Twelve Days of Christmas

In most of my adult experience, the week between Christmas and New Year's has been a little bit like limbo: it's not quite here, there, or anywhere. If you celebrate Christmas, the big event is over with on December 25, and the rest of it (even New Year's Eve) is kind of anticlimactic. If you're in school, you're on break. If you have a job, you may, if you're lucky, be off the entire week--but more than likely you have to work for at least a few days, though half the cubicles around you may be empty. It's an in-between kind of feeling.

After I started college, I joined the contingent that was glad to get back into the normal routine as soon as possible after Christmas Day, an attitude that holiday overload before Christmas tends to inspire. However, as I've mentioned, I've rethought that attitude in recent years, and traditional ways of celebrating the season support me in that. The Twelve Days of Christmas, for instance, as you know, are the days in between Christmas Day and January 6, the celebration of the Visit of the Magi. I like the idea of spreading the celebration out instead of having everything happen on one day, and some of the customs I've read about from people who still celebrate Christmas the old way sound like more fun than the one-day-only approach.

I don't know whether it was "The Twelve Days of Christmas" song or the Hanukkah custom of the Jewish family that lived near us when I was a kid that inspired me, but I have started opening gifts in the days after Christmas. I wrap up little things that I would have bought for myself anyway, like a calendar or a small package of chocolate, put them under the tree, and open them one by one. I'm not in a hurry to open those packages since they look so pretty sitting under the tree, and this year, with all those hand-made bows on them, I'm in less of a hurry than ever.

I was actually still listening to Christmas CDs the day before yesterday before putting them away, but I don't know that I won't pull one or two of them back out over the next week. I don't have "The Twelve Days of Christmas" on any of them, but I've been thinking about the song and wondering if I might do something thematic each day in keeping with the gifts listed in it. I ran into problems, though, with the very first one: a partridge in a pear tree? I couldn't quite figure out how to pull that off, at least on short notice, though it did make me think of the ornamental pear trees near the street I use to live on and the fragrance they had in the spring. Some of the other gifts promised to be difficult to actualize, too, although it seems like a worthy idea. Maybe with a little foresight I can figure out a way to do this some other time.

The idea of leaving the tree up in January came about a few years ago when I realized how pleasant it was to have a corner of the living room brightened up with a prettily decorated tree and started wondering what the rush was to get it down. Most people I know dislike January heartily and complain about how long it is, but if you've still got decorations up, the festive atmosphere lingers, and that's the point of it all anyway. I don't feel like fighting winter if I'm celebrating it.

Despite thinking that a little bit of winter sometimes goes a long way, I've developed an appreciation for some of its gifts. I think the pace of modern life, and the need to rush here and there in all kinds of weather, makes it hard to enjoy winter, and even Christmas, as much as it can be enjoyed. When you don't have to go out and scrape the ice off the windshield first thing in the morning and drive through slick streets, it's a lot easier to appreciate the beauty of sunrise on a frosty morning or a pristine blanket of snow. Winter pared down to its simplest elements and sprinkled with a little sweetness and light can actually be quite enjoyable, as I've found--somewhat to my surprise.

Mythologically Sensitive Solstice

I hope I'm not too late to wish you Winter Solstice greetings, since the day was actually yesterday, and today is officially the Day After Solstice. I guess we're all on the upswing now--before you know it, the days will be noticeably longer, though of course we still have winter ahead of us. We're just getting started on all that, but the prospect doesn't seem all that bad from where I'm sitting. I heard about how warm it is at the North Pole, and I just wish we could send some polar vortex up that way.

If you've ever felt a twinge of confusion about what you should be doing with yourself on Winter Solstice--it almost seems an anachronism in the postmodern age, doesn't it, one of those primitive nature celebrations that's been eclipsed by Christmas and Black Friday and all the rest?--you're probably not alone. If you were thinking: Should I wear twigs in my hair? Is a bear pelt the right thing? Ought I build a bonfire? Do I need a conch shell to greet the dawn?--I'd say the answer is "no."

It's only my opinion, but I don't think honoring the seasonal roots of the holidays requires literal re-enactments. Some people like 'em, but I'm not much of one for dress-up in any case, and nature worship doesn't seem quite the right attitude to take after centuries of science. What I think is sometimes missing in the present-day attitude that's supplied in abundance by mythology is an imaginative engagement with nature, a sense that the world around us is alive and that we're only a small part of something vast. It's probably just as big a mistake to think that we understand it all as it is to think that it's all beyond us, a mistake in the opposite direction. An I-Thou attitude isn't inconsistent with wanting to know how it works.

If you're thinking, well, smarty, why don't you just tell us how you resolved the Science vs. Participation Mystique dilemma, I'll tell you--but it wasn't anything special. I did the same thing I've been doing since I started my holidays, which means I went for a walk in the sun, turned on the Christmas lights when I got home, played Christmas music, baked cookies, and drank hot tea. Plus, yesterday I tried a craft activity I saw on a YouTube video: I made a paper rose to put on a package. It turned out OK for a first-time thing, and I'll tell you how I did it if you send a self-addressed, stamped envelope and a check for $49.99. Oh, and I took out a holiday pin with a broken clasp that I've never worn and discovered that it also works as a necklace. It's nice and sparkly, too.

Today, it was more of the same. By chance, the sun came out from behind the clouds just as I was starting out on my walk, and it was a beautiful afternoon. I passed both holly and ivy, and I saw a lot of birds--it may have been my imagination, but it looked like they were enjoying the sunshine, too. I admired other people's Christmas decor and door decorations, and I drank some eggnog when I got back. I'm thinking about making another of those flower bows, but the first one was kind of small, so next time I'm going to use a saucepan to trace an outline instead of a mug.

That's about all I can suggest on mythologically sensitive ways to celebrate the season. Stay warm (with sweaters as opposed to a high thermostat setting), get outside as appropriate, maintain good hydration, be festive, and eat cookies. I've already mentioned that I like to mix holiday tunes with other music to keep everything fresh. I know people who can start with Christmas music full blast on December 1st and keep it going all through the month, but I like to sprinkle it around a bit as opposed to pouring it on.

If you're curious, I will tell you that I'm a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas songs. I like a lot of the crooners of my parents' generation, and I love those records that have a variety of artists on them. I have a few CDs that are sort of New Age- or World Music-inspired, and I have one with traditional songs done by (in some cases) non-traditional artists whose interpretations have a little bit of what I would call "edge"; those are interesting, and they get some rotation. But my favorites are in many instances "throwbacks" or people whose style hearkens back to what I might call a less cynical age.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone's reading this and thinking, "Oh, I like that kind of music, too, but if I showed up at someone's holiday party with a CD like that, they'd make fun of me! Everybody's so deconstructionist these days." Here's what you do: Just say, "Dang, I'm sorry, I left my Tom Waits hipster downer Christmas CD at home, but what I do have here is Michael Bublé." And be sure you turn it up . . . he and Thalia really rock Feliz Navidad, and everybody will be better for it. Sabe?

Deck the Halls Right

Well, my decorations are up, and there were no casualties except for some stray Styrofoam bits that had to be corralled. Unlike most of the other holidays, Christmas is one for which I do have a certain amount of decor, including lights, gingerbread houses, and snow globes. I even put my Christmas bulb nightlight up in the bathroom, and because I came across my snowflake throw pillow while looking for something else, even the bedroom got dressed up a little.

Before I put the tree up, I started thinking about decorations I thought I remembered owning but hadn't seen in a long time. For instance, did I or did I not at one time have a Neapolitan papier-mache angel that I bought from the Smithsonian catalog? I knew I remembered a white-robed angel tree topper that always sat a little awkwardly on the tree, but I thought perhaps I had thrown it away. Getting down the decorations is always a bit of a job, since they're packed away on closet shelves amidst shoe boxes and whatnot, but I decided to search as best I could to see if I could find any stray angels, though I had a feeling both were long gone, that the Neapolitan might have gotten broken, and the white angel might have fallen victim to a lack of space.

I didn't come across either of them, which seemed a shame, because I was in the mood to do something a little different with the top of the tree, but it didn't matter in the end. Once all the branches were laden, I had to admit that the silver butterfly sets off the other decorations nicely and is elegant without being overwhelming. I set up my Nativity scene, put a pine-scented candle out, and spent some time figuring out where to place the bric-a-brac around the room. It was fun afterward to sit down and admire everything with a cup of hot tea while some low-key Christmas music played on the stereo. (I purposely mix holiday CDs with non-seasonal music to keep from getting Christmas Carol Overload.)

I wasn't in a hurry to decorate because--as I think I've mentioned before--I've started leaving the tree up longer, usually throughout the month of January. After all, what else is it for but to add sparkle and cheer to winter nights, and why limit the fun to a few weeks around Christmas? Growing up, I always liked live trees, but as an adult I discovered the hassles involved in setting one up, keeping it fresh, and getting the decorations to stay on, so I'm living pretty happily with an artificial tree that's just the right size for the living room. And I'm glad I thought of the candle, because the scent of pine is the real smell of Christmas to me.

Now that the halls are decked, it's started to feel like the holidays have officially begun. I was in the store today and was pretty focused on remembering what I needed to get (well, I didn't actually need Ghirardelli chocolate, but after all, it's Christmas). I was surprised to see that the store had so few turkeys in the case, but I improvised and bought another brand. It never hurts to try something new. I read an article the other day that bemoaned how unhealthy eggnog is, but it was always a part of Christmas while I was growing up, and I figured a small carton couldn't hurt; you just want a taste of it anyway--you're not going to take a bath in it.

