No Shortcuts to Now

Tag: No Shortcuts to Now

  • The Dolphin’s Always Right (4.6)

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    K. L. Homme
    in ,

    Like Apollo, Dionysus was a child of infidelity. This time, jealous Hera sent the Titans to destroy him. They tore the child to pieces and devoured him—all but his heart. Athena rescued it and returned it to Zeus, who swallowed it. In time, the god was born again.

  • Only the God Changed (4.5)

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in

    The life of a god is but a mythical parting of the eternal dark.  About fourteen centuries before Christ’s eastern star pierced Pagan skies, a goat fell into a chasm, and began to bleat strangely.  This perplexed its shepherd.  Having got his goat safely out, he climbed back in, and down, to inhale the vapors…

  • X Marks the Name of The Father

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in , ,

    What follows listens closely to a White House press conference, one year into the administration, January 2026. By the time a word bubbles up to the surface, it’s passed through several subterranean chambers. It arrives as a dream-image arrives—attached to innumerable associations—tangled with roots, not etymological, yet of a perdurable toughness. In our waking hours,…

  • The Wombstone (4.3)

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    K. L. Homme
    in ,

    Cronus swallowed his children. The prophecy had foretold that, just as he had overthrown his own father, Uranus, so one of his own children would overthrow him. This foreknowledge tormented him. Transformed him.

  • The Wombfish (4.2)

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in

    Doris is a sea-goddess, a second-generation Titan who lived long before Zeus established his Olympian hierarchy. She’s no queen, but rather a natural node within a mythic network. She’s but a single, dew-bright strand within an interconnected web of life. She’s also the daughter of Oceanus, the world-circling river, and of Tethys, the fertile sea.…

  • Of Roots, Rhizomes, and Fish with Feet: The Lurid Bait of Egotism (4.2)

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    K. L. Homme
    in

    The purple mountain heather is a symbolic affront to the arrogance, the tyranny, the demagoguery that fancies itself the axis of the world. Had great Ozymandias been a botanist—had he studied the rhizome and grasped its implications—he would have been moved to feeble tears. Or else he’d have ordered every last one ripped from the…

  • Standing in the Ancient Shadow

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in

    A Chapter 1 Anthology of Quotes & Reflections At the Trailhead  Chapter 1 traces the early contours of the mountains, myths, children, histories, and fractures that shape the trail ahead. These quotes represent the chapter’s most resonant lines under four themes: nature’s deep logic, the wonder and mystery that wake us in the night, the rise of authoritarian…

  • The No Shortcuts to Now Audio Guide

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    K. L. Homme
    in ,

    A Complete Listening Map for the Trail Planning a holiday drive? Cooking, cleaning, or hiding from relatives? Here’s the full No Shortcuts to Now Audio Guide — all three chapters, in order, with easy links. If you’ve been curious about catching up, this is the perfect place to start. All the links you’ll find below. 🌋 Chapter…

  • Waypoint 3.3: Faith, Fury, and the Ditto-Headless Horsemen of the Post-Truth Apocalypse

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    K. L. Homme
    in ,

    How the Gospel of Grievance Gave Rise to a Post-Truth Faith “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” — Friedrich Nietzsche “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” — Charles Darwin In February 2020, during the State of…

  • Field Note 3.2 — All The King’s Candy

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    K. L. Homme
    in ,

    Every kingdom starts with a taste for something sweet. “Thus do men swallow the honeyed poison of the mouth.” — Lucretius, On The Nature of Things, Book IV “So long as man remains free, he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.” — Ivan Karamazov, The Brothers Karamazov Ivan The Parable…