There’s a book store in town which is a labyrinth of shelves which can suddenly open up into a small room filled with prints, old maps or stacks of ancient magazines. The importance of documenting the Now for the Tomorrow is something we’ve been doing since we first picked up a sharp rock. Scratched into the walls of a deep dark cave are the symbols for “Dave the Cro-Magnon was here”. We like to leave behind something of ourselves. Sometimes this is all we have left: scratches on a wall. In my case it might be photos on a wall, or sculpture in a home. Who knows how long, or if, my work will survive. I think of this because so many factors can take away something you have been working on for most of your life, like a storm knocking down a house. The scratches are wiped out in the tsunami.
We leave behind our names in official records, but often they were not backed up somehow and so when the building burned down in the wild fires, so did the records, and a generation may find their quest for information on the family tree suddenly stops cold. You never know… Death and taxes. We all know we will die someday but nobody much knows where and why. Under our great orange leader we can’t even be sure of taxes, unless we are essentially poor and then our taxes will be going up soon, very soon. Ah and then the support systems are taken away, first Medicare and Medicaid and soon school aid, infrastructure investment… IN the early years of the nation if you went along roads and highways from point A to point B, sooner or later somebody with their hand out would want money for you to continue. We didn’t have rights of ways. Paths turned to roads and roads became highways, but only when locals improved on them, and then they wanted to be paid. Toll roads were everywhere. It took a progressive republican to think about an interstate transportation system which would enable the marketplace, employ millions and bring in billions in taxes. Today it is being torn down by another republican, but an insanely broken man who cannot think of others as being alive, equal and deserving. We have 3 more years and then some under the rule of a person who cannot be stopped and who believes himself to be anointed by Divinity to rule and to remake the nation in his own image. In other words, psychotic, self-destructive and dangerous. Ya never know.

One after another huge storms slam into shorelines, knocking down homes and businesses, tearing down wires and poles, signs and billboards. We see them forming from space and we submit our numbers to our machines, which chew them up and digest them according to algorithms based on and created from the last 100 years of weather data. So long as the patterns do not change, the basic elements which form the climate do not alter, the patterns will be the same. The frog in the beaker on the stove thinks, “It feels the same, pretty much, so nothing is going to happen to me…” and the flames get higher, the water heats up and the from is suffering but maintains that, “It’s not much different than a few minutes ago, it’s going to be fine…” and here’s a real sad thing about this metaphor: certain people in positions of power would read that and wonder why we should worry about a stupid frog. But we digress.

That’s really the point, though, isn’t it? We digress. We digress from our expectations, from our forecasts, we digress from the extension of the line which was our life. This is because in large part, the universe is running on chaos. In an infinite set the only overall pattern will be inconsistent, never repeating for longer than infinity-1. An infinite regular pattern would put a belt around the round belly of the universe. So things have to move away from expectations. While it is true that human tinkering has impacted the chemistry of the atmosphere, it is also true that a huge amount of the local universe had it’s toe in the water as well. The patterns of the Sun, the pull of the Moon, the way the ocean sucks up our garbage, everything built on things we did, things trees do, and soon the air was changed, which means the planet has changed, and therefor our weather must change. Sadly, another thing which has changed is the way society looks upon thinking as opposed to acting. Over time the great apes watched and learned to strike rocks, to capture and cultivate fire, to protect the extended family, the group, and as we are still great apes we watch “Lethal Weapon”, “Fargo”, “Breaking Bad” and the rest, even down to the sit-coms where the main point of humor is to ridicule a friend, a boss or a parent, we watch and learn how society operates, even though at some level we know these images are not live theater. We are built to watch and learn from what we see, like how the first resort must be violence, the first impulse must be to lie.

