thoughts about life and other mysteries

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2010-09-24T15:53:00.001-07:00

Vitameatavegamin

2010-06-04T10:19:00.001-07:00

So, a perky woman sold me some vitamins yesterday. I opened my first packet a few minutes ago, swallowed the contents (six pills), and I'm sitting here waiting for them to kick in. I tricked myself into swallowing them two at a time by doing what the saleswoman suggested, which is to put two on your tongue, making sure one of them is slippery, then swallowing them together. I did that, and it worked. Just like a cool hat trick a magician might pull.

Swallowing large pills, bitter or otherwise, is difficult and unpleasant for me and this is one of the reasons I have never really developed the habit of taking vitamins regularly. The typical vitamin is huge. And I typically choke on them. Seriously, I have memories of painful episodes where I ended up throwing away some damn pill that had been in my mouth too long, melting into my tongue. One unsuccessful attempt after another, trying to force the foul-tasting thing down.

Another reason I have avoided vitamins is that I've long been of the opinion that food and drink ought to provide all the nutrients we need. And that may well be true, especially if one is careful to plan nutritious and healthy meals. But now that I'm taking vitamins, and I do plan to continue (I think), maybe I can slack a little on nutrition. After all, with each little packet I open, I'm getting all those vitamins and other nutrients!

I can eat anything I want now. Bring on the Twinkies, the cheeseburgers and greasy fries. Give me an extra helping of ice cream, too, because it's all I'm having for dinner tonight and that big bowl I intend to down is not going to hold me for very long.

Yikes. I hope you know I am kidding. But really, the tempting thought of how easy it would be now to really slack as far as nutrition goes, using the excuse that I'm all charged up on super-vitamins, is entertaining.

The real reason, however, that I am now taking vitamins is twofold. One, I am seeking my daughter's approval. She's been bugging me about this for a long time now. Two, I have reached the half-century mark in age and realize my body is in decline.

As I stood there in the health and nutrition store, listening to (and especially watching) the saleswoman rave about how great those pills make her feel, I could almost feel myself perking up, even though I had yet to down a single pill. Just think, I could come to feel as good as she seems to feel. And wouldn't that be great. I'd get so much more done, would stop feeling so lethargic and depressed, my crankiness would be all but gone.

I might not even recognize myself! Hey, maybe I'll become a whole new person with this sudden burst of new energy. We'll see. In any event, it sounds like a good idea so I'll give it a try.

The Ghosts That Haunt Me, Part III

2010-06-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

Think I'll wrap this one up today. I started this series of posts as a writing exercise, suggested by one of the writers in my little bard club, to explore the territory covered in "Superman's Song," by the Crash Test Dummies. I had never heard of the song when it was suggested, and actually wasn't too familiar with the band either. My daughter thinks they "suck" but I am willing to give almost any band a chance, not being much of a music snob. This is not to suggest that my daughter is a snob when it comes to music. She is a musician and rather discerning about her likes and dislikes. This morning, I had the pleasure of sitting on her bedroom floor and listening to her pick away on her oud. Quite lovely, soothing.

Anyway, here is the subversive bit of controversial nonsense I came up with this morning:

Supe's Dead, the headline reads. Superman represents the ideal arbiter of truth and justice. Real men aren't supermen, though.

The city is its own jungle. Real men adapt to their environments. If criminals are the "norm," men conform to that norm. If they refuse, they fight a losing battle.

It's not fair that people are taxed for things they don't use or care about, but just try to avoid paying taxes. We adapt to cultural norms, all the while railing against them.

Marriage and monogamy, disgusting. But just try breaking free of a family unit and see what happens. No thanks. I've seen it at a distance and I'll keep the monotony. Triangle of M: Marriage, Monogamy, Monotony. The holy trinity of cultural strangulation, choking the life out of many of us who choose, yes choose, to live this way.

Where's Superman when you need him? He's an ideal; he's not real. He provides a kind of service for the comic book characters with whom he shares the stage (frame). Supercop, defeating super-badguys. In real life, even the supposedly good guys are badguys. Gotta be a criminal in society to be a contributing member of it, propping up "the system" with our monetary obligations.

Don't take me there. I'm pissed off enough as it is, without consciously thinking about the war machine, such as it may be. This beast, created by mankind, for the purpose of defending liberty and democracy. Yeah, right. Like I said, don't get me started.

Of course we need Superman! How could we live without an ideal figure representing truth, justice, and the American Way? Oh, ha ha ha ha. An American writer created him, remember? Let's not get started on that theme! America the superpower. Now there's the root of all our problems: American power. Sick, twisted, perverted "justice" that allows criminals to keep running things and the goodguys to suffer.

Oh wait, who are they? The good guys. I keep forgetting. We need memorials erected to keep them in our minds and hearts. War heroes? No, those are the standard Army-issue variety. Let's come up with some real heroes.

This takes me back to a blog I wrote awhile back, Heroism. Actually, it didn't start out as a blog entry. This was an academic paper I turned in to one of my professors, in the fall of 2006, when I first went back to school to get my master's degree.

The Ghosts That Haunt Me, Part II

2010-05-25T16:38:00.000-07:00

I killed a bunny today. It darted out under my vehicle as I was driving along a road that is surrounded by natural plants and wildflowers. I should have known, or at least thought about the possibility of something alive passing by in front of us.

My daughter and mother-in-law were passengers and thus witnessed the sickening event. We all felt the impact, the ugly thud of a tire passing over a small body. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the still and furry lump in the road, a being that only moments before had been animated with bunny life.

Goddamn it. I did that! Ended a poor rabbit's life because it didn't know any better and ran into the path of an oncoming death machine. Stupid rabbit!

It's too late to do anything about it now, though. I felt the need to validate myself afterward and questioned my daughter, who was sitting in the backseat. Could I have avoided the accident? At first, she was just upset about the bunny being killed and it seemed like she wanted to blame me; but later she blamed the rabbit for its destiny as roadkill.

It's a grim reality we sometimes must face. Things happen that are mostly out of our control and the consequences bring pain into our lives. All three of us experienced the death of the rabbit, but the "smoking gun" was mine because I was driving the vehicle that ran over the unfortunate creature.

What is also unfortunate is referring to this animal as "it" when, in fact, he or she has a gender. That is unfair, and yet who knows whether a boy bunny or a girl bunny died? Will another bunny come along and discover the corpse? Will some other bunny miss the dead bunny, or will the death have no impact on anybody but him or her and the humans who witnessed the death, who were somehow responsible for it?

How does a person process something like this? If I had been on the lookout for an animal in the road, I might have seen it and been able to avoid hitting it. But the thought did not cross my mind and I wonder who is at fault for this failure to recognize the possibility of something like this happening. Despite the nature of the area we were passing through, I was not thinking about a sudden need to swerve, slow down, or come to a stop.

Poor bunny rabbit. I regret hitting him or her, but there is nothing I can do now. RIP. I ended the life of a living creature, a little sweetheart. Somehow, this became my destiny and it makes me sad.

The Ghosts That Haunt Me

2010-05-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

The thing about Superman is he is a myth to begin with. And with this in mind, it exists in people's minds as a concept and not as a real person. The point of a "super man" is that if such a person did exist, how might our lives be different?

Well, that is a point I think about. My preferences in life tend toward reality, and yet mythology is reality, too. Superman is a fun concept, I reckon. The realm of imagination, of what can be imagined, is itself a mythological reality. Carl Jung touched on the idea with his "collective unconscious" storyline.

Each one of us is capable of imagining Superman. And since he exists only in our imaginations, we each see "him" differently. Some might imagine him as being close to (but not quite) all-wise and all-powerful, semi-godlike. In any case, he is magical with his "super" powers, extraordinary abilities, things nobody living on earth is capable of doing.

Now Clark Kent, that's a guy who seems real. And this is the part of the Superman storyline that draws us into the idea of Superman as just an ordinary guy in disguise. Speaking of "the thing is," the other (or just another) thing is, when a person imagines that another person could come to possess superhuman powers, the realization dawns that people actually do come to possess "superhuman" powers under some conditions, and this has been demonstrated many times in real life situations: saving a trapped child by lifting weight that, under normal conditions, a person could not possibly lift, for example.

I would attribute this to a positive use of the power generated by fear. In this example, the fear is for the child's life, which the rescuer wants to see continued. In other words, in life-or-death situations, fear can instill supernatural power in a motivated person. But Superman's powers go way beyond that which a normal human being is capable.

But wouldn't any properly (or appropriately) motivated "normal" person be capable of developing powers similar to those extraordinary powers displayed when faced with danger? In other words, can fear be transformed to strength in situations that aren't quite as dire as life-or-death situations?

Yes, of course, for this is a basic tool of even the beginning artist.

(Inspired by: Superman's Song - Crash Test Dummies)

A Charmed Life

2010-05-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

From Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth, 1605. Act V, Scene 8.

... I bear a charmed life, which must not yield, To one of woman born.

My brother breezed into town last week for a couple of days. We only got to spend a few hours together, but my time with him always leaves me very thoughtful because of the various places we go in conversation. One of the things he said to me this time is that he views our childhood as charmed. "You know, we lived a charmed life," he told me with astonishing authority.

Hey wait. I was there, too. Our lives were far from "charmed." Indeed. He pointed to the fact that we never really lived in any way that could be considered impoverished, in a financial sense. And this part may be true, but I wonder what either one of our parents would say to this "charmed life" theory of his. Our father is no longer living. He was disabled for many years and we lived on my mother's salary as well as on whatever disability payments came in as a result of Dad's illness. Quite frankly, I have many depressing memories of those days. But I kind of get his point, that we never really lacked any material thing we needed. But charmed?

Something about that idea really sticks in my craw. I think of a charmed life as being one in which things have been more or less handed to you, with very little of your own effort involved. A silver spoon kind of existence. Is that a charmed life?

What do you think. What exactly is a charmed life?

Going to California

2009-12-21T08:17:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite photo of the ones I took recently in California. The view out the window is of Newport Beach.

more thoughts about cognitive dissonance

2009-11-30T12:28:00.000-08:00

So, as I mentioned earlier, my daughter and I have had this ongoing dialogue about cognitive dissonance. She brought it up and I have kept it going since we have had some difficult moments with it. Mainly, the difficulty was me not really understanding it completely. And I admit I probably still don't get it, not quite. The idea intrigues me because it seems to explain some of the more perplexing mysteries of life. Like how people can see things so differently from each other and yet not be "wrong" in their perception.

For example, consider this conversation we had the other night. I had proposed the idea to her that cognitive dissonance is not like when life gives you lemons you make lemonade but rather: when life gives you lemons, look at what bad decision you made that brought them into your life. She replied that it is more like this (paraphrased and somewhat embellished): You spend a bunch of money on lemons, thinking they will be delicious. But to your chagrin, you discover they taste terrible. Rather than having to face the awful reality that you truly made a Bad Decision, you lie to yourself and pretend that all is peachy. Or lemony. That is cognitive dissonance.

That little bit was influenced by something she had shown me, from Wikipedia:

A powerful cause of dissonance is an idea in conflict with a fundamental element of the self-concept, such as "I am a good person" or "I made the right decision." The anxiety that comes with the possibility of having made a bad decision can lead to rationalization, the tendency to create additional reasons or justifications to support one's choices. A person who just spent too much money on a new car might decide that the new vehicle is much less likely to break down than his or her old car. This belief may or may not be true, but it would likely reduce dissonance and make the person feel better. Dissonance can also lead to confirmation bias, the denial of disconfirming evidence, and other ego defense mechanisms.

All of this has me thinking about the nature of bad decisions. Who judges decisions and on what are those judgments based? What goes into the making of a decision judged as being a bad one? These questions, of course, cannot be specifically answered except in the context of specific situations and decisions.

One thing that seems significant here is belief, what a person believes to be true about a situation. Beliefs are built on other beliefs. And decisions, good or bad, seem to be irreversible in that they are final at the time they are made. This being true, those decisions are effective until they are replaced with new decisions that change the outcome or maybe just the perception of the previous decision. Again, this is generally speaking and not referring specifically to any particular situation.

Applying it to the situation described above (the Wikipedia excerpt), let's say I am that person who paid too much for the car and in order to make myself feel better about it, I focus on how the new car is in better mechanical condition than the old car. I cannot undo the purchase of the car (the bad decision), will never get that money back. But not only can I appreciate that I feel safer in this new car, I can also focus on the real value of that money. So I "wasted" it; money is money and I can get more. Maybe I will have to spend a little less in some other areas for awhile, maybe even for a long while since I am now making those high monthly car payments. But rather than resent or berate myself for the decision to buy the car, I could instead focus on the enjoyment of that car, despite the cost of it. Or, if it bugs me that much, I could sell it and buy something I believed to be of a value appropriate to the amount of money spent.

But I am getting out of my element here, for money is something that I am not comfortable talking about. Maybe this is because of the way I fear money's influence on the decisions that I make, some of them very personal and others quite ordinary. One of my mother's favorite expressions was always: money isn't important unless you don't have any. I guess this holds true for me as well. Very true, in fact.

My financial situation right now is that I am not bringing in any money at all while my husband is carrying the full weight of our financial burden. This will not be the case for much longer, I hope, because my intention is to find a paid internship, now that I have my degree and am preparing to take the state licensing test.

Meanwhile, back to cognitive dissonance, I am experiencing a lot of it lately, which I suppose is a good reason to want to explore it further. Here is another quote from the same source I referenced above:

The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

Yes, I'd say reducing the "uncomfortable feeling" resulting from a situation where "one idea implies the opposite of another" is something I would definitely like to see happen in my life. This being true, I am making the decision to be grateful for the decisions I have made that have brought truly good things into my life. Some of these decisions were not easy to make; I knew people I cared about would object to them (or at least feel uncomfortable with them); but they turned out to be the "right" thing for me to do after all.

Blog Time

2009-11-27T13:17:00.000-08:00

It seems about time for a blog entry. Today is supposedly "Black Friday," and I have no idea who came up with that term. But it certainly seems appropriate, for the idea of rushing out and shopping after one day, a single solitary day, of stores being closed for a national holiday, just seems ... well, let me put it this way: sadly American. We spend Thanksgiving Day feasting, gorging ourselves with food glorious food, and yet go on a "fast" from shopping that same day. Hardly anything is open on Thanksgiving, but the day after....

Okay, enough about that. I started this month with the intention to write a novel in thirty days. Yes, I laughed as I wrote that last sentence. It is embarrassing. But I did succeed at doing just that two years ago: NaNoWriMo 2007 Winner

Please forgive me, I needed that pat on the back. I feel sort of redeemed by this past success but still slightly embarrassed by what I did this year, which is start the project knowing it was the month I would also be faced with finishing my master's degree. If I had put my efforts into the novel this year, perhaps I wouldn't even have graduated. As it stands now, I am 40,546 words away from the 50,000 word finish line! The project ends in a few days and, needless to say, I am one of those people Chris Baty classifies as being in...

Group Three: The Go On Without Me's. For you, November turned out to be a very bad month to try and write a novel. Life went completely crazycakes, and you faced a never-ending series of demanding work or school projects, health emergencies, social obligations, and/or tech meltdowns. You managed to get a few good ideas down on paper, but never quite found your novel's rhythm. You're thinking of bowing out, and planning on giving it a try next year.

That's me. That's the group I'm in: Go On Without Me. But I got something I know you didn't get: a watch. That's right. The president of the school I graduated from handed me a nifty watch after I walked across the stage to signify my achievement. It's a pretty watch, too. I am wearing it now. We all got watches. That was my prize whereas the NaNoWriMos won whatever they won this year. I don't care. (Oh, okay. Yes I do care. I hope they won cool stuff this year, too.)

But this isn't what I came here to talk about. No. The topic on my mind since early morning ... actually, since last night when my daughter and I were talking about it, is cognitive dissonance. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Cognitive dissonance. Say it out loud. Go ahead. See how it feels to say ... cognitive dissonance. (Ha.) It means "the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, esp. as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change."

