Mastodawn

The February installment of Polylith arrives with the lunar eclipse. We consider late winter's SETTLED WORK, technology scaled by the human body, and Richard Long's COSMIC VARIETY.

https://cscottmills.com/polylith/079/

#towardThePolylith #aPatternLanguage #sculpture #holzhausen #slöjd #weaving #art #numerology #appropriateTechnology

Polylith 079: Settled work

Right near the middle of A Pattern Language, we come to pattern 156, SETTLED WORK. It describes the need in a person's life, especially as she moves in the s...

C.S. Mills

C. S. Mills Jan 31

Cycle eight of Polylith has begun! In this month's letter we consider anger and peace meeting in the figure of eight.

https://cscottmills.com/polylith/078/

#towardThePolylith #iceOut

Polylith 078: Figure of eight

Tip it over and you have the mathematical glyph for the endless. Lob it overhead and see the analemma, that diachronic noontime path our sun traces around th...

C.S. Mills

C. S. Mills Dec 31

Here is the December installment of Polylith, a brief letter on giving attention to things that slip away when they pass.

https://cscottmills.com/polylith/077/

#towardThePolylith

Polylith 077: Seventh solstice

A monthly letter by C.S. Mills toward a poetics of land, myth and the imagination

C.S. Mills

C. S. Mills Dec 2

The November installment of Polylith arrives covered in fresh snow. This month we consider balance in winter's hermitage.

https://cscottmills.com/polylith/076/

#towardThePolylith

Polylith 076: Monastic trio

Sweep the snow off a few splits of sugar maple and bring them inside with you, we'll stoke the fire and put on the kettle. Welcome to winter's hermitage.

C.S. Mills

C. S. Mills Oct 31

Polylith is back from hiatus! This end-of-October thinnest-of-times installment arrives bearing an invitation — I hope a few of you will take me up on it.

https://cscottmills.com/polylith/075/

#towardThePolylith

Polylith 075: A chapel turning

It is an elemental privilege to write and be read. The same to speak and be heard, to listen as another speaks.

C.S. Mills

Show thread

C. S. Mills Apr 4, 2025

To accompany the music, a fresh installment of my monthly letter as well — in which we delve into the process of making the album. Aleatory, imaginal lines, wandering, play.

https://cscottmills.com/polylith/073/

#towardThePolylith #aleatoricMusic #ambientMusic #generativeMusic #poetry

Polylith 073: Slow transits

The tail of winter hasn't slipped out of sight just yet here on the peninsula, but signs of spring flourish everywhere beside it.

Christopher Scott Mills

C. S. Mills Feb 28, 2025

The February installment of Polylith arrives on a big south wind.

This letter is a particularly personal one, about my work and the US federal hiring freeze, about morale and resistance, healing work and creativity amid collapse.

https://cscottmills.com/polylith/072/

#towardThePolylith

Polylith 072: Small graces

Winter has turned here on the peninsula. As I write, snowmelt drips from the eaves under a blue sky and the impressive drifts that line paths and driveways s...

Christopher Scott Mills

C. S. Mills Feb 1, 2025

On this clear St Brigid's day — at the outset of this Year of the Wood Snake — the January installment of Polylith arrives.

Consider the number seven as a mythological entity:

https://cscottmills.com/polylith/071/

#towardThePolylith #lunarNewYear #calypso #newMoon #imbolc #stBrigid

Polylith 071: Figure of seven

At shore, ice is piled into miniature escarpments continually battered and built by waves. They barrel in from deep water but use most of their energy liftin...

Christopher Scott Mills

C. S. Mills Dec 23, 2024

The solstice passes and another installment of Polylith arrives. Pull a seat up to the hearth and pour a cup of tea.

This month we consider a resonant corollary to last month's 'thereness'.

https://cscottmills.com/polylith/070/

#towardThePolylith #homer #odyssey #odysseus #athena #ithaca #poetry

Polylith 070: Resonance

When Odysseus, after twenty years away at war and at sea, finally returned to Ithaca, he did not immediately recognize his home. Athena had cloaked the islan...

Christopher Scott Mills

C. S. Mills Nov 30, 2024

Here at the cusp of winter appears the November installment of Polylith, in which we consider the principle of "thereness".

https://cscottmills.com/polylith/069/

#towardThePolylith

Polylith 069: Thereness

The hearth, so to speak, will appear to each imagination differently. It is the conviviality of friends and neighbors, the workaday rhythm of a village.

Christopher Scott Mills