clash. It’s got ravens, standing stones, harps, druids, cover art by Yvonne Gilbert that I fall for every time, damn it. Eh. It’s bus-reading material, which in my world means a book that fits in my bag (Trollope has been relegated to at-home reading), a story that isn’t too complex (a book that gets picked up and put down frequently can’t be too deep or intricate otherwise you spend too much time trying to remember what happened), a story that isn’t so meaningful that I’ll become too involved and miss my stop.