Joyous Twelfthtide to All

Attempting a fresh, personal spin on a concept that dates to the 16th century, the 12 days of Christmas is like a bridge between the end of one generation and the start of a new one.

Like an umbilical chord that allows new life to emerge, this offering from "what was" self-cleans and channels the best of itself into the new existence until this independent life can steel itself. Thus that which powers the vine of life optimizes its continuance despite its seemingly weak formations.
So what to we make of this creative power?

Keep those cards and gifts flowing until January 5, 2020.

P.S.
Merriam-Webster defines it as Twelfthtide and  "the 12-day season after Christmas ending with Epiphany." 

Google and Wikipedia have their own spelling: Twelvetide (see below).

Description

The Twelve Days of Christmas, also known as Twelvetide, is a festive Christian season celebrating the Nativity of Jesus. In most Western ecclesiastical traditions, "Christmas Day" is considered the "First Day of Christmas" and the Twelve Days are 25 December – 5 January, inclusive. Wikipedia

Date: Wed, Dec 25, 2019 – Sun, Jan 5, 2020 Trending

Observances: Varies by denomination, culture, and nation

Observed by: Christians

Rewriting Christianity's history

At an archaeological site in Ethiopia, researchers are uncovering the oldest Christian basilica in sub-Saharan Africa. (Ioana Dumit

Of interest perhaps to those who question facts and appreciate that history is as dynamic as those who probe it. After all, this is the planet of trial and error, not to mention needing a 360-degree  view of anything. Fluctuations in certainty/uncertainty factors means all is subject to change as humans expand research faculties--natural and technology-assisted--to view life from different perspectives and elevations.

Church Unearthed in Ethiopia Rewrites the History of Christianity in Africa

Archaeologists now can more closely date when the religion spread to the Aksumite Empire

Read more or scroll down for excerpt

By Andrew Lawler

SMITHSONIAN.COMDECEMBER 10, 2019

In the dusty highlands of northern Ethiopia, a team of archaeologists recently uncovered the oldest known Christian church in sub-Saharan Africa, a find that sheds new light on one of the Old World’s most enigmatic kingdoms—and its surprisingly early conversion to Christianity.

An international assemblage of scientists discovered the church 30 miles northeast of Aksum, the capital of the Aksumite kingdom, a trading empire that emerged in the first century A.D. and would go on to dominate much of eastern Africa and western Arabia. Through radiocarbon dating artifacts uncovered at the church, the researchers concluded that the structure was built in the fourth century A.D., about the same time when Roman Emperor Constantine I legalized Christianty in 313 CE and then converted on his deathbed in 337 CE. The team detailed their findings in a paper published today in Antiquity.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/church-unearthed-ethiopia-rewrites-history-christianity-africa-180973740/#gsFFSQ0607BO348c.99


Based on following:
Harrower, M., Dumitru, I., Perlingieri, C., Nathan, S., Zerue, K., Lamont, J., . . . Peterson, E. (2019). Beta Samati: Discovery and excavation of an Aksumite town. Antiquity, 93(372), 1534-1552. doi:10.15184/aqy.2019.84

Tables of reality

Here we are nine months later. Where I live, fall is upon us, but only by its signal, an anxious cat, and maybe a hint of yellow and red dry leaves, mixed in with dry grass that keeps on giving annoying airy shoots above it. The mower might catch on fire. Ninety-degree-plus weather persists and I've gotten to that dreaded place of acceptance, almost indifference, to the abnormally warm temperatures in late September. Yes, am surrendering any preconceived notions for what's happening around me.

Okay, there's more going on within me than the passing notations about the weather, so maybe that's why there's no more space for that conversation, other than it feels like what used to be the norm, is now moving into a newly defining norm. Life as I've known it is transitioning before my eyes and through my mind.

There have been moments in my past--a tug here, a nudge there--where the everyday relic stood out, like a bookmark, a remember this or note that. Things like seeing freesias for the first time, or noticing the statues of Mary in the tiny Brooklyn townhouse front lawns, or standing or driving in front of a building or complex where I'd eventually work. Or worse, would be blown up.

Everything reverberates. Resounds. Ripples.

I still think back to those moments and wonder if it isn't the way a higher, more powerful consciousness--the source  of consciousness--is sending out fishing lines, which so happen to dangle in one's presence. Or maybe they're bread crumbs. Is it another way of saying, We've been here all along. Just waiting for you to join us. Keep going on your wayward journey. Get through it. There's a reason you're here and you won't know until you do. 

