I've just come back from the grounds of the sweat lodge where C. does her lodges for women. C and lovelips are away still at Daughters of the Earth, but some time ago, C pointed out that a lot of people come to her sweat-lodge looking to take something away, and very few understand that it doesn't contain anything you can take away. It's very much grounded and rooted in place, and if you take too much away from that place, it becomes a non-place like McDonald's or a Wal-Mart: largely the same as every other McDonald's or Wal-Mart, stripped of its unique coordinates in the space-time-spirit continuum. The lodge is not a take-out place, it's a community spirit-kitchen and spirit-dining-hall. Sometimes you come as a guest, and sometimes you come with the intention to set a meal for others.



As you come to the lodge-space here, there's a long wall of rocks about two feet high. About the same time that we had this conversation about taking-away vs. giving-in, I pointed out to Cherese that something could be done with these rocks. She was initially leery of the idea of doing anything with them, but allowed that they could be arranged more attractively.



In any case, I've had it in mind to give something back to the sweatlodge space for a while. J and C are planning on building a new shed for the blankets and equipment, and sheltering it with some plantings or something; but I'm not sure how or where or when that will be done. I figured I needed to do something else, and C loves my rock-work (I hope).



So, over yesterday and today, I took the top layer of rocks from this long, low wall. With them, I built a perimeter line around the whole of the sweat lodge enclosure. There were four huge stones at the edges of the sapling frame, in the line of the cardinal directions, so I created apses of stone around them (I never get to use the word apse in a sentence, and now I get to use it in the plural! how's that!). I kept going around the circle, clockwise, circling both fire-pit and lodge every time I circled back to get more stones. I did it, if you will, as a meditation rather than as a work project. Each stone circled the whole enclosure on the way to its settling place. There's a bench for the fire-tender, and I gave it its own little indentation in the circle. And there's another place along the circle around the fire-pit where there's a pile of rocks, which might be a deliberate pile and might be a jumble of rocks to use the next time there's a sweat lodge. And I made another little alcove in the perimeter for where the wood pile would go, if there were any wood down there ready to use.



At this point, I'd decreased the height of the wall by four or maybe five inches. Not a lot, maybe not a noticeable amount, but part of me is worried what Cherese will think. So I stopped. However, to the east of the fire-pit circle is a large beech tree. And part of me is seriously tempted to keep going, and make a labyrinth with that beech tree at the center of the labyrinth. I'm holding back because C is the lodge-pourer, and technically she hasn't necessarily bought into the idea that this enclosure of stones is necessary for her lodge's space. So part of me is wondering whether she's going to come home, find it, and get all riled up about someone messing with her space. Part of me worries about what lovelips will say if I tell her before C, or what C will say to lovelips while I'm not around about how I messed up her lodge.



At this point, these things are beyond my control. I could go down there and pull up every stone, and put them all back in the long, low wall. But I think the line of stones all the way around the lodge looks very pleasant and appropriate. I think I'll hold off on building the labyrinth there, though, until I get some sort of nod from C. My intention was certainly to feed the space, and not to harm it, and so there are limits on how far I should take it without the Pourer's permission.



I also spent some time today painting with Pe and Ta.. They just bought a house in Willimantic, and were painting today preparatory to moving Ta's stuff and her son's stuff into the house. I ran into Ta something like three times this weekend, and it seemed like my work on connecting with a few people is yielding fruit. It felt good to help making their new house into their home, though.

Flood Stage, the bi-monthly poetry reading at Victoria Station Café, will occur tomorrow, with sign-ups opening at 7:00 pm and reading beginning at 7:30ish.



Hope to see you there!

Read the setting, then come back here.



For the last 137 years, the ancient Gold dragon called Kardossian has watched over the children and grandchildren of the Blossom — the last heiress of the once-mighty Dalriadan empire. Six times he has watched a royal heir ride out to reclaim the empire, and six times he has wept tears of pure myrrh at the news of their deaths. For most of the last ten years, he has lain coiled around the Bastion of Storms, the residence of the current heir, Prince-Royal Erendius, and his Princess-Mother Eleanora of Aquitin. Now the boy is ten, and six years, eight, or ten at the most, some ambitious general or warlord or wizard of the court will turn his head with tales of Dalriadan glory, and he will sail off with great ambitions — and likely return only as a charred hand like his father, or a severed head like his grandfather, or an urn of ashes like his great-great grandfather. The hopes for a renewed empire recede in the minds of the people.



