… and I feel fine.

Written by thehouseofvines

In case it’s not clear from the posts I’ve been making this week I firmly believe in the efficacy of prayer. As an Orpheotelest I’m also down with protective charms, the healing properties of plants and stones as well as a host of customs which are not inaccurately classed as superstitions.

But I’m not a stupid man – these things work best in conjunction with pragmatic and proactive measures. “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,” as it says in the Bible.

Which is why I am frankly baffled by the response of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to our present pandemic, as reported by Kate Linthicum of the Los Angeles Times: 

“Pandemics won’t do anything to us,” he said on Monday while accusing the media and his political opponents of exaggerating the threat of the virus.

He has declined to close his borders or ban travel from particularly afflicted countries and has brazenly ignored recommendations from his own deputy health minister that Mexicans refrain from greeting each other with a customary hug and kiss.

At a large rally over the weekend, Lopez Obrador waded proudly into the crowd, kissing children and embracing supporters. He has made a show of waving off offerings of antibacterial gel. And on Wednesday, before appearing at another large event, he showcased a collection of good-luck charms that he carries with him, including Catholic scapulars and a $2 bill.

“They are my bodyguards,” he said, smiling.

This laissez-faire approach has led to increased tensions with El Salvador and other Latin American countries, with some even speculating that we could soon see armed conflict in the region.

In what is certainly unrelated news, CNN reported that a 5.7-magnitude earthquake ravaged Utah on Wednesday, dislodging the trumpet of the Angel Moroni from the iconic Latter-Day Saints Temple in Salt Lake City.

Strange behavior has also been witnessed among the world’s sea creatures.

11 thoughts on “… and I feel fine.”

  1. Well…it looks like you were right about Italy…just not the volcano. (Sadly…about “being right” and “Italy,” and not sadly about the volcano…though there’s an honesty and a straight-forwardness to a volcano which is entirely absent from the present situation, where one person’s carelessness can cause others to suffer and even die.)

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    1. Well, if (and that’s a huge motherfucking if) my books are prophecy and not just poetry a couple options present themselves. 

      1) Viruses ravage the planet before the allies of the nameless burst their bonds, setting off the various earthquakes and volcanoes and environmental catastrophes that would inevitably follow eruptions on that scale. Note the plural – there were several pandemics in Catharsis, including one that affected the brain like rabies resulting in uncontrollable bouts of violence. From what I’ve pieced together that happens about six months or so later, once it starts looking like they’ve got a handle on corona. Next come the incident in the Ukraine, and the weird shit off California’s coast, and all the funky seismic activity. Somewhere in between there’s a massive, coordinated terrorist attack in a major metropolitan area, prompting a retaliatory strike that triggers global conflict mirroring the war being waged throughout the divine realms. All of which culminates in death and rebirth on a cosmic scale. 

      2) Viruses ravage the planet instead of the allies of the nameless bursting their bonds. Something has happened to alter the timeline and as a result we’re living in a less worse world. (I’ve often wondered if this is why Hitler and the holocaust happened. If one could intervene and spare us all that, why wouldn’t they? Unless by doing so even greater atrocities are set in motion.) Of course that means that the books (and the dreams/visions that preceded them) can no longer be considered a fully accurate map of things to come, even if some events remain untouched by the ripples of that change.  

      Both of which assume I don’t just have a vivid imagination or am crazy – possibilities I regard as equally plausible, even desirable. I really don’t want to be correct, especially since my chances of starting up a polytheist commune are practically nil at this point. Though I suppose anything is possible when the Gods are involved. (And I’ve still got three books to go before the cycle is complete.)

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      1. In extinction events, there are survivors who adapt to the changing situation. There is the disaster taxa i.e. Animals that arise during the event who dominate the landscape to ensure life continues. Once the event is over, they die off and new taxa comes into being.

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      2. Well, you know, there’s things like The Man in the High Castle and such which make it possible that those alternate timelines are out there, and that the one we’re in now is, in a sense, the “least worst,” though if it is possible to view those other timelines, then it is possible to be influenced by them, etc.

        Literally, something on this very subject just came out that I watched last night…

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  3. I’ve been having very strange dreams lately too. It’s been a weird mixture of me being in France during WW II, going to a high school reunion and everyone is dressed in costumes, etc.

    Hope everyone is staying safe. <3 <3 <3

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    1. I had a weird one just now, too…Sannion, you might like this!

      It involved this present being given to me and my siblings: a Gauntlet video game (I don’t know if you remember that from the arcades in the ’80s, and then it was revived in the late ’90s on various systems and in the arcades when they still existed!), only it was live-action, and it was basically a ton of sticks and such which could then be set up into mazes (or, indeed, labyrinths!). There were various characters one could play, and my sister wanted to play Persephone. Then I turned around to look at the maze, and David Bowie as Jareth was fighting this big tree-monster that looked somewhat like Cthulhu, and was doing fairly well kicking its ass, but was taking a lot of damage himself and losing more and more of his clothes as he did so. It was then revealed that the horrible Cthulhu tree monster was, in fact, female. And things kind of drifted off at that point as I began to wake up. I’ve left out some details of lesser interest to the reading audience here, but anyway…fun stuff! Probably doesn’t mean anything…unless it does…?!?

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