dynamicsymmetry

Solo acoustic cover - "Mercy Street"

I've been playing guitar for a few months now, as well as singing more regularly after literally years of not doing so much at all, but I haven't recorded myself that much, nor have I done a ton of playing in front of other people. Been really feeling this song lately, though, for a whole host of reasons - some probably easy to guess and many others not - and I figured what the hell, why not. Then I was fairly pleased with it, so I figured what the hell, why not share it. 

So here ...

The Turner Diaries: wrapup/six months later (preview)

Unlocked for general people, a clip from my much longer ramble on my final thoughts, half a year after the fact, on my Let's Read of The Turner Diaries. Specifically in here I'm talking about Turner-style extremist ideology in a post-midterms context and how we're seeing it not only in violent accelerationism but also in just regular ol'...

A reading: "The Library of Babel"

Hello, lovely supportive people. 

For Christmas this year I got myself a new microphone, in part in advance of the eventual audiobook of The Hands of Maggie Fate but also just because I've been doing audio production for a while and I felt like I was at a point where I needed to level up that part of my equipment. I got a Rode NT1 - which I'm very pleased with - and to inaugurate it, I figured I'd do another Jorge Luis Borges story since I do really love reading his stuff....

MANOS: 2 Hands 2 Fate - prologue

(As I said on Twitter, this is a Serious Horror Novelization of the very bad film MANOS: The Hands of Fate. It is ongoing and should be considered a rough draft. Updates (probably) will be weekly and locked to supporters after this.)

 Prologue

He no longer remembered a time before the house, before the pain, before the Master.

He no longer remembered that ...

everything is changing

First two episodes drop May 3rd. Patreon supporters get the first three episodes May 1st.

(Music: "Messier 45" by Stellardrone)

Soon.

Now that this is unlocked, a few points of information. 

Yes, this is really happening for real this time. This is not a standalone preview; this is a clip from the beginning of episode one of season two of Gone. Given that last time I previewed the second season I didn’t have much concrete completed, this time I wanted to wait until preproduction was completed and actual production was well underway before I shared anything. 

So what’s completed? The season—all el...

"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" - a reading

Because I haven’t done one of these in a while, and because this is a writer who’s been on my mind a lot of late, here is a reading of Jorge Luis Borges’s stunning short story “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”.

I want to apologize for any embarrassing pronunciation fuck-ups in here. I did look stuff up where I was unsure but I bet I got something wrong. 

Music is by Ben Seretan, Lee Rosevere, and Sergei Cheremisinov. Cover photo is by Rob Wanenchak.

On the messy nuances of "belief"

Join me (and distant children, and cicadas, and a plane) in the patio Writing Grotto for a ramble on how I've been thinking about what it means to me to believe something and why in my opinion we often think about it in the wrong way from multiple different angles.

The Turner Diaries, chapter 23: the storm is upon us

[image credit: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP]

(A note because this is going up unlocked: this is about the fucking Turner Diaries. It deals with some ugly shit, although I’ve tried to minimize how explicit the ugliness gets. Proceed with care.)

Well, here we are.

“The Day of the Rope” is probably the climactic event this book is best known for. It’s certain...

The ocean is on fire

(I wrote this in about 45 minutes, read it through once, and I have no idea where to post it so I’m posting it here.)

The ocean is on fire. I have seen several versions of that sentence in the last ten minutes. All of them make sense and none of them do. I scroll past each one and I read them silently and aloud at the same time, forming the shapes of the words with my lips and tongue without ...

Light of the Shore

As part of my ritual practice this Midsummer—my first Alban Hefin, or Light of the Shore in Welsh, the time when the connection between earth and sky is at its peak and the apex between one season and another—I did a number of things: stayed up all night to keep a candle burning, did sun salutations, performed a ceremony invoking and honoring the goddess Áine, did some moderate feasting...

Zach Bush, (Con)spirituality, and the Grift of Fear

In which I talk in somewhat rambling terms about spirituality, reality denial, and the fear of death, inspired by some excellent commentary on an interview with wellness influencer and conspiritualist Zach Bush by the Conspirituality podcast. 

Reference: Conspirituality episode 29 - Bro Science 

practice resurrection

Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) from my walk today

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

— Wendell Ber...

2021-04-04 22:57:37 +0000 UTC View Post

If there ever is a Sunday

Of the three days that culminate this week, I think Holy Saturday is commonly glossed over. After all, it’s the day when not much happens; it has none of the acute drama of Good Friday and we aren’t yet at the chocolatey celebration of Easter Sunday.

But I feel like out of the three, it’s actually the one that should most resonate with the here and now. It’s the most liminal, the most unsettled; beneath the hush is a deep, lurching, depressed anxiety.

The Disciples sleepwa...

for God so loved the world

(The cross I made of holly wood that hangs above our door)

A Crucified God is the dramatic symbol of the one suffering that God fully enters into with us—much more than just for us, as we were mostly trained to think.

