In my memories of this time, the Franklin Institute is a strangely bare and echoey place of learning and wandering, a true “Institute“ of hard surfaces and high ceilings and placards. three key landmarks especially stuck with me: a giant pendulum hanging down from the ceiling of a stairwell, a clockwork display of balls rolling along tracks, and a scaled up model of a human heart that we could walk through.
Alongside the dominant religions with all their baggage, there’s something on the margins, especially suited for the independent and curious and eccentric. Libraries have books about the faerie folk, and bookstores have tarot decks, and open-air markets have stalls with astrological diagrams. I think this is how many of us discover something like a decision point, or a chosen family, in our spiritual journey.
She didn’t need to study the spell in a grimoire, or learn it from a back-alley conjurer… she had it in herself already, and she found it easily enough.
For most of my formative years, I only knew the whole garden called Philadelphia by one single flower: the block of Arch Street between 10th and 11th. This was the location of the Trocadero theater, iconic Philly punk venue, and a sacred landmark in the little part of forever that I’ve tended.
I’ve just finished the Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters. Here is a brief reflection on that journey, and a call-out to one of my favorites in the collection, the poem of William Goode — he who seemed “to go this way and that way, aimlessly.”
There is nothing like going through your old Internet stuff to trigger some contemplation about impermanence… and maybe also some theories on the nature of the universe as artifact, held together by the Gorilla Glue of fate.
Poetry is shameless. Poetry is obscure. Poetry is fine with this.
Perhaps poetry is *pretentious,* but please don’t call it that. That framing feels unfair, somehow.
If you are reading this, and you are not just a future version of me doing some navel-gazing, then thank you for taking a moment. It is for me, but it is also for you.