Wistfulvistas Reviews

(Copyright 1984, C.M. Joserlin, “Raven”)

I have seen the sun at midnight, slain the bull at his command,
Used the power of the crystal, felt the force direct my hand,
Thricefold served the silver lady, sailed upon the darkest sea,
Counted corpses in the forest, chanted runes upon the tree;
I have spoken words of power, summoned Hiram from the grave,
Sung Eurydice to ransom, called ‘Phrodite from the wave;
I’ve recited rhymes to order, chimes that echoed in the brain,
That incited love and joy — or hate and sorrow, fear and pain;
I have built the greater temple and survived the tests inside,
I have stepped on earth and water and been pierced in feet and side,
I have danced around the fire, walked the circle semi-clad,
I have chased the beasts and shared the feasts of bread and wine we had;
I have travelled to the hidden centers, studied in their lore,
Listened to the quiet murmurs and looked deep into the core,
Bound strong servants to their duties, striven long within the craft,
Drawn the dirk and done the work while being warded fore and aft;
‘Till the flower opened to me, and I learned the secret ways,
Found the stone and on me shone the black and white and ruddy rays,
Saw with many-colored vision and through many changes passed,
Let myself become myself, and reached my mastery at last.

Enjoy “Initiate”, which echoes the “I have beens” of Welsh bards in a pied conflation of the various initiatory traditions and legends, e.g. both Jesus and Odin were hung “upon a tree”, both Jesus and Llew Llaw Gyffes “stepped on earth and water and were pierced”, both Mithraists and Egyptians ritually slew bulls, both alchemists and Freemasons speak of “the Work”, both the Battle of the Trees and the Grove of Nemi left “corpses in the forest”. The opening phrase, “I have seen the sun at midnight”, was a pass-phrase of the Eleusinian Mysteries. So Celtic is only one of the ethnicities mingled; but then, how many Welsh “I have been” references were Biblical (i.e. Hebrew)? See Robert Graves’ THE WHITE GODDESS and Sir James Frazer’s THE GOLDEN BOUGH.

No Comments »

Bend  with  life,  don’t  fossilize;
rigid  vision blinds the eyes;
faith — unchanging — petrifies;
frozen truths turn into lies;
even God, imprisoned, dies.
— C. M. Joserlin, 1984

No Comments »

The weather is now completely nuts. We made it through August with about 30 inches less rain than normal. They have put out the irrigation pumps along the canals and rivers which are usually used for trying to raise bumper crops in the middle of summer around March and April.

I just sprayed inside the house with 10% sodium hypochlorite as Yunee is allergic to the various molds that grow around here. Outside I very selectively sprayed Round-Up<TM> in my ongoing efforts to kill off the mulberry tree roots. SAY! Maybe you could ask Johnny for me. How long will the roots of the mulberry continue to sprout shoots after the parent tree has died? How long can this thing go without photosynthesis?
By the way, don’t get glyphosate anywhere near poinsettias. I simply sprayed near it very carefully and it slowly curled up and died over a 1 month period.

Our garden is slowly … getting weird. I guess this is good. Our general plan is to fill the entire place chock full of tropical foliage, ignoring the fact that as Tarzan hacked his way through the undergrowth, said undergrowth is the ideal habitat for billions of mosquitoes and leeches. I heard a chain saw across the river the other day and went over to check it out. A couple of guys were sort of stealing the decorative trees planted in a now defunct housing project. They were a bit nervous, thinking I might call the village headman. Instead I chatted it up then talked them into digging me up four lovely baby trees and planting them in our yard. They have thick glossy dark leaves like a magnolia but are about a foot long. The guys wanted 200 baht for the job but they discovered that the trees root balls were massive and even as babies they weighed a ton. So I paid them 500.

Baby is presently getting the engine kill cable replaced. It broke and forced me to open the engine and move the level manually, or try killing it by putting my hand over the air intake and risk getting sucked in.

Yunee is very weird. She casually picks up a gigantic wolf or huntsman spider but goes berserk upon seeing a caterpillar or leech.
Out in the jeep we were showing a couple of tourists from America the local sights of Chiang Mai. As I drove down a highway Yunee mentioned it being a large one. She has a penchant for non-sequitur speech and leaving out details. As I asked, one of the ladies in the back did the typical to wit, “EEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!” while the other gave an “EEEP” noise. Coming in from on the roof was a pretty hefty sparrassid (Huntsman spider). I was a tad busy trying to survive heavy traffic and over the inanity I asked if it had only six legs. We had a maimed visitor in our car port the past few nights and I was curious.

