Links for Late January

There are a few things from around the web that I want to draw your attention to. Due to things ramping up at work and me trying to get clarity about my schedule and time (especially work events) over the next few months so I know when I have the energy capacity to do extra things, I haven’t been as engaged with reading articles from the blogosphere beyond some of what is below, although my Pocket app is bursting, so this is a bit lighter on content than I anticipated when I started the draft a few weeks ago.

In the analog, I’m making my way slowly through Károly Kerényi’s Athene: Virgin and Mother in Greek Religion, which I started reading the day I went in for surgery in late October while in the waiting room area with my mom. I’m also reading a modern commentary on the Republic by Edward Butler, which is interesting and different from the style of commentators like Proclus insofar as it’s written at a much more accessible level (not assuming that those encountering it have read a ton of other Platonic writings). I’ve pulled all of my unread analog books at home into a single area and am planning to read from that shelf until they’re all exhausted. It’s two shelves deep and involves a lot of poetry, platonism, and polytheism. I have ebooks to read, too. All in all, it’ll last me 3-4 years based on my reading pace, and I’m not buying any new books apart from a Hermias commentary and Proclus commentary or readings for Platonic study groups until this is done.

Let’s shift to digital.

First off, I want to direct your attention to this long read that is looking at Northern traditions through a Platonic lens, specifically an exegesis of a short passage from the Vǫluspá. I was delighted by the copious overflowing offerings in every paragraph.

Second, I found this piece from 2013 about the Goddess English and Dalit emancipation. It’s such an interesting story, and I have a lot of half-developed thoughts about it from a theurgic standpoint as someone who does creative writing in a far-future speculative context where there are a lot of deities and practices fleshed out through worldbuilding. Dalit religious dignity is a very serious issue, as this recent story shows. I have more thoughts about this issue in a review I posted on the book The Trauma of Caste back in 2023.

Third, kora music is a type of classical music that I really enjoy — there’s a Kora Chill playlist on Spotify that’s really nice. I was recently recommended this beautiful song and wanted to share it with you — “Farafina Mousso” (a Bambara noun phrase that means “African Woman”) by Lubiana. Here’s the acoustic version, and here’s the official version.

Also, this is the most relatable funny song I have heard all year. It’s about having multiple cats.

I found this reflection by Sister Patience to be very interesting. For full transparency, I’m also on the spectrum. I was in denial for several years as the evidence gradually strengthened, and in 2024, my refusal to see it shattered. I called insurance for approval in September, had an intake appointment in October, and was assessed in early January after I recovered from the myomectomy. With that in mind, here’s a piece that I read last year in Tricycle Magazine about an older woman’s struggles to integrate into her Buddhist sangha and learning why she had so much trouble. It really resonated with me. I won’t share anything else about my diagnosis, and I was reluctant to mention it at all given how cruel people are online. However, it does explain a lot, so I decided to to lay it out anyway after thinking about what I would say, if anything, over the past few months. (This resonates deeply with me.) To return to what Sister Patience wrote, I often feel like when I wake up, I have a cup. It’s usually fairly empty unless I’m under a lot of stress and things are lingering and building up. The cup can only fit so much every day (in terms of stimuli and the echoes of stimuli) before it overflows. I’ve been trying to get better about making sure that I’m staying within the limit of the rim.

Without getting into what’s going on in the news because it’s given me multiple stress headaches this week, I want to put out a plug for Strong Towns, an organization focused on building locally-focused solutions to problems such as housing shortages, unsafe roads, and municipal tax deficits, the YouTube videos from Not Just Bikes, and the book When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency, which focuses on how our current infrastructure isolates children, the elderly, and disabled people due to its lack of multimodality outside of the Northeast Corridor.

This weekend, I’m going to be reading a lot of Platonism, and I hope to listen to this piece on boundaries and guardian deities/daimons while I’m folding laundry later today.

Have a good weekend!