Goddess of the Week

Ah. We would appear to be being Goddess-bothered. This is the third time, now, I have picked Kamrusepas. It is well. She is a very kind Goddess, and Her message is one of healing.

As I have explained on the two previous occasions this card has come up, Kamrusepas is the Hittite Goddess of magic and healing. Her spells and rituals helped bring the petulant harvest-God Telipinu back from his self-imposed exile, and restore fertility and growth to the earth.

My first thought when I picked the card this time (before I went and reread my previous posts on Her) was that She was calling for us to perform spells of self-healing, and that for some reason this was the exact right time to be doing this. Perhaps it is because Spring is coming; even in my neck of the woods the snowdrops are out, and the crocus are budded. And tomorrow is the first of March; it will not be long now.

Looking back on the previous entries on Her I found this quote from Her dating to the first week of the year:

This is what I ask this week. It is your New Year; start with the basics. And this is most basic: how are you kind to yourself? What do you do, on a practical, real, level--I want a list!--to be kind to yourself, to be sweet to yourself? Answer this, deeply, honestly, and with great love. Yes, I am giving you home-work, if you will.

Perhaps, then, She is simply checking in to see if we've done our homework.

I will admit, I don't know how far I have gotten with the assignment myself. It is hard work, learning to be kind to yourself.

I ask Her what She has to tell us this time, and She says:

Keep at this, this kindness and this healing; for kindness and healing are bound up together and cannot be separated. You are doing well, very well, though you may not know it; and I am so sorry that this work is hard. It should not be hard work to learn to be gentle with yourself. Yes, this Work is ongoing; and I am here to remind you to keep at it and have faith, for it makes the world of difference.

When I ask Her how do we do this? She says:

Love yourself. Heal yourself. Be kind to yourself. Now. Right now. Stop what you are doing, stop your spiraling thoughts of unworth; dig in, and love yourself. It all comes down to that. Where to start, with love and healing? It is so sad that you do not know; but that makes it all the more urgent, doesn't it? Start with compassion for yourself, always. Look over your past deeds and forgive yourself. Forgive yourself your mistakes and your humanity; then, love yourself for your mistakes and your humanity. This week? You want another assignment?

Look back in your past, all of you, not just Thalia here I'm talking to, all of you, and find a deed that you are not proud of. If you are feeling afraid of digging back into it, that is all right; you can choose a small deed, a little regret, if that is all you can handle. And allow yourself to choose something small if you like; that right there is a way to be kind to yourself. Then from that most compassionate, gentle, kind part of yourself, address that maker-of-mistakes part of you as you would a frightened child, with deep love, understanding, and forgiveness. Do not judge it by what you know now; appreciate and thank that part of you and the mistakes you made then as contributing to your wisdom today.

I will think about this, and see what I can do. How about you? Do you have other suggestions on healing ourselves through kindness?

Also, any thoughts on why Kamrusepas is showing up so much?

Unamused Grace

The Powers That Be at Blogger have decided to switch around the 'Followers' (seen on this blog as 'Devoted Readers') widget-thingy, I assume with an eye to it being more synergistic or integrational or multifunctional or to help 'grow community' or somesuch happy-corporate-but-we're-cool-look-we-have-casual-Fridays jargon. I am not impressed.

Nor amused, particularly, since the new one automatically puts a link and a logo on it with no nevermind from me; and there is no option to change it.

The older I get, the more visceral my reaction to advertising gets--I am coming to a place where I find the very idea of it deeply immoral. It is manipulation, plain and simple, and is never in line with anyone's best interests but the company's profits. And they will do anything, pretty much, to get those profits, including telling all the women of the world they are inadequate shit unless they buy the company's products. So, having no advertisements on any of my sites has been a hard-and-fast rule since Day One. Except for links to my own store, and even then I actually feel conflicted, believe it or not.

So it's coming down, on principle. Feel free to call me a curmudgeonly misanthropist cave-dweller; I mean, it's not like I don't know that already.

Goddess of the Week

This week by luck of the draw we get Ishtar, the Babylonian (Semitic) Goddess of love and war. She is quite similar to the Sumerian Inanna, and many of the same stories are told of both Ishtar and Inanna, including the Underworld journey I related in the Inanna Goddess of the Week entry linked above. Her name means "Star" and She is the Goddess of the planet Venus as morning and evening star. She is one face of the Great Near Eastern Goddess Who includes both the Canaanite Ashtart, better known perhaps by the Greek version of Her name Astarte, and the Astoreth of the 'backsliding' Hebrews of the Bible.