You would have seen me frowning over turkeys, circling the display of Lindt and Ghirardelli with a laser-like focus, and muttering, "There's no egg in this eggnog" while standing in front of the dairy case. I was startled out of preoccupation when someone passed me in a beautiful red coat that was somehow the exact color of Christmas and must have stirred some pleasant association that I can't quite place, because for a few seconds I felt like a kid again, watching from the crowd while my brother sang Christmas songs with his class at the mall and the air was alight with fun and Christmas magic. If I could have that feeling while shopping at the local grocery, there really must be such a thing as Christmas miracles.

Wonders never cease. And I've got eggnog, too (the kind with eggs).

Wordplay Answers Your Questions

"No question is too small."

Q. Am I imagining it, or are people in a more anxious mood these days? I notice that people around me seem antsier than usual. Could this reflect some type of archetypal shift, and if so, what does it portend? Signed, Just Wondering.

A. Wondering, I, too, have noticed an uptick in anxiety, although I'm not experiencing it myself. I think it's best to avoid being beset by other people's panic unless there is actual, demonstrable need (i.e., the house is on fire). As for archetypal shifts, I don't know about that. If you want to know what's bothering people, you'll have to ask them.

Q. As an aid to active imagination and to further my goal of self-actualization, I have acquired a spirit animal. I don't want to tell you what it is because I'm afraid that would cause a power diminishment and a breach of the psychic protection it affords me; however, it is a mammal. You may think it's silly, but channeling my spirit animal makes me feel stronger and more assertive, but for some reason, it doesn't work well under certain circumstances, such as when people around me are using cell phones or laptops. Can electronic devices interfere with spirit animals? Signed, Short But Stout.

A. Short But Stout, I doubt that electronics can interfere with spirit animals. I think your problem is one of scale: next time, channel a T Rex.

Q. I understand one of your sidelines is baking. My question has two parts: 1. Do you think about the mythic dimensions of what you're doing as you're baking? 2. My biscuits are tough. Do you have any advice for how I can improve them? Signed, Aspiring Boulanger.

A. Aspiring, when I bake, I usually think about what I'm doing, because if my mind wanders, I make mistakes. As for your biscuits, try spooning your flour into the measuring cup. And make sure your butter is cold when you blend it in.

Q. I have a problem with people who invade my space. For instance, I was studying in the library recently when someone sitting next to me kept bumping into my things and hanging on my shoulder while talking into her cell phone. You'd have thought we were good friends from the way she was acting, but I didn't know her. What should I do? Signed, Nymph in Distress.

A. Nymph, did you try kicking her?

Q. What?

A. Kick her. When someone assumes an attitude of intimacy that I do not share, I always try to let them know, for their benefit as well as mine. You don't have to kick her hard.

Q. I can't believe you said that.

A. Life is not a cotillion, Nymph.

Q. I have been invited to the White House to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I am so excited by the honor and have been told that I might be asked to say a few words about what has inspired me in my life's work. You are actually one of my main inspirations, and I wonder if you can point me to a text that might supply some helpful mythic context for the occasion? Signed, Humble Yet Proud.

A. Dear Humble, I cannot help you, because if someone came to me talking about a Presidential Medal of Freedom or such claptrap as that, I would probably chase them off with a stick.

Q. You're not supposed to say things like that!

A. Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you wanted an honest answer.

Q. I have trouble meeting people and have been told that social skills are merely a question of practice. You seem so, I don't know, poised, and I know this is off the topic of mythology, but could you tell me what opening lines you use when you first meet people. It would help me so much. Signed, Wallflower.

A. Wallflower, the opening line I use most often is "Who the F are you?"

Q. I don't think you really mean that.

A. I do, though. And it doesn't have to be said out loud, although it can be.

Q. Well, you're just mean, aren't you?

A. Yes, I am.

Q. I got a splinter in my hand that I can't get out with tweezers. Can you suggest a remedy? Signed, Sore Finger.

A. Sore, good, I'm glad somebody asked that. I recently had the same problem and in researching the issue, discovered that some people swear by a paste made of baking soda and water covered with a bandage. However, I never got to try it since my splinter came out while I was doing the dishes. I don't know if it works or not.

Q. I was recently invited to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen. I know they have rules of protocol, but beyond that, are there any particular colors that you think would be appropriate for an Athena-inspired female trying to combine Demeter qualities with a Zeus inflection? Signed, Wardrobe Challenged.

A. Wardrobe, you're trying to cause trouble, aren't you?

Q. Sometimes I feel like people are talking about me, even people I don't know, like celebrities on TV. I sometimes feel that someone has literally been looking over my shoulder and spying on me. I never used to feel this way. You won't believe this, but I know I'm in full possession of my faculties, so I suspect something strange is going on. Do you think this could be some type of government program? One hears so much about government overreach these days.

A. How long have you been feeling this way?

Q. I don't want a diagnosis, I only want to know what god or goddess might be present in all of this.

A. Is it just TV, or is it on the radio, too?

Q. You're not helping me at all. I just want to know what archetype--

A. Are you hearing voices, too?

Q. Stop it! I'm going to ask Oprah instead.

A. Wait, I have a bachelor's in psychology! I can help you!

Essay on Color

I've been watching the news this week with interest, as I usually do, albeit it has been more entertaining than usual, with all the comings and goings at Trump Tower. Some people have been highly critical of the president-elect for creating such a spectacle with his pre-presidential planning and Cabinet interviews, but I've got to say that I personally have found it riveting. I don't mind a little flair, if that is someone's style, despite my own preference for low drama.

Before you remonstrate, I just want to point out that we've had any number of presidents-elect who've conducted their planning with absolutely complete fidelity to decorum who turned out to be duds once they actually inhabited the White House. So my thinking is, might not the reverse also be true: couldn't someone who colors outside the lines in the beginning (and possibly throughout) have more to offer than it appears? I don't know if this is the case, but I hope it is. I do know that I was laughing about reports that Mr. Trump spent Thanksgiving weekend asking people who they thought should be secretary of state. If that's not a true story, it ought to be.

In the face of all the hand-wringing, prognostications of disaster, CNN anchors practically in tears, and at least one Democratic senator having a conniption over a Trump advisor, I suppose you think the least I can do is offer some sort of mythic interpretation that helps make sense of the unfamiliar landscape we're in. The story that comes most vividly to mind with Mr. Trump is a Yoruba tale about Eshu, the divine trickster, who brought two neighbors to fisticuffs by walking between their fields wearing a vari-colored cap that looked different depending on which side you viewed it from. When the neighbors started fighting about the color of the cap, Eshu made sure to walk past them again going the opposite way, just to maximize confusion and ensure that they were hopping mad. *

You may be thinking, yes, well, it's always been obvious that Mr. Trump is a trickster, and we'll all be the worse for it. That may be, but Eshu, at least, is a character with a purpose: he creates discord in order to tear away the surface appearance of things and let the light of the divine shine through. Whether Mr. Trump has any similar designs or not is something we'll have to wait and see. You probably find the notion laughable, but I'm not altogether sure what he intends.

Since I've been a letdown to you on the Stop Trump front, maybe now you'll let me get on to what I really want to write about, which is what a glorious day it was today. Since we went back to Eastern Standard Time, I've been rearranging my days to get the full benefit of daylight as winter approaches. I went out for a walk in the middle of the afternoon one day last week and was stunned at how beautiful the light was. In this season and at that particular hour, it was so cool and clear that it looked like morning light.

Since then, I've been going out at various times and have seen the light at different angles. This afternoon it was like a holiday just to be out in the sun, to watch all those puffy clouds adrift in cerulean blue and to consider the colors of the trees, gone now to a more somber end of the spectrum in most cases but still stunning, with bursts of bright red and yellow punctuating the browns and russets. It's as if you got to the crayon box and someone had taken out the popular colors, the aquas and the violets and the hot pinks, and you were left with the burnt siennas, the ochers, and the chartreuses. If you stop and look, though, it's wonderful how well they look all mixed up together against a blue sky.

I thought a few weeks ago that it would be hard to beat the late afternoon light hitting the tops of the trees and turning them to flame at sunset, but taking walks at different times of the day has been a revelation. I've noticed a pair of trees that I've passed thousands of times without ever appreciating the unusual shade of red they exhibit, something that is only apparent in stronger light. I thought about it today and realized that it's like the color of ripe summer fruit, like fresh strawberries, a bit incongruous for December, maybe, but that's what it looks like. When the sun goes behind a cloud, the light goes flat and you don't see the colors at their best advantage. Being on foot, as opposed to driving by, also helps you slow down enough to appreciate the subtle beauty of the late fall to early winter transition.

I startled two robins down by the creek today and watched them flutter off. I passed maples and oaks, evergreens and hollies, magnolias and ginkgos and numerous others. I heard the wind in the leaves and spotted many nests in partially bare branches. I enjoyed the crisp air. I thought about the old saying, "In December, keep yourself warm and sleep." There's some wisdom to this, but there's also something to be gained by going out to meet the day, especially when it's as beautiful as today was. A little Vitamin D is never amiss, and you can always have hot chocolate afterward.

* (Source: "Legba and Eshu: Writers of Destiny" in Robert D. Pelton's The Trickster in West Africa: A Study of Mythic Irony and Sacred Delight)

Thanksgiving Unfolds

Thanksgiving is such a family-oriented holiday that I'll bet a lot of people can't imagine spending it alone. I've spent it both ways, and while it's great to be with other people, there are compensations to going solo that you may not have thought of. You can set the menu and have only the things you like; you can decide on the spur of the moment to have dinner in the evening, by candlelight, instead of in the afternoon; and there's no pressure to have everything done properly or on schedule. Someone seemed surprised the other day when I said I always cook on Thanksgiving, rain or shine, but to me that's the only part that's non-negotiable. Thanksgiving is about eating.

