Things I Learned In Kansas

Things I Learned In Kansas

Store your cups in the cupboard upside down

Sprinkle water when you dust or sweep to settle it

Bring a big drill and a jug of water when you go place graveside flowers

Every house is a bar, don't kid yourself

Small town gossip is a force to be reckoned with

The rest of the country doesn't celebrate Pancake Day for some ungodly reason

We don't have much, but Oz and Superman (and the Winchesters, but nobody remembers)

Rainbow flags mean Oz

There is no Westboro Baptist Church in Ba Sing Se

The aesthetic is dead plants. Wheat, sunflowers, rotted grey farmhouses

Sunday Brunch

Turtle Racing

Wheelchair Racing

There are no vegans in Ba Sing Se, and the beef packing plant smells like the aftermath of Taco Tuesday to the tenth power

Windbreaks are awesome

Here Be Windmills

How to fly a kite the entire day and not get bored

Our sovereign overlords are actually the rabbits

Tornado? Eh, I still need groceries

The hail can and will stone you to death

The river(s) are imaginary concepts, except when it flash floods

Horny toads are adorable, change my mind

Hop on down to the OK panhandle if you wanna see people throw cow pies for sport

The most isolated city in the US is Garden City, and the population density of the state is 52.9 people per square mile. Other people's definitions of "small town" confuse me.

Flatland. Just. Go read Flatland by Abbott

Out Of The Dust is required reading, and will drive even the most fervent bibliophile to numb exhaustion and pleas for mercy

Everybody goes to church, none of that liberal nonsense unless you kill babies for Satan

Gender. Roles. Though tomboys are acceptable, when they're young

Fossil hunting except it's a Ford Model T

Yeah, there are snakes, but you're more likely to be mauled by the weeds. No, seriously.

Mountains are a myth perpetuated by people who don't live in Kansas.

The horizon is beautiful

There is beauty in death

Surly and stubborn and ready to socially destroy anyone who hurts your family

You will learn to appreciate country and Christian music or die, I don't make the rules

Chickens are cute and fluffy and delicious, even if it was pretty much a pet

The closest anyone gets to "exotic art" is a tin Kokopelli on the wall, and that's rare.

Go out into the dunes when the sandhill plums are ripe and bring them home

It's not too strange for the neighbor to show up with a bag of tarts or fruit or an entire casserole

How not to die in the dunes

Your options are love or excommunication

Tongues are more dangerous than guns. But we still have a lot of those.

Of all holidays, Memorial Day is both sacred and full of suck.

Distance is no excuse for not keeping in contact.

Redefine "acceptable driving distance".

We live at the mercy of the wind and the brittle earth, with nothing to do but figure out our fellow man. Don't knock it until you hear the story of the wandering gardener hobo who talks to trees and can do genuinely impressive things to your garden for a price, who's still walking after being hit by a train. Don't knock it until you've been hit full-on by a real dust devil and tasted real wildness. Don't knock it until you've clawed yourself out of the sand and been greeted by the vast blue dome of the sky, searing and immaculate. Don't knock it until you've met the dusty sun-worn handshakes of elders older than their town.

Don't knock it until you see why the state motto is a love letter to hard work and the starry sky.

I think a major point that is missed by some people practicing reconstructionist faiths is that we are literally creating new traditions and practices as we go along.  So much of what we have is modern and even our interpretations of the mythos, of the beloved lore, are often modern and translated and created in the last few centuries.  We are a modern faith movement.

Why do I bring this up? What’s your point, Boggan?  Simply this: do not discount people because they value their UPG or find a modern approach to an old tradition or ritual. It’s their practice; what we take away from it as a whole is different and goes into the whole SPG part of the faith and is worth conversation and consideration but there is no orthodoxy, no central authority. We are richer for that, I believe.

What we know for “certain” in the lore and the mythology is not the be-all, end-all of a reconstructionist faith.  It has great value and importance (incredibly so!) but so does everything else we are creating along the way. 

Faiths and cultures evolve and so do the gods; remember that.

I feel like I am caught

Betwixt teeth

If I crack I die

[A crunch of bone and spray of red

To pick gingerly from the cracks]

If they crack

Then split like marble tombstones

Rotted with sugar and neglect

The tender bits spill out

In strangling shadows 'round my neck.

It hurts to touch

They scream as they brush me

Agony

Agony

But it's sensation

And senses are life.

Give and take

Brace and break

Crumple and crush

A tin can to firm boots

[And if a lone scrap of metal screams

With no one around to hear,

Was it ever in pain at all?]

Vanishing, vanishing,

Varnish and lace,

Veneer and revere

Touch up your plastic face.

Pull back the hood and bare sparking wires

Belching pipes

Smoke and soot

Grit and fire.

[Pour the coolant,

Cap it.

There are no strings on me.]

I lick my teeth

[Drink my own blood]

And breathe.

Hello there! I had a quick question about a thing. Context: I've been typing up a set of medical manuals for a medicine woman, since my eyes are young and hers are not. I've been given the chance to put a couple of words of farewell at the end. As an absolute nerd and a devotee of Nisaba on top of that, have you come across any common closing statements in your Sumerian/Akkadian/etc translations, like how we end letters with "Sincerely" and so on?

First, that project sounds amazingly cool.  Second, I have mixed news for you.  On the one hand, as you can see in the selection I’ve translated, Akkadian letters didn’t tend to end with a closing statement; they simply stopped at the end of the message.  I scanned through other letters from various time periods and places, and I didn’t see a common closing phrase.

But!  If you want a nice phrase, there are wishes of wellbeing that often appear near the beginning of letters.  Here are a couple variants:

šulumka maẖar bēliya u bēltiya lu dāri“May your wellbeing last forever before my Lord and Lady.” (spoken to a man) (PBS 7 105:10)

bēlki u bēletki liballiṭuki“May your Lord and Lady keep you healthy.” (spoken to a woman) (CT 29 19:4 and elsewhere)

If you wanted to personalize them with Nisaba and address them both to a woman, then they would be:

šulumki maẖar Nisaba lu dāriNisaba liballiṭki

My girlfriend is currently doing a Near and Middle Eastern studies course, and her birthday is coming up soon. Could you tell me what the symbols for "I love you" are?

That’s awesome! Hope I’m not answering this ask too late — I was on vacation for a few days so didn’t see it till today!

In Sumerian, “I love you” is ki murangen! It’s written

By the way, I’ve done a previous post on “happy birthday” in Sumerian, which you can find here.

The fabulously late sequel showing up with Starbucks and a fistful of personal devotional writings. More to come!