Merry Christmas Paul to you and your lovely family,
At this time of year (and especially on this Solstice day) I find myself reflecting on what it means foe their to be so much darkness and night at this time of year - as well as the bitting cold and frost. I find myself sleeping an extra hour or two and rest more often during the day. I wonder if this is actually normal - how it should be?. I wonder if winter should be a time of rest, recuperation and even hibernation(!) after the frantic activity of summer and harvest.
But, I know that in our modern machine world with the ubiquitous electric lights and blue glows of the screens coupled with our always frantic paced work culture winter is just as much a hive of activity than spring and summer. Perhaps leaning back as much as we can into the rhythms and limitations of nature is one way of resisting the machine?
It’s been a fun and strange venture with you here, Paul. You’ve challenged my ideas about God, people and society. The first (God) I have more faith in. The second I have hope for. The third…. Still watching and waiting to rebuild that one once the great fall is over with. Seems to be taking a while. But there is much to collapse I guess.
As for the salon, I just want to offer everyone else here a Merry Christmas and a bit of encouragement / caution. The American politics of 2016 seem to be ramping up again and we all know this unfortunately spills to the rest of the world. Now is the time to focus on your people, place and prayer. Things will not get better. I truly believe the worst of American theatre is to come in 2024. But don’t let that turmoil from the artificial ruin what is real.
Your family and friends are real. Love them. Spend time with them.
Your place is real. Pray for your city, village or rural neighbors. Get to know them. Dine with them. They’re probably more interesting than anything going on on TikTok.
And focus on prayer. Meditate on the truth and ask God to reveal Himself to you. Ask where you can join Him already at work. He may just point you back to your neighbors. Or He may not. Give yourself to Him and let Him lead you to the desert if He wants. Wherever He leads you He surely won’t leave you.
Merry Christmas Paul. Thank you for guiding me through the year. Embracing the spiritual mystical nature and beauty of God’s creation gives a solidity to life today. The early Saints knew this and fed on it. May we do so again. I think we are going to need an anchor for the coming storm.
Dec 21, 2023·edited Dec 22, 2023Liked by Paul Kingsnorth
Today, the winter solstice day is always a special day for me and my wife Brenda, because we were married 11 years ago today in a beautiful Orthodox wedding in the Church of Ireland Church in Ballyseedy, Co. Kerry. For my family, virtually all of whom are Irish born Catholics, and my wife's family who likewise are mainly Irish RC's, it was their first encounter with the celebration of an Orthodox Christian sacrament, in particular, a wedding with numerous aspects to it so different from the western traditional wedding. Thankfully, many of these differences are also beautiful, such as the crowning of the bride and groom, and the "dance of Isiah". So it was going to be a steep learning curve for many of the 150 or so friends and relatives packed into the rural Church in the countryside about three miles from the town of Tralee. In this we were blessed to have as the main celebrant, the late and greatly missed, Fr Godfrey O'Donnell. Fr Godfrey was a priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and one of the key factors in the firm establishment of an Orthodox Christian presence here in Ireland. Fr Godfrey, was a former Jesuit priest, and his comprehension of the Irish Catholic mindset was complete. We could have had no better a celebrant, since he paused occasionally and explained the meaning and significance of each aspect of the ceremony. As well as remembering that wonderful occasion, with the Church lit up with numerous candles in stark contrast to the gloom of the Kerry mid-Winters day outside the stained glass windows, I like to remember Fr Godfrey. I loved him, though I only knew him a short time. He met us prior to the wedding, and his instructions around our personal preparations were most helpful. He was entirely respectful of Brenda's continued attachment to the RC Church, and it was he who gained us the blessing of the Metropolitan for Western Europe for the dispensation for us to wed in the advent fasting period, due to Brenda's recent serious illness. An illness, which thanks to God, she has been free from ever since, for which we give thanks to God from the bottom of our hearts. Glory to thee O God!