She is known for Her power and Her volatile temper; when She arrives at the Gates of the Underworld, which are locked against Her, She threatens not only to smash them down, but to raise the Dead and release them into the land of the living, where they will not only outnumber the non-dead, but will also eat them. (Say it with me: BRAINS!!) The gatekeeper, faced with this sort of a threat, wisely capitulates and lets Her in.

Ishtar also plays a part in The Epic of Gilgamesh, the story of the semi-divine hero and founder of the city of Uruk. In it, She approaches the terminally patriarchal Gilgamesh with the idea of making him Her lover. He, however, rejects Her, first saying that it is because She is a Deity and he is not; but then he adds a round of insults to it. Ishtar is, unsurprisingly, not amused, and demands Her father Anu set the Bull of Heaven against him, again threatening to raise the Dead if he does not comply (again: BRAINS!) Anu, also, gives in; but Gilgamesh and his BFF Enkidu kill the Bull. As She stands on the walls of Uruk cursing Gilgamesh, Enkidu hurls a hunk of the dead Bull at Her, and then threatens Her with further violence.

She is famous for Her sexuality, and much is made of Her temple prostitutes, just how much She slept around with the Gods and the number of Her lovers and the bad ends they came to; but I'm just not feeling it. It sounds an awful lot like a smear campaign to me, with some good old patriarchal slut-shaming thrown in. This is, after all, in essence the same Goddess who leaned back against the apple tree and "rejoiced in Her wondrous vulva;" the one Whose loss to the Underworld caused all sex, mating and growth in the living world to cease, and without Whom all is stagnant.

The Babylonian versions of the tales seem to me to be quite concerned with putting a strong Goddess in Her place, and casting Her as inconstant, impossible to please, and tempestuous.

Another telling difference: in the Sumerian version of the tale, Inanna comes before Her sister Ereshkigal, the Goddess of the Underworld, "naked and bowed low." In the Babylonian version however, Ishtar is so enraged at having Her jewelry and clothing stripped from Her that She flies at Ereshkigal to attack Her.

Though Inanna is certainly capable of anger, it is depicted as warranted, even righteous (as when She returns to the world of the living to find Her husband has not mourned Her); in Ishtar, though, it is depicted as irrational and out of control.

I smell a snow-job. No wonder She is enraged.

So then what does this mean?

Pay attention to your anger this week. Especially if, as it seems the majority of my readers are, you are a woman, who is oppressed in any of a thousand ways and then told you are not allowed to be angry, and if you are, that it is not legitimate anyway. This is a lie. You have the right to be angry.

Start with yourself. Try not to dismiss your feelings of anger. Acknowledge them. Acknowledging them, incidentally, does not mean you have to act on them; just that they must be accepted as real. Listen to them. Spend some time this week, if you can, looking at your own anger. Just look.

What does She say?

Find where you seethe. This is a great source of energy; but it must be listened to and taken into you as valid. It is a great, great source of power, I cannot stress that enough. It is the life-force, really, or what happens to it when shoved out of sight and declared a sin, or unseemly. Shine bright as Venus in your anger.

You will stand out in the dark sky as something beautiful, and illuminating, when you heed your anger. It is the beginning of enlightenment. This is about making the world right again; now the Dead walk the earth and all is topsy-turvy and chaotic. Reclaim your power, and put things to right.

Well, that is pretty strong, though hardly surprising to me as a radical feminist; and rereading this I feel I should probably have taken Her advice and not sugar-coated this entry as much as I have. That is part of validating my own anger, is it not? I will work on it.

The more I consider Her the more I can feel, can see, the red waves of rage pouring off of Her. It is reminding me of that supremely odd word, carbuncle, which can mean both a festering abscess and a beautiful red jewel. How to transform the former to the latter?

Any ideas?

To read more about Ishtar, go here; for Inanna, here.

