Better Than Dead

I’ll not do one of those traditional end of the year, end of the decade round ups, if that’s all right with you. (I hear sighs of relief.)

The last decade has been challenging, both good and bad. I seem to have spent much of it worrying. There were some positive accomplishments, a bunch of negative lack-of-accomplishment, there were losses, and there were gains—sometimes hiding inside of losses. Still, I’m a hell of a lot better off than many people so it’s churlish to complain.

I’ll not say good riddance to the teens. Mostly because all those years went into making me who I am today. They are a part of my life, good and ill, and although I have moments where I’m not at all happy with who I am, I’d say I have more good days than bad. I’m rediscovering parts of myself that had been on hold for a very long time. That includes exploring the shadow domains, a necessary step in any journey of self-discovery.

But there was joy, too, bright bubbles strung on gossamer, rainbow-shining for moments before popping in effervescent bursts that smell surprisingly of roses.

Oh, sorry. There were also bursts of bad poetry that showed up at random moments.

I’m grateful, is what I’m trying to say. Thank you (You, whoever You are) for my life, whether it’s in tatters or shining cloth. I try to remember every day to be grateful for the blessings I’ve had. Not to minimize the bad stuff or to say to myself I shouldn’t feel sadness—that, too, has to be felt and explored fully—but to acknowledge it’s all a part of any life, the turning of the Wheel.

So goodbye to all those I’ve loved and left behind in the teens. I’ll see you again someday—but not too soon, I hope, if you don’t mind me saying so. I still have a few things left I’d like to accomplish. I hope I’m not presuming too much. There are still ten hours left until midnight as I write this. I’m not out of the woods—the teens—yet.

But I’m hopeful I’ll make it. And even if I don’t, I’m grateful for the time I’ve had.

Happy New Decade, everyone.

The Random Quote will be on vacation until January 2. Happy Holidays, Everyone!

Random quote of the day:

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Stories are embedded with instructions which guide us about the complexities of life. Stories enable us to understand the need for and ways to raise a submerged archetype.”

—Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.”

—John Cleese, Video Arts speech, 23 January 1991

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came
And he pushed
And they flew.”

—Christopher Logue, “Apollinaire Said”

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“One day in the afternoon of the world, glum death will come and sit in you, and when you get up to walk, you will be as glum as death, but if you’re lucky, this will only make the fun better and the love greater.”

—William Saroyan, “One Day in the Afternoon of the World”

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

I’ve been doing research reading on fairies the last couple of weeks for the current WIP. I admit that watching Hellier Season 2 (now available, along with season 1, for free on YouTube and hellier.tv) has inspired me even more, although this post is only tangentially about Hellier. What I say below, certainly, can’t be applied to the Hellier experience, but I can’t help seeing parallels between Faery and aliens. I am far from the first to see these parallels. My first exposure to this idea was in Passport to Magonia by Jacques Vallee back in the 70s. Hellier moves in the same dreamlike terrain, weaving through the twilight world of UFO contactees, abductees, and experiencers, as well as many other strange and wonderful things.

In folklore, things with the fairies (a term you can take throughout this post to apply equally to aliens, goblins, and trickster characters of your choice) can be both true and untrue simultaneously. They can be the human dead, and not the human dead; of this world and not; sinister and friendly. The bodies of humans can remain where they are—in trance or dreams or a death-like state—and their souls can still be off traveling with the fae.

Which, if you think about it, adds a whole ‘nother dimension to the true/not true stories of alien contactees: both the current crop of “alien abductees,”* I believe, and the old-fashioned contactee stories of people like Woodrow Derenberger (he of Mothman/Indrid Cold fame) and George Adamski (who claimed to have flown to the Moon and other planets with Nordic aliens). When you combine that true/untrue with the notion held in folklore that fairies often favor humans who transgress human laws and play fast and loose with human truth, it brings even deeper dimension to these accounts.

However, there are two things that the fairies of folklore will not tolerate: people who lie to them, and those who tell too many of their secrets. So a mortal may find great favor with them—may even, one supposes fly with them to Lanulos or the Moon or be shown great secrets and marvels—but the second they transgress those fairy rules, they will be punished. Perhaps the golden medals they received will turn to cheap tin knock-offs; perhaps their lives will become a horrorshow of hounding by the press or (maybe even worse) true believers; perhaps every transgression or tall tale or prejudice or human fallacy will be laid bare before the public and ridiculed. Whom the fairies elevate, they can also cast down without mercy.

*ETA: I didn’t mean to imply that people reporting alien abductions are either fakers or liars. There seems to be something genuine going on there, and sincere belief on the part of most of the experiencers, but at this point it’s difficult to know precisely what’s going on except to say it’s tricksterish in nature.

Random quote of the day:

“You always have a tendency to add. But one must be able to subtract, too. It’s not enough to integrate, you must also disintegrate. That’s the way life is. That’s philosophy. That’s science. That’s progress, civilization.”

—Eugene Ionesco, The Lesson

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“It is easier to make war than make peace.”

—Georges Clemenceau, “Discours de Paix,” Verdun, July 20, 1919

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Got Fluffy Bunnies of Doom? No? May I recommend the tarot as seen through the eyes of F-Bod Studios:

This is a funny wall calendar representation of 12 scenes from the Major Arcana—but it also reproduces many of the key elements of the Rider-Waite deck. As filtered through the fluffy bunnies of doom, that is. A few of my favorites (sorry for the blurry copied-from-a-thumbnail-on-the-website quality of the images):

Here’s the URL for this calendar: https://www.cafepress.com/fbod.156871009

But there are other funny and arty calendars to be found here: https://www.cafepress.com/fbod/3622034

And the main shop with many irreverent t-shirts and “weird crap,” as F-Bod puts it, can be found here: https://www.cafepress.com/fbod