Reader

A pagan contemplation of equilbrium at the Vernal Equinox.

By Terryl Warnock

The serious face in the mirror of the employee bathroom didn’t look all that bad, I decided, except for the red, puffy eyes. My hope was that this composed look would last the duration of my shift, and that it would somehow hide the internal wreckage from the dream that was still crashing around in my mind like a loose cannon, destroying everything in its path. I doubted it. My poised serenity was a façade, a mask I put on for work to try and fake everybody out. My bleary-eyed assessment reassured me that the crisp white blouse, immaculate black skirt, and polished black shoes belied my crumpled exhaustion. I was satisfied. I had to be. The dinner show was upon us. Presentation is everything, thank God I don’t look as bad as I feel.

We were prepped. The tables were set with their starched linen and polished crystal. Silverware had been examined carefully and napkins folded precisely. Creamers and salad dressings were filled and iced. Lemons were cut. Bleach water and cleaning towels were strategically placed in the pickup station. As was our habit, the staff working the front of the house sat down together in those last few precious moments of calm before the melee started for the evening. We worked seven nights a week during ski season—-you gotta make it while it’s there to be made—-and we cherished this brief interlude to have a cuppa and gossip a little.

“I don’t usually remember my dreams,” I said. “In fact, if you’d have asked me about them yesterday I’d have said I don’t even have dreams. I tell you though, this one jolted me awake like a cattle prod at 3:47 a.m. precisely. I feel like I’ll be too scared to ever sleep again. It was damn sure the end of my sleep for last night. I woke up sobbing and soaked with sweat. I must have really been thrashing, my bed looked like someone had been after it with a rototiller. It was so real! It makes me shudder just to think about it.

“It makes absolutely no sense, Win. It’s not like Barry and I are the best of friends or anything. He was kind of a big brother to me when he was on the patrol here, taking a poor greaseball lift op under his wing and showing me the ropes. We’d have a few drinks together, have a few laughs, do some out-of-bounds skiing together. Stuff like that. You know, just partners in crime, that’s all, buddies. So why the hell would they call me, of all people, to come and identify his body after this horrible plane wreck? His people are down in LaVeta. They could have been there in an hour and a half. I’m six hours away. More like ten in my old Honda.”

“Yeah, I can’t remember you ever talking about your dreams before. It sounds really scary . . .” across the table from me, Winnie spoke with the soft Texas drawl that had made her the butt of many a joke here in ’Dollarado’. We both loved and hated Texans here. They were the backbone of the economy and we’d have starved without them. They knew it, and most of them treated us like door mats because they could.

“It was. I remember every single vivid detail. I remember the quality of the man’s voice on the phone telling me what had happened. I remember driving to Denver through a 10-hour blizzard, and that I had to park clear out in the north lot when I got to the airport because all the close-in lots were full of emergency vehicles with their flashing lights and nerve-shattering sirens. Jesus, I could even smell the burnt flesh! There were these lumpy, misshapen bundles all neatly laid out in rows on the floor of one of the hangars. Oh, God, I remember the nausea I felt when I saw one of the bundles that was far too short for the adult hand and arm that stuck out from underneath the blanket. Ugh!

“So anyway, this guy walks me down the line, flips the cover back on one of the bundles and sure enough, it was Barry. Oh, Win, his face was horribly burnt and all cut up, but it was Barry. And that’s when I sat bolt upright in bed, screaming at the top of my lungs, dripping sweat, and scattering cats all over the place.”

“Wow, T,” Winnie said, “maybe you should give him a call. You know, just to see if he’s all right. Maybe there’s some sort of psychic connection between you. Wouldn’t it just be too weird if he really was in a plane crash last night?”

“Oh, sure, I can just hear it now. Barry always did think I was a fruitcake anyway for what he calls my ’airy fairy’ stuff. Barry’s atheist and skeptical. My witchy stuff is a joke to him. I haven’t heard from him since last season. He left to take the patrol director’s job at that new area down by La Veta this season, Cuchara something. What am I going to do? Call him up and say, ’Gee, Bar, I was just wondering if you were all right. Are you planning to fly anywhere anytime soon? See, I had this dream and I’d really feel a lot better if you took the train.’ He’d send a rubber truck around to pick me up for sure.”

Seth the Chef had escaped the pre-shift clatter and heat of the kitchen and, having overheard while he poured himself a cup of coffee, offered, “I read an article once about dream interpretation. Freudian stuff, you know. It said that dreams like that about death sometimes signify some kind of birth or rebirth. Like a Phoenix. New life arising from the ashes of the old.”

I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Thanks a lot, Seth. Tell me, what made you take up cooking instead of psychiatry? I hear there’s a lot better money in headshrinking. Don’t you have some fish to scale or something?” He recoiled and turned toward the kitchen. I hastened to add, “I’m sorry, Seth, I’m cranky tonight. It’s not you, it’s just the stress and lack of sleep.” Yup, I thought to myself It’s going to be a long-ass miserable shift for sure.

The clock in the lobby softly chimed five times and just like clockwork, our boss Carl sauntered by with his nightly motivational speech. “Showtime, gang. If you haven’t looked at the rezzies, we have a 25 in the banquet room at 5:30 and John Q is lined up out front.” He grinned and spread his hands like a preacher offering a benediction, and said “Let us not forget it’s spring break and that we are here to relieve these geeks of as much of their money as we can. Let’s hit the ground running. T, you got the 25?”

“I’m all set back there, boss. Are they off the menu?”

