Large Fierce Mammal

“Tales abound with ingredients that torture the imagination of the susceptible, even long after the story has been read, heard, or watched. The effect is the same whether the tale comes from experience or fiction, for the imagination is a wondrous thing if taken in hand by someone who can play it like a harp.” ~ Dark Sentiments Season 8 — Day 25: Hags Assorted

Last night’s Dark Sentiment looked at things that come in the night to paralyze and mount you, for whatever reason. Not the fun kind of bondage experience, to be sure!

Just as the sense of smell is powerfully evocative of memory, so too can visual cues link directly with the most primal of urges. As promised, tonight we’re going to revisit another flavour of that kind of imagery that, for a time after exposure, becomes the ocular version of a musical “ear worm” that just won’t leave your head.

Locomotion. Just getting around, whatever the reason. A simple thing really, but even so it can arouse on the brightest and darkest of levels. An ancient silver coin with one bright side, and another face more darkly tarnished.

Here’s the brighter side of that coin. We’ve all had the experience of observing someone we at first thought to be quite physically attractive, only to find them far less so the instant we see them walk. For me, the two biggest examples are a pigeon toed gait — something that was relentlessly corrected in elementary school in my generation — and the second is an inability for a woman who decides to wear high heels to properly walk in them, so she ends up galumphing along like some awkward amalgam of a porn star and a Clydesdale. I see this as the ambulatory equivalent of someone who believes that qualifying for a driver’s license and a car loan automatically makes them a good driver.

When she does it right though, well as I said, ingredients to torture the imagination. (more…)

“It was during the middle years of my childhood that there was an influx of Newfoundlanders to my home town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Most of those I got to know were fishermen who had come from the remote and disadvantaged “outports” to make their fortune working on the deep sea trawler fleet that sailed out of what was then among the most famous fishing capitals in the world.

“I recall several conversations that took place in my youthful presence, between adult members of my family and some of these men who had come into our family circle, usually by way of romancing certain female members of it. It was in one of these nocturnal gatherings assembled around a well worn kitchen table, over rum and shrouded in a combination of pipe and cigarette smoke, that a wide eyed boy with ears attuned to adult conversations first heard anyone speak the name of “The Hag”. There would be reference to a troubled family member “back home” who had “The Old Hag”, and everyone at the table would nod their heads in somber sympathy. All except for me, whose curious queries were inevitably met with a look of concern, a tousling of the hair, and a change of subject.” ~ Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 11: The Old Hag

Tales abound with ingredients that torture the imagination of the susceptible, even long after the story has been read, heard, or watched. The effect is the same whether the tale comes from experience or fiction, for the imagination is a wondrous thing if taken in hand by someone who can play it like a harp.

An example is the Old Hag, medically known as a manifestation due to an actual sleep abnormality called “sleep paralysis”. In short, it’s all in your head, and most cultures have their own word for it naming the visitor rather than the condition. I’ve written of the malady here before in my piece from the 2013 season of this series quoted at the top of the page, and you can read it by clicking the title. Needless to say, people who’ve experienced this find it hard to believe it wasn’t real. Literally, the stuff of nightmares.

In The Beginner’s Guide to Vietnamese Ghosts, Violet Kupersmith tells a slightly different version of the experience involving visits from a much younger Hag than one normally encounters, and a most interesting solution —

“I finally got rid of the little ghost girl in my room,” one of my Viet friends announced to me over coffee some time ago, in the casual way that a person might say, ‘I finally got rid of the squirrels in my attic.’ My response to hearing this (spilled drink, dropped jaw, subdued shriek) must have seemed like an overreaction to him, but in my defense, I was still new to the land and to the idea that here ghosts weren’t a superstition, they were a fact. I begged him for a full account. My friend complied, prefacing the story with the disclaimer that his ghost was not terribly exciting, just your everyday, pedestrian phantom. Nevertheless, it is the only one that still gives me nightmares regularly.

