# Always Coming Home - Ξ2T By Ursula K. LeGuin ###### tags: `pluriverse`, `always-coming-home`, `book-club` LeGuin completely imagined a new society. The Valley was based on seemingly fond memories of her childhood. No matter where our journies take us we are in a sense always coming home. ...How our rituals define what is important to us ### A First Note > The main point of the book is their voices speaking for themselves in stories and life-stories, plays, poems, and songs. If the reader will bear with some unfamiliar terms they will all be made clear at last. > All we ever have is here, now. ### The Quail Song > Run two quail > rise two quail > two quail run > two quail rise > from the meadows by the river ### Towards an Archaelogy of the Future > How I envy them their shovels and sieves and tape measures, all their tools, and their wise, expert hands that touch and hold what they find! Not for long; they'll give it to the museum, of course; but they did hold it for a moment in their hands. > My gold is in the shards of the broken pot at the end of the rainbow. Dig there! > If they had a town here it was made of what the woods and fields are made of, and is gone. > They owned their Valley very lightly, with easy hands. They walked softly here. So will the others, the ones I seek. ## Stone Telling, Part One ### The Serpentine Codex ### Chart of the Nine Houses ### Where it is ### Pandora Worries About What She is Doing: The Pattern ## Some Stories Told Aloud **Some Stories Told Aloud One Evening** **Shahugoten** **The Keeper** **Dried Mice** **Dira** ## Poems, First Section ### How to Die in the Valley ### Pandora Sitting by the Creek ## Four Romantic Tales **The Miller** **Lost** **The Brave Men** **At the Springs of Orlu** ## Poems, Second Section ## Four Histories **Old Women Hating** **A War with the Pig** **People** **The Town of Chumo** **The Trouble with the Cotton People** ### Pandora Worrying About What She is Doing: She Addresses ## Time and the City **The City** **A Hole in the Air** **Big Man and Little Man** **Beginnings** **Time in the Valley** ## Stone Telling, Part Two ## Dramatic Works **A Note on the Valley Stage** **The Wedding** **Night at Chukulmas** **The Shouting Man, the Red Woman, and the Bears** **Tabetupah** **The Plumed Water** **Chandi** ### Pandora, Worrying About What She is Doing, Finds a Way Into the Valley Through the Scrub Oak ### Dancing the Moon ## Poems, Third Section ## Eight Life Stories **The Train** **She Listens** **Junco** **The Bright Void of the Wind** **White Tree** **The Third Child's Story** **The Dog at the Door** **The Visionary: The Life Story of Flicker of the Serpentine of Telina-na** ## Some Brief Valley Texts ### Pandora Converses with the Archivist of the Library of the Madrone Lodge at Wakwaha-Na ## Dangerous People **A Note about the Novel** **Chapter Two** ### Pandora Gently to the Gentle Reader ## Stone Telling, Part Three **Messages Concerning the Condor** **About a Meeting Concerning the Warriors** ## Poems, Fourth Section **From the People of the Houses of Earth in the Valley** ## The Back of the Book ### Long Names of Houses ### Some of the Other People of the Valley **I. Animals of the Obsidian** **II. Animals of the Blue Clay** ### Kinfolk ### Lodges, Societies, Arts ### What They Wore in the Valley** ### What They Ate ### Kesh Musical Instruments ### Maps ### The World Dance ### The Sun Dance ### About the Train ### Some Notes on Medical Practices ### A Treatise on Practices ### Playing ### Some Generative Metaphors ### Three Poems by Pandora ### Living on the Coast, Energy, and Dancing ### Love ### Written Kesh **Alphabet and Pronunciation** ### The Modes of Earth and Sky ### A Note and a Chart Concerning Narrative Modes ### Spoken and Written Literature ### Pandora No Longer Worrying ## Glossary **Kesh Numbers** ### Stammersong