22 86% 27% 0mph S bar 29.72 falls windchill 22 Yuletide
Waning Crescent of the Cold Moon
This day has been a slow one for AncienTrails. In the morning I’ve begun writing first, that is, working in this case on a short story, Faeries on the Gunflint Trail. If I start here first, I waste some of my writing energy and I’m trying to steer the force of that back into the creative end of things. So, I wrote until 10:30, then had to get ready to go into the museum. Wore my blue corduroys, pants I haven’t been able to wear for at least 2 years. Felt good.
I also didn’t put out my Yuletide lore, so I’m going to continue a bit with the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The more I think about it, the more SGGK, as the folks who write about it abbreviate it, seems central for our time. This happens with old texts because the rhythms and oscillations of the human community repeat themselves over time.
In this case it may that our time is in the reverse situation from the SGGK. In SGGK Christian civilization had begun to make inroads in European society, but a strong pagan faith lived on, especially in the rural areas. Pagan=rural. Today we have a post-Christian society, a world in which the Christian church, once dominant and interlaced with political power, has begun to weaken. Thus, today the Green Knight might ride into a corporate boardroom, or up the Capital steps and into Congress. The natural world has begun to move its tendrils into the corridors of power all around the world: governments, corporations, political parties. It will be difficult to find the Gawains, those willing to literally put their heads on the chopping block for Mother Earth, but they exist; they may display the same reluctance and fear.
Maybe, just maybe, we no longer have to rely on Morgan La Fey at Hautdesert’s castle. The pagan spirit that loves the land first and places that loyalty above all others appears from time to time all over the globe. We need not one Green Knight, but many, many willing to take the challenge to those who must take the primacy of Mother Earth as a serious, even deadly duty.
This is not as clear as I want it, but it’s late and I’m a bit fuzzy. Still, it’s in the right area.