My holiday today unfolded in a leisurely way, though the menu was pre-planned and I had already been shopping. I made my pie last night, and again this year, I went with something I haven't had before. I have a recipe for something called "Colonial Innkeeper's Pie" that sounded like it would stand up to a few days in the refrigerator (something you have to think about if you're the only one eating it). It was a little more labor-intensive than just mixing up custard or fruit filling and putting it in a crust, but in a fun way. I was unsure what it would taste like, but any recipe that includes "And then pour chocolate over everything" as one of the final steps is bound to be worth the time.

If I'd thought about it, I would have made a pitcher of iced tea last night, but I got sidetracked by an impromptu oven cleaning session once the pie was baked. No problem. I made cranberry relish this afternoon and then made the tea while the relish was cooling on the stove. I even got a walk in after that, and it was pleasant in a mild, damp sort of way. Not many people out, but there were drifting leaves and birds singing here and there and all those autumn colors. Once I got back, I put the turkey in and started slicing potatoes and getting the other side dishes ready. About halfway through the turkey cooking time, I put the potatoes in the oven so that they and the turkey would be finished at the same time. That's about it except for setting the table and lighting the candles.

By now you're probably asleep, but believe me, if I could make it sound more exciting, I would. I'm sure nobody wants to talk about politics, and I heard that people who were planning family visits were coming up with strategies to avoid such discussions today in light of the contentious election season we've had. I'm with them on that. I neither read nor listened to any news today other than looking at a few headlines a little while ago after getting online. I thought about how to season the turkey, what to add to the dressing, and whether to have lima beans or peas, and that was it. I wasn't in a hurry but had things planned in my mind, and it all turned out well.

Well, you may be wondering, did you at least have any kind of a theme going, since you're a mythologist? The truth is, no, I didn't. I don't even have any Thanksgiving decor to speak of, except for a single glass goblet with autumn leaves on it that I used for my iced tea. I thought about hauling out my ceramic Halloween pumpkin and turning it backwards, but that hardly seemed worth the time; I considered gathering some autumn leaves and putting them in a vase, but it was too damp out. I do cook my turkey in a clay pot that kind of resembles something that might be found in the ruins of Pompeii and adds a slightly incongruous note to a Pilgrim meal, but that's about it. I hauled a small art glass lamp into the kitchen to supplement the candlelight and put on some quiet music, including a CD of medieval banquet music by the Newberry Consort.

You're wondering now about the pie. Well, it was very good, though different from what I was expecting, being more like a cake in a pie crust than a traditional pie. It was unusual and quite delicious--as was everything. I'm not sure if it's really similar to something a colonial innkeeper would have served; I tend to think chocolate may have been a luxury in those days and not something an innkeeper would have used as a matter of course, but I could be wrong. I'm not sure how much my meal resembled something the colonists would have eaten in any respect, but it doesn't matter. Enjoying what you have is what matters.

I did the dishes in stages, am still enjoying some music on the stereo, and have put my leftovers away. Not a single political argument to be had, I didn't have to watch football on TV, and no one offended me by not eating enough. That's it for Thanksgiving on my end, and I wish all you Pilgrims out there a happy holiday, wherever you may be.

What's Hubris Again?

Here in post-election America, life goes on, as it usually does, and Starbucks is filled with just as many earnest conversations conducted at ear-splitting levels as it was before. I don't know what compels people to believe that what they have to say is So Vitally Important as to override the rules of common civility, but there it is: that's what ear plugs are for. I've made liberal use of mine lately.

Even with all the hubbub at the coffeehouse this afternoon, I finished the book I was reading, Thomas Moore's The Soul's Religion, which I've been reading off and on for a while now. One of the book's themes is the author's idea of the importance of bringing religion and secular life together--not in the sense of imbuing society with the trappings of any particular faith but by way of encouraging people to cultivate a sense of connection to "all of life" through ordinary, purposeful living. In other words, the way to the sacred lies in everyday life.

Mr. Moore describes his complex relationship to Catholicism and his sense that organized religion best serves as a backup to a profoundly individual exploration of soul and spirituality. He touches several times on the point that institutions dedicated to serving people's spiritual needs are no more immune to hubris and misuse than any other endeavor; in fact, they have their own particular problems with overreach and abuse of power. I think Mr. Moore has more faith than I do in the positive effects of shared, communal religion, but he clearly sees the connection between over-reliance on authority and loss of authenticity and self-determination. He points out the special hazards that passive submission to institutional agents, strictures, and systems of belief can bring--spiritual leaders have their own brand of bullying that relies on people's faith to take advantage of them.

This discussion of the need to question the motives, methods, and effects of religious authority is important. I think it extends to all institutions, whether they are political, educational, medical, governmental, financial, or otherwise. Believing that matters affecting you are too complex for you to understand and that therefore someone else must know better is giving someone else too much power. Our society is set up to require participation from citizens. The ability to even form an opinion in the first place requires you to stay informed at at least a minimal level.

It may seem ironic that having said all this (and actually believing it), I was unable to pick a presidential candidate in this year's election, but not making a choice is also a decision. I'm familiar with the idea that it's often necessary to hold your nose and push one button or the other, but I have more sympathy now with the notion of withholding support as also being a powerful choice. Being uncommitted at the polls in no way negates the other citizen obligations of staying informed and holding those in power accountable.

I tend to distrust institutions, despite knowing that they're necessary and can accomplish good things. Big institutions accrue power, and power corrupts, as Lord Acton has told us. I'm often sorry to see someone I admire throw their hat into presidential politics because I think it takes an exceptional person to resist the temptations of the office (the same thing is true of all positions of high authority, of course, from senators to Cabinet officials). I think our system of government is a pretty good one, but as our country has grown from a young upstart into the most powerful nation in the world, the power it wields has grown exponentially, and the need to find the best people we can to wield that power is more important than it ever was. Not that we always succeed, or should expect that we will.

To go back to Mr. Moore's discussion of the Church, it's instructive to consider how a movement that began so simply, with one man who influenced others profoundly with his teachings, has grown into a huge hierarchy of enormous wealth, tremendous spiritual authority, and great temporal power. People will argue that such a structure is necessary to administer the Church's activities around the world, and that may be, but I'm always struck by the profound difference between what it started out to be and what it is now. There's something in the enormity of the institution that seems to work against the simplicity of the original teachings. If it essentially boils down to "Do Unto Others," then what's all the pomp and circumstance for?

Likewise, our government: It's "We, the people," right? I understand that we give symbolic weight to the rituals, procedures, ceremonies, buildings, and other accoutrements of our governmental institutions because they represent our society's important ideals, and I'm OK with that. A great idea like democratic society deserves a good display. But the display is never more important than the thing itself, and institutions that don't serve their purpose shouldn't be respected just because they wear the face of respectability. Are they living up to their ideals, more or less? That's all I want to know.

Speaking for myself, it's a relief to be done with robocalls, yard signs, and opinion masquerading as news (actually, I guess we're never free of that). The outcome has resulted in protests and a renewed discussion of the Electoral College, which is all to the good. The election itself was only the beginning of something new, and it ushered in at least one significant change: the president-elect has never held political office, and although he has headed a powerful organization, he's coming from the world of business (and entertainment), not the world of government. Many people have been wanting a change like this for a long time, even if Mr. Trump wouldn't have been their first choice, and it will be interesting to see how a business leader takes on the office of president. One thing you can say about Mr. Trump: he knows how to take center stage.

After the Deluge

I'm writing a short post this week, because the only possible topic is the just-concluded presidential election, and I don't really want to write about it. A lot of people are still sorting through recent events, and I include myself in that number. After following the election closely for many months and reading news from a variety of different sources, trying hard to assess all the candidates, I found I was no more able to make a choice on Tuesday than I would have been a year and a half ago. I considered and re-considered Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump from many angles and decided in the end to refrain from voting; that is, I did vote, but it was only to turn in a blank ballot.

I know that adherents of both candidates have strong feelings about their party's standard-bearer; judging from the popular vote, about half of Americans are feeling very relieved and the other half very anxious right now. I have been quite critical of Mrs. Clinton in the past and found in the end that I still could not get past the trust issues I had with her. With Mr. Trump, I have been alternately bemused, bewildered, and annoyed, never able to decide for sure what his motivations might be but feeling that there was more to the situation than met the eye. To this date, I still don't have any answers to the riddle of Mr. Trump.

No theologian could have sorted--with a fine-tooth comb--the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin with more attention than I've paid to the political news. I made tentative assumptions, some of which were unorthodox, about nearly all of the candidates, or at least the major ones. I found that in some cases, while people seemed to be saying all the right things, I doubted their sincerity; in other cases, where I disagreed with people's positions, I liked them better as people. Apparently, this puts me in approximately the same situation as many other Americans, who either crossed party lines or voted reluctantly for one person simply because they disliked someone else much more.

I congratulate everyone who was able to make a choice; you're one up on me. I found that no matter how much I tried to account for the filters through which I was viewing information, I still couldn't come to a definite conclusion. The only thing I'm sure of is that a certain amount of skepticism is a healthy thing, even if you do manage to make a choice. I'm not saying that not making a choice is better. Obviously, someone has to be elected. Everyone, however, has to vote his or her conscience, and mine simply would not let me land on either side.

Candy Corn Tea Candle

So Halloween has come and gone already, along with All Saints' and All Souls' days. Last year, I wrote about my perception that Halloween is largely centered on children in the United States and that adults, unless they like costume parties, are mostly relegated to the sidelines. Now, you may be thinking, "Well, she doesn't have kids, but she does have a mythology degree, so she probably does something spectacular like research hauntings or attend storytelling sessions in graveyards."

