As I was poking around looking for an archive of the (now apparently lost) GeoCities page with Athanassakis’ translation of the Orphic Hymns, I came across the site of a Greek band called Eleusis (they’re also on Myspace) – whose album, Tales of the Holy, is mostly settings of snippets of various Orphic hymns! (On the first site, click on the “Inspiration” icon – the horned altar – and you can see the lyrics in English, French or Greek.)

There are samples at both links… so far I really like what I’ve heard. Their site says the music is a blend of Greek, West African and Indian influences, and they definitely have a good groove. Here’s a bit of what they say about the album:

The journey starts with an invocation to Mnemosyne … and continues with the “secret marriage” of Persephone to Hades and the rage of  Demeter … once reunited with Persephone, Demeter finally bestows wealth and prosperity upon all mankind … The myth then takes us through the state of dreams … and finally leads us to the birth of Apollo … The album concludes with a hymn to Pallas Athena … for life would be incomplete without ’sophia’.

In the mid-1980s I was given a cassette recording of a “Secular Humanist Revival” talk, given by the now-highly-Mormon Orson Scott Card. (I’m sure I still have the tape… somewhere. Probably right next to my grandfather’s (z”l) old bootleg copy of The Investigator.) It’s well worth tracking down if you can find it – although now the only bit that I remember fully is his version of that old chestnut, “Rock of Ages”, which cracked me up so much again in the remembering that I wanted to share it with you.

Rock of Ages, by the sea,
In the hands of entropy.
As the ocean and the flood
Carve the rock and move the mud -
Rock of Ages you will see,
Broken down by entropy.

So, lots of folks seem to be buzzing about the new Gap commercial that mentions Solstice in the same breath as Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanzaa. The general trend that I see breaks down like this:

• Pagans – “Ooh, cool! We’ve arrived!”
• Most other commentators – “It’s the end of civilization!”

Setting aside the fact that the ad is really… freakin’… annoying, I don’t see anything even faintly holiday-oriented about it, despite the “you’re-all-customers-to-us” cross-cultural name-checking. The basic message is “screw everything, just come give us your money”; I’m actually not all that stoked about getting mainstreamed in this context. It puts me in mind of Annyikha’s frightening vision of a commercialized Anthesteria (link is a bit… freewheeling and possibly NSFW, so be warned).

I’m also kind of peeved that, based on the commentary I’m seeing, this is feeding in to the common MSM trope of Pagans as a bunch of hedonistic hippies who don’t believe in anything. Plus, did I mention it’s annoying? :p And Adam Sandler-esque (“Do whatever you wannakah”).

This is a remarkable recording – in about an hour, Charlie Roadman and friends give a reasonably comprehensive overview of the Peloponnesian War, with a decent soundtrack even. Selected text from Thucydides and Xenophon is narrated, and there are a handful of brief sung lyrics by Roadman that give other perspectives on the action. The whole thing illuminates the ancient war in a unique way, as well as (IMO) providing a certain level of commentary on our own situation today.

You can hear the whole thing at the link, with an option to download or buy a copy – it’s well worth a listen.

I’ve been trying to sort through my feelings about the USS New York since I heard about the warship christening last week, and I think that “saddened” about covers it. I’m saddened that, basically, everybody in the decision making process in our government felt that making yet another weapon was the best possible response to 9/11; that a unique opportunity was missed to take another path and use this highly symbolic and emotionally charged steel to create something that would work for peace instead of against it; and that a part of me responds to the symbolism with a touch of pride.

How powerful a message this warship sends is missed by nobody; but how powerful would have been the message had this 7.5 tons of steel gone instead to build something designed to give life, rather than take it away? Especially in conjunction with the news from Fort Hood, I am simply… saddened… as I see the great cycle of unnecessary death rolling forever on into the future.

This is a belated discovery on my part…

A number of years ago Robert Sabuda, best known for highly intricate pop-up books (including the incredibly gorgeous and nature-awareness-enhancing Winter’s Tale – Druid parents particularly will like this one), wrote a regular picture book called Tutankhamen’s Gift. I’ve seen it around in catalogs for a couple of years, but didn’t pay it a lot of attention; I finally got around to checking it out of the library today, and I was very pleasantly surprised.

