The Changing of the Guard

[sdi]

Who indeed, I suppose, could give greater voice to the changing of the guard than the Lyrist Himself?

Aye, if ye bear it, if ye endure to know
That Delphi's self with all things gone must go,
Hear with strong heart the unfaltering song divine
Peal from the laurelled porch and shadowy shrine.
High in Jove's home the battling winds are torn,
From battling winds the bolts of Jove are born;
These as he will on trees and towers he flings,
And quells the heart of lions or of kings;
A thousand crags those flying flames confound,
A thousand navies in the deep are drowned,
And ocean's roaring billows, cloven apart,
Bear the bright death to Amphitrite's heart.
And thus, even thus, on some long-destined day,
Shall Delphi's beauty shrivel and burn away,—
Shall Delphi's fame and fane from earth expire
At that bright bidding of celestial fire.

(Apollo, as quoted by Porphyry, as quoted by Eusebius, and as translated Frederic William Henry Myers)

Comments

[sdi]

A baby!! :) :) :) :)

Haha, thank you! We are wondering if this baby needed to be born with its ascendant just so, which is why we made a (presumably temporary) stop here in Oklahoma; perhaps we will move again shortly after the birth. (Bizarrely, this happened to my parents: we had always lived in the Northeast except for a ten-month stint during which my younger brother was born.)

Re-reading that sentence, it occurs to me just how strange a line of reasoning it must seem; but then, so many strange things have happened to me over the last few years...


I assume you're referring to my youngest and the vaccines and all that?

Yes, that's what I meant! I'm glad things seem to be going well and that your daughter is learning to choose her own way (and doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects so far)! At this point I'm quite convinced that my own path in life was predestined, but if I could have chosen it for myself, I'd have stayed far, far away from school. I'm sure she'll figure it out: it's hard to make plans with the world the way it is, but as the saying goes, "spring comes and the grass grows by itself."


As for the mimeographs...

That all sounds interesting! I grew up on the (early) internet, so dittos and mimeographs were before my time, and I've never seen either of them.

I'm not surprised a lot of the technology is just petering out... I have been trying to convince my (you know, affluent techno-optimist software engineer) coworkers that we are in a dark age already, and it falls on deaf ears; but what else could it be, when I can't even read things from twenty years ago because the technology—floppy disks? ZIP drives?—is obsolete and copyrighted and illegal to reverse engineer and so on and so on. Paper doesn't last long, but it lasts forever compared to bits, especially when it's easy to copy. So maybe you aren't working to get us through a dark age, but to get us out of one? :)

I'm excited to see what you produce and I'll keep an eye out for your post about it! Even if it's the text is familiar, you shouldn't discount the spiritual value of something handmade!


I never did the Rumtopf post!!

I had forgotten about that! I'd still love the recipe!

[temporaryreality]

"Re-reading that sentence, it occurs to me just how strange a line of reasoning it must seem..."

no, actually, from the "greater scheme of things" standpoint, a soul must gotta do what it's gotta do to get the things it needs each time around, right? I think there's a lot of sense there. It's the only sense I can make of my own premature birth. I must've favored August for some reason :D

and...

re: mimeographs - haha, I'm glad I piqued your interest! I'm just shy of halfway through - so maybe in a two weeks or so I'll mention its availability. As for "you shouldn't discount the spiritual value of something handmade!" I agree! Of course this is going to look VERY handmade - though hopefully not to its detriment.