“I would see her in my sleep,” he began matter-of-factly. “Not dreams, exactly. These felt too real to be dreams, but while having them I knew that I was sleeping. My body was unconscious but I was fully aware on the inside—it was like I was able to see with my eyes closed. I would see my own room, from where I was lying in my bed, and everything was as it should be. That’s when the ghost—this pale little girl with braids and crooked teeth—would climb out of the wall directly across from my bed.

“The wall across from me would start splitting about three feet from the floor, and then it would part like a curtain and out she slipped. Even though I could see her I couldn’t move, or cry out, or do anything, because my body was still sleeping. The girl would crawl across the floor over to the bed, and then she would inch her way up over my legs and sit on top of my chest. She would just perch there, cross-legged, staring down at me silently, sometimes smiling and sometimes not, all while I was frozen in one place. This would go on for hours. And then eventually dawn would arrive and I would wake up and be able to move again, and the girl would be gone and my wall was intact. But my chest would hurt and my body would be sore all over.”

“What did she want with you?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Who knows? After five nights of it I went to see a monk for advice. He told me that sleeping with a knife under my pillow would keep it away. I did, and the ghost stopped coming. It’s been almost a week now since I’ve seen her.”

Mine’s not under the pillow, but for all practical purposes it might as well be. Who knows? Maybe that’s why I’ve only had one visit from a little ghost girl of my own, and she never entered my room. If you’re unfamiliar with that tale, see:

• Musings as Hallowe’en Approaches – Part the Second;
• Jeepers Creepers Hits Store Shelves; and
• Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 27: Jasper and the Little Girl.

Sleep on this Goode Reader, and next time we convene we’ll look at another pluck at the strings of wide eyed imaginings.

Tonight’s Dark Sentiment is an eleven minute short animated film courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada which, notwithstanding its government connection, offers much wondrous grist for our mill.

The subject matter for you to enjoy with your after dark tipple tonight meshes so well with what’s already been said here this season, and has yet to be said, that I will offer no further preamble beyond that of its producers —

The main protagonist of this short, surreal film is a man obsessed with control. In an automated world drained of all emotion, he is tortured by vague longings. Will he be able to transcend his obsessions and fears?

Put your feet up. This might cause swelling. (more…)

“Man With Scythe” by Walter Hunt

“As a Husband, a Father, a Teacher, a Student, a Friend, a Comrade, a Man — as one who strives to be a complete specimen of that animal called Human — I understand that in all things, cycles prevail.

“To be a complete Human is to embrace the spectrum of Life from end to end, and not shying away from any of it. Through every life, lived fully or not, taken note of or not, cycles repeat within and without our mortal vessels. Tiny samples of starting and ending match the macroscopic in their ebs and flows. Rises and falls. Wins and losses. Loves and hates. Embarkations and abandonments. Just as a spell of ascendant convergence may arise from a wondrously perfect storm, an equally perfect one in opposition may cast all that was uplifted into destruction and despair.

“Peril lies in averting the senses so these patterns, in their perfect similarity, remain unnoticed over time. In this, the quality of Living is willfully diminished, for we are meant to embrace them, both to be a part of these cycles and to make them a part of us. So we will not accept bobbing on the currents, the swells and troughs, like a cork upon the ocean, but so we can navigate. Ride out the stills and storms with confidence in our choices, even to our inevitable meeting with Death.” ~ Dark Sentiments Season 8 — Day 1: A Greeting from your Favourite Reaper

As I’ve previously written, all of Life is integrally bound to cycles. In many cases, one might also refer to them, and quite correctly, as rhythms, but not in all.

For centuries up to industrialization, society was built on an understanding that it was governed as much by rhythms as the inevitable cycles. Technological developments came at the behest of getting the most out of available energies. Those of thought, muscle, and the avails of Nature. (more…)

As I’ve previously written,

“The Tuareg, so called “Blue Men of the Desert” are a nomadic herding people of the Sahara. They like their coffee:

Black as the Devil,
Strong as Death,
Sweet as Love,
And hot as Hell.