“Sure are.”

“Well, that won’t swamp anyone,” I said under my breath, as Carl unlocked the door and the chaos flowed into our tidy little lives like a tsunami.

Seth looked at me and rolled his eyes. I nodded and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes one last time before we all started the run for our money.

Seven hours later and immensely grateful to be home at last, I peeled off the white blouse, now crumpled, sweaty, and splattered with au jus; the stockings, sticky from a ballistic bottle of champagne; and the grease-smeared apron with its pockets full of straw wrappers, wine corks, matchbooks, a dirty fork that got past me at setup I’d managed to scoop up before the customer noticed, and other miscellaneous scraps of dining room detritus. What a shift! Wonder if there’s any easy money out there, I thought as I rubbed my throbbing feet. I stuffed my tips in the shoebox that would be their home until the rent was due, took a very short, very hot shower, and fell into bed, drifting immediately into the sound, dreamless, restorative sleep of the completely exhausted.

Next morning, as my stockings were soaking in the bathroom sink, I caved to my curiosity. What the hell, I’ll go ahead and give Barry a call. It can’t hurt. I don’t need to mention the dream. I’ll just say I’ve been thinking about him—-which I have—-and thought I’d get in touch.

“Hello?” A quivery old-woman’s voice answered.

“Um, hi, yes, my name is T, and I’m an old friend of Barry’s from Wolf Creek. May I speak with him?”

“Oh, yes, T, I remember him mentioning you. You can’t speak with him now though, dear, he’s down at the hospital.”

“THE HOSPITAL???!!!”

“My hearing is just fine young lady. You don’t need to shout.”

I tried to clear the lump in my throat without success, and speaking around it, said “I’m sorry, it’s just I had this dream . . . and . . . I’m calling because I’m scared for him. Are you Barry’s mom?”

“Yes, dear, I am.”

“Is he okay?”

“Oh yes, he’s fine. His wife gave birth to their first child night before last. My first grandchild! A healthy baby girl. They’re going to name her after me. We’re all so very proud and happy. It was an extremely difficult birth, but don’t you worry yourself, honey, mother and baby are recovering just fine. Barry’s a nervous wreck though. He hasn’t left their side since she went into labor.”

“Oh! Okay! This is wonderful news! Congratulations on your beautiful new granddaughter, Mrs. Abrams.”

“Thank you. Would you like to leave a message for him? Last time he called I told him he had to come home today for some clean clothes if nothing else.”

“No, just offer him my congratulations, okay? Well, thanks. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, dear.”

These were the olden days when the telephone was tethered. It stayed on a little end table next to my raggedy old easy chair, the one that was the cats’ favorite place to sharpen their claws. I leaned back into its familiar mauve lumpiness as I hung up. My head was spinning and my heart was pounding. My hand was shaking as I reached for my coffee, and it wasn’t the caffeine. Wow! Well, just WOW!!!! What do you know? Seth was right! I’m a powerful dreamer! A psychic! Dang, I should have asked her about what time the baby was born. Betcha it was 3:47. I guess his death in the dream was so horrible because the birth was so difficult. Wow! This is SO cool! Wonder if I can get the lotto numbers?

In the wake of this momentous insight, I became passionate about divination of all sorts, and focused on it intently as winter transitioned to mud season. I got pretty good with the tarot cards, and was fair with dowsing. Although divination had become the center of my spiritual life because of the Barry dream, I wasn’t much good with dream interpretation at all. Especially not with my own dreams. I could sometimes get a good reading from other people’s dreams, but I didn’t remember my dreams any more than I had before the prophetic plane crash, and when I did, they were so bizarre I couldn’t figure out what they meant. What to make of the dog-sized spider with the silky hair on his back I loved to pet? Or of the dream where one of the cooks at the Inn boosted himself up in the grill and burned his butt? My psychic subconscious was speaking to me in a language I didn’t understand when it spoke to me at all. I never got close to the lotto numbers as the seasons spiraled through summer and back into fall and winter.

The fringe benefits of working at a ski area are few. One of them is conning friends at other ski areas out of a place to crash and a comp lift ticket. It’s not like we made enough money to buy vacations, so we mooched them off our friends. When Seth told me Barry was coming and that he’d already used up his comp tickets for the year, by way of asking me if Barry could use mine, I was delighted. None of our visiting friends ever wanted to stay with me. All I had to offer was a cold, hard floor, while Seth had a couch.

Barry had, of course, timed his days off and trip to coincide with a monster storm that had been predicted. Everyone who could pick their days off did. I had arranged for three whole delicious days off from my second job at the ski area in honor of Barry’s visit. I made my living working in the restaurant, but worked at the ski area on top of it to support my skiing habit. That night at work Seth told me Barry had arranged for us to go out on avalanche control with the ski patrol early the next morning. I was as excited about finally getting an opportunity to tell Barry about the dream as I was to get first tracks in the new stuff.

Next morning there were eight inches new and it was still snowing hard, so I donned my cocoon of foul weather gear and headed out in the half light of a new day to meet up with the guys at the lift. I greeted Barry with a hug and said I wanted first tram with him because I had something important to tell him.

I had to shout to make myself heard as I told him about the plane crash dream because the storm was a real screamer. It took me awhile to realize that he was bouncing around in his cocoon of gear because he was laughing so hard. I’d anticipated a variety of reactions—-amazement, wonder, sympathy—-but mirth? I forged on until I got to the most important part, about talking with his mother when he held up a gloved hand and said “Stop! You’ve just got to stop! You’re killing me!” He was holding his belly and his goggles were fogging up.