Here's what I actually did: I spent this Halloween much as I normally do, with maybe a tiny bit more flair. I'd been having so much fun with Halloween baking that I was inspired to decorate, too, which consisted of hunting down the little ceramic jack o'lantern I have in my kitchen cabinet and installing in it a candy corn-scented tea candle (bought on sale for 50 cents at the grocery store, and a bargain, too, because it still hasn't burned out).

The biggest quandary that night concerned my evening walk. It was a mild, summery day, and I was torn between a wish to soak up some late afternoon sun and an interest in waiting a little later to see the neighborhood's Halloween lights to better advantage. I ended up going earlier rather than later, deciding it was better to leave the sidewalks to the trick-or-treaters who would probably be emerging around six o'clock. As it was, I encountered one early group of tots in full regalia shepherded by several adults, which brought back memories of how much fun I had at that age. While I'm sure I wasn't having as exciting a time as they were, I was pretty happy just to be walking around on such a splendid evening, under a golden sky and trees on fire with yellow and orange leaves.

Then I had monkey bread for dinner. This is an autumnal delicacy that consists of sausage, cooked apples, cheddar cheese, and diced-up biscuit dough all tumbled together; it reminds me of a party appetizer a friend used to make, except that it's a main dish (I had vegetables, too, like a responsible adult). After dinner, I took a glass of milk and a plate of cookies to the living room, lit the tea candle, and turned on the stereo. I don't have any Halloween music, but I mixed some classical and folk music together. I have Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and I have Tchaikovsky, and though the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture has nothing to do with Halloween, it's passionate and fiery and seemed to set the right tone. I also lit a candle in my metal candle holder with the crescent moon and star cutouts (bought years ago in a North Carolina mountain town). I have a few battery-operated candles, too, and turned some of those on so that I was sitting partly in lamplight and partly in candlelight. When the music was finished, I went to bed.

All in all, it was a pleasant evening. If you're wondering where the extra flair came in, I would say it was probably in even thinking to put candles out and in trying for a little atmospheric music, in small touches of Halloween spirit rather than in trying to go all out. As an adult, I've been to costume parties and corn mazes and even to a haunted house (once, in college). I have never found that any of those activities measured up to the fun of Halloween in childhood, so I'm content to leave the field to the kids. As long as they're happy, I'm happy.

Idylls and Loss

I spent this last week reading Richard Llewellyn's novel, How Green Was My Valley. I seem to remember it being included on a reading list in one of my high school English classes, but I was never drawn to it. The title seemed to suggest a certain degree of sentimentality, and indeed "sentimentalizing" is one of the charges laid against it, along with misrepresentation of Welsh life and an insular outlook on certain topics. What I think it does most memorably is present a portrait of a close-knit family, and that was what sustained my interest. Regardless of any of its shortcomings, I wanted to find out what would happen to the people.

This is an instance of a book that doesn't deal overtly with mythological characters but has at its center a mythic theme, the loss of paradise. The narrator mentions Adam and Eve and the expulsion from the garden several times, seeing in that story the source and foreshadowing of his own early experiences with sexuality. This narrator, Huw Morgan, the youngest son in a family of nine children, recognizes the loss of innocence that comes with the first fumbling knowledge of adulthood, but the entire novel is preoccupied with the archetype of loss.

From repeated descriptions of the ways in which the valley's beauty is being eroded by growing slag heaps to the narrator's experience of adulthood not being quite what he had bargained for to the eventual parting of the ways of family members, the novel is full of reminders of an original state of grace that can't be sustained. Early in the story, various family members, particularly the boys, leave home only to return, or if they go for good, don't go far, perhaps to the next valley or the farm over the mountain. When several of the boys, at odds with their father over their views on unionizing, leave the house to take lodgings down the road (followed by their younger sister), the episode becomes a poignant illustration of the mother's role in holding the family together. Eventually, though, forces of change in the valley, along with the characters' own inner callings, break up the idyllic home life.

Much of the novel is taken up with accounts of Huw's education, both at home and at school. The family has high hopes for the future of their intellectually gifted youngest son, and there is an assumption that he will eventually win a scholarship and go off to university. I have to admit to feeling disappointed in Huw when he decided to follow his father into the colliery. While various family members and friends try to dissuade Huw from becoming a miner, his mother is all in favor of keeping him at home. At that point, I confess, the warm family life started to feel a bit claustrophobic, despite my liking for the characters. My assumption (which would be shared by most readers, I think) was that Huw would leave home to become something else and return as a teacher, a doctor, or a man of letters. But even his fateful decision does not stave off the changes that economic forces, disappointed love, and death eventually bring to the family.

Is the novel a tragedy? Yes, probably, but only in the same way all family stories are. The novel made me think about a conversation I had with my aunt about how connected our family used to seem when my grandparents were still alive and how far apart everyone has grown since then (I'm not talking about an idyllic family, just one that got together regularly). She told me that the death of parents had the power to change relationships among even the closest siblings, something I wasn't quite sure I agreed with. The story of the Morgans, however, illustrates ways in which separation is inevitable and possibly even desirable. Whether the Morgan children leave the valley to pursue their dreams, find their fortunes, or merely to flee thwarted hopes, they're now in a position to begin new stories of their own.

Huw acknowledges that his brothers were right to leave the valley before tensions among the miners intensified, tensions in which they would undoubtedly have been caught up had they remained. Perhaps the breaking of family ties provides some insulation for those who have begun to build new lives elsewhere. Or perhaps not--for a family as close as the Morgans, there would be no forgetting their early happiness, especially if their later lives proved disappointing. About individual fates, however, the end of the novel is largely silent.

I have wondered sometimes whether or not an idyllic family life, if there is such a thing, is an advantage or a disadvantage. Sometimes it seems to me that having a less-than-ideal home life might actually be helpful in some ways, making the inevitable break with home easier. Perhaps most people, regardless of the kind of family life they've had, are happy to leave home when their time comes, and the Morgans are an exception. I've never known a family quite like them, though certain aspects of their story seemed familiar. I remember big family meals, with everyone crowded around the table, and good food.

Aside from that, I'd still like to see Wales, regardless of whether there are any Morgans there or not. Apparently, it is still quite green and is still fertile ground for myths and legends of all kinds, as it has been for centuries.

File This One Under "Hestia"

Have you ever asked yourself: I wonder what a mytho-writer does in her spare time? Well, I can answer that. There's not that much going on this week, except that I have been having lots of fun with my Halloween cookie pan. For the last few years, I've made gingerbread at Halloween, but this year, I wanted something different. Just as I got tired of pumpkin pie a few years ago, I've grown a little weary of gingerbread cookies after enjoying them for several years. As an alternative, I hunted around on the Internet for a ginger snap recipe and recently found one that sounded like it would work in my cookie pan.

The recipe I decided on calls for freshly cracked black pepper, which I think is probably the key ingredient in giving the cookies the right amount of heat. They were nice and crunchy, too. Oh, I parceled them out over a period of days, but I finally finished them off last night, and since today was rainy and cool, I decided more cookie-making was in order. Tonight, I mixed up a batch of Chocolate Sweet Hearts (described here, in rapturous tones, in a previous post) and pressed it gently into my Halloween molds; I'm happy to say the cookies came out lovely without benefit of cooking spray. They popped out of that pan chocolate-y and perfect as you please, cheerful little ghosties and haunted houses and bats, and were just great as an after-dinner treat with milk (as were the ginger snaps). I have been excited to discover that I can do without cooking spray, as that is one less thing to buy (a frugal baker is a happy baker).

Other than that, I braved the rain to take the trash out and check the mail (I told you not much was going on). For that, I had to put on my rain cape, which hasn't gotten much use this year. For a long time, I kept forgetting it was reversible, but tonight, in honor of the season, I turned it inside out so that the black was showing on the outside and the red became an accent visible only inside the hood. It occurred to me that it might do as a witch's cape if I needed a Halloween costume, but since I don't plan to dress up, I'll just have to be on the lookout for rainy days. If you see me coming in it, don't worry (or if to worry, not to worry unduly, as Katharine Hepburn's assistant used to say). If I have any magic, it's mostly the little domestic type that helps out in the kitchen and on cleaning days.

I will also admit to getting a kick this afternoon out of a photo feature I saw on the Internet of various pets dressed up in Halloween costumes. It looked like some of them had submitted to it more graciously than others, and some of the outfits were a little cringe-worthy (like the "dog-being-eaten by an alligator" costume), but it was all in good fun, I think. A week or two ago, I saw another photo essay of the type that usually appears around this time of year, candid photos of groups of people taken as they passed through a haunted house attraction. One feels more inclined to laugh at grown-up people looking really, really silly than at little animals looking bored, so I did, I laughed until I almost fell off the couch. The pictures were that good. (If I were goofy enough to go through a haunted house, I'm sure I'd look silly, too.)

Well, getting back to the cookies--today's Chocolate Ghoulies won't last forever, so I'll probably end up getting out the pan for another batch of something before Halloween. I don't know whether it will be ginger snaps again, or chocolate chip shortbread, or something else, but I've got all the molasses and cocoa and brown sugar and eggs I need and am pretty much ready for anything with a reasonable ratio of fat and calories to deliciousness. You may be thinking, gosh, you must be popular in your building, with all those good baking smells. Do you ever give any of those cookies away? 

Well, bless your heart! Where have you been? The answer is no, of course not. Are you kidding me? Neighbors like these, and you think I'd be giving them cookies? A kick in the pants, maybe, but never cookies. If you'd like to take them under your wing, you're more than welcome to pick up the lot and cart them off. It would improve the surroundings immensely. I'm too busy looking for recipes that don't use shortening, considering pie options, and trying to keep my apartment clean. And treating the occasional water stain, of course.

