Slouching toward Bethlehem

In Thor's day's mailbox . . .

The last retrograde of the year continues to Jan. 1, 2024. To help with some of the shifting going on under the Mercurial umbrella:

Very often . . .the subject being discussed is not the subject at all. – Sharon Salzberg

Birthdays of creatives on today's date:

Maggie Smith is celebrating her 89th birthday today. The actress was born in 1934, Ilford, Essex, England. The American actor Denzel Washington was born 69 years ago today in 1954, Mount Vernon, New York. And John Legend turns 45 today. The musician, singer, songwriter was born in 1978, Springfield, Ohio.

Also on this date In 1065, Westminster Abbey was consecrated by Edward the Confessor.

And, Woodrow Wilson was born on this day in 1856 Staunton, Virginia. The 28th President of the United States, Wilson's League of Nations design, adopted in Europe at the end of WWI and rejected by the U.S. Congress, nonetheless became the model for the present day United Nations.

In 1973 on this date the Endangered Species Act was signed into law by U.S. President Richard Nixon, as a major extension of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Humans have yet to be placed on the endangered species list … but one wonders how long that might take . . .

Conventional medicine continues to lag decades behind the advances made in Functional Medicine and the science of longevity...the gap between public healthcare and breaking science is widening; the generational leaps made in our understanding of biology and the mechanisms of aging remain frustratingly mute, overshadowed by an outdated framework of medicine and nutrition that leaves the vast majority of the population with little understanding of how their complex bodies work (let alone, how to fix them). – Mark Hyman, M.D.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

– William Butler Yeats, from The Second Coming, poem now in public domain.

Carpet crawlers heed their callers (We've got to get in to get out)