"…surrounded by forests and meadows" — A Week of Bibliomancy, Day 3
Counting down the days to the Launch Party
Something unexpected happened today. Before I was able to select a text from the heap of books I piled lovingly on the floor in the center of Weirdosphere HQ’s main office, to assist in this week’s bibliomancy experiment—this staff writer’s seven-day commitment, following Matt Cardin’s lead—a new fitted sheet for my bed arrived by post. I’d forgotten I’d ordered it about a week ago, after the bed’s current fitted sheet came out of the dryer with a long tear across it. The sheet’s ten-year-old fibers gave up on the idea of coherence, I guess. In any event, I opened the package and was presented with this rather nice message from the company’s managing director:
My eyes locked onto the word “Inspiration” because it is a familiar word in English. I live in Western Germany presently, so I don’t see much printed English. Loosely translated, the message says that the company, ENTSPANNO, stands for fitted sheets in the luxury segment. Years of experience, a good network, and our enthusiasm for quality set us apart. We are based in rural Upper Austria, surrounded by forests and meadows. This inspiration makes it clear to us to think and work in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way every day. Our mission is to provide you with an exceptionally good sleeping experience. To this end, we work daily in partnership with experienced textile manufacturers to use high-quality cotton fibers to produce our fitted sheets. We want you to enjoy our products just as much as we do.
No, this is not what I had in mind for bibliomancy today. I was kind of hoping for something exciting to write about on a Wednesday. But a few things came up for me while reading this. First, I take for granted how often and how much I read every day. Consider how much text we process daily that is not on our phones or computers, from letters, bills, and circulars to signage, labeling, and instructions. We swim, occasionally drown, in an ocean of language. Second, in a world that is inundated with cheaply made but expensively shipped, carelessly branded goods from large online retailers, who shall remain nameless, I’d almost forgotten what it is like to receive an ordinary, everyday, semi-consumable product with its own backstory. My fitted sheet was born in a place of forests and meadows. It grew up in an environment of quality, reliability, and sustainability. It wants to contribute to my comfort and happiness. What if every product we brought into our lives carried with it an origin story, an ethic? What if every product already does, but we’re not noticing?
This packaging insert feels like more than just greenwashing. It feels sincere; it feels personal. And it feels reciprocal. The company cares about how I feel about the firm and their product. I care about how a company feels about their customers and the environment. Is this how things used to be when you personally knew the folks from whom you bought, sold, or traded goods? Another time, another world.
I was about to throw this card in the bin, when the phrase “trash stratum” sprung to mind. It seemed almost a shame to commit this bit of “Thomas Dunzinger, MSc., Geschäftsführer ENTSPANNO” to the trash stratum. In all fairness, it was a piece of trash stratum to begin with, though, right? Just a bit of printed clutter increasing overall packaging density. Or was it? I really feel like Thomas—we’re on a first-name basis; his photo is on the card—cares about how I sleep at night. This is a real guy who sells quality sheets for a living. I bought his sheets. We’re kind of cosmically linked.
In a lecture entitled “The Trash Stratum” from 2022’s Weirding course with J.F. Martel, Phil Ford said that when Philip K. Dick wrote “the symbols of the divine initially show up at the trash stratum,” PKD was suggesting that even in the most abject cultural object we might catch a gleam of something that transcends its contingent appearance in the world. In other words, we can find the sacred in anything, in everything. All matter is cycled and recycled in a great cosmic renewal program.
J.F. and Phil say seeing the symbols of the divine in the trash stratum is what it’s like to live in an aesthetic universe. Each object, every molecule of matter is a bit of divine processing that is quietly, stealthily working its magic all the time. The divine does not speak to us but rather through us. The guys are fond of saying that anything taken to its extreme gives birth to its opposite, what they refer to as enantiodromia. Thus, from out of the dusty trash stratum comes sparkling wisdom. J.F. once said, everything real, everything true is right there in the trash stratum. It is where you will find the holy grail, the question to which our lives imprecisely form the answer.
So, if the stuff we aren’t paying attention to is where the symbols of the divine come from, maybe I should pay closer attention to the stuff I wouldn’t otherwise. Like package inserts. The trash stratum is always the place you don’t want to look, Phil says. You have to be intentional. Notice the trash stratum. Someone may reach out to you. And he might help you sleep better.
***
I get it; this is maybe a stretch, both for bibliomancy and for what J.F. and Phil mean when they talk about the trash stratum. But this act of weirding, this acknowledging the wisdom of the trash stratum, can produce a profound shift in perspective. Seeing a bit of the divine in the vast array of material surrounding us might mean we get to choose meadows over landfills.
Warmly,
Dawn
***
I hope to be back tomorrow, and I’ll choose a proper book bright and early so I don’t end up divining the side of a soup can. Until then, you are invited to celebrate the release of Matt Cardin’s new book, Writing at the Wellspring: Tapping Into Your Inner Genius, with us on Sunday, December 14, 2025, at 3 p.m. EST. The Launch Party is free, but registration is required. We’ve set up a special event space for it on Weirdosphere, which you can access by visiting this link - https://weirdosphere.mn.co/plans/1934155?bundle_token=07bfa1cf4fed44fad24987f34c5721bc&utm_source=manual. We look forward to seeing you.