For those interested in such details, the content of latest updates, and/or improvements, will be noted on this page.  The most recent date will be noted first.

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Thursday, 8 November 2001, 7:50pm: a hectic time. The day after I made the last entry, I spent 12 hours arranging to shift my site to Earthlink (10 gigs for $19.95/mth). Everyone at Webcom, Network Solutions, & Earthlink was extremely helpful in expediting the transfer but some 11 hours into the marathan, it turned out that Earthlink's platform can't accept tildes in file names; since about 95% of my nearly 1,900 files have tildes in them, & I'd have to remove them manually, file by file, it was just impossible. I pulled the plug and returned to Webcom, planning to let the site go down for 2 weeks.

Then Monday, I learned that the parent company, Verio, had a brand new package that would give me 4 extra gigs for the same money Webcom charges. And Webcom would waive overcharges during the week+ transition time. It was win-win so I went for it & ftp-d everything 10/30. I've been tending to a million loose ends ever since (e.g., password problems; ftp glitches; Network Solutions' weird reversion to Earthlink's IP; figuring out the Urchin stat system; trying to find a way to reinstall Netscape 4.06 so I can ftp from there instead of in Netscape Gold 3.01; cleaning the registry; informing the UG of the update; "index" page vs. "home" page problems, and refreshed URLs showing my IP # instead of my domain, also had to be dealt with today; etc, etc).

On 10/31, I revised the homepage appearing on Webcom's site, explaining what was happening; I also tried to ftp the same revision (with a slight time-difference so I could tell them apart) to Verio but it refused to upload (that's before I figured out that Netscape 4.06 couldn't accept the changes because the preference DLL's are corrupted and the whole thing needs to be reinstalled); I was finally able to ftp from Gold -- I think it was Friday, 11/2, by then.

Urchin's stats alerted me to the fact that the "God's Eyebrow" image wasn't loading on the Weaving page's Africa section: I corrected this and tried to ftp it yesterday but it wouldn't accept my new password. I tried a few times today as well, and also called Verio for help -- they finally figured out the problem and now all's well. //////// Edie discovered today that my Lunar New Year page had a link to a porn site on it! -- I was shocked and angry -- yet I'm aware that this sort of thing happens when a porn site buys up an abandoned site in an attempt to snare unsuspecting surfers. Very creepy & germy. I deleted it ASAP. Will ask the UG group if anyone knows of a regulatory agency that can blackball that site.

OK, I think that's it for now. I'm hoping to find time to put up a new winter solstice page, especially since Ramadhan starts 11/17, and I've been including it in my winter seasonal lore. I'm thinking of adding a page on Rabia, but may not have time.

Thursday, 25 October 2001, 6:30pm: earlier today, added 2 links (+ a biblio link) to Medusa page, plus some minor updates. ///////////////////////// Then checked stats again -- there's no way I can make it. There are 2 weeks left in the current billing period and we should reach the 6 gig limit tomorrow or Saturday. Ready Hosting turned down the site because of its traffic so I'm still looking. I put a notice on the home page that this time we *will* go down, but will return with a new host. Exhausting.

Wednesday, 24 October 2001, 4:32am: earlier today (c. 9am) I transferred all the 11 Sept. data on my home page to its own new Index page (which I created 2 days earlier). This should simplify access. //////// Tonight/pre-dawn I've worked on the Medusa page -- checking all links and Nedstating it. For some reason, it's been getting a great deal of traffic the past few weeks -- no idea why. Nedstats may help solve the mystery. //////// Other updates: must transfer to a new host ASAP as I'm already close to 5 gigs (out of 6 allowed) with 2.5 weeks to go til the end of the next billing period. Aaaargggh.

Sunday, 21 October 2001, 9:58am: time's been blurring all week -- one night I worked all night til about 7am and then slept much of the day, and then reversed that schedule, and then did it half & half (i.e., sleeping 4 hours, then grokking Afghanistan for 4-5 hours, then more sleep, etc, etc), and now the past day or so I've tried to turn in by 1am. Afghanistan links & images seemed to keep multiplying, no matter how many hours I worked. I felt so driven, obsessed, even. It felt urgent to catch the "teaching moment" and finish it ASAP. That's all I could focus on. I finally finished Afghan I on 10/19 & Afghan II yesterday around 7pm (I split the page into two parts the 18th, I think -- check actual pages if you need date). I announced the completion on the home page around 7am this morning (eyes too blurry to do that last night). ///////// Then I took a look at the Croatian page, which is where I'd left off 9/11. I added a note to update it and decided to launch it --- there are still many links to grok but, overall, it's still in good shape. I'll start grokking again later this week or next, when I've had a chance to recover from the Afghan pages. ///////////// Small changes from this past week (check actual pages if dates needed): updated Waverly Fitzgerald's new link on the Samhain page; updated a "Nature Spirits" link on my page of the same name; added new link and annotation to Eurasia/Central Asia Portal Page (it's one I'd annotated for Afghan II yesterday until I realized it was really on Eurasia in general and there wasn't much on Afghanistan); added navigation to new p. 3 on p.2 of Creation Myths (had updated navigation on pp. 1 & 3 when I split them but just never got around to updating p.2). I think that's it. No more grokking today. Car gets its new transmission this week and I want to vacuum and wash it today to give it that "psychological advantage" for when I take it into the shop. Right now, the poor thing looks very grubby.

17 October 2001, 4:22am: the past few days I've been playing with image-compression programs in an attempt to reduce the size of my pages. Sometimes these compressions work, sometimes they create a disaster (as with my Samhain page today, but I managed to rescue it because I have a lot of redundant backups). The Afghan page, however, seems to tolerate them. I annotated more links and re-arranged the page tonight for the zillioneth time.

////// On web charges (see below): turns out the non-profit discount kicked in and the total ran about $288 with nothing forwarded to the current period after all. So that's a relief -- but I still feel gouged by those crazy rates. I need to find a host with a more generous package-plan. So far, Earthlink looks good -- so we'll see.

/////// About just pulling the website, which is what I was seriously considering when I made the last entry: I may indeed do this one day, but now probably isn't the time. It's possible, however, that the site will only be available 3 weeks out of every 4 -- everything depends upon the traffic. This issue has been quite nerve-wracking so I need to get some distance. If I can't, I'm pulling it, period. Even in writing that, however <smile>, I'm aware that I need to go gently. I do, after all, love working on this site, despite all the problems & hassles & endless e-mails.

Saturday pre-dawn, 13 October 2001, 2:28am: I've restored the home page, Creation-I, and Samhain/Halloween. I also spent quite a few hours (5 or 6) working on the Afghan page today -- found some marvelous art the other night, but the plight of the artists breaks my heart. /////// On nuts & bolts, costs were approx. $264 Thursday so I upped the limit to $280 last night. It's been jumping by about $30/day. Imagine my shock to discover that the charges finished at midnight at about $360! -- Friday was one of my slower days so I don't see how this is possible!! They've forwarded the excess charges to this next billing period. I'll call and complain Monday because something must be wrong -- how could it jump that steeply on my slowest day?! It only jumped $40 on my *busiest* day (Monday). I hope PGI gets its own server. All week I've been juggling images, paring things down, etc, etc. Traffic finished close to 9 gigs for the month (6 gigs is what I'm allotted -- they don't have anything higher unless I jump to charges of $300/month). I may need to get special software & drastically compress images, but it would take weeks to do that, one by one. At this point, I'm so tired of it all that I'm wondering if I should just let it go. What's one more website? My whole life has been reduced to either grading papers or webbing. Is it time to pull the website off the web? Funny -- that never seemed an option before, but tonight it is. This past week of juggling and gambling on stats has been too nerve-wracking. The work's endless. ////////// Enuf. Turning in.