“What’s so damn funny, anyway, you jerk? This is serious stuff! It really happened. I was told about the birth of your daughter by the spirits and the psychic realm, and all you can do is laugh about it?”

“Actually,” he shouted back, “it’s WAY funny stuff, you bozo.” He was trying to catch his breath and dry his goggles. “I get that this dream thing might have been very real for you, but it wasn’t for me. I’ve never been married. You think I’d get married and not invite you to the wedding? And I certainly don’t have a daughter. My Mom was always a jokester. Where do you think I got it? If you’d call more than once a year, you’d have known that Mom is slipping into dementia. Her mischief has gotten worse. Much worse. My sister and I are going to keep her home with us as long as we can. We keep her away from the phone when we’re home, but we can’t be home all the time. You aren’t the first sucker who believed one of her fantastic stories. Everyone who suckers in says she’s really convincing. However, you are the only one I know of who got to be a shaman or something out of it, who thought they were psychic behind the ravings of a crazy, playful old lady. Ha ha ha ha ha!!! Would you like to buy some ocean front real estate down La Veta way? Make you a helluva deal on it.”

In my shocked embarrassment, I sulked, drawing myself deeper into my cocoon and said “Well, the phone connection runs both ways, you know. You never call me either.” We rode the rest of the way in silence, and did our level best to ski only pristine lines for the three days we had together. I stopped at the Circle K on the way into town to buy a lotto ticket as was my habit, but I let the machine choose the numbers.

We Circle with our kin in the abundance
and joyous fullness of the moon,
to celebrate the ways in which the world
speaks comfort and inspiration to us
in a simple pagan tongue.

Strong and bold in their company, we Circle tonight with our Elemental kin
Element of Earth in a crystal, that we may remember to help others.
Element of Air in the clarion voice of a bell, to honor to the ancestors.
Element of Fire in the power of light and warmth in the dark and cold of the year.
Element of Water in an empty chalice as a prayer for the future.

And a silver mirror,
that She may see Her face,
and revel in Her ample beauty
as we do.

Goddess of women, Goddess of night
we ask You help us remain open to simple truths,
help us remember we are all interconnected parts of a greater whole,
and let us not be deafened or distracted by our accomplishments and aspirations.
We humbly beseech You take our cynicism and despair with You as You wane.

This is Imbolc, a time of subtleties.
The earth’s dance with the sun begins to lengthen our days.
At once winter’s harsh bite in our lungs
and spring’s first whisper soft, ephemeral warmth
flickering on our eyelids.

Gaia, Great Goddess, Mother of us all
we ask that You give us the strength
not to let our grief take our hope,
nor let our fear take our curiosity.

Our energy begins to stir
with Yours, in anticipation.
Weeks of hard freeze and bitter wind
have taught us endurance,
a single day of softening,
has taught us hope,
that new life is immanent.

We ask that through You, we connect with each other
in deeply meaningful ways,
that we hang on to each other through these dreary times,
Great Goddess, we ask that You help us open ourselves to possibility,
to intuition, and to empathy.

We Circle with our kin in the abundance
and joyful fullness of the moon,
free to fly through the night
and seek what secrets we may
in the brilliance of the long shadows.

Blessed Be and Merry Meet
Let no harm come to any in this Circle
         or by its workings.

The patriarchal smackdown of women who dared might have been a tired old story for other women, even then, but it was new to me. The story of women who dared look. Dared break the rules. Dared taste. Eve. Pandora. Persephone. Lilith. Women demonized because they were curious. Because they questioned. Women as the essentially flawed, who screwed up the patriarchy’s carefully constructed plans for humanity and ruined it for everybody. It was a new story for me though because I was not yet a woman. I was thirteen, and passionately Christian.

The Sacred has always been proximate for me, an ever-present Presence in my life. It is and always has been an innate, heart-thumping Nearness. Manifest. I was born this way, and when we happened across Pastor’s thunderous Christianity, I was smitten. Pastor’s fervent, reverberating Christianity could send me home crying for my mommy, terrified of my sinful nature, or make me well up with the compassion and beauty of Christianity’s brotherly (!) love. Through Pastor’s Christianity I became connected. I was a small part of something so much bigger and more important than me I could barely conceive of it. I was liberated in my forgiven insignificance.

My mother said children were born savages and that her job as mom was to affix a civilized veneer to us, easy way or hard way, our choice. Toward that end, she insisted we have exposure to religion. She was not dogmatic and let us snack widely on Christian variants. We’d go to Catholic mass on Christmas Eve for magical religion, for the soaring music and the incense and the robes and the chanting and the stained glass windows and the gargoyles. We went to the Federated Church sometimes for intellectual religion, when we were particularly ignorant in our savagery. And we went to the Southern Baptist Church for some fire and brimstone when we were just, well, savage. To put the fear of God in us when a butt warming didn’t quite do the trick. It was on one of these fire and brimstone pilgrimages we first encountered Pastor. He was the new pastor at the Southern Baptist Church and from then, it was the only kind of religion for me. This was ecstatic religion. An intensely bright light I could steer my unfolding life by. Within a year I was born again and baptized.

So there I was, in Pastor’s office, not long after I’d been so very happy to find my religious home and have my sins washed away in the baptismal fount, getting my patriarchal smackdown. You never forget your first time.

