darkness darkness

Be my pillow / Take my hand / And let me sleep / In the coolness of your shadow / In the silence of your deep /

well I love the drive to Ojai up Highway 150...a prettier place you won't find..old time California...but lately things have been getting dark in Ojai...the city council up there is really concerned about light pollution and is trying to outlaw all sorts of lights...you need a permit to change a lightbulb now!

and one councilmember, Carol Smith, wants to outlaw those little string lights..she calls them Hansel and Gretel lights...you've seen the lights on trees or some restaurants use them at the entrance...they look kinda Christmasy but are all solid white color so they are good year round... No more Hansel-and-Gretel look," she said at a council meeting last week. "They look like Christmas lights."
- vcstar.com

 but the Hansel and Gretel thing... I can't figure out why she would bring up Hansel and Gretel...sure it was a charming childhood Grimm fairy tale: Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister threatened by a cannibalistic witch living deep in the forest in a house constructed of cake and confectionery. The two children save their lives by outwitting her.

Hansel and Gretel

Hansel and Gretel are the young children of a poor woodcutter. When a great famine settles over the land, the woodcutter's second, abusive wife decides to take the children into the woods and leave them there to fend for themselves, so that she and her husband will not starve to death, because the children eat too much. The woodcutter opposes the plan but finally, and reluctantly, submits to his wife's scheme. They are unaware that in the children's bedroom, Hansel and Gretel have overheard them. After the parents have gone to bed, Hansel sneaks out of the house and gathers as many white pebbles as he can, then returns to his room, reassuring Gretel that God will not forsake them.

The next day, the family walk deep into the woods and Hansel lays a trail of white pebbles. After their parents abandon them, the children wait for the moon to rise and then they follow the pebbles back home. They return home safely, much to their stepmother's horror. Once again provisions become scarce, and the stepmother angrily orders her husband to take the children further into the woods and leave them there to die. Hansel and Gretel attempt to gather more pebbles, but find the doors locked and find it impossible to escape from their parents' house.

The following morning, the family treks into the woods. Hansel takes a slice of bread and leaves a trail of bread crumbs to follow home. However, after they are once again abandoned, the children find that birds have eaten the crumbs and they are lost in the woods. After days of wandering, they follow a beautiful white bird to a clearing in the woods and discover a large cottage built of gingerbread and cakes, with window panes of clear sugar. Hungry and tired, the children begin to eat the rooftop of the candy house, when the door opens and a "very old woman" emerges and lures them inside, with the promise of soft beds and delicious food. They comply, unaware that their hostess is a wicked witch who waylays children to cook and eat them.


so Carol Smith of the Ojai city council seems to have a problem with the "white pebbles" in our story..the white pebbles maybe remind her of the string lights in Ojai...maybe from some childhood trauma.

ok I love stargazing as much as anybody and you can see the night sky better without a bunch of lights diluting the black....but last night the moon was so bright I couldn't see much in the way of stars! so is Ojai gonna ban the moon??

and Gretel must be, what, 25 or 30 years old now by now...all grown up...I'd like to shoot the moon with her!