#four horsepersons of the apocalypse

[hjbirthdaywishes]

September 22, 2023

Happy 48 Birthday to Mireille Enos.

#Mireille Enos #Happy Birthday #War #Carmine Zuigiber #Apocalyptic Horesperson #Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse #Good Omens #September #2023

[in-love-with-my-car-zine]

The Minor Four Horseperson’s Bikes... now, there are some bikes with a story behind them. Pigbog, Greaser, Skuzz and Big Ted were definitely causing their own kind of chaos before they decided to follow after the real Horsepersons. After all, Big Ted hid out from the law in a hotel for a while with nothing to but read a Bible left behind by some dude named Gideon. This is why he’s so well-versed in Revelation. Too bad these four didn't make it into the show. Don't ask me why three guys in this gif have the same bike, but the fourth rider's is different. I have no idea.

Sign-ups are happening now. Or you can call them applications. We don't care. We just reserve the right to refuse entrance to anyone if we feel they will not be a good fit. Click here for the form.

#four horsepersons of the apocalypse #minor four horsepersons of the apocalypse #good omens zine #good omens #in love with my car zine

[marie-mcd]

A recurring feature that I like in Neil Gaiman's and Terry Pratchett's stories is the mundane and ordinary juxtaposed and blended with the extraordinary and fantastical.

There's a lot of humour derived from this, but it got me wondering if the concept also works as a theme under the surface of the humour, so I'll explore that idea a bit here with examples from Good Omens and Discworld.

First a look at the humour side, because it's fun, and so that people know what I'm referring to:

-In the opening sequence of Good Omens S1E1: an angel and a demon (fantastical beings) are conversing like ordinary people, using idioms like "Well that went down like a lead balloon", against a setting of biblical proportions.

-The Archangels' meeting in S2E6 discussing first the Second Coming ("Nah!"), and then next on the agenda is the cleaning roster.

-The visuals of heaven and hell in general - it's the subversion of expectations on what these places "should" look and function like - offices, clipboards, contracts, bureaucracy. This is humour and seems like theme/motif at the same time; the visual cues say a lot about heaven and hell and their role in this story.

-Death from the Discworld books owns an umbrella stand and a hairbrush, likes kitty cats, and rides a white horse named Binky.

-In Small Gods, the Great God Om is incarnated as a tortoise:

And it came to pass that in that time the Great God Om spake unto Brutha, the Chosen One:

'Psst!'

Next, looking at the concept's thematic or metaphorical potential.

The following excerpt gets me thinking about how people put outsized importance on mundane things, and about normalcy bias kicking in when a narrow mind is confronted with extraordinary events.

From Good Omens book (about RP Tyler):

It is a high and lonely destiny to be Chairman of the Lower Tadfield Residents' Association.

[…]

Your car is on fire.

No. Tyler just couldn't bring himself to say it. I mean, the man had to know that, didn't he? He was sitting in the middle of it. Possibly it was some kind of practical joke.

Next, a scene that makes me think about retreating into the mundane to cope, after being confronted with an extraordinary event.

From Good Omens S2E6:

Nina: Oh, God, I should've been open half an hour ago.

Maggie: How can you think about that after all this??

Nina: People need coffee, I sell coffee, it's my coffee shop.

And next, thinking about how the minutiae of the everyday distracts us from paying enough attention to big world issues (a bit of normalcy bias again too). 

From Good Omens book (when the horsepersons of the apocalypse arrive at the airbase):

No one stopped the four as they purposefully made their way into one of the long, low buildings under the forest of radio masts. No one paid any attention to them. Perhaps they saw nothing at all. Perhaps they saw what their minds were instructed to see, because the human brain is not equipped to see War, Famine, Pollution, and Death when they don't want to be seen, and has got so good at it that it often manages not to see them even when they abound on every side.

Next, two excerpts from Discworld books. At first I was thinking along the lines of needing to focus on the everyday because we can't spend all our time focusing on big existential stuff, or, how we take the wonders of nature for granted because of busy lives; but then I realized, I think it's actually a clever inversion of what we consider to be ordinary - that just being alive, against all odds, in the vast universe, is actually quite extraordinary.

From Small Gods:

And one of [the brain's] functions is to make the miraculous seem ordinary and turn the unusual into the usual.

Because if this was not the case, then human beings, faced with the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing big stupid grins […] And no one would do much work.

Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think.