[Thursday pre-dawn, 11 October 2001, 1:46am]: last night for 4 hours from approx. 11pm-3am, I grokked more links for the Afghan page. For every link I deleted, I added 3 or 4 more, so the work seems endless. Tonight, from 10pm-2am, I kept on grokking more Afghan links & images; enough new data has now been added that I decided to risk uploading it all (491 KB). ///////// FYI: Last night I authorized a total of $250 over-ride with Webcom so I think we'll squeak by without losing the entire site for a few days. I took the Halloween/Samhain page off-line yesterday, since its traffic was growing greatly -- I think this helped. Last spring Patrick put in extra funds for our budget for this site -- I felt that he was being too cautious -- but this fall has shown his instincts to have been accurate. Morri says PGI might be getting another server to which my huge site could be transferred; he's also researching other hosts who don't skyrocket their rates once a package limit is reached. We'll get this settled so that we don't have to risk the site again. I've gotten a number of e-mails from people who have been upset by the possible disappearance of this site -- they've come to depend on it.

[Monday, 8 October 2001, 2:05pm]: again, not publishing until 10/13 but want to keep these notes up to date. A message from a Star Wars Expert that S. sent yesterday was too lucid and strong to be ignored. So I created a page for it today and launched it a few minutes ago. I also updated the Home Page to let people know about this new page. Those two page-uploads meant I ftp-d a total of 90 KB, but charges from yesterday brought the bill up to c. $124, which is much less than I'd feared. So I felt it was worth the risk to upload those 2 pages. Today's my heaviest traffic day so I'll know better when I get today's stats whether or not the site might be able to squeak by and not vanish before 10/12. ///////// I also deleted my webcom e-mail link on the home page and put in earthlink instead. Webcom refuses to use a spam-eliminator device and I'm sick of paying extra for all the e-mail, much of it unsolicited porn, biz ideas, etc, etc., that I get through that address. Earthlink *does* filter for spam. ///////// Spoke w/our new PGI webmaster today. I was hoping some of my Webcom-hosted pages could be shifted to PGI's server until the end of this week, which would further protect my site against vanishing. He suggests changing hosts to one that's a fraction of the cost Webcom is charging us. He knows of two that don't put ads on sites -- they're low tech, but so is my site. One is only $7/month versus $50 at Webcom! So it might work. He's researching it right now. It could take 3-10 days to switch my domain over there, so I'd need to keep it on Webcom in the interim and it won't solve this billing period's problem (unless PGI ok's a higher over-limit with the understanding that we'll be saving more money once the transfer is done).

[Sunday, 7 October 2001, 9:35am]: I'll write this now but won't publish the changes until 10/13/01 in the next billing period.....I found yesterday that my site had exceeded its 6000 MB traffic limit. This month's cost, therefore, jumped from approx. $50 to approx. $85. PGI will cover up to $200 over the usual $50/month, but that could be exceeded within a matter of hours, especially once we get to Monday. So I immediately suspended my heaviest-traffic site, "Creation Myths I." (See 9/30/01 update on that page.) My home page, at c. 200 KB, gets the next heaviest traffic so today I pared it down to c. 45 KB by creating a bare-bones version of it -- with a notice at the top about what's going on. THEN, in checking my stats, I found that nearly 1500 people had hit on the animated spinning wheel from the Weaving page!! They didn't go to the page itself (which only had about a dozen hits yesterday); they went directly to the image, which tells me that some unscrupulous site is collecting "cool" animations and sending people directly to individual gifs. The animation is 10 KB times nearly 1500 people!! No wonder my site's exceeding its traffic limits! So I deleted the animation permanently. There's no other choice. I also found 2 terrific new weaving/textile/costume links (while tracking down stats on the Weaving page) so added them along with a handful of other ungrokked links to the page.

Friday pre-dawn, 4-5 October 2001, 3:16am: I've spent the past 4 hours annotating more Afghan links, and adding new ones to the pot as I discarded ineffectual ones. I feel like Psyche, sorting through the lentils, but it's worth it.

Monday pre-dawn, 1 October 2001, 2:23am: I finally found time to put up a new page, "Many Voices," a collection of writings from a wide range of sources concerning 11 September 2001.

Sunday, 30 September 2001, 2:10pm: my opening Creation Myths page has been getting a lot of traffic now that school's back in session: 150-200+ hits/day. This traffic is consistently more than any of my other pages. In addition, the page was 337 K, which is really large. Even if school children just click on the page, take a glance, and leave before it fully loads, my account at Webcom is still charged exactly the same as if all 337 K. loaded. Since this increase in traffic threatens the rest of my site (which means it might have to close down for a week or more as we near the end of the billing period in mid-October), I finally split off North & Meso America (155 K) and made a new Creation Myths Page 3 (already have a p.2). This should help with traffic, as the opening page is now only 206 K.

Saturday/Sunday, 22/23 September 2001, 1:57am: added links for NYC & "CronePapers / Mideast Notes" to top of Autumn Equinox page, since this autumn season is so full of this tragedy; also grokked one of 4 remaining ungrokked links for Autumn Equiox page. //// Then returned to Afghanistan page for more long hours of work on links & images. Many of us are truly trying to hold back "the dogs of war" a little longer, praying for a shift in consciousness, somehow.

Thursday/Friday, 20/21 September 2001, 12:26am: Tonight I grokked quite a few more Afghan links. I found some poignant folk art rugs depicting attacking helicopters, jets, & tanks from the Soviet era, so added those images; also worked on 2 proverbs sites. A somber Bush spoke tonight and gave an ultimatum to the Taliban. No matter how twisted & rotten they are, they're still humans, proud and stubborn. To offer them an ultimatum, with no discussion, is probably a 100% guarantee of invasion (as one commentator pointed out, the West once did the same to the Serbs -- and that's why WWI began). I feel heavy with grief. What kinds of rugs will the Afghans weave in the future to express their scorn of us, as they have already done of the Soviets? These leaders just don't learn.

Wednesday, 19 September 2001, 10:25pm: when I woke yesterday around 11am, it was with the perceptions that found their way into a new page: "The Crone Papers: Notes on the Mideast." I may do more essays for this new section as time goes on. Tonight, I got permission to reprint an Afghan-American's open letter, so added that to the Afghanistan page. Buried in LP's dissertation so not much time for more.

Tuesday, 18 September 2001, 3:30am: spent many more hours working on Afghan page. Also put up a new Pakistan page -- map + one image & just a handful of links ----- no time for more as I need to finish Afghanistan first but felt I needed to get something up for Pakistan too, since the two are so intertwined (link is "hot" on home page but no announcement yet). Both have such sad, bloody histories -- and now we want to add to their misery?! Good grief. What insanity.

Monday, 17 September 2001: started to organize the huge number of Afghan ungrokked links -- "hotted" them all at least.

Sunday, 16 September 2001, 4:13pm: A week or more ago I started work on an as yet unpublished Croatia page. I was still feeling such strong momentum over the Christian/Orthodox/Moslem conflicts in the region. I was working on it until the wee hours of 9/11 -- about 5am, I think. Then I turned in.

When I dragged myself out of bed around 11:30am, I checked my e-mail and discovered that something dreadful had happened in NYC, but the e-mail wasn't clear about what it was, just that prayers were needed. I turned on my TV & just stared. Was it a promo for a new sci fi movie? As the realization of what was happening broke over me, I just sobbed and sobbed and my whole body shook. The NYC-me was in total shock & the CA-me wasn't much better.

An image from a Croatian artist I'd discovered only the night before kept swimming in my head along with the beautiful Gaelic Blessing that Darielle had sent for me to forward to Tim. So around 1:30pm I created the page -- it only took about 15-20 minutes. I couldn't do anything else. I just watched TV and cried a lot and grieved all week.

