Asakiyume mita

There's a weathervane perched on the tip of the steeple of the Congregational Church in town--I thought at first it was a skeletal fish, but maybe it's just a decorative arrow.... but maybe it is a fish, swimming in the sky ocean.

The birds are not sea birds. Maybe they perch on the fish-arrow the way savannah birds perch on elephants. Maybe they just like the view. So high. Now that I know they cluster there, I look for them every time I pass the church.



And here's a photo of a reflection of the setting sun. It's actually a reflection of a reflection. If you look at this blog post through a mirror, you'll have added some extra layers.



I had some actual words-y content-y sorts of things to share, but pictures are good too. The other stuff comes and goes, and there's always something new. Oh, hey, but one other thing: at the laundromat the other day, I saw a woman, helped by her little son, empty the dollar changer of dollars and put in a whole tubful of quarters--presumably ones taken out of the washers and driers. What a happy closed system. There was a dollar jammed up, which they couldn't get out, and the mom said, "leave it for the spirits of the change machine." A cool thing for her to say. The boy was bumming about it, a little, but a torn dollar bill is no good, in any case.

Phone photos

In the past in Timor-Leste, and perhaps still now (I didn't have the ability or opportunity to talk to anyone about these sorts of things, during my visit there), it was said that geodes are often homes to nature spirits. Such geodes are called foho matan--stone mountain eyes.

If a person finds a geode in the wilderness, they can expect a nature spirit to visit them in a dream and offer them a special relationship--benefits and blessings in return for service. If the arrangement suits the person, then they take the stone to the place it asks the to take it and build an altar there. The spirit, in turn, becomes the person's guardian.

Sometimes, though, the spirit in the geode won't be interested in establishing a relationship. One village told the ethnographer:

If I take home a stone that is [sacred], when I dream that night, the spirt comes to me and says, "My name is Miguel [or whatever name it claims to have]. I am a [sacred] stone. You must put me back!" In the morning when I awake, I return the stone to its original place."
--David Hicks, Tetum Ghosts & Kin: Fertility and Gender in East Timor (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2004 [originally published 1976]), 40.

Whenever I've seen geodes in the past, I've always thought of the crystal caves that imprisoned Merlin--the geodes seemed like miniature versions of those caves. Now, if I see a geode, I'll wonder if it's the home of a nature spirit.