Put Another Tree Limb on the Bonfire

Astral Facts, October 2010

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.


Put Another Tree Limb on the Bonfire

Often we use basic vocabulary without stopping to wonder why and how certain expressions have come to be. For example, the term “bonfire” is often used as teams rally the night before a big football match or when various groups have special evening gatherings at retreats or conferences at waterfront or forested locations.

However, the ties to the term's original concept and this weekend’s Halloween festivities might not be so apparent.

October 31st has long been viewed as the beginning of the new year in Celtic tradition, where the transition from one day to the next actually occurs at nightfall rather than some vague midpoint of the night. In the Celtic traditional stories, light came out of darkness (as in the Judeo / Christian / Islamic beliefs); thus, the darkness represents the transition into new life. Each day then begins in darkness, followed by the new life brought out in daylight.

At nightfall on October 31st, the light of summer ends and the darkness of the seed of the new year begins. Just as the “fruit” germinates unseen from within the seed, new life comes out from the darkness at the end of summer and the harvest season. The Celts call this celebration Samhain or Samhainn (pronounced “Sow-en”) celebrated on the evening of October 31st, according to the predominent solar calendar.

To the Celts, time was circular rather than linear. This is reflected in their commencing each day, and each festival, at dusk rather than dawn, a custom comparable with that of the Jewish Sabbath. It is also reflected in their year beginning with the festival of Samhain on 31 October, when nature appears to be dying down. Tellingly, the first month of the Celtic year is Samonios, ‘Seed Fall’: in other words, from death and darkness springs life and light. http://www.livingmyths.com/Celticyear.htm

According to the Celtic beliefs, at this time the veil between the physical world and the spirit world become very thin, as a sort of “in between” time gap existing between the 12-month solar calendar and the 13-month lunar calendar. In many ways, this became a very sacred and holy time.  During this time, ancestors from the Otherworld could revisit their haunts from their physical life time. Villagers opened doors and windows to welcome in their ancestors, and food was prepared for them. Since not all the spirits were friendly, faces of guardian spirits were carved on turnips and set at the doorways to turn away those bothersome spirits.

There was also a much lighter side to the Celtic New Year rituals. Children put on strange disguises and roamed the countryside, pretending to be the returning dead or spirits from the Otherworld. Celts thought the break in reality on November Eve not only provided a link between the worlds, but also dissolved the structure of society for the night. Boys and girls would put on each other's clothes, and would generally flout convention by boisterous behavior and by playing tricks on their elders. http://home.comcast.net/~buaidh/Samhainn.html

Villagers would slaughter cattle for a great feast where the whole community would gather around a large fire. The bones of the sacrificed animals would be put on the fire, with all other flames in the village extinguished. Then each family would relight its hearth from the one great fire, bonding the community together to start the new year.

So enjoy the celebration this weekend and other community gatherings throughout the year as you toss another limb from the family tree onto the bonfire!



Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.

Age of the Humanities

Astral Facts, September 2010


Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

Age of the Humanities

In these days of changes and budget cutting, on campus we see the budget knife poised over the literature, arts, and humanities areas. Perhaps this should be troubling to us all.

 Historians and many social scientists will tell us that human civilization has shifted from agrarian societies to what is called the Industrial Age, where powers of production and labor capabilities were the bases for power and value. More recently, civilization has been in what some call the Information Age, where control and manipulation of knowledge and information have reigned. As we have continued into the 21st century and the third modern millennium, control over and access to information is no longer available only to a privileged few, as anyone can “Google” this or blog that.

Daniel Pink, a commentator on business and technology issues, has suggested that we are now in the Conceptual Age, where powers of human sensitivity will hold the key to success in life. In other words, the opportunities, capabilities and skills of “design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning” will be valued. It is not having the information and knowledge that will be important; rather, the application and use of the content will be of greater value.