Sunrise over San Francisco
Summer of 1967
The sidewalks steaming
in front of store fronts
doorways jingling
delivery boys mumbling
I’m on the road
like in the novel
Though I did not know that then
That morning will never happen
again
That smell of weed and leather
which poured from the inside
of the beetle
has long since sailed
across the Bay
maybe all the way
back to China
and I
am no longer
on the road
but planted firmly
in the here and now
which is after all what
the gurus said we should be doing
One foot in front of the other
all night on the edges of the highway
thumb in the air sometimes
sometimes simply walking
I caught a ride
and settled deep inside
where heads bobbed
and faces smiled
groovey
they said
far owt man
she said
and passed me a fat joint
and as the sun rose
like a flower in all of our hair
we cruised into the Haight
and I emerged into the light
light headed
and born again
to the smells and sights
never seen before
a scene before the bewildered masses
long haired boys
and beautiful beflowered girls
were gathering together
along with yours truly
to experience for once
together
a certain quality of life
which rarely comes by
like a butterfly

which if stepped upon
will kill off the dinosaurs
and introduce the planet
to mammals and such
but Darwin never said
“it’ll happen overnight…”
and he was right
because there we were
bewildered ourselves
at the sight and sounds and smells
of a sunrise over a city
to which I’d never been
until that instant
and the sidewalks smelled fresh
freshly washed and scrubbed
(they wash the sidewalks here!)
and the colors of the people
and the colors of the clothes they wore
and the colors on the posters
of the colorful houses
featured in the colorful folk songs
about houses and people
on the sides of hills
like me
walking up that hill
towards the big beautiful gates
which opened up
to the Garden and
Introduced me to the
concept
of life everlasting
with fish and chips
and patchouli oil and beads
and
sitting on a park bench
in an instant in time
a young man from Glendale Arizona
wondered at the wonder
of that morning
as the sun rose
like a rose
in a Garden somewhere
and the scent
of the petals
which might have been
that flower child
who passed out
flyers
to diggers
and freaks
about a free concert with free food
and I was free
so I went
and over Time and Distance
I find the road
and cling to the center line
while steering with one hand
as the other hand
waves the rest of them ahead
why wait for me?
I’m somewhere
back here
back in 1967
when the sidewalks steamed
and the sound of my sneakers
seemed somehow musical
in the hot town of that summer
I didn’t have a flower
in my hair
so I let a young blond
flower child
paint one on my sneakers
and I danced
through the Gates
into the Garden
with flowers on my toes
and a rising sun in my sight.

Fred Brighton July 2021

I tend to repeat myself
ya know?
I tend to repeat myself.
Like
Don’t touch that fire
It’s hot
or
Skull and crossbones doesn’t mean
Pirate food
It mean poison
I tend to repeat myself
Over and over again
Like waves upon the shore
I splash and crash
and repeat myself again and again
Don’t touch that fire
Don’t eat that rat poison
Judge not, lest ye be judged
Thou shall not murder
Here there be dragons
I tend to repeat myself
ya know?
Like an echo
Off a canyon wall
Hello? Hello? Hello?
Until you can’t hear me
over the horizon or
under the radar or
beyond the pale or
over the rainbow and
In ruby slippers clicking away
I stand with my eyes closed
and say
There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home
I tend to repeat myself
Ya know?
And home is where the heart is
Where you hang your hat
Where you can’t go back
Where your memories have faded
away
so say
There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home
Ya know?

GREEK STYLE UPDRAFT KILN PROJECT

Description: Small updraft kilns are a marked improvement over pit firings, allowing for the concentration of heat and the gradual cooling off of the ware, thus reducing cracked pots. An early form of updraft kiln is the bank side tunnel kiln, typically seen in Asian ceramics of the period and later. In this sort of kiln the fire is set at the bottom of the tunnel and the ware is located somewhere uphill near the exit. Natural draft takes the heat up the tunnel and fires the ware to low-fire, non-glaze temps. If the fire is maintained over many days then ash glaze may be produced. This is a very inefficient way to fire clay as most of the heat is sent up the tunnel and out the stack without coming into contact with the ware. The Greek style kiln is an improvement.

