The move to the new house in Hamilton is pretty well done now. I'm on Bay street, south of downtown, a stone's throw from the GO Transit station and the hospital. Not much to say about the move, except that I'm glad to have my library set up again, and to have a cup of tea at my own table, and I love this house, and I'm glad to be back on my own.

But the really interesting story to tell about the last few days happened yesterday, when for the first time in my life, I went to jail.
( Here's the story )

Everything I own is packed up in cardboard boxes, or blue recycling bins, or garbage bags, and sitting in the dining room.

Today Dad and I disassembled all my furniture and stacked it up downstairs. Then Dad made me a meal of barbecued sirloin steak, with onions and mushrooms, and with baked potatoes with a homemade butter/mayo/leek sauce. I provided the wine. This might be my last decent meal in quite some time... :-)

Now he's away, and will return in about half an hour with a van. We're going to fill it as much as we can tonight. For the next 20 minutes, I have the house to myself.

Interesting place, this house, when there's no one else home. It is as if I can hear the echoes of the last 25 years of my life.

Hey Gwen, there might be a novel in that line too. :-)

Tomorrow, my sister N arrives with her minivan and we'll pack the rest, and head down to the new house. I might not have internet for a few days, so if anyone wants to reach me, try my cell.

I have just learned that Amazon.com is now listing "The Other Side of Virtue" as In stock! The page lists the price (in US dollars) at $18.21.

The amazon page for Britain and Ireland is listing it as "usually dispatched within 1 to 3 weeks", and the price at £7.91

Amazon sites for other countries are still listing it as "not yet released". Still, this news makes me happy. It's fully three months before the posted release day.

In other news: it's T-minus two days until landing in the new digs in Hamilton!

I packed up all my books into boxes today. They are down in the dining room, ready to be moved to the new place. I've got seven blue recycling bins (five borrowed from the local post office!) with most of them; the others are in flat boxes from the farmer's market.

And now my room has five empty bookshelves. There's something ever so slightly sad about an empty bookshelf. It is like a fireplace with no fire, or a window with no view. An empty bookshelf is like a hole in space, leading to nothingness itself, and all those holes seem like they are staring at me...

Ah well. I won't have to deal with it for long. And they will look great in the new place, I'm sure. Whenever I move my books, it feels as if I'm really moving, not just going for a vacation or an extended visit to somewhere. This is going to be a good thing in the end.

Just because I haven't done one of these in ...perhaps a year and a half. I don't really believe they tell anything about the person, but they can be fun nonetheless.


Let others know a little more about yourself, repost this with your name followed by "ology".

TECHNOLOGY
Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A photo of a mediaeval street in the city of Marburg, Germany.


Q. How many televisions you have in your house?
1

BIOLOGY
Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
Right.

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
Tonsils, wisdom teeth, small piece of my small intestine.

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
My niece Aislinn.

Q. Have you ever been knocked out?
Yes.

BULLSHITOLOGY
Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
Yes. There are certain things I wish to do before I die, and if I knew the "due date" then I'd know I could get them done. (Or should that be "deadline"? Naaah, too morbid.)

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
If I get married, I might hyphenate my last name to include my wife's family name.

Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
Blue.

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item?
Yes.

DAREOLOGY
Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
Have already done it for no money at all. (what a mistake that was!)

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
No.

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000
yes.

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
oh please, I'm not that good looking.

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
At my sister's stag&doe they wanted me to drink six shots of tobasco sauce for less. Yeck!

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
No.


DUMBOLOGY
Q: What is in your left pocket?
Nothing.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
Never heard of that movie.

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
Hardwood floors all around. Some rooms have rugs.

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
What kind of stupid question is that?

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
None.

LASTOLOGY
Q: Last person who texted you?
My sister Roisin

Q: Last person who called you?
My mom.

Q: Person you hugged?
My niece Katherine.

FAVORITOLOGY
Q: Number?
1.618. The golden section.

Q: Season?
Spring.

Q: Color?
The colours of a forest.

CURRENTOLOGY
Q: Missing someone?
Yes.

Q: Mood?
Anticipation for moving to hamilton.

Q: Listening to?
Nothing.

Q: Watching?
My computer; and some cardinals and robins in the back yard.

Q: Worrying about?
whether anyone reads (let alone likes) my next book.

Q: Wearing?
Green trousers, navy blue shirt, brown slippers.


RANDOMOLOGY
Q: First place you went this morning?
the kitchen

Q: What can you not wait to do?
Move.

Q: Do you smile often?
As often as anyone.