British philosopher Roger Scruton has divided knowledge into three categories. He calls these “knowledge that, how, and what,” which can be restated as knowledge related to “information, skill, and virtue.” In other words, knowledge “that” would help us understand the meaning of a bicycle and the principles of its design. Knowledge “how” would refer to having the capability of pedaling it, applying the brakes, competing in BMX extreme sports, etc. Finally, knowledge “what” involves the proper time, place, circumstances, etc. in applying such skills – should we ride at full speed across campus and down the hallways between classes? Should we ride in the middle of the street and impede other vehicle traffic when no specific bike lane is marked? Scruton says such knowledge is the basis for a cultural “ethical vision,” which he says “is a knowledge not of facts nor of means but of ends: the most precious knowledge we have.”


And isn’t this the knowledge addressed by the Humanities? Isn’t it through the various disciplines of the Humanities (art, literature, philosophy, music, language, theater, etc.) that people are able to exercise and experience the components of the “Conceptual Age” that Pink has identified?


As many have noted, in a time when we see emphasis on multicultural inclusion, why are cutting off the avenues for the sharing of stories, empathy, symphony, etc. that connect us with the cultural diversity that surrounds us in the barrios, ghettos, ‘burbs, and other ‘hoods? Shouldn’t today’s students learn to develop an understanding of the skills, values, and knowledge “what” needed in the Conceptual Age?


This reminds me of the story of the prospector and his donkey.

Every month the two would come down from the hills to get fresh supplies. Each time the prospector was disturbed by the cost of feed for his donkey. Finally, he told the owner of the supply store that he had figured out a solution – he would train the donkey to live on sawdust, which was in plentiful supply in the hills.


After several months like this, the prospector came down to the town without the donkey.

Where is your donkey?" the shopkeeper asked him.

“Oh, I must be the unluckiest person alive,” moaned the prospector. “Just as I finally trained the donkey to survive on sawdust, it died!”

Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.

Astral Facts, April 2010




Have Fun on 101

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.



April’s celebration as “Poetry Month” has seen lots of famous and contemporary pieces published in the newspapers, in daily emails, on refrigerator notes, etc. We might be wondering why we haven’t seen the advertisers jump on this bandwagon, but – like marketing natural medicines – the money in poetry isn’t really so profitable.


Fortunately, the people at Burma Shave didn’t accept that, exploring down a “road not taken” with the poetic signs which used to be found along the backroads of America. Perhaps many of us can still remember “the good ol’ days” driving on those winding two-lane state highways (like the original Route 66 across country or Highway 101 along the west coast) and then coming across a series of five or six small signs on the side of the road, with about enough space in between to read and digest one before the next appeared. The final sign in the series always identified the source (Burma Shave), but we knew it long before it appeared.


Some samples went like:


The ladies
          Take one whiff
                        And purr—
                                       It's no wonder
                                                       Men prefer

Burma-Shave Lotion

The first signs carried content to advertise the benefits of the product, but once the brand name recognition became automatic, many verses focused on driving habits and road safety. A typical example is entitled “Daisies”:


       If daisies
                 Are your
                        Favorite flower
                                      Keep pushing up those
                                                        Miles-per-hour

                                                                          Burma Shave.

You can find an exhaustive list compiled from the book Verse by the Side of the Road at this location:
http://burma-shave.org/jingles/


Of course, we don’t take the backroads in our current fast-paced culture, and we have the Interstates (I-5, I-90, I-84, etc.) slicing straight lines through terrains from point A to point B at posted speeds of 70 mph. Thus, the rustic local color of the country roads has been brushed over and aside for the state sponsored (and controlled) “Lodging / Food / Gas at the next exit” messages that preserve the natural beauty of the Interstate network and control the revenue flow.

High-fives for the I-5’s!

During this month, I experienced the “High-five for the I-5” attitude in my classroom while we were discussing the poem “The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy.


I imagine copyright laws prevent me from reproducing the entire poem here, but it’s readily available online for perusal prior to discussing it. Open it in a new window:


http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/923.html


My students read it over and pronounced it was saying that “war turns potential friends into enemies. “


I suggested that might not be all there was to it, so they added that the poem shows that “war causes soldiers to act differently than they ordinarily would.”


