Mark Lind-Hanson's Blog, page 8
January 28, 2014
R.I.P. Pete Seeger (1919-2014)
It’s always deceptively easy to dismiss an icon, especially when the iconic subject of dismissal held many unpopular, or even historically incorrect, viewpoints on things. But to dismiss Pete Seeger with a shrug and think “he was just some old Commie” seems to be too trite and far too little as respect such a one of elder age might deserve.
Pete Seeger’s music was in my life from an early age, one might say, it was there at the start. Some of my earliest memories of music in my parent’s home involved listening to a vinyl lp, “The Weavers At Carnegie Hall”, which I remember most for “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, “Wimoweh”, "Darling Corey", and “Goodnight Irene.” My parents, early involved in what might later have been called the “Reagan Revolution” or the “Goldwater Party” saw no contradiction in offering this to me, nearly day and night, up until the age of twelve, anyway, when I rediscovered this album while learning guitar.
And then Mr. Seeger was there again, in my 12th summer, on the television. His program Rainbow Quest in one episode featured a Scottish singer named Donovan. This was marvelous, because for me, Donovan was one of the true role models I took for my own point of view, maybe from a performer’s aspect, but also, synergetically, from the “lifestyle” another tv program, a documentary called “A Boy Named Donovan” had purported to represent. That I and my best friend would later end up living in just such conditions as those meant to be represented in Donovan’s pre-fame, pre-roxtar era, and actually, a bit more poverty-stricken and desperate than his own (which did not last long) never occurred to us- at the time it was quite romantic and appealing. Donovan and Gypsy Dave... well, that is all another story.
Back to Mr. Seeger. He was in my life again when I took up the five-string banjo, and found his “Little Red” (later published in editions of Blue and Green) “How To Play The Five-String Banjo” instructional book to be inestimable in value as to its giving method, technique, and more importantly, a bit of repertoire. Equally important in value, as I felt it was, to the Earl Scruggs method book for five-string banjo. As I recall, they used different tunings, too- Seeger focused on a “C” tuning, while Scruggs used an open “G”. And I gravitated toward the G-tuning, since I felt there were many more songs in the key of G (or which might lend themselves easier in related keys) than Seeger’s tuning. But it was a small matter, since many of the tablature charts were helpful, as was the description of the different forms of strumming- “frailing”, “clawhammer”, and “three finger picking”. All of it went into my head, although as I now later admit, I’ve forgotten more than I’ll ever remember about playing banjo, having focused on guitar and bass (and even pedal steel guitar) in later years, and no longer owning one.
Nevertheless. If Pete Seeger had not been around, so many of us would never have been as absorbed by acoustic music, or as it was known then, “folk” music. The Weavers along with John Cohen and Allen Lomax and their ilk kept an American version of the folksong collection tradition (in the UK, represented by Martin Sharp, Cecil Field, and Francis Child) alive, and did so by keeping the songs themselves alive. So many of these songs, and styles, could have easily withered and died on the vine, Balkanized in their isolation, were it not for Pete Seeger and others of his kind. That was the real value of these people to culture.
That Mr. Seeger was at one time a member of the Communist Party could perhaps be forgiven as well as some of his later dispensations of “political correctness,” although like so many, recently, having been used as a “useful idiot” for our current President Spybot and his administration looks to be the final insult and embarrassment for a man who spent so much of his time struggling for what he felt to be justice and truth and a more decent world. There were an awful lot of these “useful idiots” in the Obamanation juggernaut who perhaps now see little contradiction, although it’s as apparent as the Emperor’s New Clothing. The surviving members of the Grateful Dead, for example, who rushed gushingly to endorse him. Jerry Garcia would never have done so, in fact, Jerry Garcia probably would never have even assented to making a “group statement” in the manner of his fellows, had he been alive, back in 2008. Rah-rah-rah, the secret police state is here! Garcia was as apolitical as a sea bass. And in that respect, Pete’s old-line Soviet state boosterism is equalized, the old KGB grant money to the Popular Front movement balances with Obama’s new illegal and unconstitutional US-Style edition of the repressive KGB-Stasi mind police. Well, we are only but one leap removed from having that at the moment.
I could think of a better legacy for Pete Seeger than to have been no more than just another useful vote in helping our current capitalist warmonger (the D beside his name is a small matter. There’s hardly any difference in any of the authoritarians in power now, “D” or “R”, in their bipartisan enthusiasm to crush Constitutional rights and freedom in the name of “homeland security”) to grasp for, attain, and keep, his Princely powers. He is and will remain a great voice in American music. You wonder how some of these other old-school lefty folkies, like Joan Baez, must now feel, about the absolutely hypocritical turnarounds their darling “civil rights legacy” president has unleashed upon all of us. But little matter. He’s spoken tonight- the usual “trot out some martyred soldier act”- of Americans making sacrifices and how all the world looks to us because of our ideals, and more, all of that hackneyed & cliched “patriotic” bullshit. Equality under the law, Mr Obama, means that you are as responsible as anyone else is to the law. America cannot long survive when equality under the law means, “your equal right to be completely monitored.” But Mr. Seeger, bullshitted though he often may have been, himself descended from someone who fought in battles at the very founding of the Republic, will probably be looking down from above & blanching. You did not build that America which elected you, Mr. Obama. People like Pete Seeger did. And speaking of building the America he knew it could be, I would say that the super-spy police-state framework which you have overseen the creation of, the new totalitarian "Oceania" megastate of transnationally-shared individuals' personal data- is not, never was, never can be, the America which Pete Seeger “thought we could be.” And I for one will continue to speak up about what I see as wrong in your own policies, and where you have been, or are, attempting to take us.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. -John DonneYou have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
Pete Seeger’s music was in my life from an early age, one might say, it was there at the start. Some of my earliest memories of music in my parent’s home involved listening to a vinyl lp, “The Weavers At Carnegie Hall”, which I remember most for “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, “Wimoweh”, "Darling Corey", and “Goodnight Irene.” My parents, early involved in what might later have been called the “Reagan Revolution” or the “Goldwater Party” saw no contradiction in offering this to me, nearly day and night, up until the age of twelve, anyway, when I rediscovered this album while learning guitar.
And then Mr. Seeger was there again, in my 12th summer, on the television. His program Rainbow Quest in one episode featured a Scottish singer named Donovan. This was marvelous, because for me, Donovan was one of the true role models I took for my own point of view, maybe from a performer’s aspect, but also, synergetically, from the “lifestyle” another tv program, a documentary called “A Boy Named Donovan” had purported to represent. That I and my best friend would later end up living in just such conditions as those meant to be represented in Donovan’s pre-fame, pre-roxtar era, and actually, a bit more poverty-stricken and desperate than his own (which did not last long) never occurred to us- at the time it was quite romantic and appealing. Donovan and Gypsy Dave... well, that is all another story.
Back to Mr. Seeger. He was in my life again when I took up the five-string banjo, and found his “Little Red” (later published in editions of Blue and Green) “How To Play The Five-String Banjo” instructional book to be inestimable in value as to its giving method, technique, and more importantly, a bit of repertoire. Equally important in value, as I felt it was, to the Earl Scruggs method book for five-string banjo. As I recall, they used different tunings, too- Seeger focused on a “C” tuning, while Scruggs used an open “G”. And I gravitated toward the G-tuning, since I felt there were many more songs in the key of G (or which might lend themselves easier in related keys) than Seeger’s tuning. But it was a small matter, since many of the tablature charts were helpful, as was the description of the different forms of strumming- “frailing”, “clawhammer”, and “three finger picking”. All of it went into my head, although as I now later admit, I’ve forgotten more than I’ll ever remember about playing banjo, having focused on guitar and bass (and even pedal steel guitar) in later years, and no longer owning one.
Nevertheless. If Pete Seeger had not been around, so many of us would never have been as absorbed by acoustic music, or as it was known then, “folk” music. The Weavers along with John Cohen and Allen Lomax and their ilk kept an American version of the folksong collection tradition (in the UK, represented by Martin Sharp, Cecil Field, and Francis Child) alive, and did so by keeping the songs themselves alive. So many of these songs, and styles, could have easily withered and died on the vine, Balkanized in their isolation, were it not for Pete Seeger and others of his kind. That was the real value of these people to culture.
That Mr. Seeger was at one time a member of the Communist Party could perhaps be forgiven as well as some of his later dispensations of “political correctness,” although like so many, recently, having been used as a “useful idiot” for our current President Spybot and his administration looks to be the final insult and embarrassment for a man who spent so much of his time struggling for what he felt to be justice and truth and a more decent world. There were an awful lot of these “useful idiots” in the Obamanation juggernaut who perhaps now see little contradiction, although it’s as apparent as the Emperor’s New Clothing. The surviving members of the Grateful Dead, for example, who rushed gushingly to endorse him. Jerry Garcia would never have done so, in fact, Jerry Garcia probably would never have even assented to making a “group statement” in the manner of his fellows, had he been alive, back in 2008. Rah-rah-rah, the secret police state is here! Garcia was as apolitical as a sea bass. And in that respect, Pete’s old-line Soviet state boosterism is equalized, the old KGB grant money to the Popular Front movement balances with Obama’s new illegal and unconstitutional US-Style edition of the repressive KGB-Stasi mind police. Well, we are only but one leap removed from having that at the moment.
I could think of a better legacy for Pete Seeger than to have been no more than just another useful vote in helping our current capitalist warmonger (the D beside his name is a small matter. There’s hardly any difference in any of the authoritarians in power now, “D” or “R”, in their bipartisan enthusiasm to crush Constitutional rights and freedom in the name of “homeland security”) to grasp for, attain, and keep, his Princely powers. He is and will remain a great voice in American music. You wonder how some of these other old-school lefty folkies, like Joan Baez, must now feel, about the absolutely hypocritical turnarounds their darling “civil rights legacy” president has unleashed upon all of us. But little matter. He’s spoken tonight- the usual “trot out some martyred soldier act”- of Americans making sacrifices and how all the world looks to us because of our ideals, and more, all of that hackneyed & cliched “patriotic” bullshit. Equality under the law, Mr Obama, means that you are as responsible as anyone else is to the law. America cannot long survive when equality under the law means, “your equal right to be completely monitored.” But Mr. Seeger, bullshitted though he often may have been, himself descended from someone who fought in battles at the very founding of the Republic, will probably be looking down from above & blanching. You did not build that America which elected you, Mr. Obama. People like Pete Seeger did. And speaking of building the America he knew it could be, I would say that the super-spy police-state framework which you have overseen the creation of, the new totalitarian "Oceania" megastate of transnationally-shared individuals' personal data- is not, never was, never can be, the America which Pete Seeger “thought we could be.” And I for one will continue to speak up about what I see as wrong in your own policies, and where you have been, or are, attempting to take us.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. -John DonneYou have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
January 18, 2014
AVAILABLE NOW! If I Should Live So Long by Mark Lind-Hanson
A new novel of historical fantasy set in 15th C. England...
