Maebius Musings

I’m on a spring cleaning kick this week at work, putting all my pens and associated junk from the desk drawers into a big box inside the drawers. Thus, not really arranging anything except a tossing out of ink-less pens, but now enabling me to clean my desk on some future job-leaving-date by simply pulling out the big boxes and going home to unpack. Quick, efficient, and surprisingly lowered my stress level a bit. (I’ve been worried about being fired, or more accurately, wanting to quit for quite some months now).

I have not moved this energetic sorting to my home yet, due mainly to evenings being “TAX TIME” with the wife, and thus any scrap of horizontal surface not covered by client receipts or paperwork is still sacrosanct “For Future Use” by Mrs Maebius.

On a particularly randomly related topic, I was amazed in my online computer game last night, how the changing dynamic of a group can severely alter the experience of said group. NOTE: Jargon ahead. I want to record this for posterity here, so you non-gamers may want to skip the rest of this post.

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A short little muse, to keep up my habit of posting regularly…

Inspired slightly by my friend Nettle and her Love post, I did a bit of meditation on Love last night, which quickly transformed topics and became a musing on the nature of Good and Evil.

I couldn’t come up with a proper definition, which tended to pop words like altruism into my head, that still neatly put the initial concept of Love on what felt like the “evil” side. Either that, or it continually crept into “Innocence”, as a primal force, and thus neutral. (Neutral=good, affective[sic]=bad?!?)

It’s complicated. I think my own preconceived connotations of the word are pretty deep, and human English is unable to properly describe the “feeling” I have when trying to describe the concepts.

Then, today, I read a World of Warcraft blog I have been following, which did a quite remarkable job of putting words onto what I tried to come up with last night. Here is the post Pondering this topic..

“Evil” has a reason. Always a reason, and many reasons. A man beating his wife always has a reason. “You’re lazy, you burned the food, you’re stupid, you never just shut up.” Evil is always trying to punish the world for not being what they want it to be. The world should be different, that’s the reason. Only good doesn’t need a reason. Why hug a child? No reason. Give to the needy? No reason, it just is.

Likewise, a quote I commented on to Nettle on her blog is as follows:

Love has no awareness of merit or demerit; it has no scale… Love loves; this is its nature.” – Howard Thurman

This…perhaps.. in some undefined and as-yet unpondered way… may be why we see all sorts of “bad stuff” (bad as defined by you, of course) which can often be rationalized as “Human Nature”.

We think, therefore we are, therefore we have Reasons, therefore….

Hmmm.

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Continued from the epic tale of The Warrior Brothers…

In the southern lands of Lititz, Pennsylvania, the sprogling named Gatorade played happily with his cousin. The pretense of names had been dropped since last weekend, as kids tend to do, but there was still great adventures in the backyard of my parents place, involving zombie squirrels and bat-men attacks.

When we were all hanging around outside, my father asked about the Crystal Dino Bone, and if the kid was still talking about it. I asked the sprogling, and was told that the kids were now after a LightSword shaped like a crystal bone. Fair enough, I figured….

Unbeknownst to me, my father took the the original Warrior Brother story to heart, and had located “an ancient bottle” buried in the yard while he was digging his garden, many many years ago. Inside this bottle was a rolled up scrap of parchment (click image for details) that appeared to be some sort of map!

The young cousins unrolled the map, and quickly realized it showed the very backyard they were playing in, with a great mysterious X near the creek at the corner of the property.

Collecting the grown ups (who, other than my father had no clue that this adventure was pre-planned) we traced out the steps of the map.

From the porch, around the small shed, then turning sharply to circle dangerously close to the water behind the large forsythia bushes. After navigating the treacherous muddy cliffs, we returned to the center of the yard, made a loop, and began our walk towards the little side fence-row garden. Zig-Zagging next to the maple tree, we then stepped sideways around a small lilac transplanted here from Everthorn Farms. Once this was done, we were mere paces away from the final destination marked on this aging scroll.

The ground around the X was overgrown with high weeds and dusty overflow-debris from the creek. At first, it appeared we might need a shovel, but the young adventurers bravely picked through the grasses until a glint of sunlight was spotted through the weeds.

The Crystal Dinosaur Bone LightSword had been found at last!

One of the boys, made the quote of the day in an almost breathless awe: “It really does exist!” after what was initially just an imaginary play-prop.