So despite my years on this planet, I am still a visitor in a strange land, puzzling over the pieces, and sometimes under them.

Guess I need to bring my head above water and have a look around. A bigger one, that is. It's that or be buried, sucked into history.

(To my point, see the embedded picture with information about the area--the mithraeum-- where the London Stone is currently displayed, in former Londinium (which sounds more like an element than a place).

One for the odd-thought department: The Roman empire didn't fall. It receded; then it morphed into something else. Appreciating it was easier to rule with a more compassionate style, Emperor Constantine promoted religious tolerance in 313 CE, defeated other imperial rivals, and called the First Council of Nicaea
in 325 CE.

Well, for this blog to be worth keeping after so many years of not doing much with it, I've decided to use it as a way of viewing my fiction writing, which has been my focus since 2012.

The idea is to just put it up there and see what it's like to read it in a different medium and get some fresh feedback from it, knowing few to none will even read it. (But for the stray straggler
wandering the waves of the Internet.... Love that thought, oh cyberstraggler.)

So, will shortly upload the first chapter of Time in Hand.

We Begin the Year with a Thought-Provoking Lunar Eclipse.

Lunar eclipse, January 2019


The morning after this eclipse, I found myself wondering about the red-hued moon, a resulting phenomenon of seeing the moon through the Earth's atmosphere.

Is red a product of blue minus yellow or white?

Ponderings.



JUST FOUND OUT: Red equals white minus green minus blue!

Sun Dogs and Exoplanets, Oh My!

Apparently, we ended 2016 and started 2017 with solar flares and winds to boot. I didn't really notice until the appearance of twin sun dogs in the middle of a brightly lit January afternoon.

February is not short on interesting phenomena either. The detection of seven earth-size planets around a sun (Trappist-1) the size of Jupiter in a not-so-distant galaxy.

Still Here

It's hard to believe that two years have passed in the blink of an eye. Am even imagining that I've deleted some entries in between then and now, but alas, probably not. My attentions have been on other things--off-line but very on-line in my life--which will be revealed in time.
The question at hand is what to do with a blog, especially when you don't know who's going to read it. It's a kind of sharing with the unknown. A dare to write for something other than one's known audience, be that your cat, your mother, or the red cardinal in the garden. Maybe this is just a virtual scratchpad, which at some point, scribbles something of interest to unseen friends. Am good with that, actually.

Free “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest on the GLA blog

Greetings, fellow writers. Here's some news about periodic contests sponsored by the Guide to Literary Agents (Writer's Digest). This month's (April 2014) is geared toward young adult  (YA) fiction.

URL: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/15th-free-dear-lucky-agent-contest-young-adult-fiction?et_mid=665838&rid=239504909.

1)     E-mail entries to dearluckyagent15@gmail.com. Please paste everything. No attachments. The first 150-200 words of your unpublished, completed book-length work of young adult fiction. You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry and use your real name. Also, submit the title of the work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work) with each entry.

2)     Please note: To be eligible to submit, you must mention this contest twice through any any social-media. Please provide a social-media link or Twitter handle or screenshot or blog post URL, etc., with your official e-mailed entry so the judge and I can verify eligibility. Some previous entrants could not be considered because they skipped this step! Simply spread the word twice through any means and give us a way to verify you did; a tiny URL for this link/contest for you to easily use is http://tinyurl.com/pcmopmq. An easy way to notify me of your sharing is to include my Twitter handle @chucksambuchino at the end of your mention(s) if using Twitter. And if you are going to solely use Twitter as your 2 times, please wait 1 day between mentions to spread out the notices, rather than simply tweeting twice back to back. Thanks. (Please note that simply tweeting me does not count. You have to have the contest URL with your mention; that’s the point.)

I told my writers group in Knoxville about it a few weeks ago, too.

It's good exercise and like putting your writing through a meat grinder. Exercise those editing muscles any way you can.

Realized it's been a while, so let's get cracking! Every day is so rich, it's hard to decide what to write about. Life can be so full! Who knew? Why does it feel almost over the top, like something is gifting me with an extra living experience?

And don't you love the LET IT GO phenomenon!

Now, there's a message. Let go of what you don't need, to make room for what you do need to come inside!

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer, 1886–1918

Something to contemplate.  Hopefully, more to come!