Mosaic New Year

According to R4 this morning, 8 tons of fireworks were let off from the 7 hills of Edinburgh last night, and 100,000 people thronged the city centre. Brrr... Heather, Reekie the collie and I saw all 7 hills' pyrotechnics from the middle of a muddy field in Dalkeith, from which we could also see private local fireworks let off in Morningside, Musselburgh and the Kingdom of Fife. Eight minutes of pure magic at midnight. Kids' dad has a superstitious attachment to New Year, and with permission stole them off for the bells. But that meant kids were my first footers, of which there can be no better.

At sunset tonight we were in Comiston looking west to a roseate sky. 'Blessed art thou, oh Lord our God, King of the Universe' Dad intones in Hebrew, wearing his fedora hat to deflect the wrath of G-d, blessed is his name. Dad uses the yellow 'shammas' candle to light the other eight candles on the menorah, selected in rainbow colours by Mum, before it's placed in the window to deter dybbuks. No one knows for sure if YHWH sees my dear son Dodo (not Jewish according to the rule), but just in case S/He might, Dodo puts up the hood on his Romero 'Dawn of the Dead' hoodie. You can't be too safe. We females- mum, Nini and me- are of course invisible to G-d, which means we can carry on in a manner denied to the males. We get to fight over the last of griddled latkes with apple sauce.

Over the 'holidays' as we're encouraged to inclusively name them, my reading enthusiasm has been for the theocritic Karen Armstrong, rediscovered in the Canongate 'Mythology' series. She helps open religion to the scientist, and as an old fart I happen to remember her early Channel 4 videobox diatribe against St Paul, from without a convent environment. She's profoundly profoundly feminist, but describes herself not as a lesbian (as crudely conjectured) but as a 'failed heterosexual', a description empathic for me.

Karen Armstrong bibliography:
A Short History of Myth
Spiral Staircase
A History Of God