“Mary was filled with the Spirit. It was a miracle. You have to believe.” Pastor had fair skin and blue eyes, but his face was red, and there was a vein popping out on his forehead. It was hard not to stare because it was pulsing with his heartbeat.

“Um, I do believe, Pastor! I really really do! I’m trying to understand.“

Pastor sighed, taxed by the ignorant arrogance of the savage in front of him. I was one of his crosses to bear and he would tell God so right in front of me before the end of our counseling session. “What is it you don’t understand?” he said, his exasperation eloquent in his condescending tone. “We’ve been over this. Mary was a virgin and was filled with the Spirit and, knowing no man, gave birth to Jesus. It says so right here.” He thumped his bible, open to the appropriate page.

“Yeah, yeah, I get that part. But the Spirit is the Holy Ghost, right? A ghost. Not a physical being at all?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, well, what I want to know then, is why wasn’t Jesus a girl?”

“WHAT!!??“

“Well, see, we learned in Biology class that it takes an XY chromosome to make a boy. All a woman has to offer in is XX. Mary’s body didn’t have the physical stuff to make a boy with. I want to know where that Y chromosome came from. If there was no physical matter involved, only ghost, Jesus should have been a girl.”

Our argument circled the drain a couple of more times. I was afraid those blue eyes were going to pop right out of that red face. He hemmed and hawed and in the end, threw his hands up, yelled at me in that thunderous, scary, fire-and-brimstone Pastor voice “YOU. JUST. HAVE. TO. BELIEVE!!!!” He cast his eyes heavenward, and lamented the crosses, like me, his ministry required he bear.

At thirteen, I was starting to have opinions and awarenesses of my own. The other people in my life I looked up to for guidance, my family and teachers, encouraged critical thinking. With childish petulance that had just discovered adolescent rebelliousness, I sassed back “I don’t have to do any such of a damn thing.” I glanced nervously at the roof, expecting a lightning bolt for cussing in church, but it didn’t come. I was on a roll. “And why would God make the world this way and then break the rules he made himself?! Huh? And then punish us for breaking rules? By burning us in hell? Why would he give me a brain and not let me use it?”

It was but a marginally more articulate version of the toddler’s ’you’re not the boss of me.’ I stomped out of his office and never went back.

That was when Christianity and I parted ways. I figured it was probably for the best, though, because my shepherd was righteously pissed off at me and it was looking like I didn’t have the makings of a very good sheep anyway.

Meaningful discourse departs from definition of terms, and I was ever so surprised, recently, when a new friend, someone I like and respect very much, asked me how I came to convert from atheism to paganism. I have never been atheist. Atheism is a negative assertion I find unsupportable either rationally or philosophically.

I asked myself that ever-so-useful question What is it like to be you? My friend is Christian, a monotheist. For her, there is only one God. If that God, her God, was not a part of the heart-thumping Presence in my life that it is, no doubt, in hers, then I don’t believe in any god at all and am atheist. This is a false equivalency in my experience as an animist pagan. From my polytheistic perspective many other gods and goddesses exist as is obvious by their manifestation in the world and in my life.

Pastor’s betrayal had destroyed the safe religious certainty of my young world. Although I was never atheist I did try very hard to be agnostic as I made my way through high school and college. I sought the certainty through science that Christianity had promised, but then denied me. I still had that innate heart-thumping sense of proximity to Presence, but found its manifestation in my studies and through experience of the living natural world as Sacred. The touch of an octopus is a profound thing, as is the insistent cheeping of a baby bird, and the waggle dance of a honeybee. A baby’s giggle. The evolution of teeth. Hummingbirds. An avalanche. The yearly resurrection of perennial plants, pushing their way up through the bodies of their dead in spring. I was still part of something vast beyond comprehension, something more important than myself. I came to know myself as a natural child of the earth, offspring of the capital-G Goddess.

By the time I ran away from home to be a ski bum after I finished my biology degree, I had surrendered to my deeply pagan nature. I was a fully-fledged animist, alive in a living world. A world in which there is no conflict between science and religion. A world in which the Sacred is natural, not supernatural. A living world suffused throughout with incarnate gods and goddesses large and small; multivalent, ever-present Deities who sing in a joyful chorus of pagan voices.

Raised by a father who did not discriminate against me because of my gender, I was ill-prepared for the battering I took at the hands of the patriarchy. By the time I had experienced personal, professional, and emotional violence at the hands of men—-men who had the god-given right to abuse me—-my feminist rage burned white hot and fierce. My righteous indignation and I became devoted worshippers of the capital-G Goddess in all her myriad guises and manifestations.

I was Element of Fire then, but flamed out. I am not an angry person by nature and fury takes a lot of work to sustain. As I grew past injured child and into thoughtful adult, I surrendered to the way gods and goddesses have made the real world, where masculine and feminine aspects of the Sacred are balanced.

Mythology is not factual. It is nonetheless an important articulation of the truth. Our truth. It shapes our world as the story of our sacred center. Mythology reveals what is important to us. It tells us who we are. It tells us how we should be, how we should behave, and why we believe as we do. It is allegory, something deeper and more meaningful than it appears on the surface. I’d like to think that, thanks to my mother’s broad-mindedness, I might have been able to appreciate the difference between truth and fact even at thirteen. But I’ll never know because Pastor didn’t trust me enough to give me a chance at it. He didn’t have the courage to let me seek my mystical truth in the mythology of the Bible or the Christ.

Jesus wasn’t male in Christian mythology because of his genetic makeup, he was male because he was a child produced by and for the patriarchy, that it might procreate itself. That’s the point of the Mary story, isn’t it? She barely had anything to do with the Incarnation, it was male begetting male, to ensure the continued hegemony of the masculine over the feminine.

