Solstice Advent Challenge: December 21

…and so shines a good deed in a weary world...

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 20

A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.”

~ John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 19

no words of wisdom
reaches the ears of grievers
still, keep fighting on

*I apologize for all the neglect: I have folks to acknolwedge, thank, and get back to. In real life, I have some adds and trash I have to fight in order to get to the boss. Not as much fun in the real world.

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 18

There once was a girl named Stormpike
Whose ghost came around at first light
She is always nice at first
But then anger comes out with a burst
And she tells you to go take a *!#$# hike

Tamra Stormpike

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 17

souls hang in balance
release, release, gods tell you
but you can't let go

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 16

downward spiraling
stange earthbound antagonist
Never give up fight

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 15

There is no other choice for today but something of incredible warmth and power: The Old Ladies Raiding Guild. Last night not only did we pull together five to get Tome's beginning of the Noodle Cart thingy (I really need to look this stuff up), but we managed to bring CD Rogue along to Firelands who truly just had fun. (He's still out of commission and has been feeling really low this past week.) He doesn't have Vent so of course the rest of the OLs had to suffer with me something yelling upstairs at him and then hitting the PPT button on accident. Sorry! Sorry! You don't need to hear me yelling at my cub to let the dog out or for CD Rogue to find the portal!

In any case, fun was had by all (though I do need to have a chat with my GM, who helped us tank the 5-man noodle run, about how we don't look at anything we do through the lens of estrogen versus testosterone balance. We just don't. It never crossed our minds. And believe when I say, that although this was the big "WOW" moment last night, the whole time we just have fun:

This dropped:

Congratulations Helke! 

Wow, if anyone is not warmed up by this, then we will check your pulse!

I have to underscore that we, in all of our self-effacing glory, are actually pretty skilled. If we don't remember mechanics or some other game function, I guarantee we, the Old Ladies, know how to work together; someone will know what to do, or what to try. We hold some natural tenants that I haven't seen in many group situations. Those include everyone contributing, everyone keeping a good attitude, appreciating it's the people around the gaming table, not the game.

And here is a beautiful song Dahahka shared with me:

We're in the ball pit together:

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 14

The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde

Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden.

     It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. 'How happy we are here!' they cried to each other.

     One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.

     'What are you doing here?' he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.

     'My own garden is my own garden,' said the Giant; 'any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.' So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.

TRESPASSERS
WILL BE
PROSECUTED

     He was a very selfish Giant.

(Continued)

Solstice Advent Challenge

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 13

always something off
not quite quarter tight it seems
dusty dirty glow

Solstice Advent Challenge

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 12

dragon, frozen fire
ice cloud breathing, patiently
selfish magic soul

Solstice Advent Challenge

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 11

guilty lit light points
through hearts, stab the accuser
tips of blunt prayers

Solstice Advent Challenge

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 10

D. H. Lawrence

Snake

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.
He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
i o And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.
Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.
He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.
And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.
But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.
And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.
He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.
And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.
I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.
I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.
And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.
And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.
For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.
Taormina, 1923


Writer's comment: Young leet druid told me this was one of his favorite poems. 

Solstice Advent Challenge

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 9

To The Dead in the Graveyard Underneath My Window

BY ADELAIDE CRAPSEY

Written in A Moment of Exasperation

How can you lie so still? All day I watch

And never a blade of all the green sod moves

To show where restlessly you toss and turn,

And fling a desperate arm or draw up knees

Stiffened and aching from their long disuse;

I watch all night and not one ghost comes forth

To take its freedom of the midnight hour.

Oh, have you no rebellion in your bones?

The very worms must scorn you where you lie,

A pallid mouldering acquiescent folk,

Meek habitants of unresented graves.

Why are you there in your straight row on row

Where I must ever see you from my bed

That in your mere dumb presence iterate

The text so weary in my ears: "Lie still

And rest; be patient and lie still and rest."

I'll not be patient! I will not lie still!

There is a brown road runs between the pines,

And further on the purple woodlands lie,

And still beyond blue mountains lift and loom;

And I would walk the road and I would be

Deep in the wooded shade and I would reach

The windy mountain tops that touch the clouds.

My eyes may follow but my feet are held.

Recumbent as you others must I too

Submit? Be mimic of your movelessness

With pillow and counterpane for stone and sod?

And if the many sayings of the wise

Teach of submission I will not submit

But with a spirit all unreconciled

Flash an unquenched defiance to the stars.

