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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in craft of the Wise

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

A Life in the Craft

 

The Craft isn't for everyone. For many, it's a step on the Way.

But for some of us—the lifers, bred in the bone—the Way of the Wise becomes a home. Oddly, though, a life in the Craft is a matter little addressed in the current literature.

So it is with acute pleasure that I welcome today's guest blog by my friend and colleague, Frebur Hobson of Branch and Bone, a man Wise from the ground up.

"Times fallow and fertile": weigh well his words.

 

Seasons of the Craft

A Guest Blog by Frebur Hobson

 

When we first find the Craft, it fulfills a need: a need for a home, a need to live with ways that speak to our hearts. We meet the Craft, and we see in it what we don’t have in ourselves or in our community. We see magic and romance and validation, and we are in love.

First degree.

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 Canaan Dog - Native Breed.org

“Hi: you're Caleb, right?”

I'm bartending Sunday brunch. I've never met the guy who has just sat down at my bar before, but he's the friend of a friend, and I know of him.

He gives me the generous smile of the beautiful. Hey, I get it; it's nice to be recognized. Nor am I immune: I, too, feel the gravitational pull of that attraction.

We banter a little. He's pretty full of himself, but I find myself liking him anyway. Ah, the privilege of beauty.

“Fine old Hebrew name, Caleb,” I say.

He favors me with another radiant smile. “It means 'faithful and true,'” he informs me solemnly.

Hm. Well, that may be so, but only in a derived sense: the kind of euphemistic meaning that you find in books of baby names, maybe.

I don't tell him that I know more about his name than he apparently does. I don't tell him that I speak Hebrew. (Hey, it's a fine old pagan language, with its own words for “standing stone” and “stone circle”; old enough that a name that has since become a term of abuse, originally bore a more favorable sense.) I don't tell him that his name actually means “dog.”

Sometimes the greater wisdom lies in not telling.

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

Some Thoughts on the Craft of the Wise

 

How do you know when someone is one of the Wise?

 

My friend grew up speaking Polish with his immigrant grandmother. When, as an adult, he visited Poland, he wondered if people would be able to understand him.

Oh, they understood him, all right. They also laughed hysterically whenever he said anything.

He was speaking Hillbilly Polish.

My friend, a successful professional with a PhD, laughed as he told me about this.

“I never knew we were hicks,” he said, proudly.

 

I learned Old Norse from a man named Anatoly Lieberman, one of the most brilliant linguists that I've ever met. Born in the USSR, he spoke—not read, but spoke—seventeen different languages, both ancient and modern. He came to America because no Soviet university would give him tenure, so deeply-entrenched is Russian cultural anti-Semitism.

He told me once that the quickest way to get a laugh out of a Russian is to say something in Ukrainian.

Ukrainian sounds like Hick Russian.

 

To the English-hearing ear, there's something slurred and lazy-sounding about the Slavic languages, as if the speakers can't be bothered to enunciate clearly. To my American ear, at least, Russian always sounds like English played backwards.

It's easy to make assumptions about other people based on how they sound to us.

It's rarely wise to do so.

 

When you meet someone who is absolutely confident that they've got everything figured out, you can be virtually certain—regardless of what they may call themselves—that you're not speaking with one of the Wise.

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

Some Thoughts on the Craft of the Wise

 

How do you know when someone is one of the Wise?

 

My friend grew up speaking Polish with his immigrant grandmother. When, as an adult, he visited Poland, he wondered if people would be able to understand him.

Oh, they understood him, all right. They also laughed hysterically whenever he said anything.

He was speaking Hillbilly Polish.

My friend, a successful professional with a PhD, laughed as he told me about this.

“I never knew we were hicks,” he said, proudly.

 

I learned Old Norse from a man named Anatoly Lieberman, one of the most brilliant linguists that I've ever met. Born in the USSR, he spoke—not read, but spoke—seventeen different languages, both ancient and modern. He came to America because no Soviet university would hire him, so deeply-entrenched is the anti-Semitism of Russian culture.

He once told me that the quickest way to get a laugh out of a Russian audience is to say something in Ukrainian.

To the Russian ear, Ukrainian sounds like Hick Russian.

 

To the English-hearing ear, there's something slurred and lazy-sounding about the Slavic languages, as if the speaker can't quite be bothered to enunciate clearly. To my American ear, at least, Russian—with its broad spectrum of rubbery palatalized sounds—always sounds like English played backwards.

It's easy to make assumptions about other people based on how they sound to us.

It's rarely wise to do so.

 

When you meet someone who is absolutely confident that they've got everything figured out, you can be virtually certain—regardless of what they may call themselves—that you're not speaking with one of the Wise.

Last modified on

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