Pastor offered me the only truth he had based in the only authority he knew and I forgive him for that. His book is Pastor’s proximity to Sacred. The only avenue he knows. He liberated me from the church and the book and ultimately, that was a gift I thank him for now.

My respectful new friend and I dance around each other with care and deference. Neither of us wants to risk a developing relationship by trying to convert the other or insult her religion. I write my own mythology now to celebrate that jubilant, ever-present Presence in my life. To share my joyful pagan noise, not to shame anyone else or degrade her religion.

CODA

My youthful encounter with the monotheistic God tried to teach me, through Pastor, his emissary in my life, that I had to choose. I could either be rational (I equated this with science at the time) or I could be spiritual (I equated this with religion at the time) but not both.

Science and religion speak mutually unintelligible languages.

Scientific fundamentalists demand that religion verify itself according to the scientific method in repeatable experiments in the lab. Religion cannot do this; it doesn’t work that way. Religion is a transcendent experience. It is to be touched by Mystery, by the unfathomable, by infinity. It doesn’t translate to the lab.

Monotheistic fundamentalists demand that science feel the religious Presence with the certainty they do. They think science should share the heart-thumping sense of nearness to Deity that weaves the world into Creation for them and ties all the world together. Science cannot do this; it doesn’t work that way. Science cannot accept the veracity of monotheistic religion on faith because it says so in a book.

It is an essential disconnect that reinforces what both camps preach as an impassable chasm between them.

Lack of proof is not proof of lack.

This is a call for peace, and acceptance. We are all—both the scientific and the religious—like those blind men trying to comprehend the elephant. None of the blind men were wrong about the elephant, but neither could any of them grasp enough to understand the enormity of the whole.

Little Bird

And for a brief moment, in absolute amazement, I understood that little bird in plain English...

With verve, confidence, and a pinch of frustration he said: 
Are only the most beautiful creatures the most blind?

Iʼm not sure how else can I explain this to you, but the sun itself envies the warmth of your smile.

The brightest flowers long to be as vivid as you are...
The most skilled of silk spiders use your skin as a template.

In case you havenʼt noticed, the autumn leaves themselves are teased to be carried by your tender wake.
The birds of morning follow your voice, intrigued solely by its sweetness and the tallest of trees stand taller still when youʼre there, proud to shield your delicate femininity.

How havenʼt you noticed any of this yet?
Even the fireflies dance delirious after taking in the light from your peridot green eyes!

I once heard that shooting stars are the universe’s most beautiful souls, looking for a planet that needs them. Thatʼs why they continue to streak across the sky, passing us by. We donʼt need them with you here!

The truth is you are the embodiment and contrast of light to dark, beauty to ugliness, warmth to cold... poetry and art. Thereʼs always a silver lining in the darkness if you will, except you 
ARE THE SILVER LINING!

Secret Place

On ledges of the highest peaks
Within the forest’s hidden eyes
Roaming through the winding valleys
In nature’s hands, I need no disguise

Back into the splash of ponds
Where streams of revelation sound
Back into my perfect place
Where civilization is not found

Deep ocean’s music beckons me
Back to deepened skies of blue
Back into that pleasant peace of thought
Where silence lets me think of you

In fields of gold I fathom this
Atop the peaks of windy grace
This song of silence is my escape
Into my silent secret place

The Soul of Her

How luminous her glowing hair
Vivid like the pigments of spring
How radiant gleams her emerald eyes
With depth only the oceans can bring.

How rich & tenderly her voice it sails
Straight into the chambers of the heart
How dreamily & splendid it catches you
Like an exquisite form of art.

How adoringly cultivated her garden is
To catch her essence as she ambles by
Every flower, plant, stem & grass
Fed by her spirit, reaching to the sky.

How sound & snug the critters are
To reside within her grace
For thereʼs no welfare more fond than hers
Or her nurturing embrace.

How sugared is the displaced breeze
On every patch of earth she roams
Caramelized like candy delights
Eternally flirting with your nose.

How born again, the sinning fool
Would be to meet her lips
Stirred with heroic strength and gumption
More than all of Troy’s warships.

How dignified a victor you’d be
To evoke from her a laugh
For the sun can’t shine with warmer rays
Than the passion offered from her smile’s behalf.

How earnestly all things must yield
Captivated by her dainty hands
Captured, transfixed, with verve and thrill
Blissfully into enchanted lands.

How lucky yet you’d be the man
Through her to see life’s deepest meaning
She may have the body of a woman
But she has the soul of a divine being.

Jurell Cloward, Guest Star:

I grew up in a small town in central Utah and had an idyllic childhood roaming the streets with my friends on pedal bikes. We explored every square inch of town, got into mischief, and I, at least, developed a deep sense of wonder, curiosity, and adventure.

Iʼm a handyman and jack of all trades. I love learning anything new. This love has given me a broad and diverse set of pursuits such as: creative endeavors like poetry, writing, and photography; and intellectual pursuits into psychology, the paranormal, and technology. I like antiques and collectibles; and my athletic pursuits include mountain biking and weightlifting.

I have two boys, 13 and 10. I give everything I am to them. Iʼm 39 years old as I write this. I moved to Arizona ten years ago give or take. I lived in the Florence area for some years and decided the city life wasnʼt for me, so I moved back to a small town like the one I grew up in. Williams Arizona is my current small town of choice and my dream is to buy land, homestead it, and earn full independence off the grid so I can spend my retirement in utter complete freedom and the pursuit of my varied interests.

