Of Mice, Cats and Agoraphobics

No Ruby Tuesday today. The day has kind of gotten away from me, though I had an enjoyable discussion about politics, the environment, unions and a host of other things with the Schwann's guy....

It has been an exciting few days here in Hancock. It started with my smoke alarm and the dead mouse last Thursday. The dead mouse apparently had a friend. Lucky for me I have some kind and generous friends too who came and helped ease my anxiety, put steel wool in the hole in the bathroom wall and found the real source which was under the kitchen sink. They did what they could to plug that up too. The mouse, alas, is still at large, though we had a quiet an exciting Saturday and Sunday. I'm hoping the little guy has found it's way out into the big world where it belongs.

For those of you who worried that Angel was failing in her kitty duty to bring me her prey, be reassured. She lives by the tradition. Alas (and also happily), the prey she carried over to the desk and lay at my feet was still quite robust and ran away. Eeeeeeek. That was Sunday. Yesterday was mouseless, though I imagined lots of mice and am still prone to jump at every unexpected noise. I think the worst is behind us now. Hopefully the mice have realized that this isn't such a cool place to visit and my friends' efforts at blocking entrances will let them know they aren't really welcome. We will see.

Interestingly, Tara Grace has no interest whatsoever in mice. You would think that since she lived outside for a long time that she would, but nope. It has been kind of comforting actually to have her lying against me in perfect calm as Angel chased unseen beasts around the house.... and into the bedroom. Sigh. Saturday night she knocked my reiki table down and I spent much of the day convinced that there was going to be a crushed mouse underneath it. There wasn't. I'm hoping that we have seen the last of the little guys. I don't want them running around but I don't especially want them dead either. I'm just hoping Angel doesn't bring me any more.

Well, the sun has come out and I don't really have anything to say today that doesn't revolve around mice. Hard to believe that tomorrow will be April. Time is flying. Now that the sun is out I don't know if it's my imagination or not, but I think the grass across the street looks just a little bit greener. Yeee haaa! Spring is on the way.

One Single Impression: Smoke

(Please scroll down for Shadow Shot Sunday.)

It has been FOREVER since I managed to squeeze anything out of my brain for One Single Impression and I have really missed both writing and reading. This week's prompt was "smoke." I kind of hate what I've got... but I really want to join in again even if I suck...


A small (belated) disclaimer about the cigarette poem in response to a few comments. I don't blame smokers for smoking. I hate that there is an addictive product out there being marketed to them. I have friends trying to quit and having a hard time. It bugs me that people are getting rich causing harm to others. Anyway, this isn't an anti SMOKER poem, it's an anti smoking poem.

Shadow Shot Sunday

It's been quite a while since I participated in Hey Harriet's Shadow Shot Sunday and I've missed it. Had a bout with the blues and with lots of gray shadow-less days. Took my camera out again this week. Pictures aren't very good, but I'm happy that I'm taking pictures again - even crappy ones - something I missed during my self-pity season.

I love the shape of this tree.

Same shadows, new season. The snow is finally gone!

This isn't a very good picture of Tara Grace and there's
not much of a shadow, but I never like to post just
one of my cats and not the other...

Angel loves the sun... which makes for plenty of shadows.

And last but not least... a robin and his/her shadow.
Spring is coming!

HAPPY SUNDAY! HAPPY SPRING!
(or AUTUMN depending on where you live)

Howard Dean on Health Care

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 56

This is week 56 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. Oh my, oh my, oh my.... previous complaints about my choice of words pale in the face of this week's ten world challenge. What was I thinking? Where did these horrific words come from? Why, Lord, why did I pick them? I beg forgiveness from all of you who have had the courage to participate this week. It's one of those weeks when I wish I wasn't hosting because I could tip-toe quietly out of the room and skip the challenge.... BUT.... AGGGGGGGH! I HAVE to do it! Anyone want to volunteer some words for future weeks? Then I can be mad at someone else instead of myself.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: partition, imagination, salvation, mirror image, green power, highway, roasting marshmallows, serial killer, autograph, cartography Mini Challenge: cell phone, Big Mac, panther, legendary, poets corner

Here's my ten-word offering for this week

In the bizarre cartography of his darkly confused and partitioned mind, serial killer Alph Langerford, saw all women as mirror images of his late mother. “My way or the highway,” she had said so often that he had felt it poetic justice to deposit her dismembered body, piece by piece, along the various roads he traveled, depositing an arm in Nebraska, a leg in Tennessee, and so on across the country. Her head he had left in Louisiana, where she had reminded him often, that her life had been ruined by his arrival into the world. Her heart he had dropped on a glacier in Alaska. His contribution to green power; in his damaged imagination he believed that its icy coldness would slow global warming for at least a thousand years. On this particular October evening he sat by a warm campfire roasting marshmallows and happily imagining the future crowds who would line up for his autograph, when they discovered that he was the author of the earth’s salvation, having solved global warming while ridding the world of cold-hearted bitches at one and the same time.

And here's my mini challenge:

Martin Migglesworthy, proud headliner for the cable TV show The Poet’s Corner, proudly read his latest masterpiece “Big Macs, Cell Phones, and the End of the World” to an appreciative audience. Not since his legendary masterpiece “Panther on the Path” had he written anything which resonated so with his listeners and readers. He might hate cell phones, but he loved cable TV.

And for the mega challenge:

Helen Herringsworthy could not believe that she was finally getting to participate in the legendary annual gathering known as the Poet’s Corner. Not only was she there, she was popular. All three books of her poetry: Roasting Marshmallows, Green Power Highway, and Mirror Images were selling like hot cakes and admiring fans were coming up to her for autographs. Autographs! It was better than every fantasy her imagination had conjured over the many years when she had been a mere visitor and not one of the “stars.” What made it all even better was that she was headlining with two of her own idols, Martin Migglesworthy, whose epic poem, “Panther on the Path,” she considered to be a masterpiece. The fact that he and her other idol, Benny “Big Mac” MacPherson, hated one another was a bit awkward, particularly given Migglesworthy’s reading of a poem complaining about the age of cell phones and what he labeled “fast food” writers, whom he alleged were “serial killers” of the English language. The allusion was not lost on the audiences and it was producing some pretty serious tension into the gathering. Still she was not going to let their drama spoil her own joy. Her own new poems “The Cartography of Salvation” and “The Partitioned Heart,” were being met with warm acclaim – even by Martin and Big Mac. This was a magic time and nothing could go wrong. Life was not just good, it was a “glorious rush of contrapuntal music, whispering in the wind of unseen stars.” A new poem was rising. It was the best of times.

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In last week's comments section, an Anonymous participant left the following offering towards this week's challenge. In case any of you missed it, I'm going to post it here. I also hope that if you didn't check back after Saturday, that you check out some of the late submissions we got last week. I will almost never single anyone out because everyone who participates is awesome, but I thought Gabrielle wrote something that is extraordinary and I hope you all will check it out here.

But here's what Anonymous had to offer with this week's words:

hi here is my contribution to the challenge.. disclaimer this is with malice towards no one or no religion...

The partition of India was an epic development in the 20th century. It was to intended to create a mirror image of the "Hindu India" with the "Muslim Pakistan". The imagination of the British, the Hindus, the Muslims and the rest of the world never contemplated that this was nothing but the beginning of the construction of a highway to many years of suffering for both countries and perhaps the world. The cartography of the Indian subcontinent had the autograph of the blood of a million people sent in either direction across the new borders. The cost in human terms of partition was more severe than a million serial killers let loose upon an unsuspecting population roasting marshmallows and enjoying the dying days of the British Raj. Today the Muslim world stands behind the green might of nuclear powered Pakistan, and the souls of the authors of the partition of India and Pakistan scream for salvation, as each day a new death is added to the tally of this event.