First of all the kiln is typically dug into the earth in order to produce an upward draft with the fire and ware boxes insulated by the earth berm. There is at least one example of the Greek kiln using a very long, Asian-like style fire box located down a hill from the ware chamber. Typically, however, the fire box is located to the side of the ware chamber with the flue channeling the heat under the ware floor and up through the ware and out the flue located at the top of the dome covering the ware chamber. Most people would say the kiln resembles an igloo.

In my project I was constrained by my back injuries making it difficult and painful to dig out the fire box, so I used cinder blocks to form the same shape, lined the inside with brick and bermed up the sides to insulate the structure. The center peninsula was formed by a row of cinder blocks covered in a layer of brick. This center structure is what holds the ware floor pieces. In a period kiln the floor is made of fired clay wedge-shaped pieces set with holes to allow the flow of heat. In my project I felt to save time and not change the firing process I could use old modern kiln shelves as my floor. This allows the same flow of air through the chamber and thus the same firing schedule without having to go through the process of making floor pieces and perfecting that technology. I will in time attempt to make these pieces and substitute them for the modern floor, but in the meantime I want the kiln to be usable as quickly as possible.

The fire chamber which is under the ware chamber has an opening to which the fire box is attached. The fire box has an arched roof and is about a meter long and half a meter tall. It can be sealed with a spare kiln shelf and/or bricks. The ware door is arched and is 14” wide and 20” tall. It will be sealed with bricks, some of which are shaped for the arch.

This image shows the double wall construction of the ware chamber with the fire box bermed off to the right. The arched opening for the ware chamber is shown completed. Part of the floor is in place. The kiln walls are built up to the level of the door arch and then slowly corbeled until at the top the opening can be covered completely with two half shelves.

Shows the outside of the kiln plastered with clay to plug cracks and bermed to provide insulation. The fire box opening can be seen inside the kiln chamber door. Bricks are moistened with a slip of clay and placed in the wall. Any large cracks are plugged with wads of clay and smoothed over.

The completed kiln. The opening on the dome is covered with two half-shelves which can be arranged to control the draft like a damper. The final application of clay will smooth the outside of the kiln, allowing rain to easily roll off the surface. The ware door on the opposite side is bricked up and plugged with clay after loading the kiln. Fire starts in the opening of the fire box and advances into the kiln, eventually creating a bed of hot coals beneath the kiln floor. The more fuel burning the less oxygen is in the ware chamber, creating a “reduction firing” which is required for the red/black ware renown by the Greeks. As the iron rich clay burns the oxygen is reduced from the iron oxide, producing a dark black iron color. If the ware is exposed to the air before cooling sufficiently the iron will re-combine with the air and the black will fade to a rust red. Thus careful fueling and cooling is essential to produce the Greek ware.

I wonder where my wonder went
Everything seems so cut and dried
Nothing seems new under the sun
Flotsam from a previous tide
Then someone posts a bit of wit
And people read it far and wide
Some say it’s gold, some say it’s shit
While others say they read and cried.
And in my sullen sorriness
I read the poster’s post
I never knew that thing was true
I thought it was an empty boast
I rise, I shout, I post a view
Opinions like a tidal wave
The whole lasts a day or two
A wonderful sparkling rave.
Life’s not a bore
If you have more
Than just a friend or two
You talk things out
And fuss and pout
But in the end it’s true
It isn’t only about you.
Fred Brighton 12-17-17