Nothing much for today either. I was again playing with multi-threading and noticed a had a bug. The issue was that several cores were computing the result, however, because I had data races I would get a poor-quality picture. I didn't check the output image, that's why I didn't notice it yesterday. The idea is that even tho each core would do one sample, running on 8 cores would mean I have 8 samples per pixel when averaged. However, because random was shared it wouldn't do 8 samples, but some sequences would be corrupted and I get less than 8 samples. Here the code I finally ended up with:

static std::hash<std::thread::id> hasher;
static std::uniform_real_distribution<double> distribution(0.0, 1.0);

inline double random_double() {
  static thread_local std::mt19937 generator(
    static_cast<unsigned>(hasher(std::this_thread::get_id()))
  );
  return distribution(generator);
}

I have static thread_local, which says that each thread has its own random number generator. Furthermore, its constructor receives the hash of the current thread_id resulting in different seeds for each seed, so sampling on different threads would actually make sense. Nevertheless, there is a case where hash id could repeat and my threads' work would be redundant. Fortunately for my use case since I use very few threads, six on Windows, 8 on Mac (4 efficiency cores, 4 performance cores), and all threads start “at the same” it is little likely that id would repeat. On that note, I think the code I wrote that distributes the tasks to threads still looks kinda of ugly, and I can do better. For that specific purpose, I resumed reading Bjarne's book, specifically the “Threads and Tasks” section, to seek for better alternative. In the meantime, let's enjoy more renders of balls. This time in full HD, with 80 samples per pixel. Why again balls? you may ask. Because I am too lazy to write code for loading meshes and handling a ray-to-triangle intersection, but I will do it eventually, most probably tomorrow. This time the image took 25 minutes to render, which is quite good considering the other render took me 4 hours. Note the previous render was 120x675.

I have finally added the multi-threading support. A screenshot showing 100% utilization of my CPU resources: CPU Utilization on MacBook Pro 13 m1, when rendering in multi-threading mode. There was 5x improvement in speed, which is amazing considering my computer has 6 cores ( tested on windows ). That's it for today, I will share with more insight tomorrow!

I am now on a path of darkness, and no tutorial shall help me. That is, I have finished the tutorial and I am experimenting on my own, therefore there is no one to hold my hand and tell me if I am doing something right, or wrong. Speaking of someone to hold my hand, this post has been sponsored by HedgeTheHog#andranik3949, who was kind enough to help me when I was completely lost debugging my code. Wish I could say the same for the compiler... The issue was that I was trying to use std::bind, to pass to the render function a reference to my world. HedgeTheHog found The arguments to bind are copied or moved, and are never passed by reference unless wrapped in std::ref or std::cref. Therefore, a solution would be to force pass the reference with the use of std::ref, where auto f = std::bind(func, std::ref(world));, then use f();. Another workaround is to use std::placeholders::_1, where auto f = std::bind(func, std::placeholders::_1); the pass the world in function call such as f(world);. There are some other errors I have yet to battle, but I will talk about them after I find a fix. The second challenge I have to face is to somehow use local instances of random generators. “Why?” you may ask. Because, if I have several threads using the same random number generator it's gonna be a bottleneck since random generators usually maintain some type of inner state. Therefore, all of the cpu cache across all of the cores will be invalidated. Someone smart reading this may think “Aha! Just use static thread_local, instead of static”. Unfortunately, that is useless, because I would have the same seed over all instances. I need to figure out a way to have that with different seeds on each thread and without making my code super ugly. That's it for today, see you!

Today, I have spent extra hours to finish up the project. The final result looks super cool. Since I haven't yet added support for multithreading this scene took me around four hours to render. It had 500 samples per pixel, with a max depth of 50 rays. For the last day, I have added defocus blur.

I am not sure yet, what I would want to add to this project, but I will decide soon. That's it for today, see you tomorrow!

Almost done with the series! Although next step would be to add simple improvements for quality of life. Here is the list of stuff done ( again in reverse chronological order ):

Added camera controls with lookfrom and lookat parameters.
Added glass material.
Added metal material fuzziness property.
Added materials.

Yet again, below is the evolution of the output image after each major change ( in chronological order ) Fuzzy metal.

Glass Attempt.

FOV experiment

Camera controls.

Zoomed in.

That's it for today. Code is as always available in my github page. I have implemented some more stuff, but there is currently a bug, so I will leave it for tomorrow. See you!