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Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: apoplexy, doctor, hummingbird, shallow end of the pool, brigadier general, mustard, greed, parallelogram, slumber party, casual

Mini Challenge: Mount Olympus, arsonist, portraits, birch trees, "that car needs a new muffler"

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

Please only sign into Mr. Linky if you are participating in
this week's Wordzzle Challenge.

Seven Deadly Sins: Envy

Well, it's Friday morning and time for Kay's (Perhaps We Learn) Seven Deadly Sins meme. This week's sin is envy. Oh, dear. I was feeling pretty smug about my relationship to envy and jealousy... until I checked the definition which reads: a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, etc. Ok, so I'm not quite so above it as I thought I was. But I would like to rationalize a little... or maybe I am, I guess it depends to some extent on how you read that definition.

I think there are two kinds/levels of envy - I'll call them banal and toxic for want of any better terms. Banal envy involves craving what someone else has without resenting them for it. I'm not sure I think that's particularly "sinful," perhaps because I indulge in it quite a bit and I'd rather not think ill of myself for doing so. What I think of as true or toxic envy not only craves what someone else has but wishes they didn't have it and resents their good fortune.

I'm more than capable of coveting cool things other people have. Last year my friend Nate got himself a camera with zillions of pixels and a 15x zoom. This was shortly before Tara Grace (bless her) smashed my zoomless, pixel-poor antique digital camera into a million pieces. I SOOOO wanted one like Nate's. I coveted pixels and zoom and I coveted them badly. Until I saw Nate's new camera, I had wished vaguely for a nicer camera but it hadn't been a big partof my consciousness. But once I actually saw what zooming could do and the quality that extra pixels gave a picture, my desire got pretty obsessive. I kidded Nate a lot about how jealous I was. And I confess with no shame to being almost (almost?) euphoric when Tara broke my camera so that I could rationalize spending money I didn't really have on a cool new camera. I've had so much joy from that camera.... sometimes foolishness isn't so foolish. I'm grateful that Nate created that envy in me and that it led to something which has expanded the way I see the world and opened up a whole new world of creativity to me. It doesn't feel sinful (negative) to me. Religious zealots might tell me to pack my bags for Hell, but I got joy in Nate having the camera, I enjoyed my envy and I LOVE my camera. Part of why I feel so adamant about this is probably because I was raised to feel guilty if I wanted anything. It has taken a lot of work to rejoice in my desires and hopes. I don't always manage it, but this was one case where - after a lot of back and forth about whether I could afford it and a lot of angst about getting it for myself and a certain amount of guilt about wanting it so badly, joy has won. But back to the topic of envy.

What I think of as real envy (toxic envy), she rationalized, is resenting what another person has. That, I'm not prone to. I was thrilled that Nate got his camera. I was happy for him. If I had my druthers, everybody who wants one would have a good camera. In fact that's one of my fantasies for when I win the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. A photo program for some of the local schools which would give kids who were interested a good camera and teach them how to use it creatively.

True or Toxic Envy to me involves not just a coveting of what someone else has but a resenting that they have it and/or desiring that you have it instead of them. Envy in it's most toxic form assumes that the universe is small and stingy and doesn't have enough for everyone. Envy in it's toxic form is ugly and reflects a sense that your worth is based on what you have or what your job title is or some other false definition. Envy in it's most toxic form resents someone else's success or happiness. I think that kind of envy has to be terribly painful and it fits my definition of sin (separation from God) because it means you are disconnected from your own inherent goodness and worth and from God/the Universe's abundant Love.

I have a profound belief in the power of gratitude. People like Louise Haye, Wayne Dyer and the Abraham-Hicks people, most modern mystics, all talk about the power of attraction. In other words ... we bring to us what we focus on. Serge Kahili King, who teaches Hawiian mysticism, expreses it this way: "Energy flows where attention goes." Using this theory, the toxic form of envy is not only ugly and unpleasant, it's counter-productive. In toxic envy you are focused on what you don't have.... and you continue to draw not having to you. And it's just an unpleasant way to live.

I think I've always been prone to gratitude and being positive, but some years back when I was at one of my lowest points - I was out of work, out of pension, living under the power of a stingy and mean-spirited landlord, not yet ready to face the truth of how disabled I was or willing to reach out for help... my life was a real mess - I came across an essay called Thank You for Everything that had a powerful impact on me. It was written by a man named Alan Cohen and talked about a mantra taught to him by a wise teacher. It goes "Thank you for everything. I have no complaints whatsoever." I practiced it constantly. The worse things got the more I gave thanks for them. Two strange things happened. First, when I gave thanks for something - even if I didn't quite mean it - my attitude changed. I found I didn't feel so bad about it. Secondly, my life began to shift. I dont' know if it's true or not, but I think that when we give gratitude for even things that seem like disasters, it opens a path for the Universe to be creatively generous, to move beyond. Resenting our situation, wallowing in us, glues it to us and us to it. Which sort of brings me back to envy... (I know, I digressed. I always digress. I can't help myself.) Anyway, oddly, I think Toxic Envy really is among the most destructive emotional states we can experience. It carries within it a bit of many of the other sins: lust for what other s have, anger that they have it, greed, pride (inverse pride, maybe, but pride). It's ugly and in it's toxic form can eat away at your spirit and your joy.

That said, I think we should be careful not to confuse toxic envy with a joyful love of life, with seeing something wonderful that someone else has and wanting to have it too, not to lessen them or with resentment of them, but for the joy and delight of expanding your own world and life.

So that's my thoughts on envy. I don't know if I've made any sense or not. Not going to go back an reread, just hope that there's a coherent thought or two here and there.

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On another note: Tomorrow from 8:30 to 9:30 you might want to participate in something called "Earth Hour," an effort to focus on global warming. For one hour, you are asked to take the simple step of turning your lights off. That's it. Save an hours worth of energy... multiplied by hopefully a million other people around the world. Not much of a sacrifice and good food for thought.

Having a Tough Day

Happy Thursday, everyone. Apologies to Quilly today. I can't quite get my brain around her three words... was having a hard time finding a meaning for jibber, still not feeling too well. My left ear has now gone wonky. It's a little better than it was last night, but not great.

I seem to be in a trouble cycle. Battery on my smoke alarm died last night which meant it started beeping every 15 seconds or so. It's slightly out of my reach and last time it went off I had to knock it down with my cane. It was apparently ready for me last night because it refused to budge no matter what I did. Thank goodness for Nate. He came by and took it down for me. While he was here my left ear suddenly went funny. It's an ear that gets irritated sometimes but it has never done this before. It just kind of closed up... It seems a bit better but it still feels odd and I feel lopsided. Could be worse, I guess... and it IS getting better.

But that's not the big thing that has happened in a short 12 hours. Angel caught - and killed - a mouse last night. It's under the carpet outside the bathroom. She is holding vigil at the carpet. I'm holding in screams and panic and wishing it would go away by magic.

Besides all that, it's gloomy and chilly out today, supposed to rain later. I am feeling sorry for myself again.

Tomorrow it's supposed to go into the 50s. Yippee! And tomorrow is another day. Every bump in the road brings a gift so I'm sure my little mouse has one too.... Angel's happy. I guess that's a gift. Nate figured out what was wrong with my printer while he was here helping me with the smoke alarm, so that works again.

