Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/
Stance: http://takeastance.us/
ResistBot: https://resistbot.io/
The poet this week is Sylvia Plath: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sylvia-plath
The Woods:
The Map:
Riverhouse Games Thanks You!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Battlebards Tracks used:
Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet
Forgotten Chamber – Power Unfaded – Score Music – Dimitris Vachaviolos
Underground Lake City – Whispers of the World Below the World – Score Music – Marko Gugic
Transcription:
For a long time, we were at war with The Jackals. But now, we’ve driven them off, and we have this – a year of relative peace. In this moment, there is an opportunity to build something.
A week has passed.
Eileen who has been with us a long time is perfected.
She walks through the community square in the still frost of a winter midnight, her dead body wears the smile of accomplishment, the illusion of a Greek necessity flows in the scrolls of her toga, her bare feet seem to be saying: we have come so far, it is over.
As she walks sprites come down from the mountaintops each one coiled, a white serpent, one at each little personal garden, now empty. She has folded them back into her body as petals of a rose close when the garden stiffens and odors bleed from the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.
The moon has nothing to be sad about, staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.
As Eileen who has been with us a long time walks into the forest, escorted by the rippling roots of pine trees which leave needles scattered over her path, she passes the Jewel of Gerard. The red rock iced over and pastel rusted snow drips from its pocked surface.
In the morning she is gone, but the flowers once shriveled and frozen rise up healthy and red in the dry sunlight of the morning.
We see this good omen and know that despite those who have left us, we can grow out and up, into the sun as the flowers do. Our personal gardens bloom, with red flowers, oily and bright, pierce the snow and reach to the sky.
Emboldened by this good omen, we set about the camp. Remaining in our homes until spring will only breed restlessness, and what better way to shake that restlessness than exploring.
We walk through the sickly trees, speared up into the air from the crusted forest snow. Our vision now is only blocked by pine trees we could have sworn did not grow when we first settled in the area those months ago. Some circle around small clearings, others form lines in the woods, still others dot the landscape randomly.
One grows on the bank of the river, and as Safwan approaches it, they hear a whisper ease from the bark, and stumble back in fear as a woman’s face rotates into view, mossy and old.
“I know the bottom of the river,” she says. “I know it with my great tap root: it is what you fear. I do not fear it: I have been there. Is it the sea you hear in me, its dissatisfactions? Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness? Love is a shadow. How you lie and cry after it – Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.”
Saffwan stands still and thy hear the rumble of the river, frozen over, whose current rumbles against its icy cover. Ezekiel walks its banks but trips in shock as the rumbling turns into a voice that greets him, saying,
“All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously, till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf, echoing, echoing. Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons? This is rain now, this big hush. And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.”
The pine continues to Saffwan:
“I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets. Scorched to the root my red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires. Soon I will break in pieces that fly about like clubs. A wind of such violence Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek. The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me cruelly, being barren. Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her. I let her go. I let her go diminished and flat, as after radical surgery. How your bad dreams possess and endow me.”
Yuen plays throwing snow and ice at the boarded doors to the mines. Her arm halts mid-throw as she hears a reptilian voice eke out from the cracks in the wood and stone:
“I am inhabited by a cry. Nightly it flaps out looking, with its hooks, for something to love. I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me; all day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity. Clouds pass and disperse. Is yours the face of love, that pale irretrievable? Is it for such you agitate my heart?”
That night, trying to explain to the adults the children are unable to remember the words, they find themselves incapable of more knowledge. What was this, this face shown to Saffwan, so murderous in its strangle of branches? What was this voice that spoke to Yuen, its snaky acids hissing. What spoke to Ezekiel, which petrifies the will.
These are the isolate, slow faults that kill, that kill, that kill.
And a week passes.
Thank you for joining us for the fortieth episode of From The Jackals To The Shepherds. If you like this show please give us a rating on iTunes, tell a friend, or share us on social media. As always the intro for the show was read by Dave Lapru, who is also our mapkeeper. You can find Dave on twitter at plantbird, and I’m at leviathan files. This week’s poet is Sylvia Plath. Please consider visiting our website at Riverhouse Games dot com, or supporting this show and other Riverhouse Games work on Patreon at patreon dot com slash Riverhouse Games. Music for this episode was provided by Battlebards dot com.
Listeners, I have a favor to ask of you. In these times there’s a lot that needs doing in the world, and we have to stand up as a people and make our voices heard. I ask that you make a few phone calls to your representatives about issues that matter to you. I’ve been using a great website at 5 Calls dot org which provides critical issues, background information, contact info, and even scripts to read while on the phone. Thankfully my representative’s offices have been polite and personable when I call, but if you’re worried about it, or if you experience phone anxiety, there’s an app you can download called Stance, which allows you to pre-record your statement, which it will then deliver straight to the representative’s voicemail. You can also use ResistBot, a free service that emails or faxes your representatives based on text messages you send through the service. Calling makes the biggest difference, but it’s a smart strategy to cover your bases. A polite and persistent approach across multiple mediums is the way to go. Today I’m calling to urge my representatives to PROTECT MUELLER AND THE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION
The New York Times reported that in June of 2017, Trump ordered the firing of Robert Mueller, but backed down when his White House lawyer threatened to quit over the decision.
Trump has been publicly playing with the idea of firing Mueller, the special prosecutor leading the independent investigation into Russia’s election interference, their potential ties to the Trump campaign, obstruction of justice, and a litany of related financial concerns. Trump cannot fire Mueller himself, but he can coerce someone in the Justice Department to do so. Trump’s public criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, causing many to believe Trump may fire Sessions and replace him with someone who agrees to fire Mueller. Trump could even launch a large scale staffing shake-up, similar to Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre,” until he finds someone willing to fire Mueller.
Last fall, Mueller impaneled a grand jury in Washington D.C. That was a significant development, showing Mueller’s seriousness in moving the investigation forward with prosecutions in mind; the grand jury allows Mueller to subpoena documents, call witnesses to testify under oath, and indict individuals if sufficient evidence of a crime arises. Because grand juries are arranged by prosecutors, if Mueller were fired now, this grand jury would effectively be dismantled. It is vital that Mueller’s position and investigation be protected.
Two bipartisan bills have been introduced in the Senate to do just that – one by Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and one by Chris Coons (D-DE) and Thom Tillis (R-NC). While the bills differ in when a judges panel would review the firing of a special prosecutor, both plans limit a president’s ability to do so.
Please make your calls to help make our world a better place. Thank you, I love you, and I’m proud of you in advance.
And until next week, I hope your week goes well.
From The Jackals To The Shepherds 