Creative Every Day Update

Here's one of the little Minoan things I made for The Sims in the rush to get stuff done before I had to bring back my library books, which I did yesterday. That yesterday was a windy day in the middle of a New English February, and that the local State University campus, besides being one of the Ugliest Places on Earth, is also one of the most miserably Cold and Windy Places on Earth, as well as having the most Inconvenient Parking Lots on Earth, what with them being like a mile from any of the buildings, must be said, as well as the somewhat spoiled remark that I think the library, generally, has a crap selection in the first place. I mean, what do you mean they don't have Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia? Anyway, here's my bit of art, a little Minoan altar with the Horns of Consecration a-top:

Earlier in the week I did two little outfits (called "skins" by those of us in the know, wink wink) as part of a challenge, or dare, put up by a Sims 1 forum I haunt:

Don't they look nice? Now, understand, I just made the texture maps for them; the "meshes" as they are called, meaning the underlying 3D structures, were made by MJ at the Simarillion, and are fantastic.

All these, by the bye, were drawn without the use of a WACOM tablet. Yes, that means with the goddamned mouse.

As They Have Always Done

I don't know how I got there. I know I followed a link from some Pagan blog or other; at any rate I ended up at the Archaeology Magazine website reading an article about the ancient Egyptian priestess Meresamun.

And not just about her, as in her tomb, or an inscription mentioning her, but her, she herself: for the article is about her mummy, literally her body.

She lived in a late period, relatively speaking, of ancient Egyptian history; and after she was mummified she was not then laid to rest in a separate coffin (or coffins), but encased directly in layers of plaster and linen (which substance is called cartonnage) which cannot be separated from her mummy, since no one (rightly) has the heart to destroy the casing, as it is wondrous beautiful. (Very clever, O ancient Egyptians.)

So, and this is one of the reasons for the article, the curators at her museum took her to a Chicago hospital to have her scanned by their super-duper state-of-the-art brandy new CT scanner; and this required transporting her there.

Now, the results of the scans are quite interesting, and I recommend you check out the link above; but two of the photos moved me so much I nearly wept.

(I don't seem to be able to link directly to the individual photos, as they've got some kind of Flashish whistles and bells going on on that site, so I will reproduce the little thumbnails here. I believe, and I did look this up, that this constitutes fair use. They are taken by photographer Anna Ressman. Do please check the full-sized pictures out.)

The first is of Meresamun's mummy packed up into a crate, ready to be transported to the hospital:

I know it's little, but can you see that? They've painted a pair of wedjat eyes on the side of the crate. As it explains in the caption, wedjat eyes were often depicted on the side of Egyptian coffins, as they were believed to allow the mummy to see out. This is the picture that nearly made me cry. It was just so kind, and so respectful of the long-dead Meresamun and her beliefs.

But this one, this picture just stunned me:

It is of two of the "exhibition designers" securing Meresamun's mummy/coffin to the bed of the CT scanner with, of course, linen straps. But do you know what it looks like?

It's Isis and Nephthys, the Two Kites, doing as They have always done, protecting the dead.

Goddess of the Week

Hathor is an ancient Egyptian Goddess Who is very old and very complex, being a Goddess of women, the sky, cows, motherhood, celebration, music, and the Afterlife. She may be the Cow-Goddess depicted on the Palette of Narmer (about 3100 BCE), and in Predynastic times (around 5500-3100 BCE) there was a shrine dedicated to Her as "She of the Pillar" at Her cult-center at Dendera, which is still the site of a famous Ptolemaic temple to Her. She is very, very, old.

She is intimately associated with the falcon-God Horus, Who was linked with the Sun, and was believed to be His mother and/or His wife, depending on the source. Her name reflects this ancient relationship: it means "House of Horus," and can be taken to refer to Her either as the mother of Horus (Whom She "housed" in Her womb), or to the sky, which "houses" the hawk/sun.

She could sometimes be represented simply as a cow; more often, though, She was shown as a woman with cow's ears and distinctive curled hair. On Her head is set the sun disk between two long cow's horns, the proportions of which look to me an awful lot like a raised pair of woman's arms embracing the sun.

Hathor's realm includes both this life and the next; She is both a Goddess of fertility and childbirth Who welcomes new life into this world, as well as the one Who protects the newly deceased and welcomes her or him into the Afterlife.

She is a Goddess of celebration, love, healing, music and dance, and Her festivals were famous for their merriment. Though generally very benevolent and helpful, She did have a darker side: sometimes Sekhmet's story of vengeance was attributed to Her.

Overall, though, Hathor is a very positive, very strong, and very ancient Goddess.