Q: Are you a friendly person?
I try to be.

I'm feeling mighty pleased with myself today.

I have just finished the first complete edition of "How Beautiful Are They -- Some thoughts on Ethics in Celtic and European Mythology". This is the paper I've written for The Mount Haemus Award for research in a field related to Druidry.

When Philip Carr-Gomm first offered me this opportunity, I was delighted, and I began researching and writing on the topic of ancient Celtic and European virtue immediately. That was three years ago. A short essay became a long one; a long essay became a book; and that book is now published. Therefore, with six months to go before this paper was due, I suddenly realised that I couldn’t just present a summary version of the book I had written. I had to write something specifically intended for this event. Of course it's ridiculously verbose. The "assignment" called for a minimum of 5,000 words. I've just written 15,000. But, you know, philosophy cannot be taught in sound-bytes.

Bren's readers: When do we get to see it?

Bren: After the lecture, in late August. After all, I'll probably work on refining it and improving it between now and then. After I present it at the public reading, it will be available as a free download from the OBOD web site.

Bren's readers: How did you pick a title?

Bren: It comes from an old Scottish folk song in praise of the faeries. In my last trip to Ireland a friend of mine had played for me a recording of the song, and I've had it in my head ever since.

Bren's readers: What are you going to do to celebrate?

Bren: Um, I haven't thought that far ahead. But if I know my own habits, I'll probably start writing another book.

It was a good weekend. On Saturday morning we went to Victoria Park in Kitchener to participate in a community clean-up. We found all sorts of weird stuff: including clothes, shoes, used condoms and sex toys. One of the people in the clean-up party said that the area was known as a gay trolling area. Now, I'm generally in favour of sex most any place and time, but the bushes by the railroad seem to me not a very comfortable spot: what with all those sticks and twigs and rocks and things everywhere. And I'd much prefer somewhere more private.

Another thing we found was a handwritten sign, written by a homeless person, asking for handouts. "Everything helps", was its final line. It made me wonder about the story of the person who made it, and how that person became homeless, and how that person was separated from the sign. Did he or she get help? Is he or she still alive?

My lecture on "Ecology and Revelation" that afternoon was attended by about a dozen people, and went for about two hours. I sold one copy of "Mysteries of Druidry". And I got to spend time with Matt and Mandy Habermehl, who I hadn't seen or spoken to in more than a year. He recorded the lecture in audio and video, so it will be offered up as part of another future episode of Deo's Shadow Podcast. We're also planning to record an informal interview some time in the future. By the way, the thing about the lecture that made me happiest was the fact that my brother Ciaran attended! (If you're reading this, I'm glad of it.)

It's good to be reunited with friends. Matt is hard at work at his Ph.D., which is why I hadn't heard from him. (Having been through that wringer, I understand perfectly.) He and Mandy spent part of last summer staying at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand. I was very intrigued by their description of the experience, and the way it changed their lives. Now, they are part of an informal environmental awareness group called "Putting Earth Based Beliefs In Action". They seem like decent people, and I might tag along to future events of theirs this summer.

And then yesterday (Sunday) I went walking in "my forest", the Elora Gorge, for around three hours. It was more than 20 degrees, so I could finally go walking without my coat! All the trees are budding, the wild flowers beginning to bloom, the ice paths mostly melted, and there are puddles everywhere. Sometimes I busy myself by cracking up the ice, and by making channels in the soil to drain the bigger puddles into the tributary streams. I imagine that by doing these things I'm accellerating springtime. Well mathematically the effect is probably too small to measure. But it's a satisfying thought that I'm saving the Earth a bit of work.

I recently learned that the distance from downtown Elora to the low bridge in the park is 4.2 kms. That's a healthy hike! Not that I do it all at once: there are a few spots where I stop to meditate for a while. Hmmm - when I move to Hamilton I'll have to plan a new walking route, and perhaps find new meditation places in the parks. The distance from the house to Princess Point is probably the same. And that's a park I've known for many years.

So, that was my weekend. My plan for this coming week:
- Finish writing the Mt. Haemus essay,
- Find boxes for packing up my possessions, and
- start packing.

Moving day is the 2nd of May, eleven days from now!