Part of the brain exists to stop this happening. It is very efficient. It can make people experience boredom in the middle of marvels.

[more going on in the above than just the subject of the post, but I'm narrowing the focus here]

From Hogfather:

THERE IS A PLACE WHERE TWO GALAXIES HAVE BEEN COLLIDING FOR A MILLION YEARS, said Death, apropos of nothing. DON'T TRY TO TELL ME THAT'S RIGHT.

"Yes, but people don't think about that," said Susan. Somewhere there was a bed …

CORRECT. STARS EXPLODE, WORLDS COLLIDE, THERE'S HARDLY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE HUMANS CAN LIVE WITHOUT BEING FROZEN OR FRIED, AND YET YOU BELIEVE THAT A … A BED IS A NORMAL THING. IT IS THE MOST AMAZING TALENT.

And a quote from Terry Pratchett himself, inverting ordinary/extraordinary (the whole video is great, by the way):

Within the story of evolution is a story far more interesting than any in the Bible. It teaches us amazing things: that stars are not important - there is nothing interesting about stars. Street lamps are very important, because they're so rare. As far as we know there's only a few million of them in the universe. And they were built by monkeys! Who came up with philosophy, and gods.

He also mentioned here that his impression after reading the Old Testament was: "If this is all true, then we are in the hands of a madman!" Off topic again, but relevant to some of what went into Good Omens I think.

Not sure if I've proved anything here, and that wasn't the goal, but it was fun to find some quotes for my brain to play around with!

#long post #good omens #good omens meta #good omens 2 #good omens book #Discworld meta #Discworld #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #gnu terry pratchett #hogfather #small gods #p

[bracketsoffear]

Pollution (Good Omens) "Literal horseperson of the apocalypse and representation of things like global warming and plastics in the water and oil spills and other cataclysmic manmade change. They took over from Pestilence (who was obviously a corruption avatar) when he retired because he wasn't relevant anymore. Also their costume design slaps they literally bleed oil.

AM (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream) "AM is a supercomputer created during the Cold War that gained sentience, ultimately using its powers to kill all of humanity except five people who it tortures for all eternity. When one of these individuals kills the other four to set them free from this torture, he is punished by being turned into a limbless, mouthless blob. While AM’s torture of the five humans touches on other fears, the main fear it represents is the complete destruction of humanity by a tool humanity itself created, which is very much the theme of extinction."

#extinction poll #the magnus archives #the extinction #good omens #i have no mouth and i must scream #poll

[ngkiscool]

Next week is Hanukkah, a lovely Jewish holiday that includes lighting candles, singing and lots of Sufganiot (fried donuts). To honor the holiday, this week is dedicated to Jewish Omens. All the stories are SFW, mind the CW.

More Jewish Omens can be found in the collection with the brilliant name Good Omens is Jewish and so are we, enjoy and have happy holidays!

Next week is open for suggestions - please send recs for stories that focus on supporting characters (as in, Aziraphale and Crowley are not the main ones). Self recs are encouraged!

Black and White and Red and Blue by hapax (hapaxnym) - 597 words, rated G, focusing on the Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse. Summary: Just anthropomorphic personifications of atavistic terrors, hanging out and looking at the holiday lights.

Counting Sweets by @hkblack  - 639 words, rated G, focusing on Nanny Ashtoreth, Brother Francis and Warlock Dowling. Summary: “Five,” he said finally, before his face lit up brightly. “I’m five!”    “And so you are!” Nanny laughed. Warlock smiled brightly, proud of himself for his new found math skills, and hurriedly scooped the chocolate coins to his own growing pile.

Home by Art Kosch (Koschei_B), Koschei_B - 666 words, rated G, focusing on Nanny Ashtoreth, Brother Francis and Warlock Dowling. Summary: Warlock misses his nanny and the gardener.

before some weird light comes creeping through by OrdinaryRealities -  465 words, rated G, focusing on Warlock Dowling and OC.                    Summary: Warlock tries to articulate what Hanukkah looked like when Nanny and Brother Francis celebrated it.

Apples by Deadlydollies13  - 528 words, rated G, focusing on Eve, Crowley and Aziraphale. Summary: Eve prepares for Rosh Hashanah by making every apple dish she can think of.