The Soul and Three Cities

Last night, I picked up a book I've had for a while on psyche and the life of cities. I read two or three chapters some time ago and laid it aside; last night it happened to be sitting in a pile of books near at hand when I was looking for something to read. I started with the chapter on San Francisco, which I apparently hadn't gotten to before, since none of it seemed familiar. I picked the chapter out of curiosity, since I've visited the city a number of times and wanted to see what the author, a long-time resident and psychoanalyst, had to say about it.

A recent incident helped prompt my curiosity. I sometimes look at apartments and places to live in other cities, just for fun; I like to see how much things cost and to consider possibilities. I rarely look at San Francisco, but one night, in an idle moment, I did a search for apartments in an area of the city that I rather like. I did the search, pulled up some results, and looked at a couple of apartments; I was looking at one with a lovely view of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge when I was hit by a feeling of claustrophobia that nearly amounted to revulsion. I had the sudden conviction that I couldn't see myself ever living in San Francisco, and the strange thing was how strong the feeling was.

The author of the San Francisco essay confirmed my feeling rather than dissuading me from it, despite the fact that he obviously loves his city. His essay suggested to me that it might be hard to feel grounded in San Francisco, that the distance between people in that city of people in pursuit of themselves could make meaningful connections difficult. The writer describes an unusually high degree of self-preoccupation there, not that this is necessarily a bad thing. It may be unavoidable for the people who are drawn to live there, since the city's famous openness, as he tells it, almost demands that residents make a project of their individuality. It left me feeling, though, that San Francisco might be quite a lonely place, and a tenuous one, too.

I agree with the author that San Francisco is lovely to visit and has great physical charm; I also agree with his observation that the city probably doesn't reveal its inner life readily to a visitor. You could go to San Francisco for a week or 10 days and enjoy every minute of it as a tourist, but what you're seeing tells you very little about what it would be like to live there. This is true to some degree of most places, I think, but perhaps even more so of San Francisco. The author attributes this to a high degree of introversion among its residents, something a casual visitor wouldn't be likely to notice.

After the San Francisco chapter, I turned to the section on London, another city I have spent time in. It was, oddly, rather a relief to turn to this chapter, though the author's designation of the color red as the city's signature color, a provocative idea to start with, got to the heart of something I noticed when I was there. One of the fascinating things about London, as he points out, is the way its long history is layered so visibly in its buildings, layout, monuments, and place names. He pointed to the double nature of the color red, emblematic of life and vitality but also of death, a reminder of the many centuries of struggle and upheaval the city has endured.

I remember my long-ago first visit to London's Westminster Hall and the almost physical feeling of the weight of years that hit me while I was standing inside. I'd never had a sensation like that before, a feeling of being buried under layers of history, as if all the events that had ever taken place were still present in the room. It wasn't a pleasant feeling and was actually rather frightening, though that was the only time I really experienced it that way. As I got used to finding my way around, I was increasingly fascinated by the way pieces of the past were embedded in the present, sometimes subtly, so that you had to know they were there--a piece of Roman wall visible through the window of a basement, for instance, if you bent your head and looked.

After reading the London chapter last night, I found myself thinking: if I had to choose whether to spend six months in San Francisco or six months in London, which would it be? London appealed to me more. Somehow, London seems more definite and less ghostly to me than San Francisco does, strange though it may seem to say it. Even as an American, I think I could find my way around London more easily than I could around the Bay Area, which says more about me, of course, than it does about the merits of either place. I'm not saying the same thing would or should be true of anyone else.

This afternoon, I read the book's chapter on New York City, a place with which I have very little personal experience. I used to find the idea of New York positively overwhelming, but lately I've begun to feel that I wish I knew the city better. Maybe sometime I'll get the chance. In any event, I learned more about New York, its history, and its layout (which has always been a source of complete mystification to me) in just two hours than I've managed to pick up in decades of hearing about it and seeing it on television and in the movies. The author of the piece made no assumptions, as others sometimes do, about a reader's prior knowledge of the city, providing not only a pictorial overview but also a succinct summation of history and geography that helped give it shape in my mind.

I'm not sure why I've always been content to have such a pleasantly vague notion of New York, to hear about Central Park, Greenwich Village, the Hudson River, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and the Lower East Side without really having any idea of how they relate to one another. Curiosity finally seems to have kicked in, perhaps due in part to the many novels I've read in recent years that have managed to convey some sense of the city's allure, leading me to think that, while it's a tough place, it has its own magic. Why I have derived such a feeling for the city from reading fiction rather from seeing it in movies or on TV is a bit of a mystery. I do think that since 9/11, many Americans have developed a more protective feeling toward New York. The psychic wound created there still affects us all, and that may be another reason I feel drawn to the city.

After reading about New York, I posed myself another choice: "OK, what if you had to choose between San Francisco and New York?" A very interesting psychic exercise, to be sure, because there was a time I never would have said this (or even thought it), but New York appealed to me more. I wouldn't go so far as to say I can picture myself as a New Yorker, but if I had to choose a place for a longish visit, I'd pick New York. How strange that hard-edged, fast-paced New York should end up seeming more human to me than San Francisco, swathed in its fogs and soft hills, but that does seem to be the case. Again, this isn't a statement of absolute value but rather a reflection of a psychic shift on my part.

If you're interested in reading about the ways Jungian analysts describe the psychic life of their cities, the book I've been referring to is Psyche & the City: A Soul's Guide to the Modern Metropolis, edited by Thomas Singer. You may agree or disagree with the way a particular writer sees things, but Jungians are unusually sensitive to the inner life, distinctive rhythms, and peculiarities that give a place character, and this is reflected in their writing. Their intimate knowledge of the cities they live in may provide insight (or rebuttal) for experiences you've had as a visitor (or even as a resident) but couldn't quite explain. I'm still in shock over the way my psyche has rejected San Francisco (the home, after all, of Ghirardelli Chocolate--think about it!), but John Beebe's chapter on the city helped me to see some of the reasons why this may have happened.

Listening to the Road

This week, I finished Neil Gaiman's novel, American Gods, which I decided to re-read after a recent conversation with a friend about some of my travel experiences out west. In particular, I was trying to describe the oddly discomfiting experience of driving east on I-80 through Wyoming. She mentioned a friend who'd had a similar experience once, and the conversation then shifted to Mr. Gaiman's book, in which the main character undergoes many peculiar adventures in a series of road trips. One of the novel's conceits is that roadside attractions in America often disguise places of ancient power, places where people feel compelled to stop without knowing why.

In my case, the drive through Wyoming, a harsh landscape with (to my Eastern eyes, anyway) remarkably few people, was punctuated by road signs referring to a place called Little America, which seemed to be the Western version of Stuckey's, those gift shops (famous for peanut brittle) one used to encounter off the interstate on trips to Florida. I couldn't quite make out what Little America was known for, though it seemed to be a kind of inn. It may have been a trick of the winter light or tired eyes, but all the signs I saw were a bit on the oafish side, as if the advertising agency had a strange sense of humor. I later read on someone's blog that Little America is known for ice cream, admittedly not a big draw in winter.

When at last I came up to Little America, it was on the opposite side of the road, and--as happened frequently on my trip across Wyoming--there wasn't a person in sight, just a sort of sprawling building. I hurried past it, but that wasn't the only time that day that I passed some small town or other and wondered, "Where are all the people?" Often, these tiny burgs had the look of ghost towns or movie sets, a phenomenon that persisted across much of Colorado and Kansas. I stayed on the road rather than spend the night in any of these places--so I actually had the opposite experience from the tourists in Mr. Gaiman's book.

I wasn't really sure re-reading American Gods would give me insight into my experience, but I was mildly curious to see what Mr. Gaiman made of the American road trip. It's been many years since I first read American Gods, and I didn't remember it well. As it turns out, the book I read this time was not even the same book, not entirely, since Mr. Gaiman put out a revised author's preferred edition some time ago, and that's the one the library had. I'm not even sure where the differences are, though the preface mentions that the preferred edition is longer than the original. The experience of revisiting a familiar book after a long period of time to find it utterly changed is compounded in this case by the fact that the text actually has changed. So, that's one thing.

I remembered American Gods as being offbeat and strange but humorous; this time I found it much less funny. When I first read it, I hadn't yet made a formal study of mythology but was interested in any story that incorporated mythological characters. Mythology is quite trendy these days, but when I first read the book there didn't seem to be that many people doing it, or doing it well; I found American Gods to be wildly imaginative and original. I still think that, though I am somewhat surprised not to have realized back then that the genre of the book isn't really fantasy but rather horror. It's one of those stories that are hard to categorize, and I believe it has won major awards in several categories, but still--it's a horror story more than it's anything else.

The novel is complex and sprawling, with a large number of characters, and Mr. Gaiman seems to be doing several things at once. The protagonist, a man named Shadow, becomes entangled in the plot of a character called Wednesday (actually a god) to round up all the old gods of culture and religion, living in American under assumed names and disguises, for an epic confrontation with the new gods of media and technology. His ostensible purpose is not his true one, and Shadow realizes this in time to foil Wednesday's ultimate design, though his own life has in the meantime completely unraveled--due, it turns out, to Wednesday's machinations.

