Societal Compost & Experimental Ritual Cartographies.

January 2026

“I am a book of snow, a spacious hand, an open meadow, a circle that waits, I belong to the earth and its winter.” – Pablo Neruda

‘I’m getting wistful for folklore, for the old stories, for languages whispered around the fire, for dreaming. … Learning about machine learning and the artificial neuron is fascinating. But can it hold a flame to learning about the consciousness of the universe? I do not want to choose. I do not want to be fit into a mechanical box and whirr like a cog day in and day out for money. And yet, without it I cannot afford to live and then I cannot afford to dream. …’

I’ve rewritten this month’s compost three times and every day it just didn’t feel right. I am and was stuck in indecision brought on by change. Who will I be at the end of this year? Is it someone I want to know or someone who is disappointing? I asked myself this question over and over again while making slight changes to what I am studying and how I think I might be able to use future skills for good. If I’m not in alignment with myself I fall rather quickly into and existential funk. But I’m back on track now and I think this year just might have some suprises in store. I don’t know what they are yet obviously, but this year feels different and I’m going to take that as a good sign. I need to dig deep into hope for a better future and not just for myself. 

Language Studies

Latin I may be slightly addicted to ‘Legentibus’ app and reading short stories every day. 

Attic Greek Only one person showed up to the first study group session. I fear everyone has bailed on me. But it was a fun session nevertheless.

Hieroglyphs My eyes have glazed over from transliterating the names of pharaohs. …

French The holidays and the cold I had this month have pretty much blown French out of the water. I’m doing lessons again by tacking them on to my daily Legentibus reading habit.

Links

Reads

‘Lucie Duff Gordon: A Passage To Egypt’ Katherine Frank (Finished)

 ‘The Science of Middle Earth’

‘Why Machines Learn’ Anil Ananthaswamy

‘On Fairy Stories’ J.R.R. Tolkien (Finished)