Happy Dance!

Charlie Brown happy dance!

The God of Beginnings and Endings

A poem by Jonathan Swift that uses Janus as a literary device. It's technically not particularly flattering to Janus, but I didn't notice. I think it's charming.

To Janus, On New Year's Day, 1726

Two-faced Janus, god of time

Be my Phoebus, while I rhyme.

To oblige your crony Swift,

Bring our dame a new-year's gift;

She has got but half a face;

Janus, since thou hast a brace,

To my lady once be kind;

Give her half thy face behind.

God of time, if you be wise,

Look not with your future eyes;

What imports thy future sight?

Well, if you could lose it quite.

Can you take delight in viewing

This poor Isle's approaching ruin,

When thy retrospection vast

Sees the glorious ages past.

Happy nation, were we blind,

Or had eyes only behind!

Drown your morals, madam cries,

I'll have none but forward eyes;

Prudes decayed about may tack,

Strain their necks with looking back.

Give me time when coming on;

Who regards him when he's gone?

By the Dean though gravely told,

New-years help to make me old;

Yet I find a new-year's lace

Burnishes an old-year's face.

Give me velvet and quadrille,

I'll have my youth and beauty still.

Notes:                        

1. "Brace" means a pair.

2. "Isle" refers to Ireland, not to Britain.

3. "Dean" is the speaker of the poem, or Swift himself. Swift was dean of St. Patrick's cathedral in Dublin from 1713 to 1745. This poem was written in 1729.

4. "Quadrille" is a dance(?)

Thanks, Mom & Dad

In the first book of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius expresses gratitude to all his mentors, and what he learned from each.

Something that's been on my mind recently is what I learned from my mom and dad. Some of their teaching was quite nuanced.

I'm thankful to my mom for having taught me not to engage in any kind of regional negativity with people from other parts of my home country. It would hurt their feelings, especially where regional rivalry descends from historical conflicts that are beyond anyone's control, as they are in the past. As an adult, upon meeting people from other parts of the country, this lesson allowed me to pour positivity into them. That made them smile. 

I'm thankful to my dad for having taught me not to pick flowers. He said I could just leave them where they were. If I wanted to enjoy them again, I could just come back to the same spot the next day. That way, my enjoyment of them wouldn't be the cause of their death. I thought he was positively insane at first. Everyone picked flowers. Later, I came to understand. When I was a teen-ager, a patch of wildflowers appeared in our lawn. Both my dad and I were the lawn mowers, and between us we had an unspoken agreement that we wouldn't mow over the flowers. That patch of buttercups reappeared year after year, for them to live and for us to enjoy.

Thank you mom and dad! I love you! I will try to be a faithful, dutiful, and helpful child to you in your old age! 

The Tender Human Warmth of All Things

From The Religion of Numa and Other Essays, by Jesse Benedict Carter:

Not much more than a quarter of a century ago the word "animism" began to be used to describe that particular phase of the psychological condition of primitive peoples by which they believe that a spirit (anima) resides in everything, material and immaterial. This spirit is generally closely associated with the thing itself, sometimes actually identified with it ... These doubles are not as yet gods, they are merely powers, potentialities, but in the course of time they develop into gods.

... 

At the time when our knowledge of Roman religion begins, Rome is in possession of a great many gods, but very few of them are much more than names for powers. They are none of them personal enough to be connected together in myths. And this is the very simple reason why there was no such thing as a native Roman mythology[.] The gods of early Rome were neither married nor given in marriage; they had no children or grandchildren and there were no divine genealogies. Instead they were thought of occasionally as more or less individual powers, but usually as masses of potentialities, grouped together for convenience as the "gods of the country," the "gods of the storeroom," the "gods of the dead," etc. Even when they were conceived of as somewhat individual, they were usually very closely associated with the corresponding object, for example Vesta was not so much the goddess of the hearth as the goddess, "Hearth" itself, Janus not the god of doors so much as the god "Door."  

When I was a child, I would anthropomorphize physical objects. I would feel sentimental attachment toward them. I wouldn't be able to throw them out, even after I couldn't use them anymore, or no longer needed them. Key chains. Old pens. Pretty cardboard boxes. Socks. They had been with me for a long time. They were precious. They were valuable in their own right as things in the world. Summarily to dispose of them would be too cruel. Part of it was also being unable to decide, for lack of life experience, if they were things I would need again. My closet and desk drawers were cluttered with things I couldn't throw out. When I finally did throw them out, it would be after long periods of hesitation, sometimes years. I would have to put them into the garbage in a single motion, without giving myself time to think, the way you'd pull off a band-aid when you didn't want it to hurt.