Hello everyone,

Would you like to have an advance look into my next book, "The Other Side of Virtue"? Follow this link to the Deo's Shadow podcast, where the most recent episode is a recording of a public presentation I offered on the topic of the ancient, pre-christian, and mythological understanding of virtue. The text of this presentation comes from chapter 2 of "The Other Side of Virtue". Here's the link:

http://www.deos-shadow.com/?p=68

I was also recently interviewed by Cheryl Lynne Bradley, of TarotCanada.org. This interview covers topics relating to my writing process, my literary and artistic influences, and how and why I became a writer.

http://tarotcanada.org/BrendanMyersAuthorInterview.html

Finally, I'm happy to say that "The Other Side of Virtue" is available for pre-order from Amazon and other online retailers in Canada, the UK and the USA, and direct from the publisher, here:

http://www.o-books.com/product_info.php?products_id=504

And of course I'm planning book-release events in Montreal, and Toronto, and a few other places. I hope to see you there!

Ecology and Revelation

Exploring the spiritual significance of humanity's relationship with the Earth


Join us for an Earth day special lecture with Author Dr. Brendan Myers, after the PEBBIA meet up for the Tim Horton's Earth day clean up!

Saturday, 19th April, 2008.

10am - 12 noon: Clean-up in Victoria Park, Kitchener, Ontario

3pm - 5pm: Lecture presentation: "Ecology and Revelation"

Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo Ontario
(room and building TBA)

Many people believe that the reason to protect the Earth from pollution and from global warming is because the Earth is beautiful, and indeed that it is the source of humanity's most important spiritual experiences. But what does that really mean? If the Earth is speaking to us, and revealing spiritual truths to us, what if anything does it say? And does its message have any relevance for human social, personal, and political life? What does our response to the revelation of the Earth say about who we are? In this presentation we will go beyond the slogans of the 'activist party line' to explore the spiritual significance of humanity's relationship with the Earth.

Dr. Brendan Myers books will be available for purchase after the lecture.

More info:
http://pebbia.com

PEBBIA does not profit from this event. A voluntary contribution to help defray the costs of the event will be greatly appreciated.

The first book release party for "The Other Side of Virtue" is now set for Saturday, July 19, 2008 - at Le Melange Magique, in Montreal!

Other book release events are planned for Toronto, Ontario; Kelowna, British Columbia; and other places. Sign on to the Facebook "fan" page to receive updates:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brendan-Myers/6463709759

( More info about the book, the author, and the Montreal event )

"Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God; your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people premission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Nelson Mandela

Good news: I got a job!

I will be teaching "Philosophy, Law, and Society" at McMaster University, Hamilton, in the coming summer semester, from mid-June until the beginning of August.

( In case anyone is interested, this is my lecture plan. )

I have an announcement to make:

Moving day, to the new house in Hamilton, is now set for Thursday, 1st May!

Volunteers to help me transport my stuff would be greatly appreciated.

( Stuff includes... )

A female cardinal is trying to fly into my room. As I sit here I watch her perch on the branches of the cedar tree just outside my window, and flit from one branch to another. Six times she has tried to perch on the middle bracket of the window; once she has actually collided with the glass. Curious that: since I'm quite sure she knows I'm sitting here, watching her. We've made eye contact. But for two panes of glass in the way, we're only about a meter apart. And she's not flying away, like birds normally do when there are humans around.

Interesting. And beautiful.
I love moments like these.

I had mentioned on this LJ a few months ago that I was offered the chance to deliver OBOD's "Mount Haemus Lecture" for professional research related to Druidry. This is my thesis:

In Druidry, both ancient and modern, ethical ideas are presented not in the form of rules and laws, nor in the form of a utilitarian calculus of benefits and harms, but rather in the form of character-values. This way of thinking about ethics is known in contemporary philosophy as 'Areteology', or 'Virtue'. Furthermore, many of the most important Druidic virtues, such as honour, integrity, inspiration, strength, courage, and so on, are not only categories of ethics. They are also categories of aesthetics. We value them not just because they are right and good; we also value them because they are beautiful. I shall therefore also explore this overlap between the aesthetic and the ethical, and show how Celtic spirituality is particularly well positioned to embody a meeting place between the ethical and the aesthetic, the beautiful and the good.

Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? But let me assure you it is not! But that kind of complexity is often a good sign. A good philosophical question is rarely as easy as it appears to be on the surface. And someone who thinks he has completely understood a philosophical text after only one reading has almost certainly tricked himself. As my doctoral supervisor used to say, "Good philosophical thought is subtle."

