Geeky Rites of Passage

I write this as a proud father of an 8yr old boy, who finds himself crossing the Threshold of Proper Fantasy Geek.

Before that though, I’m also happy to report another win FOR SCIENCE.

(warning: bugs and bits below.  You have been warned.)

This weekend, after a good day of playing around at a nearby farm, and being locked into the chicken coop by playful cousins, we discovered a spider mite or louse in the kid’s hair.  Now of course mom has a bit of an overactive “eww bug!” reaction, but after a recent purchase of a microscope at a yard sale, I figured “why not check it out”.

Of course, the kid was completely boggled by the fact that we “had a REAL microscope like the science labs?!”, but I assured him that it was a recent purchase and may be a bit blurry or entirely non-functional, but it was worth the attempt, for this particular Teachable Moment.

So, we grabbed a blank slide, wiped the copious dust from the lenses, and smacked a cover slip on top of the bug (it was a louse) and peeked through the eyepiece.  The little teeny hard-to-see spec was flailing it’s little legs around, and when the kid peeked through, his shriek of Joy was contagious.   OMG, MOM MOM, LOOK! IT’S MOVING! LOOOOOK! YOUCANSEETHEEYESANLEGS, and EVERYHING!

The afternoon then filled up with further micro-curiosity.  I plucked a hair by the roots.  The kid hesitantly yet stolidly plucked his own to compare (FOR SCIENCE!), and we brushed the dog to get a third hair sample.  A bit of lettuce leaf, an onion skin, the wing of a dead fly.  Sugar.  Salt.  Gourmet Salt flakes (not cubes). Water from the pond. Dust from under the sofa.  … all this flickered across the single “blank” slide that was included with the microscope kit. (a LEGO brick did not work, sadly, which I expected, and was a good lesson in optics and transparency necessary for Micro-viewing)

I’m sure we would have continued with flour, skin samples, and such but dinner time came and there were other chores to do.   Still, I’ve added microscope slide kits to my Amazon WishList, because my son already plans on trying more stuff to look at this week.  It’s pretty awesome.

As for the geeky Rites, I am also happy to report that we have just finished watching the Fellowship of the Ring, and  The Two Towers,with plans to complete Peter Jackson’s amazing trilogy at the end of this week.  We were a bit unsure if he was ready for it, but after being assured (by the kid of course) “I am eight, and Oh Yeah, I love epic battles.“,  we tried the first movie with a finger on the pause button just in case.

We shouldn’t have worried.

So far, Legolas is his favorite character, mostly for the action scenes with rapid-fire arrows.  He thinks Gimli is silly, especially during the battle for Helm’s Deep.  Aragorn is a good king, but dreams about his elf-love too much, but overall, the Ents attacking Isengard were the high point in both movies.

As he said loudly last night… “See, now THAT is why you don’t mess with Nature, right?!”     🙂

My new hat

It rocks.

That is all.

Purchased thorough the following Merchant:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/LunaRana

Thank you, thank you, thank you to my lovely friend Nettle, for the loaning of cash since the merchant could not accept plastic.   Almost settled the tab, but it was worth the temporary debt!

Great Pan is Dead, Long Live Pan!

This phrase has been stuck in my head for a few days now, starting while I was inspired to make my “Wild Place” in the yard, and then reading a mere day later in a Percy Jackson novel that the Pan of that story dies. “Grover finds Pan and learns the truth about his disappearance and that he, the God of Wild Things, must fade away and leave the job of making the earth green again to Grover, Annabeth, Percy, Tyson and everyone else on the planet. ”

This resonated with me all week, in light of our barn collapsing, which makes the property look decidedly less ‘Green-natural’ and more ‘trash-heap’ until it gets cleared up. In true microcosm/macrocosm fashion, this just keeps reminding me what a mess we’ve made of things, and how nice it used to, and will look again.

I helped create the BP oil spill after all, by continued use of petro-commercialism, as Anne said recently. I also helped set aside a patch of yard to be tended respectfully and minimally, and am looking into composting toilets and rainwater collection barrels. Each of us has potential for Change, both good and bad.

So, it seems this moon cycle is one where I find myself musing upon Pan more often than not. Pan in his many facets of untouched wilderness, his voice of Panic, and his [pro]creative drive.