As an adult, it took a long time, but I finally developed the self-discipline to throw things away I no longer needed. I actually now dislike owning things beyond bare essentials and what's required for minimal comfort. I try to hold the line at new physical objects entering my possession. I'm not always successful. No matter how little money you spend, you end up owning things. A store you patronize has a promotion, and they give you a free something. You move to a new place and there's leftover stuff from the previous owner. You buy something to get part A, but it comes with parts B, C, and D, which you don't need. So, in order to maintain a simple and minimalist lifestyle, you have to be vigilant about disposing of superfluous stuff or not accepting new stuff from other people (where it's possible to do so politely). This has been a much different mode of existence than my childhood. 

In the last few years, I have felt a third feeling growing, regarding objects and stuff. It's neither debilitating sentimental attachment nor cold utilitarianism. I don't want to possess unnecessary things. Nor do I want to sentimentalize them in a way that burdens my life. I don't want to impute to them separate spirits. Yet, I do want to recognize that their material existence is sheer magic and wonder in itself. Things are spirit, by virtue of existing. Reality is spirit. Reality and the patterns within it, called people, animals, and objects are, as it were, floating in mid-air with no apparent truer ground of existence to hold them up, which makes them spirits, spirits in a material sense--real world powers and potentialities. And once you recognize that this materialistic spirithood makes even physical objects, in a sense, 'alive', they seem to spill over with charming, tender humanity and to be worthy of receiving mercy & love. An old car abandoned in a gully, covered in vines, with its sagging, sorrow-filled headlight eyes. A shiny wrapper, dancing in the breeze, with its discordantly bright, unnatural colors. An old falling down table, not "rickety", but endearingly courageous in its old age. 

I think this is partly the vision of life suggested in the films of Hayao Miyazaki. (This song is called 'The Merry-Go-Round of Life'. It was composed by Joe Hisaishi.)

Plutarch's Life of Numa, Part I

Important points from Plutarch's biography of Numa Pompilius, an early king of Rome:

1. Numa's character: "His naturally good disposition had been so educated by sorrow and philosophic pursuits, that he rose superior not merely to commonplace vices, but even to the worship of brute force, so common among barbarians, and considered true courage to consist in the conquest of his own passions."

2. How Numa spent his free time: "When at leisure, he disregarded sensual enjoyments and money-getting, but devoted himself to the service of the gods and to speculations about their nature and power, so that he obtained great celebrity."

3. Numa and the nymph: "...[T]he story first arose that it was not from any derangement of intellect that he shunned human society, but because he held converse with higher beings, and had been admitted to marriage with the gods, and that, by passing his time in converse with the nymph Egeria, who loved him, he became blessed, and learned heavenly wisdom."  

4. Plutarch's theological point: "However it is very right to believe that a god can feel friendship for a man and from this may spring a love which watches over him and guides him in the path of virtue."

5. Plutarch's interesting observation about disagreement over theology: "... if any one thinks differently, as Bacchylides says, 'The way is broad.'"

6. Numa's reluctance to be king: Numa is quoted as saying, in reply to people attempting to recruit him to be king, "...even the points which you praise in my character are far from those which make a good king, being love of leisure and of unprofitable speculation, and also a great fondness for peace and unwarlike matters.'" 

7. Numa's inauguration as king: "When they offered him the insignia of royalty, he bade them stop, saying that he wished to have his crown confirmed to him by God as well as by man. Taking the prophets and priests he ascended the Capital, which the Romans at that time called the Tarpeian Hill. There the chief of the prophets made him turn towards the south, covered his head, and then standing behind him with his hand laid upon his head, he prayed, and looked for a sign or omen sent from the gods in every quarter of the heavens. A strange silence prevailed among the people in the Forum, as they watched him eagerly, until a prosperous omen was observed."

8. "...he awed, interested, and softened the manners of the Romans, artfully beguiling them out of their warlike ferocity."

9. "His legislation about images was also connected with Pythagorean doctrine, which says that first principles cannot be touched or seen, but are invisible spiritual essences; for Numa forbade the Romans to worship any likenesses of men or beasts. Among them there was no image of a god, either carved or moulded, in the early times. For a hundred and seventy years they built temples, and placed shrines in them, but made no image of any living things, considering that it was wrong to make the worse like the better, and that the gods cannot be comprehended otherwise than by thought." 