I am inclined, therefore, to regard this card's appearance this week as A Good Sign. It seems we are in for some celebration, love, and rejuvenation; and not just love within a couple, as today's execrable pink-and-red holiday insists is the only kind worth having, but love for one's own self. Especially, given that this is Hathor we're talking about, our love for ourselves as women. So many voices surround us and tell us to hate, belittle, and devalue ourselves; and untangling all that can be a lifetime's work. I think She is calling us to remember Who we are.

What does She say?

Love, laugh, celebrate; all is well, all are beloved of Me. I am golden, untarnished, always glowing, always beautiful, as is this earth and you; look in My eyes and see My radiant smile. I love you all. You are all My daughters. My golden ones, My daughters, I am strength and I am here. Take my hand. Wherever you are, wherever you are going, I welcome you. I am here.

To read more about Her, go here.

Labrys

And another in the Minoan series, this time based on a nearly anthropomorphic labrys or double axe on a jug from I think Knossos. I've been trying to get a move on this Minoan stuff (mostly that means the Minoan Sims stuff). The reason for giving myself a deadline, for once? My library books are due next week, and I've run out of renewals!

Knitty Stripey Kitty (Toy #6)

Another, this time a bit taller than usual. I'm really digging the stripes. Though I'm not sure if it counts as a minion, since it is, after all, a cat, and we are here to do their bidding, not the other way around.

New al-Uzza Art

Here's the re-do I did a couple weeks ago now. The design of Her is inspired by this baetyl from Petra. (The earlier version is here.)

It's funny how there are certain Goddesses I've drawn more often than others. I mean, sure, I have three (or four, if you count the Gorgon Sthenno) renditions of Athena now, but that's because I'm still consciously on an Athena kick. What I'm finding interesting are the Goddesses Whom I am not consciously choosing to draw repeatedly. For example this is the third time, now, I've done some al-Uzza artwork; though the all-time record I think goes to Brighid, Whom I've depicted at least five or six times now. Yet I wouldn't say She's my patroness Goddess. Perhaps I need to rethink that a bit.

Moving On

Okay, I am totally sick of looking at Benzaiten's boob. She has proved to be a far more complicated Goddess than I would have thought, having a long and convoluted history as She originates in the Hindu Sarasvati (a river Goddess so old even in ancient times Her river was lost) Who then was adopted into Buddhism which then made its way into China which is how She came to be known to the Japanese Who took Her as their own even assimilating Her into a couple of the native Shinto Goddesses.

I mean I think I've got that straight.

Anyway, I'm not sure now that my portrait of Her is quite appropriate, and the whole shebang of Her will need some Musing; but while I give that time I've decided I shouldn't let that hold up the writing of The Book. So I'm going to put Her aside even though I haven't finished Her entry, and even though I am usually quite loathe to do so, as I have this problem with finishing things as it is. But I think in this case I will have to move on if I am to move at all.

So, then, it's back to the Roman Goddesses. Which makes Diana next.

Goddess of the Week

Sif is a Norse Goddess Who is commonly assumed to be a grain or fertility Goddess. This is because She was famous for having very beautiful golden hair which reached all the way to the floor; this abundance of flowing gold has been equated with the ripe grain.

She was married to the Thunder-God Thor, who was Her second husband; by Her first husband, one of the Jötnar, or Frost Giants, She had had a son Ullr ("Glory"), the God of winter, hunting, and skiing.

Sif was very beautiful anyway, but Her extraordinary hair put Her over the top; and not surprisingly, She could be rather vain about it.

Now Loki, the God of mischief and fire, saw this; and always being one to mess with perfection, He snuck into Sif's chambers one night. Without waking Her somehow, He chopped all of Her beautiful hair off, leaving Her with a terribly unflattering, and rather uneven, buzzcut.

When Sif woke She was quite distressed, both by the loss of Her wonderful hair and the assault on Her person; and when Her husband Thor found out, all Hel broke loose, at least for Loki.

A good deal of roughing up later, Thor extracted a solemn promise from Loki that He would somehow restore Sif's hair. So Loki went to one of the dwarfs (Oh! Ow! As a Tolkien fan it really hurts to spell that plural correctly, especially given that the dwarf in question was named Dvalin), who were known for their outstanding ability in crafting things. He not only convinced Dvalin to make a new head of hair for Sif out of real gold, but also persuaded him to make a magic spear, Gungnir, and a magic ship, Skidbladnir. Loki was so impressed by both the dwarf's ability and gullibility that He decided to use these new wonderful things to trick an unrelated family of dwarfs to make their own, better, even more wonderful things.