Much is made in the novel about America being "a bad place for gods," which is not perhaps surprising, since most of the gods in the story are transplants from other cultures, arriving here in the minds and hearts of immigrants from those lands and trying to make a go of it on foreign soil. One implication seems to be that American culture is too shallow to support them, that Americans are too taken up by television, pop culture, and other diversions to give proper consideration to the sacred. While recognizing that pervasive materialism is a fact of American life (though not the only fact), I'm much less convinced this time around that most of these gods deserve any pity. Their main raison d'etre is a constant need for attention and adoration, which becomes the excuse for all kinds of bloody-mindedness and cruelty. If we're supposed to think it's a tragedy that they've been diminished, I must say I came away with the opposite feeling.

Shadow is a curious kind of a hero. Though he ostensibly saves the day by averting the war between the old gods and the new, he takes the ruin of his own life with much less bitterness than you might expect. It's not clear in the end that he himself is still human . . . he seems to have gone at least partially over to the other side. He solves the mystery of what has been happening over the years to the children who have disappeared from the small Wisconsin town he settles in and in the process reveals the crusty town father to be just another murderous divinity in disguise. After so much death and destruction at the hands of these folks, you might think Shadow would be delighted to get away from them for good, but it's not entirely clear that he feels that way. It's a bit like Chaucer's narrator disavowing, at the very end, all the bawdy stories he's repeated in The Canterbury Tales. You suspect him of being disingenuous.

The name "Shadow" could be taken as an indicator that the character, largely unconscious of what is happening around him in the beginning, is much less so by the end of the story. It might be going too far to say that he's an "Everyman," standing in for the average American consumer who lives in a shallow, material world and grows in consciousness by getting in touch with the ancient powers both around him and within him--but there are some indications that this is the point. It's less clear what Shadow has actually accomplished. There are many images of suffering and death in the book, and much gruesomeness, and it all seems rather gratuitous after a while. I finished the book with the feeling that I had something on the bottom of my shoe that needed to be scraped off.

Mr. Gaiman mentions some roadside attractions that are apparently quite real, though Little America isn't one of them. There is a scene in which some mysterious characters temporarily imprison Shadow in a cell until he is freed by his wife, who's been turned into a zombie (don't ask if you don't want to know). When he escapes, he realizes he's been on a train parked in a remote area. Coincidentally, I noticed a freight train out in the wilds of Wyoming, the only thing moving in the whole landscape aside from the vehicles on the interstate, and wondered where it was going in all that remoteness. It might have been the train to nowhere and would easily have fit into Mr. Gaiman's story. The bleakness that adheres to many of Mr. Gaiman's locales matched what I saw through my car window, though I suspect my experience might have been different under different circumstances. If I ever revisit that area, I may try a Native American blessing--maybe that would frame things differently.

Next time I'm trying to put my own travels in perspective, I'll have to remember not to turn to a horror story. Things are bad enough without that. I feel sure there are other narratives out there, other ways to look at the land that neither sugarcoat the past or excuse it but allow us to see it for itself. If Mr. Gaiman's book is a map of a certain kind of journey, I feel sure it's not the only one available. It certainly isn't one I want to take.

Autumn Flow

This time last week, it was high summer; today, I dressed in light layers for the first time this season. Despite the change in the weather, we haven't seen much, if any, fall color as of yet--but I don't think there's any doubt that our long, hot summer has drawn to a close. I'm just easing into the cooler weather. After three or four months of days in the high 80s to low 90s, that's what you find yourself doing. I even, for goodness' sake, found myself thinking about what I'll have for Thanksgiving dinner this year, and normally that doesn't happen until a week or two prior to the event. You know it's been a hot summer when you start thinking about Thanksgiving pie (fruit pie? or custard?) before the end of September.

I've been reading novels again, too, as something about the transitional period has seemed to stimulate the imagination. I enjoy looking at websites with fall travel suggestions, and even though I'm not planning to take any of them, they're fun to read. Earlier today, I actually got excited about the possibility that it might be cool enough to wear cords (it was, though I didn't wear any). This week's presidential debate, which might seem guaranteed to stir up emotions and opinions, sturm und drang? I watched it, went to bed, and had very peaceful dreams, waking up feeling fine the next morning.

Yesterday afternoon was actually the first day that "felt" like fall, although the change has been in the air for a few days. I wore a light sweater over a summer turtleneck to the coffeehouse, and when I got there I decided on a hot drink rather than the iced ones I prefer in the summer. I had been thinking about how few opportunities I've had this year to watch it rain while lingering over a book, something I enjoy doing, and lo and behold, an afternoon rain settled in while I was there, giving me a chance to stare dreamily out the window. There aren't too many better ways to spend a rainy fall afternoon.

Today, believe it or not, I actually took pleasure in getting twill pants out of the drawer and looking through the closet for an appropriate top layer to go over a shirt. Since I was going out walking, I decided on a zip-up vest instead of a jacket, which turned out to be just the right amount of layering. It was a moody afternoon, with a lot of gray clouds and a little light breaking through intermittently, but it was ideal for a relaxed walk--and how pleasant to arrive back home fresh instead of in a lather, as I have been doing regularly since May. I found myself in tune with the day, the weather, and the surroundings, and it's nice when that happens.

May the rest of our autumn be as blessed as the beginning. Even for someone who doesn't mind the concept of "Endless Summer" in theory, the actuality of hot days persisting throughout October (as has happened before) is not comforting. As I told someone recently, I remember when you used to feel that discernible cooling in the air a lot closer to Labor Day. We missed it by a few weeks this year, but at least we didn't have to wait until Halloween for a break in the heat.

Mnemosyne and the City Block

By chance, I was in the vicinity of my old neighborhood the other day and decided to drive through. I frequently drive by it but very rarely through it, though when I lived in my last place, its streets were almost as familiar to me as the back of my hand. As often happens with the passage of time, I found that I now had a different feeling about it. What was once merely commonplace and familiar now had a heightened significance: the brief excursion was like a homecoming of sorts, in spite of the fact that I still live in the same general area. (You'd probably laugh if you knew how close my current place is to my last one, but sometimes even a small distance can make a big difference. It feels like a different world over here.)

So I drove through and noted something that shouldn't have surprised me but did, a little. The streets of modest bungalows mixed in with a few apartment buildings were mostly intact, but here and there houses had been torn down and replaced with what I take to be student housing, newer construction that doesn't match the look of the older brick dwellings and single-family homes of the neighborhood. I'm not certain if a person unfamiliar with the old look would be struck as much as I was by the patchwork quality of the neighborhood as it is now, but to me it was as if I had seen the handwriting on the wall. The neighborhood is changing--I wonder how much of it will even be there 20 years from now.

A eulogy is still somewhat premature, and I really have no say in what happens to a neighborhood I don't live in, so I'm strictly giving my personal reaction here--but it did make me sad. It's not the fact of change in itself but the way in which it seems to be tearing holes in the fabric of something that used to seem organic and of a piece. I used to walk those streets every day without thinking about them much, but after driving through the other night, I started thinking about Joni Mitchell's song "Big Yellow Taxi." It is indeed true that "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." Understand, we're not talking paradise here, but rather a very ordinary neighborhood . . . though I don't know, I guess it depends on how you define paradise.

I started to remember small things from the days when I was a familiar sight on those streets: the day in late April, finals nearly completed, when I suddenly noticed how gorgeous the dogwoods were at the end of one street. The flat-roofed home that I always thought looked like a Florida house, an anomaly in that neighborhood but a reminder of my childhood. The stretch of shady street overhung with trees that somehow gave the impression, for a quick half block, of a country lane, especially on a hot summer day. The house with the lamppost in the front yard that gave me a comfortable feeling, especially that night I was out walking with friends and the lamp was on when we passed by. I couldn't find it the other night and don't know if I just missed it or if it's been torn down.

After my detour through the neighborhood, I was in a thoughtful mood, thinking about things, people, and places that have passed through my life. In a strange miracle of timing, a friend from the old days called the next afternoon to say she was going to be in town. I told her about what had happened. We didn't spend a lot of time reminiscing, but the subject of how much time has passed did arise. She commented on how long ago it all seems, and I said that to me it feels like almost another lifetime. She herself, however, seemed unchanged, which was some consolation.

I was just writing about the inevitability of flux last week. If someone is going to put up a new building, I would rather they did it with some regard for aesthetics, but realistically speaking this isn't always going to happen. Nevertheless, places matter, as do trees, buildings, and homes. One realizes that paradise will occasionally be paved over, as Ms. Mitchell says, for a parking lot (or parking structure, in this case), and you're going to lose a lamppost here and there, and as long as some things remain constant, I guess it's not a total loss. Knowing that it won't always happen, I still wish, though, for some attention to things past and some respect for the spirit of place, something our society hasn't always been good at giving.

If we don't respect where we've been, how can we build something worth moving toward?

Innocence and Experience

You know, I think Heraclitus was right: we really don't step in the same river twice. I've certainly found this to be true of my relationship with authors and books. I know I've mentioned the way a book can seem different when you re-read it after many years, but I also find that a new work by an author I'm familiar with can elicit reactions I wouldn't have had the first time around. It's not always a matter of enjoying the work more or less (though sometimes it is); it's more a function of relating to it from a place of wider experience. It can mean you're more critical, or it can mean you're more deeply appreciative. It can also mean you miss being able to see things with "Beginner's Mind." (I'm not going to say that being more critical is always an improvement.)

It's a little like the experience of going back to a place you knew as a child--a school building, for instance--and finding that it looks so much smaller than you remembered it. In a certain sense, it is smaller, because you yourself have grown, but the apparent change is only the result of you getting taller. Objectively, the building's dimensions are unchanged.