But Kardossian has stirred from the Bastion of Storms at least once to your knowledge. For once, when you were alone, in a solitary part of the island of Karsica, you heard the rush of great wings, saw the flash of gold as the mighty tail coiled into a great circle around you, felt the heat of breath on your face like a hurricane, smelled the cinnamon and bitumen and cardamom of his breath, and heard his whisper: "I choose you as a Champion of the Dalriada. Restore the empire." Then the noise like a thunderclap, the force of earthquake as Kardossian took to the sky, the sudden pounding of blood in your head as your legs collapsed beneath you. The dragon marked you for great things that day, and destiny has brought you opportunities for glory, fame and greatness.



Your PC is one of the Heroes. You can be a loner, a guy with a gray sense of ethics, a mysterious outsider with a complicated path. But dragons just don't choose badly, and the oldest living good dragon in the world said that you were a good egg when no one was watching, and you recognize others from time to time who've also been singled out by the last emperor's greatest champion. But just because you've been singled out doesn't mean you can't go bad somewhere along the line, either.



Make your character normally. If you're human, you're of a family with some claim to being a pure-bred Dalriadan family from the mainland, connected to the ancient Senate or the lesser Knights even if you're now a goatherd by profession (a lot of refugees a century and a half ago). You've got one heirloom tool of some kind, in addition to your basic 100 gp equipment package; no specific magical items, though the object has some glamour to it (it glows on the night of the full moon or something like that). You were reared on stories of Dalriada's glory, and you long to restore it, even if only to fulfill your own personal ambitions or out of fear for Kardossian's vengeance.



If you're of another race, you're part of the small community of non-humans on Karsica or in the mainland town of Harles — which are, as far as anyone knows, the only surviving pieces of the Dalriadan empire in the world. The elves and the eladrin have been cut off from their homelands and principalities for more than a century; the dwarves have been cut off from home for more than five decades. Halfling communities of pearl divers, fishermen and marsh clam-diggers have flourished on the island all the time, but the sea-going sense among them is strong. The Tieflings (called the Tieff) are few in number and forced into limited roles while living in special quarters in most cities and towns, while the even smaller number of Dragonborn serve as the Emperor's personal military and the island's principal police force and coast guard. Nearly all of the races recall that life was good under the Dalriadans, but nearly all of them also have stories about their own empires, and their own ages of glory. The next age need not be a human one.



Write down some of your connections to family and community, and to your family's history with the Dalriadan Empire. Was it a good thing for you and yours, a poor thing, or a mixed bag?



Then, choose two destinies: the one you might have been destined for before Kardossian whispered to you; and the one he foresaw for you on Fate's winding road. During the course of this game, you'll have several chances to change paths, but for now it's an either/or choice.

In former days, the Dalriadan Empire covered the known world, from the eastern sea to the western steppes, and from the dunelands of the southern desert, across the Inner Sea and the mountains to the plains of the north before the Ice and the northern wastes. The legions of the Dalriada marched everywhere on their well-built roads, and their ships rid the Inner Sea of pirates.



Then came the Wasting. One in five perished from the plague, and many more perished as the laws and institutions of the Empire crumbled for lack of manpower. Moreover, after the Wasting came the Necropolitans, for any cemetery where those who died of the Wasting became unhallowed, and the dead began walking. All the priests of all the Empire's many gods were not enough to send the walking dead back to their quiet graves; and the thinking dead planned dreadful evils upon the living. At the battle of Kenneburgh, the legions broke, and the warlords of the Necropolitans smashed the generals and their faithful troops. At their victory, there was fire in the West that blotted out the rising sun, and a noise like daemons shouting down the gates of heaven. Then there was darkness over the whole Earth for a year and a day.



Into the darkness came the armies from beyond the borders. Out of the frozen north came the Orcs, riding their black sailed hulls to raid the coastal settlements and towns, and blood-eagle those who fought them. From the dunes of the south came the Kobolds, the dragon-dogs who ate their enemies. From the western steppes came the goblins on their wolves, harrying the last legionaries to their doom. The dragons settled upon the earth again, and took up the temples of the honored gods as their treasuries and dens; the giants, unfettered at long last, leveled cities for their steadings.