Four Cups of Wine by borealowl - 56K words, rated G, focusing on Crowley, Aziraphale and OC. Summary: Crowley is terrified of losing Aziraphale again, but unable to confess his feelings. He follows Aziraphale on an errand to America, where they end up invited to a seder and spend the next year being invited to other holidays and gatherings on both sides of the Atlantic. Is Crowley's pining painfully obvious to everyone but Aziraphale? (Yes.) Are the rabbi and her wife going to try and get them together? (Yes.) How many Jewish holidays will these two ineffable idiots be invited to before they finally admit their feelings to each other? (Read it and see!)

Ella Qui Guérit by Sarielle - 5.7K words, rated G, focusing on Crowley, Aziraphale and Raphael. Summary: An angel, a demon and an archangel meet up at a bookshop in SoHo to kvetch. (Just one interpretation of the Archangel Rafael.)

Chag HaAsif (Festival of Ingathering) by @5ftjewishcactus​ - 1.1K words, rated T, focusing on Warlock, The Them, Crowley and Aziraphale. Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley celebrate Sukkot with their godchildren at their cottage in the South Downs.

G-d of My Father's by Thedupshadove - 2K words, rated G, focusing on Newt, Anathema, Crowley and Aziraphale. CW - antisemitism mention, anti-black racism mention, lynching mention, holocaust allusion. Summary: An interesting fact about Newton Pulsifer comes further to light. Newt, as usual, frets.

The Hanukkah Visit by TogetherAgain - 6.4K, N/R, focusing on Aziraphale and Elijah. CW - period-typical homophobia, PTSD, child birth, panic attacks Summary: Hanukkah, 1913. Aziraphale gets a visit from the prophet Elijah. He comes with candles, latkes, conversation, advice, and a warning. Aziraphale has a lot of thinking to do.

Bonus - master list with all past recommendations!    

Authors - if you wish that your Tumblr account will be tagged, instead of the AO3, please comment or DM me the handle. Thanks :)

Thanks for reading, and remember - sharing is caring!

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #weekly spotlight #ngk recs #the four horsepersons #brother francis #nanny ashteroth #warlock dowling #raphael #the them #adam young #elijah

[rareomens]

Rare Omens 2024 Day 2

We can't get enough of these Good Omens characters:

The Horsepersons of the Apocalypse!

Who will feature? A pair? A trio? All four? Share your fanworks of these two and tag us.

Post to the Rare Omens AO3 collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Rare_Omens

#good omens #good omens 2 #rare omens #rare omens 2024 #rare pairs #crowley #aziraphale #horsepersons of the apocalypse #good omens death #good omens war #good omens famine #good omens pollution

[trashboatprince]

so what is exactly Good Omens?

Good Omens is the story about an angel and demon who have lived on Earth since the Garden of Eden six thousand years ago, and eleven years before the main events the demon is given the task of taking a basket to a satanic nunnery in order to start the first steps of The End of Days. The demon and angel then spend eleven years trying to raise the contents of basket, a baby, but they fucked up. They're doing this because they love Earth and don't want The War.

The story is about the Antichrist, who is destined to destroy the world during the week of his eleventh birthday. He is raised in a tiny, perfect English village with his three best friends and his dog. He doesn't know who he really is or what his destiny is, but he is going to have the most interesting week of his young life.

The story is about a witch, who calls herself an occultist, who is ruled by the only accurate book of prophesies in human history, written by her ancestor, the last true witch of England. There is also a witchfinder who can't touch electrical items without completely destroying them who is going to make her see the world a little bit off kilter from her normal straight path of seeing it.

There are also the Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse, a psychic/lady of the evening, a witchfinder who takes his job too seriously but sucks at it, nuns, humans, aliens, raining fish, demons who like to lurk, a demonic prince, the voice of God, and a whole cast of other little bits and bobs of characters.

Basically, it can be summed down in a few ways:

This is a story that is about love, and how it can influence the world around you, in a sense. Be it platonic, familiar, romantic, any of the forms of love. It's hard to explain, but it's a strong element of the book, the show, and the radio version.

It is also a story about not following what is expected of you, to do what you think is truly best. Good and evil are not white and black, they are gray, they are complicated, you can't have one without the other. You can be good, you can be bad, you can be very perfectly, wonderfully human as both.

The shorter answer is: a demon, an angel, and the Antichrist walk into the Apocalypse and make it all go pear shaped.

Take it with a grain of salt, this is how I see the story, others will tell you differently, which is good, it means we all see the story in a way that makes sense to us.

