Friday is the day of the sorrowful mysteries, the agony in the garden, the scourging, the crown of thorns, the walk to the crucifixion and the crucifixion itself, the ones I know and the ones I do not understand and will not until they happen to me. I happened upon the rosary meditation in the most random of ways -- I was in an airport bookstore, desperate for something to kill time on the plane, and had a choice between Beverly Dinfrio's Looking For Mary or a book about brothels. I wanted the brothel book, but it was still in hardcover, and I couldn't really afford it so I went with Looking for Mary as I had loved Riding In Cars With Boys (the writer's first memoir). I'd been collecting rosary beads for years without knowing what they were for, and everything fell into place. The book was a revelation. Things in airports are expensive because you're trapped like a dog with an invisible fence, but when you find the right thing, it's worth the cost.
Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Happiness does not await us all. One needn’t be a prophet to say that there will be more grief and pain than serenity and money. That is why we must hang on to one another." Anton Chekhov
Cocktail Hour
Drinking music suggestion: Dwight Live! Dwight Yoakum
Benedictions and Maledictions
I've been tagged by lovely Sheila who has asked me to name six weird things about myself. So here is goes, sort of a free association, the first things that come to mind -
1 -- I've never had a pet during the entire course of my adult life.
2 -- I was thrilled when my one and only plant died. I threw it away with joy in my heart.
3 -- I hate all birds except for Dopey, a parrot that used to hang out at one of my favorite used bookstores. He had a sign near him that said, I'm Dopey. Don't touch me, I bite. I loved him and hate that he had cataracts and had to be removed from the store for acting out at some customers. They probably deserved it. So it goes. We are punished for others' sins.
4 -- I have every edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves, even the one with the section on astrological birth control.
5 -- Saying the rosary has changed my life.
6 -- My Aztec astrology sign is The Death.
16 comments:
I like the way you recommended those Dinfrio works sort of without really recommending them. They're probably girly books, though.
Crows[in the same family as RAVENS(ha, ha, a POE bird, Michelle)]in Tokyo place walnuts in front of car tires. Returning to their perches, they wait for the cars to clear, then retrieve the nut meats.
Are you sure your Aztec sign isn't the little death?
Good Morning Michelle. Wow . . . Fridays have always brought a strange gloominess with them. While most people are celebrating the beginning of a weekend, I am usually experiencing the Freaky Friday affect at work (the beauty industry brings out the crazies every Friday!) and an emptiness when I get home. I attribute most of those feelings to my childhood days . . . the every Friday night fight when my dad arrived home - drunk - to macaroni and cheese (no meat Fridays) and was pissed off. Every Friday! That's true insanity.
Anyway, Fridays also represent that doomful day in history for all Christians. I think that is one of the differences (dare I do a comparison?) between the Catholic religion and the Greek Orthodox religion (which I converted to 12 years ago having been raised Catholic.) The Catholics tend to focus on guilt, penance and the Crucifixion; the Greek Orthodox focus on the forgiveness of the inevitable human weaknesses, absolution thru confession (with guidance, prayer and meditation - no “penance”), and first and foremost, the RESURRECTION. (For it is through the Resurrection that Christianity was born).
Well, I can’t say enough about Mary, the Mother of God! I love her and look to her for guidance, especially female guidance. How beautiful and wonderful – saying the Rosary changed your life, and will continue to do so.
Now, from a Religious note to a rather spiritual one . . . regarding birds . . . this movie may change you perception and opinion of them: The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.
http://www.pelicanmedia.org/Film.html
http://www.wildparrotsfilm.com/
Peace
A friend of mine wouldn't pick up his new car on a Friday because he said it was the day Christ died. Apparently, the new car smell wasn't that big of an attraction for him.
"We are punished for others' sins." I hope WC(Cadaver)F of the Lions reads this. Not that he'd do anything about it. Thank you, Michelle. That's so true.
Dear Michelle,
You do know that the Agony in the Garden happened the night BEFORE crucifixtion Friday, don't you? Just checking,;).
I attended a high school that was staffed by teachers dedicated to the cult of Mary--Marist priests. They were losers.
I know the store that you speak of! The poor bird. He squawked at me everytime I went into the door. Poor birdie.
Cajun Queen you look kindasadthere
Aztecsgivemethewillies
butnot Mighty Isis, Shazammmmm!
R2 C2!
I always say my rosary when I go to bed. Actually, it puts me in a peaceful frame of mind and helps me to fall asleep. I usually fall asleep, rosary in hand before I'm even finished with the prayers.
Was that the used book store on 10 Mile? Love that store. But maybe Big Green Birds are a fixture in shops like that.
Hey Cheri and Jon,
You know the exact bookstore! I was so so sad when Dopey left. And Lindy, I agree with you about Fridays! Thanks for the great comment.
I guess that if it takes beads and repitition of words to get one closer to the Diety, ok. Mantras do the same for people of other faiths just a different path to the same place.
I never could grasp the mother of God thing though, God could not have had a mother by the very nature of the being. Or are we grasping at the straw that Jesus is God? Because then we take it the other way, if God died then all of life would have died at that moment, from the mountains to the creatures upon, in and under the earth and water.
Like science, religious things must have a logical explanation or they can not be TRUTH. There is honesty in religion but that is a subjective matter, truth must be objective by it's very nature.
Yet that aside one need not be a prophet in order to recognize that happiness and grief are both fleeting moments in the over all line of any human's life. It is how long we try to hang on to either that dictates how swiftly the next cycle starts. And the tighter we hang on to one another the swifter one or the other wants to get the fuck away. So as a non religious, non prophet, not wise man I say learn to live alone and find your grief and happiness in that.
When God was very young, his father told him stories. In time, although time hadn’t been invented yet, God had heard and learned every story his father told, which was every story there was to tell. In many ways of understanding the stories were basically mathematical; equations, algorithms, progressions and fractals. All were perfect and all were predictable.
When God was grown and on his own he remembered the stories and wanted to see them expressed and so He used everything he had learned, and this was Creation. Creation contained the essence of every story and each of them moved together perfectly.
God aged and loved the stories he saw before him, but in time, as now time had been created, he wanted more. He wanted new stories, but there could be none because all of perfection already existed. And so he made life and he made men and he made men to be different than anything that had ever been; he made them imperfect.
In their imperfection the living things were unpredictable, they were random and they were unique. Those things that were human tried to make sense of the senseless and find meaning where there was none and in doing so they gave back to God the one thing he needed: new stories.
I loved dopey too. I've been to second story about five thousand times.
Beautiful night to peruse your archives.
One day, there will be many more people pouring over all of these entries, wishing to know the young and talented and enchanting Michelle Brooks and how her work went before she really took off.
love
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