Dear Ones —

Thank you for reading Bone Courage. This project is ended.

I welcome you to continue the journey with me into _Silent Terrain, field notes from the contemplative way. _ 🙏🏼_ ian_

I know now what I was never meant to know.

I would trade it. All of it. Without hesitation.

Knowing the way home isn’t the same as being there.

Some things cannot be replaced by understanding. Some absences are not illuminated by truth, just composed of it.

The exiles among you will know what I mean.

I miss you. Terribly.

#Intermundia

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By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

I’ve been eating giant French fries off the air fryer. I could’ve pictured myself a dwarf or a halfling when eating them, but I didn’t. It’s an opportunity missed

I drank half a bottle no more of champagne

But it might’ve been a small bottle, and regular French fries, only I was the halfling all along

And now we’re watching terminator 2

And even though I’ve not seen it in a long time, i know it well, I know what they’re gonna say

And the soundtrack is very good too, very cool

And beware: this is the path we’re on

with Skynet

It’ll be worse before it gets better just take one for breadth

Spread your wings and fly

I thick I know what I’ll tattoo:

— A butterfly

Someone at the conference took a jab at TRANSCENDENCE, a film I had never heard of and thus decided to watch despite its horrendous ratings.

I quite enjoyed it! It does falter terribly in the third act, but its first half is pretty darn good. It is almost certainly every delusional techno-optimist's wet dream; It isn't hard to picture our feudal tech overlords frothing at the mouth through most of it (it's even got a 2-second cameo of Musk). But, there is something there.

In other news, Xi Jinping landed in Egypt yesterday, a visit that was much publicized and can likely be taken as a clue of what's to come. Interesting times.

#radar #film

Before I got on IG to scroll this morning, there was August. And this August brought a series of events from the women in my life so strangely coincidental to make me think that the astrology girlies were right all along — sometimes there’s something up with the moon.

The summer presented itself without warning or fanfare. Lazy spring days turned slowly warmer, until one day, Sarah sent me a message.

I had met her months earlier, at the bar I frequent. But on this particular night, just one day after the solstice, a new season began — not of summer, but of her. I didn’t know then what it would bring, but we’d spend it growing closer until we were inseparable, going around the city, enjoying each other. The sun would rise on any given day, and we’d still be awake to see it. It would set, and we’d search for each other among the bustle of the streets and our lives.

Then August came, and with it, shifting winds. On the day of the total solar eclipse, I had just returned from a trip. We were in each others arms, as we always were. And then a few nights later, another missive. The changing of the season.

We had gotten too close to keep the fear at bay any longer. Fear that we might not be enough for the other. Fear that we still have so much to do alone.

But on this same fateful night, I got a call out of the blue from an acquaintance. A playwright and bartender I hadn’t spoken to since May, when we had chatted over mussels and lunch beers about writing. I missed her call, and responded to her text, but never heard back why she was calling.

Earlier in the day, I also got a text from a woman I’d taken out on a friendly date back in March. I was the backup plan, in case her real date stood her up. He had ghosted her, and we had a lovely time. But on this day, she messaged to let me know he broke it off with his ex, and was right back in her DMs. We chit-chatted after all that time apart, and it was pleasant.

…

Two days went by, and my heart was aching. As my emotions waxed with the moon, in came another shock — a message from Jessica, the girlfriend I’d broken up with last August.

This was brought on by Ashe, the woman I had cheated on Jessica with. Ashe had somehow found her, and now Jessica was telling me about it. I owned up to Jess and apologized. I was truly sorry — she was a good woman, and I had been a careless asshole with her heart. Now, she was also an innocent bystander in the wake of whatever agitations the moon had put into Ashe.

As I expected, Ashe reached out directly to me a day later. We hadn’t talked since March, and she had a larger falling out with our friend group in May. I had assumed we parted each other’s lives fine.

But by this point, I couldn’t take the waves this season was throwing at me. It seemed cosmic — all these events happening around the same time, when the seas of life are otherwise calm.

So maybe it’s true that, as the content creators say, eclipse season blows open all that can no longer be held in. Or maybe life is entirely coincidental, and all the decisions you make, good and bad, may one day come to find you under a full moon.