Yesterday, the constant news coverage stopped. I went shopping for food, finally, and knew I needed to let Croatia rest awhile longer while I did a new page on Afghanistan. I'm deeply troubled by the nation's on-going addiction to violence (disguised under the euphemism of "justice"). I felt I needed to get solid info and images about Afghanistan's land and people out there. If we bomb the place, as we did VN and Iraq, at least I want to help give the place a face beforehand. And Americans wonder why we're hated in so many parts of the world!! Soul-making, not war-making, is what's needed now. But as always, instead of looking at our own blind spots, we're furiously projecting a twisted image of "evil-doers" on the "other," exactly as we did in Iraq & VN. A lot of us recognize the same dreary, deadly MO, but we're in the minority, at least for now. Anyway, the page is online and linked to the Eurasia page but I haven't announced it yet officially. I ned to find words that are both brief & lucid first. //////5:34pm: too tired to find words that are brief, but hopefully they're at least lucid. I just launched the page officially on the home page and shifted "Eurasia" to its own category.

5 September 2001, 3:54am: I can't let Central/Eastern Europe go yet. The region haunts me. I did some fine-tuning on the Romanian page earlier today (added a "Vampyre" link, etc). I also fine-tuned the Hungarian page although I still have a few links to add -- maybe after I get some sleep. The major new change is to my Central & Eastern Europe Portal Page: I added an expanded addendum to the opening essay and really said what I've been wanting to about educational systems that could change the tragic "stuckness" of the patriarchal West. I also brought in more history relevant to the region as a whole, and added my sudden realization of the importance to the Western psyche of both Frankenstein's monster and Dracula --- the "rightness" of those metaphors is truly eerie.

A week or more ago when I was deeply into the Hungarian material and had just realized that the women's patra is actually a world-making metaphor, a world-axis, a demarcation of liminal space, I then dreamed about a patra. I carried it in one hand -- it was white, filmy, shimmering. I wore a long, flowing white gown and felt as if I were in my 30's. It was most definitely NOT a bridal gown, nor was the patra connected with a wedding or any other patriarchal-empowering ritual. It was free of all that -- a ritual of joyous confidence and power. Other women were involved too. I was reluctant to put on the headdress lest it cause jealousy among the others. I didn't really feel I "needed" to wear it, yet I didn't want to discard it either, so I just carried it in my right hand as I moved through the landscape with the others. I felt fine as I was and not wearing the patra was no big deal. It was my choice. There was no need to make others uneasy by getting too "fancy."

At some point, I found or was given a straw hat -- a wide-brimmed hat -- the sort of thing one might have worn many decades ago when such hats were in fashion. I put the parta on the brim, and then felt that might be too cluttered. Yet in that moment, I caught sight of my reflection in a mirror, or store window, and realized that the parta had somehow merged with the hat, becoming the loveliest, flowing, elegant addition to it, utterly stunning and perfectly suited to it. Since I, personally, could care less about hats, this didn't seem to be about fashion and costume at all. The feeling was of a summery freedom and gladness, something many women haven't tasted in a long time (certainly *I* haven't! <smile>). It was an "at-one-ment" --and I awoke with a sense of its power. I was unwilling to wear the parta as a parta, ancient and hallowed. But when it was willing to morph and fuse with a more contemporary manifestation, that was fine with me.

As I write this dream, I'm aware, by the way, of the typos in the beginning of this section: patra instead of parta. In Hindu myth, the patra is the Grail-like vessel in which the Voice-Goddess, Vak, carries the elixir of life, or amrita, from the depths of the underwater realms. That too is a woman-focused myth about a world-axis. So, the words are conected imaginally, if not etymologically.

I suppose it's no wonder I can't let this material go yet. It won't let me. I think I've done my best with it, but there are still a few Hungarian links to do, and there might yet be more surprises. I work intensely on many pages but almost never dream about these lands and peoples en route. So there's a definite pull here. Enuf -- I've stayed up way too late again [4:28am] -- ::sigh::

No, one more thing: realistically, I look at that dream and think, "Terrific -- a big hat and some silly, fluffy veiling. Big deal." But the sense of the dream was really that there was something wondrous about that merger of hat and ancient veils. The ancient version had shapeshifted into something more "current" and acceptable to me in my present-day guise. It felt satisfying and deep. If "inanimate" veils could adapt so gracefully and easily to today's needs, surely much else from earlier times is capable of doing the same --- i.e., stories, intuitions, skills, ways of moving, speaking, being. And if it can work for me, it can work for others as well. I mean, it didn't feel like a private dream because I was so intertwined with the others who wore flowing gowns similar to mine -- it felt more as if I were like a carrier of something that belonged to all, or at least to women. I just didn't want to show it prematurely, and that's an appropriate caution [4:45am].

2 September 2001, 4:34pm: I hadn't realized it's been this long since I updated anything! I got sidetracked from the Autumn Equinox page when I got an e-mail complaining about the map I had on my long-neglected Hungarian page and also complaining that I'd put Hungary in E. Europe instead of Central Europe. So I added Central to my already existing Eastern section, since too many boundaries blur in that region to split my site into 3 sections: Western, Central, & Eastern. I also looked into the map-issue regarding Transylvania, which historically is indeed the cradle of Hungarian culture, despite the fact that it currently belongs to Romania.

So I decided to add Transylvania to Hungary and do a major update. Once I start such things, the momentum becomes so intense that there's nothing left over for other pages (like Autumn equinox or SW Nat. Amer.). I was also grading spring papers at the same time, so I worked for a week like a fiend in whatever time remained to me for Hungary. I re-launched the expanded site a week or so ago (check bottom of Hungary page -- it was 8/28/01).

Along the way, it became obvious that I couldn't include the Dracula lore on the Hungarian/Transylvanian page, since Vlad was Romanian, so I had to create a new Romanian page. That has taken another intense week. I launched it unofficially 8/28/01 and officially today. Now I need to tie up a few loose ends on the Autumn Equinox page -- maybe tomorrow. Enuf for today.

19 August 2001, 1:59pm: announced the revised Autumn Equinox page on my Home Page. Shifted a batch of "New" entries to the archival page from the home page, as it was getting too cluttered. In the Site Map on Home Page, deleted all "Updated," etc notices prior to 1 April 2001 (except for the handful that I'm still trying to get back to because I've left ungrokked links on them). Eager to create a new SW page out of spillover Pueblo Peoples links from autumn page, but no time or energy left (fighting a fever/cold).

18 August 2001, 3:28pm: between grading papers & teaching a marathon 3 days 8/13-15, I've had to neglect the website. But starting from 8/6, for a few hours here & there, I've been slowly working on the new Autumn Greetings & Lore page (see bottom of that page for dates as I had no time to update this page en route). I still have a half-dozen Pueblo-focused links to grok, but I finally uploaded it "officially" a few hours ago and shifted last year's page to an archival URL. I'll announce the new changes tonight or tomorrow on the Home Page. The images are almost all from Sandra's new "Sacred Corn" painting, & I love the way it turned out. /////// 7:50pm: updated the autumn links on my Wheel of the Year page.

31 July 2001, 3:29pm: the last of the broken links on the Pan Slavic page responded a few days ago and I finally took the time to update it. ///////////// On the Lammas page, since Lammas starts tomorrow (in some traditions), and more than 100 people/day have been visiting that page lately, I also took the time to update my annotation of Sig Linegren's page -- only had time to scan it last year, saw it was solid and worth putting on the page, but didn't use any quotes from it. I now have -- and am pleased. Enuf -- back to grading papers.

28 July 2001, 4:38am: made minor fonting changes on home page earlier tonight, & then spent hours checking & updating links (+ Nedstat 3.0 revision) on long Pan Slavic page. I only had 5 or 6 broken links but it's taken since 10pm til now to revise things --and I still have queries out on one of these! (And people wonder why I never have any time these days! I meant to turn in by 1am -- instead it'll be 5am --- and it never ends.)