Recently, I managed to get hold of the edition of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table that I remembered from my childhood and had been searching for for years.  Trying to locate this book, in which I first encountered the story of the Holy Grail, had itself almost taken on the elusive quality of a Grail Quest. I remembered what the book looked like but not the author or publisher. For years I looked in bookstores, often finding illustrated versions of the King Arthur story, but never "The One." The edition of The Romance of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Alfred W. Pollard that I came across years ago and purchased came the closest in its solemnity of tone and language. I knew, though, that it wasn't the one I was remembering; the illustrations didn't match, and the telling didn't include a key episode I recalled at the beginning. Nice, but no cigar.

But years later, behold: the power of the Internet. One day it occurred to me to try just typing a description of the book into Google. There was a time this wouldn't have worked, but the sophistication of search tools these days along with the sheer volume of information that's out there now made me realize this method really wasn't all that quixotic. And it worked! After a couple of tries, the object of my search appeared on the screen in front of me, the same cover, the same title page. With a few keystrokes, my quest had ended. A short while later, I had the book, and although the edition arrived with a different color cover than the one we'd had as kids, it was undoubtedly the same book.

Or was it? It was definitely the right book, though a slightly different edition. The color was blue instead of the deep maroon I remembered, and it seemed smaller (and may actually be smaller, although that, too, may be an illusion). It would be exaggerating to say that the experience of opening the book again was on par with Keats' experience "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer." I didn't gaze with "wild surmise" or fall silent, as if staring "from a peak in Darien," but I was pretty excited. The episode of the dragons was there, and the illustrations, so vaguely remembered, were the right ones. But as I looked through the pages, I found, to my great surprise and dismay, that the language, once so evocative, now seemed more obviously written for a child. The glowing, full-color illustrations had lost their high magic and seemed more ordinary than I remembered.

Alas, what is this? Is this what we call "growing up"? I recall how remote and mysterious the doings of Arthur's court seemed to me as a nine-year-old, part of the mystery deriving from the fact that the characters were all adults, with adult motivations and aspirations. Now that I am an adult, I guess the glamour has worn off that particular part of the rose. The characters, not only in the telling but in what they represent, seem much less compelling than they once did, even more cartoon-like. I have not re-read the book from start to finish; it may be that in doing that, I will rediscover some of the magic that was formerly there. One thing's for sure, though, and that is that it will not be the book it once was for me.

Last year, I had a similar experience in re-reading the book of a very accomplished travel writer--similar, but with a difference. I found that I enjoyed her descriptions of places and activities--the angle of light on a certain street corner, the taste of a particular dish--more than ever. I often felt that I was seeing things right along with her, and this must surely be because I'm more in touch with the world of the senses than I was when I was younger and tended to have my head in the clouds. I appreciate the simple justness of a description, the precision of a scene well rendered. On the other hand, I found myself getting angry with her over what I experienced as her uncritical religious faith, which she wrote of openly. I was constantly thinking things like, "How can you believe that!" and "Yes, but . . ." Of course, this merely reflects my own thinking; another reader may well find her expressions of faith beautiful and inspirational. The point is, I don't recall being bothered by that aspect of the book at all when I first read it.

More recently, I've been reading a book by an author in the depth tradition whose work I know. For me, it's a new book, and while I'm familiar with his thinking, I find that I'm arriving at it from a different place, that I'm much more likely to engage in mental arguments with him. Early on, he was one of the first modern thinkers I came across who was writing from a mythic and Jungian perspective, and I treasured my experience of his books. I still find what he has to say thought provoking and useful, but I sometimes find myself in profound disagreement with him. Instead of plunging in headlong, as I used to, I read now with a bit more resistance.

Of course, this merely means that I'm a more critical reader, which is not at all surprising, but I have to say that I am missing the lost magic of my King Arthur book. There's a time and a place for the critical mind and a time and a place to be open to wonder. I've known people who get the greatest satisfaction from figuring out the mystery or anticipating the end before it happens, but I'm not really one of them. I'd rather have joy than be right every time. Do we have to lose all innocence in the name of experience? I hope not . . . though some people will tell you otherwise.

Genius Loci

As a follow-up to last week's post about Rebecca Solnit's book on the anthropology of walking, I should mention that I went out of my usual bounds today to take a short walk downtown. I used to work downtown, and its streets, buildings, cafes, and sidewalks were a part of everyday life, but I rarely have reason to go there anymore. I was only there today because I needed to go to the library on an errand and decided it would be easiest to go to the main branch. I was struck by how little downtown felt like a "hometown" any more, in any sense of the word. I almost had the feeling that I had been living elsewhere and dropped in for a visit after an absence of several years--that's how alien it felt. And yet I've been here all along.

There have been many, many changes downtown over the years; I'm old enough to remember "Urban Renewal," and even before that, what the city looked like when it still had department stores on Main Street. I have nothing against shopping malls per se, but I do think the decline of downtown areas as principal shopping districts has had a bad effect on many communities that they have spent years trying to compensate for. In many cases, "downtown" is still the principal business district and offers such diversions as restaurants, museums, and nightclubs--such is the case here. But the changes I felt were more subtle than the coming and going of a business, the resurfacing of a street, or the introduction of a new parking lot. The soul of the place seemed to have leaked out somehow.

It looks much the same now as it did when I was down there every weekday, but it felt foreign to me. Of course, you have a major problem any time the center of your downtown district has, literally, a hole in it. Directly across from the library is a huge pit in the ground that takes up an entire block, the result of a stalled construction project that began a number of years ago, when I still worked downtown, in fact. Why would any city, especially one with such pride in its historic districts and one-time reputation as the "Athens of the West," allow such a gaping hole to exist for years at a time in one of the most visible spots in the entire city? Good question.

Some people regarded the long-existing buildings on the block before demolition as eyesores; others saw them as treasures. I remember trying to frame what was happening during the initial controversy over the project, a proposed multi-story hotel, in mythological terms. Certainly it seemed that two diametrically opposed forces were at work, one that valued the old and one that championed the new, a sort of clash of the Titans. Regardless of the merits of the project itself and who was right and who was wrong about its benefits and costs, it's tough to argue that having what looks like a rock quarry in the middle of Main Street is an improvement over what was there before. It gives downtown an air of neglect.

I can remember when it was fun to walk around and notice little things, a pocket garden here, a public art project there, something in a store window that caught the eye. A public art project called "Horse Mania" once transformed the streets into an outdoor sculpture garden with creativity and imagination on display at every turn--who would have thought there were so many ways to interpret the basic form of a fiberglass horse? Another project involved the installation of doors recovered from a demolished housing project that had been transformed into works of art--pure genius.

When I looked around today, I noticed a couple of sad-looking murals, neither one of which did much to appeal to either the eye or the heart. I actually stopped and asked a parking lot attendant who had painted the mural of the somewhat demented-looking elvish creatures presiding over one corner. He couldn't tell me. Any city that allows something like that to pass for art needs a bit of shaking up, if you ask me, and you didn't, but I'll tell you anyway. No amount of Thursday Night Lives or Gallery Hops is going to cover up something like that. Why is it even there?

It seems to me that the genius loci of our town is either missing in action, falling down on the job, or has something else in mind. If that's what passes for progress, I guess I'll stick to the suburbs. They're only marginally better, but at least there's no risk of stepping off the sidewalk and falling into a chasm that could lead, who knows, right into the center of the earth. I mean, it's a really big hole.

Walking in the World

This week I finished reading Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust, a book about the anthropology of walking. I bought it in the gift shop of a labyrinth site years ago, around the time I was starting to write my dissertation, and while it includes a section on labyrinths, it covers many other topics, including walking as politics, art, recreation, travel, and protest. The genius of this work lies in the way it takes a simple, everyday act and reveals how complex it really is when viewed through multiple lenses: scientific, poetic and literary, religious, sociological, legal, historical, and artistic.

As Ms. Solnit describes it, the history of walking can almost be seen as an analog of the history of human consciousness. There was a time when people simply walked to get from place to place, without necessarily thinking about it. When they did become conscious of walking as an act that could be indulged in for other than utilitarian reasons, it rose from the level of biological behavior to cultural phenomenon. A person might walk for enjoyment and the expression of individual freedom, as did the Wordsworths in the Lake District; in concert with others as an expression of social solidarity or political protest; for religious reasons, as in a pilgrimage, for reasons of health; or, in an especially self-conscious and highly evolved version of the act, as performance art.

Some of this may sound a bit frivolous or light-hearted, but underlying all of these various dimensions of walking is the fact that it is ultimately an expression of individual will. The author's exploration of the ways in which societies have attempted to limit where and when their citizens may walk reveals that there are reasons besides those of safety and order for imposing controls on this basic act. Especially intriguing, as Solnit points out, is the role public spaces play in facilitating or hindering the movement and assembly of citizens as participants in their government, especially when they are advocating for change.

Solnit mentions two cities as particularly conducive to citizen gatherings: San Francisco and Paris, both of which are known for vibrant street life, protest, and revolution. Especially enlightening was her consideration of Paris as it was during the Revolution (still a largely medieval city with many narrow streets and byways) and as it was post-Baron Haussmann (redesigned, with many wide, straight boulevards), both of which managed to accommodate a determined citizenry seeking social change. The fact that Parisians utilized the city streets to advantage both before and after the redesign says more about the ingenuity of the people than it does about the success of the government in controlling their behavior--but it's also true that cities can discourage people from moving about, assembling, and engaging in civic life, either by laws or design decisions.

I would have enjoyed a look at some of the American cities, such as Boston, that played a role in our own American Revolution. I do know that in its modern form Boston is a great city for pedestrians; I'm not sure what role its layout might have played in the events of the eighteenth century. It's certainly possible to argue that, based on events such as Occupy Wall Street and other recent protests, any city, even some of those Solnit deems less conducive to activism, can be transformed when people are motivated enough to hit the streets.