We had planned to use a Roman Catholic Chapel in Tralee for the ceremony. Five months prior to our wedding day, we, to my great surprise were informed by the local Roman Catholic "decision maker" that our using of the RC Chapel was "absolutely no problem at all". We went ahead with our plans, and had invitations printed, but crucially, not posted. We arranged a further meeting with the RC diocesan "decision maker", who let me say was a Kerry cleric of a type well known in Ireland. Good natured, breezy, affable, and good humoured, but not perhaps much of a "details" man. As we sat together the three of us discussing the wedding day, we thanked him for his flexibility in hosting an Orthodox Christian wedding ceremony in a Catholic Church for an Orthodox Christian groom and a Catholic bride. He responded modestly with the words "sure, no problem at all, aren't we all under the Pope?", there followed a silence I will not forget for a long time, which I eventually rather awkwardly broke, with " but we're not all under the Pope though Father". There then followed a flurry of activity where the poor man felt it was best to ring the Canon Lawyer for the region, since the call was made in the adjoining room on speaker phone we overheard it all. "Orthodox he is, she's a Catholic from our parish Michael, that'll be OK won't it?".... "but who's the priest? Is he one of ours and is the ceremony a Catholic wedding though Joe ? " came the reply."Michael sure no, the priests an Orthodox priest who used to be a Jesuit, coming down from Dublin".... "Joe, my dear man, do not touch it with a bargepole" was the firm and curtly delivered response.
Our helpful decision maker returned to the room, in fairness to him full of apologies, but nevertheless imparting the bad news that we had no Church for the wedding.
In a mix of vexation and panic once out of the building I rang Fr Godfrey in Dublin, he was unruffled, and pausing briefly after my frantic explanation he said " Really? Most unfortunate, sadly it would appear news of the schism has not yet reached Kerry".
Fr Godfrey O'Donnell came up trumps for us though, with his numerous contacts through his role as the Romanian Orthodox Church representative on the Irish Council of Churches we were soon fixed up with the use of the Church of Ireland Church in Ballyseedy with the best wishes of the Church of Ireland Bishop for the area.
So on this day, I give thanks once agaín to the now sadly reposed Fr Godfrey O'Donnell, raising a Christmas toast to his memory, may it be Eternal.
Paul may I wish you and your family a peaceful and joyful Christmas!
I'm so glad you've taken the meandering route you have, without it there is little chance I too would have found myself on the Orthodox path. I followed a not wholly dissimilar route to yourself, Humanist and Environmentalist (and aspiring Green politician), to Buddhist, to Celtic Christian (briefly) and finally to Orthodoxy.
Like so many, it now finally feels like I'm "home", like the searching is over. I have to thank you in no small way for that (and God, of course!)
One thing I'd like to bring to to folks' attention if they've not already explored it, is another substack that you read yourself:
Written by Hieromonk Gabriel. For a new convert, his sermons are wonderfully easy to understand whilst still shedding light on the deeper layers of the Holy Gospels and how they relate to us in the modern world. I've been working my way through them from the beginning and every one brings new understanding to my journey. The sermons are relatively quick reads but contain so much. I heartily recommend.
Looking forward very much to what 2024 brings to the Abbey, thanks for all your efforts, wisdom and insight.
Dec 21, 2023·edited Dec 21, 2023Liked by Paul Kingsnorth
It's a very windy Solstice eve here in Dorset from where I'd like to send warm greetings both to Paul and to all of you who've been writing here at the salon and in the comments this year. I find the diverse range of thoughts, and the robust yet friendly manner in which they are shared, heartening. Bless this corner of the internet...
Regarding the life of a little known (Orthodox, RC and Anglican) English Saint, whose ossuary miraculously survived the Reformation, here's a small request: if you have any leads, online or in books, that you would like to share with me as I research further into the life and martyrdom of my local saint St Wite (aka Vita, Wita, Candida) of Dorset, I would be most grateful for them. I have told Paul about my nascent plans for spending a year as a 'community hermit' and for pilgrimage around her landscape in West Dorset. Encouraged, I am posting this here. You can email me by pressing reply at this post https://carolineross.substack.com/p/in-the-company-of-saints
Have a very Happy Christmas Paul, and all readers of the Abbey! Once we've got through the last few days of the fast and unfortunately concurrent manic Christmas plans preparation, I'll be sure to raise a glass to you all!
Thinking this Christmas of everyone who is poor or lonely or living amid the ruins of broken and missing relationships; of those just trying to survive the season. Winter Solstice is a wonderful milestone as it means each day will be a little brighter than the last from now on.
Mulled wine sounds great, something to warm the belly. We make muscadine wine and a few others. My mother has a few jugs that are at least 30 years old and still good of course. My family has a history of bootlegging so yes we can round up some White Lightning if necessary. Merry Christmas to All.
oh, I write from the bottom of a glorious well.......... to return to the surface is a predicament for sure....
but so what, I did not study with Tatterhood and the sisters to be concerned.
Down here at the bottom, the muddy slush swampy bottom, the murk and mile has become roots and trees, chlorophyll hangs around in messenger form waiting with me a the collective...
