Zelda's Inferno exercise: write a poem from the following word list, on the theme, "things that make you happy": sunsets, Lego blocks, Star Wars, laughing, blowjobs, puppies, cheese, compliments, smiling face, summer, music, ice cream, water slides, books, roller coasters, dill pickles, concerts, fire, poetry, happy

somewhere in my house I think I still have a cassette tape of the Beach
    Boys album Endless Summer
a gift from my parents, one of the first tapes I owned
I remember playing it on the way to the beach, music up loud, car
   windows down

that's a place in my heart, a state of being, music and motion and sunlight
sometimes I can get there when I'm writing poetry or playing guitar or
   dancing around a bonfire late into the night

a fierce sort of happy

different than when I was a child
that was laughing waterslides down the hill
or playing with Lego blocks or Star Wars
or even the quiet joy of being alone somewhere with a book

but this place in my heart
is louder
is faster
is triumphant

and then riffing off the bits I like from that:

there's this place in my heart that is music and motion and sunlight
it's love and drunkenness and triumph
it's summer nights and dancing and fire

it's my hands on a guitar (sometimes), my lips on the lips of a lover
   (sometimes), my mind weaving words as fast as they come, into patterns
    never before seen (sometimes)

it's a fierce sort of happy
and I can't always find it

for this is one of those magic realms and
the portal to it is oft hidden or closed
waiting on a magic word, or
the light of the first full moon of spring, or
the touch of some enchantress princess

for magic realms are hidden realms
an inviolate rule of the faerie story
(perhaps the only way to keep the fey realms from becoming a parking lot)
and so we visitors must keep working to earn our way in

Things that make me smile: a functioning printer made from Lego and a felt-tip pen.

From the Bob the Angry Flower archives, a great little story: "Lovebot Conquers All!"

Hi friends. I wanted to let you know about upcoming workshops I'll be presenting, at two different events in September -- conveniently located at the same place, Camp Ramblewood in Darlington, MD:

First, at the first ever Primal Arts Festival, I'll be presenting "Self-Defense as a Spiritual Practice", "Moxibustion for Sensation Play", and my famous workshop "How *Not* to Flirt With a Goddess". Primal Arts is September 3-6.

Then at Fires Of Venus, I'll be presenting some very special Erisian programming:

Kallisti: For the Prettiest One

Ok, Venus/Aphrodite is very nice and all, but have you ever had the feeling that a somewhat more...dynamic...goddess was running your love life? Have you ever tried so hard to prove how attractive and worthy of love you are, that you ended up causing all kinds of trouble? Do you feel that by taking yourself too seriously, you might be getting in your own way? Or do you just want in on the joke when people yell "Hail Eris!"?

Discordianism is a satirical (or perhaps in this context, satyr-ical) religion invented in the 1950s that has been very influential in the NeoPagan movement. We'll discuss its history, literature, and philosophy, and how a greater openness to divine chaos might (or might not!) enhance our romantic lives.

(I may be doing one or two other classes at FoV as well.) FoV is September 23-26.

On September 19 (it's a Sunday), noon to 4pm, the Hampton National Historic Site (535 Hampton Lane, Towson, MD) will be hosting its fifth Manly Arts Day, with Western martial arts (fencing, boxing, etc.) lectures and demonstrations.

According to Park Ranger Victor Markland, "This year the theme is 'Up Close and Personal'. We will look at the seemingly more intimate quality of danger in the 19th Century compared to 21st in both military and civilian contexts. Lots of fun. Internationally known expert instructors Steve Huff and Mark P Donnelly."

Science Daily reports on research by health economist Todd Elder that finds that up to close to a million children may be misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder simply because they are the youngest (and therefore likely to be least mature) in their kindergarten class.

Turns out that the youngest kids in class are significantly more likely to be labeled ADHD and put on Ritalin or similar drugs -- wasting an estimated $320 to $500 million a year in unnecessary drugs. Great for big pharma, lousy for kids, parents, teachers, and anyone else who works with kids. (I've taught karate to a bunch of "ADHD" kids over the years. Some did indeed benefit from meds; but I would have to say that for at least half, the side effects of the pharmaceutical roulette that too often passes for mental health treatment these days was worse than the original problem.)

"If a child is behaving poorly, if he's inattentive, if he can't sit still, it may simply be because he's 5 and the other kids are 6," said Elder, assistant professor of economics. "There's a big difference between a 5-year-old and a 6-year-old, and teachers and medical practitioners need to take that into account when evaluating whether children have ADHD."

ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed behavioral disorder for kids in the United States, with at least 4.5 million diagnoses among children under age 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

...

According to Elder's study, the youngest kindergartners were 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than the oldest children in the same grade. Similarly, when that group of classmates reached the fifth and eighth grades, the youngest were more than twice as likely to be prescribed stimulants.

Overall, the study found that about 20 percent -- or 900,000 -- of the 4.5 million children currently identified as having ADHD likely have been misdiagnosed.

This, of course, doesn't even touch on the kids whose "ADHD" is more accurately described as "Outdoor Exercise Deficit Disorder".

Zelda's Inferno exercise: supported free-write around one of more of the following phrases (selected at semi-random from an issue of a local women's newsletter):

unearth ancient relics
clean up this situation
moments to recharge
when am I supposed to do that?
encourage more prosperity

unearth ancient relics, digging them free from the grasp of the ground, freeing them from the clinging dirt, I am digging in the compost pile like an archaeologist seeking relics of ancient civilizations, a old tea bag, a fragment from a compostable plastic bowl, small sticks raked up with last autumn's leaves. unearth ancient relics, bits of memory in the heart, encrusted by time, tarnished and bent and broken bits of old loves.

moments to recharge, needing sanctuary, a renewal, some respite from all these things that grasp for time and energy, but every battery eventually reaches the point of no longer being able to hold a charge...

unearth old relics, bits of lives gone by, evidence of the past civilizations within ourselves

when am I supposed to do that? if not now, when? the eternal present, if it's always now then if I do it tomorrow I'm doing it now, the procrastinator's delight, now, then, yesterday tomorrow, all the same, no worries about being late or early, so I'll clean up this situation tomorrow or Tuesday or next week or in the fall, it's all now, now, now.

Late summer funk settling into my head now, and a day when I'm reminded of lost loves...and so it's only a question of whether I'll stay home and drink and probably play melancholy music on my guitar, or go out somewhere and drink and listen to someone else play melancholy music on a guitar. So I find myself at the Judge's Bench with a bottle of Sierra Nevada Torpedo in my hand, as a woman covers "Dirty Old Town."

Yeah, if I was an enlightened fellow I'd sit home in the lotus position instead, and if I were a good spiritual bullshit artist -- infinitely more common -- I'd either pretend I wasn't out here tonight, or I'd make up some lie about it, pretend that I was drinking in some special enlightened fashion. But in situations like this I try to emulate my favorite Zen lunatic, Ikkyu, and try to embrace the humanity of it. "I love my grouchy furious anger," ol' Crazy Crow Ikkyu once wrote, and tonight I might write "I love wallowing in my melancholy loneliness."

Past the halfway point between solstice and equinox now, the days noticeably shorter, that probably a factor in the funk. (Time to bring out the heavy artillery now, Scapa, single-malt Scotch...) That, and the rain, the grey skies the past few days...all on top of that "summer is running out, time is fleeting" feeling. And that on top of the "what am I doing with my life?" feeling that's been around the past few months.

But here we are, whiskey and music (guy covering "Ramble On" now) in a semi-venerable semi-old pub, next best place to a Zen garden to sit with big questions about life. And these lonesome blues are part of the way things are, as undeniable as the moon and the stars and the clouds, and to say that they shouldn't be here is to deny reality.

Issac Bonewitz, respected Pagan elder and founder of the Druid group Ar nDraiocht Fein, died Thursday.

Margot Adler, NPR reporter and author of Drawing Down the Moon, one of the best books on the Pagan movement around, offered a remembrance on All Things Considered.

Issac was a regular at the Starwood Festival, and also appeared at FSG a few times. He performed at the first FSG where I was on staff, and I helped set up the sound system -- that was after running around camp trying to find him, yelling "Has anyone seen Issac Bone-Wits?" Which is, of course, not how he pronounced his name! I got to chat with him in the chow line at the Dancing Tree Cafe, and found him to be personable, intelligent, and possessed of a wonderful gentle sense of humor.

A few years ago, a conversation at Starwood with Issac and his lovely wife Phaedra helped put me on the trail of the Joseph Campbell essay The Symbol Without Meaning, which proved to be a big influence on the development of Why Buddha Touched The Earth. So I remember him with extra gratitude for that.