Better it is to walk, to run, to dance,

Better it is to laugh and leap and sing,

To know the open skies of dawn and night,

To move untrammeled down the flaming noon,

And I will clamour it through weary days

Keeping the edge of deprivation sharp,

Nor with the pliant speaking on my lips

Of resignation, sister to defeat.

I'll not be patient. I will not lie still.

And in ironic quietude who is

The despot of our days and lord of dust

Needs but, scarce heeding, wait to drop

Grim casual comment on rebellion's end;

"Yes, yes . . Wilful and petulant but now

As dead and quiet as the others are."

And this each body and ghost of you hath heard

That in your graves do therefore lie so still.

Solstice Advent Challenge

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 8

GP at the Met: Wagner’s Ring CycleThe Story of the Ring: Opera SynopsesSynopses of Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung—the four epic operas that make up Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera. 
Richard WagnerDer Ring des NibelungenDas RheingoldLibretto by the composer
World premiere: Munich, Court Theater, September 22, 1869
In mythical times. In the depths of the Rhine, the Rhinemaidens Woglinde, Flosshilde, and Wellgunde laugh and play as they swim. Their singing attracts the dwarf Alberich, who clumsily tries to catch them, to their amusement. Suddenly a beam of sunlight falls into the water, creating a golden glow. The Rhinemaidens joyfully swim around it while Alberich, dazzled by the sight, asks them what it is. The girls tell him about the Rhinegold, a treasure of immeasurable value, and explain that whoever wins it will gain power over the world, but to do so he must renounce love. Frustrated by his unsuccessful attempts to catch one of the girls, the ugly dwarf curses love and steals the gold.

From GP at the Met 

Solstice Advent Challenge

Thank you to Erinys for introducing me further to Dylan Thomas...

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 7

he keeps the lights on
though the soldiers have gone home
infinite battle

Solstice Advent Challenge

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 6

The Cremation of Sam McGee
    There are strange things done in the midnight sun
        By the men who moil for gold;
    The Arctic trails have their secret tales
        That would make your blood run cold;
    The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
        But the queerest they ever did see
    Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
        I cremated Sam McGee.
    Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
    Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
    He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
    Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."
    On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
    Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
    If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
    It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
    And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
    And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
    He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
    And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."
    Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
    "It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold, till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
    Yet 'tain't being dead — it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
    So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."
    A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
    And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
    He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
    And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
    There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
    With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
    It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
    But you promised true, and it's up to you, to cremate those last remains."
    Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
    In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
    In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
    Howled out their woes to the homeless snows — Oh God! how I loathed the thing.
    And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
    And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
    The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
    And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
    Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
    It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
    And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
    Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."
    Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
    Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
    The flames just soared, and the furnace roared — such a blaze you seldom see;
    And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
    Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
    And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
    It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
    And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
    I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
    But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
    I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
    I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.
    And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
    And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and said: "Please close that door.
    It's fine in here, but I greatly fear, you'll let in the cold and storm —
    Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."
    There are strange things done in the midnight sun
        By the men who moil for gold;
    The Arctic trails have their secret tales
        That would make your blood run cold;
    The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
        But the queerest they ever did see
    Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
        I cremated Sam McGee.

--Robert Service (1874-1958)



Solstice Advent Challenge
Got a mention on TNB/Blog Azeroth!

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 5

Light of all lights

Love love love love
Love is the light of all lights
Where there is truth there is love
Where there is love there is light
Light is truth, truth is light
And it is beyond darkness beyond ignorance
Love love love love
Light light light light
Truth truth truth truth
Truth light love all are knowledge
And is within all
Love love love love love love
Truth truth truth truth
Light light light light
Life is in love
Life is in truth
Life in light
Life is light
Life is truth
Life is love
Love life my dear
Say once and for ever
I love you, you are my love
You are my light
You are my truth. 

gajanan mishra

Solstice Advent Challenge

Dahahka told me about this talented artist yesterday; thank you sir!

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 4

Light breaks where no sun shines

  by Dylan Thomas

Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids. 


Light breaks on secret lots, 
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics dies,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15380#sthash.QqIOSqV1.dpuf

Solstice Advent Challenge

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 3

William Blake. 1757–1827

489. The Tiger

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies	5
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?	10
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp	15
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?	20
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Solstice Advent Challenge

Solstice Advent Challenge: December 2

eredar father
temporal gift, at great cost
cannot be outshone

Solstice Advent Challenge

Gift of the Naaru