A Ritual of Renewal

After the ceremony comes a time of great jubilation. The bride and groom run off, the guests rise up, the party begins after the photographs are taken. Afterwards, what has changed? Names have changed, relationships have changed, boundaries have changed. Now the two have become one and the result is greater than the sum of the parts. Where comes the extra, the added parts? Quantum physics and magick tell us that perception can generate that which is perceived. If you believe an orange skinned real estate salesman is capable of sending nuclear missiles to vaporize an entire nation, they might just do that. And if you believe a man you never met before last week is your brother, then he is your brother. You gained a brother when your daughter married a man. Likewise you may have gained cousins, sisters, nephews and partners through this ritual in which two pledge to do what is right for two to do. It has nothing to do with babies or gods or even social understandings, but it is an ethical way to express out loud the feelings which have been created by two becoming one. The result can be epic. When Di married Chuck the world of the West shook with various degrees of joy, and yet afterwards little was changed. The Queen was still the queen and none of them use surnames, so they did not change either. I would argue that on September 9th there were greater and long lasting changes made which will in time have impacts to a great number of families and friends.
A ritual of renewal changes a woman to a goddess, and a miss into a missus, a daughter into a wife, a man into a husband. Duties may not be changed in a relationship which has lasted many years, but the feelings now are different. When a man does a nice thing for his lover and friend, it kind and rewarding in kind, but when a husband does something nice for his wife, it brings on the feelings of the One which came into being as a result of that ritual. A marriage is reinforced more than just a mans love of another. Consider that a lover presents a gift as part of a courtship. Afterwards, after the marriage ceremony the courtship of the lover has stopped, but the courtship and nurturing of the spouse has begun. Often you hear of how after a marriage the man suddenly becomes abusive or cold. The ritual had failed, often because it was confused for a “party”. Parties do not transform, they entertain briefly. So thought must be put into all aspects of a ritual, dense, multi-layered thoughts on placement, color and meaning. Then the participants should be at some level aware of the intent, purpose, direction and rules of the ritual. The ring or rings must be understood as symbols and not jewelry. Drinks immediately afterwards should be drinks of ceremonial value, the Toast defines them as such, and all the important individuals may deliver Toasts, which should be understood even as ritual components of a ceremony currently being enacted. They are spells. Each primary participant has a costume, a special garb, festooned with symbolic flowers, jewels or decorations. The male/female parts are balanced with the groomsmen and the bridesmaids. The ritual of separation finalizes the vows, and the ceremony moves on. Each day may be a ritual of renewal in a loving environment. The people are energized and inspired for their participation in the ritual. Within a year a new child will come into the world as a direct result of this ritual, even several children might come forth.
In this way all of us are renewed. We move up the ladder a bit, new footing, new ideas bringing forth new things. Understanding the way this works and the importance of the understanding, is how we move gladly through the changes, rather than fearful of the new.

Last Saturday our daughter was married and we had the most amazing and fun wedding ever, at least according to all the attendees. After the smoke had cleared and the bottles and glasses picked up, after the hotel keys were found and the sprained ankles looked at, the horn was drained, the birds were singing and the world awoke to a new dawn, a new age. This, of course, means that my sweet wife and I are Old News. Over the hill, gone beyond Now into History. If I have learned anything about history it is that every mans history is another’s future. Each time I note another new age spot, a new ache, I see the joy in her eyes as she said “I will” and the look in his eyes was so similar to one i had when I told my new bride how beautiful she was. Now what do we have to look forward to? Gee, I suppose we could see a grandchild, but these days nothing is assured. How could two intelligent people bring a child into a world filled with fascists, nationalists, “religious” extremism? In our globalized world no armed clash is local, especially when your government is fond of selling weapons to people. But, and it’s a big but, we have a small group of disconnected idiots trying to squeeze the last drops from an old era and they are in charge of things as they are now. Increasingly we know that governments are installed by money for the defense of money, and rarely concern themselves with the lives of the people. Consider a reductio ad absurdum : two humans left on the planet, and one has all the money. The other has a stone. The first one wants the stone badly, so they offer up some of the money, but the second does not wish to sell. The price war advances until finally the owner of the stone sells it for all of the money. Now there is a new stone owner and a new rich person, so this is an economy, yes? but does it create or advance humanity in any way? No. So, economies by themselves are not life supporting. Exchanging goods and services for money gets you nothing. Now, suppose we have a half dozen people and one has the money, one has a stone, one has grown wheat and one has nothing but sexual organs and a willingness to use them. The rich person gives all of his money for the stone. The new rich man gives part of his money for the stick, some for sex and the rest he places in a hole beneath his sleeping area. The man with wheat trades wheat for sex and the female agrees to help him steal the money to buy a stone…. and so forth. Now, the economy moves along with many more people and trade goods, but the money per se is not the main factor here. Suppose two of the people get married and merge their fortunes and goods? This is not an economy exactly, but what is exchanged results in an increase of what is held to be valuable. Each feels rewarded, loved, protected, respected etc and no money, no stone or stick passes hands. Sex, sure, but not as a trade but as an expression of love. So: an economy based on love and respect does more good than an economy based on exchanges of material goods. Barter rather than profit, and consensus rather than bargaining. In the marriage ceremony both partners promise to do that which they already have willingly been doing: love, honor, respect and care for the other. If humanity married humanity there could be no wars. If we loved the gestalt of life the way we love our partners, there could be no wars. It would be nice if all our marriage ceremonies included the promise to “take care of the Earth, to respect Life and those within the Sphere of Life…” because after all, if a marriage were to result in children, how much nicer a world it would be dedicated to love and devotion rather than profit making, wars and distrust.