Julian Plectrum of Chester is a minstrel who has grown up in Cheshire and lived there all his life. At the age of fourteen he made a lifelong friend of Stephen, son of a wool and textile merchant, whom he saves from drowning. He meets Porcull, an older hermit who lives on Stephen’s estate, and who sparks in him the need to travel afar, to London. Which he does, but only to end up in a lawsuit with an olde-tyme song-stealing music industry shark. His adventures of three years time between Chester and Penzance bring him renown and connections. These connections are a good thing to have, once he’s met his true love, Mary, the daughter of a Chester carpenter, and a budding puppet-mistress. On his last return from Penzance he happens right into the battle of Shrewsbury, between King Henry IV of England and his once aide-de-camp, now turned rebel, Henry Percy, and his allies among the Cheshire gentry, the Scots, and the Welsh. Julian happens upon his long-left brother Simon among the wounded and dying at day’s end. Returning to Chester with Simon, the rebellion for the moment crushed, he marries Mary and they begin their new life with a trip to the new home in Penzance. They’d be all too happy to settle right down, but Stephen has asked them to come along with him on a trip to France. IF I SHOULD LIVE SO LONG is the first in a planned series of three works of historical fantasy. Julian and his friends are common folk, but the breezes of war, and the complications of seeming peace, are never far from them, all too often, closer for comfort than they’d like.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view... have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
Julian Plectrum of Chester is a minstrel who has grown up in Cheshire and lived there all his life. At the age of fourteen he made a lifelong friend of Stephen, son of a wool and textile merchant, whom he saves from drowning. He meets Porcull, an older hermit who lives on Stephen’s estate, and who sparks in him the need to travel afar, to London. Which he does, but only to end up in a lawsuit with an olde-tyme song-stealing music industry shark. His adventures of three years time between Chester and Penzance bring him renown and connections. These connections are a good thing to have, once he’s met his true love, Mary, the daughter of a Chester carpenter, and a budding puppet-mistress. On his last return from Penzance he happens right into the battle of Shrewsbury, between King Henry IV of England and his once aide-de-camp, now turned rebel, Henry Percy, and his allies among the Cheshire gentry, the Scots, and the Welsh. Julian happens upon his long-left brother Simon among the wounded and dying at day’s end. Returning to Chester with Simon, the rebellion for the moment crushed, he marries Mary and they begin their new life with a trip to the new home in Penzance. They’d be all too happy to settle right down, but Stephen has asked them to come along with him on a trip to France. IF I SHOULD LIVE SO LONG is the first in a planned series of three works of historical fantasy. Julian and his friends are common folk, but the breezes of war, and the complications of seeming peace, are never far from them, all too often, closer for comfort than they’d like.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view... have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
January 8, 2014
Greens, Obama, and Keystone XL
In the greatly underrated movie Idiocracy, the protagonist Joe is tasked by the President with “fixing ever’thing!” A vastly underestimated manner of passing the buck, but then again, Joe comes from the past, and is dealing with a future world where stupid is the new normal. These are, of course, people who have forgotten that it is water which makes plants grow, not Gatorade. The Green movement sometimes lurches along like the civilization of Idiocracy. They carp about private sector interests and entrepreneurship as nothing but “greedy 1%ers”, even if a great number of those who they would represent as such, in the alternative energy field, are barely scraping along looking for all the help they can get. This sort of mass-meme thinking is in for a serious reality check. Because one of the features of Green philosophy is that the government ought to be the ones who “fix ever’thing!” not the people themselves, they have played right into the hands of those they despise the most- the players in the energy field who really ARE the 1%. They have placed their faith in Barack Obama- a man who himself has little credibility as for personal veracity any longer, as the “environmentalist president.” Do they know where Barack Obama actually was on the day last year when thousands of them protested on Capitol Hill against the Keystone XL Pipeline? Barack Obama was playing golf in Florida with some of the major investors of that widely scorned and unpopular project. Perhaps Barack Obama gets his best thinking done on a golf course, I do not know. But it’s telling and signal that he should spend more time turning an ear toward those 1%er earth-rapers than he would the population he supposedly represents. Especially at the very critical moment when they seek petition of grievances. Then again Greens should not be surprised at Barack Obama’s cynical use of their support to get elected. He used the civil liberties lobby in the very same fashion. He paraded himself about as a “Constitutional scholar” all the while, while once he took office, he embarked on the greatest program of totalitarian secret police spying in history. He wrote into law provisions to arrest or detain Americans without due process and for possibly “infinite” indefinite periods. He performs, as Rev. Cornel West so trenchantly put it, like nothing less than “a Rockefeller Republican in blackface.” Mr. Obama would like to kick the can down the road a far as possible rather than face up to his constituency who elected him in order to hopefully watch him “fix ever’thing!” He has put off making a “decision” about Keystone XL until “sometime this next year.” But there can really be little doubt over which way he is leaning on this. I hope I am wrong, but as I have been watching this man’s behavior over the last five years, I would be remiss if I did not say “I warned ya!” Already, the PM of Canada has spoken out that he is “confident” that the US president will approve this billion dollar slap in the face to Greens. The Vice President of the US, who himself is on record as opposing it, has mentioned he himself feels he is “in the minority around here” i.e., the White House, on the issue. If Greens cannot see the writing on the wall for themselves, then perhaps they need a Cassandra like me to flash the cue cards in their faces. I have no such confidence in Barack Obama, that he would not sign the legislation needed to approve Keystone XL. Why? Well, in his own last State of the Union address, he made some small mention- probably overlooked by many- that he was working to create “new pipelines.” President Obama’s idea of alternate energy is fracking, no doubt, and helping out large players (I should add “’helping” in quotes as a caveat, since we saw how much his “help” did to get the Solyndra company off the ground) rather than helping small scale entrepreneurs who have great ideas to launch but little venture capital to support them- the very small businesses which if they actually received more respect and support from the overblown beast which is the US government, might be able to put even more people to work, doing work which is environmentally friendly and not, as evidenced so far by the number of large scale pipeline accidents in the US and Canada the past two years, just more of the same earth-rapist mentality. But then again this is a president who represents a small minority of 1%ers and grovels at their feet at every opportunity. His “financial advisors” themselves are key players in the drama which led up to the recession his “economic recovery” has still to find solutions for. His approach is to wait until the noise quiets down about something, and then to ram it right down people’s throats, all the while seemingly protesting that he “had to” do it. Usually “because national security.” This was the manner in which he approved indefinite detention, and this will be the manner in which he approves Keystone XL.
I for one would be shocked if he does not, but Greens are nothing but naive dreamers if they fool themselves into believing that he absolutely won’t. The odds and past evidence are very, very strongly against it.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/0...
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/arc... have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
I for one would be shocked if he does not, but Greens are nothing but naive dreamers if they fool themselves into believing that he absolutely won’t. The odds and past evidence are very, very strongly against it.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/0...
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/arc... have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
January 7, 2014
Everything Is Beautiful In Its Own Way
EBOOK AVAILABLE NOW at SMASHWORDS.COM!EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL IN ITS OWN WAYJeana Montague is “in treatment.” She’s been caught “acting out” and being “a problem to her neighbors.” At Shadow Acres, rehabilitation is measured by one’s willingness to “get with the program.”
But Shadow Acres is staffed by an incongruous group of men (and women) out to prove to others that they have nothing but society’s best interest at heart. Who was it, somone- once said that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions?” But the have obviously never heard this, or if they have, they’ve surrendered to the least common denominator- the ability to show power by making others miserable.
Jeana makes some friends while at Shadow Acres, and tries to have a life of her own outside the supervised community as well (if she can). Ursula Bowers comes from a similar background, and both are about the same age, and they become fast friends. Harris, however, is an older man, who’s seen better times and has nearly given up on their ever returning to him. Between the two of them, they attempt to help Jeana recover her own sense of self and identity in a surrounding which is inimical in every way to its gratification.
The ultimate price Jeana must pay for her resistance to “the program” eventually comes to pass. Jeana Montague is definitely not alone in her plight- but getting to the end of things just isn’t, really, the end of things.
You have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
But Shadow Acres is staffed by an incongruous group of men (and women) out to prove to others that they have nothing but society’s best interest at heart. Who was it, somone- once said that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions?” But the have obviously never heard this, or if they have, they’ve surrendered to the least common denominator- the ability to show power by making others miserable.
Jeana makes some friends while at Shadow Acres, and tries to have a life of her own outside the supervised community as well (if she can). Ursula Bowers comes from a similar background, and both are about the same age, and they become fast friends. Harris, however, is an older man, who’s seen better times and has nearly given up on their ever returning to him. Between the two of them, they attempt to help Jeana recover her own sense of self and identity in a surrounding which is inimical in every way to its gratification.
The ultimate price Jeana must pay for her resistance to “the program” eventually comes to pass. Jeana Montague is definitely not alone in her plight- but getting to the end of things just isn’t, really, the end of things.
You have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
January 2, 2014
Fukushima is a Crime Against Humanity
It is becoming apparent, although you have not noticed much beyond a yawn in the mainstream media, that the Fukushima crisis in Japan has and is become a disaster of epic magnitude. Imagine an entire ocean, an entire ecosystem, choking on the leaked radiation from the reactor crippled by 2011's tsunami- imagine the impact along the entire west coast of North America to plant, animal, and human life as a result of the inability to contain and stop the further release of radioactive contaminants.
It is also apparent that a coverup of epic magnitude began when Mrs. Hilary Clinton, a perpetual "potential nominee" for the Presidency of the United States, signed an agreement with the government of Japan that Japanese food imports could continue into the United States with a minimum of food quality testing. Fukushima irradiated imported food has been coming into the country ever since. It's being caught offshore, right now, and people are being advised- although not yet on a national scale- to avoid any Pacific ocean products. There is evidence that the radiation levels all along the Pacific coast have risen to extremes- 128, 136 rads taken in a reading off Pacifica, California, in the last week, and comparable readings being found in Washington state.
The persons responsible for the disaster are indeed in my opinion, criminals against humanity. How can we measure the loss of the greatest ocean on earth and all the life within it? How can we measure the loss of human life, here and in Japan? Homeless men and women are being recruited in what has to be one of the most cynical evidences of Hitlerian "useless eater solutions" to provide help in the reactor cleanup. No additional health insurance guarantees are offered to these poor wretched and incredibly brave souls, by the way. Radiation is seen as a prime factor in the "starfish wasting syndrome" which is right now occurring across the North American, and apparently, other oceanic shores around the world. Cesium-137 is being noted in groundwater and surface berries on the west coast. It really appears as though something truly horrific - on a scale with a mass nuclear bomb fiesta- has been happening, and will continue to happen, as the effort to "plug the dykes" has taken on what appears to be a never-ending state of affairs.
Politicians who bray loudly claiming responsibility for the "safety" of their populations should not be allowed to "fiddle while Rome burns" and continue on with business as usual, turning blind eyes to what is happening, and refusing to inform the public about things which the public, themselves with eyes to see and ears to hear and brains to figure things out, are only now waking up to what is happening all around them. Mrs. Hilary does not deserve the presidency of the United States for many reasons, but at this time, in my opinion, this is the biggest one to hit the wall as yet.
This truly is a crime against humanity, if ever we saw one, on so many levels, that I am humbled by how little I can say more than I can at this moment.
Here's what appears to be the first evidence of "mainstream media attention" to this drama: from the San Francisco Examiner. I only drew up the tip of the iceberg in terms of the effects on species that this event is having. Make your own decisions about where you go and what you eat. Some of us have no choice for the moment but "sheltering in place". And an additional note about the culpability of Mrs. Hilary Clinton.
http://www.examiner.com/article/fukushima-radiated-west-co-cover-uphttp://www.examiner.com/article/radiating-americans-fukushima-rain-clinton-s-secret-food-pact
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/december302013/tepco-reactors-sp.php
http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-general-electric-knew-its-nuclear-reactor-design-was-unsafe-so-why-isnt-ge-getting-any-heat-for-fukushima/5361300
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/11/27/heresy-dominating-nature-nuclear-power
You have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
It is also apparent that a coverup of epic magnitude began when Mrs. Hilary Clinton, a perpetual "potential nominee" for the Presidency of the United States, signed an agreement with the government of Japan that Japanese food imports could continue into the United States with a minimum of food quality testing. Fukushima irradiated imported food has been coming into the country ever since. It's being caught offshore, right now, and people are being advised- although not yet on a national scale- to avoid any Pacific ocean products. There is evidence that the radiation levels all along the Pacific coast have risen to extremes- 128, 136 rads taken in a reading off Pacifica, California, in the last week, and comparable readings being found in Washington state.
The persons responsible for the disaster are indeed in my opinion, criminals against humanity. How can we measure the loss of the greatest ocean on earth and all the life within it? How can we measure the loss of human life, here and in Japan? Homeless men and women are being recruited in what has to be one of the most cynical evidences of Hitlerian "useless eater solutions" to provide help in the reactor cleanup. No additional health insurance guarantees are offered to these poor wretched and incredibly brave souls, by the way. Radiation is seen as a prime factor in the "starfish wasting syndrome" which is right now occurring across the North American, and apparently, other oceanic shores around the world. Cesium-137 is being noted in groundwater and surface berries on the west coast. It really appears as though something truly horrific - on a scale with a mass nuclear bomb fiesta- has been happening, and will continue to happen, as the effort to "plug the dykes" has taken on what appears to be a never-ending state of affairs.
Politicians who bray loudly claiming responsibility for the "safety" of their populations should not be allowed to "fiddle while Rome burns" and continue on with business as usual, turning blind eyes to what is happening, and refusing to inform the public about things which the public, themselves with eyes to see and ears to hear and brains to figure things out, are only now waking up to what is happening all around them. Mrs. Hilary does not deserve the presidency of the United States for many reasons, but at this time, in my opinion, this is the biggest one to hit the wall as yet.
This truly is a crime against humanity, if ever we saw one, on so many levels, that I am humbled by how little I can say more than I can at this moment.
Here's what appears to be the first evidence of "mainstream media attention" to this drama: from the San Francisco Examiner. I only drew up the tip of the iceberg in terms of the effects on species that this event is having. Make your own decisions about where you go and what you eat. Some of us have no choice for the moment but "sheltering in place". And an additional note about the culpability of Mrs. Hilary Clinton.
http://www.examiner.com/article/fukushima-radiated-west-co-cover-uphttp://www.examiner.com/article/radiating-americans-fukushima-rain-clinton-s-secret-food-pact
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/december302013/tepco-reactors-sp.php
http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-general-electric-knew-its-nuclear-reactor-design-was-unsafe-so-why-isnt-ge-getting-any-heat-for-fukushima/5361300
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/11/27/heresy-dominating-nature-nuclear-power
You have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
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December 26, 2013
Because I Would Like To Believe
Because I Would Like To Believe- that our world is not run by liars, murderers and deceivers after the Truth-
Because I Would Like To Believe- that there is a hope for the human race, after Fukushima-
Because I Would Like To Believe- that Democracy is not yet Dead in the United States of America, or anyplace else where it has taken root and sprung up-
Because I Would Like To Believe- that people would rather live in peace than fight over 6 billion names for God and the policies of 196 governments
Because I Would Like To Believe- that there is a force for Good on this Earth and that all people of Goodwill are doing their best to bring about a Better World for all
Because I Would Like To Believe- I will refuse to give in to Fear.
more on the subject:http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-History-of-Fear-by-Joe-Lauria-Brzezinsky-Zbigniew_Edward-Snowden_Edward-Snowden_FBI-140101-606.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/500-years... have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
Because I Would Like To Believe- that there is a hope for the human race, after Fukushima-
Because I Would Like To Believe- that Democracy is not yet Dead in the United States of America, or anyplace else where it has taken root and sprung up-
Because I Would Like To Believe- that people would rather live in peace than fight over 6 billion names for God and the policies of 196 governments
Because I Would Like To Believe- that there is a force for Good on this Earth and that all people of Goodwill are doing their best to bring about a Better World for all
Because I Would Like To Believe- I will refuse to give in to Fear.
more on the subject:http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-History-of-Fear-by-Joe-Lauria-Brzezinsky-Zbigniew_Edward-Snowden_Edward-Snowden_FBI-140101-606.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/500-years... have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
December 21, 2013
The Battle of Shrewsbury (Excerpt, If I Should Live So Long, W.I.P.)