10. "Their sacrifices also were connected with the Pythagorean doctrine; they were for the most part bloodless, and performed with flour, libations of wine, and all the commonest things."

(Note to myself: This is up to page 112 in my book.)

Invictus

by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds me and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Saturnalia Candle

An aroma candle for Saturnalia, in the kitchen, near the sink, for safety's sake.

Marcus Aurelius on Radical Acceptance

Marcus Aurelius says, in the fifth book, part VIII, of Meditations, that the universe is locked into a series of causes and effects, such that the negative things that happen to one are, as it were, preordained and prescribed by the fates, and a harmonious part of the whole. To accept them readily is a way to preserve & promote that harmony. 

How could one ever know whether we're bound into a system of causation or whether independent randomness exists in the world? But one thing is clear: Both present circumstances beyond our control, and a couple of ways of achieving happiness and to avoid the dual traps of high expectations and low expectations are to accept things as they come and to wish that things be exactly as they are. 

Fasti by Ovid

http://poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Fastihome.htm

Praying for Everybody

Marcus Aurelius on praying for everyone's welfare, not just one's own, in Meditations, Book V, Section VII: "The form of the Athenians' prayer did run thus: 'O rain, rain, good Jupiter, upon all the grounds and fields that belong to the Athenians.' Either we should not pray at all, or thus absolutely and freely; and not every one for himself in particular alone."

Saturnalia

Saturnalia was very good, food-wise. For myself, I got a Toblerone dark chocolate bar, mixed nuts, "Ceres" brand apple juice (perfect!), and Kettle chips, which I haven't had in eight years.

I didn't have a chance to decorate with holly or buy candles yet, but I will. I had been planning to invite my friends over for games and food, but I've been so busy.

I did get to give gifts, and I got to buy food for a homeless person. I want to do more. Syrian refugees need my help. I want to make a donation to UNHCR.

I've been listening to O Come All Ye Faithful all morning. It's fantastic. Merry Christmas to Christians everywhere!

Io Saturnalia!

Faunalia

December 5th was Faunalia.

                    The Dying Knight and the Fauns

                    by Robert Graves

                    Through the dreams of yesternight

                    My blood brother great in fight

                    I saw lying, slowly dying

                    Where the weary woods were sighing

                    With the rustle of the birches,

                    With the quiver of the larches...

                    Woodland fauns with hairy haunches

                    Grin in wonder through the branches,

                    Woodland fauns who know not fear:

                    Wondering they wander near,

                    Munching mushrooms red as coral,

                    Bunches, too, of rue and sorrel,

                    With uncouth and bestial sounds,

                    Knowing naught of war and wounds.

                    But the crimson life-blood oozes

                    And makes roses of the daisies,

                    Persian carpets of the mosses---

                    Softly now his spirit passes

                    As the bee forsakes the lily,

                    As the berry leaves the holly;

                    But the fauns still think him living,

                    And with bay leaves they are weaving

                    Crowns to deck. Well they may!

                    He was worthy of the Bay.

Bay: A crown. 

Things to Do for Saturnalia

1. Be of good cheer and have fun!

2. Exchange gifts, particularly candles.

3. Light candles.

4. Play games.

5. Role reversal and playful misrule.

6. Decorate with holly.

E.M. Forster

This line appears in the novel A Room With a View by E.M. Forster: "Paganism is infectious--more infectious than diptheria or piety."

In The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories, also by E.M. Forster, there is a story called "The Curate's Friend". In this story, the main character has the unique ability to see fauns, a quality none of the other characters share. The man is living an inauthentic life, in several ways out of touch with his truer self. Yet he is committed to this way of existence and the people and things assembled around it. He goes on a kind of picnic with a woman he loves. During the picnic, he encounters a faun. The faun wants only one thing--to serve the man. The man resists the faun's overtures, being attached to his staid but false life. The woman, seeing only half of the interaction with the faun--the man's side--assumes it's the man's embarrassing attempt at comedy. The woman breaks up with the man, and the man gives in to the faun's desire to serve him. The man's life changes; he becomes authentic and happy, that day and forever after, though he must keep the reason a secret, given where he works. 

The story is a kind of Chronicles of Narnia for Religio Romana:

Already in the wood I was troubled by a multitude of voices--the voices of the hill beneath me, of the trees over my head, of the very insects in the bark of the tree. I could even hear the stream licking little pieces out of meadows, and the meadows dreamily protesting.