Not All Private Voices Presage Madness

Some people's inner voices are smarter and more eloquent than others...

Muses, Madmen, and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science, and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination by Daniel B. Smith is a brisk and compelling read.  Smith has a gift for making an ancient story current and a complex story accessible.  There's more to say on this but I'm behind schedule on a couple things...

 

Prayers to Broken Stones

Winter solstice is darker and more desperate this year...

 

The great stones stacked by our Neolithic ancestors mark the moment.  Death presses hard upon us.  The bereft wrestle with theodicy, faces numb and streaked with tears.  The sun returns but offers little warmth.  Prayers go unanswered.  The cosmos unfolds faster than light.  We scarcely notice.

The phrase, prayers to broken stones, comes from the title of a fine and sad anthology of fiction and horror by Dan Simmons.