In our hearts they burn

Many thanks to my buddy Bill, who recommended American Gods right before a three-week period featuring two road trips from Nashville to South Bend. And many thanks to the leisure reading collection at the Vandy library, who had a pristine copy on CD. I think it was getting dark around Kokomo when we reached the interlude "Coming to America: 14,000 BC". In that section, an old matriarch, Atsula, has led her people across the land-bridge to Alaska, escaping a natural disaster foretold by a god. And while she certainly believes in the god of her people (because in the world of American Gods, gods actually and empirically exist), she is still skeptical of their true power. Atsula is the first humanist, and tells her people that "Gods are great... but the heart is greater. For it is from our hearts they come, and to our hearts they shall return."

And then I got a hankering for some Insomnium. Totally unconnected events, of course.