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I recently spent a week at my son's campground in the countryside outside Dallas.  While there, I was elated to espy a sizable dodecahedron made of twelve substantial wooden panels tightly wrapped in brown, buff leather.  It had been constructed by a local artist about a dozen years ago.  

Contemplating that cosmic shape, it brought back all those vibrant discussions of geometry, linguistics, and metaphysics from a year and a half ago.  Esthetically and intellectually satisfying to commune with my old friend the dodecahedron, I fell into a reverie beneath those shaggy-scraggly-barked eastern red cedars that seemed to draw me up into their spreading branches that connected to the universe emanating from the dodecahedron that I held at my waist.

Selected readings

• "Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England, part 5" (6/7/24)
• "Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England, part 4" (6/5/24) — especially this extended, detailed comment by Brian Pellar
• "Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England, part 3" (5/24/24)
• "Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England, part 2" (5/12/24)
• "Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England" (4/30/24)
• "Wheat and word: astronomy and the origins of the alphabet" (3/15/24) — with references to seven substantial papers on this subject by Brian Pellar
• "The Alphabet and the Zodiac" (12/6/22)

January 28, 2026 @ 11:39 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Language and art, Language and astronomy, Language and culture, Language and mathematics, Language and philosophy, Language and science

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