Day 1: Starting to get my shit together

Վերջին փոստս գրելուց հետո հասկացա, թե ինչքան շատ գործ կա անելու խաղերի դիզայնի և խաղերի ծրագրավորման ոլորտը հայաֆիկացնելու համար։ Ոնց եմ ուզում հայաստանում խաղերի արդյունաբերություննը լինի բարձր մակադակի։ Ինչի՞ չենք կարա ասենք Ամերիկայի, Ճապոնիայի, Շվեդիայի կամ Լեհաստանի մակարդակի խաղեր սարքենք։ Չեմ խոսում AAA խաղերի մասին, որի վրա հազարներով մարդիկ են աշխատում, բայց են փոքր ու ապշեցնող ինդիների մասին, որ մարկետը գրավում են ու պարզվում ա երեք հոգով են սարքել։ Մենք ունենք համապատասխան մասնագետներ, լիքը ծրագրավորող, լիքը արտիս, մաթեմատիկ ու ստեղծարարներ։ Հնչյունային օպերատորներ ջան ձեր մասին չեմ մոռացել, դուք հրաշք եք~~~ Հետ գալով հայաֆիկացման խնդրին, ուզում եմ նշել, որ երբ գրում էի անցած փոստը ինձ հազիվ էի զսպում անգլերեն եզրույթները չգործածել և ի վերջո պարտվեցի։ Իրականությունը են ա, որ էդ եզրույթների համար համապատասխան բառը չկա հայերենում ու էդ խնդիր ա։ Դրա համար կոչ եմ անում բոլոր հայ խաղերի դիզայներներին, կրիտիկներին և այլոց ավելի շատ հոդվածներ գրել խաղերի մասին հայերենով, որ լեզուն զարգանա ու մարդկանց խաղերի գրագիտությունը հետը։ Բերեմ մի բառի օրինակ որ հայերենում չկա ու շատ էի ուզում թարգմանել, բայց ցավոք համապատասխան փորձառությունը թարգմանելու չունեմ, իսկ ուղիղ թարգմանությունը շատ տարօրինակ ա հնչում։ Խոսքը գնում ա “joystick” բառի մասին։ Փոստը գրելուց հետո խնդրեցի Անիին որ Դավիթ Իսաջանյանից հարցնի ոնց ինքը էդ բառը կթարգմաներ, որովհետև պարոն Իսաջանյանը այժմ իրենց “Introduction to Translation” է դասավանդում ու ստացա լաւագույն պատասխանը որը կարելի էր ակնկալել։ Ուզում եմ կիսվեմ բոլորիդ հետ ու մի գուցե կարողանաք նույն մեթոդը կիրառել ձեր թարգմանությունների մեջ

Dear Ani, 

I would definitely choose to translate the word. A calque could be a good option, խինդաձող, ժպտաձող, ցնծաձող, but I am afraid these would create unnecessary (also, somewhat naughty) associations, and as a result, people would only ridicule the word. I would therefore choose a word that does not have the kind of connotations ձող has in ordinary language, and would opt for կայմ; i.e., the (stick-like) mast of a sailing boat: հեռակայմ, խաղակայմ, ժպտակայմ, կառակայմ (կառավարման կայն), etc. 

Let me know which one you like more! 

Yours, D. I.

Խաղակայմը շատ հաւես ա հնչում, միտքը հասցնում ա ու տարօրինակ չի։ Բայց սենց պետք ա անել ամեն ինչի համար։ Հիմա լիքը հետաքրքիր թեմաներ եմ սովորում համալսարանում, չեմ կարում կիսվեմ, որովհետև հայերեն եմ ուզում գրեմ ու դժվարանում եմ։ Հուսով եմ կապրեմ են ապագայում, որ կկարողանամ հայերենով հանգիստ մտքերս արտահայտեմ խաղերի մասին խոսալուց։

#մտքեր #խաղերիդիզայն #թարգմանություն

Անցած ուրբաթ մեր համալսարանում մեկնարկեց խաղերի ջեմ պլյուսը ( անգլ.՝ game jam+ )։ Ով տեղեակ չի ինչ է խաղերի ջեմը ասեմ՝ խաղերի ջեմը սովորաբար երկու օր տևողությամբ միջոցառում է, որի ժամանակ տարբեր հեռանկարի մարդիկ հավաքվում են խաղ ստեղծելու նպատակով։ Կարևոր է նշել, որ խաղը պարտադիր չի լինի թվային ( սակայն ցանկալի է ), այլ կարելի է ստեղծել սեղանի, մտովի և ցանկացած այլ տիպի խաղ, այդ թվում նաև կենդանի գործողություններով դերախաղեր ( անգլ.՝ live action role playing game ):

Օր զրո

Ջեմը սկսեց ժամը վեցին, երբ հայտատարեցին թեմաները։ Այս անգամ մրցում էինք երեք կատեգորայում՝ ոչ ծաղիկ ոչ մոլորակ ( անգլ.՝ No Plant no Planet ), վերմակ ու ջոյստիկ ( անգլ.՝ A blanket and joystick ), վերանայել կլասիկաները ( անգ.՝ Rethink the classics ), ուրախ ժամանակ անցկանցել ( անգլ.՝ Having fun Casually ), հիմնված իրական դեպքերի վրա ( անգլ.՝ Based on real events ): Ամբողջ օրը ծախսեցինք մտքի վրա աշխատելով։ Ընտրեցինք իմ միտքը, որը շներին կերակրելու մասին էր։ Ես միտքը կտեղավորեի «ուրախ ժամանակ անցկացնել» կատեգորիայի մեջ, սակայն որոշեցինք ասել որ վերանայում ենք կլասիկաները, կլասիկան լինելով Risk of Rain 2-ը։

