# Living the myth: starting a regular journal of Middle-earth actions



## Desert Loon (Apr 11, 2019)

Some of the deepest meanings for me of Tolkien's works have to do with his motivation in bringing them forth: rather than merely titillating fantasy, his stories of Middle Earth especially were written in search and service of myth, and myth is in its purest form a way to shape our lives.

There are a couple of Tolkien YouTube channels I have enjoyed, whose creators like to bring the stories to life in small ways: Happy Hobbit and Dunedain Rangers. I know it's hard to keep producing videos on this kind of thing, but as I mentioned, the meaning of the stories for me has a lot to do with imagining how life could be - more meaningful, more "merrier" . . . _enchanted_.

And so I'm starting this thread with this intent: "upon a clumsy loom / weave tissues gilded by the far-off day / hoped and believed in under Shadow's sway." Every day, or as near as possible I intend to report on something I did that was in keeping with the spirit of myth or enchantment, or just Hobbitish. And I welcome any who want to join me.

So here we go:

This morning I made breakfast from scratch (pancakes from leftover mashed potatoes), and polished a walking stick I have been working on for a while, made from a tree limb I found and cut last summer.

And although I'm a long way away from being fit to be a ranger, I do have a daily morning practice of meditation and have started daily morning exercise.


----------



## Desert Loon (Apr 13, 2019)

And I missed a day. Well I'm here now.

Today I worked in my garden, moving some tomato starts into a cold frame and starting to prepare some of the soil for tomato plants when they're bigger. Not much, but at least it was something.


----------



## Desert Loon (Apr 17, 2019)

Today I finished a walking stick - like a shillelagh, I call it my kebbie stick (the Scottish version of a shillelagh, since my Scottish ancestors are more numerous and recent than my Irish). I took it on a little walk in the mountains.


----------



## Desert Loon (Apr 29, 2019)

As long as I keep adding to this with some regularity I'm not going to berate myself for not doing it daily.
Yesterday I ate a first and second breakfast. And last week I took a hike with a relative, along the Bonneville Shoreline trail in the Wasatch range, talking about spirituality and ecology. I also planted tomatoes.


----------



## Ithilethiel (May 1, 2019)

Desert Loon said:


> As long as I keep adding to this with some regularity I'm not going to berate myself for not doing it daily.
> Yesterday I ate a first and second breakfast. And last week I took a hike with a relative, along the Bonneville Shoreline trail in the Wasatch range, talking about spirituality and ecology. I also planted tomatoes.



I don't think you have to do a unique ME action every day. For me, it's more a ME frame of mind one settles into where everything has a sort of ME bent. A way of existing in the world, of thinking and seeing things. Sounds as if you are doing that very thing!


----------



## Desert Loon (May 4, 2019)

Thanks Ithilethiel. Checking in for today:
This morning I planted more tomatoes, including *Brandywine*, then I ground up some corn (Painted Mountain) that I'd grown last year and made pancakes with it.


----------



## Desert Loon (May 20, 2019)

Checking in.
This evening I had a nice visit with a sister and her family: they live in a very cozy old house, and we had a very bountiful and sumptuous supper after which we played games and sat on squishy sofas with a cat and talked. A very hobbitish evening.


----------



## Desert Loon (Jun 6, 2019)

Checking in again. Last night I roasted some barley over one of my homemade woodgas stoves, then ground it with my Corona corn mill. The resulting meal is called tsampa in Tibet, where it is one of the main staples. Mix it up with butter and just enough hot water to form into little nuggets - that's what I had for breakfast this morning.

This week I went on a hike with my brother to the top of Grandeur Peak, a mountain overlooking Salt Lake City. We talked about religion and spirituality, including Tolkien and the mythic imagination. Here, have some pictures.


----------



## Desert Loon (Jun 17, 2019)

I've been getting back into more outdoor cooking lately. Last week I did blue corn pancakes and rice pilaf on a wood gas stove I had built out of cans. You can see a video of it here:


----------



## Desert Loon (Oct 24, 2019)

I did not intend to go so long without visiting or posting.
This autumn I've filled with fruit and feasting: garden tomatoes (all picked and ripening indoors now, frost killed the plants), squash, apples; and pears, peaches and plums from the local fruit stands. If that wasn't enough, my next door neighbors told me to help myself to their walnut tree, so I'm perpetually behind on food processing tasks - like husking the walnuts to keep them from getting too bitter. Last year I gathered walnuts from all over (we have many trees in this area, and they're criminally under-harvested), this year I've been tired and maybe depressed, anyway lacking energy and it's felt like I've worked harder to get less done. Even so, I have walnuts for the winter ahead.


----------

