AUGUST: THE MAD AND MADDING MONTH

I read Thomas Hardy's FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD because I was interested in a world that would have something called a "madding crowd." What kind of crowd was that exactly? I didn't mind that I would learn about it in reverse, by its absence. Alas, like many "classics" I read it too young. I read alot and had seen alot of words, but vocabulary alone is not enough to understand sophisticated themes.

This August is angry, and the feelings and events around you may seem frenzied, if not downright scary. According to my mystical understanding of the "doomsday cycle" we are in between now and 2012, the apocalypse-- gotterdamerung, whatever you want to call it-- does not come with a bang but with a whimper. A successive string of whimpers.

August will be a kind of preview of what 2007 will be. 'Twould be best to treat it as a "fire drill." Where are your weaknesses? Where are the safety exits blocked? Do you have an emergency kit, both inner and outer? You may be learning by the absence of the thing. We must build a solid understanding of our vocabulary. We must walk our talk. Or try to. Or learn to.

In the same way that I spend less money when I feel like I am broke (not when I am necessarily broke, mind you, but when I feel like I have no money), would be better this month to assume you are powerless, not powerful. Not what I normally advocate. But things are shifting and changing. I feel great swarms of energy in the air and settling on the earth. Learn to protect yourself. Find your balance. Find your inner organic balancing mechanism.

And please, with me if you would, send some blessing or good thought out to the earth everyday, to look at the night sky and the moon, and to daydream away a patch of clouds, and to send a little love out to all the people-- especially those that drive slow in the fast lane or cut in front of the line, or just plain irritate the piss out of you.

And laugh. We all need to laugh more.

PRAISES, THANKS, AND BLESSINGS!!!

Check out Merriam Webster on "madding":
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary