Dark Days?

Where has the year gone?  Today is the winter solstice, and I thought I'd revamp a quote-post with some wise words (not mine!) from the first year of this blog:

On this darkest day of the year (at least for those of us north of the equator), I thought a few inspirational words may be in order.  This was written by someone named "Knight Monk" in a LiveJournal group a few [2023 update: so so many] years ago.  I'm not omitting any intro; what follows is the entire post:

I am writing about more than sunlight, you know... although the swift-passing window of the Winter Day is no small matter either. These are the shortest days. And for many they are filled with hectic activity. For others they are cold and barren desert of Depression. Lao Tzu writes: "Movement overcomes cold."

Translating this into one's own practice means that during darkest days of Winter, instead of hiding under a comforter and napping all day, one should keep active. Do many things even if you feel like sitting still - this is how one makes it through the worst Winters, even the most terrible Winters of the mind.

 The converse also holds true. During the hot days of Summer, or even the most hectic and anxious times of any season, one should seek to still the mind and body. "Keeping still overcomes heat."

The words hold not just literal truth for the thermostat of the human body. Properly applied, the words can govern our moods. They put into the hands the reigns of the intellect. Anxiety and panic are also ruled by the still Player.

I wish everyone actively contemplative Dark Days and a fantastic New Year!  I'll try my best to finish that solo GBG, honest!  ;-)

Brand Inspector

I didn't want to bury the answer to the last post's quiz question in comments, so here's a quick post for closure.

Although the symbols I showed do look very astrological or alchemical, I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be American cowboy "brands" for cattle and horses.  They were displayed on the walls of the fictional Mel's Diner on the 1970s TV show Alice.  I don't think the characters ever actually talked about these decorations, but they were an omnipresent mini-mystery to me as a viewer.

Meaningless?  Maybe... maybe not.  I've always meant to learn more about the elaborate symbol system of cattle brands, and their ancillary use as the names of ranches and estates.  Most of the ones I've found online seem to be letters of the alphabet that have been morphed or transformed in some way.  That makes the ones from the TV show kind of odd.  The Wikipedia article on the show says the diner was decorated in an "Aztec and cowboy motif," but these symbols don't really look Meso-American, either.  I guess Occam's Razor points to some anonymous Hollywood set-painter who just had a vague idea of what diner decorations in Phoenix, Arizona might look like!  :-)

Anyway, that's all for now.  I've been plugging away at the sooper-secret project hinted at in the last post, but things aren't quite ready to be revealed.  Soon!

Teaser & Quiz

Two quick things...

First, Cygnus has got something kind of big up his sleeve.  A new project will be revealed very soon.  (Well, maybe in a week or two; we'll see.)  I'm not quite ready to spill the beans about it, but let me give you all one hint:

Mondo.

Second, I'm curious if any of your memories might be jogged by a little trivia obscura. Long-time readers will know that I'm obsessed with signs, symbols, and alphabets of all kinds.  There is one set of symbols that I've had in the back of my mind for almost 40 years now.  They made their first appearance in popular culture in the 1970s.  Thanks to the internet, I've finally been able to reconstruct the full set accurately:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to tell me where these symbols come from.  (I won't ask you what they mean, because I'm not quite sure about that, myself!)