Is that ever me! As much as I truly want to change particular attitudes and behaviors, the reality remains: I am what I am, and this is pretty much the person I have always been. The one who still gets stuck in the same behavioral patterns, putting myself into situations where I don't belong, where I need to remain neutral in order be effective. But who can be neutral? I mean really. Come on. Neutrality is for people without feelings or opinions. So, inevitably I insert myself wherever I go.

But this isn't what I really wanted to talk about here either. I want to cover the ground between the time I stopped working on the ill-fated month-long novel and now. I knew it was going downhill when I wrote these final words:

"Officially, as of now [sometime on November 12th], this project is HISTORY. I don't have the will to finish. NaNoFiniTo. It is a sense of RELIEF. Now I can look at all these characters (me) and see who 'they' really are: a bunch of psychopathic losers; now I can see where this is going and it isn't a pretty place. 'Nobody loves me and nobody cares,' Gloria whined to her dad. 'That's right, kiddo.' Brad looked at Gloria with a homicidal glint in his eye, pulled out ... a piece of paper and wrote ... THE END."

And that is how my story died. After that happened, I just started writing whatever was on my mind, putting it all out there in the notebook I bought expressly for the novel wrtiting project. Life on life's terms. It seems to exist in a place of perpetual cognitive dissonance.

I'll come back and write more later, I hope.

Graduation

2009-11-22T12:30:00.000-08:00

It has been awhile since I updated this blog. But since my "status" has changed (I am no longer a student), I figured what the heck. Here is a photo from my graduation ceremony on November 20th.

The Compassionate Caregiver

2009-05-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

People go see shrinks because they can no longer go on in their lives without help. They have either come to realize this on their own, or their circumstances have forced them to this decision. It is also true that the matter might have been decided for them, in a courtroom or even in a living room. Whatever the reason, though, the fact remains that people do end up in therapy, in a room with themselves and another person: a counselor or therapist. Me. I am going to be that person.

Why did I choose to become a counselor? I actually am not one yet but am on the verge of starting my first practicum (or internship) at a drug and alcohol recovery center. It is a sobering thought.

My daughter and I saw the image above on a refrigerator magnet a few years ago and both found it quite amusing. This was actually before I made the decision to become a counselor. I am thinking about displaying it in my office to help crack the ice with my clients but am not sure whether the humor would be appreciated by everyone. Humor is "funny" that way, you know.

Farewell to Eigenvectör

2009-05-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

(Their final playlist.)

Two reasons to listen to Eigenvectör this week

2009-02-25T14:17:00.000-08:00

Miriam and Harrison

Eigenvectör

Friday

4 to 6 p.m. CST

5 to 7 p.m. EST
3 to 5 p.m. MST
2 to 4 p.m. PST
10 p.m. to midnight BST
11 p.m. to 1 a.m. CET
midnight to 2 a.m. EET

Hope?

2009-02-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

Did someone say ... wait a minute. I think hope could be a good thing, if only we'd agree on what it means.

I have no hope whatsoever that politicians in general will ever really be nonpartisan, nor do I have hope that they will not be cynical. The ones who are so sure that President Obama represents everything they deplore will (and do) seek to discredit him however they can.

He promises that our economy will recover. Well, that would be nice, but what is the reality of this country's economic strength? The smirks on people's faces last night, ones in the audience of the president's congressional address, reveal their contempt; they also reveal that they are just waiting and not really listening to the president.

I have serious doubts that people who don't really support the president, for whatever reason, can swallow their pride and work with him or trust him to lead our country. Their arrogance will prevent it. But I only believe this because I sympathize with him and would probably be sitting and smirking with the cynics had the "other" candidate won. So,....

That is the tragedy of our American system of governance. Each one of us is a partisan. How many Republicans (besides the ones who voted for Obama) are glad to see him in office? For the most part, they are either opposing him or reluctantly supporting him; but they are not happy about it. These people are now being forced by circumstance to work with him; and they are likely looking at his supporters as smug and elitist because "their" candidate won the election.

Let's face it: pride is something each one of us has to face. I find myself in a somewhat smug position, of liking and supporting the president. What I don't like, though, is knowing that there are people out there who truly want him to fail, so they can say, "told ya," and (if he does fail) gloat about how "right" they were. In no way are these people going to go along with an agenda that includes actions that fall outside of their philosophical and political belief system, whether that be capitalism, republicanism, or any other ism. Universal educational access to all children? Job assurance for adults? Ha. Fat chance this can happen without the country turning socialist or communist. Right?

People stick to their isms. If only they (we) didn't, maybe we'd really have hope of creating a country we can all live peaceably within.

Immediate Peace

2009-02-13T15:52:00.000-08:00

"Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace."

Bhagavad Gita

Tears of a Clown

2009-02-12T09:33:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading an article on the dynamics of scapegoating in group counseling and how group leaders might intervene. It was a painful article to read because it reminded me of perhaps every time I've ever been a scapegoat.

I kept thinking about people who project their own weaknesses onto others as a means of coping, but at the expense of the scapegoat's comfort. There is an amusing saying that goes, "Comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." I like it because of the image it conjures, of shaking the status quo, of rattling people's cages, of refusing to accept things as they are.

I imagine a sad clown, a person hiding in plain sight behind a painted-on sad face, who needs a mirror image of himself in order to make sense of the sadness. So, he finds another sad person and attacks, says things designed to wound and make him feel even more sad. Before long, everyone in the room is sad. Then the door opens and another clown walks in, this one with a happy face painted on and a genuine smile behind it. "Why so sad, my clown friends? What happened, did someone die?"

Can you picture that scene? A room full of clowns. How could anybody be sad there? Well, maybe someone with coulrophobia (fear of clowns), but the so-called normal person would probably be cheered up sitting in a clown-filled room. I might not know the first thing about being normal, but I would certainly enjoy the company of those clowns!

This is just imagery, though. In a real group counseling situation, scapegoating can be a serious problem. It can make a bad situation worse; if a person was already feeling insecure and unsure of being really open and vulnerable with the group and then gets "shot down" with words by someone else in the group who is hurting, a new wound opens up.

I am now thinking back to what I wrote a few weeks ago, a blog post about a not so innocent bystander. I sort of ganged up on that guy, didn't I? It wasn't really intentional; it just turned out that way. By pointing out something that I noticed, his role in creating the situation he described, the picture emerged of a person being manipulative and even malevolent. And I played a role in creating that picture, describing the image so you would see it, too.

In this article (the one I linked to in the first paragraph) is a statement about how particular qualities of a scapegoated member can trigger an attack and that the target is hardly an innocent bystander. The example is given of a child bobbing his head and making bird sounds who becomes upset when other group members criticize his behavior.

Almost every time we open our mouths, we risk making ourselves targets of scorn and derision. It almost makes me want to take a vow of silence. This being impossible, however, I will keep communicating, even knowing it's a losing game sometimes.

I wrote a short vignette a few years ago that now comes to mind. (The watercolor collage that illustrates it is mine, too.) There is a line in there about the Smokey Robinson song, Tears of a Clown, which I love. It comes right before a moment of clarity between two men who have suddenly become equals in that they both recognize their capacity for pain and acknowledge that tears can be healing. The next thing that happens is the therapist asks the client how he might be of help. I wonder whether that is perhaps the most important question we can ask.

How can I help?

Eigenvectör (Again?)

2009-02-11T12:13:00.000-08:00

I know, this is getting way too tedious and repetitive. But I feel the need to clarify something. The name of the radio show is Eigenvectör, not Eigenvectōr, as I wrote the other day. An umlaut is a pair of dots, not a line. A minor detail but details matter, don't they? Of course they do!

Eigenvectōr (Continued)

2009-02-06T16:37:00.000-08:00

If you tuned in to Eigenvectōr, here is what you heard. The playlist is in reverse order; in other words, the first song listed was the last one played.

Friday 6 February 2009

Album - Artist - Song

Juno - OST - Kimya Dawson - Tire Swing
Exit - Shugo Tokumaru - Green Rain
The Woods - Sleater-Kinney - Modern Girl
Alright, Still - Lily Allen - Shame For You
Big Fish - Pearl Jam - Man Of The Hour
OK Computer - Radiohead - Exit Music For A Film
Girls And Boys - Ingrid Michaelson - The Way I Am
The Stooges - The Stooges - 1969
Barracuda - Kinky - Hasta Quemarnos
Gospel Claws - Gospel Claws - God Keeps Me Alive
White Light/White Heat - The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat
Running With Scissors - Weird Al Yankovic - Albuquerque
The Spine - They Might Be Giants - Experimental Film
Kala - M.I.A. - The Turn
The Mouse And The Mask - Danger Doom - Old School
Death Won't Ever Kill You - Bob Marley - Concrete Jungle
The Good Feeling Music Of Dent May And His Magnificent Ukelele - Howard
The White Album - The Beatles - Happy Birthday*
Seven Layers Of Self-Defense - Latvian Radio - Suzy Singable
Cheap Thrills - Big Brother & The Holding Company - I Need A Man To Love
Coyote - El Goodo
Free The Bees - A Band Of Bees - Horsemen

What can I say? I mean, this is my daughter so I'm going to be naturally biased, but isn't that sort of fabulous? I think so. They are on every Friday afternoon, from 4 to 6 p.m. CST.

* In honor of my daughter's eighteenth birthday, which was yesterday, and Bob Marley's birthday.

Eigenvectōr

2009-02-05T12:33:00.000-08:00

I am compelled to mention my daughter's radio show here because she wants people to listen to it and asked me to help her promote it. "Eigenvectōr" is broadcast live on the Internet every Friday afternoon, from 4 to 6 pm CST. She hosts the show with her friend Harrison. Last week, there were only two people listening, me and Harrison's mom.

So, if you happen to be online tomorrow afternoon, please tune in. They play an odd mix of tunes; you never know what's going to turn up there, whatever amuses and entertains them. Chances are, you'll be amused and entertained as well. Just go to http://radio.utdallas.edu and press the "Tune In!" button. They also take requests, by phone 972.883.6305 or on AIM (their ID is I Am Radio UTD).

Second Blooming

2009-01-30T11:23:00.000-08:00

"I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find—at the age of fifty, say—that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about."
Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

Thanks (again) to Elizabeth for snipping and pasting this quote in another blog so that I, in turn, could snip and paste it again! I actually do turn 50 this year and although I hardly feel at the end of "the life of the emotions and of personal relations" (never), a whole new life is definitely opening up here.

I received a call that I have been waiting for this morning, someone who might be offering me a counseling practicum, starting in March, which is exactly what I need right now.

A Not So Innocent Bystander

2009-01-29T08:25:00.000-08:00

I have been following a conversation in Steve Salerno's blog and was reminded of something in one of my books, The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind is Designed to Kill, by David M. Buss.

The topic is infidelity and what came to my mind is a discussion in the book about "mate poaching," which is pretty much what it sounds like: trying to pinch someone else's partner, as one writer puts it. But what I discovered when I turned to that chapter surprised me; it was something I didn't notice when I first read it.

I came to realize Buss is not exactly an innocent bystander in the scenario described in the opening of the chapter, "Mate Poachers." Now, let me start with a disclaimer: What Buss is talking about is important and my observation here does not diminish this in the least. It merely points out how his actions influenced and set up a scene that helped him make his point.

Buss tells the story of a party he attended, a light-hearted social gathering of friends and family who had come together "for a long weekend of eating, drinking, talking, hugging, and having an all-around good time." Well, one of the guests at one point said to Buss that he's "got to do something" about another guest who he had witnessed hugging his wife. Buss asked him to clarify what he meant, and the man replied: "I feel like taking a screwdriver and ramming it into his neck."

Apparently, Buss decided to spread word throughout the gathering of this man's supposedly homicidal intent! I wondered, why didn't he question the guy further, find out exactly why he felt threatened by what appeared to be a congenial and innocent hug. Maybe there was some history here that Buss didn't know about. Whether the man had a right or reason to be angry is sort of beside the point, as I see it. His wife may or may not have "strayed" in the past, or had a tendency to behave "inappropriately" with other men. (I put these words in quotes because they are subject to individual interpretation.) My point here is that if Buss had delved into this a little more with the man instead of leaping to the conclusion that he might actually commit a violent act toward a man he (apparently) suspected of potential mate poaching, he most certainly would have avoided creating an atmosphere in the party of "homicidal hyperalert."

Nobody at the party had to know what words the man used to describe his anger. Buss was the one who chose to repeat them; he is the one guilty of spreading the rumor, or of gossiping about an alleged intent that he really knew nothing about. The angry man's first words to Buss had been about his need to "do something" about a situation in which he felt threatened. The fact that he felt like committing a violent act probably was nothing more than just that, a feeling that arose in the context of an angry moment. Buss describes the man as "peaceful" and as one who had "never before shown any signs of violence."

So, why did he choose to say something slanderous about the man, even if he was repeating the exact words the man used? I'd say it's because it served his narcissistic purpose of gathering juicy material for his book. If he had merely talked the man into a state of calm and found out more information about why he felt so threatened, Buss could instead have helped rather than hurt the man, as he did by repeating words that caused "everyone" at the party to look with suspicion upon him, a man who might have only been afraid, nothing more or less. Buss claims that everyone "made sure that their bedroom doors were locked tight that night."

Oh, sure. They were really afraid of a man going off on a raging homicidal spree? More realistically, they had been influenced by another man (Buss) intent on creating a scene that furthered his own agenda.

One thing I found interesting in this whole description is how Buss described the man who had hugged the woman as a "friend," and yet the other man, the one who had confided in Buss about his anger, was not described as a friend. Was that the difference between the two men, as far as Buss was concerned, that one man is a friend and other a mere acquaintance?

In any case, here is the opening sentence of that chapter: "One of the most terrifying displays of homicidal psychology I've personally witnessed happened at a friend's home." Yet Buss was hardly just an innocent bystander watching the horror of it all unfold.

But back to the topic of infidelity, another item came to my attention: an article shared by another blogstress, Elizabeth, in Steve's blog as part of that conversation I mentioned earlier. "What Do Women Want? - Discovering What Ignites Female Desire," published on January 22nd in the New York Times Magazine, is very much related to this whole issue and yet opens up quite a few more topics, so I will leave it alone for now and see if this generates any comments.

Mainly, I was thinking about the idea brought out in the article that women's sexual desire is narcissistic.

The Sting of Exclusion

2009-01-20T13:23:00.000-08:00

Inspired by a phrase picked up while watching and listening to the inaugural events on television, I thought of how the sting of exclusion affects each one of us from time to time. The phrase was: "we've tasted the bitter pill of segregation." After turning off the inaugural events, listening now only to the sound of my dog snoring and the tapping of keys combined with my own voice and the voice of another dog barking outside, I realize one of the biggest challenges our new president faces is that of approaching boundaries with wisdom, restraint, discernment, and - most importantly - with decisive action.

I am reminded of something my mother once told me, something that stuck with her after one of the surgeons operating on my heart-diseased father told it to her. They had been discussing Dad's dire situation and what the next course of action might be. In matters of life and death, a surgeon must sometimes make a series of decisions; and one decision always comes after another one based on various factors. All of these decisions cannot be made at once; and the surgeon cannot predict what some of the decisions will be until he or she learns the outcome of the decisions that come before them. This all might sound vague and yet the point that particular surgeon made to my mother on that day had to do with the idea of one decision being only good until another decision had to be made.

Have you ever watched the show, "House"? If so, you can understand how the final outcome of the show often hinges on something not previously considered, like a tick (arachnid) or a termite, being discovered as the cause of a mysterious illness. House will come in to save the day with these discoveries, often after alienating himself from patients' families and other medical professionals. He's a crusty one but by the end of the show, he comes out smelling like a rose. At the beginning, however, many other possibilities are considered. Does the patient have cancer? Hepatitis? It is a process of elimination. A patient could literally be on the operating table about to have a procedure done, one that had been decided and agreed upon by everyone (a liver transplant, for example); then when that new information is available and it contradicts the old information (the guy doesn't actually need a new liver), a quick decision must be made to not operate and instead treat the real problem (the infection, for example).