This was followed by the attitude that said, “We’ve finished. Can we leave now, Mr. Lowe?”

“High five for the I-5!”

However, I had planned the class session with a “High fun on 101” perspective, and I was noticing some curves, so I asked, “Why does each stanza begin with quotation marks, but only the final stanza has quote marks at the end?”


While they puzzled over that one, I noticed a view from a different angle, asking them, “Why does he have those dashes in the third and fourth stanzas?”


Since one of the students had read the poem aloud to start the discussion, I suggested, “Do the dashes somehow affect the rhythm of the poem when it’s read aloud? Why would Hardy do something like that?”


As a class, we figured out that the quotations meant that the entire poem was that of a soldier speaking aloud, and the dashes interrupted the rhythm because it appeared that this was the first time the soldier had verbally told the story of the experience.


By now, we were actually out of the allotted time, but obviously we weren’t finished yet. We hadn’t decided what the circumstances were that prompted him to speak. So the assignment for the next day was to imagine someone needed an illustration to accompany the poem in a book. If the offer was $5,000 for the best concept, how would they compose their suggestion? How much time had elapsed between the event and the telling of it? How would they describe the scene and situation?


The next day they had forgotten the “High-five for I-5” view and completely pulled off the freeway. They wanted to spend the entire class time at this particular bend in the road with its panoramic view of the variety of possible scenes.


Obviously, the “I” and the “he” in the poem referred to the two soldiers, with “I” walking off the battlefield and “he” remaining a dead body on the battlefield.


However, the “He” in Hardy's title, now they had thought about it, wasn’t so clear. If the speaker in the poem had indeed realized in the third and fourth stanzas that the man who had died might easily be a mirror image of himself, that realization had not carried over to the fifth (and final) stanza, for he ends the story in the same matter-of-fact and somewhat detached voice he started with.


Whatever emotions he had acknowledged in stanza three and four were now safely bottled up again. Essentially, part of him had died out on the battlefield as well, and now this is something he has to carry inside.


The students felt that Hardy had recognized and described PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) back in the early 1900’s – long before the contemporary recognition in the 1970’s as a condition needing attention.


By their initial “High-five for I-5” approach, the students had missed the deeper implications of Hardy’s observations. However, a “Have fun on 101” approach offered much more value – value that perhaps could be found as we examine other things going on around us.  What happens in the classroom doesn't need to stay in the classroom!


Perhaps it’s not a bad idea to pull out of the fast lanes and take a leisurely drive, for fun, on 101!


Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.

Astral Facts, March 2010

Natural Language

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

Since April is National Poetry Month, it seems appropriate to segue from the lamb-like ending of the month (in spite of snow pummeling the mountain passes) by looking at how poetry can have its roots from merely listening to the voices of Mother Nature.

In her article “Hearing Voices,” Linda Hogan, a Chickasaw poet and the inaugural Writer in Residence for the Chickasaw, comments on Barbara McClintock, who won the Nobel Prize in 1983 for her research on gene transposition in maize (corn). When McClintock was asked for the inspiration that led her to her discoveries, she said that she listened to what the corn was saying to her, “letting it come.” According to Hogan, McClintock was successful because she paused to learn “the stories” of the corn plants and developed a relationship of “the inner voices of corn and woman speaking to one another.”

Hogan’s point is that, as a poet, her mission is to listen to the voices of nature and then be the medium to express them. Nature sees everything and reports it to whomever will listen. As Hogan says, when the Chernobyl disaster occurred, the local authorities tried to hush it over, but the wind carried the message to the rest of the world. “The wind was the poet, the prophet, the scientist” all rolled into one.

Hogan draws upon her own heritage whose oral tradition has told the stories of people who listened to the Earth: “people who have known that corn grows with the songs and prayers of the people, that it has a story to tell, that the world is alive.”

