Dionysus probably played with cats . . .
It's Satyr's day …
On this day in 1918, the Allied powers and Germany signed an armistice document ending World War I.
Today marks the birth dates of two major writers. The Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, was born 202 years ago on this day in 1821 Moscow. And, Kurt Vonnegut was born in 1922 Indianapolis, Indiana.
The original party animals, Satyrs, entertained Dionysus in the pre-stone-age forests. For a fabulous (literal and figurative) tour-de-force of the Dionysus mythology, read Sophie Strand's The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine. For a shorter version, check out this Creatrix article. posted by Ms. Strand.
I have lived with several Zen masters — all of them cats. -- Eckhart Tolle
For all the great thoughts I have read
For all the deep books I have studied
None has brought me nearer to Spirit
Than a walk beneath shimmering leaves.
“The witch of November”
In Freya's mailbox this lovely Fall morning in Okieland . . .
The stuff of banana republics: a menu for the end of democracy.
We all know the story about Ben Franklin emerging from the Constitutional Convention and telling a woman who asked what type of government they’d created, “a Republic, if you can keep it.” The 2024 election is the moment where we find out if we can. If Trump wins in 2024, we lose the Republic. That’s not drama, and that’s not overstatement. That’s what Trump is promising. – Joyce Vance in a must read post.
Today marks the 540th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther. The German theologian was born on this date in 1483 Eisleben, Saxony, now in modern Germany. Aided by Gutenberg's new printing press, Luther set in motion the Protestant Reformation in 16th-century Europe and forever changed Christianity.
In 1975, the “Witch of November” came early as The American freighter Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 aboard. The event prompted Gordon Lightfoot to write and record his now famous ballad.
On this date in 1969 The American children's TV series Sesame Street debuted on the National Educational Television network (later PBS). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street
And, the poet Vachel Lindsay was born on this date in 1879 Springfield, Illinois
Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight
It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down,
...
It breaks his heart that things must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?
— Vachel Lindsay (poem in public domain)
In a witching night of broken glass . . .
It's a cloudy and cold Thor's day in TulseyTown . . .
The man who wrote “[The writer] cannot put himself today in the service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it” – Albert Camus – was born yesterday in 1913 Mondovi, Algeria.
Today is Anne Sexton's birthdate. The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet was born in 1928 Newton, Massachussets.
Carl Sagan was born on this date in 1934 Brooklyn, NY.
And, lest we forget:
This is the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night” or “Night of Broken Glass”) On the evening of this date in 1938 some 48 hours of Nazi-orchestrated anti-Jewish violence erupted throughout Germany and Austria, resulting in the destruction and vandalizing of synagogues and Jewish businesses and the deaths of at least 91 Jews.
Today in 1989 the East German government opened the Berlin Wall, erected in 1961 to divide the western and eastern sectors of Berlin. For 28 years the wall was a symbol of the Cold War, https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/berlin-wall
from Her Kind
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
. . . [I have] fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
– Anne Sexton in The Complete Poems, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981.