“This pronouncement has always spoken to me because pretty much everything I appreciate in life fits into one or more of those four categories. I first encountered it while watching a National Geographic Special so long ago that, as I recall, the Dead Sea had only just been diagnosed as sick ….”

When I walk into a coffee shop that offers me several choices of brewed fortitude, I always ask for the blackest, most evil brew they have. Being one unpredisposed to the making of frivolous choices of venue where the purveyance of coffee is concerned, I have rarely been disappointed. (more…)

“During my attendance at the trial of Peter Mailman, — listening day after day to the horrible details of the murder as they were brought out by the different witnesses; and holding frequent intercourse with the prisoner in his cell, I was led to contemplate very fully and seriously the crime of murder. Nothing is dearer to a man than his life, and yet, how many doors there are to let life out! — Hundreds are passing each other in the street every day; a stab with the smallest pocket knife might fatally wound. To move among men is practically placing one’s life every moment at their mercy, and yet how safe we all feel. This, if we come to think, is not all due to our laws; not the result of the security which the fear of capital punishment inspires; it is the working of a natural law which instinctively leads every man to hold sacred the life of his fellow-man.

“How often are two men together alone — far from the reach of mortal eye, and yet neither as a rule, trembles in fear of death. It may be laid down as a fixed principle that only a murderer at heart can commit wilfull (sic) murder. It is almost impossible to conceive the depth of wickedness to which a human being has sunk — the horrible lack of all natural feeling, when he can deliberately and in cold blood strike dead a fellow-being. The mind sickens in contemplating such a revolting act, and we instinctively thank God that, although our world is full of vice and sin, happily the propensity to murder is comparatively rare.” ~ J. W. Longley, Esq.

On the day before New Year’s Eve of 1873, Peter Mailman of Pleasant River Road, in the County of Lunenburg, Province of Nova Scotia was executed by hanging for the murder of his wife, Mary Ann. The murder weapon was alleged to have been the axe Mailman was seen carrying on the August day he was observed by the couple’s 17 year old daughter as he accompanied his wife into the woods to pick berries.

More than 2000 spectators attended the hanging.

(more…)

“The warrior’s tale is no happy thing. It is bitter as bile and dark as death. But it is also a grand and glorious thing. For even in its full naked truth, it is the story of perseverance in the face of every agony and betrayal. It is the tale of how we live and why we die.” ~ The Warrior’s Tale

Those words come from one of two exquisite articles suggested to me two years ago by way of a comment left by the ever thoughtful and Esteemed Jay Heathman (of whom I’ve previously spoken) on my piece titled The Stranger at the Door. I offer them to you to set the mood for tonight’s Dark Sentiment.

Sebastian’s Voodoo won the National Film Board of Canada’s 2009 Online Film Competition, and in one tidy little package tells the tale of Sacrifice. (more…)

Waste Not Your Dram

By LFM

No Wisdom ever grew from
Begging others what to do,
Who live to make the same mistakes
As frequently as you.

It lies in finding Mentors —
Learning where and when to ask.
It lies in finding things that work,
Then harnessing to task.

It lies in learning Teachers
Do not always walk erect,
Nor even take a single breath
That any could detect.

That most strife upon the world
Is built on shifting sand,
And he who fain would breathe and live
Must find a place to stand.

Money’s like a crop that can
Be sown and reaped anon.
Time is as a bottled dram,
That, once it’s drunk, is gone.

“Our Dark Sentiment du jour presents a documentary film from the National Film Board of Canada. Made in 1990, The Burning Times was directed by Donna Read and was part two in a trilogy on women and spirituality. The Burning Times has been criticized as feminist revisionist history and I can see a reasonable argument in support of that in some parts. Still others, particularly the end segment, caused near painful eye rolling. For the most of it though, and taking into account its message, this film is a worthy document.” ~ Dark Sentiments – Day 15

We’ve been here before, seven years and two days ago on the fifteenth day of the first season of this series. Since then, much has happened in the world we know today that, as if we needed it, more than amply supports my observations made back then — observations that don’t so much brand me a brilliant observer as it does a stater of obviosities.