Hogan points out that this is not merely restricted to Native American tradition, for Western Culture describes how "Psyche received direction from the reeds and ants; Orpheus knew the language of earth, animals, and birds.”

Hogan says the mission of the poets is to communicate these messages. She cites Ernesto Cardenal, a priest, poet, and former Nicaraguan Minister of Culture, who commented on political events by noting, “The armadillos are very happy with this government …/ Not only humans desired liberation / the whole ecology wanted it.”

If course, these just sound like nice stories; however, perhaps it’s not that art imitates life, it is that art reflects life:

http://discovermagazine.com/2002/apr/featplants
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=4577

So for those of us who might be interested in learning a new language so that we can listen to our plants and maybe find inspiration in our lives and for the lives of those around us, here’s a good place to start:

http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=4577

And who knows; maybe we can hear the voices, too!

EARTH VOICES
by: Bliss Carman (1861-1929)

I Heard the spring wind whisper
Above the brushwood fire,
"The world is made forever
Of transport and desire.

"I am the breath of being,
The primal urge of things;
I am the whirl of star dust,
I am the lift of wings.

"I am the splendid impulse
That comes before the thought,
The joy and exaltation
Wherein the life is caught.

"Across the sleeping furrows
I call the buried seed,
And blade and bud and blossom
Awaken at my need.

"Within the dying ashes
I blow the sacred spark,
And make the hearts of lovers
To leap against the dark."

II

I heard the spring light whisper
Above the dancing stream,
"The world is made forever
In likeness of a dream.

"I am the law of planets,
I am the guide of man;
The evening and the morning
Are fashioned to my plan.

"I tint the dawn with crimson,
I tinge the sea with blue;
My track is in the desert,
My trail is in the dew.

"I paint the hills with color,
And in my magic dome
I light the star of evening
To steer the traveller home.

"Within the house of being,
I feed the lamp of truth
With tales of ancient wisdom
And prophecies of youth."

III

I heard the spring rain murmur
Above the roadside flower,
"The world is made forever
In melody and power.

"I keep the rhythmic measure
That marks the steps of time,
And all my toil is fashioned
To symmetry and rhyme.

"I plow the untilled upland,
I ripe the seeding grass,
And fill the leafy forest
With music as I pass.

"I hew the raw, rough granite
To loveliness of line,
And when my work is finished,
Behold, it is divine!

"I am the master-builder
In whom the ages trust.
I lift the lost perfection
To blossom from the dust."

IV

Then Earth to them made answer,
As with a slow refrain
Born of the blended voices
Of wind and sun and rain,

"This is the law of being
That links the threefold chain:
The life we give to beauty
Returns to us again."

"Earth Voices" is reprinted from April Airs: A Book of New England Lyrics. Bliss Carman. Boston: Small, Maynard and Company, 1916.


Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.

Astral Facts, January 2010

The Handwriting on the Wall

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

If you’re like me, you probably were occupied with so many things that you missed the celebration for “National Handwriting Day,” which occurred, as it does every year, on January 23rd, the birthday of John Hancock, one of the most famous for handwriting.

And if you’re like most people, you might be thinking it’s not really a big deal – anything worth noting is already in our faces via email, texting, “all a-Twitter,” or other such channels of Twaddle.

People don’t write in diaries or journals any more – we have our personal blogs and Facebook pages to satisfy the primordial autobiographical urges – why bother with the clutter and mess of pen and ink!?

Why, indeed?


The recent issue of American Educator, Winter 2009-201, published by the American Federation of Teachers, addresses the topic of handwriting skills and composition and higher level thinking skills. The author (Steve Graham) notes that children often find that their ideas flow much faster than their hand moves, and they get frustrated at not being able to write down their thoughts fast enough. http://archive.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/index.htm

As a result, gaps occur while the mind must slow down and wait. When the hand has finished putting down the thoughts from a few minutes ago, the mind has often raced ahead and the next idea jotted down has fluency failings or it is written so illegibly that the content is totally lost. The student gets frustrated, decides “I can’t write; I’m not a writer,” and the self-fulfilling prophecy is verified when the student does fail in writing. We don’t have time in our elementary schools just to focus on handwriting itself, copying significant passages from significant tomes – handwriting is in the tombs.