I hang with various ash piles..... the elders blown up in smoke.... and sometimes with grandfather..... old as the hills and a relic of Christian suspicion..... this morning when he wakes up, I am taking my dough over to his place to create the shortbreads...... he can no longer smell, so I tell him to remember the smell, just like Beethoven remembered the Symphony of Love, though he did not know about the new applause....
So Be like Beethoven, remember the sound and the smell.... and then the way out of the well may become clear...
sigh, but then those thin blue lines from Ithyca rise up in the distance.... seasonal sommulance beckons...
Malo soifua Paul from New Zealand. I am a first generation Samoan Australian Kiwi. I have enjoyed reading your work and following your spiritual transformation. I was brought up Catholic, steadfastly driven by my Samoan mother. I carried out all the duties and fulfilled ceremonies related to this (schooling, Sunday school, baptism to confirmation etc). My father is not religious but is a Saint and beautifully wise in my eyes. His devotional quality manifested in making sure my siblings and I made it to mass every Sunday (1979 - 1985). Once a month the mass was in Samoan. We stopped going as a group when my older brothers and I were old enough to get a job on the weekends with my mother (13 years old for me). In addition dad never was a barrier to my mother's devotion to the church and to our Catholic upbringing. Work ethic and being a good Samaritan were handed down to us five children by my wonderful state-housed-eventually-owned, blue collar working class mixed marriage parents with great success except we have actually all ended up following my father's way (I am the only sibling who has continued a spiritual practice). A main reason for this is not having both parents being Samoan. I know it hurts her that we are no longer practising Catholics but God works in mysterious ways right? My dad never came to mass with us on Sunday. Instead, he would stay home diligently preparing the most satisfying Sunday breakfast ever! Creamy porridge with brown sugar and cream, plates with stacks of buttered toast, a big pot of tea and a 50c bag of lollies next to each place mat. This lived ritual taught us a lot about the value in belonging to something and reinforced my Samoan cultural practices around gathering to pray and worship in a sacred spiritual space and transitioning to a gathering to feast as a family to celebrate that sacrifice. So we learnt that when you do the mahi, you get the treats! This learning has been as important as my Catholic upbringing in developing my current spiritual practice. My practice blends my parents belief systems and much more based on my independent study and passion for many belief systems and mystical frameworks such as: Buddhism and Tantrik Yoga, Astrology, Tarot, Psychology especially Jungian, Education Psychology, te ao Māori, Matauranga Māori, Pacific values especially the notion of service, along with a love of art and artistic practices (painting, creative writing, music, DJing). It was God's will. I strive to help my mother to understand that her and I are the same just two sides to the same coin. Manuia le Kerisimasi ma le tausaga fou Paul. I very much look forward to reading your work and continuing my support. God bless.
I wish Paul, and the people writing and reading here, a joyful Christmas, with time to rest, time to be of good cheer, good will towards our neighbors, and preferably, people with faces.
2023 has certainly been an interesting year, highlight of which for me was listening to you and Andy hold court in the back of that minivan as I drove us across South Dakota. A mystical experience at least.
I just read this interesting comeback to the Andreesen Techno-Optimist manifesto from a few months back. One wonders if Lord Yarvin has been reading your work and taking on critiques of the machine.
In other notes, I have convinced some trucker friends of mine to read your work, as well as two of my aunts, both of whom have been absolutely loving your 50 Holy Wells series.
On their behalf, thank you so much, and a Merry Christmas to you and the family.
A blessed solstice to you and yours! My observance of winter solstice has changed and deepened over the years, from "yay, the light is returning!" to honoring the dark and the cold for the unique gifts they bring. Winter is more than a problem to be gotten past; not to recognize that dishonors the season, and thus (if you like) dishonors God. Our ancestors no doubt looked forward to the plenitude of the growing season, and bade the gods ensure its return. Now we understand that deep cold and dark night are essential to some species and processes. And they carry their own mysterious beauty.
The gaunt saints with their mortifications of the flesh I don't find moving. I read your Well series and study the pictures with interest, but any personal meaning for me would come from drinking in the emerald green landscape, dipping my fingers in the water, feeling the wind. I'll keep reading, and I'm certainly wondering what you are cooking up to come next!
Merry Christmas Paul to you and your lovely family,
At this time of year (and especially on this Solstice day) I find myself reflecting on what it means foe their to be so much darkness and night at this time of year - as well as the bitting cold and frost. I find myself sleeping an extra hour or two and rest more often during the day. I wonder if this is actually normal - how it should be?. I wonder if winter should be a time of rest, recuperation and even hibernation(!) after the frantic activity of summer and harvest.
But, I know that in our modern machine world with the ubiquitous electric lights and blue glows of the screens coupled with our always frantic paced work culture winter is just as much a hive of activity than spring and summer. Perhaps leaning back as much as we can into the rhythms and limitations of nature is one way of resisting the machine?
It’s been a fun and strange venture with you here, Paul. You’ve challenged my ideas about God, people and society. The first (God) I have more faith in. The second I have hope for. The third…. Still watching and waiting to rebuild that one once the great fall is over with. Seems to be taking a while. But there is much to collapse I guess.
As for the salon, I just want to offer everyone else here a Merry Christmas and a bit of encouragement / caution. The American politics of 2016 seem to be ramping up again and we all know this unfortunately spills to the rest of the world. Now is the time to focus on your people, place and prayer. Things will not get better. I truly believe the worst of American theatre is to come in 2024. But don’t let that turmoil from the artificial ruin what is real.
Your family and friends are real. Love them. Spend time with them.
Your place is real. Pray for your city, village or rural neighbors. Get to know them. Dine with them. They’re probably more interesting than anything going on on TikTok.
And focus on prayer. Meditate on the truth and ask God to reveal Himself to you. Ask where you can join Him already at work. He may just point you back to your neighbors. Or He may not. Give yourself to Him and let Him lead you to the desert if He wants. Wherever He leads you He surely won’t leave you.
Merry Christmas Paul. Thank you for guiding me through the year. Embracing the spiritual mystical nature and beauty of God’s creation gives a solidity to life today. The early Saints knew this and fed on it. May we do so again. I think we are going to need an anchor for the coming storm.
Today, the winter solstice day is always a special day for me and my wife Brenda, because we were married 11 years ago today in a beautiful Orthodox wedding in the Church of Ireland Church in Ballyseedy, Co. Kerry. For my family, virtually all of whom are Irish born Catholics, and my wife's family who likewise are mainly Irish RC's, it was their first encounter with the celebration of an Orthodox Christian sacrament, in particular, a wedding with numerous aspects to it so different from the western traditional wedding. Thankfully, many of these differences are also beautiful, such as the crowning of the bride and groom, and the "dance of Isiah". So it was going to be a steep learning curve for many of the 150 or so friends and relatives packed into the rural Church in the countryside about three miles from the town of Tralee. In this we were blessed to have as the main celebrant, the late and greatly missed, Fr Godfrey O'Donnell. Fr Godfrey was a priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and one of the key factors in the firm establishment of an Orthodox Christian presence here in Ireland. Fr Godfrey, was a former Jesuit priest, and his comprehension of the Irish Catholic mindset was complete. We could have had no better a celebrant, since he paused occasionally and explained the meaning and significance of each aspect of the ceremony. As well as remembering that wonderful occasion, with the Church lit up with numerous candles in stark contrast to the gloom of the Kerry mid-Winters day outside the stained glass windows, I like to remember Fr Godfrey. I loved him, though I only knew him a short time. He met us prior to the wedding, and his instructions around our personal preparations were most helpful. He was entirely respectful of Brenda's continued attachment to the RC Church, and it was he who gained us the blessing of the Metropolitan for Western Europe for the dispensation for us to wed in the advent fasting period, due to Brenda's recent serious illness. An illness, which thanks to God, she has been free from ever since, for which we give thanks to God from the bottom of our hearts. Glory to thee O God!
We had planned to use a Roman Catholic Chapel in Tralee for the ceremony. Five months prior to our wedding day, we, to my great surprise were informed by the local Roman Catholic "decision maker" that our using of the RC Chapel was "absolutely no problem at all". We went ahead with our plans, and had invitations printed, but crucially, not posted. We arranged a further meeting with the RC diocesan "decision maker", who let me say was a Kerry cleric of a type well known in Ireland. Good natured, breezy, affable, and good humoured, but not perhaps much of a "details" man. As we sat together the three of us discussing the wedding day, we thanked him for his flexibility in hosting an Orthodox Christian wedding ceremony in a Catholic Church for an Orthodox Christian groom and a Catholic bride. He responded modestly with the words "sure, no problem at all, aren't we all under the Pope?", there followed a silence I will not forget for a long time, which I eventually rather awkwardly broke, with " but we're not all under the Pope though Father". There then followed a flurry of activity where the poor man felt it was best to ring the Canon Lawyer for the region, since the call was made in the adjoining room on speaker phone we overheard it all. "Orthodox he is, she's a Catholic from our parish Michael, that'll be OK won't it?".... "but who's the priest? Is he one of ours and is the ceremony a Catholic wedding though Joe ? " came the reply."Michael sure no, the priests an Orthodox priest who used to be a Jesuit, coming down from Dublin".... "Joe, my dear man, do not touch it with a bargepole" was the firm and curtly delivered response.
