There is historic disagreement concerning whether this apple was of metallic gold or Acapulco gold

[cosmolinguist]

On Friday at work someone asked me "What's that on your chest?"

"Sorry?"

"Your necklace."

"Oh! Uh..."

My necklace is a tarnished silver chain with one wonky link. I wear it all the time. There are two charms on it because I don't really want to be parted from either of them.

The first is a St. Christopher medal that kalieris sent me after I mentioned, on a whim, wanting one. It, as her comment says, belonged to her mother. The back already looked slightly bent and dented when I got it; better than new. I think I have added a little dent or two myself since then. I've not taken it off, except to replace the chain, since I got it. And at my wedding I wore the necklace that matched my earrings but put the St. Christopher medal around one of my ankles.

I first thought of it because I wanted to keep something of my brother nearby; this has his name on it. It's the best I can do, the best I've thought of so far. But even before I got it in the mail, tucked inside a Christmas card in the tiniest ziploc bag ever, I was already finding other good reasons to appreciate it.

There's the petites-madeleines aspect for me, especially for Catholic iconography, largely because of my grandmother.

Then there's Christopher being the patron saint of travellers. Considering I was only a few weeks away from getting married and thus moving to another country, I thought that couldn't hurt.

Also I found it interesting that he's possibly not a real person at all, and certainly not named Christopher (the only reason he caught my attention now) anyway. The name he had before accidentally ferrying Jesus across a river, Reprebus or Reprobus, simply means "wicked person", so saying that Reprobus became Christopher amounts to saying "A wicked person became a Christian."

Also in the comments to that entry linked above, Andrew told me Christopher was "excommunicated" when the Roman Catholic church weeded out some mythunderstandings and suchlike from their sainted canon ... and that he, along with all the other fictional saints, was adopted by the Discordians. Wikipedia tells me it's a common misconception that Christopher's no longer a saint, but I'm happy that he's been tainted by Discordians anyway.

Which brings me neatly to the other pendant on the chain. It's sort of teardrop shaped, like half a yin-yang, but instead of a dot in the middle it has a golden apple with a K on it. It's half of the Sacred Chao (pronounced like "cow"; a chao being a single unit of chaos). soltice and I bought the charms for each other for Christmas last year, as you can read about here. She describes her half thus:

In Discordia, the Pentagon refers to logic in general and specifically The Law of Fives. The Law asserts that all things happen in fives, and all things are divisible or multiples of five. The trick of this law is perception: If you look for a thing, you'll find it everywhere. Just as if you look for a particular car on the road you'll see if everywhere, if you look for a particular number you'll see it everywhere. In the context of the discussion, this was a personal joke on me. If I look for proof or disproof of something related to myself (gender, sexuality, general self-worth), I'll find it everywhere. Such proof is an illusion. It's a psychological trick the mind plays on itself. I'm only now beginning to realize this, and I often slip into my old ways. In my friendship and relationship with her she's been an encouraging voice for me to go and live life, rather than continue to tie myself down with responsibilities and proofs.

I got the apple because I have been chaosifying her. Also because it is the only half left after she's taken hers.

I thought about all of this very fast and answered, "It's ... religious."

"Oh," the person said. "Are you religious?"

Well, no. Actually.

I'm going to make sure it's tucked into my shirt before I leave the house again.

Comments

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

WHere did you get a sacred chao necklace?????????????????????????????????????????

[cosmolinguist]

I know I just told you this, but I'll tell you here as well so you'll have an e-mail about it, and then if anybody else has a burning desire for a Sacred Chau pendant they can look too: http://www.markdefrates.com/pages/sachau.html

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Ah, but where did you get a Sacred Chao which splits...?

[cosmolinguist]

It's a custom jewelry site; all the stuff is made bespoke, so you can request things like that. There's already a split yin yang design there, which gave us the idea; we just asked the guy making them if he'd combine the two ideas for us, and he was happy to.

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

I'm religious only when it suits me. Which is not very often, but often enough that I don't forget how to be religious. Or something like that.

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

I cannot believe that I missed this entry at the time - I'm really sorry, Holly.

Got all teary-eyed now that I finally did read it. I'm so glad that the medal is loved. That would've pleased Mom very much.

[cosmolinguist]

I keep meaning to tell you this, but only remembering to do so at times when I'm nowhere near a computer. And it seems, even by our standards, a pretty random thing to say.

Don't be sorry, please; you've got no obligation to keep up with all the stuff I write here! I understand people have lives outside of LJ. :) I don't expect specific people to know things until and unless I tell them specifically, which, as I said, is what I intended to do here, but just never got around to e-mailing you about it.

It is very loved, if in its unorthodox way (I consider the fact that I got it from such a fantastic Discordian is part of the shield against its plain old Catholicism, which is fine with me, though I do hope your mom doesn't mind too much :)). I still have taken it off only when it's deemed necessary that I wear a normal necklace and I still wear this around my ankle on those occasions.

It might be silly but I just like having such a tangible connection to things so close to me: my brother, my family and its insistence on my Catholic upbringing... things far away: you and your mother. It's so much better than one I could've bought in a store. Thank you.

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome. My mother was an atheist, so I don't think she'd have minded at all. ;) Also, I think she bought it for similar reasons - her mom was Catholic, and it may have been a sort of comforting link for her.