Of course, I read the book through the lens of my own experiences as a walker, which are largely centered on exercise, enjoyment, and the need to get from place to place (with an occasional foray into protest as well). And here, I'll make an admission: although I enjoy walking and hiking and have engaged in both in all kinds of weather, and although I have written a book on labyrinths, I'm not especially fond of labyrinth walking. I find labyrinths beautiful, but in actual practice they usually don't conform to my idea of pleasurable walking, being too narrow for the purpose, with too many awkward turns. If mobility and freedom are the chief pleasures of walking, labyrinths act to constrict that freedom, requiring you, if you stay within the lines, to curtail your movements to a predetermined path. I know that some people find this meditative and soothing, and I'll certainly allow that there are times this might be so, but when I set out to walk, I like the idea that I am the author of it, not the reader of someone else's signposts.

One of walking's great benefits is that, under most circumstances (unless you're a stair walker or something similar), you're required to keep your feet on the ground or close to it. It may seem too obvious to matter, but walking, by its very nature, encourages a mindset of groundedness, even if you're daydreaming, writing poetry, or solving mathematical problems while you're doing it. Your mind can roam at will, but your feet are still on the earth, and your view of things is similar to what it has always been for human beings, close to the ground, looking up at the trees and the sky. I rather like that aspect of it; all I ask for is sturdy shoes.

If you're interested in such questions as: How did humans become bipedal? What is a flaneur? Why do Jane Austen's heroines spend so much time walking outdoors? Is walking on a treadmill real walking? and Why would you spend three months walking across China to greet someone and then keep going? you will likely get much enjoyment from Solnit's book. She answers these and many other questions and may transform the way you think about walking.

I Dreamed of Hibiscus

In Biblical times, dreams were apparently taken far more seriously than we take them today. They were considered revelatory and even prophetic; to act on the basis of a perceived message or warning in a dream was not considered foolish, but wise. I've heard stories of many modern people, most of them quite rational, who also believe that some vital information or answer to a problem came to them in a dream, and I have no trouble believing it. I've sometimes been surprised at a dream that seemed to reveal knowledge I had about a person or situation that I wasn't at all conscious of at the time I had the dream. "How did I know that?" is no longer a question I ask. Wisdom comes to us through a variety of experiences that we file away but don't entirely forget.

I had a very vivid and colorful dream this morning, and I'm sharing it because I think it encapsulates what I think of as the spirit of the times, at least as I see them. I'm not the Oracle of Delphi--I think the same information is available to all of us, but maybe I have more training in dealing with my intuitive side than many people do. I'm not afraid of it, as I think some who value logic and pure reasoning above all else sometimes are. Our society tends be weighted more towards thinkers than feelers, as I understand it. I don't think of the type of intelligence represented by dreams and intuition as irrational but rather as just another type of knowledge, another source of information to take account of. In fact, at its core, intuition is probably rational knowledge based on sources of information you weren't entirely aware of when you picked them up, simple as that.

The order of events in the dream is a little confused in my mind, but I'll start with the part in which a friend suddenly appeared outside the door of my building. I was quite surprised to see her, and she told me she thought I had moved. Apparently, there had been a letter that I hadn't answered, and she had told me about her intention to visit. The joy at seeing a friend was tempered by a sense that there was some confusion or misapprehension on her part about what I had been doing with myself.

We went inside, and there was a restaurant on the first floor, where we spent some time placing an order at the counter. Up a steep flight of steps, there was a room with a large bed in it. My friend, who had a couple of people with her, one of whom may have been her husband, got into the bed and sat there chatting with me as I sat at the side, partially covered by a blanket. I believe there was also someone standing next to me. I wondered whether I should go to bed, too, but instead, I got up and started pointing out the features of the room, the color of the walls, which were a soft peach, the beautiful, gleaming hardwood floors, which had evidently received a recent coat of varnish (prompting some laughter when I pointed it out), and some rays of sunlight that touched the floor in a couple of places.

The room was pleasant but rather empty. I looked out the window and saw the yard outside, and after that, I seemed to be by myself for a short interval, floating above a canopy of tropical flowers and foliage, as if there were a conservatory on an upper floor and I was hovering over it. There were a number of red flowers similar to hibiscus, and I saw a large spider walk over one of them before climbing down a wall to the floor. As I floated down the aisle, I saw that there were quite a few of these large spiders walking on the foliage.

After that, I confronted my friend and told her that I didn't believe we were where she said we were at all. I didn't entirely blame her for the confusion, but I felt it was important to clear it up as a sort of Matrix type of fluidity of space and time was occurring that was very disorienting. At that point, we were outside, standing on a street with some commercial buildings nearby, as if we were in the outskirts of a town. A few other people were standing about, as if some public event were taking place, and though the scene looked more like suburban Louisville than anything else, I told my friend very firmly that she was wrong: we weren't at my apartment building, we were in Texas.

There were other parts of this dream in which I was in a hair salon (hair salons and appointments to get my hair cut are a recurring theme in recent dreams), but that's basically the gist of it. The overriding tenor of the dream was an awareness of multiple versions of reality being presented at a rapid-fire pace and a reluctance to accept someone else's version over my own.

If you're wondering why I said this dream is an emblem of the times, you must not be paying much attention to the news, for, of course, in an election year, one does hear multiple claims of truth-telling, the problem being that they mostly conflict with one another. I often get the sense when perusing the news that various viewpoints are actually screaming for my attention; I just consider what makes sense and refrain from rushing to judgment. I consider that some of what I read is true but not all of it, which is but stating the obvious. This is no doubt the way it is all the time, but this year the process seems to be in overdrive, with two major party candidates anathemic to large portions of the public having risen to the top.

There is also a sense in which this dream is personal, of course, and I don't consider that any less important than the collective aspect of it. Personal and collective seemed to very intertwined in this dream, but I won't bore you with any analysis of what my dream means to me personally. That's a story for another day. If you insist on a summation of what message there might be in this dream that's of any help to anyone, it might be, "Well, enjoy the flowers, but don't overlook the spiders. And actually, don't make too many assumptions about the relative merits of flowers and spiders. They could both be iffy."

OK, the anti-oracle has spoken. Now back to our regular programming.

A Rabbit's Life

This week, from the Re-Visiting Books From a Long Time Ago department: Watership Down. If memory serves, I first read the book 35 years ago this summer, which is an amazingly long time ago when you think about it. The only thing I remembered was that it concerned a group of rabbits who were displaced from their burrow by a construction project and had to find a new home. I'd forgotten everything else, except that it had seemed a novel concept for a book-length work of adult fiction. (I just learned that some people consider it children's literature--if it is, it's an extraordinarily nuanced and sophisticated example of the genre.)

Once more, I find that the passage of time seems to have turned a work into something completely different than I remember, so different that it's hard to believe this is the same book I read all those years ago. It's almost as if, as Shakespeare puts it, it has undergone "a sea-change." Of course, I know that isn't right, because the words on the page haven't altered--it's the reader who is different. Back then, I found the book moderately diverting, but this time, I was struck at every turn by the sheer humanity of the author, if that doesn't sound like an odd thing to say about a novel about rabbits. My own imaginative powers seem to have expanded enough that I can now take in the great feat Richard Adams accomplished by entering so sensitively into the lives of non-human protagonists.

The book almost made me want to be a rabbit--in spite of the inherent hazards of the lifestyle (and the fact that you have to live underground). Humans do not come off particularly well in most of the book, and while the rabbits have their faults, it would almost be worth giving up the advantages of being human for such companions as Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, Holly, and their friends. Their resourcefulness, courage, ingenuity, and loyalty to one another put the rest of us to shame, I'm afraid. I was so engrossed in the story that I had a hard time putting the book down, and I cried at the end, which rarely happens. I was hoping against hope, every time the rabbits faced seemingly impossible odds--trying to cross a river, escaping from foxes, stoats, and cats, escaping a snare, battling a formidable enemy--that their wits would carry them through just one more time. It's a spirited adventure story, well told.

It may be that the first time I read Watership Down, I objected to what I saw as anthropomorphizing. I'm glad I got over that, because I think the novel's presentation of a fully realized animal world--the rabbits have their own stories and mythology, their own games, diversions, worries, and dreams--gives us, in a totally non-preachy way, a richer, more penetrating view of our own world. It's hard to think the same way about a new housing development when you consider it from the point of view of the creatures who suffer because of it and have no say in what happens to them. Seeing the world from the perspective of a rabbit might be enough to give you pause, for a little while, at least, on the whole "might makes right" philosophy. In any case, it's a pleasant antidote to human presumption.

Besides being entertained by the spirit and humor of the rabbits' mythology and storytelling, I was struck by something else that I suspect went over my head the first time. The novel is firmly planted in the sensate world, in all the sights, sounds, tastes and scents of the Hampshire countryside. Every blade of grass, every individual leaf, has character, and the rabbits' keen senses, especially their hearing and sense of smell, pick up so much more information than I could gather at my most observant. The novel luxuriates in descriptions of wildflowers, weeds, and grasses and a multitude of other objects a rabbit would recognize instantly; I would walk through the same scene and experience it much more monochromatically.

So, who is smarter, humans or rabbits? I think it depends on what you mean by smart. There is certainly something to admire in the simplicity and economy of the rabbits' lifestyle and in the way they live their lives as part of the whole. And in the book, at least, they seem to know a thing or two about humans that most of the humans have failed to notice about themselves. (Who knows, this could be true in real life as well.) I believe these particular characters are also meant to show us how we ourselves are at our best. It's perhaps a gentle reminder that human nature is also animal nature, however evolved we may have become.