I had traveled yet so far from Bristol and began passing around Shrewsbury, where I noted strange doings. For one thing there were many, many armed troops about, most of them were garbed in the King’s colors, with the double-paned lions and fleur de lis on their shields and coats. And while they took little notice of me, a wandering minstrel burdened with little but a blanket and a lute, it was clear once I had come round the town and the north points of the castle, that the King was here.
I wanted only to pass by the town and continue on the road to Chester. As I kept silently to my goal, however, and got a bit farther from town, I came upon the encampment of Henry Hotspur Percy, the Scot Lord Douglas, and the Cheshire men. Strange while it was to find Percy now aligned against the Earl and the King, but so it was. It seemed to me there now were two opposing armies all about me, and I had little recourse- perhaps, looking back, it could have been possible just to keep on my way and ignore everything which took up the next three days. But then I would have missed much, and besides, who knows what then might have become of my brother Simon. Of whom I shall soon tell you. The day was the twentieth of July, and it was but two days before my birthday and the feast of Mary Magdalene, and I slept beneath the stars after a meal of half a loaf of bread and an apple I had plucked. As I slept I dreamed of Mary and that she was walking across a large, bright meadow and strange music accompanied her.
Dappled rays of light burst through the trees with first day’s sun. With the song of the sparrows calling all about me, “chirrup, chirrup”. I heard the clamor and stirring of the Cheshire footmen dousing fires and heaping ash on coals, readying their mailshirts and fetting arrows, stringing bows, and sharpening dirks.
Knights were donning armor and calling to each other to take courage.
“We may not live tomorrow!”
“Then fair toast we this day we die!”
“For Cheshire!”
“For Richard!
“For Percy!
“For England!”
“For Scotland!”
“For Wales!”
I edged around the camp and I climbed into a tree, that I might see my way all around the large meadow which would in a number of hours be filled with the horror, horror as such I had not known could exist in such a peaceful place.
As the early hours grew and the sun rose further the captains began forming their men into ranks. Leading off were the archers, Welsh and Cheshire bowmen, who were some twelve deep in a long line stretching over the length of the field. Behind them were the footmen with pikes, hooks, and spears, plaid clad Scotsmen with long broadswords, and last of all, as it was after all, a bit of a delay in putting on all that armor, the horsed knights and the noble retainers.
Sunshine glinted off the mailshirts and hauberks of the archers, and looking out across the field, I saw that the King’s men had done the same. Drawn up lines in opposition, and now and then, giving off a cheer of bravura. Little did anyone know that what happened next was only a prelude, but it was such a lengthy one that it took nearly high past noon before the inevitable.
A number of priests came striding out from the ranks of the king, bearing crosses, and calling out to us to surrender and give ourselves back to the liege, and much would be forgiven by God. This was met by loud laughter and guffaws by most. For many had already known that this one-sided affair was a great gamble, and the gamble was being met by Henry (“Lord Harry Hotspur”) Percy, who felt it necessary to meet the King alone, himself, if he could, on the field, and triumph by might of sword if at all possible. For there had been a great breach of faith, and now Percy, ever the King’s Man, rode with the Rebellion. The priests, actually, seemed to be parties of comic relief to a tense situation, but they had been driven to this point in knowing that a good many of the King’s subjects, loyal, and turned, would be dying that day. If any would quail however before the throne of God, in fighting for their freedom, however, they were not to be satisfied by any giving up their place, and seeking safety. No, that was my part, for battle was a curiosity to me, and yet, never the place my own sensibility gave a cause for to sanction.
What occurred was a parley. As Henry Percy stayed at the rear with his loyals Venables, Boynton and Vernon, his uncle, Lord of Worcester, Thomas Percy, rode out with a page carrying a white flag on the pennon of Worcester. He rode to the camp of the King, and the line broke ranks to take him in. It would be impossible to know what all went on in the tent of the King, but he was with the King more than an hour or two. Meanwhile, the men all kept ranks, leaned on their shields, and nervously chattered among themselves as the sun grew ever higher. Actually it was only after the battle that anyone learned what had been discussed- issues about Percy relatives (the Lord Mortimer! His own brother-in-law!) held hostage by Glyndwyr whom King Henry had not deemed worthy of ransom, owing to their own claim (and better said, at that, argued Percy Worcester), the usurpation of Richard’s crown which the people of Cheshire yet begrudged Henry, and the regency of the “Prince of Wales”, whom all Cheshire desired Henry should know they considered was truly Owyn Glyndwyr, and not the young Henry, his son. All these things troubled the King mightily, but he was unwilling to budge on account of a single one. And later too, we learned that it had been Hotspur’s broken loyalty and faith itself which had led him to break with the King- he who had been one of his most loyal subjects and noble warriors, but had been troubled much more than Henry, of course, by the deposition of Richard. None of these things filtered down to us waiting on the field.
For all we saw when the parley had ended was a very angry Thomas Percy riding back from the King’s lines, his sword held high, his eyes aflame with defiance, and the white banner missing from the pennon of the page. It would be battle, then. And we were, as we saw, vastly outnumbered, seemingly two to one. With that signal the archers all drew up and prepared, fitting arrows to bows. Back behind them, one could see the Percys and their noble confidants gathered on horse in a knot, in a fierce discussion. But it was clear our terms had not been accepted by the king, for now the King’s ranks were advancing. They moved on closer, and then, the sound—
Arrows taking flight. Like the whizzing of bees, there were so many of them, and the silence as they arced, then once more, a whirr, and they began striking their marks. So many of them, and the advancing line of soldiers began catching them in the chest, the head, on the shield, on the thigh, and cries and moans of murder began to fill the glad meadow. The archers let loose another flight, fast as they could fit bolt to bow, and another, and another. They came so fast that it was noticeable, how much the panic of the advancing King’s troops. For they were falling by the dozen, which must have cheered the eyes of the leaders drawn up behind us.
But they rallied, and brought up their own archers, who sent their own volley of arrows overhead, and into the rear of our archers, up into the ranks of pike and swordsmen. From their flanks then came riding knights of the King, on horse. They struck nearby, actually, quite close to where I had taken my shelter on high. Into the archers they plowed, creating a gap through which more men poured. And into the fray then came our pikemen, unhorsing the King’s knights, and horses began to die. And then it was swordsmen against archers, and our archers began to break and fall back. Knights against pikemen, and the melee began. From the rear now came Henry Percy, his sword aloft, giving his war cry “Percy Esperance!” and our side’s horsemen were now in the fray as well. Soon all who could make do with sword or spear were thrusting, cutting, lunging, thrusting, and stabbing. And it made a most hideous sound, with the wounded crying out, with the grunting and the pushing and the shoving and the sound of flesh cut through, and the guts of men falling like slop into the high grass, and horses screaming and keeling over, and the clang of steel on steel, the green grass of summer turning rust-red with the drying blood of the killing...
The little copse of trees I took shelter in was someplace between the two lines of battle, but I was closer to Percy’s side, in end, and off to their right flank.
I had climbed up into a tall oak, of which the bole was a full fourteen feet from ground. It was lucky that I sat up so high, in end, for it could have ended so much worse than it did.
Just as I thought it looked like our side were finally in the lead again, because the fighting was so intense, a knight most fearsome rode up upon me in my seat, from behind.
“You! Youth! Young lad! I say, why are you not at arms?” he queried me in a voice most rude.
He was fully dressed in armor and carried a mace along with his sword. He rode a destrier both grey and prancing, which kept moving about so as he needed to keep fidgeting with its reins.
“I am Julian Plectrum of Chester, and no man is the boss of me! I am a free man, and you can’t catch me!” I taunted.
“I shall pluck thee then like the ripe insolent brat that you are!” he cried, and swung his mace full-on so that the branch I sat on quivered with the blow.
“You’ll not have me, for a free man I am! Death to Henry, and long live Richard and Wales!”
This set him off much worse, I’m afraid, and he lowered his visor, and swung his mace full on at my branch, again and again.
Finally it happened that one of the spikes lodged in the tree and stuck fast, and it was not so easy for him to break it free. He let it dangle then, and now hacked at the branch with his sword, but I had by then crawled up into an even higher branch and was further from his reach than ever.
“You’ll die, like the stewed prune you are, foul young jester of Chester! You’ll be food for crows ere sundown!”
Just then there was a commotion from a turbulent crowd battling a short distance away. Pikemen were calling to him, to come to their aid.
“Sir Goldwall, Sir Goldwall, assist us! We are at peril!” And he rode away, leaving his mace stuck there fast to the branch.
I saw then the knight reach the tumult, and dragged off from his horse by some of the Scotsmen fighting there, then they hacked him down with broadswords, and he did not arise again. I took his mace, and dropping to the ground, I twirled it round and round about my head, and flung it then just as far in the opposite direction of the battle as I could, off into the high peas and hay. Then, with Luisa still at my back, I climbed back up into the tree, and once more took my perch.
The battle raged in ferocity and even more so. There were so many of the King’s men, and it had been the Crown Prince Henry himself who had led forth the first sally into our archers by their horsed knights. It was thought that the King had taken place in the battle also, for in several places I noted his standards were flying. But these were purely for bluff. The King himself stayed far from the fighting until it was high afternoon, when he set out to find Percy. But again, their swords never met. At each point that the Scotsmen and Cheshire men had taken down one of the false Kings, cries had broken out that the King himself was now dead. Now men were cheering for Percy.
“Harry Percy, King!” was the cry accompanying each false note. And so it went, a grinding seat, each moment of horror and clamor accompanied by the hope that finally, wicked Henry Bollingbroke had got his just desserts. And then it happened.
All the men were breaking back and falling back now. Now that I think on it, it was truly a moment when the tide turned. For Henry Percy had taken an arrow to the face, and fallen. The King himself now set up his own cry “Harry Percy dead!” For a second all was still. And then the routing began.
Truly the rout was as horrible to look upon as the first points of the melee. For as the Scots and Cheshire troops began to lose heart and fall back, they were pursued now in a ferocious charge by all of the King’s troops, who knew now that the main spirit of the cause had fallen away from the rebels. They killed, and killed, and pursued men into creeks and streams, killing anyone they found. Resistance broke and it was now each man for himself. The King took few prisoners, and there were many riderless horses- some wounded, fallen and stricken, but many more loose and yet saddled. The rebels kept falling back, and the King’s forces pursued, for at least a mile or two more from the battleground. But the point of action ‘twas now past.
All around me on the great meadow there were dead men, dying men, the cries of murder and conquered hopes. Men calling out to God, to the precious Jesus, to their wives, their lovers, and their mothers, and noises which had no words but which no less spoke of pain and despair. Horses whimpering or sobbing in great groans, and men fallen in great heaps. Guidons and pennons and standards were there stuck in the ground fluttering limply in a weak wind, or had fallen and mixed among the corpses and the halt and lame. I climbed down from the tree, hoping now to make my way away from all of it. I headed northwest, opposite the line that the retreating Percy host had been following away, and as I began, it was not but a few minutes from my tree that I heard a familiar voice calling from the bloody grass.
“Brother! Brother! Take me, brother!”
I walked over to where I heard this voice calling and looked down at the ground. There he was- my brother, Simon. He lay on his side, with a great gash in his mailshirt and down the seam of his stocking. It was bleeding and looked quite ugly.
“Simon?”
“Yes, Julian! It is I! Do remove me from this place!”
I could hear men with daggers going about the business of killing the surviving wounded rebels, and determined that such I could not allow to befall my brother, could I help it. Perhaps it was fortune which had sent me there to assist him, which had placed me so near to the field, which had kept me from continuing on that morning, and instead, held me raptuous with curiosity, in place on the branch of an oak tree. But this was Simon. He now wore a beard, and was dressed in mail, with the signal of the land of Cheshire worn on his tunic.
I helped him to his feet, and dragged him back to the glade, which did, actually, offer some bit of shelter from anyone on the battle plain. I took Simon into the trees and laid him flat out on his back, supporting his shoulders with a large stone which was quite handily close by. I took a strip from my blanket, and wrapped it round his thigh. Then I took pains to strip part of his hose aside that I might see his wound.
Luckily a few yards away I found a comfrey plant, one of those which Porcull had showed me were good for helping to heal wounds, and made a poultice of leaves, and dribbled its juice direct onto the gash on his hips.
“‘Twas a pikeman, with a halberd! He pushed me over and ripped my hauberk. And then a knight struck me right across the hip where it had torn, just so! Oh...”
“Be still. Lucky you were wearing any mail at all! Think how this wound may have been had you not.”
“Yes, brother, t’would have been worse. But I live...”
“That you do, but we must dress this would and keep it clean. Have you anything we might use to bind it up cleanly?”
“Nay.”
“Then perforce we must go to town and find something. Or I shall.”