That is the kind of thing my father's doctor was referring to when he told my mother one decision is only good until another decision has to be made. Unfortunately, in my father's case, he ended up dying because of an infection that took over his body after (successful) neurosurgery. This was over thirty years ago and medical technology and knowledge has come a long way since then. But the point about decisions being made on an as needed basis remains valid.

Going back to the idea of exclusion, I also think of the difference between love and infatuation. I have been reading more of William Glasser (see my previous posting, Positive Addiction) and came across some text where he claims that infatuation is "the lifeblood of affairs." I can certainly see how this might seem to be true. On the other hand, what really is the difference in love and infatuation? Both make us feel good. Both give us energy. And both can be present in a relationship. Glasser himself says infatuation can turn into love, but only rarely. But I wonder about this, personally. (Isn't "love at first sight" actually a type of infatuation?)

I have veered from what I came here to talk about, which is the sting of exclusion. I felt it during the inaugural proceedings. America is a nation where secular values are supposedly honored along with religious values. During the prayers, in particular, I wondered about how people who do not share our new president's religious beliefs might have reacted to the decidedly Christian slant to the whole shebang. Now, I'm not knocking it because, on one hand, it exemplifies the freedom we do enjoy in this country. But it also might serve to alienate people who don't share those beliefs. How does the Jewish person feel, for example, hearing the Saddleback minister pray in the name of Jesus? Or, how does the atheist feel about any kind of praying being done publicly during the inauguration of our new president, a person who "belongs" to each one of us equally? The fact is, some people really don't care, and that is part of the tragedy of the sting of exclusion. We all have a right to be respected, regardless of our religious beliefs or lack of them.

Coughing Up a Hairball

2009-01-16T12:57:00.001-08:00

Yes, it's that time again ...

I like that cartoon and had it posted here on this page but after thinking about it and looking at the website where I snatched it (yep), I began to fear copyright violations and didn't want the cartoon people coming after me. (No, not actual cartoon people because they are not real.)

I've been trying to blog these last few days but keep getting distracted by something. If it's not other blogs and conversations, then it's just that something else comes along to pull me away from writing here. Maybe it's also that I haven't been able to really come up with something anybody but me would be interested in reading, and I do want to make your visit here worthwhile.

So much of what I think about is of limited interest to others. In one hour, I'll be listening to my daughter's Internet radio show*, which she is doing with a friend this semester. (Last semester, she had her own show.) She left the house excited this morning, excited in a way different from the excitement she had last semester on the days when she was doing her own show. There really is something about the energy of collaboration with another person.

This is one thing, I think, that keeps me from blogging more often. It's just me here, writing to myself and hoping someone will come along and read it. Of course, it turns into a conversation when someone comments, but not until then. Once the conversation gets started, though, a mutual admiration society often ensues. People who "relate" to what you said chime in with some related nugget, which then changes the flavor and flow into something different.

Or, sometimes a contrary wind blows in if you say something that either comes across as somehow offensive or wrong or maybe just needing another perspective, for balance. For example, I am fairly sure that happiness is a state of mind more than just about anything else. It comes and goes, like all other states of mind. But I don't own the definition of happiness, so ... chances are, if you see it differently, you might say, "Hey, not so fast there, missy...."

I also find that comfort is nearly impossible. You know, being comfortable. I mean, you can go to great lengths to achieve comfort in your life by wearing clothes that feel good, or by using this or that appliance or device to enhance your experience. But as far as lasting comfort, I have been unable to find it. There is always some discomfort lurking in the background, sometimes out in full force in the foreground. It might be physical, or mental, or emotional, or some combination of all of these; but there never seems to be a time when I feel really comfortable.

I sometimes think this is just part of the plan here. You know, the whole "being human" shtick. If we get too comfortable, resting on our laurels and all that, we stagnate. So, we keep moving to avoid that stagnation and to (we hope) feel a little bit more comfortable in our discomfort.

Here I go speaking for you again! When I say "we" I am assuming you have thoughts that are similar to mine. Maybe you feel very comfortable and it wouldn't occur to you to even talk about it. Who knows.

Well, anyway, I hadn't blogged in awhile and wanted to just come say hello. (Hi.) I hope your year is getting off to a good start! Thanks for stopping by.

*The name of the show is actually Eigenvectōr, but (as of this writing) the website is not yet updated with the new information.

Life Stories

2008-11-10T14:11:00.001-08:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about the class I will take next semester, the counseling pre-practicum. I signed up for it this semester but ended up dropping it when I realized part of the class included taking the 200-question comprehensive final exam for the entire masters program. Nope, I am not quite ready for that. Another requirement for that class is to create a video (with a classmate) demonstrating counseling techniques. Since I am still pondering the kind of counselor I will be, I also didn't feel ready for that!

Yes, you might say the closer I get to the end of this program, the more nervous I become. On one hand, it is exciting to think that I've made it this far. On the other, the reality is I am now (supposedly) to the point where all that I have absorbed in all those classes is supposed to be distilled enough that I can say with confidence, "I am going to be a [fill in the blank] counselor," where [the blank] includes my counseling theory of choice. True, I am getting closer to being able to pinpoint what kind of therapist I will be, but nothing is set in stone yet.

My previous blog entry was about William Glasser's reality theory. Today, I will share notes I took last night about narrative therapy.

Narrative therapy involves hearing interpretive stories the therapist views as truth. Dominant culture narratives are powerful, and individuals "internalize the messages from dominant discourses and form their identity around the positions to live from that these messages offer -- even if those positions are not useful to the individual." [That sentence is not worded very well but is lifted directly from my textbook!]

To me, this means we do things out of habit and because we've been conditioned to do them. Here is what Michael White, one of the originators of narrative therapy, believes: "a dominant discourse functions to perpetuate viewpoints, processes, and stories that serve those who benefit from that culture but that may work against the agency and life opportunity of the individual."

Gerald Corey (in the Theory and Practice textbook) goes on to say "power, knowledge, and 'truth' are negotiated in families and other social and cultural contexts." He seems to really respect the individual in therapy, which serves as "a reestablishment of personal agency from the oppression of external problems and the dominant stories of larger systems."

The stories each one of us tell about our lives are subjective; the realities in which we live involve people telling their own unique stories about the common lives they (we) live among each other, viewing the same world in different ways. The narrative therapist listens to clients' stories, trying to discern times in their lives when they were resourceful (living an alternative story, for example); he or she engages clients by using questions to facilitate their exploration. Of course, diagnosis and labeling is discouraged, as is "accepting a totalizing description based on a problem."

The idea of influence mapping is significant, and so is the ability "to assist clients in separating themselves from the dominant stories they have internalized so that space can be opened for the creation of alternative life stories." This is basically saying the therapist encourages the client to detach from the old painful stories in order to begin creating more fulfilling ones.

This fits right in with reality therapy, or "positive addiction" in the sense that there is more to life than just feeling less misery; to improve a person's life, he or she must do more than just "stop" feeling so miserable; "stories ... shape reality in that they construct and constitute what we see, feel, and do." Stories also "grow out of conversations in a social and cultural context."

We are all "courageous victors who have vivid stories to recount."

Positive Addiction

2008-11-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

These blogs can be so addicting! And not just blogs, the entire Internet is addicting. I know I am using the wrong word here for "addiction" refers to something that is harmful. Granted, Internet addiction can be harmful; but in and of itself, it is not. To the contrary, it has helped us connect to one another and to new ideas in ways we had never experienced in the past.

Yes, I am glad about the election results. I voted for Obama and so will either take credit or "the heat" for whatever becomes of the presidency, whatever happens to the nation as the result of an Obama presidency. This doesn't mean I will accept his actions or failure to act as my fault or in any other way influenced by me personally. All I am saying is I did vote for him, am relieved he won, and believe that the work is only just beginning.

I am studying to be a professional counselor and am at a point in the masters program where I pretty much need to decide on, or at least lean toward, a particular method of counseling. There are many, let me tell you. And they range anywhere from almost completely hands-off to hyper-annoyingly directive and meddlesome. Of course, I wish to adopt something inbetween these extremes; but the question of being directive or nondirective still remains. It is my opinion that the nondirective approaches are best for truly helping someone come to terms with his or her own life.

Right away, in the very first semester of the program and in a class focusing on the various theories, the idea of "reality therapy" struck me as worthwhile. First of all, the name resonates deeply. If we ignore reality, we do so at our peril, individually and collectively. William Glasser is the person behind reality therapy, which started as control theory but then morphed into choice theory.

Dr. Glasser's thoughts on "positive addiction" intrigue me, although I believe the very word addiction to be fraught with problems, namely the negative connotation of it. An addiction is, by nature, compulsive, needful, a habit characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal, and it specifically refers to something known by the user to be harmful. This is a dictionary definition of the word. I find that my desires for potentially harmful substances are tempered by competing desires to avoid those same substances. For example, I might want and crave a second cup of coffee in the morning or another glass of wine at night; but the part of me that wants to stay physically and mentally healthy might reject the idea and find a substitute, such as water or fruit.

Dr. Glasser describes how weakness is the cause of almost all the unfortunate choices we make. He also talks about attractiveness and how it wanes as our "negative" addictions increase in intensity. On the other hand, positive addictions strengthen us and make our lives more satisfying. But if we look at our actual lives, we often see distressing patterns in ourselves and in the people close to us. These are facts of our existence; they are our "reality" because we live with these people (and ourselves), and all of our lives become intimately entwined with each other. In the case of the people we live with, they are pretty much "in our hair" all the time, even when they are not present.

The benefits of postive addiction are plentiful: confidence, creativity, happiness, and good health. Dr. Glasser asserts that there is more to living than just staying alive. And although this might seem to be merely stating the obvious, he goes on to say that we find this "more" through love and doing something we believe to be worthwhile. He relates accomplishment to pleasure and lack thereof to pain.

I think of the election results here and how so many people who worked hard on getting Barack Obama elected are now feeling a very well-deserved sense of pride and accomplishment. Again, that particular journey is just beginning. There is a lot of work to do. Where do "we" start; and specifically, where do each one of us start.

I enjoy reading Mark Bryan's artist's way blog and surfed over there earlier today, when I was sitting and thinking about these new beginnings, both for the country as a whole and for individuals in our actual lives, outside the realm of politics. In one of his postings, I noticed he says basically the same thing as William Glasser about accomplishments. Mark says, "The remembered joy of creativity accomplished can help get me started again when I am stalled."

Now, this is not rocket science you know. It is common sense. But it is still good to be reminded of it. Thinking about positive feelings, I wonder whether these are sufficient rewards, in and of themselves, or if we really do need something tangible. Feelings can be so fleeting. Mark talks about consulting with a friend (a great idea) when he is blocked and wants to get moving again. He says the quickest way out of his procrastination spiral (now there's a phrase worth remembering) is to "stop thinking of the project as a whole and just focus on doing the day’s work at hand."

All of this, from the political victory we just witnessed to the personal "victories" each one of us wants to achieve, is related. Private and public become mirrors to one another. Recognizing this fact helps us to be more effective, I think. And speaking of recognition, Dr. Glasser points to the importance of being recognized for accomplishments, how failure to achieve this recognition can lead to misery. He goes on to say the "hang-up" over what to do and how to do it is rarely the real problem; we might understand perfectly well what it is we need and how we can obtain it, but the real problem, he says, is "we don't have the strength to do what will make us happy."

Isn't that interesting? We lack strength to do that which we know we need to do. When I think about the various problems in my life, I realize the best way to deal with them is with both honor and integrity. But if I don't know how to get what I want and need and at the same time keep my reputation intact, then being "strong" is a moot point.

In any case, I do seem to be leaning strongly toward reality therapy as a theory of choice in my own professional life.

Blogsville

2008-09-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

Blogs are like little villages where the people gather at some central location, a watering hole or a town square or maybe just some bar or café where all the locals hang out. And where is "out"? Outside of one's dwelling place, that personal space we call home? Oh, please. I really don't want to visit that idea of home again; it's a place that's eluded me for years, maybe even generations. And here I am talking to myself again, self to self. But that's okay, because you are doing the same thing: coming to another person's blog to see what that "self" has to say to your own self.

This morning I am compelled to look back at my childhood and accept the fact that there were things I was not afforded the opportunity to do. Rather than look back with regret at opportunities missed, instead I want to examine what did happen in light of what I was afforded. As a child, I saw the world through child's eyes. So did you. Then we grew up into adults and began taking more responsibility for our lives. As children, we relied on our parents or guardians for most of our needs: food, shelter, and other sustenance. As adults, we either wing it on our own or we form families of our own. We marry, or not. We have children, or not. Regardless of these decisions, there is a person inside of us who is the same "little" person who existed inside of us back then, in childhood.

This little person is the one I want to get to know again, if at all possible. That unsullied innocent wide-eyed child who was surprised and delighted by so many things. The child my mother remembers riding in the grocery cart at eighteen months old, looking at a can of blueberries on the shelf and crying out, "Blue peas! Blue peas!" I had never seen blue peas before, and how exciting that must have been in the world of one so innocent.

Where did she go, that child? And what about the delight she used to feel at such revelations as the idea of, imagine that, blue peas! Am I even capable of that kind of excitement anymore, or has cynicism become so entrenched in my daily life that nothing really fazes me anymore?

I miss that kind of childlike enthusiasm and want it back!

Slaving Meat Wheel

2008-09-19T09:58:00.000-07:00

Jack Kerouac once wrote that the "wheel of the quivering meat conception turns in the void expelling human beings" and all sorts of other creatures. I thought of another one of his lines, the last one in Mexico City Blues, 211th Chorus, today as I was finishing reading this article, by Robert Jensen. Kerouac wrote: "I wish I was free of that slaving meat wheel and safe in heaven dead."

The reason I thought of it is because Professor Jensen mentioned in the article that he wishes he had more courage to put his body on the gears of the political war machine that is "still grinding away, still grinding down people at home and around the world."

Think about that in light of what it really means. Do we even know what it really means? I don't want to be ground meat! Do you?!

On the other hand, I appreciate Jensen's honesty. I went to see him in October 2001, at a "teach in" he held on a university campus here in my community. That was a true awakening for me; I felt relieved and happy that someone like him did have the courage to speak so openly and candidly about what was, at the time, a very unpopular opinion.

Now, here he comes seven years later saying he wishes he had more courage. That in itself takes courage to say. He mentions a Neil Young song, Let’s Roll, which is a tribute to the United Flight 93 passengers who intervened in the 9/11 hijacking of that plane and forced it down in Pennsylvania, and quotes the following lyrics from it:

No one has the answer
But one thing is true
You’ve got to turn on evil
When it’s coming after you
You’ve gotta face it down
And when it
tries to hide
You’ve gotta go in after it
And never be denied
Time
is runnin’ out
Let’s roll.

I bought the CD that song is on recently, Are You Passionate? Listening to this song now, I wonder whether Young isn't merely referring to "evil" as something we need to "turn on" (or confront) within ourselves. Considering his overall political stance, or at least the one he seems to portray, it is difficult for me to imagine he had any intent here to promote the kind of violence Professor Jensen speaks so forcefully against.

Somehow, we seem to need a new language, and music might just be the bridge to it. Or maybe poetry can help us here. Was Kerouac correct about the slaving meat wheel? Are we really all just "Gnashing everywhere in Consciousness ... Illuminating the sky of one Mind -- Poor!"? It's an interesting and even amusing thought, but "safe in heaven dead" doesn't help us with the task of living.

Death is the big secret, and life the big mystery.

