Advent of a Small Fierce Mammal – September 2013

| November 17, 2013

Beyond the announcement of his birth, I still haven’t given you my complete perspective on the experience of bringing Baby LFM into the world, but that day will come. Some of it will no doubt be revealed in snippets sprinkled here and there in items written here by either Mrs. LFM or me, and still […]

My Poppy is Red

| November 11, 2013

“It takes no more than one generation of removal in time to distance human understanding from any heretofore common experience, no matter how horrific, and history has shown that people can function through pretty much anything, using it as a motivation for improvement (As Winston Churchill said, “If you are going through hell, keep going.”) […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 30: A History Darker than Guinness

| October 30, 2013

Of all the peoples in all the lands, none harbours such a brooding darkness as the Irish, and of the history of their nation, there is none anywhere dark enough to compare. Even the national drink is impenetrable. Today we have the tale of a hapless traveller serendipitously gifted with an encounter that will leave […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 29: A Review of “Likeness” by Erin Zingré

| October 29, 2013

Back on Day 13 I made reference to The Order of the Good Death, the mission statement of which is, in part: The Order is about making death a part of your life. That means committing to staring down your death fears- whether it be your own death, the death of those you love, the […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 27: Dane-Geld

| October 27, 2013

On the heels of yesterdays Dark Sentiment that spoke of magickal invisibility rings and the weakness of Man in favour of evil doing in the face of certain – or at least perceived – anonymity, today I present something a bit more uplifting. A School History of England was written by C.R.L.Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling, […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 23: Mourning Picture

| October 23, 2013

In 1890, American artist Edwin Romanzo Elmer (1850–1923) painted the family portrait that is the subject of today’s Dark Sentiment. It depicts the artist, his wife, and their daughter Effie, who died shortly before it was painted. Even a cursory examination reveals the mother  to be shrouded in shadow while the child and everything associated […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 21: Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner

| October 21, 2013

The title of an article by Hadley Freeman published last August in The Guardian refers to Warren Zevon as “… the man behind the demons”. I will be forever grateful to Ms. Freeman for the revelation because I was wondering who to blame for that. The title of today’s Dark Sentiment is taken from that […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 20: Cold Iron and the Veil

| October 20, 2013

The lore surrounding iron goes back into antiquity, and many are the beliefs that trust it to have the power to ward off evils from the supernatural realm. The intention to keep the dead at rest is why cemeteries, and even individual graves of a certain age, are often contained within iron fences – both […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 18: The Dog in the Tempest

| October 18, 2013

On Sunday (Julian calendar) the 4th day of August in 1577, a thunder storm of wrath of God proportions unleashed its fury between the morning hours of 9 and 10 o’clock over Suffolk, England. Within four weeks of that event, a slim volume titled Straunge and Terrible Wunder wrought very late in the parish church […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 17: Faulkner Was Right

| October 17, 2013

“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain” ~ William Faulkner This poem was inspired by personally experienced actual events that played out way back in the mid 1980’s. I have never been so happy to be in the grip of the worst physical pain I have ever experienced, […]