24 July 2001, 1:41am: no time for webbing the past 2 weeks as I needed to prepare for a 3-day marathon of teaching for my summer quarter Ritual & Ceremony course, 7/20-22. Since I barely slept during this marathon and had no time to process each 8 hour day of class, it was essentially a grueling 72 hour shift. Nevertheless, mostly the course was a joy & many students told me they loved the blend of academic & experiential. Inevitably however, some students got cranky & pissy after 3 intense days. (I do understand: I did that myself as a grad student -- how I wish I could now apologize to my own professors, for being on the receiving end now, I realize how very hurtful such attitudes are to those who are truly doing their best to convey knowledge and insight to their students. It's exhausting and demoralizing to spill out heart & mind only to get trashed in thoughtlessly glib, "witty" student critiques. Professor David Miller's right: if you go to a fine French restaurant for a meal, it's hubris on your part to critique the chef who's trained for decades to prepare your meal. If you don't like it, don't trash the chef -- just accept that you're not yet sophisticated enough to appreciate it.)

Anyway, I now have 3 weeks between now and the next group. These 3 weeks require grading tons of papers from the spring quarter, but I also need to return to webbing, or I'll fall too far behind. Besides, I need the relief of webbing. I enjoy teaching but I've always been a writer first....and this website keeps that alive for me. So I nedstated the Common Themes: Sacred Dance & Theatre page tonight -- also annotated a new link on deciphering ancient dance based on a computer analysis of ancient sculpture. Added hypertext links for Carla and her Omega Dance Company. Enuf for now.

11 July 2001: Nedstated 10 pages -- I "cheated" & did only seasonal and ref. pages, since these are the easiest (they don't need tedious menu updates!).

10 July 2001, 1:31am: finished a few loose ends on Nature Spirits page and Nedstated Samhain. Hours of emails took up the rest of my time.

8 July 2001, 2:19pm: yesterday, I added 3 small Brian Froud images to the Nature Spirits page. Today, I added a 4th new link and was able to track down Richard Darsie's backup site as well as Bill Hollon's at Greenheart (which I'd thought was probably a lost cause, but Google found it). Rebecca Lehmann's Faerie Encyclopedia looks 100% dead, even on Google -- probably another example of a fine student-page biting the dust when the student graduates & loses interest ::sigh::. /////// I'm still no further ahead on Nedstating all those pages -- I dread it. I did at least get the new codings for a total of 49 pages, 9 of which have already been updated. But that still leaves 40 from that batch to do + I have another 20+ that I don't even have coding for yet. If Nedstat weren't a free service, I'd never bother with all this! <smile>

6 July 2001, 11:11pm: my intention at 4:40pm was to upgrade a few more pages wth the new Nedstat codes. I started with Nature Spirits since it's a popular page & I like to know where people are coming from. But that page has had a few major broken links for months now, plus the general menu and reference material were way out of date. So I started checking all links, tracked down a few broken ones, added 3 new ones (including, finally!, the Cyber Genie link I love!) & pulled 4 images that annoyed me because they weren't that relevant to the page anymore (that means the page will now load much faster too). It took 6 hours. I still have to track down a few more broken or questionable links, but at least I've noted these problems on the page itself, so people will be forewarned, and now I can move to other pages with a clear conscience. ///////// I didn't do anything on the Prometheus page today -- I need to get some distance. My opening essay might be too personal and I may simply pull it or else drastically revise and shorten it.

5 July 2001, 7:42pm: Late the night of 2-3 July I finally was able to return to the Fire Deities material that I abandoned 31 May 2001 (when I detoured to the Dance pages & then to the Summer Solstice page). I've been eager to do a page in the Greek section on fire-stealing Prometheus. He was originally going to go on the Fire Deities page, but I wound up with too much material (just as with Hephaestus), so wanted to give him his own page. He also turned out to have a much deeper personal relevance for me than I'd ever dreamed, which is another reason I wanted a separate page on him. So I started it 2-3 July and even uploaded the page in the wee hours, although no one can reach it as it isn't linked to anything yet (I thought I'd linked it to the Hephaestus page -- & I did -- but forgot to upload the page, and then decided not to until the Prometheus page is really complete).

July 4th I got up at 6am to get ready for the final class of the spring quarter for the G-II track. It was long & intense. Met with students afterwards, swung by Lori & Tiare's new house, but they'd just left, so I came home, so wiped out that I could barely move. Checked e-mail & watched TV. At 9pm Larry and I watched some of the fireworks from our porches -- not as dramatic as last year because the full moon made the sky too light. But still nice. Afterwards, I went back to the beach, as I had the night before, because the Green Fire bioluminesence has returned for the first time since March 1995 -- at least as far as I know! I mean, I haven't seen it since then, but others may have. It was more brilliant 7/3, as the skies were cloudy, but last night was still lovely. Many people were setting off fireworks on the beach and few seemed to notice the amazing Green Fire running through the surf! Then a bunch of young teenaged boys (probably 14-15 years old) came by -- "Look!" they said, pointing. Several were right next to me. "Yes, bioluminesence," I commented. Turns out they'd been asking everyone up and down the beach if they knew what was happening with the waves, and no one knew! (Or a group of 8-10 teens may have spooked them.) So they were amazed to finally find someone who did. They were awed by the beauty of the phenomenon. I felt like Wendy with the Lost Boys as I explained what I knew about it, and about other forms of bioluminescence used to make "glow lights" in WWII in Asia. It was very touching, actually, their eagerness to know. They taught me a few tricks too -- like scraping one's fingers through the moist sand to discover new caches of "green fire" left behind in the runnels. I haven't had so much fun in ages. If only teaching could always be so free and reciprocal!! -- without having to worry about covering what the syllabus says, or what WASC will say, or what kinds of complexes might get triggered that'll result in mean-spirited evaluations about me. ::sigh::

Came home "afire" with the fireworks, the youngsters, and that stunning Green Fire, so I naturally had to get back to Prometheus and his fire. I grokked, kept revising the opening essay, and dinked with images til 2:30am, so it turned out to be a 21 hour day. Not smart, but it was a pleasure. Today, of course, I'm paying the price. I still did more work on the page, and it's nearly done at last, but still not ready. I also repaired a broken home page link on my bio page (someone e-mailed me about it), and replaced the new floral bars on the Russian Music page with a better "greened" version (been meaning to do that for a week now).

What else? --- Yuk. Nedstat, with whom I have some 70 pages registered so I can get stats on my site, is updating their info-gathering software from 2.0 to 3.0. By tomorrow, 7/6, stats on where visitors come from will no longer be available on pages with 2.0 -- counts will still be kept, but knowing where people come from is far more interesting to me than raw counts. So I started updated my pages 7/2 with the new coding -- it took 2 hours just to do 6 pages (partly because I was also updating menus and reference data on the pages, as long as I had them open). Very tedious and slow. It's one reason I started the Prometheus page that night -- I needed a change. I have 64 more pages to go and there's no way I can complete that by tomorrow. So I'll go at my own pace, let the stats go for now, and not go crazy with all this. Enuf. Eyes very tired.

1 July 2001, 9:12pm: more loose ends -- fixed Keith's remaining 2 links a week or so ago (see below) but forgot to update *this* page, just the Air page. Today, added Pan Theatre link to home page, plus ordering info link on Emoto's book to my Water page. Switched red "new" icons on home page to rainbow ones; they look less intrusive. I also shifted March to 12 April "New" items to the archive page. Enuf -- neither time nor energy for more.

22 June 2001, 1:28am: loose ends = updated 5 of Keith's terrashare links on my Air: Sacrality & Lore page but the remaining 2 are still working at terrashare so unclear what's happening. ///////// Updated the opening Rhodes College link on Russian >> Music page. /////// 2:47am: Added 2 new links (Heal South Africa + a science link) to Summer Solstice page.

17 June 2001, approx 4pm: Zuleikha approved the additions, so I added them and announced the dance page on my home page.

16 June 2001, 1:26pm: Finished up the Summer Solstice page today, although I think I also worked on it for a day or two after the logged in date below of 6/12 [check actual page for clarification]. Finished dinking with images a few days ago and finished adding new links today (including 2 on this year's eclipse significance). /////// I've also been working on the Common Themes: Sacred Dance/Theatre page off and on for a few days --- that too is now finished, except for inserting Zuleikha's section, if she approves it (she e-mailed me a day or two ago, but hadn't seen the unlisted page yet -- I don't know why, as I did send it).