And today, we really don’t need to write our thoughts out in much detail. Consequently, if we do, the lack of skill and practice is a handicap. For example, Kitty Burns Florey, the author of Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting, notes in the January 29th entry in her blog,

But I think it’s too soon to declare legible penmanship a lost art. Maybe the problem lies in calling it an art rather than a simple necessity like knowing how to add and subtract. Hardly a day goes by when the average person doesn’t have to write something on paper. We take notes at meetings, we make lists, we address an envelope, we send a thank-you letter, we keep diaries. A radio talk show host who interviewed me this morning had jotted down some things he wanted to discuss but confessed he couldn’t read it back so had to wing it.
http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/01/29/handwriting-is-still-alive/

Back in 1986 (February 24th), Lance Morrow’s whimsical article in Time magazine entitled “Scribble, Scribble, Eh, Mr. Toad?” extends Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows story to Mr. Toad discovering mechanical writing tools and progressing much the way he did with his vehicle fetishes. What if Toad (or any of us) found those no longer available, relegating himself back to the primitive mode of communicating in handwritten form? Perhaps, we might discover,

Toad drove his pencil onward. Grudgingly, he thought, This is rather interesting. His handwriting, spasmodic at first, began to settle after a time into rhythmic, regular strokes, growing stronger, like an oarsman on a long haul. Words come differently this way, thought Toad. To write a word is to make a thought an object. A thought flying around like electrons in the atmosphere of the brain suddenly coalesces into an object on the page (or computer screen). But when written in longhand, the word is a differently and more personally styled object than when it is arrayed in linear file, each R like every other R. It is not an art form, God knows, in Toad script, not Japanese calligraphy. .....

Writing in longhand does change one's style, Toad came to believe, a subtle change, of pace, of rhythm. Sentences in longhand seemed to take on some of the sinuosities of script. As he read his pages, Toad considered: The whole toad is captured here. L'ecriture, c'est l'homme (Handwriting is the man). Or: L'ecriture c'est le crapaud (Handwriting is the toad). http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,960730,00.html

OMG! 2 ltl time, 2 mch 2 say!
@TEOTD IWAWO!
But ICBW,
TTFN.

(Oh my goodness, too little time and too much to say.
At the end of the day, I want a way out!
But it could be worse.
Ta-Ta for now.)

Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the
Humanities Science offices.

Astral Facts, December 2009


Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

Seasons and Reasons

This is the time when everyone gets out the holiday garb and attitude and puts on a festive face. Nonetheless, one hears some voices concerned people have related to Christmas with many people not seeing the “reason for the season,” which certainly is something I find troubling. However, my concerns are a bit different.

Here in the academic realm, especially at a state school, we tread lightly in the areas of religion in the classroom. However, we do often teach about religion from an academic perspective. For example, in our English course list, each winter we offer English 185: “Literary Approaches to the Bible,” often referred to as “The Bible as Literature” on other campuses. The focus is to treat the Bible as a literary text, just as we might regard Moby Dick, The Jungle, Great Expectations, or other masterpieces of “Western Civilization” by understanding the text in the context of the historical time, the cultural setting, the structural elements, the intended audiences, etc.

In the Bible, four different authors, working independently, have identified key episodes in the story of the life of Jesus. The tendency for most people is to piece together the four different versions of the life of Jesus to get a grand overview. If we look at the story of the birth of Jesus from an academic view, we would probably first notice that only two authors (Matthew and Luke) mention the details of the birth itself. Luke mentions the manger scene, witnessed by the shepherds, and Matthew mentions three kings from the East coming to find the special child, which obviously must have occurred some time later, knowing how slow the transit systems were back in those days.