Strangely, I have never been one to ascribe to any particular Pagan-themed diety in this manner. After a solid Lutheran upbringing, with appropriate Christians-tinted faiths, my own Pagan path has tended more towards generic elementalism, pantheism, and non-specified Druidic leanings. (Plenty of explanation of my spirituality on this blog’s archives.)

I had a brief stint of Faerie-slant which still sticks with me a bit. But the Gentle Folk are no gods. Otherwise, I’ve generally paid mere lip-service to other cultures’ Deities in acknowledging their existence on some level, but never joining their ranks. I liken this to knowing the Governor of Minnesota exists, but living in New York, if that makes sense. Yet everywhere I’m looking lately, I see horns. My own facebook page photo, for example, then wearing those self-same horns for fun while working outside last week “to be silly”. Looking back, are those silly head-decorations becoming something totemic? I don’t think so, but still, I’ve had them for years and never worn them much before now.

I even found my penny-whistle while cleaning up our closet on Thursday, and enjoyed waking some sleepy half-memories in my muscles by trilling a few songs out off my fingers. It’s no pan-pipe obviously, but the symbolism is surprisingly apparent when seen in retrospect, as they weren’t done with Pan in mind at the time. It’s interesting.

Did any of you readers with a more personalized relation with a particular Higher Power approach things in a similar manner, or were you off searching for a name specifically? Or, I suppose in other words, did you find your connections, or did They find you?

I also wonder if I’m just reaching for synchronisms that aren’t there. A bit of spiritual Apophinia, perhaps?

I also wonder if the webmistress of “The Gods are Bored”, or a Druid’s Apprentice, could get me a proper interview with Pan? *chuckle*

So, while I’m musing on all things goat-boyish, here’s two songs to entertain you. I just re-listened to them at work, which brought me merrily through that afternoon doldrum that hits around 1:30.

Enjoy. (and thanks to Nettle for sharing the songs initially with me recently!)

http://www.youtube.com/v/uxCPkg_Ee3Q

http://www.youtube.com/v/hztAzxNdL8c

Moon Muse – A patch of Wild

Last night, I started to prepare and set aside a small limnal patch of our back yard.   It is near the pond, and generally surrounded by wild thorns and sumac saplings, and situated in a way that makes it pretty difficult to mow or tend.  It’s farther from the house and not part of “grass yard” and not included in the fenced pasture for our horses due to the surrounding topology.   It’s a “junk patch” as someone once called it.

However, I had dreamed about this patch twice now in the past week.   The first, was the night I was trying to find a good location for a small Faerie Garden, or place to build a small Faerie-house.   In that dream, I was a rabbity creature caught in the thorns nearby and eventually settled into that spot to rest and recover, before hopping “home”.   The second time was last night, after a meditation on the Gulf Oil Disaster and lighting a candle to honor those beings who will lose/have lost their lives already for our greed.

In that second dream, I was not not there physically.  I merely watched, an invisible witness, as that patch of land grew from bare soil, filled with clover and sorrell and yellow dock, then got choked out by Motherwort, and eventually became an impossible full forest of minitature trees, with tiny fae-homes like the Ewok’s Village, or Lothlorien.

Thus inspired, I am in the process of trimming the thorns, slightly, but otherwise going to leave this parcel of dirt untouched.  It will be cleaned up of any litter and trash over the next week or two. (There’s a few bits of garbage from ancient farm-days in the crevices between the rocks. Rusty nails, broken glass and the like.  Not much, but some.  Folks from rural properties know the sort of thing I mean here, probably.)

After a sort of purification of the place, it will be allowed to grow and florish, as Nature deems suitable.   In times of extreme drought, I will spray it with the hose lightly, if we need to hose for our garden-proper.   If random winds blow refuse into it (roadside trash is an ever-present problem on our backwater street), it will be removed.    Otherwise, I promised the land it would be Wilderness.

To passers-by, no one will notice it.  Just another rough patch behind an old house.  I doubt I’ll feel called to decorate it with baubles and fae-toys (but am leaving the possibility open)  For now, it will be sanctified.

I’d still like to find the perfect spot to create my own “Shrine of the Mists“, with a different name.  Something formal, and such.  But I’m feeling kinda awesome about seeming asked by our land to “Leave this alone, and Love it”.

I’ll have pictures once it’s cleaned up properly, and walked away from on the New Moon.