Yunee confirmed it was the extremity challenged one in question and began giving me a commentary as to it’s perambulations around the jeep with an ongoing background noise from the arachnophobes in back. It wandered about aimlessly for a bit before stopping on the front roll cage bar and appeared to be staring out the front window. I often wonder what spider vision is like. What could this fellow be looking at? What of the passing scenery was being handed to it’s brain?

It began wandering again, this time over to my side of the jeep. It wandered along some bracing to the main roll bar, came down the shoulder belt and perched on the head rest. From the sounds they were making the gals in back seemed to be giving serious thought to jumping out of a car going nearly 50 miles an hour rather than remain in the company of this terribly deadly vip… err, spider.

It then moved on down to perch on my right shoulder. The freak out from behind was predictable while Yunee started cracking up laughing. She informed the ladies that it won’t poop much. I caught on and got to laughing as well. Only two days earlier I had hosted a friends cockatoo on that shoulder and was loaded up with enough manure to start a sizable vegetable patch.

Not liking all my arm moving the pidey headed back up to the roll cage. It wandered about for a few more minutes just to make sure it had extracted the full freak out from the rear then went out and down the side of the jeep. Yunee was a bit freaked about that. It was in danger of getting blown off yet she knew if she tried to cajole it back into the jeep it would probably jump off. It eventually crawled under the jeep and vanished. At our next stop our guests seriously considered doing the same. Vanishing that is.

From: Thailand Escape

No Comments »

I made it rain last night, enough to get the ground wet but not really soak in. I used the combined process of thoroughly watering the garden and leaving the jeep outside all night. If this weird weather keeps up I will consider more drastic action: watering all day, leaving the jeep out with the top off, leaving clothes out on the line, and setting out a delicate project in the driveway that must be kept dry.
The hedge we planted, some 200+ 6 inch sprouts, has taken off. They are now about 2 feet tall and well established. The bougainvilea has finally got established. It took a year. The great master plan of all this is to establish privacy in the yard so Somchit and Yupin can sunbathe. That sounds like a bad idea to me and will require the formulation of sun tan lotion combined with mosquito repellent.
As for jeepy things, the engine kill cable broke the other day, our shopping day, which meant that everywhere we parked I had to open the hood and manually activate the kill lever. I took it to our mechanic and Yunee and I wandered around while he checked things out. We came back to find a large coil of greasy oily wire dangling from a hole in the dash board. We were instructed to pull on the wire to kill the engine and come back the next day for a more aesthetic and permanent repair. The next day they fitted a massive hood release cable in. That will add to any potential thiefs confusion as pulling the hood release will just cause the engine to die. We aren’t too worried about theft however, as, aside from my deliberately leaving the jeeps appearance as 1 grade above abandoned/derelict, we have the heavy log chain to lock the steering wheel and a concealed padlock that connects the three shift levers together, locking the transmissions into 4 wheel drive low. So the critter could still be stolen, but will only travel at 4 mph and no reverse gear. See Mr. Beans Vacation movie where he tries to steal a motorized bicycle. 🙂

I am slowly getting around to rewiring the jeep. After 45 years of half assing and splicing the wires it is a serious rats nest. What is slowing me down is the cost of copper wire here which is ridiculously expensive, and finding super solid reliable connectors so I don’t have the same problem you had with your van’s computer cable. I am considering soldering pig tails to all the plug on connections which report to heavy duty screw or bolt connectors.
I am also going to move all the guages up onto the bar above the windshield. What with jeeps being a tad odd configuration wise, it requires the driver to only move his/her eyes up 6 inches to see the gauges as opposed to where they presently are where you have to look down and to the right 2 feet. And I have a few innovations I still need to impliment on the jeep. One problem is the combination of the diesel engines braking ability and the new tremendously overpowered disc brakes, I can stop the vehicle without ever applying enough pedal pressure to activate the hydraulic brake switch. Thus I am searching for a vacuum switch that activates whenever the engine drops to an idle. In other words, whenever my foot isn’t on the throttle the brake lights come on. All in all, we are quite happy with the jeep. Taking everything into consideration, it’s carbon footprint is almost nonexistent, it is recycled many times over, it is economical, and it is around 1000% beyond the life expectancy of any new vehicle made today.

Visit: Thailand Escape

No Comments »