Looking at the historical context, we can see some unusual circumstances. Of course people know that in the story Mary became pregnant before her marriage to Joseph. In those days, being unmarried and pregnant was a serious issue. Later in Jesus’ life we encounter the story of the harlot about to be stoned to death for her transgressions and early, in Jesus’ own lineage, Tamar narrowly escaped serious punishment when the judge, her own father-in-law Judah, realized he was the father of the unborn child. Tamar was then protected by the authority of Judah, as the patriarch of the extended family.

Knowing this, we can understand why the pregnant Mary would go to seek the protection of her own family, and the plot in the Bible story has her going to the home of her cousin, Elizabeth, who is married to Zacharias, a high priest. As the plot thickens, Elizabeth, who has been barren for many years, is in seclusion herself, six months into the miracle pregnancy of the son who will late grow up to become John the Baptist. As the story progresses, when Mary enters their home, Elizabeth notes that the child in her womb has leapt with excitement over the glory of the unborn child in Mary’s womb, for both Elizabeth and her unborn child recognize that Mary’s child is the coming Messiah.

All of this makes a lot of sense in the context of the Bible itself. The whole story is about Paradise Lost and the process of getting things back into order, which is why God is sending a messiah. The stories in the Old Testament portion of the Bible tell the tales of the people being prepared to receive this Messiah. The academic readers, who are following the plotline and thinking as they go, can see how God’s influence is guiding the events.

However, just as the story of the Garden of Eden at the beginning shows that the humans had choices to make in following God’s direction or not, the situation with Jesus becomes quite curious, for in the story, Mary only stays with Zacharias and Elizabeth for about three months. In other words, about the time of the birth of John the Baptist, Mary is sent off on her own, which puts her in serious peril as an unprotected, unmarried, and pregnant woman!

The bottom line here seems to be that the family of Zacharias is rebelling against the directions of God, and, even though they have been told the value and importance of the unborn child, they don’t want to have to deal with it. (We can pity Zacharias his situation with two pregnant women under his roof, and it does seem reminiscent of the story of Abraham dealing with the two women, Hagar and Sara, arguing over which son is the “true” heir. Like Abraham before him, Zacharias probably finally gave in and sent away the woman with the lesser claim!)

However, this is where the role of Joseph becomes essential, for after a dream of a conversation with an angel, Joseph agrees to go ahead and wed Mary. Thus, it seems things are resolved somewhat. Although the child will not have the advantages of being in a family with access to education and influence along the lines of what Moses had, at least the mother and unborn child have a male protector.

Unfortunately, it seems that this is all that Jesus has; when they travel for the census count to Bethlehem, the location of Joseph’s family, no one is willing to acknowledge them. Again, this plot twist piques the interest of the academic reader. Wouldn’t one expect that some family member, knowing that Mary was on the verge of giving birth, make some effort to find comfortable lodgings for the couple? The fact that they cannot even find space at a local inn indicates that the couple may have had family in the area, but apparently they had no friends.

In fact, the story continues with the couple only being able to find space in the stable area with the animals. Frankly, we can imagine how this was quite unpleasant. In modern reenactments, we see a nice fresh scene with soft clean fresh golden straw for the child, but the reality was probably much different. In that time and place, the animals were kept underground in caves, so air circulation was limited. What mother today would choose to give birth in such a location, most likely teeming with various kinds of e coli germs and who knows what else? The situation was probably pretty nasty, even by the standards of that time and place. If we, as readers, step back from the situation, from God’s perspective, this must have been very painful developments to suffer through.

Of course, God is not an idle God, even when the people follow other idols. We can see as the story progresses, that three kings from the East show up, having been “led” on a quest to find this special child. Of course, as visiting dignitaries, they stop in at Herod’s place. As the ruling monarch in the area, Herod would be the best contact for being able to find this special child. However, Herod himself has no clue where the child is, so he lets the three kings know that they should clue him in if they find the child, for he would like to pay homage himself.