12 June 2001, Tuesday, 5:48pm: This year's essay was so difficult to write for my Summer Solstice page that I almost simply attached a brief note saying I still feel as deeply about last year's essay as ever, and so am repeating it --- which happens to be 100% true. However, the theme of the Old Ones keeps haunting me, so finally I spent part of today grappling with the essay itself. I don't know if it'll work for others or not. But it's done now, all links checked, new images added (still need to dink with the new Siberian ones), and it's online. (Note: part of the initial problem was in deciding if I wanted to focus on Mars/Hebe, or the Old Ones. I chose the Old Ones, but it was emotionally difficult to write. I'll later do a Mars/Hebe page under Greece.)

10 June 2001, Sunday, 5:16pm: 2 days ago I had only 4 links left to grok on the India Dance page, but I had no image for Manipuri dance. I therefore did a search for an image yesterday morning and found not only a wonderful image but a ton of great new links -- I wound up with an additional 17 links this way. I ditched 2 or 3, but that was still a lot to grok. I just finished. I could still add more traditions, but I've provided links to sites with "collections"of traditions and that will have to do. I still need to get back to the Common Themes Dance page, which is where all this started (but no word from Zuleikha yet -- I would never have detoured from my work on the Four Elements if it hadn't been for her! -- I assume she's on the road again and has no way to get e-mail). And then there's the Summer Solstice page to update for this year. ::sigh:: But enuf's enuf and today I need to rest.

8 June 2001, 8:13pm: in working on the Common Themes: Sacred Dance/Theatre page, I had waaaaaaay too many links on Hindu dance and realized I needed to do a separate page for them under my ASIA/India section. I started this June 6-7 in an 8 hour marathon of work from 8pm 6/6 to 4am 6/7, gathering links + dinking with tons of images. That was after teaching 8 hours on 6/6 plus meeting with a dissertation student for 2 hours after the class! A 22 hour day!!! Insane to work this way, but, as a "pixel whore," once I get started, it's hard to stop! Continued today, 6/8, grokking more links and adding more images (also revising what I started with). The page is nearly done now, I think.

4 June 2001, 10:02pm: started grokking new links for the Dance page. I didn't plan to take this detour away from my Four Elements pages, and don't plan to spend too long with new links, but all those broken links bothered me and I just don't want to leave that page in such a sorry state! E-mailed Zuleikha with an unlisted page so she can see how it looks.

3 June 2001: checked my Dance page 6/1 since I want to add Zuleikha's site to it -- it's been 2 years since I've worked on that page and many of the India links were broken. I re-organized & re-designed the page and wrote the new Zuleikha section between 6/2-3 predawn -- but I'm not adding it until I have her ok. I also checked all links that night.

31 May 2001, 1:11am: spent the past few hours reorganizing the Fire Deities page and adding new grokked links plus more ungrokked links. I still have 13 links left to grok -- but a 3-day PGI conference greatly limits my time so this may not get finished for awhile unless I can steal a few hours here & there when I get home at night.

28 May 2001, 3:38pm: I spoke a little too soon on the Earth Deities -- I switched some images, added a link and image for Gaia, used the white horse's-mane background instead of the dark, and revised my negative comments on UCAR site because I found a better link.

27 May 2001, 2:53am: expanded Air, Wind & Sky Deities page with many more links & images. That page too is now done.

26 May 2001, 1:14am: finished grokking all the Earth Deity links I added earlier today (5/25). So that page is now done, unless I find more art for it.

25 May 2001, 2:19pm: spent a few hours this morning searching for earth deity sites as well as for air & wind deities. Got some good ones. Added a dozen ungrokked ones to Earth Deities (also grokked 2 from Tempest that I had left over from last week); redesigned the page using a wonderful horsemane background.

19 May 2001, 11:09pm: added 2 new links on Horned Gods to Earth Deities page.

17 May 2001, 3:38pm: spent much of the day on the new Water Deities page (see directly below). Added a large number of links to Greek deities. Need to get more cross-cultural material now.

13 May 2001, 9:05pm: added still more links to the AIR page. I think it's probably finished now, unless something great comes up. Still dinking with menus. Created a new Water Deities page but all it has are two minimal links to Glaucos plus a great Glaucos painting.

12 May 2001, 4:32pm: yesterday I finally straightened out the Four Elements menus and updated Home page, earth, fire, air, water pages; I'll update the rest as time allows. Also deleted musical guitar symbol from Home Page and replaced it with little notes -- new symbol takes up a lot less space. //// Today: Reorganized AIR page and started adding new links; updated a link on Floods page, checked all links, & revised the menu.

10 May 2001, 12:18am: I've been backlogged grading term papers so haven't been making proper updates. So here goes: the wee hours of May 7-8 2001 I got back to my Fire Deities page and did Pele, Brigit, & Hephaestus. Since I have quite a lot of Hephaetus links, I also created a separate page for him in the Greek section of Western Europe. Both pages still need more work but they're still worth seeing at this point. ///////// Updated home page tonight and added a link in opening section for Bernard Alsina's Myth Forum. I think its a worthwhile site and hope my link helps it get off the ground. /////// 3:15am: added 2 new science links to Fire page; added 4-elements bars to all 4 "Elements" pages (from "Torrey Philemon"); trying to revise 4 Elements menu sections but spacing keeps collapsing. Enuf for tonight. Will try again when time.

29 April 2001, 4:03pm: I've been pulled in so many directions lately that I've lost track of time and only today had a chance to turn to my Beltane page. I checked all links -- fortunately, only one was dead (I hope to find its essay elsewhere). Added 3 new links near the start of the page, including an Irish one for Beltane fires-of-healing for all the slaughtered herds.

25 April 2001, 7:57pm: Updated Barbara Harrison's Templar link on Grail page (her Herbs & Alchemy link is what I'd been searching for yesterday). ///// Then turned to Alchemy page again. The page I mentioned below (on Solificati), that I'd added to Alchemy 4/22-23, I deleted today -- I just had a funny feeling about it and when I checked for "Solificati" in McLean's search engine, I got zero results. That convinced me I was probably dealing with a hoax. Then I added new links that I've been hoarding for ages, and some of those led to yet others, so the page now is finally "respectable" <smile>.

24 April 2001, 7:45pm: Forgot to mention yesterday that one of the links I was grokking for the new Fire page (on Solificati) turned out to be more about alchemy than fire, so I shifted it to the Alchemy page. I hadn't realized how minimal that page was!! I also revised my comments on the only heretofore existing link on it, which had had only minimal annotation. /////// Today, I checked links on the Burning Times page, searching for something that I guess is on another of my medieval pages; along the way, updated one link and discovered another is missing -- but there's an e-mail address so I'll try to hunt it down. Graded papers for 7 hours today -- wiped out, no time for more. Enuf.

23 April 2001, 1:44am: still no idea where the Chocolate Lore traffic came from (see last entry below) ::sigh::. Meanwhile, I'm still struggling to re-organize Common Themes so that the appropriate pages are now grouped under Four Elements. I finished WATER: Sacrality & Lore a week or two ago -- part of it was shifted from the old "Landscape Lore" page, which used to include wells, springs, and other water sources; that page is now LAND: Sacrality & Lore.

The old "Floods, Storms, Rainbows, & Other Weather Wonders" page was another jumble so yesterday I shifted parts of it to a new FIRE page, and today more parts of it went to a new AIR page. The old page is now what I originally intended it to be -- just "Floods & Rainbows," which greatly simplifies things.

I started a Fire Deities page too, tho it's mostly ungrokked links right now. I already have an Earth Deities page and a Sky Deities, but will need one for Water Deities -- probably just a basic shell to get a live link up so I can start updating all the more recent Common Themes menus -- it's tedious so I want to be sure everything fits before I mess with it.