I guess I can use these little crises are wonderful reminders about how blessed I am. How kind and generous my friends are, how resilient my body is even though it has it's moments of trouble. I've always had really good hearing. Having an ear out of whack really makes me appreciate how nice it is to have two of them.

And yesterday there were robins, lots of robins, making clear that Spring is really here... even if I'm sitting here shivering and the flowers haven't shown their faces yet. They will do so any day now. Everything cycles.


One last thing... I was going through my email and got an undeserved thank you from something called Galaxy Zoo. I signed up last year but have failed to keep up with it. As an atonement for my guilt, maybe I can get some other people to sign on. It's fascinating and kind of fun. They teach you how to differentiate between different categories of galaxy.... and you and 150,000 or so other people help them classify the photos. It's not an exact science so the more responses they get the more it helps them decide on how to classify something. It's kind of fascinating.

That's it from me. Pray for me and my ear and the dead mouse. One thing about times like this... things are bound to get better.

9:00 PM - Evening Update: Thank you everyone for your kind good wishes, prayers and reiki. My ear feels GREAT this evening. My next door neighbor came over and generously disposed of the little mouse. My little home and it's chief cook and cat tender are much happier than we were this morning. In response to questions as to why Angel didn't bring me the mouse - I think it got enough away from her under the little area rug that she couldn't get to it. I have no doubt it would otherwise have joined me in bed. Yuck. Thank goodness for small blessings... and big ones.

Ruby Tuesday: Odd assortment

Ruby Tuesday - hosted by Mary/the Teach at Work of the Poet - is here again. I've really missed doing Ruby Tuesday so yesterday, I engaged in a fairly desperate attempt to come up with some reds. For better or worse I offer them here...

I'm not feeling too well this morning so I may post this and go back to bed for a bit and then visit everyone later in the day. Looking forward to checking in on everyone, though.




My kitchen timer (matches my new red pots and pans)....



Neighbor's chimney.



My mouse....


Yesterday morning, looking out the back door in search of some signs of Spring, I spotted instead this Coca Cola truck. Since I lost my big tree last year, I can see this big motel or golf club or some such place. When the trees fill in it will be mostly hidden again until the leaves fall again. But yesterday the view offered a big red truck so...



Prayer flags...


Then, last week I visited Trav's Thoughts, where he had posted his Superhero and a link to the Hero Factory so you could create your own. This is my super hero(ine). I think she's kind of cool except I don't know why they added the Baroness part. Such is life. She doesn't have much read, but here name is in red and this seemd as good a way as any to share her.



Last but not least, Shannon was visiting yesterday. Webkins has been replaced - or at least is in competition with - something called Club Penguin. This was a dance competition.

Have a lovely Tuesday!!

Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath/Anger Part 1

I missed week two of the Kay's Seven Deadly Sins Meme. The sin was Wrath - which the dictionary defines as "vengeful anger." Given how much vengeful anger is floating around in the world these days, I just kind of hate to have missed that one, so I'm going to post something now even though I'm two weeks late doing so.

I have a lot to say - or at least a lot of opinions and thoughts - on this subject. So much so that I got stuck chasing my tail yesterday when I tried to write this. Probably most of what I want to say is about plain and simple anger, but given events of the times, I think I also want to talk about vengeful anger. Plain ordinary old anger is - despite what most of us are taught - often a healthy response to events around us, but vengeful anger I think is truly "sinful." It is destructive to the well being of all parties.

Vengeful anger (and greed and power lust and dishonesty) is what took us into Iraq. Vengeful anger is what blew up the World Trade Centers. Vengeful anger is what keeps Israelis and Palestinians justifying the continuous drawing of one another's blood. Vengeful anger is what keeps the death penalty in place and allows our society to kill other - often innocent - human beings in the name of justice.

The worst thing about vengeful anger is that it seldom accomplishes much except to breed more misery. Each vengeful act in the Middle East provokes another and the blood of innocents is shed more richly than that of the so-called "guilty" on either side.

Right now in this country around the issue of the economy there is a lot of vengeful anger stewing. I'm not immune to it myself. I didn't have any money for Bernie Madoff to steal but I'm thrilled and delighted to see someone who has harmed so many and lived lavishly on their money - in jail. I have always found golden parachutes and million dollar bonuses offensive and obscene even when they were spending what was allegedly "corporate money." That corporate money, we now know, was really pretty much really high class sleight-of-hand theft... but now it's tax payer's money. The same tax payers who are losing their homes and their jobs. And boy, oh boy vengeance sounds so sweet. Throw them all out on the street. Write laws that violate our constitution and the nature of our law.... It all feels good for a few minutes. But it doesn't solve the problems and it makes everything too simple. One of the really annoying (and wonderful) things about life is (to me) that it is NEVER simple.

Right now we, as a nation, are frightened and feeling very helpless. The constant prattling of ignorant and semi ignorant people who are paid to entertain us with their opinions feeds our anxiety with half truths, truth mixed with lies, truth mixed with ignorance, pure ignorance, pure lies.... It leaves my head spinning. No wonder we all feel crazy! If I had any sense, I'd turn my TV off.... but I can't seem to get myself to do it... But back to the topic at hand.

There is an instinct in this situation to want revenge. Let those companies fail. Throw the bums out on the street. Fire them all. I have those same instincts, but at the same time I also believe that the complexity of the world economy is so far beyond my ability to comprehend that we need people who understand it - even if they have behaved badly - to help fix what they broke. It may piss me off, but who am I shooting in the foot if short-term gratification of quick punishment tanks the world economy? I think there will still be time to punish them later and to write good laws that put limits on the golden parachute life.

But I've wandered off from the topic again. Sorry. Vengeful wrath is kind of like the instant gratification form of anger and reparation. My first therapist once said to me. "We become the thing we hate." It took me a while to comprehend what he meant, but I think it's one of the truest and wisest things I ever heard. Vengeance is about hate. Hate is always destructive and as destructive to the hater as the hatee. I think we usually move to the desire for vengeance when we feel helpless and frightened. Maybe it makes us feel better for a few minutes but it doesn't solve the problem and usually makes it worse... which makes us want more vengeance... and it goes on and on.

I don't know how much sense I'm making here. I do think there is a place for holding people accountable, for asking for, if not retribution, at least responsiblity and an appropriate punishment.

Digressing again. Sort of anyway... As anyone who has visited here for any amount of time knows, I have a lot of anger about the actions of the previous administration and many things which I consider to be crimes committed under the aegis of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I believe that these men and their administration should be held accountable for actions which caused great harm to the nation and the world. I know some think this is vengeful on my part. I'm human and there is a bit of vengefulness in my wanting to see these men go to jail or at the least go on trial. I think it would be vengeance if I wanted them murdered, hung from the highest tree, boiled in oil. I don't want that. I don't even want them thrown in jail without a trial (that would be poetic justice maybe, but it would be vengeance and not helpful). I want the Bush administration held accountable because they represented me and the country I love and launched a war that didn't have to be fought and violated the letter and the spirit of our laws on multiple fronts here at home. If these things are true - and a trial can help decide that - they - and we as a nation - should be held accountable. Asking for accountability isn't vengeance. It's about healing our own national soul.