Obviously, Jesus has been protected from Herod, for Jesus presents a serious threat to Herod’s power. The three kings are not dummies and they realize what kind of "homage" Herod really means. What’s interesting as the story continues is that these three foreigners are able to be guided directly to Jesus, while all Herod’s organization cannot find him.

As this story of cooperation and lack of cooperation by humans in response to God’s directions progresses, the thinking reader can surmise that these three dignitaries have been sent to provide the protection that has been denied the “holy” family up to this point. Unfortunately, the three kings follow the same pattern and slip out of the country by the back roads, avoiding any contact with Herod and his organization.

Instead of taking Jesus and his family with them to safety outside Herod's domain, all they do is leave behind some small gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold. Once again, Jesus has been abandoned and the family must escape on its own to Egypt in the west.

Thus, when people mention concerns about not recognizing “the reason for the season,” I experience bittersweet feelings about the “reason for the gift”: depending on what “gift” is referred to.

But after all, it’s just a story.

Walter Lowe
Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.

Astral Facts, November 2009

Words to the Wise

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

In this season of giving thanks, one thing I am grateful for is grammar. Even though it is also a seven-letter word that strikes terror in the heart of the stout-hearted and makes strong men quake at the knees, it’s cloaked in job security from my vantage point.

In the grammar family, a most useful but little understood item is the pronoun. Of course, people know that a noun identifies a person, place, or thing; nonetheless,when I ask my students what a pronoun is, they are quick to come up with puzzled looks, but that’s about it. When I tell them that Tiger Woods was a noun when he was in college, but once he started playing golf for money he became a pronoun, they scoff.

Another little understood grammatical unit is the preposition. Although they tend to defy definition, without prepositions, we have a difficult time being anywhere. As they say on this campus, a preposition is “anywhere a squirrel can go”: up, down, through, around, between, to, from, away, among, between, etc. Two of my favorite pronouns, in and out, were involved with the story of the two baby skunks. In case you don’t know the story,

A mother skunk once had two babies, named In and Out. Usually they would run around underfoot, for whenever In was in, Out was out. When Out was in, In was Out. Very rarely was In in when Out was in, nor was Out out when In was out.
On one such day, when Out was in and In was out, the mother said, “Out, go out to find In and bring In in.”
So Out went out to find In and bring In in. Immediately, Out came back in bringing In in from being out.
Astonished at the rapidity in which Out had gone out to find In and bring In in, the mother said, "Out, you just went out for In and brought In in in almost no time. How did you find In to bring In in so quickly?”
To which, Out shouted out, “Instinct!”

One of the other great things about grammar is the wonderful phenomenon of punctuation. In this season when people are sending holiday greetings and newsletters with overviews of the past year’s events, the punctuation does become an issue. For example, here’s a text message that Jill sent to Jack. Unfortunately, Jill had been texting when her teacher had gone over punctuation in school, and Jill neglected to include any punctuation in the text message, which is not unusual these days. Perhaps you can help Jack insert the correct punctuation:

Dear Jack I want a man who knows what love is all about you are generous kind and thoughtful people who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior you have ruined me for other men I yearn for you I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart I can be forever happy will you let me be yours Jill

How would you punctuate the message? Pencil in your punctuation marks before you scroll down any further.


Jack couldn’t remember what happened the last time they had communicated (assuming that Jack had communicated with Jill at some point – perhaps during a commercial or even in an extended conversation during halftime) but having a photogenic memory (remembering only the good things), Jack interpreted the message in the following way:

Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, and thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy; will you let me be yours?
Jill.

Isn't that sweet and touching!? Such depth of feeling would move the heart of any decent man. Unfortunately, the problem is that Jill didn’t really see things the same way. According to Jill’s comments later on Oprah, the punctuation should have been more like this:

Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, and thoughtful people who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jill

So if you’re unsure of the messages you’re sending, consult with your local English teacher. If the message is going out strong and clear, thank your local English teacher. Either way, if he’s standing near the mistletoe, be sure to give him a big kiss!


Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.