Now this is Sif's story, not Loki's; but suffice to say that Loki's tricksiness almost cost Him His head, and He had to do a fair amount of undignified weaseling to get Himself out of it. As usual.

When He finally brought back the crafted golden hair, it immediately and magically affixed itself to Sif's head, and thereafter grew just like real hair.

One of the important points of that whole story is that that one impulse of Loki's--the one that could not stand stasis and perfection--led to greater rewards than He or anyone could have imagined.

Well, except maybe Sif Herself. For She is said to have possessed prophetic powers; and one wonders just how much She knew of the events that would be set in motion by the loss of Her hair. Myths about grain do tend to involve themes of sacrifice, as the grain is cut when ripe, at its prime; and given the famously poor soil of Scandinavia and the short growing season they must have being so far north, I'm not surprised that in the myth the price of the cut hair, that which is required to balance the loss, is so great.

So what does this card have to teach us this week?

I am a cautious type, myself, so I am reluctant to recommend schemes of the cockamamie kind; but were it not for Loki pushing His luck, and then being forced to His wits' ends when His scheming backfired, the results would not have been anywhere near as wonderful.

I don't know. On the one hand Sif is the catalyst, the perfection that brings about the balancing act of chaos, the still point that demands movement and change; but in framing it that way there is then an element of temptation, and of blaming Her as the victim for what Loki of His own free will chose to inflict on Her.

What does She say?

Don't bet on it. This is about the flow of riches, and can even represent changing a career; it will work out in the long run, but the short run is Hel. How much did I know? All of it, of course. Knowing it does not mean not reacting, though; I still cried when my hair was cut. A loss is still a loss, even in the name of the longer arc, the long view. Do not expect that you will not mourn these things.

But still, things will turn out better than you would have imagined, and when you look back on it all you will find one thing feeding into and leading into another, and it will all make sense. You must have faith in this, that you will see the pattern and the flow in the end; for you will not see it now.

I'm not sure what to do with that. It comes down to trust and faith, I guess, a good reminder to those of us stuck in the last half of a long winter; those of you in the southern hemisphere may perhaps relate better to the theme of harvest that runs through Her story. Either way, there is turning and change, though it may have its ups and downs.

What do you think?

To read more about Her, go here.

Knitty Monster (Toy #5)

Front:

and back:

I have several more of these guys knit up that I haven't assembled yet. Minions, they are. Everyone needs minions.

Joe's New Sweater (Toy #4)

It's a Liz Claiborne, actually. I guess once he was out of the Navy he started paying attention to fashion. It looks good on him, don't you think?

Made from a $2 pair of socks; the wrong side is a toenail-catching tangle of Fair Isle strands, and quite unsuitable to put on a human pair of feet. As it was I had to take one of his hands off to get it on him.

For the Groundhog, Blessed of Brighid

Moch maduinn Bhride
Thig an muc-ghrùnnd as an toll
Cha bhoin mise ris an muc-ghrùnnd
Cha bhoin an muc-ghrùnnd rium.

Early on Bride's morn
Shall the groundhog come from the hole
I will not harm the groundhog
Nor will the groundhog harm me.

(Traditional Gaelic song to Bride. Well, sorta kinda. More for the 4th annual Brighid in the Blogosphere Poetry Reading.)

The Orphic Hymn to Nature

Ancient mother,
holy artist,
queen of constantly
unfolding creation,
we honor you.

Untamed all-tamer,
eternally splendid,
bright serenity,
first born.

Lady of the shining stars
dancing breathless circles,
gem of divine powers,

finite, infinite,
known, all knowing
yet secret within us,
you invoke yourself.

Lead us, mother of life,
give us wisdom,
grace us with beauty.

You are justice
supremely strong
ruling every chaos.

You are spiritual and earthy,
a friend to piety,
sweet to goodness
and bitter to evil.

You are the most powerful;
you nourish all.

Your pure mind full of seeds
gives crowds of stars and flowers
creating worlds streaming
to receding horizons.

Your hand holds up space.
You direct the wind.
You hinge the world
with the bolt of force.

Courageous, fatal,
all conquering queen,
hear our song.