For research resources, I've been shying away from Celtic sources. The essay may in the end have rather little to do with Druidry (except insofar as I, a modern-day Celt, doing the job of a philosopher-druid, am the one writing it!) I've been reading good ol' Aristotle again, but finding him not very helpful. I moved on to Plotinus and a few others who inherited his tradition. Better - but not as useful as I had hoped. So I moved forward a few thousand years to Hegel. Better again. But I'm also running out of time to finish the essay. I wrote about 3,000 words, six weeks ago, and then got busy with other things: job-hunting, among them. Now I've about a month left, and I feel I'm only half way there.

I want to write the very best philosophical work here. Yet I don't want to write something so esoteric that no one understands it. I am constantly reminding myself of a quote from one of my favourite philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche. In Die Frolische Wissenschaft he gives aphorism 173 of the third book the heading, ‘To be deep and to seem deep:’

To be deep and to seem deep. – He who knows himself to be deep strives for clarity; he who would like to seem deep to the masses strives to achieve obscurity. For the masses regard as deep whatever they cannot see the reason for; the masses are so fearful and go so unwillingly into the water.

In other words: if you want to be popular, strive for obscurity and complexity. If you want to be right, strive for clarity.

And that's not so easy to do.

A roundup of snowmen, courtesy of Calvin & Hobbes
( beneath the cut )

Review of Emma Restall Orr's "Living with Honour"
(O Books, April 2008)

( Read on )

I spent most of saturday afternoon in the U of G library, researching various things for the various projects I'm working on. College Royal (a kind of open-house) was in progress at the time, so the campus was crowded with teenagers and their parents checking the place out, trying to decide whether to apply here in the fall. The actual students were easy to spot: they were the ones mostly wearing pajamas, or t-shirts and sweatpants. Comfy clothes for when you just want to study in the library. Signs of spring: when the students dress like that even while there is still loads of snow on the ground outside.

The day was spent walking the book stacks, picking out what I needed, sitting cross-legged on the floor between them as I read, searching through online catalogues and indexes, downloading articles from online journals. At one point I took to a desk and began making notes. Then I looked up: outside the window I could see Massey Hall, the drama building where I first started as an undergrad at Guelph, fourteen years ago. The sight made time fold up for a moment. Much to my surprise, I found myself missing the time I worked as a sessional lecturer here. Even with all those complications: the bureocracy, the students with entitlement-pathologies, the mental fatigue after a three-hour lecture on a politically sensitive topic; nonetheless I found myself feeling a bit nostalgic. I really enjoyed being able to work on my own ideas, have access to research libraries and other resources, write about them, get taken seriously by my colleagues in the process. Signs of spring: when I start feeling nostalgic about things I used to complain about.

That evening was spent enjoying an excellent dinner in the Rum Runner, Kitchener, with long-time friends TW, his wife J, and hel_ana. TW gets annoyed when I pontificate about my books, but I ended up doing so anyway for a short while. Signs of spring: when I get out to do more social things again.

Yesterday I sent my c.v. to about a dozen universities in Ontario, to enquire about sessional work. Most of them have responded to me now, to say that I was a bit too late to apply for Summer session courses. Well, I suppose that is my own silly fault for procrastinating. But fall '08 positions will be posted in April, and now I have a list of where to look for Sessional jobs, and when. Signs of spring: the academic calendar keeps moving ahead.

And right now I'm watching two crows pull apart the ivy tresle that hangs over the back deck. They're probably building a nest somewhere. Signs of spring...

But having mentioned those signs of spring: you'll notice there's no complaints about the coldness of the winter, or how long it's lingering this year. Now I understand that we're Canadians, and that complaining about the winter is a national past-time. But we tough it out, and we deal with it. And this year's winter was really not the worst. It felt to me about on par with the kind of heavy long cold winters we had in this area when I was a lad. Not that I like it therefore; but at least I know I'm capable of surviving it. How did all those early pioneers make it through the winters -- without electricity, or oil furnaces, or fibreglass insulation in their houses, for 400 years? How did the Aboriginal people make it through the winter - for more than 50,000 years? I think that if the ancestors and predecessors who built this country could hear the complaints about the cold we've been making lately, they would growl at us for being such wimps.

I usually don't pay much attention to sports. In fact I see much professional / commercial sports as an elaborate distraction. I simply can't get interested in the NHL, no matter how hard I try.

But I just watched the final match of the Briar Cup - Canada's national curling championship. Alberta just beat my home province, Ontario. But we were beaten by such a beautiful shot, that I can't feel as if we "lost". The Alberta team now goes on to the World's, next month.

Meanwhile, Newfoundland's gold medal at the last Winter Olympic Games is still fresh in my memory.

I think I'll head down to the local curling club and see about the costs of a membership and a few lessons.