Thursday I went on my usual evening walk out towards the alfalfa field. It was deepening twilight, and the sky was still unstable from the hinder part of a frontal system that was moving across the area. As I walked westward, I could not help but be reminded of the dream I had some time ago. The sky looked very much the same, looking westward toward the horizon with the clouds tinted with bluish-greens, pinks and purples. It was beautiful. Reaching the alfalfa field, I turned around and started back, walking east. There, above Canfield Butte, the sky was very dark and thickly crowded with massive clouds, dark grey and fretful but with splashes of faint, ethereal whiteness here and there due to the fading twilight. Seeing this, I rehearsed to myself what I had seen in my dream, wherein the eastern sky was so astonishingly dark and awesome. The whole experience seemed so similar to my dream, only lacking the strange orb of light high up that I had seen in the east. Later that evening, the wind started to pick up strongly, and my wife asked me to go outside to tie up the blind because it was flapping insistently against the sliding glass door. The sky had started lighting up with flashes of lightning, almost continuously. And a few minutes later, we had about the most spectacular lightning storm I've seen here in many years. Going outside to watch, I could see the flashes going mostly cloud-to-cloud, overhead, northward, and in the east, and they were nearly constant. The clouds were eerie and fiery-white luminous. There was a low continuous rumble. It seemed the whole sky was in great turmoil; it felt as if I were about to behold the vision of Ezekiel's, that at any moment the cherubim and the ophanim and the ineffable sapphire firmament would come crashing through the clouds, splitting open the thick darkness. About fifteen or so minutes later, it began to drizzle fairly. An hour thereafter, the storm already had moved onward towards the Bitterroots, the sky having completely cleared, revealing the pale stars, faintly peeking through the obnoxious city glare in the still, cool air.
I guess it was a confirmation of the truth of my dream. I need to be more careful about writing my dreams down.
The wife has gone to Oregon for a day-visit with her sister. I'm alone today, feeling rather melancholic. This morning, after getting the oil changed in the truck, and after lazily lounging at Starbucks for a while, munching a scone while reading one of Jack Deere's books, I stopped at the branch library to check the new book shelf. It's cheaper than buying books. I looked at a recent one, by some well known Salon literati, talking about how we terrible Bible clingers are about to take over and rule America, and make everybody else's life supremely miserable—what with our Taliban-style theocratic government, Blue Laws, and Concentration Camps, I guess. "What a crock," I muttered to myself, although I wished I could have said it more loudly. The book is hysterical too. I wish I could remember the authoress's name right now. It seems when the Republican win office, we xtians get blamed by the various Lefties and feverish Kossacks. And when the Republicans lose office—which they're about to do, as they sorely deserved to be punished—we get blamed as well, only this time by the fancy-pants crowd of Globalists and Corporationists because we somehow tainted the Republican Party, making it too "ideological" for their superior and refined tastes.
Die Christen sind unser Unglueck.
Oh well, we, the off-scouring of the world, can't win no matter what we do. Either way, what are we accomplishing? But don't blame me for anything after this November; I will have voted for the Neither Party. That makes me a Neitherist, I suppose. Perhaps I should write up some sort of Neitherist Manifesto? Nonetheless, before I left the library, I asked a librarian to procure Mark Steyn's newest book, "American Alone: The End of the World as We Know It." It looks like it will be a good read.
After the library, next was the Farmer's Market. The morning air was crisp and cool, as the sun began peeking through the fog. The weather here in Land-In-Between is starting to change, and I have started wearing my double-lined winter jacket. The farmer's market is always nice to stroll through. One booth I saw had some strange looking pictures, crudely framed, having leatherwork that had been indented by a tool to form a picture, and then painted sloppily. Some of them looked very much like they were derived from icons. "Who's that?" I asked the peddler, as I pointed at one which was only describable as having picture of someone with a beard. "It's Joseph, Jesus's father," was his answer. "You mean his guardian?" I responded. "Well, that depends on your point of view," came his answer, which was combined with a bit of a silly chuckle. It was obvious to me that this work was an imitation of something the artist had seen elsewhere. And it was a pretty sorry imitation at that, because there was nothing to indicate whose portrait it was, and it was rather badly done. And Joseph's nimbus, if that's what it was, was painted green. Green is a funny color for a nimbus. Good Joseph, being of true royalty, should have had gold. But I liked the Farmer's Market. It relaxed me somewhat to go there, as tanked up and buzzing as I was on Starbucks.
One thing for sure, I'll never be invited to a Davos Conference.