> Լուսանկար Risk or Rain 2 խաղից

Մտքի նկարագրությունը

Խաղը տեղի էի ունենում փոքր թաղամասում, որտեղ խաղացողին վարձել են շներին ման տալու համար։ Ման տալու ընթացքում բոլոր շները փախնում են ու սկսում են վազել քարտեզի տաբեր կողմերով, և պետք է շներից մի քանիսին հավաքել մինչև ժամանակի ավարտը, թե չէ աշխատանքից կհեռացնեն։ Խաղը իրենով երրորդ դեմքից կրակոցի է ( անգլ.՝ third person shooter ), որտեղ խաղացողը կրակում է ուտելիք շների վրա և երբ շան սովածության մակարդակը նվազում է զրոյի, նա հեզանում է և միանում խաղացողին վզակապով։ Հակրավոր է նշել, որ խաղը ունի շատ արագ ընթացք Doom Eternal-ի նման, որտեղ ճարպիկորեն պետք է շարժվել քարտեզի տարբեր մասերով և ճշգրիտ շարժումներով «կերակրել» շանը։ Խաղը ունի երեք դժվարություններ։ Առաջին, քարտեզում կան սկյուռիկներ և կատուները, որոնք փորձելու են խանգարեն խաղացողին տարբեր կերպով ժամանակը սպառելու համար։ Երբ շները կապված ենք խաղացողին, նրանք տարբեր ինտեռվալներով փորձելու են քաշեն խաղացողին դեպի իրենց կողմ, խանգարելով խաղացողին նշան բռնել և տեղաշարժվել, հարկավոր է նշել որ ինչքան շատ շուն այդքան ավելի դժվար է լինելու տեղաշարժվել։ Եվ երրոդ շները ունեն սովոծանալու հատկություն, այսինքն եթե երկար ման գաք նույն շներով, իրեքն սովոծանալու են ու էլի փախչեն։ Սակայն շներին հավաքելը ունի երկու լավ կողմ, առաջին հավաքելով տարբեր տեսակի շներ, ստանում եք տարբեր տեսակի առավելությունները ( անգլ.` buff ), օրինակ հավելյալ արագություն, կամ ավելի արագ տեմպով կերակրելու ձևեր։Նաև որոշ քանակի շներ հավաքելուց հետո, հայտնվում է հիմնական թիրախը ( չգիտեմ ոնց թարքմանեմ boss-ը այս կոնտեքստում ), որ շաաաատ մեծ ու շաաատ սոված շուն է։ Իրան կերակրելուց հետո դուք հաղթում եք։

Օր առաջին

Թմում վեց հոգի էինք։ Երեք հոգի ծրագրավորող, մեկ հարթակի դիզայներ ( անգլ.՝ level designer ), մեկ արտիստ և մի հոգի ով սկսնակ էր և փորձում էր ամեն ինչում օգնել։ Ինձ որոշեցին նշանակել, որպես lead programmer, որ համար շատ զխճում եմ, քանի որ ավելի շատ զբաղված էի մյուս ծրագրավորողներին տարբեր բաներ բացատրելով և գործերը մարդկանց մեջ բաժանելով։ Ես պետք է գրեի «ոչ խաղացող կերպարների»(անգլ.՝ Non Player Character)՝ այս դեպքում շների ,կատուների և սկյուռիկների արհեստական բանականությունը և պահվածքը, որի վրա ես ցավոք չհասցրեցի շատ աշխատել։ Որպես շարժիչ (անգլ.՝ Game Engine) որոշեցինք օգտագործել Godot-ը, որը շատ հարմար է փոքր և միջին չափի խաղեր ստեղծելու համար։ Բանականության համար գրում էի օգուտի վրա հիմնված բանականություն (անգլ.` utilty-based AI )։ Գաղափարը պարզ է և շատ էֆեկտիվ է խաղերի մեջ։ Մի քանի բառով, կերպարներին տալիս եմ մի քանի հնարավոր գործողություն, անիմաստ վազել, փախնել խաղացողից, կծել կամ ուրիշ բաներ, և ամեն մեկին տալիս եմ փոփոխական արժեք։ Ապա, կախված որ գործողությունն է տվյալ պահին ավելի արժեքավոր, կերպարը անում է կոնկրետ բան։ Ասենք եթե հեռու է խաղացողից ապա անիմաստ կվազի քարտեզով, եթե խաղացողը մոտիկանա, կփորձի փախնել և այլն։ Օրվա վերջում արդեն ունեինք մի քանի աշխատող բան որոնք պատրաստել էինք տարբեր համակարգիչների վրա և պետք է հավաքեինք իրար գլխի։

Վերջին Օր

Երկրորդ օրը արդեն կիսաքնած էինք, բայց լիքը գործ արեցինք։ Առաջին հերթին սկսեցինք բոլորի արած գործերի մի պռոյեկտի մեջ ավելացնել, որը բերեց լիքը կոնֆլիկտների, խոսքը գնում է գիթ ( անգլ.՝ git ) կոնֆլիկտների մասին։ Կոնֆլիկտները ուղղելուց շատ ժամանակ չէր մնացել, ու գնացինք խաղը ցուցադրելու վրա։ Իհարկե ոչմի տեղ չշահեցինք քանի-որ խաղը շատ կիսատ վիճակում էր և հիմնական գեյփլեյից ոչ մի հատկանշական բան դեռ չկար, բայց մենք շատ հավես ժամանակ անցկացրեցինք, իսկ ես լիքը բան սովորեցի գոդոտից և մարդկանց առաջնորդելու մասին։ Խաղը դրած է itch.io-ի էջում Hounded: Նաև կցեմ եմ փոքր հոլովակ խաղից

Unai's First Post: THIS IS A DRILL

01101000 01110100 01110100 01110000 01110011 00111010 00101111 00101111 01110111 01110111 01110111 00101110 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110100 01110101 01100010 01100101 00101110 01100011 01101111 01101101 00101111 01110111 01100001 01110100 01100011 01101000 00111111 01110110 00111101 01100100 01010001 01110111 00110100 01110111 00111001 01010111 01100111 01011000 01100011 01010001

See if this goes to fediverse.