Poor Little Truth

2008-09-14T16:05:00.000-07:00

This sentence comes from Bill Moyers Journal, September 12, 2008:

"We live inside a media hurricane, an unrelenting force of attacks and counterattacks hatched in partisan quarters and hurled into cyberspace with such velocity the poor little truth is blown away like signposts on the gulf coast."

One hardly knows where to turn anymore, with all the information being hurled at us from every direction. Where is the eye of this hurricane? And maybe the "poor little truth" really didn't get blown away after all but is somehow still swirling about in the storm of it all. Political agendas are, after all, political agendas. They are by nature at odds with each other; one pushes, one pulls, both polarize each other. It's just the way it is and cannot be "understood" any more than war itself can be understood.

Likewise, James Hillman might want to understand war, but this might just be wishful thinking in the way the SHAM* gurus wish for their Heart's Desire, or whatnot. And a "leap into myth" (as Hillman suggests) sure as hell isn't going to provide any sane answers. He expects his book, A Terrible Love of War, to pull us out of the predicament of accepting the unfortunate belief that war can neither be explained nor understood. Maybe it just is and that is the reality we need to accept: war exists and people are in love with it because of the excitement, the danger, the way it makes us feel alive, as if we are striving for something.

Is it winning we actually want, or ar we just in this for the ride? Can't we just enjoy the journey without thought to the destination, which might not even really matter in the long run? Attachment to an imagined destination can not only ruin a perfectly good journey, it can also lead to depression, create present chaos, and most of all distract us terribly from the present moment. Now. The culmination of what, at times, can seem like the miraculous.

How do we remember all this stuff? How to spell, form words and sentences, punctuation, what to say, how to say it, and all those other things (including pen and paper, not to mention all electronic forms of communication) that make writing and getting it "out there" to be read possible. No, it's not a stretch of the imagination to refer to the whole process as miraculous. Who are we, mere mortals, to fail to appreciate something we did not create: life. As artists, we "make" things, but our powers are quite limited, even if the things we do make are rightly incredible.

Bill Moyers' perspective on the political atmosphere is, as always, insightful. I wonder about his thoughts surrounding Broken, though. His son and namesake wrote a chilling account of "addiction and redemption" in which he, Bill, played a major role. William Cope Moyers dedicates that book to both of his parents, "who have made the journey with me every step of the way," he writes. Addicts are at war, too. William found himself holed up in a crack house in October 1994 with a sharp, commanding voice outside the door summoning him, "the white guy." He was terrified, he said, and rushed around warning the other "crack heads" to be still and quiet. I can just imagine that scene, feel the terror, and wonder how different his experience was from that of combat soldiers.

Hillman himself is at war with various people, who he attacks in his book. He is brutal with Susan Sontag, for example. Is it simply because he wants her to be wrong, or does he have a real bone to pick with her. She says we "can't understand, can't imagine" the dreadfulness of war, how terrifying it is, how normal it becomes. And yet he took her words and built a book around them, a kind of monument to terror. He explains and describes "a terrible love of war," but does he truly come to understand it? If he has to get in another author's face with accusations that "she is wrong" and what she says "is unacceptable," then what is he showing us with his very actions? And what I am doing now is no different. The need to confront is a reality of war, too. He goes on later to talk about how all of nature joins the war: "The earth's resistance to war, its inhabitants -- rats and bugs and leeches -- at war with the warriors."

No, it's not about the booty of war, either, which the Celts threw into the water "to propitate the gods," to appease them and perhaps ask forgiveness for what they had done. That's just speculation, knowing what I know about human nature. Throwing their war trophies into a lake to propitate some imaginary gods might have been a sacrificial love offering, or something else. Here is one meaning of the word appease, "to attempt to pacify (an enemy) by granting concessions, often at the expense of principle." But would a warrior look at "the gods" as an enemy? Hillman's Jungian influence is especially evident here: "Below the events are the ancestors drawing new history into old patterns." That sentence itself, like this one, is part of an old (ancient) pattern. The collective unconscious, still churning away after all this time.

Just what is the connection between forgiveness and war, between betrayal and love?

Your comments are welcome and appreciated.

*SHAM, as defined by Steve Salerno: Self-Help and Actualization Movement

Not For Sale

2008-09-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

My book is about finished! Will wrap it up tomorrow. I did not plan on finishing it September 11th, but that's the way it goes. Timing is what it is. The illustration here is the book cover; it started as a black and white image I pulled off the Internet. I added (mostly) watercolor and a little marker (pink and the four comma-shaped dark purple areas). That's the title up above. Overall, I am pleased with it. The idea was to handwrite 100 pages then type them into 33 chapters. As of today, I have 32 chapters, 97 pages.

2008-09-10T16:58:00.000-07:00

To be fair, here is our other kitty. They like their new floor cushions.

Strange Sentinels

2008-08-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning thinking about when this whole thing might have started, the disgruntled shtick. Babies cry when they get the urge to cry; usually, people don't question them. They answer.

At what point does a human, baby or otherwise, lose its credibility? Yes, I intentionally said it. Maybe the answer depends on how much learning has taken place in that person's life. The baby might have learned that crying gets him somewhere. He's going to milk that for all it's worth.

We all know about the boy who cried wolf. He lost his credibility when people realized he was full of false alarm.

Media sources need to be trustworthy in order for people to keep coming back to them. And I'd better say something to you that makes your visit to this blog worthwhile, too.

Credibility and trust are issues people like to lecture about. Stern parents warn their children about the consequences of being untrustworthy. Children listen and do what they were going to do anyway. Sometimes, the best we can hope for is that we can trust people to be themselves. This doesn't mean we escape trouble, of course. Just that we accept whatever a person does as we might accept, for example, a baby crying. Babies know nothing of missed opportunities. The only disappointment a baby really knows is that of discomfort. And who really can know and understand an adult's discomfort?

We have a cat who lives in a designated area. (Yes, that's him up above.) Even though he "knows" going beyond a particular door is off limits, he still stands there every day, crying. All it usually takes to calm him down is calling him over, petting him a little, and talking to him in a soothing voice. But he gets the urge to go to that door, again and again. He is very trustworthy this way; I would be surprised if he suddenly stopped crying at that door.

So, what kind of credibility do I have in this cat's eyes? He knows I'm the spoilsport who keeps shooing him away from there. Just as the cat can't (and won't) stop the urge to go beyond his boundaries, people are the same way. We'll push and push sometimes, until we either get "our way" or some kind of response: agreement, disagreement, or maybe just acknowledgement.

And yet why do we do this? Is it not enough to just be content, not strive for anything? No. We always want and need something. To be heard, or fed, or burped, or to move around outside the cabin, where it's not so feverish. And satisfaction is always temporary, too. The end of something means the beginning of something else. We might stop being disgruntled over the cat's behavior but then immediately pick up some new annoyance, a thing to complain about. So we scratch that itch and go on to the next thing. It literally never ends! We go to bed at night, needing that bed as much as we need to get out of it the next morning. And there's that cat again, waiting at the door to be scolded again, deterred from getting what he thinks he wants.

Maybe we are just gatekeepers, strange sentinels who grant and deny permission for this and that. And we're always expected to end on a happy note. What's that all about, anyway. We greet each other with smiles, hugs, and kisses. We leave each other in the same way. I am not advocating violent hellos or door-slamming exits. Maybe I'm just saying shaking up the routine could be useful.

Trust me, okay?

Anonymity Anonymous

2008-08-15T14:54:00.000-07:00

I am kind of happy about this chapter, the eleventh in what will ultimately be a thirty-three chapter, 100-page book, tentatively titled Not For Sale. This is actually (also) an edited version of a paper I turned in for a class last night. The assignment was to interview someone with a job. (The class is in career counseling.) I interviewed one of the directors of a play my daughter was in a few weeks ago.

One of the outstanding characteristics of this book is that there are no names used, only titles. Places are okay, city and state names and such. But I wanted it to be free of people's names. Remember, the book is not for sale. And the article I turned in for class included names, of course.

Chapter 11

Interview Project. The textbook points out that a counselor’s work can significantly improve the client’s satisfaction with his or her life. Although the Director never saw a counselor to help her decide on a career path, it is clear to me she is quite satisfied with the direction her life has taken. She does not view what she does as a career, though; she thinks of career in association with promotions and such. As we talked, words like “amazing” and “wow” and “incredible” kept popping up.

Her journey toward becoming a theater director started in Strasbourg, France, which is near the border of Germany. Director got an early start in acting in junior high. She saw a poster saying the cast of a play was being formed and she wanted to be a part of that. “One of the teachers was a writer and director and had done a play.”

This brings to mind the pyramid of information processing. The lower level of the pyramid showing the theoretical components of cognitive information-processing theory consists of two parts, self-knowledge and occupational knowledge. Director remembered (self-knowledge) this person as being an early influence in her life, someone who possessed information (occupational knowledge) about something exciting to her, theater. Not only that, there was also the influence of community involvement. Director became involved in a theater group that was financially supported by the city and state. “This fantastic organization … was pretty much a theater company. [The founder] mixed people who were already actors with young actors, people who had never acted before.” It was a giant thing, she said. Nothing Mickey Mouse about it. This is how she grew up in theater.

Likewise, what she is doing now with her Theater Group was heavily influenced by her experience in France, where they had sponsorship. Whenever they would prepare for a new play, they would have free workshops with professionals who taught them voice, movement, clowning, improvisational, miming, and mask work. (Theater Group enjoys similar sponsorship from the city and other contributors, corporate and private donors.)

"We performed in French, German, and Alsatian, which is a combination of both. It is spoken near the border of France and Germany and has a lot of German in it. A lot of what we did was based on historical situations because our region was French then German, then French then German, and there was war and … it’s rich with drama and lots of things that happened. So, we would use one of those events as the basis of creation of our plays and which involved, by the way, the whole town. Like there would be an equestrian club, and if we did something about something back in the days when people rode on horseback, those guys were involved, so we had this giant effect … people on horseback and military music, people coming back from the war…. I mean, it was giant, things on a huge scale. It was quite incredible."

In the United States, language was more of a vehicle than a barrier for Director. She lived in a French-speaking house when she first moved here from France, on a scholarship with a College. Other people who were studying French would come to live at the house, either before they went to France or on their way back there. She compared it to a sorority or a fraternity house except it was for French-speaking students, male and female, and she was the head of the house.

I think of the idea of reframing here. Some people moving to a new country would be intimidated by the thought of immersion in a strange new culture and language, different from one’s own. In Director's case, learning the language was a part of her theater experience and helped her in communicating in English. She was cast in a play and said it was hard to understand, first of all, and then to portray, but that it was amazing nonetheless.

"What I learned right there and then was that the way [the Playwright] wrote, what he did, because of the type of words and sounds he used, being a foreign person, I could understand the emotions without exactly understanding the words. That was a big revelation. The sounds, the vowels, the consonants, just told me what was going on in the character, and I was like, wow."

This was also something new for Director's close-knit family, who supported what she was doing. Not only was she the first to leave the country, she was also the first one to make a life out of theater. She says everybody else was into flying. Her grandfather was a pilot. She and the other kids all grew up hearing about flying, but she was never interested. Now her aunt, who is an English teacher, started a theater group in her school and they have started performing. “She told me flat out that I had inspired her to do that, and that it keeps her going, really speaks to her soul.”

This all ties into trait and factor theory, too. Although Director did not receive any kind of formal assessment or career counseling, she gained her own self-understanding (step one) and knowledge about the world of work (step two). Observing firsthand how a successful theater group came to be, and being a vital part of that success. The major goal of career counseling, according to trait and factor theory, is step three: integrating information about oneself and the world of work.

One piece of information Director discovered about herself was that much to her surprise, she actually does have what it takes to teach. “It’s the last thing I would have ever wanted to do,” she told me. But the opportunity to teach came up during her experience with a Theater Group in Massachusetts.

She was there for the summer of 2001 and was performing in two shows in the morning while teaching elementary school aged children in the afternoon. “I realized one of the reasons I didn’t want to teach is because I was scared, scared of the kids.” But it must not have been too bad because when she began working for her present Theater Group in Dallas, she realized she really enjoyed it. “They immediately got me to start teaching [Playwright's] plays. A lot of the tools I used I learned at the other Theater Group.”

Another thing that surprised Director is her transition from acting to directing. “I always thought I wanted to be an actor, and that’s it,” she said. It turns out, however, that she really did have a knack for coaching actors, which she got to do at one of the Dallas community colleges. Director came to the Theater Group through another actor, who she had worked with in another of Playwright's plays in 2002. This was also a play she had the opportunity to direct, five years later, with the Theater Group. It was a big revelation to her, she said, when that actor invited her to co-direct a play with him. This was in 2005, which was also the first year my Daughter acted in the Theater Group's summer performances. This summer, they did the same play Theater Group performed the year Director began helping the actor Friend, in 2004. Afterward, he proposed co-directing with him. She said they worked for two years together. Then, when he told her he would not be there the next year, he said, “I think you’re ready.” And that was her big revelation, she said. “I am!” She co-directed two plays and then directed two on her own after that.

Some things are more enjoyable than others. But sometimes the difficult parts of her job ultimately lead to rewarding experiences. She told of a challenging situation that got resolved by the transformation of one of the teenage actors in this year’s performance, someone who went from being disruptive to being frightened to being confident. The two of them had an emotionally charged conversation that included her telling him she appreciated him, giving him a clear picture of what she was looking for and what she expected of him, and a final warning about repeating the kind of disrespectful behavior that had gotten him into trouble in the first place. In the end, he was overcome with gratitude for her giving him the opportunity to act, despite the problems he had created for the rest of the cast and for her. (She said she had stayed mad for an entire weekend.) “I thought he was just unhappy about his role,” she told me. “But what was really underneath it was that he was afraid.” After their talk, however, “he walked tall and straight, he was a changed person.”

I found it interesting that while Director had previously been afraid to teach children, it was ultimately the fearfulness of one of her own students that led to something rewarding in her own career, such as it may be. In fact, “jumping off the cliff” is something she encourages in young actors.

We ended our interview talking about values. This paper has gotten long enough as it is, but I am including the transcript of our conversation in this folder as a resource. She basically values exploring humanity and revealing herself in her work. Actors will hold their hands to the fire whereas people in regular life will pull away from it. Such expression is like therapy, she says. “It gives words to your emotion, to people who may not have any other way of expressing … and, there you go. Speak it.”

JenOwrimo

2008-08-05T15:46:00.000-07:00

Started a new project, another month-long book.

Here is an excerpt:

We are all spotted and inconstant. When souls are knit together then later "unknit," those souls change; they cannot possibly exist as they were before the knitting took place. The transformation of a soul unknit from another can be either hideous or beautiful, depending upon both the quality of the soul itself and of the soul to which it was knit, once upon a time.

If it were possible to learn how another person looks and with what art that person sways the motion of another's heart, then more people would get their true hearts' desires. But it cannot and must not be, for what one person hears is not to be known by any other person.

"The course of true love never did run smooth." This is to be expected; therefore I shall and must wait for the courseness of that certain course to reveal its meaning. All people are vessels through which spirit flows. A face differs from a face; but in the end, each one is just a face.

The opportunity to disentangle from materialism never arrives. Why look for it? We will always need something, eventually. Take this cup from me now, but you'd damned well better give it back to me later when I need it again.

Be Your Own Guru

2008-07-19T19:31:00.000-07:00

Regarding yesterday's posting, which sounds a little more disgruntled than I feel today, I have decided to go through the book again to remind myself exactly how I can be my own guru. Really, I have a great deal of respect for the person I sort of criticized for merely selling products related to a really good book she has written. More power to her! At this point, however, I cannot afford the package deal she is selling so am going to go back through the book, doing the practice exercises as she suggests.

