Friday, May 19, 2006

"The Belly Button of Set"
7:06pm

I have a poor track record with reading books. I start so many and never finish them. I only made it to page 12 in Hornung's History of Egypt. After I read about the two Sethian Kings, Peribsen and Khasekhemwy, I went and Googled them, and never returned to the book. It was the same with Doresse' Gnostic Gospels. After I did a scan through for all references to the Egyptian God Set, I never picked it up again. However, I'm determined to do better with the Benoist book. Even though I'm slow, I have managed to make it all the way to page 25 (!). I'm saving all my notes from it to a text file, so although I'm chewing slowly, I'm chewing thoroughly. Now I will try that book again...

...Nope, I picked it up and put it back down. Maybe I feel like doing art...

10:13pm

Happily made the black and white rendering, I then proceeded to color it. Staring at the large size Set picture with his belly button magnified 5x, I am sleepily thinking, "It's the 'almighty belly button, this MEANS SOMETHING..."


The Belly Button of Set

Sleepy me then remembers, oh, yes, one of his titles is 'Son of Nuit', therefore he has a belly button.

(I just remember somewhere sometime a discussion 'Does God have a belly button?'. Of course, this is Yahweh type God they are referring to, who didn't have a mother, so depictions of him would be without belly button, except that many such religions don't depict their deity. I guess they don't want to get into such debates.)

BUT our Set has a Mother, therefore he has a belly button!


He looks like he's leaving for his night time work shift, duties to go fight Apep...

Saturday, May 20, 2006

"The Choice is Yours"
7:54pm

Another bit o' weirdness from the mind of Joan:

Maybe this bit of weirdness got influenced by the DaVinci Code movie which we saw this afternoon. Maybe the lady's hand mutating into the flower suggests the feminine chalice, and it's a pretty safe bet the red arrow figure represents the masculine aspects. Maybe the yin/yang figure is a kind of challice, too. Why is she facing away from the 'audience' and even the masculine aspects? I dunno. Maybe she's just looking at her flower.

Or Maybe you just find this picture whacked out and 'ridiculous', like some of our fellow movie viewers said of the movie. The choice is yours. Meanwhile, Julia and I enjoyed the movie. Julia, who has read the book, said it followed it very closely.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

"All Backed Up"
10:08pm

Yes, I finally made backups today, and yes, I finally discovered a better way to do the website for more effective archiving. Or should I say 'rediscovering'? I'd gotten sloppy in the past few months. Anyway, quite a few pages have been fixed and the back ups are done:


Yeah, I feel like that...

Monday, May 22, 2006 A

"All Backed Up - To Explain"
7:05pm

Basically, to explain, and yes, I could feel 'like a slave of technology', rather than the user, is I had been creating my web pages in a less efficient manner in the past year or so. There is a reason, and DSL is the reason. Back in the days of dial up, when I created my pages off line, I would have never thought of cross referencing domains. The page in loading, would have hung up at the request for the image from the other domain. The pages looked fine to the reader, but all my archiving had been worth sh&t because of the need to reference the server. Those disks were useless and from them, I could not easily recreate the website. Basically, all necessary functionality to a page must be within the domain from which the basic html (text) originates. A small picture that shows can have a link to a bigger picture elsewhere, and that is okay. But that larger picture is not necessary to how your page works. That is only if the reader wants the 1000x1500 pixel version, for instance.

I learn and I learn, and I forget and I learn again. Yes, there is a wee voice of Laura telling me, "I told you so, didn't I tell you so?" Yes'm, ya did.

Monday, May 22, 2006 B

"Listening"
8:22pm

 
 
Listening...

It kind of has the feeling of a quiet desert night...

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

"Earthshaking"
10:32pm

This has not been an earthshaking day for me. I started out the day with a sinus headache. It grew worse, and I went home from work early. I napped until time to get Julia. I did neither art nor study, just rearranging of the Pathmarking files. I hope to have all the ducks in a row soon. While I did this, I sipped warm tea and listened to mellow classical music. Just as mundane of a day as they come...

...but things became earthshaking. I felt the very ground around me shake violently. (Well, not having experienced a BIG earthquake, it felt violent.) There were aftershakes. I noted the time in my private journal: 9:20pm. Julia pointed at our ceiling, with its ceiling hangings. Each one was swaying back and forth, but they all held securely.

Then she turned on the local news to learn what had happened. If I typed accurately enough while the newscaster reported, this is what happened: An earthquake happened twenty three miles southeast (or was that southWEST) of Mexicali. It was 3.9 on the Richter scale, so it was minor. But not having experienced such a thing, except for a tiny one shortly after we moved to Yuma, it felt pretty darn earthshaking to me!

On looking at the WeatherUnderground site, I see the following:
There have been a series of earthquakes near Guadalupe Victoria, Mexico this evening. The one that we felt was 42miles/68km away from us with a magnitude of 3.9, at 9:19pm MST. I looked also at the Earthquake site and see the reporter was right, too, twenty three miles SSE of Mexicali.