In short, it’s the (highly abbreviated :) story of Tutankamen’s childhood, Akhenaten’s destruction of the temples, and Tut’s restoration… but the joy is in the telling. The art is wonderful, of course – simple, but highly evocative of the ancient Egyptian style – and the text is completely respectful of the ancient religious perspective.

“Then Tutankhamen heard a soft voice … a voice that he alone could hear. ‘Evil is seen best through the eyes of a child. Only the young can banish it and cause the truth to flower once more.’ …

Tutankhamen, last son of the great pharaoh Amenhotep III, turned to his people and proclaimed, ‘…I shall rebuild the temples and fill them with monuments to the gods so the people will again have faith. I shall lead the people of Egypt through their suffering and tears … this will be my promise to you and my gift to the gods.’”

Back in the spring I mentioned this excellent online Shinto-based fantasy novel I’ve been reading. Well, it keeps getting better, and the author is considering offering the option of an on-demand hard copy edition if demand is high enough. I want to see this happen, so I’m encouraging any of you who think you might enjoy such a story to go check it out (you can also read some brief reviews, including mine, at WebFictionGuide.com).

As I’ve said here before,  I regard aikido as not just a martial art, but a do, a Way, in the fullest sense of the term – a practice that can provide a meaningful template for the art of living. Eric Holcomb has a very nice post up today that illustrates how one seemingly minor aspect of off-the-mat application can unfold whole dimensions of the art.

ありがとう ございます!

Then out spake brave Horatius, the Captain at the gate;
“To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his Gods…”

- Thomas Macaulay, from Lays of Ancient Rome

So, we had a great Aikido seminar this past weekend, with our now-annual visit from one of the most traveled instructors in the world, Donovan Waite shihan. As always, I was exposed to a lot of new concepts, and – again as always – it will be weeks before any of it actually shows up in my practice.

It’s somewhat amusing, then, that I actually had a bit of a breakthrough tonight in one of the areas that has been causing me the most trouble since I began practicing over 2 ½ years ago, and one that was definitely NOT a focus of the seminar – mai kaiten ukemi. (Also known as the basic front roll – one of the very first things you learn when you step on the mat. Sigh.)

Fundamentally, my problem is that somewhere in the back of my subconscious, my brain doesn’t believe that I’m going to fall correctly if I do it right – with the inevitable result that I DON’T fall correctly, because I’m always trying to catch myself. Ushiro ukemi, or back rolls, I don’t have much of a problem with, except an occasional tendency for my left arm to stick out when I roll on the right side. I’ve been wondering why, completely ignoring the obvious answer that it’s because I can’t see where I’m going, so I just go.

It’s worth noting that my sensei has been pointing this out to me for, oh, about 2 ½ years. However, being aware of the problem and being able to translate that awareness into my actual movement are very different things… remembering that healing the mind-body disconnect is one of the reasons that I started this training in the first place. I’m not surprised, and really shouldn’t be frustrated, that it’s taking a long time to undo a lifetime of living in my head.

I figured all this out tonight in a burst of inspiration (a.k.a., “d’oh!”). I arrived at the dojo a half hour early, and walked out in the dark. I bowed in, and before turning on the lights I just stood for a couple of minutes watching the moonlight and listening to the wind in the trees (I may have mentioned that our dojo is built outdoors, backed up on the woods)… and decided to try some rolls, just for the heck of it.

What happened next should be pretty obvious – I rolled. Correctly. For 10 minutes straight. Better on my dominant side than on the other, but still basically correctly. (When I told my wife about this she just said, “Use the Force, Luke”… thereby pointing out that I lose at least three geek points because I didn’t immediately think of the Jedi Trainer scene myself. :)

I then turned the lights on, and worked on remembering what it felt like when I did it right so that I could avoid slipping back into my now-ingrained bad habits. It worked, mostly, although by the end of the class some of the bad falling started to come back as I got tired.

It’s going to take time and a lot of extra practice to burn the new, good rolls into my muscle memory, but I think I am actually going to accomplish the goal that I set for myself of fixing this particular problem before my next kyu test.