See, here I think is what bugged me about the idea of having to buy more stuff in order to get the most out of what she is offering. First, I resented that the book promised to teach me everything I needed to know. In fact, when I finished reading it the first time I was satisfied that it had done exactly that. So, when an e-mail comes along suggesting that I need to also purchase videos, I thought, "Wait a minute. Why is the book not enough?" (Go back and read what I wrote yesterday for more thoughts about it.) Next, it bothered me that even after buying the additional materials, I still would not have personal access to the author.

In reality, this is asking too much! There is no way she can have a personal relationship with people who read her book and would like to talk with her about the ideas. Not for free anyway, and I am just in no position to pay for the kind of mentoring I would like from her. Besides, she is not offering that kind of support because a person in her position could not have any kind of a normal life and at the same time give such intimate personal support to her students.

So! What all of this is saying is that I have faith in the book and am going to work through it again. The author has a forum at her website and it looks like I found a few others who are just starting to work through the book, too, so we can mentor each other, I hope.

Paying for a Guru

2008-07-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

Or maybe I should have titled this "Praying for a Guru." The funny thing is, what I have to say today is about someone who has been touted as the ideal person to teach you to be your own guru. Yes, that's right. I'm not going to name names here, am going to keep this completely anonymous. But let me be clear. What this be-your-own-guru Guru is now doing is selling a big huge package deal, complete with videos and who knows what, all to convey the same information that was previously conveyed in a book! Now, if you read the book then that should have been all you need to do in order to learn how to be your own guru. But no, the book apparently is not enough. But ... I thought ... wait ... didn't that book have it all? Why is the person who wrote the book now selling videos promising what the book promised? Are the videos for people who can't read? Are they for people who, for whatever reason, are inspired more by a voice talking out loud within earshot than by that very same voice speaking inside the covers of a book? I don't know. And I'm really not "knocking" this person. (Oh, who are you kidding? You are too knocking that person.) Okay, so I am. So what? What I am really trying to do is figure out whether I want to buy this new package deal or not. In other words, I have the book. Do I need to see the movie, too? Didn't I already learn how to be my own guru? I thought so.

No Ordinary Moments

2008-06-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

(Click on the image for an enlarged view.)

Theatre of the Absurd

2008-06-21T13:18:00.000-07:00

Don't have too much to say today, the weather here is too nice to be sitting inside at a keyboard typing for too long, but this week I have been thinking about the connection between Theatre of the Absurd and fascism. Yes, of all things! Well, what got me started on this was my friend Gary (who doesn't have a website and so I can't "point" you to him) mentioned he had taken a course in college about this and was, for whatever reason, thinking about it one day this past week. Well, I mentioned it to my theatre-wise daughter and sure enough she had some thoughts about it, namely that Luigi Pirandello, one of the playwrights who influenced others who came to be known as absurdists, had given his Nobel medal over to the Italian government "to be melted down" for the sake of helping out with that country's annexation of Abyssinia. Not sure what, if anything, this is worth to you, but there you have it, my contribution for today.

Telling Stories

2008-06-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

I do not understand this world at all. One of my friends is in what I view as a horrible situation, faced with poverty unless she does something that will eventually create even more hardship and difficulty, especially for her children. It is complex and complicated and I do not wish to discuss it here, just want to acknowledge it and to wish my friend well, hope she finds a way to "fix" the situation and live in relative comfort with the outcome. Enough on that subject.

I have enjoyed reading true crime stories for many years now and thus when I discovered that Steve Salerno had not only written one but one that took place right here in Texas (crime central), I checked to see whether the book is available in the library where I typically check out such books. Sure enough, they had Deadly Blessing and I brought it home this past Saturday. It's good, real good. And the family dramas that unfold on those pages are ones painfully familiar to me; they remind me of many situations in my own life, like power struggles and influence garnering.

One of the reasons I love crime stories is because they help me put my own life story in perspective. Another reason is they help me see how stories told are not just about the characters that "people" the stories but also about the storyteller. This goes for fictional stories, too. Maybe especially fictional stories, because sometimes the best way to tell one's own story is by projecting emotions and thoughts onto made-up people. This way, we don't slander anybody but at the same time we get whatever point we need made across.

SHAMming

2008-06-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

Really glad to see Steve Salerno adding a new posting to his SHAMblog. I discovered his book not too long ago and then went searching for him on the Internet. About that time, he was wondering if he hadn't said all he had to say about the whole SHAM phenomenon. The questions he raises are interesting ones indeed. And SHAM is one of the best self-help books I've read in quite some time! Not the kind of response Steve is looking for, probably, but there you have it. The book helped me see some things more clearly and also opened up some new avenues of thought.

We met on the courthouse steps ...

2008-06-08T12:10:00.000-07:00

I once had a friend
relied on this friend
to be there
to care
without judgment
minus condemnation

But something happened

And still to this day
it puzzles and
angers me
(is she afraid of anger)

Amazes me because that
rift didn't have to happen

Its ripple effects have
been devastating

I lost something precious

But

I cast no blame
no judgment
no condemnation
upon her for this

And yet still I wonder.

Containment

2008-06-07T11:25:00.000-07:00

Nice to hear from Robin again! And is good to be here today, in this blogspot. Have been visiting Steve Salerno's SHAMblog lately and thinking a lot about the things he says. Even though he is (apparently) closing up shop, there is plenty of good material to read through over there.

Today, however, I share a ... mm, not sure what to call this as it is not really a poem but a word stream. Yes, that it is what it is, a word stream inspired by a conversation about Bo Diddley, may he rest in eternal peace.

sad sounds from a person who lives despite consequences
who chooses those dirty deeds (done dirt cheap) as if there
were some other choice but to waste words on fetid breath
but hell, we all know it's not the words but the dance that matters
scowling at the moon, we dance our gipsy danse, twirling 'round
angry that no words will do but making do with that nasty dance
tastes good feels rotten gets going to become ripe like fruit again
sworn to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, a witness sees
watching melancholy out of eyes colored the same, seeing
fairly clearly, accurately -yes- and this means i recognize
my brother my sister we chose thus and seeing our own
reflection looking back looking up toward that same scowling moon
wind screeching all around and yet today only happens once
in this lifetime and still the cheerful message drones on and on
even though it shows what nobody really wants to see but if i
keep it to myself any longer or any farther down this endless road
then i might just implode into myself, and we know how tragic that can be
yes if it rains the parade will still go by even though we're all wet
the water reminds us the parade is not a charade but a gift like
wild horses running free across the landscape of dreams aplenty
okay so they won't come true i can still dream them can't i
and help myself to a piece of that pie the yummy yummy pie
the grand old pie made with a tasty upper and lower crust
if we all must eventually settle on rock bottom and yes we must
it is from that position we realize up ^ looks utterly best and that
we really do all of us get what we deserve and nothing less
now is not the same as here for now is gone the instant you say
now for now is no more but here is being present despite the fact
the mere fact so mere that it dissipates into the thinnest of airs
that now just passed away in time that might still exist even though
the eternity in which we love and love forever it seems is within reach.

So, ...

2008-06-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

What does it really mean when someone is "too controlling." The control freak always gets a bad rap, and yet I wonder how a person exists without being "controlling" to any real extent. I mean, even when "losing" control and throwing a temper tantrum or whatever, a person controls a situation by making a big scene in it.

Something disturbing happened last night at the grocery store with my daughter. We went up to the deli counter to get some sliced meat and cheese for sandwiches. When the woman came to wait on us, I noticed right away that her face was bruised, especially around one of her eyes. My first thought was that a boyfriend or husband had hit her. But of course I didn't know this for sure. In addition to being bruised, her demeanor was also very disturbed; she was literally on the verge of tears and had either been crying or was about to start at any moment.

Bad situation there, her on the job out in public with this private "problem" that made probably everyone she came into contact with that day more than a little uncomfortable, the ones who noticed, anyway. My daughter wasn't paying attention and so didn't notice her. I said, very quietly while the woman was slicing our cheese, that it looks like she's been battered. My daughter thought I spoke too loudly (although I'm pretty sure I didn't) and told me to "not talk about it," that I would make the situation worse by (obviously, she thought) talking behind the woman's back, which is in essence what I was doing.

Later, after thinking about what had happened, I had to agree with her and wished that I had said something directly to the woman instead of just pointing out her injuries to my daughter with a whispered, "Did you notice..." Just a simple, "Is there anything I can do to help?" or "Do you need help? (probably better) would have been more appropriate.

I still wonder, is that woman in danger? But back to control, think about what happens when a person loses control and thus "gains" another kind of control.

Long time no ...

2008-06-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, it has been a very long time since I wrote in this blog.

Today I offer this, a simple story. I hope you like it.

There once was a word who went missing. Not a single conversation anywhere contained this word, although it had been there many times before. Where did the word go? Nobody knew and, of course, no one could say. The children were the first ones to notice the absent word. Something was amiss in the classroom; things just weren't the same. The wise people were the first ones to figure out the missing word, to actually name it. But because they considered knowledge of the word a great and glorious secret, they kept it to themselves. After all, if they actually spoke the word out loud, the mystery would be solved and the drama would be over. It was more fun to watch the people keep guessing about this confounded word. They never told, just kept it to themselves. To this day, the word is still missing from the story, "The Case of the Absent Word."

I did it!

2007-11-30T18:24:00.000-08:00

NaNoWriMo

2007-10-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

Rainbow

2007-09-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of David Charlesworth
(Click on it to see the image up close.)

A rainbow can only be formed by conditions present, brought forth by the sheer weight and substance of what came before, in the past present. But now, behold the rainbow.

Light breaking through clouds

2007-09-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of David Charlesworth

Hologram

2007-09-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

One day almost a year ago (October 21, 2006, which if you look closely you can see encoded in the drawing), I sat down with paper and colored pens and doodled out my thoughts, letting them go where they wanted to go. The result was a colorful mishmash of words and lines, statements of my state that day and perhaps a kind of hologram of my life, as it stood that day and reflecting all other days. I found this piece of art recently and looked at it again.

A few weeks ago, or maybe more than a month, I don't remember, I got out a blank watercolor page the size of a bookmark, picked up my paintbrush, and created a bookmark.

I thought to put them together and see how they look.

If you click on the image, you can enlarge it enough to read the words.

Removing the Veil

2007-09-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

Removing the veil covering the dilemma is a topic I keep returning to, again and again. Perhaps it is because of my natural tendency toward "all or nothing" thinking. Now, before you accuse me (justified or not), let me admit right here and now: I am guilty! Yes, I see in black and white sometimes, forgetting about the colors. Sometimes, I see in colors and forget about the black and white. Both ways are all-or-nothing ways of seeing, or of not seeing the full spectrum, everything rather than just selected things, extreme things, while neglecting to see all else. The subtleties of life are such that we simply must remove our veils, the ones that blind us to what we are not seeing.

Okay, enough of an introduction. The dilemma is something we all face at one time or another. We think we have two options and that one must be discarded in favor of the other one. Neither option is desirable and yet we must deem one more undesirable than the other. But how often, I wonder, do we grab one of those "horns" because we cannot think of another thing to do? And how often do we end up disappointed because we chose one "bad" thing over another bad thing. Perhaps a different way of looking at the situation is in order here.

Very often, discussion of a matter leads people to a point where they decide, "We must decide!" And if the decision to decide is premature, then problems enter in. People feel misunderstood, cheated, betrayed, alienated, ignored, and any number of other uncomfortable states of being.

Discussion has its merits, without doubt, but it is dialogue that has the power to bring people into true communication with one another. It is dialogue that can cut through the negativity of all those things I just mentioned, being misunderstood, cheated, and so on.

I propose that next time you are faced with what looks like a dilemma, instead of choosing one unpleasant thing over another, try reframing the issue. Don't look at it as a dilemma but as an opportunity to add color, or to touch up with a dab of black, or of white, or even to blend the black and white into grey, or darken or lighten particular colors in your picture with either black or white to give them a different variation (brightness, for example) on the same hue.

This is all metaphor, of course, to represent the fact that life is like painting in that you can be highly creative with it. I am frustrated with some aspects of my life right now, am not getting the results that I have hoped for; but I haven't tried some things yet, and in no way will abandon creativity.

One of my biggest problems seems to be how to respond when a person doesn't behave as I think he or she should be behaving, as if my paltry wishes should or could dictate that person's behavior. Detaching from my own expectations is the beginning of allowing unfolding to occur as it should, as it must.

I will not give up hope that everything I desire is within my grasp, despite all obstacles and regardless of the dilemmas that crowd my imagination. That is the beauty of the imagination itself, the ability to shape and form it through seeing, until it finally begins to serve us in ways leading toward this eventual attainment of our our heart's desire, as individuals and as a community desirous of peace and harmony. It doesn't happen overnight; it is a gradual process; and while it isn't easy, it actually does ease tension once the barriers have been broken and real contact has been made.

Kaleidoscope

2007-09-05T14:29:00.000-07:00

Bad art is okay!

2007-08-12T16:49:00.000-07:00

I was messing around (literally) with paints the other day and created a really bad painting. Not wanting it to go to waste, I decided to butcher it a little and create a really bad collage! The centerpiece is not mine; it is a patch that I "patched" (actually glued) in. It says that I kitty bad kitties, and I do.

It

2007-07-12T09:23:00.000-07:00

It
is not personal,
it is common
knowledge;
and it is, too,
personal.
Is it uncommon
to experience the
extraordinarily
ordinary emotions
that we all know
far too well?
It knows that
not caring
means
not receiving.

I give it up,
again,
surrendering
all that,
the part of it,
that is outside
my control.

It is, and will be
forevermore,
in that space
that place
the untouchable.
Forgiven, but
who can forget?

It keeps coming back,
haunting, brooding.
Go away.
Okay.
Come back.
It is personal,
and yet it's not.

It is real,
and it is
real hands off
this time.
Palms up,
head down.

Squinting into
the distance,
with eyes closed.

Labyrinth of Petals

2007-07-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

This is a watercolor painting of mine that is the inspiration for an ongoing story I have posted in another blog.

You Are Not Your Body

2007-05-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

I am the spirit and I have a body.

Monsters

2007-05-07T21:29:00.000-07:00

Secrets

2007-04-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

It's really not a mystery. I have known "the secret" for quite some time now, but am just now watching the documentary film about it. Here are some notes I have been taking while watching.

Our job as humans is to hold on to the thoughts of what you want. Thoughts become things. See yourself living in abundance and you will attract things. The law of attraction is obedience. When you focus on what you want, with all of your intention, the law of attraction will give you what you want every time. It manifests the things you think about and is always working.

Focusing on what you don't want, what you're afraid of, causes exactly that to manifest. Whatever thoughts are predominant in your consciousness are the ones you attract.

You draw the community you are in to you.

The mind is shaping the very thing that is being perceived. You can cook a man's dinner with electricity; you can also cook the man. Nobody understands electricity, but we all use it.

An affirmative thought is much more powerful than a negative thought; this has been proven scientifically. There is a time delay; all of your thoughts don't come true instantly. The time delay serves you, allows you to think about what you want and to make a new choice.

Whatever is in your life right now, you have attracted.

The "fun begins" when you monitor your thoughts. Our feelings let us know what it is we are thinking. The emotions are a gift because they let us know what we are attracting. When you celebrate the good feelings, you draw those to you.

Our feelings are a feedback mechanism to us, about whether we are on track or not. Whatever you are thinking and feeling today is creating your future. You "get" what you are feeling about, not so much what you are thinking about.

You can begin to feel healthy and prosperous, feel the love that is around you, even if it's not there.

Your thoughts and your feelings create your life. Whatever thought has done in your life, it can be undone, through a shift in your awareness. Once you begin to understand, and truly master your thoughts and feelings, that's how you see that you create your own reality. That's where your power is; you are a deliberate creator of your universe.

Life should be and will be absolutely phenomenal when you start using the secret. "Your wish is my command," says the Genie, says the Universe.

The Creative Process

1. Ask. The universe responds to your thoughts. What do you really want? You might start by saying "I'm so happy and grateful now that ..." then explain how you want your life to be, in every area. It's really as easy as just placing your order with the universe.