#john's commentary

[ao3feed-ineffablehusbandz]

Four Horsemen

Four Horsemen

by ohsoineffable

Words: 185, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 4 of Ineffable May 2023

Fandoms: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens), The Them (Good Omens), Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse (Good Omens)

Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse & The Them (Good Omens)

Additional Tags: The Night After the Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Post-Apocalypse, Dialogue Heavy, Ineffable May 2023

From https://ift.tt/WFhvtAN https://archiveofourown.org/works/47040844

#ao3feed ineffablehusbandz #ineffable husbands #good omens #aziraphale #crowley #anthonyjcrowl

[oldstorynewart]

Of Angels, Demons, and Unlikely Kinship

In the beginning, I dwelt the gardens of a Protestant primary school.

My mother served me apples, however, and having received such human upbringing I never did devote myself to the Lord. I just couldn’t grasp how God could create something so delightfully flawed as humanity only to judge it for being its perfectly imperfect self. Sauntering vaguely downwards on the wings of the atheist exodus, I took refuge in the wonderful worlds of Greek and Norse mythology. I never doubted the non-existence of those deities, and found the definite truth of their fiction to be much more compelling than the possible fiction of Biblical truth. That made me wonder: would the Biblical stories that befell me as a child be just as worthwhile if I treated them as myth? Good Omens – the 1990 novel written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman – taught me the answer to that question is an absolute, religiously capitalized ‘Yes’. Through a comic reimagining of the Christian canon, Pratchett and Gaiman preach the tales that raised me are still – in the words of the demon Crowley – flaming like anything. 

Good Omens follows the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, the respective representatives of Heaven and Hell on Earth. Throughout the centuries these entities have grown rather fond their home (and of each other, although they’d rather not confess to that). When Crowley is asked to deliver an infant Antichrist to an order of satanic nuns he is far from ecstatic, because this child’s arrival marks the beginning of the end of the world. Hoping to prevent him from causing Armageddon, demon and angel join forces to raise Satan’s son as ethically neutral as possible. Through a poetically human error, the two lose sight of the Adversary and they embark on a wild quest to find the hellish Prince in hopes of canceling the apocalypse. The child – whose name is Adam – has been raised by regular people in the town of Tadfield, England, and finds himself rather confused when he gains the power to alter reality in any way he wishes. Crowley, Aziraphale, and Adam are joined by a wild dramatis personae that includes witches and witch hunters, horsepersons, hellhounds, and Hells Angels, as well as a full chorus of Atlanteans, Americans, and Aliens.

Although the book takes its liberties in adapting the Biblical canon, it does include many of the aspects of the ‘real’ Armageddon. It is said the final battle between Heaven and Hell will take place here, which will be satanic in origin. The Antichrist is said to deny the Father and the Son, and he will be accompanied by the four horsemen of the Apocalypse – War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. All of these are present in Good Omens – although the novel claims Pollution took the place of Pestilence after the invention of penicillin. It's said the kings of the East will march to battle against the kingdom of the Antichrist (Aziraphale is the angel of the Eastern Gate), and in the end the Lord will prevail. In a way, the Lord does prevail at the end of the story. Adam has to choose between his devilish destiny and the love of his friends, and he – having been raised on human kindness – chooses love. He ends Armageddon by altering reality so that Satan was never his father (a clever play on ‘denying the Father’), and in this way love prevails. If anything, the novel preaches that no one is inherently good or evil, and that love is stronger than hatred. And isn’t that what God is all about?

With Good Omens, Pratchett and Gaiman question many aspects about the Biblical worldview, including free will, the nature-nurture debate in relation to good and evil, and the utility of dichotomous thinking. In line with their gospel, the two authors avoid taking sides in these debates through a simple trick: with every question Crowley asks, Aziraphale answers that God’s Great Plan is ineffable. In other words, anything that happens in the story might have been intended all along, and none of us readers – whether we be Christian or not – can ever argue against God’s logic. The book does a miraculous job at questioning the Biblical canon in a playful and lighthearted way, and it invites us to do the same. In this way, the novel does exactly what I needed it to do: it makes the stories that raised me fun again, and it dares us to believe love will indeed be victorious. It mythicizes the Bible, and in this safe space of fiction we might just get the revelation that eating an apple every now and then is perhaps not such a bad thing.  

[cybermoonmoon]

“...January 2021″

This missive is from my Pandemic Journal. January 14th, 2021.