It was a fun adventure, and the finding of an actual “crystal bone” (Plexiglass) made this geek-dad smile. My father, or should I say “Pap Da Dad”, is so cool!

The rest of the day, my sprogling and his cousin carried that sword around, having quests too numerous to recount here. The LightSword gained powers in the sun, lost energy in the dirt, and had edges SO SHARP they could cut through anything that was not specially enchanted to be “lightsword proof”.

So far, I myself am not lightsword proof, so am unable to even touch the treasure. Only my wife, the sprogling, and my oldest nephew are able to do so. And even then, they must recharge their lightsword proof ability every morning after breakfast, but the details of this process are a secret to those uninitiated.

And so, the Lightsword sits now, in a special location in the kid’s play area. The map has been discarded (I pulled it back out of the trash after the kid tossed it) now that the treasure was found. He got it out this morning before school, to defeat some creature in the bathroom where I took the picture posted above.

The adventure awaiting us on next trip to Lititz? Only time will tell….

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The sun sets, casting golden-fire shadows across the landscape, and a group of friends stand huddled on their front porch, watching the growing dusk. Three of them, younger middle age (ie: myself), hold a mug of steaming coffee, or glinting goblets of wine, and the air is full of light chatter. Two others, younger, and in their late teens or early twenties, talk excitedly indoors, peering from time to time out the window, watching and waiting for some cue to be apparent.

Time passes, and the stars peek through scattered holes in a wintery sky, all but drowned out by the streetlights along this suburban block. The empty lot next to this house is ice-rimed with a scraggly onion-grass lawn, and sits in the shadows between the light, edged with a broken concrete walk. It is towards this lot that the youngsters attention is drawn, and the topic of the chatter among the others on the porch.

“You think it’s dark enough?” one asks. “You really think he’ll do it?”

“Oh, it’s no question of those two running tonight,” says the oldest woman, her hair flowing silvery-blonde in the frosty light. “We just have to watch them… Need more coffee, Nate?”

I smile.
Another flicker of time, and the dream-state is now a glorious intoxicating chase across the empty lot. The two youngsters, in jeans and a light jackets, seem somehow otherworldly, and surrounded by a nimbus glow. They glide, far faster than any mere teenager, away from the house, laughing and spinning in an almost-aerial dance, inches above the grass. I watch them carefully, smiling, and full of that magical WoW-factor inherent in such dreams, my fingers buzzing with electricity, and my voice caught in an unspoken, primal, joyous howl.

The other houses of this block are distant memories. There, yet not there, and faded to a background reflection, as the empty block becomes the entirety of the world. Only the porch-light behind us is still solid, casting the golden glow of a million fire-fly bulbs held in a perpetual moment of radiant flash. So magical seems even the humble lamp that is really there.

A car passes along the road, speeding towards some distant destination. The sweep of it’s beams, freezes the lot. For a moment, we are simply us again. Five people, bundled over-lightly against the cold, and playing in a patch of yard. Moments later, though, the shadowy otherworld returns, and we carefully watch the teens flit and frolic.

Another blink in time,and the kids have moved beyond the porch light glow. They race towards the over-far background houses, uncaring where they move. Suddenly, we elders sense a shift in mood. Panic replaces Playfulness.

I pass my mug to the Fae-lady beside me, feeling the earth grip my heels and my floating feeling shift to one of protective fury. Like a wild beast, I run, arms gripping the grass, yet never touching it. At once upright and yet strangely wolf-like, I dash toward the two. In the shifting dream-state, it all feels so real: I run, yet bound, yet step, yet pounce.
“They must keep their mind”, I think. “They Fae Glamour is intoxicating, and they are too young to reign in the rapture.”

The dream changes and I realize the dream for what it is. The wind ruffles my hair, I feel the earth between my toes, yet wear boots against the cold. It is the primal freedom I’ve not felt in dreams for years, yet familiar as riding a bike. I am dreaming, and I am awake within my sleeping.

In an instant, the two youth are approached, and they vanish in a cloud of sparkling glitter, back on the porch, and human again. I am lucid, I control the dream now, and I likewise »POOF« back to the porch, coffee mug in hand.

The boy-teen (for they were a dating couple it seems) turns to me with a sparkling cobalt eye, and winks. “Don’t worry about me”, he says with a nod towards his girlfriend “I was just showing her a bit of fun”.