I guess I bring this up because I think vengeance - rash, usually physically or emotionally violent - is inherently destructive. One of the few "sins" I think is genuinely sinful, wicked, evil, bad, not good, self-destructive, other-destructive, and genuinely not helpful. In the end, finding peaceful, constructive, thoughtful, comprehensive ways to hold people accountable for their actions is more effective. It may not carry the adreneline rush that rage does, but it can lead to real change instead of repeated craziness.

So that's my rambling for today on - sort of - the subject of wrath. At sometime over the next few days, I want to try to write something about anger because I have a whole theory about anger that I love sharing with anyone who will listen. Just have to get my act together to write it down.

I hope you have a wonderful, peaceful day, free of angst and wrath.


Deadly sins posts:

Lust
Gluttony
Sloth
Wrath Part 1

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 55

This is week 55 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. I thought these words were very difficult but once I got started I had kind of a good time with them. Still, I think I need to come up with a new system... or maybe therapy for my muse who seems to go a bit nuts when she spews out the new words every week. Anyway, looking forward to reading everyone's offerings.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: humanity, shadow, ricochet, wrong, pluralism, mathematics, person-hood, printing press, ink spot, choral society Mini Challenge: kingdom, take names, best seller, three times, inner demons

This week's 10 word challenge is:

Despite the fact that modern presses were faster and not subject to problems like ink spots and irregularities, Martin Lundgren missed his old printing press. He missed the challenge, the mathematics and artistry of spacing lines in a manuscript so that they looked right. He loved the light and shadow of hot type and how it reflected the human agents behind the publications. So many of life's modern improvements took the humanity, the person-hood out of things, gave them a bland perfection that he found boring and disheartening. Although when working on something like the book he was printing up now, it was a blessing indeed! Even the title - PLURALISM IS WRONG - was boring. And another blessing... it gave him time for other things. He did love having the extra time to play a good game of Ricochet with his youngest son and singing with his teen-age daughter and his wife in the choral society. Singing didn't carry the tactile pleasure of setting hot type, but it was a joyful source of both communion with his family and creative expression. On the whole, he guessed, there was more gain than loss with his the new machines... and he still had the old hot type out in the garage for an occasional special creative project... like today's special birthday book for his daughter. He hoped she would feel the love in the the paper and the ink and how it reflected her own unique magic. Life, he thought, was pretty good when you had a wonderful family and the best of both the old and new.

And the mini challenge:

Three times topping the best seller list for 6 months or longer (with small breaks in between as some new flash in the pan breezed through) was more than Kate Ravenlea had hoped for even in her most lavish fantasies. Who would have thought that the inner demons who had tormented her and held her down for most of her life would turn out to be the key to her fame and financial well being? When she had begun writing "Demonalia: Kingdom of Inner Voices Gone Wrong," she had wanted nothing more than to tame and take control of the chorus of voices that ranted at her from the darkest corners of her mind. When she had begun her book by saying out loud: "Listen up, monsters. Your time has passed. The party's over. Demonalia is under new managment. I'm coming after you. I'm going to take names (and perhaps give them where needed) and I'm consigning you guys to the obscurity you deserve," it had felt more like bravado than truth. But here she was four years later, self-assured and rolling in dough. Demonalia was indeed under new management.

This week's mega challenge: printing press

Kate Ravenlea's best seller had struck a chord with large numbers of people because it spoke to their common humanity. She had made false starts three times writing "Demonalia: Kingdom of Inner Voices Gone Wrong." It was originally titled - big mistake - "Coming to Terms with Your Inner Demons and Taming Your Shadow Side to Achieve full Person-hood." Mercifully a good editor had read past title, seen the value in the book and helped her settle on the final Demonalia title. By some miracle, the process of writing her book had healed something deep inside her. The pluralism of sane and insane voices ricocheting off each other in her head, while not totally silenced was greatly stilled. The mathematics, the enormous proportions of the book's snowballing impact, continued to stun her. "Demonalians" and "demonalia" had become household words around the world. And the book had touched so many lives. A composer in California had written a twelve part musical work called "The Defeat of Demonalia." She was to be the honored guest when the New York Choral Society premiered it tonight at Carnegie Hall. Then there were the letters she had received from all over the world. They moved her to tears and and sometimes to joyful laughter. Ink Spot Publications was talking with her about a new book using the letters and she was really excited about it. Some of them were profoundly touching in ways that would be healing to many, many people. Her publisher had asked her to take names and addresses to the legal department so that they could work on clearing away any legal obstacles that might stand in the way of the new book. "I'm thinking Ink Spot may need to buy a couple of new printing presses just to keep up with the demand for your books, " her agent had joked. But you know what was the best thing about all this excitement and good news was for Kate? There had not been a peep out of the residents of Demonalia. Not a peep. Life was not just good, it was glorious!

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Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: partition, imagination, salvation, mirror image, green power, highway, roasting marshmallows, serial killer, autograph, cartography

Mini Challenge: cell phone, Big Mac, panther, legendary, poets corner

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

Please note: There are a fair number of new people visiting, many sort of new to the blogosphere as well. Please only sign into Mr. Linky if you are participating in this week's Wordzzle Challenge. That's what it's for. It makes me cranky when people sign in just to get visitors. I know for some this is/was an innocent breach of blog etiquette so I won't hold it against you. But don't do it again, please. Other Mr. Linky advice. If your name is already in Mr. Linky from a previous participation, make sure to update it. Mr. Linky tends to be stuck in the past if not given his due. Thanks, Raven.

Seven Deadly Sins: Sloth

Well it's Friday and for the Lenten Season Kay over at Perhaps we Learn is hosting a meme on the 7 deadly sins. This week our topic is sloth. I missed week #2 (Wrath) a couple of weeks ago and because it seems timely, I had thought about writing about anger too. But this is already long so maybe I'll try to do wrath tomorrow or Sunday instead.

It's funny that this week is about sloth because right now my body and I are at war with daylight savings time. I seem to be making a slower than usual recovery from the shift. Well, I'm really not recovering. I've backslid about 30 minutes on my going to bed at a more normal hour rule and I'm getting up a half hour later. And this makes me feel very cranky and tired. I need to get over it, but for some reason even when I get to bed at the "right" time, I don't want to get up in the morning and my mornings are starting late and it's just very irritating and makes me feel bad about myself, makes me feel - you guessed it - LAZY! Lucky for me I don't have to go to work, although if I did, I'd probably have gotten over this by now. I think daylight savings time is just silly.

But back to the topic at hand. Sloth. All this not getting up on time makes me feel an extra level of slothfulness. I already battle with the inner voices that tell me I'm lazy. It's another area in which I can't entirely tell truth from internalized fiction. There's a lot that needs to be done around my house that isn't getting done. I like to think this is because I'm not physically capable of it, but the voices in my head tend to think otherwise. Truth probably lies in the middle. I could do more. But I get discouraged because it's so difficult. (Laziness, the voices mutter.) In the end, I guess I come to the same opinion about laziness as I do with all the "sins." I think the greatest harm of the whole sin thing is that it is a systematic way of making us feel bad about ourselves. Hard work (the opposite of laziness we are taught) is a virtue. And sometimes it is. But is it always? Is running on a relentless treadmill of "doing something" really good for us or for society? I think it depends on what that effort is directed towards. And even directed towards the most noble cause, if work consumes every thought and moment, I'm not sure it's a virtue. Life needs warmth and joy and our bodies and our spirits need rest and tenderness and compassion. So many of us have internal voices that try and lash us into so-called virtue by beating us up about how wicked we are. I don't think that ever works really. I don't know the statistics, but I'm guessing that most slave laborers die/died young. Brutality - whether physical or emotional - is not a good motivator. The voices in my head - in the heads of too many of us - are often brutal indeed.