The Elves retreated within their ancient fastnesses, the forests Arden and Illyria. The Eladrin, never fond of the human lands, closed the borders of their princedoms of Y's and Avalynn. The Dwarves shuttered the portals of their realms at Elveta, Andorr, Genev, Appenn, and Laurum. The Tielff forgot for a time their vows to the Light, so darkness descended upon them and they Changed. The halflings took to the sea in ships, and fled into the marshes to hide. Only the Dragonborn remembered their honor, and stayed to defend the humans of Dalriada, who brought the whole known world under one law and one ruler. And so they perished, all but a few — but the Blossom of the Dalriada survived, and the Dragonborn escorted this only daughter of the Emperor to the island of Karscia, sole royal survivor of the devastation.



Now, this island and the tiny town of Harles on the mainland shore are all that remains of the once-mighty human empire. One hundred thirty-seven years have passed since the realm's enemies destroyed and sacked the capital, and the Blossom has flowered five times since then: the Child-Empress Artema is now nine, and in need of defenders, protectors and champions. All around the Inner Sea, the human provinces have become a snarling anarchy of monsters and violence, but there is yet some hope that the Empire's former glory may not be lost forever.



Standing in many places throughout the empire are the Beacons of Kord and Pelor, magical lamps created by the servants of the gods to be so bright as to blind the wicked, but give no light to the just. When the Wasting fell upon the Dalriadans, the lamps were extinguished, but they might be lit again. If it should be so, the provinces might be reclaimed again, and the light that was the Empire restored.

Late this afternoon, I got a call from the Sleep Center at the local hospital. I've been trying to schedule a sleep study with them, although I've not been trying very hard. It turned out they'd had a cancellation for tonight, and could I come in? As it so happened, I could, and so we set it up that I'd come in to fill out the routine paperwork at 7:30, and come up to the sleep center about 8.



I sat down to fill out paperwork at 7:15pm, and then my receptionist informed me that the computer listed my health insurance as one company, while I'd handed her an insurance card from a different company. This is known as an oopsie in medical-insurance parlance, because someone had checked with the wrong insurance company about my eligibility for insurance on this particular study. Since they didn't have proof that I'd been pre-certified by the right insurance company for a sleep study, I could have wound up eating part or all of the $1500-$2500 cost of doing the study. Ooops.



The desk clerk recommended re-scheduling and giving the Sleep Center the necessary time to re-pre-certify my insurance, with the right insurance company this time. Of course, all of this took a lot longer to work out than I've presented here, with the result that I left the hospital about 8:45pm, without having had a sleep study. Ooopsie.



The rest of the day was OK. I went to Dave's — I mean Victoria Station Café — for a bite to eat, and took Clio for a walk, etc. I met BL for lunch, and we talked about proctor weekend, and training our new ninth graders. There's a wrinkle about what to teach them about teamwork and leadership this fall, because of course all the kids have already used our ropes course so many times they're brain-dead to most of the lessons it could still teach them. Camp Woodstock can't have us come without a facilitator, and of course we don't have MR or RR on staff anymore. So we need to find a different challenge course to use. JNW? I'll ask B.S.



A few months back, I ordered a book from Brahms Bookworks and it arrived a couple of weeks ago. It took me a while to think about how to use it, but I bought it to put the sun, moon and stars sonnets into... turns out they're only going to occupy about a quarter of the book, maybe. And now there's what to do with the rest of it? It bears thinking on. Anyway, I wound up printing and illuminating the first five or six pages of sonnets and odes, and placed them in the book to see how it felt. They work OK, but I have a feeling that by the time the last pages are 'done', I'm going to want to re-do the first pages, and start all over again.



Talked briefly with A.S., my potter friend from Japan. He's in the US, and he'll be co-teaching with me at NENTS next week, where we'll be teaching middle schoolers about the process for designing lessons and assessing the results in students. It should be interesting. We'll also go for a kayaking trip in the morning, probably in West Thompson Lake or Quaddick Pond.