que sais-je?

“I wanted to learn magic. I just wanted to know how many ways I could touch, and know, and be known by the world- so big and magical. And before I could touch magic and cast it, I wanted to know about the plants. All the trees, all the leaves in the forest around Grandma Wren’s- around Ame’s cottage. I wanted to keep my family safe and together. I wanted to know magic- I want to know magic because I love magic. I love this world so much and I want to understand it. And I don’t know when I stopped asking any questions, and just listened, and did what I was told.”

“That’s who you were before you stopped asking questions. This was not all you ever wanted. You wanted to know how to catch a rooster under a bucket with your true friend. You wanted to know what kept your mother and father up at the table, excitedly jabbering with each other about some minutiae of a spell that found spirits, the tiniest critism of one another, in the way that intellectuals do, about the working of a shield spell. Their love for you, their love for the world, your love for the world, your love for those you hold close; it cannot be separated. It is an insult to wizardry to insist on its cold sterility, on its perfect geometry. The geometry of wizardry is a love letter to the mathematics of creation, to the music of the spirit and the real, and where they dance together. This is art and science- it is magic true. This is what you love. And you loved it more than you loved any tower.”

The Wizard, The Witch, and The Wild One

medieval parchment repairs

in a psalter, south-western germany, late 12th/early 13th c.

some context from an article on medieval manuscript repair by anika burgess (which includes many other beautiful examples of this phenomenon!)

Ascension

Whether fate be foul or fair, Why falter I or fear? What should man do but dare?

grass sheep: based on the story of an ai who identified photos of sheep correctly, but then it turned out it was recognizing photos with grass in the background. i try to find the grass of a sheep when i'm thinking about the "proof" of something to identify possible other things that could produce that result other than the thing that is assumed to be being proven

hot swap: when thinking about something's place in the world, i like to try to imagine what would need to be different about the larger context for something else to take its place. what would need to be different? what would follow as a change? i often do this to two things that are presented as opposites.

sterility vs bioactivity: there's two solutions to reptile husbandry, one of having sterile and frequently cleaned items to manually remove waste and kill disease, and the other of creating a small ecosystem to reduce and process waste and prevent disease by having other things living there. i use this to think about what alternate routes of solutions could be other than manual control/reduction/elimination of problems

using this framework i can describe that approach as a kind of "sterile" approach to mental health, one that focuses on removal/destruction of a problem. thinking about it as sterile produces the opportunity for thinking in the direction of bioactivity: what kinds of things could i introduce into my brain ecosystem to make it more self-regulating of waste? what kinds of things could i introduce into my brain ecosystem to take up the space that depressive thoughts would need to live?