Twists of Fate

Before I get to the war to end all wizards, I should mention that I had a marvelous time at the shindig at TMK’s house on Sunday to meet Cuzzin Tom and a whole lot of wonderful people. I got to talk to Evelyn Clark about some neat things, and it’s always good to talk to knitters of all backgrounds, bound together by this common interest. I’m always glad that I get out and about to these, and really hope to get off my ass and join the Guild and maybe join them at Ferals now and again.

Also, Cuzzin Tom is just amazing. My shyness struck again, and i didn’t talk to him nearly as much as I would have liked to, but I did enjoy listening to his stories throughout the day.

One of them was a story about losing his mala briefly. I try really hard to be respectful of other people’s tools, and felt very honored to be allowed to handle his lotus seed mala. Holding it in my hands, I could feel this incredilbe buzz of energy…. I had to close my eyes for a moment, and just feel. I heard him say later that he’d had it for 16 years, and when he first got it it was white or light grey. The beads are now a gorgeous deep browniksh red color from handling and time.

How amazing must that be, to have one set of hands working them over and over again, as chants and devotional mantras are said. Through times of great peace, or maybe doubt, possibly fear, and incredible love.

I held his mala in the palm of my hand, and felt deeply and profoundly moved by how much devotion and love that stood for. I think he’s amazingly courageous, to walk the path that he walks, to go and see things and deal with things right up and in front of his face that would utterly destroy me. Meeting him and knowing that he’s seen all the troubles of Mongolia staring him right there in the face really brought home to me why people are doing this.

Thanks for coming and hanging out with us!

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We’ve got a little less than 36 hours to go where I live before Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows (does anyone else think this sounds like Harry is dating Kate Moss or maybe some other stick figure Barbie-type?) is released. Now, there are sucktastic people on the intarwebs that will spoil spoil spoil all the fun for everyone and either tell you what happens before you have a chance to read it, or just post scans of crucial pages. I know there’s a PDF of the book released on the web already, and hell, some NYT writer walked into a shop and bought it off the shelf earlier this week.

I prefer to remain unspoiled, and so will be hunkering down with some emergency rations, a battery powered radio, the sock in progress, some stitching and the vast silence of a self imposed internets blackout. At some point on Saturday, a hot person in a brown uniform will be dropping a copy off at my home, at which point I will devour the novel and get back to business as usual.

See y’all on the flip side! The folks bundled up in all the warm knitted gifts for Dulaan may be the only ones left standing after the book drops. :D