It's always interesting to me when I write things and have a revelation in the process. All the talk about slave labor and motivation made me think about perfectionism. I've probably shared this before, but one of the funniest therapy sessions I ever had was when Dr. Jim told me I was a perfectionist. "That's absurd," I responded. "I never do anything right." He just laughed at me and it slowly dawned on me that perhaps I was a perfectionist. (Perfections who read that and don't get the joke... read it again and think about it.) Doing your best is a virtue. Striving to mete some mythical and idealized vision of perfection (and of course in true perfectionism the bar continues to move so that you can never reach it) is just self destructive. No matter how beautiful your work of art you will find reason to fault it, no matter how clean your house is, you will see only the tiny spot of dust you missed or the slip cover you don't like or... And no matter how hard you work you will deem yourself lazy or inept because you didn't do more.

That said, I get as irritated as the next person at people who are disrespectful of other's time and feelings: the clerk in a store who is doing nothing and leaves you standing for 15 minutes or simply ignores you into submission. But the kinds of laziness that I'd qualify as "sinful" (if I believed in sin) are things like a doctor who thinks listening to his/her patients is too much of an ordeal to be born. Or someone who is too busy with his/her own life to spend a half hour listening to a friend in need. Or a dog "owner" who substitutes a chain in the back yard for attention and exercise for their four-legged companions. That kind of emotional laziness bothers me more than anything.

Still, I think we need to put the whole concept of sin into a box and put that box onto a high shelf where it can collect dust and be forgotten. I personally believe that God is LOVE. Love does not judge, particularly petty things like your weight or what time you get up in the morning or how clean you keep your house. God/LOVE has better things to do. All we can do in this life is our best and be kind to ourselves and each other.

Wicked woman that I am, I say "be lazy sometimes." Not always. But a healthy life is about balance. Work hard and rest easy. Not sure I've made a lot of sense here, but I'm not going to read it over because then I might have to rewrite it and I'm way to lazy to do that.


Deadly sins posts:

Lust
Gluttony
Sloth

Quilly's (Hitonious) Three Word Challenge

It's Thursday and Quilly has confronted us with three rare, look-em-up-in-the-dictionary words to write into a story. You can find the meaning of hitonious in last week's challenge. For this week we were confronted with: sternutation; zoilist; anopisthograph



The irate professor ruffled angrily through the dusty old manuscript, growing angrier with each turn of the page. Just because something is old, Martinson, does not make it valuable. This anopisthograph is not the precious masterpiece you seem to think it is. While many of the pages are, I will admit, quite beautiful, the writing, the grammar is.... well it's a crime against the language... against any language. Call me a zoilist if you want, but this whole thing is incoherent dribble. And stop that annoying sternutation. Get a hanky. Take a pill. Take this out of my sight.

Young Martinson stood gazing at the professor in between sneezes with a blank look on his face. Finally he asked in a meek voice. "Professor, do you speak English? I mean I know what you said was English... could you tell me what you said in words I could understand? You seem angry. I got that part."

"Young people today," muttered Professor Mungford. "Your educations are a tetteromous failure. Hitonious!"

"Professor, I still don't understand half of what you're saying," He sneezed miserably. I think I'm allergic to that manuscript. It makes me sneeze."

"I noticed," the professor grumbled. "Your repeated stenternation is very annoying. You must have noticed before that this anopisthograph makes you sneeze...."

"Ok... so stenternation is sneezing?"

"Of course, you ignorant idiot," grumbled the angry educator.

"And an anopisthograph is....???"

"A manuscript or parchment having writing on only one side of the leaves, of course..."

"Of course, professor.... but why did you say I could call you a zoologist?" "Not zoologist, Martinson, zoilist."

"Oh... uh... what's a zoilist?"

"Ignorance..." muttered the professor. "Zoilus was an noted Greek grammarian and philosopher. He was noted in part for being rather harsh and critical. The term "zoilist" has come to mean 'a rude or nasty critic who gets pleasure finding fault in others.' I get no pleasure at all from it," he smirked, "it's just my curse to be surrounded by fools."

"Ah. A hitonious fate indeed, professor."

"Hitonious, Martinson? Well done. Perhaps there's some hope for you after all. Let's have another look at your manuscript."

The End

Wow! How Cool Am I?

Wow! What an amazing surprise to have so many wonderful and kind visitors yesterday... and to discover that my little blog has somehow been dubbed a "blog of note." I have to confess that I didn't even know there was such a thing. And now my head is just swelling... and I'm thinking, Oh, Lord... I've got to go visit all those people! Thank you all for your kind and thoughtful words about the gluttony post. It is sad how many people can relate to it.

One reason I share my story is because I know how very not alone I am in my experience. My family wasn't even that extreme in many ways. There was no physical violence to speak of, there wasn't a lot of screaming. There was a lot of stuperous drunkenness. There was a psychopath brother... he's a big factor. But mostly there was a kind of seeping poison. In some ways I think seeping poison is the most lethal. You can fight against out and out cruelty. You can recognize its insanity for what it is. Bruises and broken bones can be seen by others. Seeping poison just leaves you in a state of perpetual illness without quite knowing why you feel so bad all the time. That's one of the reasons I think the therapy is so profoundly important... because we first need to realize that we are being poisoned and then analyze what the poison is before we can hope to find a meaningful antidote. Parents are often passing down the messages that were given to them. The poison my mother dripped into my veins was her effort at being a good parent. Much of what she said and did was an effort to protect me. Much of it was an unconscious expression of her own profound wounds seeping almost by osmosis into my system and thinking. My brother, who I may write about some day, was more malevolent. He liked causing pain and he was good at it. But he is a story for another day.

I just want to thank blogger for honoring me. I don't know how you become a blog of note. Maybe they pick names out of a hat. Whatever the criteria, it was so cool to have so many people visit and be touched by my words. I've sometimes had 40 visitors for a photo meme, but seldom just for my words. Thank you for listening. Thank you to those of you who shared about your own pain. That I think is how the world heals.

Thank you again to blogger for the honor of calling me a "blog of note." I just feel so cool and impressed with myself.... and, of course, unworthy. (But still really happy.) And thanks to everyone who has visited and commented. I have to admit to feeling a bit overwhelmed by the attention, but grateful too... I may take me a while to return visits, but I will get to everyone in the next few days.

Besides the joy of meeting so many new people here at my little nest, outside my windows the snow is almost completely gone. The trees are getting knobbier and birds and critters are showing themselves again. Life seems pretty good.

Sin of the Week: Gluttony

Well, I wonder why I keep forgetting about Kay's Seven Deadly Sins meme. Hmmm... could it have anything to do with the fact that this week's deadly sin is GLUTTONY -- my very favorite and worst and most perpetual of all the sins. Hmmm... I wonder....

I don't want to talk about gluttony. It's a really painful subject and one that I don't have my head screwed on right about. At risk of hawking my own writing (a tragic glutton for readers as well), like the confusion I wrote about earlier this week. The issue of gluttony - which connects directly for me to the issue of weight - is another area in which my mother poisoned my ability to think rationally. My mother started obsessing about my weight almost as soon as I popped out of the womb from what I hear. Well, that's probably (possibly) a bit unfair. The story goes that the doctor gave her the wrong formula and when I was around three months old or so, I got very chubby and broke out in boils... and after that my mother worried about my weight forever. She saw me always as hideously fat and so even before I became hideously fat, I saw myself the same way. Years later in therapy, Dr. Jim asked me to bring photos of myself when I was younger. He saw a normal kid. I saw a little fatty. Oddly even when I was relatively slender, I FELT obese. Now, when I truly am obese, except for the fact that I can't wear cool clothes any more and my knees are peeved at me, not much has changed in how I see myself. The universe has simply opened it's benificent arms and helped me unite my belief about myself with reality. Unfortunately.

