Poem for Wednesday

The Mysteries Remain
By H.D.

The mysteries remain,
I keep the same
cycle of seed-time
and of sun and rain;
Demeter in the grass,
I multiply,
renew and bless
Bacchus in the vine;
I hold the law,
I keep the mysteries true,
the first of these
to name the living, dead;
I am the wine and bread.
I keep the law,
I hold the mysteries true,
I am the vine,
the branches, you
and you.

--------

Yay, Tim Kaine is the governor-elect of Virginia! I can't ask for more from an election day Tuesday than that! This makes me feel good on several counts -- it means his Republican opponent's smear campaign did not work, it means George Bush stumping for Jerry Kilgore did not help him since he finished closer in the polls a few days ago than he did when people voted...and Democrats took back a bunch of seats in the Virginia House of Delegates, which hopefully will stop that state's conservative slide since I was young and thought of it as more laissez-faire than Maryland, which has some pretty conservative laws on the books dating back a century or more. I can deal with a state with restrictions on liquor sales a lot more easily than a state with restrictions on gays and lesbians, though.

I meant to take a longer walk on this gorgeous day than the one I took, but I had laundries and carpools and one article on Jeri Ryan's restaurant and another article on Enterprise DVD reviews about which I can only say hurrah that that may be the last Trek review round-up ever, because those things take freakin' forever to write -- I have to read all the reviews, note the ratings the discs were given, get a feel for the overall review, find quotes...my editor originally asked me to do three articles, one of which required getting a quote from someone who declined to give a quote, and all I could say was hurrah again because there was no way I was spending 3+ hours on Star Trek news! Kids had Hebrew school and it was California Tortilla spirit night for the public school afterward, so the hours around dinner were rather chaotic, but then I settled down with laundry and ABC's Tuesday night lineup which has tended to be a good thing.

Commander in Chief: Again, they need to stop with the OMG GIANT CONSPIRACIES oppressing poor Mackenzie because I really do start to get the feeling that they feel like they have to keep pulling her down so she can triumphantly rise above it each week. Okay, we get that she's tough and resourceful and her husband is pretty worthless and there are wicked people about -- now I would like to see her do the kinds of things we see Jed Bartlet do rather than keep defending herself against nasty Washington insider games. Perhaps this is unfair, as nasty Washington insider games are a hallmark of the current administration so this is perhaps realistic, but we lose enough time to her kids dealing with adolescent angst...there's almost no time left for actual issues!

And then Boston Legal -- you know, I love Threshold and it will pain me not to watch it when it airs, but I am not giving up my Shatner/Spader fix (tonight's Spader/Valley fix wasn't bad either). I learned from Boston Legal Unofficial that Shatner said on The Tony Danza Show that the producers had offered Leonard Nimoy a part but he insisted that he had retired, and Shatner was very disappointed...him and me both! But perhaps it is better if my Shatner/Nimoy OTP does not detract from my Shatner/Spader OTP anyway, because after last week's business with the flamingo suits, this week's cow-lovin' storyline had us in total hysterics, and I don't know whether this is a nationwide thing or a local thing but they showed a Perdue Chicken ad in the middle of the cow-lovin' debate with all the tough man/tender chicken lines and then we were in even MORE hysterics!

Couple this with Alan threatening to wet his pants in the courtroom because of his fear of clowns (am perv, really wanted to see that), Alan and Denny's huggy jail scene in which Alan confesses the origins of said fear of clowns and gets all trembly-lipped about the possibility of Denny serving real jail time, Shirley holding her hears to avoid hearing the fate of her beloved childhood pet cow by the cow-molestor who said he picked the cow he did because she reminded him of his wife who looks like a cow, Denny on Larry King advocating the shooting of offensive clients in the kneecaps (how they missed a Mad Cow Disease joke here, I don't know), and finally Denny threatening to run for mayor of Boston so he can invade Rhode Island and Alan saying sadly, "We can't be flamingos again" (to which Denny retorts that of course they can)...HOWL! What crack is David E. Kelley on? And where can I get some? And why is this show considered a drama when they give out Emmys? It's all about the comic timing!


Our Lady of Medjugorje


Our Lady of Fatima


Our Lady of Banneux


Our Lady of Guadalupe


Our Lady of Grace


Our Lady of Sorrows


Our Lady of the National Shrine of the Grotto of Lourdes

Apparently I boggled a friend yesterday by posting pictures from a Catholic shrine when I am a heretical Jew. I am not really sure why this is, since I posted pictures of churches from all over England, although I must admit that scrolling back through my journal in the past two weeks that I have an unusually high number of church photos and should post some of the historic synagogues in Rhode Island and Baltimore soon.

It is rare for me to have any problem feeling spiritual at any sacred site of any faith that was not used specifically to rouse up anger or hatred -- I don't think I would be moved by the Oberammergau Passion Play because of its long connection with the mistreatment of Jews, and frankly I wonder whether Jerusalem would make me feel religious or "sheesh, this is so not worth more than a thousand years of bloodshed." When I look at statues of the Virgin Mary I see dozens of other goddess images superimposed (here I think of H.D.'s Trilogy and her vision of the transformed goddess, "the Child was not with her"). Perhaps this is offensive to people who think I should see only the Mother of God, I don't know, but I do not feel like, oh, these are part of someone else's religion and have nothing to do with me.