I saw on Ch.12 the Brooklyn News station long lines at Kings County the regional medical hub. This for testing, but no shots yet. Thanks to the former #45 the Vaccines waited in warehouses. Our new President Biden just released them. 

I'm sitting tight not going out even for shopping. That new strain is hell on wheels for kids, and elders. Kids much more endangered than by the last waves. If it's my time bleep it I'm ready. But if I can stay, I'm sticking around. Especially since some pals are planning serious Post Apocalypse parties. 

Coney Island Mermaid Parade may not happen...still too soon. 'But Winter ‘21 Solstice parades for sure! Such a journey such history we live. Bigger than 1968. I was a teen for that noise the perfect time be 17!

2020, & 2021 are evil twins. 

Never mind we can take it. I think the year will start rough. However, Summer/Fall Solstices 2021 will start a new era. A more hopeful more just one. We will have learned so much.1968~2020 serious book ends, and some of us were there for both. Bleep'em and the Four Horsepersons from Hell they rode in on! Stay safe laugh and eat lots of non-sugared ice cream! Live Long and Prosper.

[hjbirthdaywishes]

June 1, 2023

Happy 77 Birthday to Brian Cox. 

#Brian Cox #Happy Birthday #Death #Good Omens Death #Apocalyptic Horseperson #Horseperson of the Apocalypse #Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse #Good Omens #June #2023

[in-love-with-my-car-zine]

Nothing like a bike to carry you all over your world, from Hogback Woods to the old quarry. I remember all the places I went on my bike as a kid with my friends. It was the '80s. We were all shoved outside to run around like feral children as long as it wasn't raining. Chances are pretty good nobody would have noticed if we biked off to an airbase to battle the Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse. But enough about my generation's neglectful childhood. Let's see some Them in action.

Applications are now open for In Love with My Car, a zine celebrating the vehicles of Good Omens. Click here to go to the form.

#the bentley #good omens zine #the them #in love with my car zine #good omens

[freyjawriter24]

Hi @broken-ankle - I wrote a fic for you in the @do-it-with-style-events Ineffable Game Gift Exchange! Thank you for the prompts - I really hope you like what I did with them!

Summary:

The Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse meet up officially once every 250 years to discuss their achievements on Earth. Lately, though, Pestilence has been struggling - and the time has come for him to step back.

#my writing #And There Shall Come Pollution and Pestilence Upon the Land #good omens #four horsepersons of the apocalypse #diws ineffable game gift exchange #fanfiction #do it with style events #good omens events #pestilence #pollution #death #war #famine #through the ages #history

[ngkiscool]

Pestilence is still here, and so are the stories about her.

This week all the stories are SFW, and surprisingly ,apart from the inevitable  references to plagues and the pandemic, no content warnings.

As always, the description includes rating, word count and main characters.

The next weeks are open to suggestions - would you like to focus on a character that hadn’t got enough attention? Continue with the vibes? Please send ideas and recs for stories that focus on supporting characters (as in, Aziraphale and Crowley are not the main ones). Self recs are encouraged!

Death, Famine, War and the Fourth. by Perelka_L - rated G, 678 words, focusing also on War, Death, Famine and Pollution. Summary: White Horse changed its Master more often than one would suspect. But not really.

404 Email Not Found by Dacelin - rated G, 707 words, focusing also on Metatron and IT demon. Summary: The first the Metatron knew about Armageddon was when Aziraphale contacted him to beg for it to be called off. Being a professional, the Metatron murmured soothing things about it all being part of the plan and rerouted the call elsewhere instead of admitting he had no idea what the principality was talking about. Prompt Fill in which Armageddon happened because Heaven didn't get God's email to call it off.

Born Of Men by Azrael - rated G, 468 words, focusing also on War, Death, Famine and Pollution. Summary: Five drabbles, one for each Horseperson of the Apocalypse. War. Famine. Pestilence. Pollution. Death.

A Five Horsepersons Christmas 2020 by Otter_Seastar - rated G, 2.3K words, focusing also on War, Death, Famine and Pollution. Summary: War, Famine, Pollution, Pestilence, and Death gather to celebrate Christmas 2020. Gifts, bickering, and friendship ensue.

The Return of Pestilence (Bringing Ruin in her Wake) by LilithReisender - rated G, 1.1K words, focusing also on War, Death, Famine and Pollution.  Summary: Pestilence was coming out of retirement The "order" had come a few months after the apocalypse hadn't happened and everyone had returned to their normal activities. She had been hiding in her favorite little corner of Earth, laying on a beach and watching as tourists got food poisoning from questionable vendors, when The Feeling came again.