On the edge of a civil war we Americans are at each others throat, all based on inadequate education, access to journalism as opposed to infotainment. People identify as “right” or “left”, “progressive” or “conservative”. Everybody is correct, each side has it’s version of facts, no compromise with reality is permitted. Meanwhile, true to the Plan, the fascists entrench themselves into all the offices of government. Every lie becomes a truth for half the nation, each truth becomes fake.
With such a trend to dismiss reality, to distrust expert testimony and to denigrate anyone who disagrees with us, how can one nation remain undivided for long? Hell, look at the origins of the first civil war and compare them to now. Most people use the Germans of 1930 as examples of how a dictator becomes a leader, but it is unlikely that a hard core fascist could make it through the Electoral College. Their obvious plans for minorities would make them unwelcome among businessmen, and they are the ones who decide who runs for office. No, it takes a chameleon of a person, somebody who can say with a straight face whatever the listener wants to hear. Herr Drumpf is an excellent example of how lies become truths, incompetence becomes talent and failures become smart business deals. It might have worked in Germany once but here it takes the pretense of normalcy to get past the infotainers. If someone is too far to one side or another they become subject to ridicule and satire, but if they belong to an old political system, a popular political Party, they are treated seriously no matter what they do or say. For instance, Herr Drumpf says he’d like to date his daughter… this creepy scenario would gross out normal evangelicals but eager to serve their favorite liar they dismiss his words as insignificant, and later they dismiss his actions as simply fake news. He once famously said he could murder someone in plain sight and his supporters would continue to support him all the while expressing themselves as conservative supporters of the Rule of Law. How do they deal with the hypocrisy and contradictions? Since people are not educated in America but rather indoctrinated they have no grasp of logic. Their syllogisms are at best flawed and almost always start with the conclusion desired followed by cherry picked data or rumor to support their stance. This is, to the fascist followers, “proof”.
On the other side of the coin are the so-called “liberals”, who are as aggressive in their hatred of Drumpf supporters as the supporters are in their hatred for all things perceived as “left of center”. The “news” media, the infotainers, love the whole story line, it excites and the sheer stupidity and ignorance of the President and his followers and handlers gives plenty of opportunity for puns, gaffes and one-liners. Since the “news” now relies on polls and popularity rather than journalism, a foolish President is a real opportunity for fun. The concept of the disruption of our society leading to civil war or even just gradual decay and dissolution is left behind in the happy prattling and complaining about each side being treasonous and bold liars with every word they speak. Witness that there is a double digit percent of Americans who believe the story that Obama was a time-traveling secret socialist from Kenya, based on not one single shred of evidence, merely piss poor logic accompanied with implications and innuendos. The fact is a nation cannot long remain in place with no logic, no truth, no journalism, no Rights and nobody in power willing to risk themselves to preserve some semblance of a democratic republic. The concept of “democracy” in any form is anathema to the Party, both sides, and this is perfectly reasonable considering our Founders were adamantly opposed to the idea, preferring to rule over the People with a tiny group of wealthy white men. That is the form of government enshrined in the Constitution and without some modification, some guarantee of democracy, this is the form of government we will always get. Drumpf is just the latest example of the worst of all possible outcomes of an unfree election, especially one which has no power to select the President. Part of the problem is democracy requires work and education, people willing to put down the video games and read the laws being suggested, read the Constitution, study the Law in place…. It requires people in journalism giving us facts instead of puns and rumors and gossip. “People are saying…” is not a valid point. People say lots of things at various times and most of the people simply repeat what they have been told. We need thinkers to have a democracy and that takes a couple generations of well educated people. The current plan is to privatize education to ensure only the wealthy get educated. Healthcare will be further restricted and the followers of the fascists will understand that it is for their own good to remain ignorant. They don’t need to know where another nation is located when they never leave their own neighborhood.