It's been a long day shuttling between so many pages, with their tiny, differing details, creating new designs for them, and so much more. It isn't something I can drop en route. If I don't see it through, I'd have to go back over nearly every step, which could take another full day, like today. So, I just kept going, but it's been a loooooong day (I started around 10:30am). I had to get away from the crush of papers though, and at least this gives me a break & is also useful for others. /// Enuf. To bed.

19 April 2001, 3:01am: to my total shock & amazement, my Webcom stats for yesterday showed that 350+ people visited my Latin America > Chocolate History & Lore page!!! Usually that page only gets 1 or 2 hits/day so I can't imagine where all the traffic is coming from!! I Nedstated it tonight and may still get some spill-over -- enough to solve the mystery (but today's stats so far seem miniscule compared to yesterday's). I also checked all links and found that some great pages from Cadbury's & Godiva have vanished. I'm afraid that I get infuriated when companies are idiotic enough to get so "high tech" that they shut out their customer base. Cadbury's, for example, has no visible e-mail for complaints -- just a lot of silly Flash nonsense. I finally found a form and wrote an angry letter asking what they'd done with their once excellent pages. These companies get so infatuated with their whistles & bells that they forget who buys their low tech products -- I mean, producing a chocolate bar isn't exactly rocket science! A high tech product maybe warrants a high tech site, but a high tech site for chocolate bars just indicates ego-inflation on the part of some CEO. Bah. Well, today, their folly cost them those 350+ visitors who found their links dead on my page. //// I also added 2 links to that chocolate page that I've been saving for a year or more now. They, at least, still work!

14 April 2001, 5:32pm: I updated a B&B URL on the Folklore page. Also created an ikon-collage for Holy Saturday and linked it (+ further thoughts) to my "Of Cows & Madness" page. On the Earth Day page, added a Carolyn Myss forum link on foot and mouth, meat, animal death, etc that I found yesterday (someone on the forum mentioned my own page and several have visited it -- I followed the stats report back to the actual postings). By the way, the reason I'm not putting the external cow links on my essay page is because I want to keep it as an essay; since Earth Day also includes major environmental issues, they fit there perfectly. Besides, Earth Day gets more traffic than the essay so they'll have more exposure there!

12 April 2001, 1:53pm: more updates to "Earth Day" & "Of Cows & Madness" pages. Updated Common Themes menu (w/4 elements) on "Land: Sacrality & Lore" page. Will do the same for the new Water page as soon as I can figure out how to Nedstat it (they changed their whole darn system -- I vastly preferred the old one). ///// 7:28pm: figured out how to Nedstat the Water page. Added 3 last minute Easter links to Springtide page.

11-12 April 2001, 1:56am: Around 10am Monday, 4/9, my entire website vanished from the internet. I'd known since late Friday that it would probably happen since there was a sudden increase in traffic and PGI hadn't authorized enough to cover the extra charges (it was quite expensive actually -- 3 or 4 times more than the usual monthly rate; since the site has stayed well within the 6000 MB/month limit this past year, no one, including me, was expecting such a sharp increase last week). I knew the site would automatically go back up 4/13 when the next billing cycle started, but I hated for it to be down for four days during a very popular week. Unfortunately, no one could be reached over the weekend and by Monday we were in the midst of the new spring quarter and there was no way to get rapid authorization in the midst of all that craziness. So the site remained "dead" until sometime between 8-9:30pm tonight.

It's now safely up and I updated the home page to announce the new Water page (see below) as well as the Earth Day page which I just updated this evening.

What bothers me most is the way Webcom notifies visitors: those going straight to my home page got a message saying the site wasn't currently available, which is fine since people will assume the problem concerns excess traffic or technical problems that will eventually be resolved; but every other page stemming from the home page came up with an ominous "404" ---- which implies to most people that all those pages are completely dead & gone!! I hate that they did it that way -- and will complain as soon as I have a chance.

7 April 2001, 1:02pm: the artist's agent of the image I'd hoped to use for all my General Reference menus at the bottom of each page refused permission a few days ago -- I'd only put it on the China & Buddhism pages, pending permission, so I removed both. /////// Have a cold so couldn't sleep. Worked 5:30-7am splitting the water lore section from my larger Landscape Lore page; added "the four elements" theme to my Common Themes menu too. I hadn't intended to do this but a woman in Austria sent me some stunning links to water crystals, pure & impure, and I wanted to put them somewhere on my site ASAP. They're not up yet, but having the Water Lore page gives me the appropriate container. I've now uploaded both revised pages plus the home page. ///// Later: finished the new water page.

1 April 2001, 5am: launched expanded Buddhism page with announcement on Home page. (See actual page for updates between 3/25 and tonight -- I just didn't have time to update things as I went.)

25 March 2001, 8:30pm: added more links and images (including a whole new section on the Lotus Sutra) to Buddhism page.

24 March 2001, 11:36pm: Willy's server is having problems, he says -- sites are still offline. Grokked more links and added more images to Buddhism page. Been fighting off a flu since early Thursday so hard to focus on anything for very long. Enuf for tonight.

23 March 2001, 9:05pm: Willy's links at Orient Aided are all down!! No idea why, as he was really pleased with my links to him, etc., etc., and gave no hint he might be changing servers, or whatever. E-mailed him -- no answer yet. ///// Below excerpt, added an info link from S.S. to the "Of Cows & Madness" page. ////// Just grokked a few new links for the Buddhist page & sorted thru the rest of the ungrokked ones so that it'll be easier to continue.

22 March 2001, 1:24am: time's been blurring because I'm moving between 3 different pages. But let me try to get caught up here: I just finished adding 3 new links from Willy at Orient Aided to my China page (2 on tea, 1 on dragons); I think I added something to my Buddhism page over the past day, but I forget what it might have been [3/23/01: it was Willy's Kuan Yin link]. The deepest energy the past two days, since late 3/20, through much of 3/21, to the wee hours of today has gone to the "Of Cows & Madness" page (under Common Themes > Animal Guides). The situation involving the slaughter of so many animals has left me feeling devastated. And the "Bushwhacker's" latest betrayals of environmental issues in this country have only added to my depression.

20 March 2001, 12:54am: took an hour or two to redesign Buddhism page to suit the Redon "Buddha" -- tricky getting the colors right. Also added a handful of ungrokked sites.

19 March 2001, 12:17pm: added an image and Persian Norooz site to my Spring Equinox page. /////// FYI: March 17-18 (til 2am) I also did much more work on the China page -- more annotations & reorganizing. I think I only have 5 or 6 links left to grok. ////// 9:07pm: I just kept adding links to the Chinese page & spent the entire day grokking them all. It seemed endless but it's now finally finished, & I'm really pleased with the quality of the links I found.

15 March 2001, 7:20pm: reorganized several China sections & grokked a handful more of my China links; I also weeded out some that belong elsewhere (e.g., Asia portal page), or nowhere, or with images only. I think I started with 34 links today and now have 21 left. Dinked with some of the images too: re-sizing, lightening, etc. //// On Home & Awards pages, added lovely Golden Web award.

14 March 2001, 9:09pm: added 2 more links (on language) to Chinese site. Wish it weren't going so slowly, and that I didn't have so many links to grok, but c'est la vie. It remains an exciting & important page upon which to work.

9 March 2001, 2:19am: added more Chinese links, both annotated and ungrokked, 3/2, 4, 5, 8, & 8-9 (including links from my pre-crash bookmarks.)

1 March 2001, 10:06pm: added a few more links and a new image of deer to my Chinese page. Also more ungrokked links.

1 March 2001, 2:19am: worked 3 more hours adding new links (in history section) to China page. Added 2 new images too.

27-28 February 2001, 12:22am: had to redesign the China page because it was feeling too cluttered to me. The former "woodsey" background was great with the Crouching Tiger... image but didn't work well with the browns and tans of everything else. New, simpler background blends better; also dinked with bullets & bars to turn them brown; dinked w/wooden arrows to replace blue ones. Played w/font colors too. I think I have a much better "look" now.