2. Believe. Believe that it's already yours. The universe will begin to rearrange itself to make it happen for you. You don't need to know how it's going to come about, only that it will. It will be shown to you; you will attract the way.

We get frustrated and disappointed when we don't see the things we've requested. We become doubtful, then more disappointed. Recognize that feeling and replace it with unwavering faith.

3. Receive. Feel the way you'll feel when it arrives; feel it now. You put yourself in the frequency of what you're wanting when you feel good. Power comes from a combination of knowing something intellectually and feeling it, too. When you turn the fantasy into a fact, you're in the position to build bigger and better fantasies. Think about what will help you generate the feelings of having it now, then remember those feelings.

You might just wake up and it's there, it has manifested. Or you might be inspired with some idea of an action to take. The universe likes speed; don't delay, don't second guess. Don't doubt.

When the intuitive nudge is there, act. That's your job and that's all you have to do. You've got to pay attention to what you are attracted to. It literally moves into physical reality with and through you, by law.

How long will it take? There is no rule book. It is a matter of you being in alignment with the universe itself. The universe does everything it does with zero effort. You provide the feelings of having it now; it will respond.

Your Present Circumstances = Your Current Reality

When you want to change your circumstances, you must first change your thinking. You expect debt, and it continues to be there. You aren't your current state of affairs; that's who you were, the residual effects of the past.

Right now, you can begin to turn your life around by doing two or three things.

Gratitude

List what you are grateful for; it shifts your thinking. Appreciation attracts support. Whatever we think about and thank about, we bring about. Feel the feelings of gratitude about what you already have in your life.

Visualize

Visualize in order to materialize. If you've been there in the mind, you'll go there in the body. Dwell upon the end result; it's the feeling that creates the attraction. Put yourself in the feeling place of really being in the situation you want to create. Feel the joy, the happiness. That inner seeing is an open doorway through which the universe expressess....

The "how" will show up out of commitment to the "what." And the hows are the domain of the universe. Magic and miracles happen when you turn it over to the universe. You want to feel good about the whole process.

Integrating Visualization and Gratitude

Make a habit of using the law of attraction. Decide what you want; believe you can have it; believe you deserve it. Close your eyes and visualize already having it, feeling those feelings. Come out of that, and think about what you're already grateful for in your life. Then, go into your day and release it to the universe.

When you have inspired thought, you have to trust it and you have to act on it. Intend what you want. When you focus on lack and scarcity, you'll attract more of that; focus on abundance to create more abundance.

Do you treat yourself the way you want other people to treat you? Fill yourself up to fullness so you can overflow in giving. With a healthy respect and love for yourself, you will love others. In relationships, focus on what you appreciate about the other person; focus on acknowledging his or her strengths.

You're the only one who can be in charge of your joy, your bliss; it all lies within you. The mind is the biggest factor in the healing arts. Our bodies are constantly changing; stress degrades the body; remove it, and the body heals itself. You become what you think about.

Thoughts and emotions determine the physical substance of your body. People give energy to what they want and what they don't want. We "fight" against what we don't want (cancer, drugs, terrorism, etc.). Anger about a situation adds energy to it; this creates resistance. "What you resist persists," says Carl Jung. "Anti" movements create more of what we don't want, so focus instead on creating what you do want: trust, love, living in abundance, and so forth. If you're anti-something, be pro- its opposite (war/peace, poverty/abundance, etc.). Notice what you don't want, for contrast, but focus on what you want.

It's good to be informed, but you don't have to be inundated. The voice and vision on the inside should be louder than the opinions on the outside; this is a sign that you have mastered your life. Energy flows where attention goes; shift your attention toward what you want.

The beauty of the secret is that there is more than enough to go around, for everyone. The lack and limitation we imagine is a lie; living in fear breeds stinginess; those thoughts of fear and lack become experience. A mind that is aware of its own infinite nature experiences more of what is out there (love, joy, creativity, etc.) in abundance, with focus. Opening up our vision to see all that is around us dissipates what we view as "lack."

You have to get hungry, be intentional, want what it is you set your heart and mind upon. Recognize, bless, and praise the beautiful things around you. Don't spend your energy complaining about the things that aren't working. Embrace everything that you want so you can get more of it.

Everything is energy. We can get distracted by the body, which just holds the spirit. We are one way the universe is becoming conscious of itself.

Are the results of your life what you really want? Are they worthy of you? Victimization is real, yet so what. What do you choose now? You hold the pen, and the outcome to your story is what you choose. The law will begin to respond to your intentions. The power that's in you is greater than the power that's in the world. Every single "I'm not" you utter is a creation. "Whether you think you can or you can't, either way you are right," says Henry Ford. We are unlimited.

Your purpose is what you say it is; your mission is the mission you give yourself. Put yourself in a state of joy. Following your bliss becomes contagious. The Last Frontier is not space but mind. See yourself with the good that you desire.

The more you understand the secret, the more you'll use it. You deserve to be happy; you were born to add value to this world. You can be the best that you can be. All previous moments have prepared you for this moment. Nobody can dance your dance; who you are and what you do begins now. Your right thinking will guide and direct you, feed and clothe you, if you let it. Feel good.

Mourning Rain

2007-04-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

Drip ... drip ... drip....

Tough Times

2007-04-22T09:59:00.000-07:00

I've been posting in another blog these past few days, feeling some weight and seeking release from it.

A Map of the Journey

2007-04-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Alton for sharing this:

The practicioner dwells in stability and freedom. If you can keep your mind here and now with all attention, there is stability. That means our mind is not going to the past, it is not going to the future, so there is stability.

As your mind settles in this very here and now, pay attention to whatever is happening in your body or mind and you have stability and freedom. Because when you are paying total attention there is no thought.

Thought is a prison you are in. When we don't think we pay full attention. There is no greed in the mind because there is no thought. Greed is actually a thought. Without thought can you make yourself greedy? Just try it. Without thinking about a story, a person, a situation we cannot become greedy. So greed accompanies with a thought.

Also without thinking you cannot become angry. Right here and now there is nothing to be greedy about, nothing to be angry about. So this is freedom, no greed, no anger, just full attention. The mind is free from delusion and absentmindedness. We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late.

From the cover of A Map of the Journey by u jotika

Working through Grief

2007-04-19T09:33:00.000-07:00

Still trying to work through the grief of this tragedy in Virginia, heart heavy with condolences and love for the people personally touched by the horrific crimes perpetrated on Monday.

The boy perpetrator (whose soul is now out of body and in the world of spirit) who stole life and liberty from innocent victims, sending their families and friends into spiraling grief and untold agony, was in a way a scapegoat, a sponge that had become saturated with so many of society's ills - the greedy materialism, the arrogance of the privileged, hedonism, narcissism, and more.

He believes he went out in a blaze of martyred glory, a victim of torture and heartbreak. Yet look at all the hearts he broke, grieving parents, children, siblings, spouses, friends.... He created a living nightmare for so many people, especially those touched personally by what he did.

The thing is, we all share some of his symptoms, feelings of neglect and being victims of the cruelty of others. Who hasn't felt those things to some degree? The way people work with the injustices in their lives can determine their mental health.

Let me rephrase that: How I work with the injustices in my own life will determine my mental health. We are only as ill as that which we create.

Feed your soul with spirituality, Christ-consciousness, whatever you choose to call that nourishment we all crave and need, and you write a life story that has meaning. You author a valuable life worth noticing.

This boy wanted desperately to be noticed. He wanted someone to say, "Hey. I like you, dude." He apparently wasn't able to say this to himself, though. Where are his parents now, and how are they processing this tragedy....

Personality Disorder

2007-04-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

Here is an article about soldiers losing their benefits due to spurious diagnoses. How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits , by Joshua Kors

This brings many things to mind, including a fairly recent (within the last year) conversation I had with a psychiatrist who works primarily with veterans, about how many people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) actually had suffered childhood traumas in addition to any trauma suffered while on duty in the military. This is not to diminish the significance of anything that has been suffered in combat but just to say that problems might have started even earlier than the military experience.

In any case, to be denied benefits for injuries sustained while on active military duty is grossly unfair.

Reply to Walt

2007-04-05T11:52:00.000-07:00

In response to a recent posting, "Sadness," my dear friend Walt wrote:

I don't understand how one person's actions can determine another's mental health. Its like "you made me do it" all over again.

Thank you for these thoughts, Walt. One person's actions can never determine another's mental health, although those actions can influence it. Ultimately, mental health is up to the individual.

Childhood and other influences have a definite impact on who you are, or who I am, the person you or I have become. What any one of us chooses to do comes from inside, not from the outside, and not because of what someone else did or didn't do. Good deeds or bad ones, it doesn't matter. Nobody "makes" you do anything, unless of course it is by coercion, which is something different.

Today

2007-04-05T09:27:00.000-07:00

Here I am with my mother!

This picture was taken on Monday afternoon, when I stopped by my mother's house on the way to a town north of there, to attend a dinner hosted by a fraternal organization I joined in college. My friend who died, Lisa, was a member of this same organization. Seeing Lisa's picture on the wall of the lodge that day, one face among a composite of other faces, taken in 1980, brought those days back to life, if only momentarily.

I have a couple of shoe boxes full of photos and other memorabilia from days gone by. At the memorial service, I had told one of Lisa's sisters that I would send her some photos. So, there I was two days ago sitting on the bed with all these old memories flooding back, looking through those shoe boxes. I found the pictures I was looking for, and sent them as promised, along with a letter.

It's amazing what the death of a close friend will do. Even though Lisa and I had been out of touch for many years, I feel no less close to her today than I ever did. She touched my life in special ways; nobody else could have filled her shoes.

Well, another thing has come to mind this morning. It was inspired by a phone conversation with my brother last night. He is retired from the military and mentioned a present controversy related to treatment of soldiers returning from combat and how some are being denied proper treatment because of previously existing "personality disorders." The thing is, these alleged disorders were never identified before; they are just coming to "light" now, when the soldier is seeking treatment. I need to find out more about this.

In Loving Memory

2007-04-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

Today I attended a memorial service for my friend, Lisa Jo Miller McCollough. How sad it was to learn the circumstances of her death, so young. Lisa was 47 years old and I regret that she and I didn't keep in touch over the years. We had a "falling out" many years ago, and just never spoke to each other again after that. I held no grudges against her, but at the same time didn't make the effort to mend what had been broken in our friendship. One of the points the minister made in his message today is how Lisa was "broken." It's true, she had chosen a self-destructive path and it led to her eventual death, of cirrhosis of the liver. I wonder whether it would have made a difference if I had made the effort to contact her. I had no idea about her suffering, but if anyone had told me things had gotten as bad as they did, I surely would have called her.

Sadness

2007-03-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

This posting is about friendship. I lost two friends this week, one through death and the other through a choice made, although not mine.

I learned from my best friend today that a mutual friend of ours from college died of unknown causes. My friend learned of it through an e-mail sent to her at work; the father of the friend who died was a professional colleague. The funeral is this Sunday.

As for the other friend I lost, I feel an equal amount of grief because the reason the friendship ended makes no sense at all. The result is that I feel horribly misunderstood, and suspect she might feel the same way. At the heart of the conflict that led to the demise of the friendship is a personal decision I made, one that my ex-friend disagreed with. I did what I had to do and it makes no sense that someone who truly loves me and wants what is best in my life would object to that. But she did. She wrote me an e-mail saying her mental health was being affected by our friendship; in other words, being my friend was becoming a threat to her state of well being. Realizing that a person has to do what s/he has to do, I accepted her decision. But isn't it ironic that what killed the friendship (her decision) is the very thing she couldn't accept in me, the fact that I did what I had to do. It's all a matter of conscience. It is also ironic that what appears to be her weakness (something in me that brought out something unhealthy in her) is what is breaking up the friendship. She is one of the strongest people I know, and this is what attracted me to her in the first place: her strength. I still love her and wish her well; I also hope one day she comes to accept me for who I am and stand by me once more as a friend.

Opposites Attract Redemption

2007-03-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

I am trying to figure out what that is, the meaning of the word redemption. When you lose stature in someone's eyes, someone who you care about, someone whose opinion matters to you, the need to be redeemed emerges. Somehow, you need to explain yourself (to the person, in particular, but also to the audience in general) in such a way that the person knows that you are who you are and not the projection of you shown on the screen of his or her consciousness.

I am peopled.
You're all inside of me;
one soul,
with many
companions.
Good company,
we're all in it.
Standing so close,
I see you're more
like me
than I had realized.
If you don't want me
so close,
make me go away.
Close your eyes,
or shoo me with
your hands.
Push.
Will my heart
away from yours;
and when it breaks
wide open
from loneliness,
we both can
fall in, together
or separate.
Don't be afraid.
I don't want to
hurt you.
I just want you
to understand
that I hurt
like you
do.
I do.
Pushing away
is only an
opposite.

If my vulnerability is unattractive (it is repulsive), this is only because you see yourself in it, too. You're not all pretty either; our shit stinks, if not equally at least equivalently.

2007-03-06T19:53:00.000-08:00

"An artist who is not working is a miserable creature, and the best way to cure that misery is to work. We do not have to work a lot. We do not have to work a long time, but we do need to work. The itch to make something is an itch that only making something will scratch. It doesn't need to be a good something - although it often is - it just needs to be something: a paragraph of prose, a rough sketch for a later painting, a stanza of poetry, the first verse of a song. In order to work freely, we must be willing to work badly, and once we are, we are often able to do good work indeed."

Julia Cameron, from The Sound of Paper

2007-03-05T11:17:00.000-08:00

I'm not finished with this yet but wanted to capture this work in progress, a watercolor painting I am working on!

Next Right Thing

2007-03-01T20:11:00.000-08:00

William C. Moyers wrote: "I am honored that you mentioned my book in your blog. But more than that, your appreciation for the decisions I had to make relative to doing the next right thing for the sake of my own recovery, affirms that others also know how difficult and necessary such choices are for those of us trying to find our way on the journey. Regards,William"

That is so true! Difficult and necessary. This book will be a great help to many people in that it clearly demonstrates how healing occurs only when we are "strong at the broken places" (Ernest Hemingway).

2007-02-27T09:30:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to my blissed out friend Alton again. He inspires me because he is Alton, and I love him. Alton has actually quite mysteriously become my "cyberdad." (How did that happen, I wonder.) I have also been in touch with my other blissed out friend Shayne, who always helps me cut through the considerable fog of life, straight to what matters. If either of you guys are reading this today, I tip my imaginary tiara to you, with a wink, of course.

Another person I've been thinking about and trying to summon is Joe.

Whoever you are reading this, I appreciate you being here and hope you find something of value in what I am about to say.

Here is what Alton sent today, "the four questions," asked by Katie Byron. First off, my radar ears of skepticism perk up here because by claiming only four questions she is dismissing many others and making assumptions that might not be true. Yet her questions concern truth.

Here they are:

1.) Is it true?
2.) Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3.) How do you react when you believe that thought?
4.) Who would you be without the thought?

My gut reaction to question #1 is:

How the hell do I know?
I do know, however, that truth arrives (at times) with clarity obscured.

I have lately been engrossed in a fascinating memoir, Broken, by William Cope Moyers. And by odd coincidence, he and I have a number of connecting points. One of them is that we were born the same year, less than two months apart, in the same city. Another is that his oldest son was born on my eighteen-year-old nephew's birthday, and was given the same name as my nephew's uncle. But the main connection I feel with the author of this book, however, is that I sense in him the same familiar deep-down longing I have always felt, which is to be understood, and to understand.

On one level, I tell myself: "You don't need to show anybody anything, nor do you need to explain yourself. True friends don't need your demonstrations of worthiness." Yet what a contradiction that is! Life is all about showing, and explaining, demonstrating, and the like.