But I digress. Eating was a criminal activity in my childhood. My mother was a pretty good cook. I think it was an area where she was able to express her love. She always prepared way too much and then watched every bite I took and made me feel bad for eating. I don't know if I was a glutton. I felt like one, though. I was not (I have to remind myself) obese as a child, as a young adult, or even into my 30s and 40s. Weight was always an issue. I was quite slim in my 20s and early 30s. I'm not sure when I began to gain the weight that shames me even in the privacy of the home I seldom venture out of. After I injured my legs it got worse. But again I digress. This subject sends me into a spiral of circular and insane thinking. Because along with feeling obese even when I wasn't, I was made to feel like a glutton. Hunger is normal but not in my brain. In my brain it's a criminal/sinful activity.

My mother didn't limit her assessment of my sins to just food. She grew up in a very abusive and profoundly destitute home, the 2nd oldest of 8 siblings. She was beaten. She was used as cheap labor. She was sent out to work at the age of 8. Perhaps worst of all, she was neglected in other ways so that she almost died on more than one occasion from medical neglect. She saw me as profoundly spoiled. That I had anything I think angered her on some level and that I sometimes wanted more ... well that was wickedness of the highest order. I grew up believing that wanting - that any kind of desire - was a form of gluttony. I've put a lot of work into shifting that belief. I still struggle with it, but I don't punish myself any more (not as often or as much anyway) when I buy something for myself or when something is given to me. Still, it was only two years ago that I caught myself worrying that my neighbors might hate me and think I was rich because UPS delivered a package to me... or because I got my house painted. I had to work through it - ask myself if I thought those kinds of things when they got deliveries - in order to grasp the utter insanity of my thinking.

So what is gluttony? Eating two pieces of pie? Wanting a new TV that you can't afford? Or is it bilking thousands of people out of billions of dollars. Or is it feeling entitled to a five million dollar bonus for screwing up the lives of half the human race and being baffled when people resent it. Realistically, I'd say it's those latter behaviors that are gluttony. But some days I'm not sure. How sad is that.

I'm just spewing out whatever comes off my fingers here and I'm not going to go back and proofread because if I do, I'll be humiliated and I won't post it.

The best and wisest pastor I ever encountered once had a conversation with me - or maybe it was a sermon he gave - about the meaning of sin. He defined it as "separation from God." I always thought that made more sense than all the nitpicking of petty crimes that so often engages the minds of religious people. I often think that our obsession with viewing ourselves as criminals is one of the things that TRULY separates us from God. God, to me, is pure Love. He/She/It could care less if I'm fat or even greedy or if I lose my temper when I'm tired. Even if I don't approve of or love myself... even if my mother didn't... God loves me all the time simply because that's who/what God is. Sins, I think, are a human invention. The only thing that's truly sinful in my view is being unloving, because being unloving disconnects you from LOVE (though even that doesn't disconnect LOVE from you).

And that's my rambling thoughts on gluttony and other semi-related stuff.

Happy Saturday. Eat hearty and be a glutton for the joy of living. I think God likes that. (Of course, I could be wrong.)

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 54

This is week 54 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. I had a rough time this week. Don't know if it was the words or my state of mind. Maybe both. It's chilly here but there's now more grass showing than snow. This makes me very happy.


The words for this week's ten word challenge were: sugar bowl, cotton, wizard, fund-raising, Ben Hur, salmonella, luke warm, telescope, bank, walk-a-thon Mini Challenge: challenge, sparkling cider, melancholy, snail mail, master carpenter



My ten word offering for this week:

Augusta Adams hated football season... with all it's stupid bowls: Sugar bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl. What was the whole thing with bowls anyway? Football made no sense to her on any level. Thank God she could find ways to entertain herself while her husband sat glued to the TV for months on end. Thank God she had her movie collection and her own TV. For the coming week she had a great line-up of golden oldies beginning with Ben Hur, the on to the Wizard of Oz, Treasure Island and Casa Blanca. But that was for later. Right now she had to get organized for the big fund-raising walk-a-thon. She was excited because this was the first time since her near-death bout with salmonella that she had felt strong enough for such a challenge. Being so close to death had changed her. Somewhere in her early delirium and subsequent recovery, everything that mattered, had been telescoped in her mind and she was ready to live life with gratitude for every gift and moment, a will to do some good, and forbearance for the joy the football season gave to the man she loved. For now she was off to register at the blood bank, then the walk-a-thon, and then while Charlie watched the game tonight, she would soak her feet in luke-warm water and enjoy a good movie and a glass of wine.

This week's mini:

Master carpenter Jeremiah Martenson was finding it a challenge to keep depression – melancholy as his beloved Miranda had once called it - and the pull of alcohol away. The Sparkling Cider which he had hoped would cheer him up only made him want a drink more. To make matters worse, today’s snail mail had brought the finally severing of his marriage. He would sign the papers and mail them back… and then he would make a choice between continuing his recovery or diving back into the darkness of the bottle.

And the mega:

“Pass the sugar bowl, please Ben,” Gloria said absently to her husband, “coffee’s ready. You want sugar in yours or just milk?” “Bgahf,” was the only sound that issued from behind the newspaper sitting across from her. “Bgahf” is not an answer to my question. You are such a bloody challenge in the mornings. Don’t tell me you have cotton mouth again. Please come out from behind that newspaper, dear and talk to your wife” “Mrrff,” “Ben, darling… if you don’t stop hiding and talk to me, I’ll pick up the phone and hire a master carpenter to spend thousands of dollars of your hard earned money on something you will hate. I will empty your bank account. This coffee is good, love. You will feel better if you drink it. It’s nice and luke-warm, just the way you like it. You are such a strange man. Why DID I marry you?” Saying this, she pushed the coffee behind the newspaper wall and continued her one-way conversation. “Did you see there’s another salmonella scare? This country has gone to the dogs. There’s another fund-raising party at the planetarium. It’s a costume party… We got an invitation in our snail mail yesterday. I think you should go as Ben Hur. You know, Ben Herr goes as Ben Hur…. They want to buy a new telescope” She paused briefly in her monologue: “Ben, dear… are you ever coming out from behind the newspaper?” “I will not go to a costume party as Ben Hur... what about going as wizard... and you could be a witch. I could be Dumbledor and you could be whats-her-name” intoned the melancholy voice of her now coffee fortified husband, “Next time I’m offered champagne at a party please make sure I have sparkling cider instead, won’t you Glory? I’m painfully hung over. Today isn’t that bloody walk-a-thon you volunteered us for is it? Please tell me it isn’t. Oh… and you were just kidding about the carpenter, weren’t you? Your coffee is miraculous, by the way…. As are you, my love. What’s for breakfast?”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: humanity, shadow, ricochet, wrong, pluralism, mathematics, personhood, printing press, ink spot, choral society