“I would not take your chances just now! Can’t you hear? They are still off out there, killing us! It was lucky you found me.”
“For now let us use this.”
I drew from my pouch a cloth which had been my noserag and spread it over the comfrey, slipping it beneath the strip of blanket I had cut.
“Hold it tight as you might so long as you wake. When you have slept and in the morrow perhaps we will try to find other means to help. Stay here, I am going off for a bit to see if there are other things nearby which can help. Rest you easy, and drink of this flask.”
I gave him a long sip from the flask Porcull had given me, of his merry spirit water.
That seemed to do him fine, and he smiled.
“Julian, if we should live so long, I’ll yet see you happily wed.”
“That is my hope, brother. That we should survive the roads and patrols and make it back to Chester! To Mary! I did not mention it but yes, we do plan to marry, and the wedding day is set for Lammas Day. Lammas day! But only less than a fortnight away now! Oh that I should have come here, and have met you in this way!”
“Who is Mary?”
“Mary is my lass, the May Queen of Chester! The daughter of a good man, a carpenter by trade. They live on the High Street, I have been their friend of a year or more now. She has pledged me troth and I mine. When I get back- If I get back- there will be more to tell old Father Davis—”
“Our father might be well pleased with you, for going to do so much on your own.”
“Well he would be wise to, for he has given me no surety as he has of you.”
“But surely you would prefer your life to mine! I watch over the sheep! I shear them, and bag up the wool! A dozen things more I do, I plow, I sow, I weed, I make certain that we have milk from the ewes, even old Dad, he’s hardly good but for churning the butter now!”
“Nonetheless you are a good soul, Simon. You are a loyal man and you are a brave man. I would not have taken part in all of this, and I did not, pure and simple, for it all is so sickening! Yes, I can hear them, they are still killing them on the field! What fiends they are!”
I then went off and not so far from the place I left Simon I found a wandering lost horse.
It was a grey mare, bearing the brand of the house of Boynton, a circle-B on its flank. It had saddle, but its bridle and bit had been cloven by a sword. Luckily it had no wound upon it, but it looked distressed.
I came close to her and offered her an apple in my hand, and taking the bridle (as it was) led her back to where Simon lay.
“Looky here! What prize he gains!” he laughed.
“It is a war-horse, but has no master. I shall be her master, now.”
“She is a darling thing.”
I clapped her on the neck, said she was a good horse, promised her that I would keep her well.
“Your name shall be Magdalene, since tomorrow is the saint’s feast, and my birthday.”
Because of the killing still going on, even though now the sun had well gone down, and night was coming chill, I lit no fire, lest we be caught out by the devils. I tied Magdalene up on the branch of one of the trees, and there she rested herself, nibbling from the shoots of grass which were just going straw beside her.
When the moon was full up finally I laid myself to rest with my blanket, head on my pouch as a pillow, Luisa beside me, Simon not three paces off, the horse looking over us. Even the king’s men had now left, and the battlefield was silent. The wounded had been dispatched, and the dead were left for the crows and the wolves. It was early morning when next I looked about me and remembered all which had been the day before. It was no good feeling. For many of the sights I saw will remain with me for always- a hand lying all of its own upon the land, a pair of men who had been stabbed through with one long pike , clammed together like meat on a skewer, a man whose head had been split open wide asunder that his brains stained his shoulders and all the ground round his head, like a stale stinking halo, plenty of intestines trailing from gaping wounds in the side of horses, their lungs sloughed off in chunks and everywhere the retching, stinking odor of death, of shit, of the blood and offal. Crows picked and ripped flesh, and I watched a crow pluck out the eye of a dead man with its beak, and gobble it down like a grape, with a rattling noise.
When the sun came up there were still people picking about the battleground, of course. Women folk were searching for faces they knew, men were dragging away many bodies to lay in common graves, and some were still picking bits of armor or jewelry off the slain. I resolved that I would keep Simon hidden and resting, and that I would be off to search for some real hay for Magdalene. Every so often you could hear one of the women give out a cry, someone had been found, and the wailings and lamentations were awful to her, as awful as the killing had been to see and know went on into late evening.
I kept my promise to Simon, telling him to remain as quiet as he could just where he was, and slipped out of the glade and down to the town of Shrewsbury I went.
Despite my hesitations, actually there I found little reason to fear walking openly among the people. The victorious soldiers of the king were seen lounging and loafing about on every doorstoop or streetcorner, but they paid no mind to a wandering man with a blanket and lute, they were too far into celebration.
I passed the home of an elderly woman who kindly asked me inside. She was named Phyllis, she said, and she said she could tell I was no combatant, for men who wear the green, and who carry no sword nor bow, are always welcome at her door. She handed to me a flask of spirits- these tasted much different than Porcull’s, but were each and every bit as strong, and I began telling her of my need. That I was a Chester man, and I had a wounded brother at the battlefield, I sought dressing for his wounds, and that I hoped and prayed for his safety.
“You need not fear, lad. The King is in the castle, and word is that he captured a good number of the rebel knights. There has been a King’s Grace declared, and all who fought against him will now be allowed to return to their homes, for they have killed as many as they hoped and yet more. Henry Percy was killed in the battle, but the King’s nobles will die in the morning on the block! Such it is to those who take issue with the crown.”
“Then you have no empathy with the cause?”
“I have no empathy with much of anything, these years, sonny. I am an old woman who deals in herbs and in spirits. What need have they of any thoughts of mine? Battles are ugly, but what is every bit as ugly are the arguments that bring them about.”
“Who are these men who will die on the morrow?”
“Why, Lord Worcester, and Sir Boynton, and Barons Venables and Vernon! Leaders of the noxious rebellion against Henry.”
“But Henry is not the true king! Richard was. And Richard, they say, yet lives.”
She laughed.
“Nay, young man. Richard is as dead as Henry Percy, for his corpse was dragged hither and yon by the King but a month after he had died. And who can argue, once a man wears a crown upon his head. Had not God sought his destiny himself, t’would not have come to pass.”
I was disappointed. While Phyllis the Herbal was not “empathetic” however she had let me in and had given me drink, and while she had been speaking with me, she had gathered a number of herbs and wrapped them in a fine clean cloth. All these would go directly to my wounded brother, so soon as I might return to him. And I thanked her, and gave her a shilling.
It may seem extravagant that I did so, but that old woman had given Simon more lease on his life and what else had I to part with than my highest coin? For it would not be well spent remaining in my pockets!
As I finished my bit of spirit, she also filled a flask for me to take back to Simon, for his pains. The news that Lord Worcester should die the following day was grim- Worcester, and the nobles of Cheshire, all! I had to tell this to Simon. So I thanked Phyllis, and blessed her, and made my way, humbly and as nimbly as I might, back out to the wooded glade, where Simon groaned, but seemed better able to move about. I brought fresh grass for Magdalene and offered to her water, when I led her to the side of the stream near the wood. When she had been ministered to, I sat down with Simon, and told him what the old lady had told me. About the execution to take place. About the King’s Grace.
“Yes,” said Simon, “We should both go to see this ugly evil thing. If only that we might honor these men about to die. Once that is over with, we must make haste away from this wicked town. I wish never to come here again.” He sipped lightly at his flask, and smiled.
“Nor I!” I agreed. On my way out of Shrewsbury I had bought some pears and cherries from a seller at the edge of the town, and these I shared with Simon. The joy in his eye at having any repast at all was pitiful to me. I could not but hope we might return home soon enough, that he might have a real, full meal, and that he might rest up, and refrain from the need to walk about.
I took Simon’s mail shirt and hid it beneath Magdalene’s saddle, that when we finally could leave this place, we might have better luck should we encounter soldiers on the road. When we had gone far enough away I would later remove it, and it would stay with Simon for safekeeping. In his condition he would not be back at muster again, for his lame leg now would see him safely into old age, should he be so lucky.
And into the night we rested together, and I told him all about my travels in the four years since he had last seen me. About Stephen’s manor, Porcull, and Penzance. About London, Vincebus, Songgemonger, and the journey back and forth to court. More about Mary, and our impending wedding- I could not hardly believe, it was only a week away, now! To think I almost did not possess the ability to return, stopped by this regretful, defeated battle...
We made no fire, lest we draw undue attention, and Simon was cold, so I lent him my blanket, and lie in the dark thinking only of home. Those thoughts being all there was to keep me warm.
At early dawn we arose, and we went together to the town, where there were already crowds gathering. For at first light the men would be drawn to the block. There was a scaffold built up high in a square on the High Cross street. Pikemen and knights alike ringed it. Many in the town had heard of Thomas Percy, but none had yet ever seen him. He was the first one to appear, dragged along tied to the tail of a horse, and then the other three men. All four were marched up to the block together.
We were quite far back of all this, but could see. We could not hear words he spoke as he was allowed to make his last words to the world. The executioner forced down his head, and then, put the blade to it. There was a loud noise of the crowd- something not yet a cheer, not yet a groan of disgust. And they then did the same to Richard de Vernon, who lent himself to the block with no argument. In fact it was a telling thing, that these men knew their fate and yet made no attempts to argue. There was some strange and weird dignity in the way they went to the axe- it was not with a manner of defeated men, nor of fearful murderers judged to be guilty. Rather it seemed that they lent a grace in their dying to all who were witness- that these men were indeed the noble men who had been loyal, up to the point their own honor was in jeopardy, and were now judged- rightly or wrongly- out of favor with the caprices of empire. Lastly went down Henry Boynton. Each whack of the axe brought the same moaning sound out of the crowd, and with each blow I too sickened in my gut and felt smaller, as if something were pushing me back against the walls of the buildings surrounding the square. A tight feeling, as though my own spirit had been found wanting of this same basic goodness which allowed all four of the noble rebels to die so bravely. And then the executioner began the quartering, which itself was an ugly thing. Each head was placed atop a pike, and the executioner cried that they would be taken to London, to stand on the pillars of the Bridge. And the quarters would go to the rebellious towns of Chester, York, Worcester, and Exeter. To serve as example to all who live there as to whom ruled, and in what stead, and as God may bless the good people of these towns, so God would damn all who rose up against the King of England.
Words, just words! And yet they were meant to explode like clods inside the mind. It was with great urgency that Simon looked to me when the butchering had been completed, and the quarters all placed upon carts, and driven off. We should go now, said his tired eyes, without his need of saying a thing. I helped him hobble along, back to the wood, and I placed him on Magdalene. We set out riding on the Deva Road for Chester. Magdalene was an older horse, and so did not canter or sprint, but leisurely plodded, steadily on.
We had just begun our journey home, in fact, both of us riding on Magdalene, I in front and Simon behind, when we were stopped by a group of King’s men. All of them had fought at the battle and were sore to look upon us both.
“Wither you go, lads?”
“To home, to Cheshire, sirs.”
“Upon a king’s horse?” they asked.
“Nay,” I offered, “as you see, it has the brand of Sir Boynton.”
“All horses are the king’s horses now! Boynton’s estate is forfeit and all his lands and chattel! Give us that horse!”
One of them prevailed upon the rest, however, and that was our good fortune.
“Nay, let them go, Robert,” he offered. “What good will it do? The king has declared his grace on all rebels, ‘twas only the Lords who such must needs have felt his wrath. And if we let these two go on their way we will but help show the king’s mercy on all the people of Cheshire.”
“Go then, to Cheshire!” smirked the one called Robert. “See what your rebellion has brought you! The head of Sir Vernon on a pike, and to your town, his distaff hindquarter! Haha!”
So both Simon and I were relieved of the pain of need to walk all of the 50 miles to Chester and Upton on foot. But sore was Simon, and sore was I.
It was then we began making up our “protest ballade.” The Lay of Hotspur. I shall give you but three of the verses and refrain:
King Henry came to Shrewsbury town
And with the Prince was riding
From Cheshire and from Scotland down
Percy Hotspur came forth from hiding
They fought upon the battle plain
and when the day was done
King Henry sat upon his stool and cried
“My dear Hotspur is gone.”
A’lack a’ Dee, for Lack of Dane,
Bad Henry king, Fair Percy slain!”
For Hotspur had pled a ransom kind
his cousin Mortimer in chains
Held in Wales by Glyndwyr,
banns to Glyndwyr’s daughter he had made
A’lack a’ Dee, for Lack of Dane,
Bad Henry king, Fair Percy slain!”
(etc)
I wanted only to pass by the town and continue on the road to Chester. As I kept silently to my goal, however, and got a bit farther from town, I came upon the encampment of Henry Hotspur Percy, the Scot Lord Douglas, and the Cheshire men. Strange while it was to find Percy now aligned against the Earl and the King, but so it was. It seemed to me there now were two opposing armies all about me, and I had little recourse- perhaps, looking back, it could have been possible just to keep on my way and ignore everything which took up the next three days. But then I would have missed much, and besides, who knows what then might have become of my brother Simon. Of whom I shall soon tell you. The day was the twentieth of July, and it was but two days before my birthday and the feast of Mary Magdalene, and I slept beneath the stars after a meal of half a loaf of bread and an apple I had plucked. As I slept I dreamed of Mary and that she was walking across a large, bright meadow and strange music accompanied her.
Dappled rays of light burst through the trees with first day’s sun. With the song of the sparrows calling all about me, “chirrup, chirrup”. I heard the clamor and stirring of the Cheshire footmen dousing fires and heaping ash on coals, readying their mailshirts and fetting arrows, stringing bows, and sharpening dirks.