The girl, her eyes glazed in a dream of their own, faded away. Back to the real world, I knew somehow. She had woken up. One of the other older women by my side likewise drifted out of my Dream, prompting the other to wander into the kitchen to begin the chores of post-party cleaning.

The boy, however, remained. We discussed some topic regarding my running. The connection of the ground, and the fur-that-was-not as I caught him. The details of which were lost as I clutched to the dream, waking unwillingly by the alarm before work.

Reality settled back in, and I was in bed, listening for the last fragments of story from my Faerie Friend. Yet, I lost them all, save a name and a blessing.

WindRiver, or something undescipherable like IXPHAERITOMTI, still bounces around my head this morning. His name, perhaps?

And the blessing: Keep looking for me. You found me once, and your son knows my cousin. Lets play again some night.

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Interesting dreams indeed!

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I made a mental note to do some actual scholarly research, but I was pondering a discussion recently about Oral traditions, Written books on Spiritual Paths, and such things. Essentially, what is the current ‘media modus operandi‘, for today’s culture and it’s relation to myth? I may be completely wrong about history and precedent, but it doesn’t sound completely false logically. I’m a bit ignorant (ie: unlearned) on the academic levels of this topic.
I am guessing that historically, faerie tales, and oral traditions of bedtime stories were the most common form of passing down myths and cultural values. Beyond the simple safety-lessons like “Don’t go in the woods or the Boogie Man will eat you”, such stories were able to pass along ideas for morality, and cultural memes.

After the age of printing, books started to replace the bedtime stories, or at least allowed them to find a common ground. Regional tales still existed, but the advent of books helped to somewhat “standardize” the most well-known stories. For better or worse, this may have introduced or sterilized some of the more potent or subtle/scary tales. Just look at what Disney has done with “the classics”.

In more modern times though, staying on the topic of passing Myths and stories to the younger generation, even books may be falling out of favor. For the youngest kids, picture books are still a decent part of learning, but more and more, I seem to see Television and Movies as the media of choice. I can’t help but feel this is a bad thing.

My own son’s imaginative play is awesome for a geeky parent like me, but visiting other kindergardeners Birthday parties, it always strikes me how commercial those kids are. Every girl, even at age 5, must MUST have a Hannah Montana thing, or High School Musical. Age five =/= High School, people.

In a similar vein, the stories of our culture are mainly passed on by movies now, I believe. The trend of either horror stories, which stand in (poorly) for the archetypal “boogie man” myths, or the comic book heroes which replace the Heroes Tale by shallow replacement of action CGI over the deeper character development. Granted, Characters still exist, but the most popular movies, and thus the ones who set the pace for future movies generally, are a much different beast from the old Grimm’s tales.

In life, unlike the movies or those old stories, not everyone wins.
I see this as a good thing.
Is this over-hyping of commercialism the new Spirituality? Are we missing the old spooky tales, and thus depriving ourselves from the deeper questions of life and accountability?

There’s much more to ponder here, and it’s a vast and complicated topic to be adressed again in part later…

Your thoughts?

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This weekend, we visited some friends of ours (and did taxes, of course). A really fun little situation-game presented itself while myself, the kid, my friend, and his 3yr old son were out at the local park running off some energy before “nap time”.

The Sprogling’s been very into making up stories recently, and games where he has an alter-ego. In the past, he’s said he was some character, but still was himself, and merely seemed to change his name. Now, he is developing entire characters, with special abilities and actual limitations,as opposed to his prior make-up-new-power-for-every-obstacle play. Of course, me as proud GeekDad is tending to encourage this RPG appreciation. We even started playing with a big 20-sided die plus some regular 6-siders in various strategic wargames. It won’t be long now until he’s ready to tabletop some classic pen-and-paper games! MwaHaHahaHa

Lately though, he is developing a world of “Warrior Brothers”. In this world of pseudo-native-american meets high-fantasy, giant rocks become monsters, trees (known as Windgazers) are spirit allies, and us human males are all a tribe of Warrior Brothers, equipped with either spell-like powers, or fun tool/weapons to use in defeating the rock-monsters. Only boys are able to be Warrior Brothers, and girls (like mom) must either stay home and be safe, or sometimes are powerful ’sorcerer princesses’ that can defeat anything with their magic, though this changes on a minute-by-minute basis it seems.