Mini Challenge: kingdom, take names, best seller, three times, inner demons

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

Cramer versus Stewart

This made me wish Stewart was a reporter instead of a comedian. It's clear from this interview why his comedy show offers more news than most of our so-called news/journalism. This was kind of sad to watch on one level. I don't think Cramer really understood the implications of Stewart's questions. Anyway, I had to post these.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Quilly's Three Word Thursday

Well, it's time for Quilly's hittonious challenge to use three impossible, obscure, weird words in a story or paragraph. I think of it as a braniac's wordzzle. So this week I'm getting rid of one of the words (hittonious) by using it right away. Hittonious means "beyond horrid... horrid, hideous, and horrendous combined," so maybe calling Quilly's challenge hittonious is a touch unfair. Maybe it's fairer to say it's teterrimous, which means "most foul." Ok... you guessed it. That's the second of the three words and it's probably not fair to call her challenge teterrimous either, though that word does have a lovely mellifluous flow to it, doesn't it? Yeah... mellifluous was the third word... and it means "having a rich, smooth flow"... or alternately "filled with something that sweetens." I've always like that word. So that's my teterrimous, though hopefully mellifluous submission to Quilly's hittoniously difficult word challenge for this week. Who said cheaters never prosper....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Haven't been taking many photos lately, but thought I'd share this sweet face that hides the teterrimous heart of a creative doer and hittonious deeds. She looks innocent, but she is plotting destructive feline terrorist activities. Tara Grace (below) is much less naughty but nobody could say she has a mellifluous voice. One of Tara's nicknames is The Dread Pirate Tara the Gray because she sounds so much like Long John Silver from the old 1934 Treasure Island movie.

Still Crazy After All These Years...

Well, I have tried pretty much not to make this blog into a diary asking others to contemplate my navel with me, but I have had a profound revelation of sorts in therapy this week and it's one of those things that's purely about my own damaged psyche.... but also maybe something that will speak to someone else, so I'm going to share it.... with some history too.

Starting from when I was a very young child, my mother never believed me when I said I was unwell. If I didn't have a raging fever or blood dripping from my forehead, she accused me of lying. Years later, at the workshop where I injured my legs and I was in agony, barely able to walk and in so much pain that I was literally seeing stars... I had trouble believing that I was truly suffering. I continued pushing through extraordinary pain. I even did a series of trust fall exercises despite my agony and only finally stopped doing physical things when the limitations of my pain would have impacted someone else's experience. Despite the fact that I knew I was in agony, I also doubted the reality of my own experience. Was I just being a big baby? Everyone else was sore too...

In the days and weeks that followed, one of the big questions I struggled with was: Why did nobody seem able to recognize the degree of my injury and my physical agony. The answer, I realized, was because I couldn't... or at least there was a war between reality and my mother's voice whispering in my head that I was making it all up. In the midst of all that pain, I had the revelation that others doubted my pain because I myself didn't believe it. Thank God for my therapist then and now. He saw the agony on my face. He saw the difficulty with which I took every step. He saw. He believed. And that helped me believe. That's how crazy I am. That time in my life was one of profound revelation. That workshop had been like a journey into my childhood. And from the experience there and afterwords with my friends, I realized that the person who most didn't get how much pain I was in was me and that it was therefore no wonder that others didn't get it. I was giving a very mixed message.

So what does this have to do with the here and now? Well, as a rule, I like to think that the demons who have wrought havoc with my thought processes for much of my life are relatively under control these days. And I certainly have a better handle on them than I did for most of my life, but.... the miracle of the promised gifts from Delaware Opportunities of a new bathroom and front entrance for my house (and now maybe some kitchen improvements too) has set the crazy in my head to jumping up and down and shouting. I call the voices who echo my mother and other childhood insanity Demonalians and that part of my mind Demonalia. I have to tell you... it is party time in Demonalia. I am getting all this incredible bounty and have done nothing to deserve it and the inner whispering has raged into a roar.


As a result, I'm realizing that that the debate I talked about above still rages (or at least whispers) in my head. As my therapist pointed out. It's so ever present that I don't really know I'm hearing it, but it rages on anyway. As you all know (well, I assume you all know), I'm physically disabled as well as agoraphobic. I don't walk very well and I can't stand for long. So many things that I did for most of my life without thinking about it twice, are now little Mount Everest events. Changing the sheets on my bed is a major undertaking full of physical challenge and anxiety. Getting the vacuum out is a major accomplishment... by the time that's done, I'm too exhausted to use it. What vacuuming I do, has to be done sitting down, moving a chair around the room. It's very difficult. It raises enormous anxiety. It makes me ashamed and angry. It IS possible to do some amount of cleaning... and because it is possible, my failure to do it as though it were as easy as when I was 20 and could walk and run and stand and that then translates in my head to me being lazy... a cheat. I'm not disabled, I'm lazy. If I were a better person I would not need help. I'm not tied to a bed screaming in agony; therefore my disability is a kind of sleight of hand perpetrated on an unsuspecting world by a wicked lazy woman. To this part of my psyche there is not enough suffering in the world to make me worthy of any kind of help.

So what I realized during my therapy session the other day - I can be very slow sometimes - is that I'm still struggling with the same war about whether my pain is real or not. The context is somewhat different, but it's the same argument. My mother's voice is so much in my head that even though I thought I had made myself conscious of its whispering, it is still slipping past me.

I will say to you here and now that I'm truly disabled and as I type the worlds part of me wonders if I'm lying. Part of me thinks I'm criminally (not an overstatement) lazy and worthless. Another part of me knows that's not true, knows that my pain is real, that my struggles are real. My demons are strong. I like to think I'm stronger. I'm going to focus on gratitude and on my blessings. But here I am still waging the same inner struggle disguised as something else.

I will probably never silence the internalized voices of my childhood. I was already in my 40s when I began the slow process of looking at my life, sorting out the voices who tanked so much of my hope an my potential. I was a highly functioning human being, holding down two jobs, going to school, helping family and friends. I had agoraphobia issues but they weren't crippling me. I pushed past them. Hindsight is a waste of time. My life has unrolled in the way it has and that is as it should be. Still, if I had a genie, I would wish a good therapist for every human on the planet, or someone who would begin working with us when we are young to help us become aware of the crazy lies we internalize, the mean, cruel voices so many of us carry on our backs. My demons many not be silenced. But they aren't in control any more... I give them a run for their money anyway. That may not be everything, but it's a lot.

I hope this doesn't just bore people, that maybe it speaks to even one person who is being ruled by inner lies. I'm not sure why I'm posting it. I guess because something in me says that I have to. In any case, thank you for listening.

A Memoir of Life After Death

This essay came to me in an email this morning from a source I usually don't bother reading (interesting enough material but it just irritates me to read it). Anyway, this particular email contained this long - but I think fascinating - story of someone's near death experience. Whatever your beliefs, I thought this was an interesting description of one person's life after death experience. The photo above comes from nasa.gov... you can click here or on the image itself.

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE LIGHT AND BACK Near-Death Experience Story of Mellen-Thomas Benedict

Mellen-Thomas Benedict speaks:


In 1982 I died from terminal cancer. The condition I had was inoperable, and any kind of chemotherapy they could give me would just have made me more of a vegetable. I was given six to eight months to live.

I had been an information freak in the 1970s, and I had become increasingly despondent over the nuclear crisis, the ecology crisis, and so forth. So, since I did not have a spiritual basis, I began to believe that nature had made a mistake and that we were probably a cancerous organism on the planet. I saw no way that we could get out from all the problems we had created for ourselves and the planet. I perceived all humans as cancer—and that is what I got.