Care for us.
Grant plenty,
adventure and comfort,
constant peace and health.

(From The Hymns of Orpheus, Mutations by R.C. Hogart. Another entry for Brighid, as part of the 4th Annual Brighid in the Blogosphere Poetry Reading on Imbolc.)

Haiku for Chico Marx

You played piano
And pinochle and you knew
Almost all the odds

(Also by me. Chico Marx was a compulsive gambler, and at least according to his little brother Harpo, a mathematical genius. More poetry for the 4th Annual Brighid in the Blogosphere Poetry Reading.)

For Brighid the Bright

I am a circle of nineteen stones,
I am the Queen inside the mound.

I am the flame within the winter,
I am a serpent from the hole,
I am a cock who crows at dawn.

I am a kindled spark,
I am the welling spring,
I am a maiden all in green.

I am a cow newly calved,
I am the midwife and the mother,
I am the milk in a baby's mouth.

I am the fire beneath the cauldron,
I am the sun's image in a pool,
I am the water and the cup.

I am the beaten bronze,
I am the hands of the harper,
I am a frog hidden in the rushes.

The folds of my cloak form the green hills
My bright flame does not die.

(By me. Part of the 4th annual Brighid in the Blogosphere Poetry Reading.)

Goddess of the Week

Selene is the Greek Goddess of the Moon. There were many Goddesses associated with the Moon in ancient Greece, but Selene was the one Who was the Moon personified.

She rode across the sky in a chariot drawn by winged white horses or mules. She was usually depicted either with the crescent moon behind Her head, or with Her luminous veil in a wind-blown arc over Her head.

Selene's great love was the beautiful shepherd boy Endymion, Who spent His life in a perpetual state of unaging sleep. The stories aren't agreed on how He came about this quirky immortality--some say it was a reward from Zeus, and chosen by Endymion Himself to preserve His beauty; others that it was in fact a punishment from Zeus after Endymion fell in love with Hera. Some say that Selene Herself created the condition, so that She might always be able to gaze upon His beauty, and so She would always have Him all to Herself. At any rate, She is said to have had fifty daughters by Him, Who represented the fifty months of the four (lunar) year Olympiad.

This odd arrangement may have been a compromise as two myths collided; and Endymion may originally be a Karian Moon-God Himself. A cave and spring on Mount Latmos in Asia Minor was dedicated to Him, and said to be the place where He slept; the waters were apparently rich with minerals, as they were said to be moon-white in color, leaving white deposits around the edges of the spring.

Selene was sometimes held up in the Greek myths as an example of how passion can bring even the loftiest of us low, as She was a Goddess loving a mortal youth, and She is mocked here and there for being brought to such a state by Eros. In Selene's case, She descends from Her place in the heavens to have sex with Endymion on earth.

But one might also say that Her love for Endymion grounds Her, quite literally, and that because of it She walks with Her feet firmly planted on the earth; and also, that though She is Goddess of the Moon, which waxes and wanes and is always changing, She finds a stability and constancy in Her love for Him.

There is a sort of liminal quality to Selene's tale, dealing as it does with themes of both heaven and earth, change and stability; and it is worth it to remember that though the Moon is constantly changing (to our eyes, anyway), its cycle is so regular that we measure time by it; and that sometimes balance is to be found in movement.

This is the week that leads up to Brighid the Bright's day, the time (in the north) when the very first stirrings of Spring can be seen; even in my neck of the woods, New England, if I were to brave the cold and poke around under the snow I would likely find the daffodils' shoots just beginning to emerge. The darkness is losing hold, surely and steadily; and though right about now I know I for one need that reminder of the light at the end of the tunnel, I think this card is calling us to sit and ground in that darkness a little while longer, and be with the cold earth.

What does She have to say?

Oh, he is so beautiful. We are a perfect pair: I change, and he is steady. Also through me a little of the light of heaven is to be found on earth. But oh, mostly he is beautiful.

Celebrate the night, while it is still Queen, and find in that darkness what is lit by the Moon. The shadows are long and dark; much is unknown; yet it is so beautiful. Be in that stillness and that silence now. Watch the shadows move across the face of the earth. Know that the stillness and the movement both are the same thing.

That is, I suppose, a bit cryptic; though certainly in keeping with the opposites being part of a greater whole theme.

What do you think?

To read more about Her, go here.