And it's also about success and failure. Consider this: Could it be that failure to understand the true meaning of success, in an individual and a collective sense, is failure to grasp the meaning of life?

Back to the book I mentioned, in part of it the author describes how his boss at work responded to his news that he needed to leave his position in order to move on to something different. Although Moyers had received clear direction about the path he should take, the lack of support from significant people in his life (including his father) had an impact. He wanted his boss to say, "That's a courageous decision. I am proud of you." But instead, he received discouragement and disappointment. (Likewise, his father later confessed to him that he thought his son had gone nuts.) He knew on a deep soul level that his decision was the right one, though. It would have been nice to have the blessing of these significant people in his life, but he knew what he had to do, despite all objections.

There is no good reason to vilify people we care about. What purpose does it serve, except to bring shame?

"When we become aware of our needs, anger gives way to life-serving feelings." Those words were written by Marshall B. Rosenberg, in Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Time and again, I refer back to this book when facing difficult life issues.

I will admit I am angry, at certain friends and at myself.

Yet what it comes down to, according to Rosenberg, is that we come closer to getting our needs met when we empathize with those who have offended us and express our needs and feelings nakedly, even though we place ourselves in positions of intense vulnerability when we do so. (I think of what Moyers has shared in his memoir.) In other words, Rosenberg is suggesting authenticity.

If we create an atomosphere of hostility and mistrust, we can only expect negative responses. In other words, trust must be present in order for there to be understanding.

Rosenberg goes on to say: "It is a rare human being who can maintain focus on our needs when we are expressing them through images of their [other people's] wrongness." I am not that rare being. The only thing we win by telling people what is wrong with them is the "success" in using these judgments to intimidate them into doing what we want them to do, or what we think they should be doing instead of what they are actually doing. If a person changes his behavior because he feels frightened, guilty, or ashamed, that is not a gain (win) but a loss. In other words, my needs are not met when someone only wants to avoid my wrath.

Breathe deeply, Rosenberg advises. Do not blame. Do not punish. Identify the thoughts that are making you angry. (Injustice is often at the heart.) Harsh judgments are tragic expressions of unmet needs.

Some of these needs are for inclusion, equality, respect, connection. The idea, according to Rosenberg, is to transform anger into needs and need-connected feelings. Before one person can truly connect with another, however, s/he must be able to empathize with that person, authentically.

Back to the four questions, can you absolutely know that it's true? And how do you react when you believe that thought? Who would you be without the thought?

Candlelight

2007-02-25T18:18:00.000-08:00

Tribute to Patience

2007-02-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

Please join me in sending out good vibes and energy to Paul, my dear friend who has been dealing with the inevitable loss of his beloved kitty companion of fourteen years, Patience. (Click on her name to read Paul's tribute.)

2007-02-21T11:53:00.000-08:00

I've been revisiting the details of the assault I described on January 25th , and have added a few amended thoughts about it, and will probably continue doing so throughout this process, which might be long. That situation is still unfolding and it is becoming clear that what should have been a simple investigation of a crime has turned into something completely different. Honest mistakes are one thing, but deliberately covering them up is something else. I hope with the time, trouble, and considerable expense going into correcting this situation, that in the end, sanity and justice will prevail.

Labyrinth

2007-02-19T16:41:00.000-08:00

This is a photo of an outdoor labyrinth on the campus of one of the community colleges here. Walking a labyrinth is an experience that reminds me of how "in the moment" life needs to be, in order to be lived well. It always comes back around to that, every time.

2007-02-16T09:07:00.000-08:00

"It started out as paradise. Then, as now, the garden is about life and beauty and the impermanence of all living things. The garden is about feeding your children, providing food for the tribe. It's part of an urgent territorial drive that we can probably trace back to animals storing food. It's a competitive display mechanism, like having a prize bull, this greed for the best tomatoes and English tea roses; it's about winning, about providing society with superior things, and about proving that you have taste and good values and you work hard. And what a wonderful relief every so often to know who the enemy is - because in the garden, the enemy is everything: the aphids, the weather, time. And so you pour yourself into it, care so much, and see up close so much birth and growth and beauty and danger and triumph - and then everything dies anyway, right? But you just keep doing it. What a great metaphor! I love this so much!"

Anne Lamott, in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Anne Lamott, with Yours Truly (Rose)

2007-02-15T07:19:00.000-08:00

Mark, whose blog I enjoy reading, commented on an image I posted a few days ago, of a watercolor painting in black and white. (Thank you, by the way.) It must be said here that art is my personal savior, and I really can't imagine what life would be like without it. (The word lackluster comes to mind.) Soon, when it is finished, I will post an image of what I am currently working on, a watercolor(ful) painting for my daughter. It was intended as a Valentine, but ... well, other things have prevented me from finishing it, but we're almost there. As I was saying, art saves me; and when I am creating art, unseen helpers guide the way of my hand, holding its paintbrush, its pen, its charcoal, or whatever it is holding.... Do you ever experience that? (Image above courtesy of Miriam's Milestones.)

2007-02-14T07:11:00.000-08:00

Photo courtesy of Carol Worthey.
Love takes time....

More about David ...

2007-02-11T13:55:00.000-08:00

I was just sitting here and thinking of how this person on the other side of the world has influenced my life. We might not ever meet in person, but this guy deserves a lot of credit. Out of the goodness of his heart, he volunteered to coordinate an art project I was involved in last year. He never received any financial compensation for the hours and hours of labor he put into this project, yet I wonder if he realizes the value of what he did. I hope so! David, you are an inspiration. Here is one of his paintings.

2007-02-09T09:47:00.000-08:00

One of the people who I have met online, David, has reminded me of some good things I did in the past. (Never mind the bad stuff, which is better off forgotten anyway.) Here is an image of a watercolor painting I did several years ago, for my father's close friend, Walter. He never received it in his lifetime, although I painted it while he was still alive; but I got the chance to give it to his son Zane this past year. He told me he is going to frame the painting and hang it on his wall. Thanks, Walter, Joan, Zane, and Holly, for so many memories. I will always love you.

2007-02-07T09:52:00.000-08:00

It is often said that if the end justifies the means, those "means" are pretty much irrelevant. But if the following sentence is true, then the separation of the two makes the point pretty much moot.

"As the means cannot be separated from the desired ends, nonviolence cannot be separated from peace, for it is the value system and dynamic that makes peace possible." (From an article, "If We Listen Well," by By Edward Guinan.)

And what is peace if not an absence of its opposite? I cannot help but think of what James Hillman writes about peace in his book, A Terrible Love of War.

"I will not march for peace, nor will I pray for it, because it falsifies all it touches. It is a cover-up, a curse. Peace is simply a bad word…. The dictionary’s definition, an exemplary of denial, fails the word, peace. Written by scholars in tranquility, the definition fixates and perpetuates the denial. If peace is merely an absence of, a freedom from, it is both an emptiness and a
repression. A psychologist must ask how is the emptiness filled, since nature abhors a vacuum; and how does the repressed return, since it must?"

Do we really want peace at any cost, as long as it's peace?

Gifts

2007-02-01T12:49:00.000-08:00

I had another dream this morning.

Change

2007-01-31T08:32:00.000-08:00

Today, I unfolded the three chairs and placed them in another room, in a different environment, under different circumstances. Thank you, Mark, for the inspiration to do this. Your most recent comment in my blog led me to want to share more, if you are interested. (We can talk about it in the group.)

Gregory Bateson once said,

"All changes can be understood as the effort to maintain some constancy and all constancy as maintained through change."
(From Steps to an Ecology of Mind, page 381)

2007-01-28T09:37:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Mark and Andrew, for your comments a few days ago. Yes, we are taking care of it!

2007-01-25T07:49:00.000-08:00

An event occurred two nights ago and I am wondering how it might be connected to the dream I had on Monday morning. Somehow, it helps me connect dots between the various confusing points of interest in what happened, which was this:

My husband was assaulted by two of our neighbors, apparently a father and his teenage son. I was in the house at the time and am still learning of the details, bit by bit. There were no witnesses other than family members of the attackers. A woman, presumably the man's wife (but this is still unknown), saw and participated in what happened. It was three against one.

What started the conflict was the woman speeding down our alley and swerving toward my husband, who was standing in our driveway, as she sped past. He has a high-powered flashlight and pointed it at her car, to get the license plate number so he could call and report her. Following her was another vehicle, a truck, driven by the man; he was also speeding and again, my husband shined the light on his vehicle, too.

When the man got to his driveway, two doors down from us, he got out of the vehicle and came walking toward our house. My husband meanwhile had begun walking toward the man's house. They faced each other in the alley between our houses. My husband had his cell phone in hand and was about to call the police to make the report. The man began cursing him for shining the flashlight on them. More words were exchanged and he came at my husband with his fist.

By that time, a teenage male had come out of the house and joined his father in the assault. My husband was hit at least three times, hard, in the face and on the side of the head. To stop him, my husband pulled his gun (carried legally), telling him to back off, which the man did. As he was lying there in the alley, still reeling from the beating, the woman attempted to steal his cell phone which had fallen onto the ground. My husband pointed his gun at her and ordered her to drop it, which she did. After that, he called the police and they came out.

Meanwhile, I was in the house preparing to settle in and do my schoolwork. The dogs were in the back yard. My husband walked in the front door, came into the room where I was sitting, and asked me to bring the dogs in. I looked at him and saw his face bleeding. It looked like he had been attacked by a dog, or hit by a car. I had no idea of what had just happened.

I went out the front door to the porch, where he was standing with our next-door neighbor. After going back in the house to put on something I could wear outside, I returned to find both my husband and the next-door neighbor (our friend) spread eagle against the back of one of our cars, being searched.

Since a gun was involved and details of what happened as yet unknown, the police were treating them like criminals. At one point, one of the policemen demanded to come into our house so they could search for the gun. I wouldn't let them, believing they were overstepping boundaries, not only of law but of decency, too. After all, we weren't criminals and didn't deserve that kind of treatment. After some time, they gained access to the house to get what they were looking for (they gave it back later); but the way they wanted to go about it at first was humiliating and unfair.

What the police didn't know then was that my husband had spared these people's lives! He would have been completely within his rights to shoot in self-defense. It is to his credit (and a mercy to all of us) that he didn't allow himself to pull the trigger in the heat of the moment of being severely beaten.

An ambulance arrived and paramedics got to work. Fortunately, the injuries weren't severe enough for him to have to go to the hospital; although he was urged to go, he chose not to. [01.31.07 Amendment: I wrote this before realizing his injuries were indeed more serious than we realized. He was disoriented that day and wasn't able to articulate that he had sustained a head injury; he should have been transported to the hospital right away for treatment.]

The story told by the other family is quite different from the story my husband told to the police, so it was determined that each party would be issued citations for disorderly conduct and let a judge determine the outcome in court.

Race is involved here, too. My husband is Arab American and the other family is African American. We sensed racism in the behavior of at least one of the policemen, too, who kept spitting on our property and acting very unprofessional and arrogant.

As it stands now, after consulting with some other people within the police department, my husband is planning to sue this family.

[02.21.07. Once again, I must amend this. The lawsuit is not against the family, as I first thought; it is against the city. The incident with the neighbor is a different issue from the investigation of the crime. But the prosecutor who has the authority to get the charge dropped is twisting things so that it looks like the issue is between neighbor and neighbor. That is not the issue. The police did not accurately depict what happened and my husband had to hire a lawyer simply to force the police to do their job in an orderly way rather than the way they did it, which resulted in an honest citizen accused of being "disorderly" now having to defend himself and to bring to justice those who have disrespected his civil rights. It will be heard by a judge next month.]

I now wonder how and if justice will actually be served. It would be good to work it out between us but the animosity is too great. I suspect the family is poor, and suing them might serve one purpose; but it also might plunge them deeper into poverty, thus making their situation worse.

Additionally, this family keeps three mean dogs chained up in the backyard. I mentioned this to one of the policemen and he urged us to call animal control. To me, the dogs represent a way of life for them and I wonder what has happened in these people's past to make them so hostile and aggressive, and to keep dogs like that, in that way.

I feel afraid now, like we have to watch our backs. Yet as upsetting as this whole ordeal has been, it also clarifies our roles not only in the family but in society as well. My husband was cooperative with the police, despite their harsh treatment of him, especially at first. (Once his side of the story started coming out, they behaved with more civility.)

I also think about how we co-create our lives with the Universe. Each person played a role in bringing the scene to reality. It confirms that what we focus upon becomes reality, it comes to pass.

Thanks for listening.

2007-01-22T17:40:00.000-08:00

I described a dream I had this morning, here.

Literature on the run

2007-01-19T09:45:00.000-08:00

With only fifteen minutes to spare here, I wanted to say a few words. Love is a complicated but necessary ingredient in a person's life. It is not easy to love, especially when one has been wounded by it.

Kahlil Gibran writes:

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep,
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden
among his pinions may wound you.

Only in love can a wound hurt so deeply, or as Neil Young sings, "only love can break your heart." But if it's true love that is sought, one must seek also to endure the sacred pain with dignity and to trust that it is for a purpose, and that it shall pass (or at least ebb and flow) and give way once more to the ecstacy that alerted you in the first place that you are in love.

I am committed to a heap o' studying today, with a test and homework assignment due tomorrow morning! Wish me luck, please.

2007-01-17T08:20:00.000-08:00

One of my friends, Paul, commented some days ago about my posting on January 10th. He asked whether I had been reading Conversations with God. I wasn't aware it was a book, too. Another friend of mine saw the movie and has been urging me to watch it. Here is a link to the trailer.

The dialogue Paul was referring to came to me that morning. I wrote it down in my journal, then typed and posted it here. I have no idea where these dialogues come from, but when they crash into my consciousness I listen. (For another one, please click here and scroll down to the entry for May 23rd.)

"Where there is love, there is no effort." Amma

We hear so many voices in the course of any given day, whether these voices are within ourselves or outside of us. One of the concepts I've been reading about in my coursework is that of the multiple "alternative identities that constitute our self-talk." (Issues and Ethics in the Helping Professions, 7th ed., by Corey, Corey, and Callanan.) What especially struck me is this. The authors discuss the theories of Paul Pedersen, who asserts:

"Each person has a thousand or more alternative roles or identities that are collected over a lifetime from various sources."

It immediately reminded me of Joseph Campbell, who said:

"Follow your bliss and you will be aided by a thousand helping hands."

That phrase, follow your bliss, has become somewhat of a cliché, and yet if you say it slowly, letting it sink in, new meaning surfaces. Try it!

Taking a Walk

2007-01-16T12:23:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite pictures! Back in the 1950's, roving photographers used to go around downtown streets, taking random pictures of people then offering the photos for sale. This one is of my father and his mother, taken in Fort Worth, Texas. I am not sure of the exact date, but it must have been in the early part of that decade. The two of them were shopping for a wedding ring for Dad's fiance, his first wife who (along with their infant son) would later be killed in an automobile accident. He met and married my mother a few years after that.

Poor Pitiful Pearl

2007-01-12T15:05:00.000-08:00

Since I'm back in school and can't possibly keep up with everybody who I'd like to talk to online, but I love getting feedback from people and staying in touch, keeping the blog updated seems to be the best method of communication outside my regular personal correspondence. I am grateful for you, coming here to read what I have to say.

I have a quiz over three chapters in my family therapy textbook and have thus been reading and taking notes for most of today. The "fun" (if you can call it that) thing about taking notes for a psychology course is that there are endless ways of relating the material to current life issues, and these have been finding their way into my notes. Five minutes ago, I jumped up from the couch and headed toward my computer, eager to share an insight that came up.

I took a walk this afternoon, a short one around the neighborhood. Just as I was approaching a particular house, I remembered a character of mine, a little black girl named Pearl. She was the leading lady (child star) in a story I began writing for National Novel Writing Month, a few years ago. Alas, I never finished that story, but Pearl has stayed with me. In fact, I think she is me, in many ways.