I am actually in the process of writing these ideas down in a complete LARP-style handbook, since the setting is becoming quite involved, and remains coherent across over two full weeks of playing this game when we go outside. Sticks are either wands, clubs, or ‘power staffs’ [sic]. Pinecones are bombs of various powers, depending on size. Snow and ice are harmful environmental effects that either trap you or drain your power. Patches of grass or composting piles of leaves become lava (which can heal some types of Warrior Brother), or random landscapes (ie: one particular bare spot in the yard is a pool of poison). Of particular note, oniongrass, or ‘yard chives‘ are useful as healing snacks or poison attacks depending on the target. When our mint starts to sprout in the garden, he already knows that can be brewed into a strong tea to put enemies to sleep, or “to help WindGazers grow after they are cut down”.

All details provided below are as described by my kid. We each named ourselves in a whim, and he crafted full character biographies and the list of powers and limitations each person had. He acted as DM and leader of this rag-tag band of adventurers, while we offered suggestions to how we reacted against our enemies.

(It was actually kinda neat seeing how empowering him to compromise on certain situations we refused to be railroaded into, could be used to develop social skills in the real world. Good mental note to help him work through some school-play issues.. Hmm…)

My kid is ‘Gatorade‘, who never gets thirsty, and uses a stick like a magic wand to heal, or to shoot fire. He can also use a longer walking staff as a weapon to crack open the ground and make lava explode on impact.

I am ‘IvyLeague‘, a scientist Warrior Brother with the power to control poison ivy and other plants. I can shoot vines from my hands to wrap up enemies, and use poison thorn-attacks from my own [raspberry-branch] wand. Otherwise, I’m kinda weak and rely on Gatorade for those times when big-guns are needed. (He’s so cute!)

Our friend Nate, down in PA, is known now as ‘Cheerio‘, (yes, like the cereal), who can make lightning strikes, and is able to walk on snow without getting trapped. No known weaknesses, other than being afraid of bombs, and doesn’t like Chives or mint (see above).

The 3yr old son of Cheerio, apparently keeps changing his name. It’s either Ted-Fu, or Teddi-Go-Cha, or lately, Tedichi (ted-EE-chee). He is invincible, but can’t attack anyone because he’s too small.

Our latest adventure, in the large fitness park, was to defeat a series of 4 giant rock monsters (those landscaping rocks that have little flower-gardens and mulch encircling them in a field). The first was a bomb monster, so our pinecones healed it. Eventually, it was defeated by the pine-tree windgazer nearby dropping ‘a tillion‘ needles on the monster, which pinned it to the ground so it could be smacked with Gatorade’s Staff.

Next was a poison monster surrounded by lava, so I could not use my own powers against it. This was defeated by throwing a snowball at the lava to freeze it, and once again, got smacked by Gatorade’s Staff.

Thirdly, was an ice-monster who was immune to Gatorade’s Staff, and needed to be struck by Lightning and Poison thorns at the exact same time, or it would regenerate instantly. This one took quite a few tries to defeat.

Lastly, was a giagantic dragon rock (mostly submerged, so all we saw was the fin on his back sticking up from the ground). He was immune or otherwise unaffected by all our attacks, but eventually defeated when we used a handful of crab-grass and a pidgeon feather to tickle it. This weakened it enough that Gatorade was able to find a small 2lb rock nearby that was charged with SunGazer energy (small friendly river-rocks are SunGazers). We put the small rock on top of the giant rock back, which drained all his power and turned it to inert stone. Whew, just in time too, since then it was time to leave and return home, so the Warrior Brothers could get hot cocoa.

We took the feather home, and Tedichi got to keep it in his treasure box. All in all, a really fun adventure, and one that I hope my friend completely enjoyed.

-fin-

PS: This coming weekend, The Warrior Brothers are traveling to the far-away land of Lititz, where I grew up, in search of a fabled Crystal Dinosaur Bone. Not sure how into this my nephews will be, but if such an adventure takes place, I’ll be sure to blog about it here…. I can’t wait!

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(Just a silly little poem that I was inspired to write after a horrid Monday morning, which suddenly got un-busy after lunch. I’ve seen this little critter a LOt lately, almost every day last week, and this morning one landed on my knee as I sat doing my daily business. It’s cute, and always makes me smile for some reason. Perhaps it’s a Fae-fly of some sort, since I’ve asked some other guys at work and they think I’m crazy, and never admit to any sort of fly, much less a friendly one in the men’s room at work.)

