“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

That’s the line everyone remembers from “A Room of One’s Own,” but it is very far from the whole story.

“For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.”

And that is what Woolfcamp is about. Bringing people together to think, talk, share: creating community by linking people who blog.

My first visit to Woolfcamp was a rescue mission; when my friend Debbie’s car wouldn’t start, Alan and I drove to Santa Cruz to get her. (It was a wonderful drive through the dark, over hilly roads.) Woolfcamp was over, but I had a chance to talk to some people, and I knew I wanted to participate more.

My second visit coincides with my purchase of a new truck. (New to me, at any rate.) One of the advantages of community is that people with complementary needs can connect. Liz,who is hosting today’s Woolfcamp, needed to sell her 1993 Mazda B2200. I needed an inexpensive vehicle, preferably a truck. We can meet each other’s needs. Moreover, while I was here looking at the truck, I glanced through Helene Cixous’s “Coming to Writing” and Other Essays, which I hadn’t read since grad school. I instantly realized this was what I needed now:

Women must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their own bodies for the same reasons by the same law, with the same fatal goal. Women must put herself into the text as into the world and into history by her own movement.

I’m all in favor of both privacy and financial independence. having my own space, an autonomous life, and as much financial independence as I can achieve by working for it, as opposed to inherited wealth. But for me, that life must be sustained and supported by participation in community.

Hallelujah, It’s the Vulgate Latin!

Yes, the Vale of Tears verse is in the psalm I quoted.

An ancient Irish manuscript found in a bog last week does not refer to “wiping out Israel”, the National Museum of Ireland said on Thursday, after a flood of enquiries wondering at the timing of the discovery.

The National Museum of Ireland announced on Tuesday what it said was one of the most significant Irish discoveries in decades; an ancient Psalter or Book of Psalms, written around 800 AD. It said part of Psalm 83 was legible.

In modern versions of the Bible, Psalm 83 is a lament to God over other nations’ attempts to wipe out Israel and many commentators wondered at the coincidence of such a discovery at a time of heightened tension in the Middle East.

“The above mention of Psalm 83 has led to misconceptions about the revealed wording and may be a source of concern for people who believe Psalm 83 deals with ‘the wiping out of Israel’,” the museum said in its clarification.

The confusion arose because the manuscript uses an old Latin translation of the Bible known at the Vulgate, which numbers the psalms differently from the later King James version, the 1611 English translation from which many modern texts derive.

“The Director of the National Museum of Ireland … would like to highlight that the text visible on the manuscript does not refer to wiping out Israel but to the ‘vale of tears’,” the museum said.

The vale of tears is in Psalm 84 in the King James version.

“It is hoped that this clarification will serve comfort to anyone worried by earlier reports of the content of the text,” the museum said.

Backhoe Bibliomancy

Fortune-telling by randomly choosing a passage from a sacred text is an ancient practice. The classical Greeks used Homer; the Romans used Vergil’s Aeneid. Even Christians who would condemn astrology or Tarot have been known to flip open the Bible to get a coded message from the Divine.

Using heavy construction equipment to do so is, perhaps, overkill.

Recently an Irish backhoe operator spotted an ancient Book of Psalms in a peat bog. It was open to Psalm 83.

Given the apocalyptic mindset of certain world leaders and the current crisis in the Middle East, this is clearly a sign. But of what?

It all depends on the burning question of whether the book holds to the Catholic or Protestant numbering.

Psalms 83 in the Douai-Rheims version used by Roman Catholics is a lovely verse of praise for the protection of God.

83:2. How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!

83:3. my soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.

83:4. For the sparrow hath found herself a house, and the turtle a nest for herself where she may lay her young ones: Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my king and my God.

In the KJV, Psalm 83 is a rant against the enemies of Israel, imploring God to smite them.

83: 1: Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.

2: For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.

3: They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.

4: They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.

5: For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: [snipped: list of enemies with a few pious wishes for their destruction]

13: O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind.

14: As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire;

15: So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.

Unfortunately, according to the article, The book was found open to a page describing, in Latin script, Psalm 83, in which God hears complaints of other nations’ attempts to wipe out the name of Israel.

Now, the book-lover and medievalist in me rejoice at the rescue of another ancient book. The fortuneteller is reading it as a sign. And the person who hopes the Apocalypse won’t happen next week regrets that there are highly placed politicians who may well believe this is a signal to get the end times started with a nice nuclear Armageddon.

Incidentally, this coming Sunday would normally be International Bog Day, but for unstated reasons, the holiday has been canceled this year. Is that a sign too?