Our helpful decision maker returned to the room, in fairness to him full of apologies, but nevertheless imparting the bad news that we had no Church for the wedding.
In a mix of vexation and panic once out of the building I rang Fr Godfrey in Dublin, he was unruffled, and pausing briefly after my frantic explanation he said " Really? Most unfortunate, sadly it would appear news of the schism has not yet reached Kerry".
Fr Godfrey O'Donnell came up trumps for us though, with his numerous contacts through his role as the Romanian Orthodox Church representative on the Irish Council of Churches we were soon fixed up with the use of the Church of Ireland Church in Ballyseedy with the best wishes of the Church of Ireland Bishop for the area.
So on this day, I give thanks once agaín to the now sadly reposed Fr Godfrey O'Donnell, raising a Christmas toast to his memory, may it be Eternal.
Paul may I wish you and your family a peaceful and joyful Christmas!
I'm so glad you've taken the meandering route you have, without it there is little chance I too would have found myself on the Orthodox path. I followed a not wholly dissimilar route to yourself, Humanist and Environmentalist (and aspiring Green politician), to Buddhist, to Celtic Christian (briefly) and finally to Orthodoxy.
Like so many, it now finally feels like I'm "home", like the searching is over. I have to thank you in no small way for that (and God, of course!)
One thing I'd like to bring to to folks' attention if they've not already explored it, is another substack that you read yourself:
https://www.rememberingsion.com/
Written by Hieromonk Gabriel. For a new convert, his sermons are wonderfully easy to understand whilst still shedding light on the deeper layers of the Holy Gospels and how they relate to us in the modern world. I've been working my way through them from the beginning and every one brings new understanding to my journey. The sermons are relatively quick reads but contain so much. I heartily recommend.
Looking forward very much to what 2024 brings to the Abbey, thanks for all your efforts, wisdom and insight.
And definitely for the Saints and the Wells!
It's a very windy Solstice eve here in Dorset from where I'd like to send warm greetings both to Paul and to all of you who've been writing here at the salon and in the comments this year. I find the diverse range of thoughts, and the robust yet friendly manner in which they are shared, heartening. Bless this corner of the internet...
Regarding the life of a little known (Orthodox, RC and Anglican) English Saint, whose ossuary miraculously survived the Reformation, here's a small request: if you have any leads, online or in books, that you would like to share with me as I research further into the life and martyrdom of my local saint St Wite (aka Vita, Wita, Candida) of Dorset, I would be most grateful for them. I have told Paul about my nascent plans for spending a year as a 'community hermit' and for pilgrimage around her landscape in West Dorset. Encouraged, I am posting this here. You can email me by pressing reply at this post https://carolineross.substack.com/p/in-the-company-of-saints
Many thanks, Merry Christmas and Good Yule!
Have a very Happy Christmas Paul, and all readers of the Abbey! Once we've got through the last few days of the fast and unfortunately concurrent manic Christmas plans preparation, I'll be sure to raise a glass to you all!
Thinking this Christmas of everyone who is poor or lonely or living amid the ruins of broken and missing relationships; of those just trying to survive the season. Winter Solstice is a wonderful milestone as it means each day will be a little brighter than the last from now on.
https://optera.substack.com/p/flickering-lights
This Christmas will be the 14th anniversary of the suicide of Vic Chesnutt. Gift Kristin's beautiful book:
https://youtu.be/locirssbIR8
Mulled wine sounds great, something to warm the belly. We make muscadine wine and a few others. My mother has a few jugs that are at least 30 years old and still good of course. My family has a history of bootlegging so yes we can round up some White Lightning if necessary. Merry Christmas to All.
oh, I write from the bottom of a glorious well.......... to return to the surface is a predicament for sure....
but so what, I did not study with Tatterhood and the sisters to be concerned.
Down here at the bottom, the muddy slush swampy bottom, the murk and mile has become roots and trees, chlorophyll hangs around in messenger form waiting with me a the collective...
