e a r t h 𖦹 to 𖦹 r a b b i t

Tag: year of the snake

  • i’m afraid summer is officially over because it rained today—here are my favorite late summer albums

    too often, i forget how much i love the late summer. i love the hot, beating sun through the window, illuminating all the dust drifting through the living room air. where a snowy winter night feels like time quietly halts for a moment, moving through the late summer feels like things slow down just enough to hear the ever-present hum of the earth. the soundtrack of late summer is the droning buzz of cicadas and crickets and ceiling fans. it feels easy to be in love in late summer. days off are spent lying around in bed, in the tall grass, on the couch, by the riverbed, on the floor. the harvest of midsummer was bountiful and fertile, but the promise of death is looming around the corner. fear not, this is a great time to feel life moving all around you. 

    in chinese medicine, late summer is the “earth” phase of the five phases. its color is yellow or ochre, and it pertains to the spleen and stomach. it is a good time to pay attention to the digestive system, and the flavor is sweet (think whole grains and complex carbohydrates). be careful of tendencies to overthink, ruminate, or worry. practice mindfulness to avoid overconsumption of food, media, or thoughts. and sing (or listen to good music).

    nearly every day i walk up and down a trail by the river, trying to soak up the last of the summer sun (cheaper than vitamin D supplements, too). during the summer, i was surrounded by tall grass and wildflowers and monarch butterflies, but now the flowers have all dried up and the trail is hopping with grasshoppers and littered with cicada carcasses. i’ve been rotating a couple of albums to accompany me, and i haven’t written all that much lately (not much to say, isn’t that nice?), so i thought i would honor them with a few words on the blog. 

    1. the bees made honey in the lion’s skull – earth (2008)
    A lion's skull in profile. There is honeycomb in its eye socket and bees swarm around it.

    image by earth via southern lord

    genre – drone metal

    i picked this up on bandcamp a month or so ago when i was going through a black metal phase that thankfully gave me the push i needed through my final exam weeks. what is late summer without swarms of aggressive yellowjackets everywhere? this album sounds likes scavenging vultures and clouds of dust. reminds me of the desert regions of oregon, where i spent my late summers as a child. 

    2. atlanta millionaires club – faye webster (2019)

    image by faye webster via secretly canadian

    genre – alternative

    this was a fun album to rediscover in the last couple of weeks. i don’t think it’s a no-skip, however, there are a good handful of songs that really hold up. this album was controversial on tiktok for its questionable cover, but i think it’s pretty fitting. the vibe of the album is hot, humid, and a little lethargic. unfortunately, it rings a little bit too heartbroken for a season i am obviously trying really hard to romanticize. it gets points, however, for the longing. damn girl, i get it, but save the grief for the fall.

    3. paranoid cocoon – cotton jones (2009)

    A colorful wall with many colors Description automatically generated with medium confidence

    image by cotton jones via suicide squeeze

    genre – psychedelic folk 

    so, this is one of my favorite albums of all time. perhaps this album is the reason i romanticize late summer so much. this album has been with me through all the best moments of my life: sounding from my boombox in the drift boat on my family’s annual august rafting trip, playing gin rummy with a man i probably could have had a future with had i not run away and being too in love with him to care that i was losing over and over again, laying across the outside picnic tables after closing shifts at the coffee shop i worked at in my early 20’s. all i can say is: give folk a chance. maybe u too will fall in love with late summer. 

    that’s it. see u when i feel like it, 

    frankie

  • at the end of the end was the beginning

    so, it turns out I don’t know anything. 

    I wandered earth until I found meaning, only to end up at my own tracks in the dirt. 

    I completed the last page of my field notes just to find the first page empty. 

    shedding my skin was a long, painful process; the grand revelation being that I had another layer of skin underneath. 

    I emerged from the cocoon a butterfly, but the gift of flight did not save me from the promise of dropping dead. 

    I did it so well I convinced myself I wasn’t even doing it anymore. 

    I held it so close I didn’t notice it had fused itself to my being. 

    the path of the spiral often looks familiar, but you never find yourself at the same point. the light at the end of the tunnel seems to stay in place with every step you take, until you are flooded with light at the very end. wisdom is slow and repetitive. the lapping waves of the ocean eventually turn mighty cliffs into sand. maybe try not to think about it so much.