13.5 lives

during certain times my hebephrenic mind takes off on tangents and visits places i've never used for decades. the consideration of figuring i've been here before and will be here again begs verification from some higher source. until the sixth century the church believed in resurrection/renewed life and even spoke to the reappearance of john the baptist/elijah, whatever that means. then the roman emperor justinian issued an edict that you couldn't think that way. i know that i'm not given to sacred thoughts much but getting older makes one think about what comes next... are we really able to think independently or must we lockstep everything with political winds?

The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear is a 1999 fantasy novel by german writer and cartoonist walter moers, which details the numerous lives of a human-sized bear with blue fur. many of the creatures encountered by bluebear in the novel are taken from myths, folktales, prehistory, and moers' imagination, among them gryphons, maenads, trolls, yetis, and pterodactyls. nearing the end of the novel, the mythical city of Atlantis disappears from earth, an event witnessed by bluebear. the book follows the adventures of the character bluebear in the first half of his 27 lives. the novel intersperses bluebear’s narrative with excerpts from The Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs by Professor Abdullah Nightingale, who bacterially transmits it into bluebears brain.

how very much moers was like irish author c.s. "jack" lewis, who was first influenced by j.r.r. tolkien and g.k. chesterton, who went from atheism to the church of england; and in "narnia" assigned qualities to animals. lewis drew much of his early work from the icelandic sagas. lewis died on the same day as aldous huxley and jack kennedy (just a sidelight). there is so much to think about before we get it right. i keep turning corners and finding threads that connect everything.

i know i've not made the best of what i've been given to date, but have to guess there may always be tomorrow... unless my fragile mind takes flight without my body...