At work I sit and ponder life upon ceramic throne,
and most of the time I stop to think, I sit here quite alone.
But once a week, or sometimes two, I sense a spying eye
who watches me, through facet-face: it is the bathroom fly.

No mere house-fly, this insect friend, ’tis smaller than those kin,
his wings enlarged, his body hid, found nowhere else he’d been,
Except at work, amidst the sinks, and hidden on the walls.
This little creature pokes about, his home is in the stalls.

I smile each time I see his company, by some thought unclean,
and chuckle how this sterile work, still holds nature generally unseen.
Thus lately I seek to learn of this friend, his habits and his food,
Since even in a corporate bathroom, he brings a smiling mood.

I turned to google, and the net, to find this wing-ed being,
but “fly” is common as a search, endless results it’s seeming.
Then randomly, I typed a search, not thinking answers got a,
and discovered it’s name IS Bathroom Fly, Clogmia albipunctata.

Wikipedia link

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While the groundhog says winter will last another 6 weeks, the other day it was warm enough to melt most of the snow in our yard, and begin a raging torrent of thaw runoff in our little stream-fed pond. Granted, today it is back to being 10F and icy, but it got me pondering spring plantings and such.

Recently, I found a nifty little printout that can be used to help plan and organize your springtime plantings, or at the very least, get a rough idea of what to plant when, and hastily printed out a copy for myself on nice high-bond paper. You try to figure out the date of last frost, and each page of the pamphlet has a list of the types of plants that can be started “frost-minus #” week. So if week Zero is when the last frost hits, week -1 is when you’d have flowers and stuff in the cold frame. Week -2 has lettuce seeds going into a frame, while Week -10 (ten weeks before the last frost) you can start slow-growing things like beans indoors. It’s really really handy, and is small enough that each quarter-page simply lists a bunch of plants to plant. It can be a handy reference to put in your pocket, or synchronize to a proper “Calendar” hung on the wall.

Of course, then, as most web-browsing happens, I closed that page and moved on to other things… and can not find the cool little pamphlet to link here! D’oh!

However, I can encourage folks (and myself) that while the snows may still be swirling around the garden this time of year, it’s the perfect time to get your seed catalogs out, and organizing your garden supplies. Before you know it, it’s time to get things stuck in dirt! You’ll thank yourself later, when harvesting abundant crops!

Another nice resource, which I DID manage to copy down, is the following link about plants that you should really consider growing. The woman who writes that blog lives within an hour drive or two from me, and thus has some great advice that is locally relevant. Go check it out, and adapt things to your local climate! I plan on trying a few items she lists, which I’d never considered before, such as Rice and Amaranth.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see quite a lot of plants listed that either grow naturally around me, or are already part of our seasonal plantings.

http://sharonastyk.com/2009/02/10/20-plants-you-should-consider-growing/

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(Secret unrelated fun: sharkify!

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(Note: I’ll try to keep game-jargon to a minimum, for my non-gamer readers here, but a bit of such wording is necessary for proper flow and convenience. I’ll try to provide a Glossary at the bottom. I also tend to describe the actions of my characters in first-person or as seperate individuals depending on my mood. When I’m playing a character in the game, I roleplay that character during interactions with other player-characters. I healed ABC, She/He killed XYZ, etc. )

In my favorite online game (World of Warcraft) I have three main characters that I play fairly often. I will never be a “hardcore raider”, since I play too infrequently, and prefer to role-play rather than purely quest for experience. There’s a reason after almost 3 years of playing once a week minimum, I’m still not at the “level cap” on any of my characters. I play to unwind after work, not get epic gear.

I’ve written a few “backstories” for these characters, which are linked here, if you are interested. These stories do tend to use game-terms liberally, but I enjoyed writing them, and would love any feedback and critical reviews. Kanandi’s Story. (Also a small in-character treatise on healing via non-spell-first-aid) Nookni’s Story. Pohatu’s Story.

***

My favorite character in general is a Troll healing priest named Kanandi. My best memories (outside of purely roleplaying ones) in-game have been running with random people I’ve never really met, frantically casting heal spells towards them, while they did their best to kill the big baddies for the particular dungeons we were exploring. While healers are particularly slow to kill enemies on their own, compared to more “DPS” classes (those who do a lot of “Damage Per Second“), they survive very well if you use appropriate caution while in the wilderness alone.