Knights were donning armor and calling to each other to take courage.
“We may not live tomorrow!”
“Then fair toast we this day we die!”
“For Cheshire!”
“For Richard!
“For Percy!
“For England!”
“For Scotland!”
“For Wales!”
I edged around the camp and I climbed into a tree, that I might see my way all around the large meadow which would in a number of hours be filled with the horror, horror as such I had not known could exist in such a peaceful place.
As the early hours grew and the sun rose further the captains began forming their men into ranks. Leading off were the archers, Welsh and Cheshire bowmen, who were some twelve deep in a long line stretching over the length of the field. Behind them were the footmen with pikes, hooks, and spears, plaid clad Scotsmen with long broadswords, and last of all, as it was after all, a bit of a delay in putting on all that armor, the horsed knights and the noble retainers.
Sunshine glinted off the mailshirts and hauberks of the archers, and looking out across the field, I saw that the King’s men had done the same. Drawn up lines in opposition, and now and then, giving off a cheer of bravura. Little did anyone know that what happened next was only a prelude, but it was such a lengthy one that it took nearly high past noon before the inevitable.
A number of priests came striding out from the ranks of the king, bearing crosses, and calling out to us to surrender and give ourselves back to the liege, and much would be forgiven by God. This was met by loud laughter and guffaws by most. For many had already known that this one-sided affair was a great gamble, and the gamble was being met by Henry (“Lord Harry Hotspur”) Percy, who felt it necessary to meet the King alone, himself, if he could, on the field, and triumph by might of sword if at all possible. For there had been a great breach of faith, and now Percy, ever the King’s Man, rode with the Rebellion. The priests, actually, seemed to be parties of comic relief to a tense situation, but they had been driven to this point in knowing that a good many of the King’s subjects, loyal, and turned, would be dying that day. If any would quail however before the throne of God, in fighting for their freedom, however, they were not to be satisfied by any giving up their place, and seeking safety. No, that was my part, for battle was a curiosity to me, and yet, never the place my own sensibility gave a cause for to sanction.
What occurred was a parley. As Henry Percy stayed at the rear with his loyals Venables, Boynton and Vernon, his uncle, Lord of Worcester, Thomas Percy, rode out with a page carrying a white flag on the pennon of Worcester. He rode to the camp of the King, and the line broke ranks to take him in. It would be impossible to know what all went on in the tent of the King, but he was with the King more than an hour or two. Meanwhile, the men all kept ranks, leaned on their shields, and nervously chattered among themselves as the sun grew ever higher. Actually it was only after the battle that anyone learned what had been discussed- issues about Percy relatives (the Lord Mortimer! His own brother-in-law!) held hostage by Glyndwyr whom King Henry had not deemed worthy of ransom, owing to their own claim (and better said, at that, argued Percy Worcester), the usurpation of Richard’s crown which the people of Cheshire yet begrudged Henry, and the regency of the “Prince of Wales”, whom all Cheshire desired Henry should know they considered was truly Owyn Glyndwyr, and not the young Henry, his son. All these things troubled the King mightily, but he was unwilling to budge on account of a single one. And later too, we learned that it had been Hotspur’s broken loyalty and faith itself which had led him to break with the King- he who had been one of his most loyal subjects and noble warriors, but had been troubled much more than Henry, of course, by the deposition of Richard. None of these things filtered down to us waiting on the field.
For all we saw when the parley had ended was a very angry Thomas Percy riding back from the King’s lines, his sword held high, his eyes aflame with defiance, and the white banner missing from the pennon of the page. It would be battle, then. And we were, as we saw, vastly outnumbered, seemingly two to one. With that signal the archers all drew up and prepared, fitting arrows to bows. Back behind them, one could see the Percys and their noble confidants gathered on horse in a knot, in a fierce discussion. But it was clear our terms had not been accepted by the king, for now the King’s ranks were advancing. They moved on closer, and then, the sound—
Arrows taking flight. Like the whizzing of bees, there were so many of them, and the silence as they arced, then once more, a whirr, and they began striking their marks. So many of them, and the advancing line of soldiers began catching them in the chest, the head, on the shield, on the thigh, and cries and moans of murder began to fill the glad meadow. The archers let loose another flight, fast as they could fit bolt to bow, and another, and another. They came so fast that it was noticeable, how much the panic of the advancing King’s troops. For they were falling by the dozen, which must have cheered the eyes of the leaders drawn up behind us.
But they rallied, and brought up their own archers, who sent their own volley of arrows overhead, and into the rear of our archers, up into the ranks of pike and swordsmen. From their flanks then came riding knights of the King, on horse. They struck nearby, actually, quite close to where I had taken my shelter on high. Into the archers they plowed, creating a gap through which more men poured. And into the fray then came our pikemen, unhorsing the King’s knights, and horses began to die. And then it was swordsmen against archers, and our archers began to break and fall back. Knights against pikemen, and the melee began. From the rear now came Henry Percy, his sword aloft, giving his war cry “Percy Esperance!” and our side’s horsemen were now in the fray as well. Soon all who could make do with sword or spear were thrusting, cutting, lunging, thrusting, and stabbing. And it made a most hideous sound, with the wounded crying out, with the grunting and the pushing and the shoving and the sound of flesh cut through, and the guts of men falling like slop into the high grass, and horses screaming and keeling over, and the clang of steel on steel, the green grass of summer turning rust-red with the drying blood of the killing...
The little copse of trees I took shelter in was someplace between the two lines of battle, but I was closer to Percy’s side, in end, and off to their right flank.
I had climbed up into a tall oak, of which the bole was a full fourteen feet from ground. It was lucky that I sat up so high, in end, for it could have ended so much worse than it did.
Just as I thought it looked like our side were finally in the lead again, because the fighting was so intense, a knight most fearsome rode up upon me in my seat, from behind.
“You! Youth! Young lad! I say, why are you not at arms?” he queried me in a voice most rude.
He was fully dressed in armor and carried a mace along with his sword. He rode a destrier both grey and prancing, which kept moving about so as he needed to keep fidgeting with its reins.
“I am Julian Plectrum of Chester, and no man is the boss of me! I am a free man, and you can’t catch me!” I taunted.
“I shall pluck thee then like the ripe insolent brat that you are!” he cried, and swung his mace full-on so that the branch I sat on quivered with the blow.
“You’ll not have me, for a free man I am! Death to Henry, and long live Richard and Wales!”
This set him off much worse, I’m afraid, and he lowered his visor, and swung his mace full on at my branch, again and again.
Finally it happened that one of the spikes lodged in the tree and stuck fast, and it was not so easy for him to break it free. He let it dangle then, and now hacked at the branch with his sword, but I had by then crawled up into an even higher branch and was further from his reach than ever.
“You’ll die, like the stewed prune you are, foul young jester of Chester! You’ll be food for crows ere sundown!”
Just then there was a commotion from a turbulent crowd battling a short distance away. Pikemen were calling to him, to come to their aid.
“Sir Goldwall, Sir Goldwall, assist us! We are at peril!” And he rode away, leaving his mace stuck there fast to the branch.
I saw then the knight reach the tumult, and dragged off from his horse by some of the Scotsmen fighting there, then they hacked him down with broadswords, and he did not arise again. I took his mace, and dropping to the ground, I twirled it round and round about my head, and flung it then just as far in the opposite direction of the battle as I could, off into the high peas and hay. Then, with Luisa still at my back, I climbed back up into the tree, and once more took my perch.
The battle raged in ferocity and even more so. There were so many of the King’s men, and it had been the Crown Prince Henry himself who had led forth the first sally into our archers by their horsed knights. It was thought that the King had taken place in the battle also, for in several places I noted his standards were flying. But these were purely for bluff. The King himself stayed far from the fighting until it was high afternoon, when he set out to find Percy. But again, their swords never met. At each point that the Scotsmen and Cheshire men had taken down one of the false Kings, cries had broken out that the King himself was now dead. Now men were cheering for Percy.
“Harry Percy, King!” was the cry accompanying each false note. And so it went, a grinding seat, each moment of horror and clamor accompanied by the hope that finally, wicked Henry Bollingbroke had got his just desserts. And then it happened.
All the men were breaking back and falling back now. Now that I think on it, it was truly a moment when the tide turned. For Henry Percy had taken an arrow to the face, and fallen. The King himself now set up his own cry “Harry Percy dead!” For a second all was still. And then the routing began.
Truly the rout was as horrible to look upon as the first points of the melee. For as the Scots and Cheshire troops began to lose heart and fall back, they were pursued now in a ferocious charge by all of the King’s troops, who knew now that the main spirit of the cause had fallen away from the rebels. They killed, and killed, and pursued men into creeks and streams, killing anyone they found. Resistance broke and it was now each man for himself. The King took few prisoners, and there were many riderless horses- some wounded, fallen and stricken, but many more loose and yet saddled. The rebels kept falling back, and the King’s forces pursued, for at least a mile or two more from the battleground. But the point of action ‘twas now past.
All around me on the great meadow there were dead men, dying men, the cries of murder and conquered hopes. Men calling out to God, to the precious Jesus, to their wives, their lovers, and their mothers, and noises which had no words but which no less spoke of pain and despair. Horses whimpering or sobbing in great groans, and men fallen in great heaps. Guidons and pennons and standards were there stuck in the ground fluttering limply in a weak wind, or had fallen and mixed among the corpses and the halt and lame. I climbed down from the tree, hoping now to make my way away from all of it. I headed northwest, opposite the line that the retreating Percy host had been following away, and as I began, it was not but a few minutes from my tree that I heard a familiar voice calling from the bloody grass.
“Brother! Brother! Take me, brother!”
I walked over to where I heard this voice calling and looked down at the ground. There he was- my brother, Simon. He lay on his side, with a great gash in his mailshirt and down the seam of his stocking. It was bleeding and looked quite ugly.
“Simon?”
“Yes, Julian! It is I! Do remove me from this place!”
I could hear men with daggers going about the business of killing the surviving wounded rebels, and determined that such I could not allow to befall my brother, could I help it. Perhaps it was fortune which had sent me there to assist him, which had placed me so near to the field, which had kept me from continuing on that morning, and instead, held me raptuous with curiosity, in place on the branch of an oak tree. But this was Simon. He now wore a beard, and was dressed in mail, with the signal of the land of Cheshire worn on his tunic.
I helped him to his feet, and dragged him back to the glade, which did, actually, offer some bit of shelter from anyone on the battle plain. I took Simon into the trees and laid him flat out on his back, supporting his shoulders with a large stone which was quite handily close by. I took a strip from my blanket, and wrapped it round his thigh. Then I took pains to strip part of his hose aside that I might see his wound.
Luckily a few yards away I found a comfrey plant, one of those which Porcull had showed me were good for helping to heal wounds, and made a poultice of leaves, and dribbled its juice direct onto the gash on his hips.
“‘Twas a pikeman, with a halberd! He pushed me over and ripped my hauberk. And then a knight struck me right across the hip where it had torn, just so! Oh...”
“Be still. Lucky you were wearing any mail at all! Think how this wound may have been had you not.”
“Yes, brother, t’would have been worse. But I live...”
“That you do, but we must dress this would and keep it clean. Have you anything we might use to bind it up cleanly?”
“Nay.”
“Then perforce we must go to town and find something. Or I shall.”
“I would not take your chances just now! Can’t you hear? They are still off out there, killing us! It was lucky you found me.”
“For now let us use this.”
I drew from my pouch a cloth which had been my noserag and spread it over the comfrey, slipping it beneath the strip of blanket I had cut.
“Hold it tight as you might so long as you wake. When you have slept and in the morrow perhaps we will try to find other means to help. Stay here, I am going off for a bit to see if there are other things nearby which can help. Rest you easy, and drink of this flask.”
I gave him a long sip from the flask Porcull had given me, of his merry spirit water.
That seemed to do him fine, and he smiled.
“Julian, if we should live so long, I’ll yet see you happily wed.”
“That is my hope, brother. That we should survive the roads and patrols and make it back to Chester! To Mary! I did not mention it but yes, we do plan to marry, and the wedding day is set for Lammas Day. Lammas day! But only less than a fortnight away now! Oh that I should have come here, and have met you in this way!”
“Who is Mary?”
“Mary is my lass, the May Queen of Chester! The daughter of a good man, a carpenter by trade. They live on the High Street, I have been their friend of a year or more now. She has pledged me troth and I mine. When I get back- If I get back- there will be more to tell old Father Davis—”
“Our father might be well pleased with you, for going to do so much on your own.”
“Well he would be wise to, for he has given me no surety as he has of you.”
“But surely you would prefer your life to mine! I watch over the sheep! I shear them, and bag up the wool! A dozen things more I do, I plow, I sow, I weed, I make certain that we have milk from the ewes, even old Dad, he’s hardly good but for churning the butter now!”
“Nonetheless you are a good soul, Simon. You are a loyal man and you are a brave man. I would not have taken part in all of this, and I did not, pure and simple, for it all is so sickening! Yes, I can hear them, they are still killing them on the field! What fiends they are!”
I then went off and not so far from the place I left Simon I found a wandering lost horse.
It was a grey mare, bearing the brand of the house of Boynton, a circle-B on its flank. It had saddle, but its bridle and bit had been cloven by a sword. Luckily it had no wound upon it, but it looked distressed.