The name was inspired by a doll my mother bought for me when I was a child, Poor Pitiful Pearl, who I loved very much. As an adult, however, I came to view Pearl as a symbol for sadness. I questioned my mother's intentions, wondering why she had given me (of all things) a sad doll. What was she thinking? Was Pearl some kind of role model for me? A kind of mild resentment settled in. What kind of a mother....

Well, it wasn't until later that it occurred to me that Pearl was not necessarily sad; instead, she was poor. Disadvantaged. So, her "sadness" (as I saw it) had roots in poverty. And looking at a picture of the doll today, I see she wasn't as sad as I had imagined her to be. She is just homely, and is actually smiling, just a little. I began to see Poor Pitiful Pearl more realistically, and in a new light.

Anyway, as I was approaching this house during my walk, I thought of not only the character Pearl, but before that even, I thought of the physical pearl, and the process of making one. It involves an irritant; a pearl would not exist if not for a bit of debris irritating the oyster in which it is created.

Coming out of the irritating condition of poverty is a process, too. I waved cheerily to the man sitting on the porch of that house, a house I knew had a handicapped occupant who rarely leaves the house because of her paraplegia. I had also talked to other occupants of the house (the caregivers change) and had come to learn that she has ... well, "problems," related to her condition.

Anyway, all of this together -- a child in my consciousness, Pearl; the pearl, created by the oyster; and Poor Pitiful Pearl -- is what brought me to the computer tonight.

Thanks so much for reading!

Thank You

2007-01-10T09:52:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am talking to you. Thank you for reading my blog. This morning (and it is still morning, but just barely), I was thinking about what matters. Does it matter, for example, that the time on my clock is 11:53? That today is Wednesday?

"Everything is significant, not just the few somethings that we allow ourselves to see when we are blinded by our own ambition." Julia Cameron, in The Sound of Paper

Who is to say what is a "little" thing, and if God is in the details (some say it's the devil), who else is there with her?

Echoes of places resound inside my incandescent self.

"Think of yourself as an incandescent power, illuminated and perhaps forever talked to by God and his messengers."
Brenda Ueland, as quoted by Julia Cameron, in The Sound of Paper

The discernment to filter negative images out of our imaginations is a skill needed for developing discernment in other matters. After all, we imagine the images, don't we? In our imaginations.

Why does it have to be "God and his messengers," for example. Why not "God and her messengers"?

God's incandescence transcends the limitations of gender. People can be stern and rigid, or neurotic and clingy. But not God, oh no.

How do you know that?

I'll repeat myself. God's incandescence transcends the limitations of gender.

Tell me something I don't already know.

Okay. You misunderstand your friend.

No, I don't.

You sure as hell do. Allow things to unfold as they will and stop trying to control them!

I'm too much of a control freak to let go.

Then you'll never understand what this is all about.

But how do I let go?

Just release the energy that is keeping you locked into your limited way of viewing things.

I asked you how.

Be still and listen, and when you are ready say yes.

Is yes a magic word?

Only if you mean it.

But I want to mean it. Is that good enough?

Well, I guess you could try faking it until you make it.

I don't want to do that. It's such a cliché.

You'd rather cling stubbornly to your controlling nature?

Yes.

Why are you pouting?

I don't mean to be.

Well, you are and it looks as childish as you are behaving.

Is there something wrong with childishness?

In an adult, yes.

What gives you the authority to say that?

I just know.

How do you know?

I did what I'm advising you do; I let go.

You mean you released control?

Yes. Paradoxically, that is the way to claim authority, perhaps the only way. In a real sense, that is.

Now wait a minute. First I was going to say that you never really answered my question, how do you know, and I want to ask you again, even if I can already hear your answer. And then you go and throw in that bit about some "real sense," as if there is an unreal sense to contend with, too. Is there?

This is getting complicated now. First, to your comment, "I can already hear your answer," I return to you: What is it? Next, reality and unreality are concepts that will forever be argued on earth. Nobody can prove or disprove either, so these are not much use squabbling or even just conversing about, a waste of breath and precious time.

Okay. You asked what is it, the answer I can already hear. I figured you'd say, again, "I just know." Right?

Wrong.

Then what is it?

I already told you.

You told me that you released control, whatever that means, but you never said how this gives you authority.

It's the yes.

The yes?

Yes, the yes. Say yes and it is yours.

It? What it? Do you mean authority?

What do you think? Be still and listen for the answer. You know what it is already.

Imagine

2006-12-21T08:28:00.000-08:00

What is the state of the mind that says, "I do not know whether there is God, whether there is love," that is, when there is no response of memory? Please don't immediately answer the question to yourselves because if you do, your answer will be merely the recognition of what you think it should or should not be. If you say, "It is a state of negation," you are comparing it with something that you already know; therefore, that state in which you say, "I do not know" is nonexistent.... So the mind that is capable of saying, "I do not know," is in the only state in which anything can be discovered. But the man who says, "I know," the man who has studied infinitely the varieties of human experience and whose mind is burdened with information, with encyclopedic knowledge, can he ever experience something which is not to be accumulated? He will find it extremely hard. When the mind totally puts aside all the knowledge that it has acquired, when for it there are no Buddhas, no Christs, no Masters, no teachers, no religions, no quotations; when the mind is completely alone, uncontaminated, which means that the movement of the known has come to an end - it is only then that there is a possibility of a tremendous revolution, a fundamental change. The religious man is he who does not belong to any religion, to any nation, to any race, who is inwardly completely alone, in a state of not-knowing, and for him the blessing of the sacred comes into being.

J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Age of Enlightenment

2006-12-21T08:14:00.000-08:00

So, ... my brother sent me a link to a webpage that shows how the influence of religion has perpetuated the spread of war. It asks: "How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds?" Click here for a full screen view.

I Love My Guru

2006-12-21T08:07:00.000-08:00

I love Guru Rasa.

Vicissitudes

2006-12-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

"Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow." Dorothy Thompson (1893-1961)

It is not who we have become that matters but rather what we do with that person. Can you remember a time in your life when obstacles did not exist? I cannot. In every phase of life, something had to be overcome. A thing had to "die" in order for another thing to be born. Someone had to cry in order for someone else to smile. (Think of a woman's labor pains and of her baby's trauma at birth.)

You smiled again.
I did not.
Without warning you left me,
But you returned immediately.

From Mother: A Cradle to Hold Me, by Maya Angelou

Yes, yes, and in the midst of it all we find laughter. It is not people and events that make us laugh but something inside of us that recognizes humor, something that causes our "funny bone" to feel the tickle of an unseen hand.

"We all know we're going to die; what's important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this." Anne Lamott (b.1954)

Anne also says that clarity of vision can make up for a lack of articulateness in writing. I wonder about that. Anne is so articulate and clear in what she writes. But, like any human being, she can only be viewed through a broad, all-encompassing lens. I am attracted to her writing because it is damn funny. She makes me laugh in the sense that she tickles my funny bone and also inspires me to make light of my own traumas, the imagined and the real ones.

We might not be able to control things (nor should we really want to either), but we can steer them in particular directions. Just as wind pushes a sailboat along, just as wind drives rainfall, and just as someone breaking wind causes a change of atmosphere in the room, we (the collective) can say and do things that affect change. What power! What might. Oh, it's a mighty wind indeed.

Powers of observation are most acute in the presence of impossible cuteness. What?, you might ask. It's true. And being content within the boundaries of one's own soul is, I believe, the ultimate challenge in life. (What?)

Well, you might as well enjoy
yourself while you're there.
(While you're where?)
There, inside of yourself.
Don't piss in the water.
Go to the outhouse,
then return to
the house of the holy.
Keep it pure, baby.

What in the hell do you do with impossible cuteness but admire it from afar? You can't embrace it, you can never kiss it enough, and it leaves you longing for more. Of what, though? The impossible? No, of course not. We must embrace the possible at all times. What is possible is to remain faithful even when love is faithless.

The highest kind of love never fades, but we sometimes must transcend the impossible to get to the possible, which is to experience the higher love. If one is happy and another is sad, a kind of balance has been achieved.

Life's vicissitudes do not have to disturb or disappoint us. The human heart is a physical place, a thing of the material world. We all must die one day, but to live today as if we might not wake up in the morning just might be a way to bring us closer to our potential, for that is really what it is all about.

Success comes from reaching (or at least striving to reach) your potential.

The Boomerang Effect

2006-12-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

My friend Walt attended an event recently. He took several photos there, including this one: Gun Art. These works of art were created with guns purchased at a gun buy-back event. What a great way to "say" that which cannot be expressed in words.

In my previous posting, about poetry, Walt helped me say what I was trying to express in the poems he had commented on. Those poems grew out of something I was experiencing at the time, a thing I couldn't express outright, in plain speech.

Words can be as dangerous as physical weapons, with the power to wound the soul every bit as deeply as a bullet can wound the body.

Trauma comes in various forms, yet the damaging results are similar. Sometimes we create traumatic situations for ourselves without even realizing that is what we are doing, as we are doing it.

Laying our thoughts bare makes us vulnerable, sometimes to abuse. When a person recognizes that he has been abused, he is faced with how to respond. One way is to abuse back, and that method seems to be at the heart of war, if war can be said to have a heart.

Boundaries crossed can result in various kinds of punishment. I regret crossing boundaries that have brought pain into my life. I want to say needless pain, but perhaps experiencing that pain is the lesson I needed to learn to recognize that it happened because I trespassed, ran recklessly through boundaries that should have been warning signs of the danger that exists on the other side.

Unfixable problems cannot be treated with a "quick fix." It's the old existential angst, you know. We attempt to cover up our anxieties and fears in various ways, through self-medication or simply by hiding behind them, refusing to admit we are experiencing them.

Hearts are fragile, and souls (including our own) can become badly damaged if we are not careful with them. Causing harm to a soul brings bad karma back to the soul who initiated the harm.

Why?

2006-11-30T12:54:00.000-08:00

My friend Walt says "poetry erupts from below us into our consciousness and has a high probability of being true."

Yes, it does. And I wonder why poetry only erupts at certain moments and not at others. The three poems I wrote this month (posted below) arrived unbidden. They just showed up, unannounced. Rarely do I write poetry.

And I censor myself way too much! How can one break such a terrible habit?

Diffused Boundary

2006-11-29T11:47:00.000-08:00

Eroded or enmeshed boundaries where subsystems do not differentiate and provide appropriate separation.

Happens all the time, you know. Each time you talk to a person, you risk overstepping boundaries, treading somewhere you don't really belong, a place where you are not only not welcome but where you will actually bring harm to yourself and to the person through whose boundary you have trespassed. Once there, however, it might be too late to walk away....

Yesterday morning, I sat in a bookstore café drinking coffee, writing morning pages, and inadvertently eavesdropping upon a nearby conversation in progress. Four women were seated, facing each other, playing a board game. I caught snippets of what they were saying, speculations about someone's psychological state and the divorce he is apparently going through. A tsk-tsk attitude of superiority and lack of compassion seemed to permeate the atmosphere of the group during this discussion, as they sat in judgment of someone's obviously tragic marital and family situation.

I thought about a friend of mine with whom I am currently estranged, and asked myself how much the loss of that friendship really means to me. I pictured her, twenty years from now, sitting like these gossipy women and making conversation about someone else's tragedy, grading and labeling it with the smug assurance of an expert.

It gave me a smug sense of satisfaction that only lasted until the next thought: I will not pretend I am okay with this friendship being over; at the same time, her judgment of my decisions doesn't change why I made them and why certain ones were needed at the time. Her decision to end the friendship seems to be more about her own inability and lack of emotional and mental capacity (plus will) to be with me, now, as I need a friend to be. I can live with this.

Karma is such a strange and mysterious process, isn't it? Life in this seemingly shallow, materialistic society without spirituality and spiritually aware friends would be unbearable. I am fortunate to have close friends; and even if this one friend and I are currently in conflict with each other, I trust that synchronicity will bring us back together again, in the time it needs to manifest what is needed. I do still love and care for her.

Our lives necessarily include tragedy and loss. And I guess our success in life depends not so much upon what happens, but upon how we deal with what happens.

And reciprocity in love is what makes life worth living.

Why am I so drawn to cooking and food, but find the actual cooking of food boring? I remember an old friend who once edited a family cookbook, collected everybody's recipes and compiled them all together. She hated cooking, but boy could she write about cooking! I get a strange sense of deja vu when I am cooking, as if in a past life I spent a lot of time in the kitchen.

I just finished reading a fantastic book, Trust Your Vibes, by Sonia Choquette. I got tickled by something she wrote in a chapter on laughter. She was talking about a client who in her seriousness about her spiritual quest actually lost the point of it altogether. She writes that this person

"... meditated for hours each day, ate only the most pure organic food, gave herself wheat-grass enemas every morning, and wrapped herself in every amulet, crystal, talisman, and titanium gadget she could get her hands on for purification and protection."

What ended up happening, though, is that she became bitter and, ultimately, uncreative.

"She was so controlling that intuitively she had no connection to her Higher Self, her heart, her humor, or anything really spiritual."

My father and I, December, 1961

2006-11-25T11:58:00.000-08:00

O Happy Day

2006-11-24T12:14:00.000-08:00

"The worst readers are those who proceed like plundering soldiers: they pick up a few things they use, soil and confuse the rest, and blaspheme the whole."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Mixed Opinions and Maxims

I hate to be such a pessimist, but some days it is the only way to think. I am sick of people telling me I'm a "good writer" because I'm not. I never say what I really want to say in writing, instead churning out drivel that's not even close to what is really on my mind or in my heart. I dance around issues and shoot at moving targets, peering in at the truth with envy, jealousy, greed, and self-loathing.

I watched an old Elvis movie this morning and thought about how sad the typical "life" can be. Two women vied for the attention of "Mike," who was as self-absorbed as he was handsome. In the end, he performed what he considered a courageous act (diving off a cliff in Acapulco -- yes, yes, the movie is "Fun in Acapulco" and how ironic is that) and everyone around him all of a sudden saw him as a hero because of that act of daring. He did it to win the girl he truly loved and also to atone for what he viewed as his part in causing his brother's death, prior to his sojourn to Acapulco. It was an interesting and entertaining film overall, but I found myself feeling so sad for the women, seeing how they both suffered over their attraction to this self-centered man, especially the one who loved him the most, who I presume is the one he "won" in the end. (That was never shown, though.) I also found myself (once again) puzzling over men's behavior and wondering why complications and complexity have to enter into otherwise fulfilling relationships with them. I think it is because we are cursed with brains, forced by nature into the absurdity of thinking.

The day before, I watched "Jailhouse Rock" with my daughter. Even more arrogant in this movie, Elvis treated his love interest (the girl he ended up with in the end) very shabbily and I thought of how these movies give people "scripts" they (we) can copy, imitating behavior that is demeaning and ultimately disappointing. Well, I know by now I must sound bitter and angry. So be it.

Both of these movies did provide some enlightenment, though. In "Fun in Acapulco," I appreciated the Mexican cultural influences. It also reminded me of a trip my mother and I made to Acapulco in 1983. In "Jailhouse Rock," Elvis plays "Vince," who ends up in prison for killing a man who was abusing a woman. Vince's cell mate was a guy who wanted to take advantage of his good fortune and tricked him into signing a contract that gave away half his income. During the scene where this transaction was taking place, my daughter reminded me that this very thing happened to early African American blues artists.

Why does life have to be so fucking unfair?

Leaking Color

2006-11-15T14:37:00.000-08:00

Something so beautiful could only turn hideous, right? Beauty always was terrible, or so it seems. Writing to heal now, with each new word creating another imprint on top of the one below it, stamping over the madness of yesterday and pressing down hard, squeezing it so tightly it leaks color. Brilliant color, like birds in flight. Blue lake, stretched out there. Thank you, thank you, thank you, I whisper. Even though I don't mean it. Maybe one day I will, I will, and again ... I will.