The Fifth Horseperson by yougotooslowformeaziraphale - rated G, 348 words, focusing also on Pollution. Summary: The world has changed since Pollution took the job of the fourth horseperson and humans have recreated their old methods of death.

The Last Horseman Standing by OtterSwirl - rated G, 821 words. Summary: After Armageddidnt, Pestilence comes out of retirement.

Comebacks by NovaNara - rated T, 698 words, focusing also on Crowley and Aziraphale. Summary: Aziraphale really didn't need Pestilence's return. Luckily, the horseman is not the only one who's overdue for a visit.

And There Shall Come Pollution and Pestilence Upon the Land by @freyjawriter24 - rated T, 3,2K words, focusing also on War, Death, Famine and Pollution. Summary: The Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse meet up officially once every 250 years to discuss their achievements on Earth. Lately, though, Pestilence has been struggling - and the time has come for him to step back.

Repeal and Replace by Quantum_Witch - rated T, 2.3K words, focusing also on War, Death, Famine and Pollution. Summary: When one of the Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse decides to retire early, the other three find it difficult to accept, and are a little miffed at having their fortnightly brunch-drinks-and-trivia-games disrupted by the weird newcomer.

Authors - if you wish that your Tumblr account will be tagged, instead of the AO3, please comment or DM me the handle. Thanks :)

Bonus - master list with all past recommendations!    

Thanks for reading, and remember - sharing is caring!

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #weekly spotlight #ngk recs #pestilence #war #death #famine #pollution #the four horsepersons

[ryuu-scribbles]

Horseperson of the Apocalypse: Pollution, aka Chalky

(Part 1/5)

Part 2 || Part 3

#chalky good omens #good omens tv #good omens #pollution #four horsepersons of the apocalypse #chalky #aka #blanc #white #snowy #albus #uhhh I’m forgetting some #WEISS #trying out a new style with my fav horseperson

[lrosewrites]

A World: In Need of Midwives

They say that the world is ending. They say that at the end of the world, four horsepersons ride— Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death.

First thing’s last: if you recall your Tarot, you might take note that Death —Lucky XIII— is just another name for Transformation.

We’ll come back to that.

Now— Pestilence. He’s a stubborn old bastard. As recently as last year, the foolish and the hopeful anticipated his retirement (the efforts of anti-vaxxers to keep him in the field notwithstanding). But then again, vaccines were around one hundred years ago, when the Spanish flu raged And Death reaped her portion. We are only human, after all.

At least, some may say, Pestilence does not assault us anew on the heels of the War to End All Wars, this time.

“Some people” live in ignorance. War has never wanted for attendants. They come in army green and in police blue and in red MAGA hats. By these, the wage of War is payed for with stolen—Black, brown—lives. Though those who yet live demand, “Stop killing us!” still no standard rises proclaiming the promised peace. 

War is not ended. Not yet.

What about Famine, you say? Surely, in our advanced technological age, in which food surplus is the rule rather than the exception, people can’t be starving unto—

Oh. Right. Never mind.

Which brings us back to Death. Which brings us forward to the lesson of the Tarot.

To its Renaissance creators, the nature of Death was not ending only. What Lucky XIII really means is this: Death and then rebirth.

Transformation.

Please understand— the world has ended before. The world will end again. The world is human, in macrocosm.

But sometime in this world’s lifespan, we unlearned rebirth

No small wonder we’re so afraid!

Even so, I know that a new born world is so fragile. It needs so much nurturing for it to grow into the kind of world we’re hoping for. The kind where we can finally leave three of the four horsepersons

Asleep in the earth.

But we’ve got to keep our eyes on that new Earth as this one passes away around us; As we midwife our hearts past the end of the world.

We’ve got to survive to see it and to help it grow.

Y’all, it’s going to be such a beautiful world! We shall see each other in the shape of its ears and the color of its eyes; I can’t wait to meet it.

#poem #poetry #poet #narrative poem #narrative poetry #four horsepersons #four horsepersons of the apocalypse #apocalypse #The Four Horsemen #four horsemen of the apocalypse #pestilence #war #famine #death #death the horseman #death the tarot #death and rebirth #rebirth #lucky xiii #lucky 13 #new world #beautiful world #beautiful new world #midwife #midwifery #midwifeing #midwifeing the world