I came close to her and offered her an apple in my hand, and taking the bridle (as it was) led her back to where Simon lay.
“Looky here! What prize he gains!” he laughed.
“It is a war-horse, but has no master. I shall be her master, now.”
“She is a darling thing.”
I clapped her on the neck, said she was a good horse, promised her that I would keep her well.
“Your name shall be Magdalene, since tomorrow is the saint’s feast, and my birthday.”
Because of the killing still going on, even though now the sun had well gone down, and night was coming chill, I lit no fire, lest we be caught out by the devils. I tied Magdalene up on the branch of one of the trees, and there she rested herself, nibbling from the shoots of grass which were just going straw beside her.
When the moon was full up finally I laid myself to rest with my blanket, head on my pouch as a pillow, Luisa beside me, Simon not three paces off, the horse looking over us. Even the king’s men had now left, and the battlefield was silent. The wounded had been dispatched, and the dead were left for the crows and the wolves. It was early morning when next I looked about me and remembered all which had been the day before. It was no good feeling. For many of the sights I saw will remain with me for always- a hand lying all of its own upon the land, a pair of men who had been stabbed through with one long pike , clammed together like meat on a skewer, a man whose head had been split open wide asunder that his brains stained his shoulders and all the ground round his head, like a stale stinking halo, plenty of intestines trailing from gaping wounds in the side of horses, their lungs sloughed off in chunks and everywhere the retching, stinking odor of death, of shit, of the blood and offal. Crows picked and ripped flesh, and I watched a crow pluck out the eye of a dead man with its beak, and gobble it down like a grape, with a rattling noise.
When the sun came up there were still people picking about the battleground, of course. Women folk were searching for faces they knew, men were dragging away many bodies to lay in common graves, and some were still picking bits of armor or jewelry off the slain. I resolved that I would keep Simon hidden and resting, and that I would be off to search for some real hay for Magdalene. Every so often you could hear one of the women give out a cry, someone had been found, and the wailings and lamentations were awful to her, as awful as the killing had been to see and know went on into late evening.
I kept my promise to Simon, telling him to remain as quiet as he could just where he was, and slipped out of the glade and down to the town of Shrewsbury I went.
Despite my hesitations, actually there I found little reason to fear walking openly among the people. The victorious soldiers of the king were seen lounging and loafing about on every doorstoop or streetcorner, but they paid no mind to a wandering man with a blanket and lute, they were too far into celebration.
I passed the home of an elderly woman who kindly asked me inside. She was named Phyllis, she said, and she said she could tell I was no combatant, for men who wear the green, and who carry no sword nor bow, are always welcome at her door. She handed to me a flask of spirits- these tasted much different than Porcull’s, but were each and every bit as strong, and I began telling her of my need. That I was a Chester man, and I had a wounded brother at the battlefield, I sought dressing for his wounds, and that I hoped and prayed for his safety.
“You need not fear, lad. The King is in the castle, and word is that he captured a good number of the rebel knights. There has been a King’s Grace declared, and all who fought against him will now be allowed to return to their homes, for they have killed as many as they hoped and yet more. Henry Percy was killed in the battle, but the King’s nobles will die in the morning on the block! Such it is to those who take issue with the crown.”
“Then you have no empathy with the cause?”
“I have no empathy with much of anything, these years, sonny. I am an old woman who deals in herbs and in spirits. What need have they of any thoughts of mine? Battles are ugly, but what is every bit as ugly are the arguments that bring them about.”
“Who are these men who will die on the morrow?”
“Why, Lord Worcester, and Sir Boynton, and Barons Venables and Vernon! Leaders of the noxious rebellion against Henry.”
“But Henry is not the true king! Richard was. And Richard, they say, yet lives.”
She laughed.
“Nay, young man. Richard is as dead as Henry Percy, for his corpse was dragged hither and yon by the King but a month after he had died. And who can argue, once a man wears a crown upon his head. Had not God sought his destiny himself, t’would not have come to pass.”
I was disappointed. While Phyllis the Herbal was not “empathetic” however she had let me in and had given me drink, and while she had been speaking with me, she had gathered a number of herbs and wrapped them in a fine clean cloth. All these would go directly to my wounded brother, so soon as I might return to him. And I thanked her, and gave her a shilling.
It may seem extravagant that I did so, but that old woman had given Simon more lease on his life and what else had I to part with than my highest coin? For it would not be well spent remaining in my pockets!
As I finished my bit of spirit, she also filled a flask for me to take back to Simon, for his pains. The news that Lord Worcester should die the following day was grim- Worcester, and the nobles of Cheshire, all! I had to tell this to Simon. So I thanked Phyllis, and blessed her, and made my way, humbly and as nimbly as I might, back out to the wooded glade, where Simon groaned, but seemed better able to move about. I brought fresh grass for Magdalene and offered to her water, when I led her to the side of the stream near the wood. When she had been ministered to, I sat down with Simon, and told him what the old lady had told me. About the execution to take place. About the King’s Grace.
“Yes,” said Simon, “We should both go to see this ugly evil thing. If only that we might honor these men about to die. Once that is over with, we must make haste away from this wicked town. I wish never to come here again.” He sipped lightly at his flask, and smiled.
“Nor I!” I agreed. On my way out of Shrewsbury I had bought some pears and cherries from a seller at the edge of the town, and these I shared with Simon. The joy in his eye at having any repast at all was pitiful to me. I could not but hope we might return home soon enough, that he might have a real, full meal, and that he might rest up, and refrain from the need to walk about.
I took Simon’s mail shirt and hid it beneath Magdalene’s saddle, that when we finally could leave this place, we might have better luck should we encounter soldiers on the road. When we had gone far enough away I would later remove it, and it would stay with Simon for safekeeping. In his condition he would not be back at muster again, for his lame leg now would see him safely into old age, should he be so lucky.
And into the night we rested together, and I told him all about my travels in the four years since he had last seen me. About Stephen’s manor, Porcull, and Penzance. About London, Vincebus, Songgemonger, and the journey back and forth to court. More about Mary, and our impending wedding- I could not hardly believe, it was only a week away, now! To think I almost did not possess the ability to return, stopped by this regretful, defeated battle...
We made no fire, lest we draw undue attention, and Simon was cold, so I lent him my blanket, and lie in the dark thinking only of home. Those thoughts being all there was to keep me warm.
At early dawn we arose, and we went together to the town, where there were already crowds gathering. For at first light the men would be drawn to the block. There was a scaffold built up high in a square on the High Cross street. Pikemen and knights alike ringed it. Many in the town had heard of Thomas Percy, but none had yet ever seen him. He was the first one to appear, dragged along tied to the tail of a horse, and then the other three men. All four were marched up to the block together.
We were quite far back of all this, but could see. We could not hear words he spoke as he was allowed to make his last words to the world. The executioner forced down his head, and then, put the blade to it. There was a loud noise of the crowd- something not yet a cheer, not yet a groan of disgust. And they then did the same to Richard de Vernon, who lent himself to the block with no argument. In fact it was a telling thing, that these men knew their fate and yet made no attempts to argue. There was some strange and weird dignity in the way they went to the axe- it was not with a manner of defeated men, nor of fearful murderers judged to be guilty. Rather it seemed that they lent a grace in their dying to all who were witness- that these men were indeed the noble men who had been loyal, up to the point their own honor was in jeopardy, and were now judged- rightly or wrongly- out of favor with the caprices of empire. Lastly went down Henry Boynton. Each whack of the axe brought the same moaning sound out of the crowd, and with each blow I too sickened in my gut and felt smaller, as if something were pushing me back against the walls of the buildings surrounding the square. A tight feeling, as though my own spirit had been found wanting of this same basic goodness which allowed all four of the noble rebels to die so bravely. And then the executioner began the quartering, which itself was an ugly thing. Each head was placed atop a pike, and the executioner cried that they would be taken to London, to stand on the pillars of the Bridge. And the quarters would go to the rebellious towns of Chester, York, Worcester, and Exeter. To serve as example to all who live there as to whom ruled, and in what stead, and as God may bless the good people of these towns, so God would damn all who rose up against the King of England.
Words, just words! And yet they were meant to explode like clods inside the mind. It was with great urgency that Simon looked to me when the butchering had been completed, and the quarters all placed upon carts, and driven off. We should go now, said his tired eyes, without his need of saying a thing. I helped him hobble along, back to the wood, and I placed him on Magdalene. We set out riding on the Deva Road for Chester. Magdalene was an older horse, and so did not canter or sprint, but leisurely plodded, steadily on.
We had just begun our journey home, in fact, both of us riding on Magdalene, I in front and Simon behind, when we were stopped by a group of King’s men. All of them had fought at the battle and were sore to look upon us both.
“Wither you go, lads?”
“To home, to Cheshire, sirs.”
“Upon a king’s horse?” they asked.
“Nay,” I offered, “as you see, it has the brand of Sir Boynton.”
“All horses are the king’s horses now! Boynton’s estate is forfeit and all his lands and chattel! Give us that horse!”
One of them prevailed upon the rest, however, and that was our good fortune.
“Nay, let them go, Robert,” he offered. “What good will it do? The king has declared his grace on all rebels, ‘twas only the Lords who such must needs have felt his wrath. And if we let these two go on their way we will but help show the king’s mercy on all the people of Cheshire.”
“Go then, to Cheshire!” smirked the one called Robert. “See what your rebellion has brought you! The head of Sir Vernon on a pike, and to your town, his distaff hindquarter! Haha!”
So both Simon and I were relieved of the pain of need to walk all of the 50 miles to Chester and Upton on foot. But sore was Simon, and sore was I.
It was then we began making up our “protest ballade.” The Lay of Hotspur. I shall give you but three of the verses and refrain:
King Henry came to Shrewsbury town
And with the Prince was riding
From Cheshire and from Scotland down
Percy Hotspur came forth from hiding
They fought upon the battle plain
and when the day was done
King Henry sat upon his stool and cried
“My dear Hotspur is gone.”
A’lack a’ Dee, for Lack of Dane,
Bad Henry king, Fair Percy slain!”
For Hotspur had pled a ransom kind
his cousin Mortimer in chains
Held in Wales by Glyndwyr,
banns to Glyndwyr’s daughter he had made
A’lack a’ Dee, for Lack of Dane,
Bad Henry king, Fair Percy slain!”
(etc)
December 18, 2013
A Stick In the Eye
A momentous decision, the first of its kind in quite a long whiles, to go in the direction of the public interest and common good, on the surveillance state issue, was made this past week in Federal Court. The presiding judge ruled that the NSA program “Prism” had very likely overstepped its authority under the Constitution with its “collect-it-all” telephony records gathering. The judge hearkens back to the case under which all state spying in the USA has proceeded since 1975, Smith vs. Maryland, and declares that the technology which now addresses the nation’s communications has evolved to such a point that the precedent set under Smith no longer applies, and that it is time for a new one, and a reconsideration of the abuse of the powers which Smith had previously allowed government to proceed on. The judge stops short, however, of calling the program “Orwellian,” and terms it “almost Orwellian.” This allows some wiggle room, for anyone who has actually read Orwell’s 1984 realizes full well that the police state powers the author described are a definite corollary to the current practices of the NSA. Further, it lays even more responsibility at the feet of the executive branch of government, how these powers are being put to use. And once again, Hif Majeftie, Barack Obama, has weighed in on the side of totalitarianism, all the while, washing his hands, and refusing to address the idea that his national intelligence officers have violated their privilege of office, and contravened the Constitution. Of course, this is no surprise to those of us who have been watching Hif Majeftie since his 180-turnabout on the idea of holding the Bush administration responsible for its torture and war crimes. Indeed, to keep blaming Bush for the policies which this particular president now has continued unabated (and ramped up!) on the issue of total surveillance, drone murder, indefinite detention & assassination without due process, and indefatigable imperialism in Afghanistan and northeast Africa, is to overlook the bald fact that this president has been in office quite long enough to “own it”all- and own up. The ruling states that “Congress may not hang a cloak of secrecy over the Constitution” and “Of course, the public has no interest in freeing the government from the burdens of complying with the Constitution!”[exclamation point in original]. This is strong language from a federal judge, appointed by G.W.Bush, the man most knee-jerk “liberals” would love to carry the weight and the blame for all of this as a means of letting themselves off the hook for being ever-decreasingly vigilant as regards to the totalitarian excesses of their own Dear Leader. It rather points up the fact that in this society, individuals are expected to think (and judges to rule) from their own conscience, not simply to parrot the endeavor of the people who appoint them. It is a good thing that someone recognizes- finally! that the Constitution itself is what matters here, not the government’s power and ability to intimidate the public. If there ever were a time when protest were truly needed in America, it would be now, when the most complacent of Democratic partisans only see the issues before the nation as “investing ObamaCare” and the “need for more gun control.”
There are a lot of reasons that this ruling is well-timed and is a stick in the eye of the Cyclopean police state over which Barack Obama presides. It is high time that rights were returned to the people of this nation- rights which are inalienable and which the Founders of this country could never have foreseen would be brought into such imminent danger as that posed by the very agencies which have been tasked to ensure its freedom. Freedom no longer means what it used to, but only if people forget what freedom has truly meant in the past, and could mean once again. Especially if we the people, with the power of the vote, can prevent some of these people responsible for this state of affairs from ever once again holding public office.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/23/obama-cant-point-to-a-single-time-the-nsa-call-records-program-prevented-a-terrorist-attack/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/18/a-victory-for-the-constitution/
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/19/dave-eggers-us-writers-take-stand-nsa-surveillance?CMP=ema_565
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/12/abu-zubaydah-counterterrorismnationalsecuritystate.html
Our "Christian" president's morality lapse is showing. Like his Imperial New Suit.