— Richard Rohr

2020 was painful for me in ways that have virtually nothing to do with the p...

Fiction: This Anger’s Deeper Than Sleep

Turner Tuesday is getting postponed to next week; I have a couple of pressing deadlines in the next couple of days that are making the prospect of wading into that literary hellscape nearly unbearable. In its place, have another piece of something dark and angry and fairly hateful, not in the Turner Diaries way but in the way that my fiction often tends to be. 

A while back, when the articles about the nightmare of being a Facebook content moderator started coming out, I was taken ...

It is a sprout, well budded-out

Today is Alban Eiler, the spring equinox, and I found myself thinking over and over of resurrection, which is a topic I intend to return to in greater depth at Easter. But for now I’ll say that today—and for many days before now—I’m seeing it everywhere. It’s bursting from the trees and the honeysuckle and from the bulbs in my garden in a way that seems both unstoppable and inevitable.

A Prayer for Which No Words Exist - part three

[image by Pulkit Kamal]

This will be the last unlocked installment of this book; subsequent posts will be locked to supporters at the $1 level, which is the only level. So if you l...

A Prayer for Which No Words Exist - part two

[image by Pulkit Kamal]

I posted the first part of this a good while ago, and then for some reason—as often unfortunately happens with me—I never posted more. So here we are ag...

The Turner Diaries: unexpected hiatus (darn)

Unexpected and hopefully not long. Basically what’s happened is that I lost access to the edition of the book I was working from, which was hosted on archive.org. Apparently they  took it down for being, you know, a fucking hate bible, so honestly I can’t fault them for that. It does mean that I have to dig up another ebook edition somewhere, hopefully one I can actually download, and I will be damned to the very pits of Hell before I shell out a single dime for it....

Imbolc: welcome Spirit, welcome Brigid

I wanted to write a little something for Imbolc the way I have for the other festival days, but I’m finding I don’t have much to say. Not that I’m not thinking and feeling a lot, because I am. But while my feelings for the other days were the kinds of feelings I felt compelled to get out there, this feels a bit different. Everything seems quieter and more focused inward, which makes a degree of...

The Druid’s Prayer: a closer look

(Taken by me on a trip to southeastern Poland. Filters, obviously.)

I want to talk for a second about the Druid’s Prayer, because I’ve been thinking about it since I learned it.

The Druid’s Prayer is a prayer composed by the bard 2021-01-31 02:24:15 +0000 UTC View Post

On Christmas: it’s all good

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. — John 1:14

God loves things by becoming them. — Richard Rohr

In Christianity, much is usually made of the notion that Jesus was born to “save” humankind through some kind of substitutive blood sacrifice. I don’t entirely share the dim view that many take of that wildly problematic doctrine, bu...

still in the darkness

Tonight I’ll keep a fire burning until dawn.

Which actually requires a lot of wood, and I always underestimate how many smaller pieces and kindling sticks I’ll need, so there was I was at 10:30 PM on Yoolis Night, splitting logs and listening to Alexander Shaia talking about Advent and the Solstice and darkness, and he kind of low-key blew my mind.

Here’s the thing about li...

The Fourth Sunday of Advent: all shall be well

There’s always something uncomfortably presumptuous in writing about pain.

I mean, I think there should be, because pain is one of the most simultaneously universal and subjective aspects of human experience. We all feel it, and yet no one’s pain is identical and no moment of pain is perfectly identical to any other. When you describe pain, there are opportunities for profound connection an...

A Pagan holiday tree blessing

Those Pagans who choose to bring a live tree—mine is specifically a Christmas tree but this works for any winter festival day—into the house at this time of the year might want to express special reverence for it. Not only is it sacred in and of itself and a guest in your home, but if you cut it, it will eventually die, which means you’ve asked it to make a sacrifice for you.

This year we...

The Third Sunday of Advent: therefore do not worry

do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?  2020-12-13 22:45:40 +0000 UTC View Post

The Second Sunday of Advent: a little child holds sway

Deep within the still center of my being may I find peace.
Silently within the quiet of the Grove may I share peace.
Gently within the greater circle of humankind may I radiate peace.

— Druid’s Peace Prayer

Druids are peacemakers.

Thi...

The First Sunday of Advent: preparing the way

I made my own Advent wreath this year. 

It’s actually not the first time I’ve done that. I’ve bought a frame and candles and fake evergreens decorated with fake berries and balls dusted with gold glitter (which I’ve then had to place on a high shelf where my weird cat can’t get to it because for some reason her favorite holiday snack is fake pine needles). But this is my firs...

A Prayer for Which No Words Exist - part one

[image by Pulkit Kamal]

When I finished writing this in the fall of 2019 I had no idea what the hell to do with it. 

I sensed that it wasn’t publishable—or that I was very unlikely to be able to sell it—at least not in its draft form, but I had no idea how I could go about making it so without rewriting the entire thing. Which I didn’t want to do, because I actually ...