Did this for a Hallowe'en prop at work this week and very pleased with result. It's large and theatrical and possibly a little real-er than strictly necessary for entertaining children. All it is is crumpled brown tissue paper over red construction paper, covering part of a cardboard box and smothered in Mod Podge.

A few days ago I said the best explanation of the Covid Insanity was as an enacted archetype, the Devouring Mother. But I'm not really convinced of any one explanation. I was looking today at Peter Heers' essay "The Demonic Methodology of the Coronavirus Narrative." The demonic explanation seems just as plausible to me.

"From the appearance of the Coronavirus on the world stage, and the almost immediate debut of the Covid-19 pandemic narrative, the tell-tale signs of a demonic methodology were apparent: fear, anxiety, confusion, inconsistency and contradiction, coercion, threats, censorship, misinformation, half-truths and lies."

The essay appears in Let No One Fear Death: Orthodox Christian Leaders Respond to the Covid-19 Challenge, edited by Alexander F. C. Webster and Peter A. Heers (Uncut Mountain, 2022).

I don't think think, really, I ever went out to watch a sunrise before today. I've seen them, occasionally, when doing other things. Trying to sync myself to the natural rhythms. Amazing to have this sunrise before me and the near-full moon setting behind me, with birds everywhere and swamp creatures burbling in the water. I also like that there were eight or ten other people out at this convenient site to see the same thing.

Today I am feeling much more confident in my powers of intuition! The oracle this morning spoke of cooperation and personal enlargement, and I was unexpectedly offered a (voluntary) position with a local organization. I don't know if I'll take it, but it's nice to have some positive reinforcement, professionally and spiritually.

Made another book yesterday. I love doing them, but creating blank books begs the question, 'what is this book for'? I need to take the next step and start using the books as vehicles for ideas, not just technical exercises.

Started reading Lord of the Elements: Interweaving Christianity and Nature by Bastian Baan. It's dense but readable; not sure how much of the density is from anthroposophical ideas that I'm unfamiliar with.

I think it's the right book for me. Last night I noted that St. Paul refers to personhood as comprising spirit, soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). I took it as a providence when I read Baan today highlighting the same division in Plotinus and calling it an archetypal image. Helpfully, Baan adds that 'spirit' is sometimes identified as reason or intellect (nous). (I'm trying to understand this without any Greek or Latin.)

Finished Sheridan's The Devouring Mother. I am persuaded that our society is enacting the devouring mother archetype, just as Germany enacted the Wotan archetype in the mid-20th century. This dynamic has three actors: The smothering mother-figure, the obedient child, the rebellious child.

I wish Sheridan had something to say about how we can wake up from the nightmare. If, as he says, Trump embodies the rebellious child who must be punished by the State-mother, does RFK Jr represent a rejection of this psychodrama altogether? Or can no one stand outside it? must it play out on its own horrible internal schedule?

I wish I, and everyone else, had read it sooner. I think this might be the best hypothesis I've seen (out of many) to explain the misery of the past five years.

Florida's on edge as Hurricane Milton closes in on us. But the sunset tonight was spectacular.

(Just need to figure out how I accidentally turned on the date display...)

It's a rainy afternoon in Florida (a foretaste of Hurricane Milton?) so I spent some quiet time getting started on a 'storage book.' (Instructions at creativebug.com.) My accordion-fold spine looks good, but the windowed page is a little sloppy; needs to be adhered at the head and tail, and the image could've been better affixed.

Came across two beautiful works of art today, while researching online. Thought of Emerson's quote ("Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting–a wayside sacrament.") and figured I'd share these.

First, the artists book, 'Reliquary,' by Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder, 2015. This may be the best mix of book, box, and frame that I've found in my long-standing investigation of the form:

Artist's website.

And this digital artists print I saw used as cover art for a music album: 'Voyage Pittoresque #4' by Ruud Van Empel, 2016. The full picture is jaw-droppingly beautiful. I can't imagine what it would be like in person. sometime about the mix of forest realism and digital hyperreality resonates very strongly, as I am in the very stages of pursuing a druidical nature spirituality. How colorful --how impossibly colorful-- will my path be, I wonder?
Gallery website.