Friday, May 26, 2006

"Not Earthshaking the Home Sites"
5:44am

It may not be 'earthshaking' news, but I finally got 'all those ducks in a row'. The websites are for the most part, decently archivable. As I went through old pathmarking posts, I enjoyed reading those early days of discovery. After I removed a ton of whiny and rambly posts, the path really comes through rather clearly. So I'm pleased with my work and am glad it's done. There may still be a few bad links floating about, but for the most part, it's done, done, done!

And now as the three day weekend awaits us, I hope to relax and have some fun.

I notice the theme this week at Photo Friday is 'home'. There's a nice transition from all the 'home page' work, these bits of html code serving to house the thoughts of my mind to thoughts of a physical home site. My first thoughts go to the dwelling of my early years, when my mother and father were still together. The last time I saw it, after my mother's death, it looked lonely and desolate to me:

It's just the feelings the sight of it evokes in me. Meanwhile, I have happier memories associated with my grandmother's house. Back in 1996, I even wrote a poem about my grandmother's house:

GRANDMOTHER'S OLD HOUSE

Grandmother's old house,
She will not walk its rooms
any longer,
She is not there to speak
of its past.

Yet, the walls,
if you listen,
whisper memories.
I was there in dreams
And I heard their chants.

They said:
    "I have lived.
    I have loved.
    I have been queen of this castle.
    I have raised children,
    They have grown tall.
    They have raised children
    Which have grown tall
    And they have raised children.
    The cycle of life continues."

And will continue.
Moons will rise full and fall over this house
The sunlight will warm the rooms cosy
each growing morning,
season after season.
And in dreams I danced to the music of these walls,

Round and round I spinned in trance,

Round and round.

    10- 5-96  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Now I reveal a secret about the illustrations surrounding that poem page. While the picture in the upper left is of my gramma's house, the one in the lower right is of my mother's house, taken in happier days. I didn't have a good picture of my gramma's house, so I used one that fit better visually.

I spent nine years of my life in my mother's house, and then twelve years in my gramma's house, with some time out for dwelling in college dorms. All the other dwellings have been short term places, the longest lasting no longer than four years. Laura, for various reasons, was more of a nomadic person, always hoping to find a place better than the previous. Julia and I are more settled. Already I have stayed here longer in our little apartment than in any dwelling since I left Gramma's house back in 1985. It's humble, but it's home to us!


Laura at the threshold...

I took the picture above just after Laura had moved into this apartment in December of 2001. I had to go back to Casa Grande to finish up work and get the last of our things. So this records the very earliest day here.

Saturday, May 27, 2006 A

"One Word to Describe Myself"
2:08pm

The latest 52 Figments poser is: "If you could only use one word to describe yourself, what would it be?"


One word to describe myself:
After some thought, I finally settled on:
"MULTIDIMENSIONAL"

Saturday, May 27, 2006 B

"Julia With Sam"
6:24pm


Julia with Sam, the son of a friend of ours...

I took advantage of our friend's visit, and while Julia held Sam, I sketched. Of course, Julia was talking, which explains the sketchy mouth, and Sam was still for awhile, but began to get restless. Maybe the quick sketch captures something despite that. At first, he did hold my gaze pretty strongly.

Sunday, May 28, 2006 A

"An Evening of Fact and Fiction"
5:39am

Hungry I am, and I find myself craving again that excellent guacamole that La Fonda makes. But that is not available to me now. I wonder how they are able to find good avocados. Every time we go to the supermarket, they are all mushy or hard as rocks. Meanwhile, I will make do with some almonds.

Last night, we had intentions of seeing the third in the series of "X-Men". But when we got to the theater in Old Town, what a surprise to read the note that not only the 7 o'clock show had been sold out, the 8 o'clock one had been sold out as well. None of the other of their offerings appealed, so we went to Blockbusters. For the cost of one large screen movie, we rented four DVDs. Aeon Flux intrigued Julia, so we watched that first. Imaginative plot and details in that one. Interesting visuals, too. Then both of us were intrigued by "Da Vinci, and the Code He Lived By" . This documentary that has movie like aspects was sponsored by the History Channel . Oh, this is an excellent one, I highly recommend it for the look at Da Vinci's life and times. Ever he sought to broaden his mind and knowledge. He kept a vast ream of journals, "comprising some 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and science", filled with sketches of possible creations, truly ahead of his time.

Speaking from his journals, he said it is not enough to have Will and Knowledge, it must be translated into action. Ever, he was about the state of being one has when he is constantly stretching himself to learn and grow.

This morning's weirdness:


Only a reflection?

Forward...
Go Back to Archives...
Go Back to Beginning Page...
Go to Index of Joan's pages...


© Joan Lansberry