Still, the strength of Kanandi is in her ability to work with groups, keeping them alive through sometimes overwhelming odds, and the fun split-second decisions needed when battles turn bad. With limited time to heal everyone, it’s a great attention-focus knowing that you must potentially ’sacrifice’ one player in order for the group to win the battle. It may be ego-stroking, but I truly enjoy the feeling of knowing I made a difference when things got tough, and am able to resurrect a fallen ally afterward. Healers ideally stand back from combat, and use their abilities to allow others to do battle safely. We support the group, in a massively important way, since a group without a healer will quickly fall. When grouped, it is extremely rare for Kanandi to even cast an offensive spell. If no one needs heals, I am conserving my mana (magic) for a big heal that may be needed in the next few seconds.

Kanandi’s personality is one of friendly generosity. I’ve spent more gold than I care to ponder on making bags or robes, buying nifty little toys, and other “vanity” items for my friends in-game. Kanandi is known as the priestess with a cheerful sense of humor, who will gladly pass on a minor gear upgrade if it doesn’t look as fancy on her, or if another person in the group can use it as a bigger upgrade to their current gear. She also likes to ‘drink’, and carries around a few “permanent use” items like a beer keg that can provide in-game drinks for everyone in the group once every 30 minutes.

***

Secondly, I have a Troll hunter named Nookni. He always talks in his ‘racial accent‘ appropriate to the game lore, which tends to generate either a chuckle or a frown from other non-roleplayers. His personality is often wicked and sharp-sarcastic, but he always helps out his friends. Nookni is the outlet for a Trickster archetype in my own personality, and has in-game been kicked out of a guild once for mocking the selfish leadership members. Yet, I’ve been told out-of-character that some people appreciate Nookni telling things as he sees them, with no holds barred. He’s a nice guy, if you look past the smack-talk, but I admit I play this personality as a sort-of outlet for my aggression or spiteful feelings.

Hunters in World of Warcraft are essentially a pure damage class. They use bows and guns to shoot enemies from range, and have tamed pet/companion animals that are sent in to do the actual in-your-face combat against enemies. Hunters can essentially not heal themselves, other than buying potions and such, so grabbing the attention of too many monsters while out alone in the wilderness usually means a trip to the spirit-healer to recover your body. Yet it is a fun and relatively easy class to solo with, due to the pet mechanics.

Nookni exists, besides being a fun roleplaying diversion, to be my “farming” character. If Kanandi needs gold, or specific items that a particular enemy can drop, Nookni is able to do the job much faster. Things die much more quickly under a Hunter’s shots, and his pet is able to start attacking the next enemy while I’m still looting the first one. Hunters get a good flow when questing, which is a wonderfully unstressful thing. Likewise, if he is grouped with others to run a dungeon, the nature of the class means my actions require little more than standing back and going PewPewPew at the enemies. Much less stressful (and thus sometimes more boring) than playing a Healer like Kanandi.

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Pohatu is a new character, who was once called Windchilde. Due to the magic of “Character Customization” (and $10), I took an unused female Tauren druid character and changed Her to a bulky Him, thus saving myself the effort of leveling another character up to lvl 30 (which would take me about three weeks). Pohatu was named by the sprogling, and sounded appropriately “Native American” to fit his race in-game. I found out afterwards that it’s the name of his favorite Bionicle character. His personality is still in flux, but he’s slowly becoming a bit of a gruff solitary type. He tends to chat often, if questions are asked about things in-game, but does not usually initiate conversations.

The neat thing about Druids, is they have the ability to shapeshift. Other than their racial form, they learn to shift into a bear, a cat, a travel-form, a water-form, and eventually at higher levels of experience, a flight form (including two optional forms: Tree_of_Life, and my reason-for-playing-one: a Moonkin, aka: Lazerchicken!).

Interestingly enough, there are three types of playstyle (and 3 places to specialize your talents) for the druid character. Each has it’s own flavor, though it is possible to switch playstyles at any time, due to the shapeshifting talents. Of course, the gear you collec,t and spells you train up mean you are MUCH better at one particular style, yet can still switch around in a pinch without visiting a trainer again. Druids are true Hybrid classes.

Restoration Druids become healers (and Trees?!), but that seemed too similar to my priest. Feral druids concentrate on bear and cat-form to do serious claw-based melee damage to enemies, though I could never get into a pure in-your-face damage class, and already had a Hunter for killing things.