I hang with various ash piles..... the elders blown up in smoke.... and sometimes with grandfather..... old as the hills and a relic of Christian suspicion..... this morning when he wakes up, I am taking my dough over to his place to create the shortbreads...... he can no longer smell, so I tell him to remember the smell, just like Beethoven remembered the Symphony of Love, though he did not know about the new applause....
So Be like Beethoven, remember the sound and the smell.... and then the way out of the well may become clear...
sigh, but then those thin blue lines from Ithyca rise up in the distance.... seasonal sommulance beckons...
Merry Christian Mass
Jane
Malo soifua Paul from New Zealand. I am a first generation Samoan Australian Kiwi. I have enjoyed reading your work and following your spiritual transformation. I was brought up Catholic, steadfastly driven by my Samoan mother. I carried out all the duties and fulfilled ceremonies related to this (schooling, Sunday school, baptism to confirmation etc). My father is not religious but is a Saint and beautifully wise in my eyes. His devotional quality manifested in making sure my siblings and I made it to mass every Sunday (1979 - 1985). Once a month the mass was in Samoan. We stopped going as a group when my older brothers and I were old enough to get a job on the weekends with my mother (13 years old for me). In addition dad never was a barrier to my mother's devotion to the church and to our Catholic upbringing. Work ethic and being a good Samaritan were handed down to us five children by my wonderful state-housed-eventually-owned, blue collar working class mixed marriage parents with great success except we have actually all ended up following my father's way (I am the only sibling who has continued a spiritual practice). A main reason for this is not having both parents being Samoan. I know it hurts her that we are no longer practising Catholics but God works in mysterious ways right? My dad never came to mass with us on Sunday. Instead, he would stay home diligently preparing the most satisfying Sunday breakfast ever! Creamy porridge with brown sugar and cream, plates with stacks of buttered toast, a big pot of tea and a 50c bag of lollies next to each place mat. This lived ritual taught us a lot about the value in belonging to something and reinforced my Samoan cultural practices around gathering to pray and worship in a sacred spiritual space and transitioning to a gathering to feast as a family to celebrate that sacrifice. So we learnt that when you do the mahi, you get the treats! This learning has been as important as my Catholic upbringing in developing my current spiritual practice. My practice blends my parents belief systems and much more based on my independent study and passion for many belief systems and mystical frameworks such as: Buddhism and Tantrik Yoga, Astrology, Tarot, Psychology especially Jungian, Education Psychology, te ao Māori, Matauranga Māori, Pacific values especially the notion of service, along with a love of art and artistic practices (painting, creative writing, music, DJing). It was God's will. I strive to help my mother to understand that her and I are the same just two sides to the same coin. Manuia le Kerisimasi ma le tausaga fou Paul. I very much look forward to reading your work and continuing my support. God bless.
I wish Paul, and the people writing and reading here, a joyful Christmas, with time to rest, time to be of good cheer, good will towards our neighbors, and preferably, people with faces.
Hello Paul, thanks for the discount, please is that only for new supporters? Thanks! Have a good day
Good Morning and Happy Solstice, Mr Kingsnorth.
2023 has certainly been an interesting year, highlight of which for me was listening to you and Andy hold court in the back of that minivan as I drove us across South Dakota. A mystical experience at least.
I just read this interesting comeback to the Andreesen Techno-Optimist manifesto from a few months back. One wonders if Lord Yarvin has been reading your work and taking on critiques of the machine.
https://open.substack.com/pub/graymirror/p/a-techno-pessimist-manifesto
In other notes, I have convinced some trucker friends of mine to read your work, as well as two of my aunts, both of whom have been absolutely loving your 50 Holy Wells series.
On their behalf, thank you so much, and a Merry Christmas to you and the family.
See you here in January, mate!
Merry Christmas!
A blessed solstice to you and yours! My observance of winter solstice has changed and deepened over the years, from "yay, the light is returning!" to honoring the dark and the cold for the unique gifts they bring. Winter is more than a problem to be gotten past; not to recognize that dishonors the season, and thus (if you like) dishonors God. Our ancestors no doubt looked forward to the plenitude of the growing season, and bade the gods ensure its return. Now we understand that deep cold and dark night are essential to some species and processes. And they carry their own mysterious beauty.
The gaunt saints with their mortifications of the flesh I don't find moving. I read your Well series and study the pictures with interest, but any personal meaning for me would come from drinking in the emerald green landscape, dipping my fingers in the water, feeling the wind. I'll keep reading, and I'm certainly wondering what you are cooking up to come next!