OVO

Kerry Wendell Thornley: Saint Distaff's Day, 7 Jan [LINK-ZUM]

There is no truth to the legend that St. Distaff, Patroness of the Spinning Wheel, was simply the creation of a medieval wit and did not actually exist. To hear some people, you would think St. Patrick and St. Christopher didn't exist!
Although never officially canonized by the Papacy, St. Distaff was a real person. What skeptics ignore is that her first name was Saint and her last name was Distaff (her middle name was Mary). A child of poor but ignorant parents who wanted to name her after Saint Mary's Hospital where she was born but didn't know how to spell hospital, Saint M. Distaff grew up to become the foremost champion of feminism of all Southern France in the dark ages. "God just ain't a man and that's that." She had heard of Eris from a passing needle sharpener who passed through her hamlet one January 7th just as the 12 Days of Christmas were winding down.
Seated at her spinning wheel near a window in a castle keep where she was employed as a maid, Saint Distaff was busy making flaxen thread when a mysterious gypsy called to her and asked if any of her needles were dull. "Just a moment and I'll look" she said. Upon discovering her sewing basked was in disarray, a chaotic hodge-podge in fact, she commenced to complain with the Five Noble Rhetorical Questions: 1) why do things get in such a jumble? 2) why cannot I find anything I need when I need it? 3) what did I do to deserve all this chaos? 4) why am I confused? 5) when will I get organized? Then the mysterious gypsy answered these questions by explaining that Eris Discordia was the answer to all but the last question, to which the proper reply was "never, so get used to it!" Upon hearing these words, Saint Distaff was enlightened - so the Inquisition burned her to a crisp.
St. Distaff is observed by embroidering samplers featuring Discordian proverbs.

[Previously unpublished. For more works by KWT, see OVO 17 The Dreadlock Recollections. - Trevor]

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