27February 2001, 8:59pm: spent about 6 hours answering e-mail and following links; took a break for a few hours; returned to grok more Chinese links (martial arts).

25 February 2001, 2:19pm: added the new Paladin link (see below) to Artists page and Wars page and re-annotated it each time, which took time. Also added Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon link to Wars page (under my "Conclusions"). Added a new Paladin page from Lynda's site with a Chumash painting to already existing link on my Artists page of his Comments. Made minor changes here & there on those pages too -- e.g., Ref. Menu (see 2/21/01 note) to Artists page. Spent hours yesterday & today trying to find a great photo of Chow Yun-Fat from Crouching Tiger... No luck. ::sigh:: /////// 3:04pm: just added Eliz. Terzian's fine Billy Elliot review to my Artists & Muses page. Been wanting to do it for a week now (see 2/16/01), but too many detours & distractions involving other pages. Enuf for now.

23 February 2001: created new page for brief Paladin channeled material & added link to spring equinox page (Lynda gave me permission and was delighted with the results).

22 February 2001, 9:50pm: I'm keeping the same URL as last year's (because it's been Nedstated & search-engined), but tonight I switched the 2000 Spring Equinox page with the new 2001. I still need to check all links and add a few new ones but I'm getting 10-30 people/day going to that page so at least wanted to get up the new design and 2001 dates/times.

21 February 2001, 2:51am: decided today that I need to put a menu of my Reference Pages on each page to encourage visitors to use the amazing resources available to them. Since adding things to my pages is such a wonkey, page-by-page process, this is going to take time! I did 4 "Common Themes" pages tonight: Creation I & II; Tricksters; and War, Weapones, & Lies. Made minimal revisions on each page as I went. ///// On Home Page, added announcement about Pacifica's info meetings & interviews (checked w/Diane Huerta to be sure the timing was ok) -- added "around the world" instead of last year's "around the country," since we do, after all, get several students each year who commute from outside the USA, so far just from Europe, but given our location, Asian students might also find it very convenient and appealing.

20 February 2001, 12:40pm: grokked the remaining links on the Trickster page. That one's complete for now. I'm still juggling Star Lore, Music, Weaving, & Creative Impulse updates & additions.

19 February 2001, 8:53pm: added another new link to Pacifica page (C.W. Spinks' trickster link) plus a handful of new links (including Spinks' time-sensitive one for the 10/01 conference) and 3 new images to my Trickster page. Nedstated the Trickster page at last. Added a handful of ungrokked links to Trickster page too.

18 February 2001, 3:38pm: added 5 new links and updated one on my Pacifica/Jungian, etc page; Nedstated it finally, since it's actually been getting a decent amount of hits & I'd like to track them.

16 February 2001, 11:33pm: took yesterday off to see Billy Elliot, plus to go through about 8" of piled up snail-mail (which is only a fraction of what's left); took much of today off to see (twice) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But late tonight I just had to add Adrian Strong's superb essay on "The Semele Complex" to my new Wars, Weapons & Lies page. I'm so impressed with it that I gave it the page's opening section plus a specially colorized image of Semele.

14 February 2001, 3:01pm: finished updating all links on Creation I & II. On Creation II, also added 3 new links (India & Norse), one new image (Nerthus), and dinked with other images. Enuf for now <smile>....//////// 8:22pm: now added new links to both Creation I & II -- some as yet ungrokked. [Approx. 11pm-3am, finished grokking them all.]

13 February 2001, 7:28pm: Jeeni Criscenzo now has a new domain name for her jaguar-sun site so I needed to update her links on my Mexico/Maya page and also on my Creation myths page. I usually check all links when I update something, which can go swiftly (as it did for Mexico/Maya) or it can take hours, as it will for Creation myths. Unfortunately, that page, which gets a huge number of hits/day, has a handful of broken links that I now need to track down. I've noted the "pending" ones on the page, added a few images and/or other changes, and now need to start e-mailing webmasters for URL updates. ::sigh::

11 February 2001, 9:42pm: added the FAS link to the new War & Weapons page plus a long Jungian digression on the 4 types; slight revisions to end-comments too -- and fixed red walking dragon link at the page's bottom.

10 February 2001, 9:12pm: Earth-plane distress? Turn to the stars! So I've spent part of the day on Starlore again -- annotating 10 or 11 new sites. Added another 10 ungrokked ones. Enuf -- drained, though also excited by a "Big Dipper" Vedic site based on Kuiper's work.

Pre-dawn 10 February 2001, 4:43am: can't sleep. My body's still in shock over the loss of those craggy little trees (see below) -- I've known them a quarter of a century; in less than 30 minutes, they were gone. I seem to be grieving on a cellular level, not just for the trees, but for so much else on earth. More & more friends and colleagues speak of feeling a similar distress -- it's "in the air," as they say. (Complicating it, of course, is a deep depression over being "bushwhacked" in Florida & the Supreme Court.) Anyway, after tossing and turning, I got up and worked on the Starlore page: reorganizing it, adding 2 indigenous images (after playing with their color balances earlier today), grokking a Navajo/Pueblo essay. Now I'll try & sleep again.

9 February 2001, 2:49pm: today I turned to the yesterday's companion page, Artists & Muses: The Creative Impulse, and added the David Paladin link I've been wanting to add for ages. I also added additional art, including two "thumbnails" within my text which, hopefully, will lure people into reading it all. It took lot of time negativizing and playing with tons of color alterations, so I'm out of time for any more webbing. Eyes swollen from sobbing too -- today, ironically the day after Tu B'Shvat, the Birthday of the Trees, the little gnarly trees across the street were all chopped down by the city. No hearings were held. Nothing. Some neighborhood council & home owners assoc. engineered it. Those of us who rent directly across the street from the little trees and who are most immediately affected by their loss were never even notified. When I heard the buzzsaws, I rushed out but the crews were already "doing their job." The guys were nice enough but there was nothing they could do. One gave me the phone number of his office so I called in a frantic attempt to halt things but it was already too late. The woman in charge was off today; her boss was in a meeting. By the time I hung up, the trees were all slain. I walked among their limbs just sobbing my heart out. Indoors, I finally calmed down enough to do a very long, but simple, earthwise "spinning ritual," trying to send their spirits safely back through the space/time continuum to the primeval forests of millennia ago. Surely, tree spirits aren't safe in the future -- but in the deep-past they are. Not being psychic, I don't know if the ritual worked. If it did, wish I could follow. ::sigh:: At least I'm going to write the misguided yuppies who engineered this dismal day and make them aware of their lack of consideration for the people most affected. I've been here since late 1976 -- and those runty little trees have been here even longer. They weren't sick or diseased or weak. They grew in beach sand and required very little water. They were sturdy, windblown lifeforms who'd survived beautifully this close to the Pacific. They were wild, not "pretty," and I suppose the yuppie home owners were offended by their lack of elegance as they drove past them in their BMWs. But they shouldn't have had to die like this. Enuf. I'm sick of the hypocrisy of bushwacking political types, sick of computers, webbing, trying to make a difference, and sick of people whose brains are cobbled together from missing parts. The horror is that the kind of cosmetically-inclined mentality that can selfishly, thoughtlessly order the removal of all the trees from a 6 block stretch along the highway is the same kind of mentality that can wheel and deal in depleted uranium weapons. They have no ability to connect the dots. They serve death, not life.

8 February 2001, 2:56pm: have been working for several days (since very late 2/5-6/01) on a new page on "War, Weapons, & Lies: The Dehumanizing Impulse," a companion page to my Christmas Day page.  I had no intention of doing this page now but when Sandra sent me 2 Emperor's New Clothes' links, the whole thing just came together & I've been working on it ever since.  Launched it about 30 minutes ago.  Uploaded revised homepage to reflect this, also archived some "New" items from home page, also archived last year's Updates.  Fighting off a flu & now need to rest.