It is easy to control cattle with a little bit of oats. If you give them a whole meadow they’d just waste most of it. If you don’t put up fences how can you harvest them come butcher time?

This is how the United States will become un-united: climate will create millions of refugees who will pour out looking for new homes. Americans on the coasts will have to evacuate the megalopolises and move inland. Most of Florida, for instance, will be uninhabitable. The “news readers” make apoint of implying this can only happen in a hundred years or more, so most people feel they will be long dead by then. If, on the other hand, nature follows natures examples, we will see the changes happen increasingly often, storm surges wiping out entire populations and sink holes swallowing city blocks. At that point the followers of both sides will realize they were lied to and lose all faith in any form of government, missing the point entirely that government is the only system which can help with these problems, it just cannot be a republican form, nor a fascist form. It will have to be democratic and there are almost no “leaders” who support true democracy. Jefferson, famous for raping his female slaves to produce more human stock for sale, always hated the idea of the majority telling people like him how to live. Democracy, he asserted, was the second worst form of government. He as President, we assume, was the best form, especially when you have a few hundred slaves. The form of government has not been altered since the 1700’s and this is why we live as if we were in the early stages of a fascist takeover, they are simply doing what naturally happens when people prefer to be ruled over rather than take responsibility for their own lives.

After many years of making ceramics, wood items and carved stone I have decided to enter the marketplace. While working on Jess and Mike’s wedding plans I contacted my old pal Kirby D. Wise, the master swordmaker in AZ who made my two steel maces. He used to offer inexpensive swords for just mucking around, but he has stopped this practice and so most of his swords are anywhere from $500 to $1500. While chatting with him though we had a great idea: I will be Kirby’s representative on the East Coast selling his weapons and my crafts and we’ll both make money and his superior quality gear will flow into the re-enactors world on the east Coast. Kirby’s daughter is also a bladesmith and his wife works in pierced brass decorations. Freya made a spear for me, seven foot long and with beautiful pierced brass decoration. It is so light and strong and you can wield it one handed! It cost me $500 but a similar one can be sold for $1000. This is how we will help pay off the wedding. Meanwhile I have been firing the kiln, making glazed ware for sale, serving dishes, beakers and bowls. I feel like I am getting better at hand building things and except for the perpetual pain in my upper back and shoulders things are moving well. Margaret is making me some new Norse style clothes and for herself as well. I have made some necklaces for her, some shoes and hat for me. The amazing thing is that back when I was active in the SCA there were no markets, no dealers… just the rare craftsman. Now checking online I see hundreds of places to buy weapons, clothes, even tents! It may be that as our “modern” society decays and fades away… “Bye Herr Drumpf!” ancient societies may spring back up to provide some form of safety and community. There are many “living museums” now as well, with people living year round in costume, working as they did in the Middle Ages. I plan to visit a few and see how their ceramic efforts are going. I still think it would be fantastic to assemble a book showing all the owner built kilns in the nation, there are so many! Likewise a similar book on medieval craftsmen might be good, people like Kirby who live halfway into the past. But before the books come the contacts and the markets and that’s where we are headed now. On the 30th of June we will set up our first BirkaMart and see how people react. The next event we’ll be able to show Kirby’s work… we had hoped to get it this month, but the Arizona desert shot up to 125F and Kirby cannot fire up the forge before 10PM and even then the temps are 100F. So we are being patient and hoping for the best.