Wyrd Stuff

ル祀ミ育神蟲テニ宮神父羅 (At Rabu Shrine, the insect God is raised and worshipped.)

“O Spirits, why must you test our faith so? The Child Shinchū has absorbed one more of us today, yet she will not transform into a God. The elder priest Tōji says we must keep waiting. That the Child still hungers. That the more she takes in, the more divine she will become. And yet, nineteen people has she taken into itself and her shell will not harden. She only grows larger, hungrier.”

ム慰ヲ神キナケワイニ弦管ガモド侶僧ノ宮神父羅 (The Priests at Rabu Shrine soothe the young God with music.) Priest Sōkū pictured left.

“The older faithful of the shrine still remember the elder siblings of Shinchū, and how simple it was to help them grow. A single soul would often suffice, and the union would transform them into beautiful Gods in the shape of scarabs, butterflies, and bees. Yet the Child refuses her ascension, and our numbers dwindle. Her Father does not guide us, blind as he is in his old age. I fear that life is fading beneath his shell, and his spirit readies to depart.”

神ルケ生ノメタガラ我テニ宮神父羅 (Rabu Shrine's Sacred Father, a God living amongst us.)

“Many of the faithful have left the shrine. They feel fear in their hearts that they will be chosen next, absorbed into the Child fruitlessly; they feel anger towards the young God who will not grow, all the while taking their loved ones. They say the disappearances will cause suspicion, that someone will discover the secret of our shrine and, filled with envy, will kill Shinchū’s young siblings, who are yet unready to ascend.”

リ侍チ育ニカヤ健デ池産ノ宮神父羅ハ子ノ神 (The God Children grow healthy in the Rabu Shrine purification pond.)

“There are only three of us left. Those who lost their faith have reneged their vows and left the temple. The rest of us, who remain devout in our worship, have continued uniting with the Child to no avail. Today, it was Tōji’s turn to read his fortune in the Omikuji, and he was awarded the Great Blessing of becoming one with the Child. But he would not accept it. He attempted to flee, leaving his Omikuji tied in the temple lest fate follow him. It took the three of us to bring him back and force him within Shinchū’s soft shell. We pray he may be the last. The faithful need hope to come back.”

羅父神社の羅父神はきみを御子と共に神になるやう選ばれき 共に生ける神となり御子のうちいづるほどわたりはきみを崇拝せむ (GREAT BLESSING: The Sacred Father of Rabu Shrine has chosen you to become a God with His Child. Together, you will become a Living God and live an eternal blissful life, and the people of Rabu Shrine will worship your new name.)

“I am the last one here. Day after day, the Omikuji spares me of the Great Blessing. I feel weary, and my faith is fading. Is the Shinchū really the God they promised? Or is she a demon, using our faith to trick us into feeding her? The Father has stopped moving, and her younger siblings grow weak without our care. I have found myself alone with her. Watching after her does not comfort me as it once did. I have decided to read only one more Omikuji. Let my fate be decided.”

At the time of its discovery, most of the shrine had fallen into ruin as the wooden beams rotted in the humid climate. A single structure was still standing, containing some of the temple’s statues and treasures. Today, only these documents and several photos from the 1952 survey remain.

nature is healing

what does this have to do with boiling your surgical tools? well look, the boiling water releases bubbles of steam which carries the malign influences up to heaven. you boil a knife, you send all the miasmic particles off with the steam to heaven. if you rinse the knife off in a bucket the water isn't hot enough, the particles go into the water and then right back on to the knife. you gotta boil it to get the particles all the way away. how can a tool or rag or a bed have miasmic particles on it when you can't smell them? humans have a lousy sense of smell. look at your dog on the hunt. are there no rabbits in the woods just because you can't smell them? we know that miasma is carried on the air, and is what makes stench so dangerous, and we know that humans can't smell worth a damn compared to dogs cats horses etc. a dog can smell if a rat died in a corner of the room last week. you can't. do you think licking the spot where the rat died is going to go well for you? luckily, what humans lack in snout we make up for in brains. we have extra brains where our sniffers should have been. God set that up for a reason.

and why does a rinse with wine spirits work? man, look how fast alcohol evaporates. my guess is that because wine contains a lot more vice than water, it evaporates a whole lot faster, in sort of an equal and opposite way that a rock falls faster than a feather. if you want the miasmic particles to get off there FAST, you dunk it in something that's going back to heaven at a gallop.

Tonight, it was Hat Full of Sky and Granny Weatherwax saying, "The world is unfair. Be grateful you have friends." On their own, the words are unremarkable. But juxtaposed together, with the context they are operating in....they had tears flowing down my face before I knew what was happening. The world is unfair; sometimes, the wonderful happens when it shouldn't (and/or when you feel you deserve a divinely wrathful torment) because you have friends. The world is unfair. That doesn't just mean that the horrible happens when it shouldn't. It means that the beautiful does too. Be grateful you have friends. They are the hub on which that beauty spins, turning the theft into gold.

A lot of people I've introduced to these books haven't liked them — they find them too silly, or preachy, or nonsensical, or even puerile. I am never upset or really disappointed when they don't like them. To each their own. But I will never understand it. They are baked into my being in a way that few things are and I am better to myself, to other people, and to the world because of it.

But I know. I think it was me.

In my defense I never intended to start a rumor. Many years ago I worked as a cleaner at the school and one evening I had to transport one of those big floor washing machines from the basement to the second level via the elevator. When the doors opened a very confused looking man stood inside. He was one of those slicked back gym-bro IT guys and made no movement to get out. The elevator wouldn’t fit him, me and the machine so I asked “Where are you going? Up or down?”

He gave me a smug shit-eating grin and said “Down?” in a mocking tone.

It took me a second to realize that of course he wasn’t going down, we were in the basement, but his look and tone annoyed me so much I refused to admit I misspoke and instead said “Yeah, down. I don’t know if you’re going to the second basement”

His smile disappeared “There’s a second basement?”

“Yeah but it sounds like you don’t have access to it so I guess you’re going up? I’ll just wait”

I never thought of it as anything other than a funny story to tell about that time I got so annoyed with a guy that I invented an entire second basement, but it turns out he probably refused to believe a cleaner fooled him and the story spread.