Verging on ~

A note on the 30th of December.

Our person is a covered entrance to infinity
Choked with the tatters of tradition

— Mina Loy

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Verging on the clear drifts of newness. Of an old year rinsed. We meet the infinite version of ourself which is not possible yet but waits for us all the same.

I love tradition, tradition fortifies me. It grounds my electricity, it roots me in a long line and allows me to funnel myself into a sense of continuity.

And what of tradition’s tatters? All tradition is broken down the line, regardless of how much it appears to be in tact. And I think this breaking is necessary. Because then tradition becomes a living thing and not a concept—it becomes a muscle getting stronger with each tear in the tissue.

I’m interested, not in trying to recreate something, I am interested in letting fall away, letting disperse, that which cannot be passed from hand to hand.

Tradition: from the Latin trādere: “to hand over, to hand on, to deliver, hence to betray.”

Even in the root of the word we are instructed to not follow tradition blindly.

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I am interested in what can be placed in the hands.

I am interested in what the hands can hold.

I am interested that hands can deliver.

I am interested in the betrayal implicit in attempting to hand something to another hand (our own or another’s).

I am interested in what doesn’t have a literal translation in this exchange.

What I mean is: you can’t take everything, you can’t give everything. What I also mean is: somethings fall in transit from hand to hand. What I mean is: hands can only hold and deliver so much. What I also mean is: translation is ambiguous.

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And now we are verging on ~ the hands of past year are passing something on, into, the hands of the one about to come.

A meditation: what do you actually want pass from hand to hand at this threshold? Envision it. Does it all fit? What can you let go? What can fall into the ravine, the crevice between the two hands? You can’t do it all the same again (would you even want to?). What gets to stay, what will you let fall, what do you want to place in the palm of 2025?

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Mina Loy was a Capricorn, born 27 December 1882 in London, England (a Capricornian country).

Loy broke with tradition in every conceivable way and yet, is a founding member of one of the most memorable literary traditions in the world. Though she romped with the other Modernist poets of her era (Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Pound, et al.), her work has largely been neglected. She was, after all, radical—a scandal—an erotic woman. Her book of poems, Lunar Baedecker, was considered pornography and confiscated at U.S. customs.

She was a prolific poet, novelist, and essayist in her life. She also wrote plays and designed lamps. She was decadent. She was a mother. She lived in Germany, Paris, Florence, and New York—mingling with some of the most illustrious artist of the time. Her life was an assemblage of people and places, of tradition and innovation.

Loy lived for, or was (I might argue) a devotee of, the present. And what is the present but an assemblage of the that which was with that which is waiting for that which will be?

A handing off.

A hand - handing to - A hand.

In a letter she wrote,

“The flux of life is pouring its aesthetic aspect into your eyes, your ears—and you ignore it because you are looking for your canons of beauty in some sort of frame or glass case of tradition… Would not life be lovelier if you were constantly overjoyed by the sublimely pure concavity of your wash bowls?”

(I can’t help but see the parallel between wash bowls and hands. I can’t help but wanting to read: “the sublimely pure concavity of your hands.”)

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And so under this Capricorn new moon, that was exact at 5.27pm EST, I will leave you with the Horoscopic Reading that features excerpts of poems from Mina Loy’s scandalous Lunar Baedecker.

And I will also leave a bit of music this time, too.

A listener’s guide to the Season’s Greetings Narr radio show which Suzanne Belle Stone, doris dana, and myself all collaborated on:

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Until the new year ~

xo

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Horoscopic Reading

Excerpts divined for each of the signs on the New Moon at 09° Capricorn on 30 December 2024. Read for your rising, sun, & moon sign if you wish. See what lines, symbols, or images ring a bell in you. Take them with you throughout the lunar month.

*radio set list is at the bottom of the page so you know where to find your track on the show ~

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Capricorn:

In the mornings she dropped
Cool crystals
Through devotional fingers
Saccharine for his cup
And marketed
With a Basket
Trimmed with a red flannel flower
When she was lazy
She wrote a poem on the milk bill
The first strophe Good morning
The second Good night
Something not too difficult to
Learn by heart

— from The Effectual Marriage

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Hobblebush shrub essence
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“Grew of No Eyes” by Cornelius F. Van Stafrin III