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/12/26/while-americans-were-celebrating-christmas-obama-administration-launched-drone-strike-in-pakistan
You have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
There are a lot of reasons that this ruling is well-timed and is a stick in the eye of the Cyclopean police state over which Barack Obama presides. It is high time that rights were returned to the people of this nation- rights which are inalienable and which the Founders of this country could never have foreseen would be brought into such imminent danger as that posed by the very agencies which have been tasked to ensure its freedom. Freedom no longer means what it used to, but only if people forget what freedom has truly meant in the past, and could mean once again. Especially if we the people, with the power of the vote, can prevent some of these people responsible for this state of affairs from ever once again holding public office.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/23/obama-cant-point-to-a-single-time-the-nsa-call-records-program-prevented-a-terrorist-attack/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/18/a-victory-for-the-constitution/
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/19/dave-eggers-us-writers-take-stand-nsa-surveillance?CMP=ema_565
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/12/abu-zubaydah-counterterrorismnationalsecuritystate.html
Our "Christian" president's morality lapse is showing. Like his Imperial New Suit.
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/12/26/while-americans-were-celebrating-christmas-obama-administration-launched-drone-strike-in-pakistan
You have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
December 13, 2013
Rule of Law in a Free Society
I read with some bemused interest today John McCain’s latest umbrage with the policies of Hif Majeftie, Barack Obama. This concerns the well-hoped-for release of the Congressional Report on Torture, which Mr. McCain (and many concerned Americans) would like to see, for themselves. How far the USA is willing to go to forego its own regulations (or international obligations) and Constitutional guarantees to citizen and non-citizen alike has become a bellwether for indications of how close or how far America comes to upholding the principles upon which it was founded, and attests to still adhere to (with ever-less visual confirmations). Senator McCain “does not mourn the death of any terrorist” he says, last of all, Bin Laden. Neither do I necessarily, however I add my own caveats to all that. The killing of Osama Bin Laden, while welcomed by most all Americans, took place outside of the theater of due process. Granted this- that Bin Laden at least received the notice of any official indictment (something which neither Anwar Awlaki, Al Qaeda propagandist, nor his son Abdulrahman, a youth with no connection whatsoever to AQ except his own “attainted” blood-relationship to his father) happened to get- but yet, Bin Laden was not arrested, by the forces sent to apprehend him. Nor was he brought to the scene of his crime, to answer for it. Although he had admitted it. Instead, lynch mob justice prevailed, shoot-to-kill orders were invoked, and he was granted his most fervent wish- to become a martyr at the hands of the US Government. Here again, another indication of how little those charged with directing our military have had to do with the common sense compiled in Sun Tzu’s Art of War. But I digress. Terrorists are criminals. Do not legitimize them by arguing “we are at war”... We are NOT at war unless we receive a CONGRESSIONAL DECLARATION OF WAR. All other use of representative force is nothing but a run-around of the Constitution. Apparently, for the past seventy years, Congress has been too lazy to invoke this, or (more likely) the “threats” the nation faces have been truly unworthy of such a measure. Which is my own suspicion. Do not lend the cause of terrorists legitimacy by invoking them as a state enemy, even if their propaganda itself declares “jihad” against a certain society. Defining them as military opponents lends them a legitimacy they do not deserve. For in just such ways we have noted how little of the freedoms we claim they reject actually still hold sway in our own Republic. Nor by our surrendering the protections guaranteed by our Fourth and Fifth Amendments do we protect “our cherished values,” but we actually achieve the stated goals, OF those terrorists that oppose us, by our becoming a super-totalitarian police state under which all citizens become terror suspects as the targets of brain-dead “collect it all” surveillance. Something else which flies under the same flag, is the notion of the “Warrior Policeman-Hero.” This idea gains momentum through popular culture easily, spread by prolefeed programs such as “Homeland” (the very word of which echoes the Nazi concept of “Heimat”). Higher standards of bravery are needed for a culture of policemen so threatened by a family’s PETS that deadly force is often applied. The number of dead-by-cop dogs (and even birds!) is adding up. Obviously more bullies and chickenshit-enforcers are being recruited by law enforcement nationwide, to an extent that one begins to think perhaps such a profile has become a matter of hiring policy for too many police departments. The police state’s fear-mongering propaganda (which again, plays out in programs like “Homeland”) is a sure means of reinforcing the idea that it is necessary for the members of a free society to hunker down like sheep, while the wolves hired to protect them go about winnowing their own flock of truth-tellers and “malcontent elements” and “radicalizers.” As persons who defend the Constitution are increasingly derided as “radicals” or “potential terrorists” rather than the “true believers” in American justice which they are, yet opposed to what they rightly see as ever-increasing totalitarian encroachment, one wonders what will be left of “Freedom” —when the wolves have finished feeding.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/17/merkel-compares-nsa-stasi-obamahttp://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/national-security-agency-phones-judge-101203.htmlhttp://www.wnd.com/2013/12/legal-experts-from-left-to-right-d-c-cops-murdered-woman/http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/if-a-drone-strike-hit-an-american-wedding-wed-ground-our-fleet/282373/http://www.policestateusa.com/2013/nypd-evelyn-lugo-parakeet/You have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/17/merkel-compares-nsa-stasi-obamahttp://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/national-security-agency-phones-judge-101203.htmlhttp://www.wnd.com/2013/12/legal-experts-from-left-to-right-d-c-cops-murdered-woman/http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/if-a-drone-strike-hit-an-american-wedding-wed-ground-our-fleet/282373/http://www.policestateusa.com/2013/nypd-evelyn-lugo-parakeet/You have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
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December 7, 2013
By What, Your Stars? (Excerpt, If I Should Live So Long, 12-13)
We set out for Saint Albans, then, at the first light. The abbots (though not Vincebus!) had provided us with bread, and ales, and some fruit for the next day’s travels. We would on toward Oxford once we had stopped.
In Reedly Hump, though, I met once more Asmodel who I had done the short horoscope for. But now Porcull was with me! And while Porcull might still have need for the almanack, he might fashion a better horoscope than I for the man, and provide him a better glimpse of his present and future estate. So I passed along the problem, actually.And in fact, Porcull proceeded to do just that. Asmodel was quick to draw from his pouch my humble beginnings of a chart, and he took it, and made annotations and changes to it. For one thing, he was able to ascertain the man’s other great planets better than I, and insinuate the degree of separation between Mercury and Venus. He gave Asmodel back the annotated chart. Bemused wonderment was about the only way I might describe the look upon his face.
“And now, could you tell me, sire Astrologer, what does it all MEAN?”“Certainly.” And Porcull waked him through it planet by planet. “You have a trine between Mars and Jupiter. Your Saturn is occluded in Scorpio and that is not good for your house of marriage. Perhaps you will and perhaps you will not. You seem to have escaped something rather recently, as noted here by the recent crossing of Jupiter to your natal house of Aries. It is possible that you will meet up with more troubles by the end of the year, when your Saturn is conjunct with it, once again. Anyway, you seem to be a bright sort of man otherwise, none of this could interest you in the least.”“And how is that?”“I do not know. Perhaps, you tell me?”Their banter went on in this manner for some quarter of an hour more, when Richard came over to Porcull and mentioned he would like him to rejoin our group.“So dear sir, you will excuse me, will you? My companions beckon.”The man Asmodel continued poring over the chart, now and then shaking his head, gesturing at it to a small number of his friends, and I could see them from the corner of my eye.But Richard wanted Porcull near so he could lead him into the conversation he was about to engage in with me.“Again, Master Julian, please, what say you of this band of highwaymen we may encounter?”“False taffy!” I told him. “False Taffy and his Erstwhile- er, Intemperate Monks.”“Intemperate Monks?”“Something like that. They roam ‘tween here and Oxford. Should we encounter them, however, we have his word, he shall give me ‘scape. So he said, at least. It is a payment for an errand I did him.”“You deal with highwaymen?”“Richard, I deal with whomever it is I must. Circumstance was such on my first journey to London, that it lumped me in with him. There is another group to the north toward Birmingham as well, it would do well we avoid, for I have no such promises of passage from them. They are known as Wigley and His Raveners..”“And you have been there, yet, they did not rob you either.”“No, Sire Richard, but ‘twas only by mere chance as they harried others as I went along with them. Perhaps it is best to have the protection of these types, than it is to go without? And be at their mercy?”“Yet, we cannot allow for loss of goods nor coin, you know. We must all make it back safely to Chester!”“Yes, indeed, we must.”The taverner came over to me and requested a song of me. So I gave them the Lay of Arthur and the Round Table, and the Quest of the Grail. All of the local men were quite happy by it, and I found my memory quickened easily with the addition of a little more of the liquid lubrication passed round about our table. Richard bought us bed for the night at the inn, and then we slept all, until the light was fair high in morning’s sky.And that morning was fine, fair, yet we departed a bit late, once more, Richard paying for more food which could be carried off such as boiled eggs, more cheese, even a jug of milk that only went as far as the next town. Along the roads we kept eye out for other roving purser gangs.And inevitably, we were taken upon by False Taffy. He rode straight up to Richard at the cart, and gazed up and down, round about it.“And what have we here? A merchant, on his way out of London! And fair full of fattening, is he not, as London be such a great place for profit?”“I’ll do not by you but ride right by,” said Richard. I could feel the tension mounting. “False Taffy!” spoke I. “False Taffy, remember me? I am Julian, of Chester!”He looked me over and then something in his mind finally registered my face.“Ah! The young minstrel I charged to take message to Squire Dover at Court! Well lad, stand and deliver, what said he to my message?”“I shall give you fair word only that you allow my companions - all of us- to return wither we have come, and leave your robbing to men of higher degree than we.”“Men of higher degree? And what mean you by that? How often do princes rule this road?”“I mean what I said. We are all prepared to give thee blow for blow, if that be the choice!”This little bit of bravado was pure and simple, a bluff on my part, but having had a bit of this on the way before, I knew that bluff sometimes worked better than blunder. And so it did!“Well, well, I suppose me and me boys should have better pickings off others. But you must now tell me. I will give you safe passage, such as I promised, indeed, when last met. Hear now, tell me what the law man said!”“If I remember rightly, said Squire Dover that your case is familiar to him and he was in sympathy. He said he holds you innocent of the murder of which you are charged, and wishes that it be taken to the King, himself. But for doing so, you must give up thievery. For it be on him to judge, whether your later doings shall not acquit you of your earlier matter. And he said little more, truly, because I was there on other matters...”“Other matters?”“Why yes, now we are just returning to Chester from attending to them. It is really a paltry thing. Some man said I stole his song. But his song is an old song of the people, and it could not have been his to own, so said our judge, in other words. And I was charged to return with my six friends here, and well I should hope we all may make it all home safe and sound. I have your word, do I not?”“Indeed. We who live outside the laws must of necessity be honest among each other, no less.”“And the men who live by the laws must be free to apply them where they must,” I replied.He rubbed his chin and squinted at me. “But then, Julian, what do you suppose I ought to do on this matter? Even the law cannot bring me back the life of my wife.”“Nor will it the life of Lew Grimspittle. Maybe the best thing you can do is return to London and the Esquire, and at least, allow him to plead your innocence to the king.”“Bah! This king is no man to trust! Did he not starve Richard in his tower? Did he not win his crown by stealth, just as a clever roadman takes account of some fool gentleman’s saddlebags?