The third playstyle is Balance Druids, marked by the ability to become Moonkin. Moonkin form is essentially a “caster” playstyle, where you toss lightning bolts, Moonfire, Starfire, and balls of Natural Wrath at the enemy. Think of your classic fantasy magic-user, and replace fireballs with leafy/sky-type stuff. Plus, who can resist the awesome battle-bird avatar?!!

What also interests me below the surface of the cool in-game form, is the fact that Balance Druids are somewhat of a support character. They learn a few spells that can be cast on others to “buff them”, and their other offensive abilities do things like lower an enemies armor, slow it down, or reduce it’s ability to hit you. Balance druids don’t deal massive damage (until high levels, where they step ahead of some other classes), but they assist others in doing so.

They level much slower, apparently, than Feral druids who do not rely on Mana or physical ammunition like my hunter, and simply claw and shred their way through enemies. Likewise, they are not as group-dependent as a Restoration Druid healer. They are balanced. Not too much of this, not too much of that, and it’s a slow process at lower levels until they learn most of their core abilities.

With this in mind, I found it very curious as to what this says about my own personality. I tend to avoid the types of characters that go out seeking combat, and play very defensively in groups. While I sometimes find myself in a leadership position (I’m a guildleader on Kanandi, and an officer in a different Guild with Pohatu), I don’t usually make the first moves. I encourage others to do so. I delegate, and support.

Any psychology-minded folks out there care to comment on that observation?

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Recently, our house-bunny Rupert passed on to greener pastures, thanks to a helpful boost from the vet. He’d been with us for well over 7 years, and was a constant presence in our home. It’s for the best, though, since age had begun to deteriorate his body much faster than his spirit and mind.
Since we was litter-trained, he got to run free in the upstairs, and is well known to those who visit us as a “bunny-crack-addict”. Bunny crack, of course, are these little yogurt treats, or generic cheerio-like cereals. He’d weave circles around your legs, and, if one delayed between picking up the treat-bag and handing it to him, you earned a well-intentioned nip on the ankle.

Since his passing, I’ve heard him thumping across the upstairs twice now, in a particular cadence that only house-rabbits have. (Not squirrels in the walls, etc) I’m glad he’s happier now. I’m even more glad he stops by to visit in spirit, at least until the weather warms up and he will leave to run free outdoors with the other bunny-spirits buried there.

We’ll miss him terribly though. He was the coolest bunny I ever co-owned.

…

Thus, on a completely different topic, I am taking this Full Moon to restart what most folks do in January. “New Years resolutions“, timed to coincide with Brigit’s recent feast, and the warming springtime. I’m going to get in better shape.

Physically, I should really start to become a bit more active. My sedentary job tends to create far too much flab and a weak heart. I tried doing a few sit-ups this weekend, and wimped out after 10. I remember when I could do 25 easy, as part of a larger set of “exercise” things and not be at all winded.

Mentally, I’ve had too much clutter going on. I have 186 blogs and RSS feeds in my reader, and periodically feel a sirens call to actually READ them all on a semi-daily basis. It I see a bold (new unread) entry, I feel addicted-ly obligated to at least scan it, even if it’s merely LoLcats or it’s ilk. That needs to change. I am too thinned out lately.

Spiritually, I’ve been in a funk. The trip to Disney was awesome, magical, and opened my eyes to a slightly new paradigm (see prior Faerie post), but then I crashed down in some dark post-partum depression and havn’t even noticed the phase of the moon until this weekend. On Saturday, I would have guessed late waning gibbous. But luckily last night, I felt the full pull of silver-white Clarity in the sky above me. Spiritual health (and the health of this blog) need such an awareness to continue.

So you may see more shorter postings in the next few weeks. Perhaps not as fully explained or mused deeply upon, since my goal (here) is to just to get writing, which leads to more thinking, which leads to more awareness of the world around me. This is a good thing.

With the silence around this blog lately, I realized I had been trying to come up with topics others might think interesting. I think I have about 4 regular readers here, who probably would not mind if I kept the sundry details of what I did at work, or at home, off this particular media-outlet. Those who want to know great Details about my Disney adventure, are those close enough in my life that I can call or email off-blog. I got hung up on part#2 of our vacation posting here, not wanting to mix up the order of posts in WordPress. This caused me to get hung up on not Musing at all in real life, until that post felt properly finished.
It’s a new month, a new moon cycle, a new day, and a new blog post.

I’ll just move on now, to write what’s in my head, for me.

Welcome [again] to Maebius Musing.

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