Start the web

When I began this blog, I intended to use the model of a lection for sermons or Torah reading for the week. I would choose a quote or a block of text that appealed to me or teased my thoughts on a subject related to faith, religion, or Paganism. Then I’d write about it, what it meant to me, what its context might mean, what it might mean for others, and so on. I’d draw it out into a possible line of thinking; a thread. I’d compare them as I brought in more and more, and start putting one line of thought next to or against another.

Hence the title: textual arachne. Weaver of threads drawn off of texts.

(Perhaps a metaphor of silkworms is more accurate: the tiny bundle, with the threads that can be pulled and pulled for yards and yards out of something no bigger than a thimble. But, continuing the metaphor, that means the silkworm is dead in there somewhere, and…nah. I prefer Arachne. Spiders have shown up in my trances, anyway.)

But I haven’t done much of that on Arachne in the last few months. I’m fine with what I’ve written here already, and I’ll probably keep going with that style. There’s an entry in particular waiting to be written about my sense of vertigo about where the country is heading. However, I think I want to add more of the ‘lection’ style, too.

I hope, as my classes begin, to start pulling quotations from my readings and using them as starting points. Fiction, nonfiction, research on religion, prose, poetry, plays, stuff that just catches my eye, even misreadings that fascinate me.

Time to fire up the spinnerets.