“Twenty-first century human culture worldwide still tolerates murder, torture, and eradication of entire cultures on religious grounds. Before, after, or entwined with all that, we have that covetous constant called greed. No matter the driving force behind it, we’ve proven ourselves to have a tendency to accept attack on dissent, or even attack on those daring to be different from what is graciously granted the definition of ‘normal’, based on the premise that such deviations represent the thin edge of the wedge for the entrance of evil into the world. This is done by forcefully equating the dissent with specific alternate agendas that are defined as evil in the extreme, thereby creating an ‘us or them’ framework of the power monger’s devising. The alternate agendas always turn out to be little more than being contrary to the interests of people of means who have an agenda of their own, a big part of which normally includes maintaining those means at the expense of people they want to keep under their heel.” ~ Dark Sentiments — Day 15

Everyone thinks they understand the word “ignorance”, but there are many uses for it depending on how much time you’ve spent, or want to spend, understanding and, of paramount importance, avoiding it. Sadly, in the county where I grew up and still live, it often means little more than “rude”. As in, “Why did you have to be so ignorant to him?” Irony there, and no mistake.

No, the worst kind of ignorance comes out of an absolute inability to learn and understand new information on a subject because your way of living in the world has rendered you deaf and blind to it. Quite simply, you can’t understand what you don’t know exists. To quote Musashi as I’ve done oft before and will again,

“If you know something, you know something. If you do not know something, it does not exist in your world.” ~ Musashi, What You Don’t Know

In his comment on yesterday’s Dark Sentiment, my Esteemed Friend and bottomless source of inspiration Stephen F. Kaufman said, in part,

“… Always the female, always, and without doubt, for a good reason. The phallic representation of the serpent in acknowledgement of the female’s raison d’etre of creation.The masculine principle as ever seeking union aware of the nurturing of the female without which the masculine would have no reason to be ….

“Aside from the obvious, and I won’t dwell on psychological issues with this, in my view the female has always been the primary force of creation. Certainly in ancient cultures, but notwithstanding that, only in relatively recent times has the woman been subjected to a ‘lower’ position and essentially a slave to a male oriented society. In ancient cultures there was equanimity and no sexual differentiation was evident as both played a significant part in the society. With the onslaught of religiosity, and the male dominance factor, it became the standard for the male to prove his virility by domination of women …. As deftly pointed out in the film, woman has been the progenitor of all of the reasoning and functional values that essentially control civilization with only certain aspects that are male related out of necessity ….

“What is presently happening throughout the world, is a feminist movement to ascertain the rightful position of woman in the overall cosmic sense of things. I think this is good, but at the same time it will take time for the male phallus-driven ego to be able to come to terms with the reality of woman as the definite equal.”

Well met Goode Steve! (more…)

Tonight’s Dark Sentiment is Full Circle, presented here as the third part of the National Film Board of Canada‘s Women and Spirituality Trilogy. Yes, I know I’m presenting them out of sequence, but I have my reasons.

The mission statement of this collection is certainly a worthy one:

A series of three titles investigating the relationship between women and spirituality from ancient times to the present. Titles include: Burning Times, an in-depth look at the witch-hunts that swept through Europe just a few hundred years ago (56 min. 10 sec.); Full Circle: Authors, teachers, social activists and feminists explore manifestations of contemporary women’s spirituality in the Western world (56 min. 36 sec.); and Goddess Remembered: A salute to the goddess-worshipping religions on the ancient past featuring discussions linking the loss of goddess-centred societies with today’s environmental crisis (54 min. 29 sec.).

As one whose spirituality is firmly grounded in Nature, and includes an absolute appreciation for strong and powerful Women who don’t draw their vision of those attributes from motivational memes posted to social media, much of what I found espoused here didn’t clash my mental gears. However there were significant components sprinkled throughout that I did find hard to watch for several reasons, mainly due to the taint of what comes off as neo-pagan cosplay at times, but the political messages that pop above the surface now and then didn’t help. (more…)