As the Spirit gave them utterance

In 1773, Ann Lee and other Shakers were arrested for causing a disturbance during a service at Christ Church in Manchester. Afterwards she was questioned by ministers. Richard Francis, Ann the Word: Once when recounting the tale of this religious interrogation, Ann said she spoke for four hours and the ministers - the ‘greatest in those parts’ (suddenly we hear the illiterate daughter of a blacksmith talking) - ‘said that I spoke in seventy two different tongues, and that I spoke them more perfect than any in their knowledge were able to do.

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You could read today’s Cory Doctorow column or you could watch this Nathan MacIntosh bit. 😉

Another good thing today: it’s Wendell Berry’s 92nd birthday. Happy birthday, uncle Wendell!

First day of school around here. It’s nice to see the buzz of activity again. Kids walking in their first day of school outfits. Big yellow buses rolling around town. I love these cycles of life. Even the neighborhood cat Ralph was enjoying it as she sat with some kids waiting for their bus.

Also, about that last post, could you monotheists please let the rank and file know this is a complicated question, please? Most of the Christians where I live think anything that isn’t fundamentalist Christianity is straight up demons. If we’re going to start encouraging a more enchanted world, then we also need to figure out how to avoid turning it into “Witch Trials 2, Now With Surveillance”.

I appreciate the nuance in “Christianity and the problem of the gods”. These issues are why I don’t find monotheism compelling. Even the most generous monotheism ends up twisting itself into knots. For me, John Michael Greer’s book A World Full of Gods is not only persuasive but somehow more natural

Been feeling flat for the last few days and realized the reason this morning: I’ve been an inside cat too long. Heat and busyness have kept me inside for weeks, so I and my walking stick headed to Murray Woods this afternoon. Just what I needed.

One year ago today

I left my old job one year ago today. Me, walking out the door: I started my new job five days later. I seriously underestimated the difficulty of transitioning from a job in which I was an expert to a job where I knew exactly nothing. My confidence was shattered there for a while. But a year later, I know more than nothing and my confidence has picked itself up from the floor and found the elevator button.

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The monster of mechanism

Sometimes Hillman gets so close: The folly of reducing mind to brain never seems to leave the Western scene. We can never give it up because it is so basic to our Western rationalist and positivist mind-set The rationalist in the psyche wants to locate causes you can put your hands on and fix. Machines provide the best models for meeting this desire. Take them apart, find their inner mechanisms, and then adjust their functioning by modifying their ratchets, enriching their fuel, greasing their connections.

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Voice of the daimon?

For years now I’ve thought of myself as conflict avoidant. Maybe there’s another way of framing that. And maybe what I’m about to say is self-justification for continuing unhelpful behavior–but hear me out. If it’s true that we all have a daimon, guardian angel, inner voice, Self, whatever you want to call it, then it follows that one of the primary ways that inner reality manifests itself is as intuition. If, as Hillman says, the daimon accompanies you in order to keep you on the path of your calling, then intuition can sometimes be navigation.

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