Author: L.E. Hansen

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Sometimes The Way Forward Is Backwards

With what’s happening these days it’s difficult to encircle or plot a steady course ahead. Sometimes it’s just plain too much to read the same things, to hear the same things, the news, the critiques, the comedy, the very essence of our world. Sometimes it’s just too much to bear when football and reading and films only allow momentary escapes. Sometimes reality pushes us in other directions, other retreats, other vistas for hope, and the desire for the Spirit.

So. I used to have and now just bought some Runes and a set of Tarot Cards and book. I found the same book and set for the runes, but couldn’t find the right book for the tarot. I did get the Rider Waite set, but the book is a revision. As with all revisions, it’s not quite the same. Of course I went about trying to find my originals, to no avail. I doubt that I would have thrown them out but you never know. I do have my other persona who is quite unforgiving and strict, who tosses to cleanse as well as remove the unnecessary. *Humph* And then there are those pesky unpacked boxes yet remaining in the garage. Anyway, I—the more nostalgic or wanting-to-believe me, am left with what remains. Or doesn’t remain. Hence the new purchases.

And then, the synchronicity whispers itself in as I am in a more amenable place. This today:

Posted by Psyche’s Call with Donna May

Ah yes, the yearning for secret knowledge, the sacred connection. Not Religion, not a faith born of dogma or those lost Saints, but something else. Something from the past that knew without question, that took breath from the wind and made a euphony through the trees. Something unnamed and unnameable.

At my son’s funeral I left the velvet bag of his runes in his hands, and spilled out from that, the Odin Rune. That rune symbolizes The Unknowable, The Divine, the All-Father.

Blank is the end, blank the beginning.

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Joy Harjo: Crazy Brave

I’ve just newly discovered Joy Harjo. This is about her and worth the read, even if just a skim through to the heart that will grab you.

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Happy Birthday

Mi madre and Fritz were born on the same date, October 15. Though not the same year—Nietzsche sprang onto this earth in 1844.

Posted by Philosophy Matters

And so, just a very small sampling from the most quotable of philosophers:

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”

“The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.”

“A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”

“We have art in order not to die of the truth.”

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

And then, from me very own mum, Frances Varney Hansen:

“At this stage of the game…”

“Ach mit you!”

“Two heads are better than one, even if one is a cabbage head.”

“He’s wearing the high hat…”

“The problem with letting go and letting God is that, I always want to help.”

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Ophelia’s Call

Image may contain: one or more people and plant
Psyche’s Call with Donna May

“The mythological answers are symbolical, like all answers that come from the depths of the psyche, the unconscious.” ~Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness

Quote via @SophiaCycles1
Art: Aaron Slevin

And our call, to ourselves “…other voices wake us/and we drown” from The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock” ~T S Eliot~

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And More

So here we go again…

More wars against humanity as we pull out of Syria. It just doesn’t stop.

This following paragraph has been changed to blue font to indicate that it has been edited for clarity after being published.

And I lose hope in ourselves as the impeachment enquiry continues. That is, I get the politics of it. If we move against for impeachment itself in the congress, we may get it—likely would—but then lose via an impeachment vote in the senate. We need to have an outrageous list of high crimes and misdemeanors for the senate (republican controlled) to contribute to an actual impeachment by their votes and then a vote to find him guilty. move against him. (He of the orange “caused by the new light bulbs.”) This is why, I believe, republicans push with new outrageous comments to drive dems to move too soon.

Meanwhile, I Write

Philosophy Matters
Cogito Ergo … — with Koko David.

And Read

My Current Reading


With this photo and posting I finally figure out why I can’t see certain photos on my iPhoto site and delete at same time from phone. Either for that matter. Just another Duh. Because I’m looking for an action(s) that only takes place when I plug in my camera to the MacBook. I also discover that I’ve got so many irrelevant photos stored and have no idea how that came to be. And the last time I deleted photos from a device I had to go back and restore as they were not just on that device, but also on the computer, and both deleted. Just another price for ignorance, or the lack of attention.

About the photos, though. The On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous book by Ocean Vuong is just incredibly beautiful. It is impossible to read without a notebook nearby and so it is also taking a very long time to read. I believe I began at the beginning of October as it drags me along and into the mind of a culture and change from Vietnam to the U.S. It is a book of poetry written in prose form. The pain of belonging in a body and mind that do not fit into anything but joy and passion. He (the narrator and author?) struggles with emotions and life—from his mother to his lover and their lives in this world. The prose is short, compact, and powerful. A mere 242 pages, I wonder if I’ll ever finish this book, this story, this autobiography, this fiction of a novel.

The Weil Conjectures is much the same in the effects upon reader, though completely different in subject, or maybe not. As with all fine books, it is also a search for Truth. Karen Olsson writes of Simone Weil*—philosopher, social activist, and mystic—and her brother Andre’—mathematician—or mostly about their relationship, the effects upon one another and thusly upon Olsson. Of course as it is in such cases, it is more the effect of Andre’ upon Simone. This is another book of which I have attempted to keep the pages pristine, although I don’t know how long I will last before forgetting—so moved by a passage or the words that describe the coming together of a thought, as in “On Earth,” wherein that resolve was so quickly forgotten. And did I know that it was the Hindus who first used negative numbers? If I did, I had forgotten. (And I should have known because of Ramanujan & infinity.) More about imaginary numbers. Don’t we always think of Math and Science as being long secure and straight paths, moving along uncovering and describing themselves as they go? We hardly think of them as fraught with disbelief and arguments and ridicule as they make their way into our lives battered and worn from the battles.

It helps us to remember as we bemoan the absurdities of flat earthers and anti-climate changers, though they have been at it for way too long.

*Pronunciations: Simone—see-MAHN; Weil—vay