5 February 2001, 8:54pm: Michael McLay's URL changed so I updated the Star Lore page with the new one; also added some relevant links to my own pages; further, added a handful of ungrokked links that I hope to get to soon. //// Changed the background on the Centaur page because when I replaced my 13" monitor with a 17" in mid-December, I could see better and realized that the original background was terribly drab. So I dinked with another one and now I'm pleased. No time for more -- drowning in e-mails.

31 January 2001, 12:50pm: just spent about 3 hours updating Imbolc/Candlemas page, since tonight is Imbolc Eve -- that's really cutting it close but I've had no time to do this until today!

17 January 2001, 1:24pm: about a half hour ago I uploaded the new Asian Lunar Near page to reflect the fact that eff. 1/24 it'll be the year of the Metal Snake.  I shifted the Dragon Year of 2000-2001 to a new URL.  Why?  Because the current URL has been getting huge numbers of hits the past few weeks!! -- over 250 some days [FYI: on 12/31/00, my stats show a whooping 426 people visited the page!!].  So at least all those folks will continue to go to the same page but with revised data now; those specifically seeking info on the Dragon Year can follow its new link.  Announced this on Home Page, plus made a few revisions there; shifted October links to New Archives page too.  I'm so swamped these days with other projects that I hadn't intended to do the Lunar Year page yet, but it comes earlier than usual this year, and when I saw all the people going there, I knew I needed to make it accurate.  Took about 3.5 hours -- no time for more.

15 January 2001, 10:58am: in 2 hours the new quarter begins for me with the Folklore class for 1st year students. Since my Folklore page may come up in class, I just read through it and discovered a few typos in the Baltic version of Cinderella; also made 2 minor clarifications elsewhere & changed a topic heading slightly.

12 January 2001, 11:27pm: added 3 long overdue links to my Pacifica/Jungian page -- Dianne's book, finally! + Laura Shamas' excellent Headline Muse (FYI: both Dianne & Laura are already listed elsewhere on my site) & Jenifer Altenhoff's Greek page(part of her Ph.D. project which she defends on Monday, so I wanted it listed beforehand -- its navigation seems a tad wonkey though, or maybe it's my old browser). No time for more -- still finishing up sci fi ms, plus I teach 8 hr. class Monday & need to prepare. I'm sooooo behind with this website!!

Christmas 2000: I had no plans to do anything on my website today but, unexpectedly, a new page emerged as I lay in bed mentally running through my inventory of trimmings to put on my tree today. I want more male presence: Green Men, wizards, Father Christmases, etc. But none of my mounted knights. Why? Because war and violence, in my humble opinion, should exist only as dramatic "seasoning," if you will, for books, bardic poetry, and other forms of art. Just as we don't really fly on magic carpets or turn into frogs or sleep for a century to be awakened by a prince's kiss or travel in 7 league boots, so too we shouldn't really kill and oppress people, except in stories. However, the drama of war and violence got literalized at some point in human history and now too many people accept this as "human nature." So no knights on my tree because they represent one intense literalization of what should have remained "fantasy." Suddenly, out of that line of thinking, along with seeds of light in the dark, etc, etc (I explain all that on the new page), a page emerged out of the blue. I was so excited about creating it that I jumped out of bed (so to speak) and began. It's in my Common Themes, East & West section: Artists & Muses: The Creative Impulse.

21 December 2000, solstice, 10:24am: Dianne finally sent me her text 12/19/00 on meditative oracular exercises (I'd wanted it for a new "Holiday Blues" section on my Winter Greetings page). I created Dianne's page that same night and uploaded it with all navigation updated on her other 2 "book" pages; took 2.5 hours so no time to add it to my winter page--besides, I wanted to be sure she liked the art, etc. before I went public. She phoned yesterday to say she loves it (we're both crazy about the opening image), so I meant to add it to my site yesterday afternoon. However, much of my energy is currently going to re-doing my sci fi manuscript (on my new 17" monitor -- what a difference from the old 13" I've used all these years!!) + a frenzy of house-cleaning, so I just ran out of steam. Today, I made the new "Holiday Blues" section with Dianne's link plus 2 more great ones (including Laura Shamas'); negativized an image for it; added a new link near the page's beginning on why no snowflake is like any other (love it!); added a Moscow Nativity scene to the 12/25 entry; and restored the 1999 Kwanzaa image I prefer (see below under 12/6/00). Then, since my 1999 page is still getting more traffic than this year's, I re-did my 2000 announcement on the 1999 page & changed the text's color so people will see it more easily. Also changed the font color on the 2000 page announcing the "companion" Yuletide page. I think that covers today's webbing work. So to get ready for the solstice ritual tonight <smile>.

6 December 2000, 9:36am: several people over these many months have commented on the "Greensleeves" music on my home page, either saying they loved it but it increased the page's load-time too much, or else they wanted to be able to turn it off long before the controls at the bottom of the page had finished loading. Two more people tactfully said something along these lines at the Portland workshop. So today I removed it from the home page and shifted it, at least temporarily, to the Mythic Shopping page. I love that music and consider it one of my "signature pieces," but so be it <smile>. /////// 2:30pm: checked a few more things on the Winter Greetings 2000: to my surprise, 2 of the Ramadan links are still broken: I'd assumed they'd be up and running for 11/27! -- I'm still keeping my annotations for them but I changed the font color of my "dead link" notification. Also, the image for Kwanzaa from last year's page is one I love but it's always seemed too dark, despite my efforts at tweeking its color values; so I finally replaced it with another one that I think will work much better, although I still prefer the other one's artistic values (FYI: the other remains on my 1999 Winter page).

5 December 2000: made a few revisons in the Sarah/Haggar portion at the top of my Greetings 2000 page. Someone had e-mailed me the day before to ask why I was saying "men bad, women good," which is actually the opposite of what I was saying! Sarah's ancient jealousy and Haggar's betrayal and victimization are, in my view, the hidden mythos behind all the violence. Women, after all, raise those sons we see fighting in all the newscasts. So I changed some of the wording to make this clearer.

4 December 2000, 10:45pm: back from Portland workshop tonight and checked a few stats (saving buildup of 62 e-mails for tomorrow). Realized I needed to add a link to my 2000 Yuletide Greetings at the top of 1999's Yuletide Greetings page. Oddly enough, last year's is getting sometimes 2 times more/day than this year's because search engines haven't updated the URL! Sigh.

18 November 2000, 10:22am: 3 links needed to be updated on the GreenMan page -- Keith H. had alerted me to one of them ages ago but I have such a huge pile of updates, broken links, pending link changes, etc, etc that it *does* take me forever to get to them. Today I decided it was time to do the Green Man's; I checked all links too. I'm surprised that I never Netstated that page -- will do so soon as I'm curious to know how much traffic it gets. I also want to add a Green Man map, but need to scan it first. //////// 1:05pm: Nedstated & added 3 new links to the Green Man page -- since 2 are Green Man items for sale, also put them on my Mythic Shopping page. Larry's scanning the map -- hopefully, it'll go on later. Updated homepage & tweeked misc. things there.

16 November 2000, 2:56pm: added an addendum to my 11/13 entry (below) on Keith H's influence on my doing the Centaur page. Annotated two new links for the Folklore page -- seems to me I did one yesterday too that I forgot to mention in this log (I date the annotations so it's easy enuf to check: -- later, 8:51pm: it was during the day on 11/14, not 11/15 -- time blurs these days <smile>). /////// Retitled "Cross-Cultural Yuletide Links" page to "Yuletide Around the World," which sounds much more appealing -- made appropriate changes to the actual page + Winter Greetings 2000 (where I also added a personal addendum to 11/25, St. Catherine of Alexandria's entry) + Home page. Ooops, I'll need to check Wheel of the Year page too as I bet I have it there as well (or if I don't, I should, so can add it then). /////// Updated Wheel of Year -- added the new link -- had indeed forgotten it. ///////// 8:51pm: finished the last of the annotations for the Fairy Tale & Folklore page, so it's done, relief!! -- at least until new links appear to be grokked! I really needed to finish this for my first year students in the upcoming winter quarter --some great new links though & a pleasure to do.