Ach. This has no savor to my taste, lad. But I shall think on all this.”“That I should say you well ought to do. And perhaps, find some other occupation, that you might well earn the esteem of the men who will hear of your travails.”He looked at me again, squinting. He looked to Richard, and then to Roger, and then to Porcull, and everyone in the cart. “I do suppose there would be little to gain from hindering honest folk. Truly, my trouble is best spent on the rich and the noble. Alright, Julian, you must continue on your way. Yet I beg you, stay with us one night in the hideaway! We will offer you spit meats and cask ale!”Richard shot me a look and a frown that said “no’. I hid my knowledge of that and answered.“No, we hope to reach Chester as soon as Lord allows. The days have been upon us nine since we left to begin this journey, and our people will be expecting us, we dare not tarry.”“Alright. Go then hence! And dare you return, know that our odds have been evened!”Richard took this as the signal to begin the carthorses again, and we were soon rolling on, past False Taffy and his Ignobly Erstwhile Monks, mounted on their Ignobly Erstwhile Steeds, and headed again on our way homeward. Our next destination was Oxford, and the Bear Inn of Mr. Pope...Along the way to Oxford, Porcull engaged me in a most strange discussion about music. He wanted to be certain I learned something, he said was quite important. But his concept was grand and I admit it was something beyond my ken. But it was something as such:Every place on Earth has its cosmic music. This is music which remains purely and simply to itself, nestled into the landscape. It is the summa of all the human experience there, and of all of nature and her ways, and it is always present, when one comes to that place. Surely he noted to me, that when I made a visit to the great cathedral of Chester, that there was a certain sense of mood I encountered upon entry?Yes, I admitted, there was indeed. But in my mind it was fraught up with the injunctions of friars and priests and the tones of the incense burners swinging them round at Mass.No, no, he said. He meant, the mood and the music of the place, absent all other people? He told me he had such an experience when he visited and prayed alone. There in the cathedral, with the sunlight coming through the glass of many colors, he could almost hear, as he termed it, voices of angels, which would only be felt in that deep silence of the holy space.But, I argued, weren’t all places holy?“Precisely, Julian! And each place’s holiness has a music apart and unto itself! Your duty as a minstrel should be to attune yourself to these... vibrations, such as they are. They are of our world and yet they are of a higher one. And note you well, when you come to a place, seek out the men of good nature, not those as we have recently passed. Those who have innocence and laughter of their childhood written in their eyes and on their faces. They are the seekers and the children of God! Not the hard, care burdened and case hardened souls such as Vincebus Eruptum, a monk of dubious intent and just as dubious desires. In each one of these honest people is a spark that the Lord has kindled which nothing can put out, not even misfortune, not even the death of their kinsmen by plague or sword, not even the hardships of famine can wrench from them the happiness that eternally springs from within them, in response to the call of the music.. of their place. Mark it well! For these are lessons few learn. Love the neighbor as yourself! For in he is the quality and value of the friend, and none profit but that they do well by their neighbor in the exchange.”Richard had been listening, and agreed with the last comment.“Aye, 'tis true, Master Porcull. If you give a man shoddy goods, and charge him more than a farthing for them, soon he will be back at your door, complaining the loss of his farthing, and the wretchedness of your estate.”“You said there is music in very place. How shall I find it?”“Ah, Master Julian. You ask such wonderful questions! For this is something only you can learn of yourself. I can talk and talk and talk until the sun turn blue in the sky, and yet, if you have no sense of what you are seeking, you may not find it, ever! But you are clever, I grant, and you are also one blessed by the Lord for your muse. You will KNOW when you have found it. But to get there, I should tell you—if it can even help a little!— When you come to a town, listen. Listen to the sounds of the nature around it. Take note the song of the birds, and their type. Take note of the trees, and their type. Take note of the run of the land, its rivers, streams, the stones with which men have built it, and the fields and what they contain. Keep your ears, and more importantly, your heart! Open in all ways. In such a manner you shall find each place and town revealing that hidden music to you Also take well to note the position of the planets, if you can, and think upon the work of the heavenly spheres, as they reflect in the common life of men. In such a way, the angels may learn to grace you, and you may learn to rely upon them for inspiration! For so it comes to those who seek, or so it was written.”Indeed, there was so much in what he said that I kept silent all the rest of the day, pondering. When we passed by towns, I looked around me at the landscape and looked deep into the eyes of strangers, who saw in me only a passing face. I looked at the life taking place- the people at their work, men in the fields, women hauling out washing and cutting out firewood. All these different activities seemed to me to have a music of their own! Perhaps this was what he had been speaking of! But I kept silent, because soon we’d be at another inn, and it might well be time I would be called upon to play Luisa once more, and yet... hearing what had been said, keeping it keen in mind, I found the music I played that evening took me even farther along that inner road than I had ever expected.
You have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
verbal rambles and reductions...
In Reedly Hump, though, I met once more Asmodel who I had done the short horoscope for. But now Porcull was with me! And while Porcull might still have need for the almanack, he might fashion a better horoscope than I for the man, and provide him a better glimpse of his present and future estate. So I passed along the problem, actually.And in fact, Porcull proceeded to do just that. Asmodel was quick to draw from his pouch my humble beginnings of a chart, and he took it, and made annotations and changes to it. For one thing, he was able to ascertain the man’s other great planets better than I, and insinuate the degree of separation between Mercury and Venus. He gave Asmodel back the annotated chart. Bemused wonderment was about the only way I might describe the look upon his face.
“And now, could you tell me, sire Astrologer, what does it all MEAN?”“Certainly.” And Porcull waked him through it planet by planet. “You have a trine between Mars and Jupiter. Your Saturn is occluded in Scorpio and that is not good for your house of marriage. Perhaps you will and perhaps you will not. You seem to have escaped something rather recently, as noted here by the recent crossing of Jupiter to your natal house of Aries. It is possible that you will meet up with more troubles by the end of the year, when your Saturn is conjunct with it, once again. Anyway, you seem to be a bright sort of man otherwise, none of this could interest you in the least.”“And how is that?”“I do not know. Perhaps, you tell me?”Their banter went on in this manner for some quarter of an hour more, when Richard came over to Porcull and mentioned he would like him to rejoin our group.“So dear sir, you will excuse me, will you? My companions beckon.”The man Asmodel continued poring over the chart, now and then shaking his head, gesturing at it to a small number of his friends, and I could see them from the corner of my eye.But Richard wanted Porcull near so he could lead him into the conversation he was about to engage in with me.“Again, Master Julian, please, what say you of this band of highwaymen we may encounter?”“False taffy!” I told him. “False Taffy and his Erstwhile- er, Intemperate Monks.”“Intemperate Monks?”“Something like that. They roam ‘tween here and Oxford. Should we encounter them, however, we have his word, he shall give me ‘scape. So he said, at least. It is a payment for an errand I did him.”“You deal with highwaymen?”“Richard, I deal with whomever it is I must. Circumstance was such on my first journey to London, that it lumped me in with him. There is another group to the north toward Birmingham as well, it would do well we avoid, for I have no such promises of passage from them. They are known as Wigley and His Raveners..”“And you have been there, yet, they did not rob you either.”“No, Sire Richard, but ‘twas only by mere chance as they harried others as I went along with them. Perhaps it is best to have the protection of these types, than it is to go without? And be at their mercy?”“Yet, we cannot allow for loss of goods nor coin, you know. We must all make it back safely to Chester!”“Yes, indeed, we must.”The taverner came over to me and requested a song of me. So I gave them the Lay of Arthur and the Round Table, and the Quest of the Grail. All of the local men were quite happy by it, and I found my memory quickened easily with the addition of a little more of the liquid lubrication passed round about our table. Richard bought us bed for the night at the inn, and then we slept all, until the light was fair high in morning’s sky.And that morning was fine, fair, yet we departed a bit late, once more, Richard paying for more food which could be carried off such as boiled eggs, more cheese, even a jug of milk that only went as far as the next town. Along the roads we kept eye out for other roving purser gangs.And inevitably, we were taken upon by False Taffy. He rode straight up to Richard at the cart, and gazed up and down, round about it.“And what have we here? A merchant, on his way out of London! And fair full of fattening, is he not, as London be such a great place for profit?”“I’ll do not by you but ride right by,” said Richard. I could feel the tension mounting. “False Taffy!” spoke I. “False Taffy, remember me? I am Julian, of Chester!”He looked me over and then something in his mind finally registered my face.“Ah! The young minstrel I charged to take message to Squire Dover at Court! Well lad, stand and deliver, what said he to my message?”“I shall give you fair word only that you allow my companions - all of us- to return wither we have come, and leave your robbing to men of higher degree than we.”“Men of higher degree? And what mean you by that? How often do princes rule this road?”“I mean what I said. We are all prepared to give thee blow for blow, if that be the choice!”This little bit of bravado was pure and simple, a bluff on my part, but having had a bit of this on the way before, I knew that bluff sometimes worked better than blunder. And so it did!“Well, well, I suppose me and me boys should have better pickings off others. But you must now tell me. I will give you safe passage, such as I promised, indeed, when last met. Hear now, tell me what the law man said!”“If I remember rightly, said Squire Dover that your case is familiar to him and he was in sympathy. He said he holds you innocent of the murder of which you are charged, and wishes that it be taken to the King, himself. But for doing so, you must give up thievery. For it be on him to judge, whether your later doings shall not acquit you of your earlier matter. And he said little more, truly, because I was there on other matters...”“Other matters?”“Why yes, now we are just returning to Chester from attending to them. It is really a paltry thing. Some man said I stole his song. But his song is an old song of the people, and it could not have been his to own, so said our judge, in other words. And I was charged to return with my six friends here, and well I should hope we all may make it all home safe and sound. I have your word, do I not?”“Indeed. We who live outside the laws must of necessity be honest among each other, no less.”“And the men who live by the laws must be free to apply them where they must,” I replied.He rubbed his chin and squinted at me. “But then, Julian, what do you suppose I ought to do on this matter? Even the law cannot bring me back the life of my wife.”“Nor will it the life of Lew Grimspittle. Maybe the best thing you can do is return to London and the Esquire, and at least, allow him to plead your innocence to the king.”“Bah! This king is no man to trust! Did he not starve Richard in his tower? Did he not win his crown by stealth, just as a clever roadman takes account of some fool gentleman’s saddlebags?
Ach. This has no savor to my taste, lad. But I shall think on all this.”“That I should say you well ought to do. And perhaps, find some other occupation, that you might well earn the esteem of the men who will hear of your travails.”He looked at me again, squinting. He looked to Richard, and then to Roger, and then to Porcull, and everyone in the cart. “I do suppose there would be little to gain from hindering honest folk. Truly, my trouble is best spent on the rich and the noble. Alright, Julian, you must continue on your way. Yet I beg you, stay with us one night in the hideaway! We will offer you spit meats and cask ale!”Richard shot me a look and a frown that said “no’. I hid my knowledge of that and answered.“No, we hope to reach Chester as soon as Lord allows. The days have been upon us nine since we left to begin this journey, and our people will be expecting us, we dare not tarry.”“Alright. Go then hence! And dare you return, know that our odds have been evened!”Richard took this as the signal to begin the carthorses again, and we were soon rolling on, past False Taffy and his Ignobly Erstwhile Monks, mounted on their Ignobly Erstwhile Steeds, and headed again on our way homeward. Our next destination was Oxford, and the Bear Inn of Mr. Pope...Along the way to Oxford, Porcull engaged me in a most strange discussion about music. He wanted to be certain I learned something, he said was quite important. But his concept was grand and I admit it was something beyond my ken. But it was something as such:Every place on Earth has its cosmic music. This is music which remains purely and simply to itself, nestled into the landscape. It is the summa of all the human experience there, and of all of nature and her ways, and it is always present, when one comes to that place. Surely he noted to me, that when I made a visit to the great cathedral of Chester, that there was a certain sense of mood I encountered upon entry?Yes, I admitted, there was indeed. But in my mind it was fraught up with the injunctions of friars and priests and the tones of the incense burners swinging them round at Mass.No, no, he said. He meant, the mood and the music of the place, absent all other people? He told me he had such an experience when he visited and prayed alone. There in the cathedral, with the sunlight coming through the glass of many colors, he could almost hear, as he termed it, voices of angels, which would only be felt in that deep silence of the holy space.But, I argued, weren’t all places holy?“Precisely, Julian! And each place’s holiness has a music apart and unto itself! Your duty as a minstrel should be to attune yourself to these... vibrations, such as they are. They are of our world and yet they are of a higher one. And note you well, when you come to a place, seek out the men of good nature, not those as we have recently passed. Those who have innocence and laughter of their childhood written in their eyes and on their faces. They are the seekers and the children of God! Not the hard, care burdened and case hardened souls such as Vincebus Eruptum, a monk of dubious intent and just as dubious desires. In each one of these honest people is a spark that the Lord has kindled which nothing can put out, not even misfortune, not even the death of their kinsmen by plague or sword, not even the hardships of famine can wrench from them the happiness that eternally springs from within them, in response to the call of the music.. of their place. Mark it well! For these are lessons few learn. Love the neighbor as yourself! For in he is the quality and value of the friend, and none profit but that they do well by their neighbor in the exchange.”Richard had been listening, and agreed with the last comment.“Aye, 'tis true, Master Porcull. If you give a man shoddy goods, and charge him more than a farthing for them, soon he will be back at your door, complaining the loss of his farthing, and the wretchedness of your estate.”“You said there is music in very place. How shall I find it?”“Ah, Master Julian. You ask such wonderful questions! For this is something only you can learn of yourself. I can talk and talk and talk until the sun turn blue in the sky, and yet, if you have no sense of what you are seeking, you may not find it, ever! But you are clever, I grant, and you are also one blessed by the Lord for your muse. You will KNOW when you have found it. But to get there, I should tell you—if it can even help a little!— When you come to a town, listen. Listen to the sounds of the nature around it. Take note the song of the birds, and their type. Take note of the trees, and their type. Take note of the run of the land, its rivers, streams, the stones with which men have built it, and the fields and what they contain. Keep your ears, and more importantly, your heart! Open in all ways. In such a manner you shall find each place and town revealing that hidden music to you Also take well to note the position of the planets, if you can, and think upon the work of the heavenly spheres, as they reflect in the common life of men. In such a way, the angels may learn to grace you, and you may learn to rely upon them for inspiration! For so it comes to those who seek, or so it was written.”Indeed, there was so much in what he said that I kept silent all the rest of the day, pondering. When we passed by towns, I looked around me at the landscape and looked deep into the eyes of strangers, who saw in me only a passing face. I looked at the life taking place- the people at their work, men in the fields, women hauling out washing and cutting out firewood. All these different activities seemed to me to have a music of their own! Perhaps this was what he had been speaking of! But I kept silent, because soon we’d be at another inn, and it might well be time I would be called upon to play Luisa once more, and yet... hearing what had been said, keeping it keen in mind, I found the music I played that evening took me even farther along that inner road than I had ever expected.
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