That is what killed me. Be careful what your world view is. It can feed back on you, especially if it is a negative world view. I had a seriously negative one. That is what led me into my death. I tried all sorts of alternative healing methods, but nothing helped.

So I determined that this was really just between me and God. I had never really faced God before or even dealt with God. I was not into any kind of spirituality at the time, but I began a journey into learning about spirituality and alternative healing. I set out to do all the reading I could and bone up on the subject, because I did not want to be surprised on the other side. So I started reading on various religions and philosophies. They were all very interesting and gave hope that there was something on the other side. I ended up in hospice care.

I remember waking up one morning at home about 4:30 AM, and I just knew that this was it.

This was the day I was going to die. So I called a few friends and said goodbye. I woke up my hospice caretaker and told her. I had a private agreement with her that she would leave my dead body alone for six hours, since I had read that all kinds of interesting things happen when you die. I went back to sleep.

The next thing I remember is the beginning of a typical near-death experience. Suddenly I was fully aware—and I was standing up but my body was in the bed. There was this darkness around me. Being out of my body was even more vivid than ordinary experience. It was so vivid that I could see every room in the house. I could see the top of the house, I could see around the house, I could see under the house.

There was this Light shining. I turned toward the Light. The Light was very similar to what many other people have described in their near-death experiences. It was so magnificent. It is tangible; you can feel it. It is alluring; you want to go to it like you would want to go to your ideal mother’s or father’s arms.

As I began to move toward the Light, I knew intuitively that if I went to the Light, I would be dead. So as I was moving toward the Light I said, “Please wait a minute; just hold on a second here. I want to think about this. I would like to talk to you before I go.” To my surprise, the entire experience halted at that point. You are in control of your life-after-death experience. You are not on a roller coaster ride.

So my request was honored, and I had some conversations with the Light. The Light kept changing into different figures, like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, mandalas, archetypal images and signs. I asked the Light, “What is going on here? Please, Light, clarify yourself for me. I really want to know the reality of the situation.” I cannot really say the exact words, because it was sort of telepathy.

The Light responded. The information transferred to me was that during your life-after- death experience your beliefs shape the kind of feedback you are getting before the Light. If you were a Buddhist or Catholic or Fundamentalist, you get a feedback loop of your own stuff. You have a chance to look at it and examine it, but most people do not. As the Light revealed itself to me, I became aware that what I was really seeing was our Higher Self matrix.

We all have a Higher Self, or an oversoul part of our being. It revealed itself to me in its truest energy form. The only way I can really describe it is that the Being of the Higher Self is more like a conduit. It did not look like that, but it is a direct connection to the Source that each and every one of us have. We are directly connected to the Source. So the Light was showing me the Higher Self matrix. I was not committed to one particular religion. So that is what was being fed back to me during my life-after-death experience.

As I asked the Light to keep clearing for me, to keep explaining, I understood what the Higher Self matrix is. We have a grid around the planet where all the Higher Selves are connected.
This is like a great company, a next subtle level of energy around us, the spirit level, you might say. Then, after a couple of minutes, I asked for more clarification. I really wanted to know what the Universe is about, and I was ready to go at that time. I said, “I am ready, take me.”

Then the Light turned into the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen: a mandala of human souls on this planet. Now I came to this with my negative view of what was happening on the planet. So as I asked the Light to keep clarifying for me, I saw in this magnificent mandala how beautiful we all are in our essence, our core. We are the most beautiful creations.

The human soul, the human matrix that we all make together, is absolutely fantastic, elegant, exotic, everything. I just cannot say enough about how it changed my opinion of human Beings in that instant. I said, “Oh, God, I did not know how beautiful we are.” At any level, high or low, in whatever shape you are in, you are the most beautiful creation.

The revelations coming from the Light seemed to go on and on. Then I asked the Light, “Does this mean that Mankind will be saved?” Then, like a trumpet blast with a shower of spiraling lights, the Great Light spoke, saying, “Remember this and never forget; you save, redeem and heal yourself. You always have. You always will. You were created with the power to do so from before the beginning of the world.”

In that instant I realized even more. I realized that WE HAVE ALREADY BEEN SAVED, and we saved ourselves because we were designed to self- correct like the rest of God’s Universe. This is what the second coming is about. I thanked the Light of God with all my heart. The best thing I could come up with was these simple words of total appreciation: “Oh dear God, dear Universe, dear Great Self, I Love My Life.”

The Light seemed to breathe me in even more deeply. It was as if the Light was completely absorbing me. The Love Light is, to this day, indescribable. I entered into another realm, more profound than the last and became aware of something more, much more. It was an enormous stream of Light, vast and full, deep in the Heart of Life. I asked what this was.

The Light responded, “This is the RIVER OF LIFE. Drink of this manna water to your heart’s content.” So I did. I took one big drink and then another. To drink of Life Itself! I was in ecstasy.

Then the Light said, “You have a desire.” The Light knew all about me, everything past, present and future. “Yes!” I whispered.

I asked to see the rest of the Universe, beyond our solar system, beyond all human illusion. The Light then told me that I could go with the Stream. I did, and was carried through the Light at the end of the tunnel. I felt and heard a series of very soft sonic booms. What a rush!

Suddenly I seemed to be rocketing away from the planet on this stream of Life. I saw the Earth fly away. The solar system, in all its splendor, whizzed by and disappeared. At faster than light speed, I flew through the center of the Galaxy, absorbing more knowledge as I went. I learned that this Galaxy, and all of the Universe, is bursting with many different varieties of LIFE. I saw many worlds. The good news is that we are not alone in this Universe!

As I rode this stream of consciousness through the center of the Galaxy, the stream was expanding in awesome fractal waves of energy. The super clusters of Galaxies with all their ancient wisdom flew by. At first I thought I was going somewhere, actually traveling. But then I realized that as the stream was expanding, my own consciousness was also expanding to take in everything in the Universe! All creation passed by me. It was an unimaginable wonder! I truly was a Wonder Child; a babe in Wonderland!

At this point, I found myself in a profound stillness, beyond all silence. I could see or perceive FOREVER, beyond Infinity.

I was in the Void.

I was in pre-creation, before the Big Bang. I had crossed over the beginning of time/the First Word/the First Vibration. I was in the Eye of Creation. I felt as if I was touching the Face of God. It was not a religious feeling. Simply, I was at one with Absolute Life and Consciousness.

When I say that I could see or perceive forever, I mean that I could experience all of creation generating itself. It was without beginning and without end. That is a mind expanding thought, isn’t it?

Scientists perceive the Big Bang as a single event which created the Universe. I saw during my life-after- death experience that the Big Bang is only one of an infinite number of Big Bangs creating Universes endlessly and simultaneously. The only images that even come close in human terms would be those created by super computers using fractal geometry equations.

The ancients knew of this. They said God had periodically created new Universes by breathing out and recreated other Universes by breathing in. These epochs were called Yugas. Modern science called this the Big Bang. I was in absolute, pure consciousness. I could see or perceive all the Big Bangs or Yugas creating and recreating themselves. Instantly I entered into them all simultaneously. I saw that each and every little piece of creation has the power to create. It is very difficult to try to explain this. I am still speechless about this.

It took me years after I returned from my near-death experience to assimilate any words at all for the Void experience. I can tell you this now: the Void is less than nothing, yet more than everything that is! The Void is absolute zero, chaos forming all possibilities. It is Absolute Consciousness, much more than even Universal Intelligence.

The Void is the vacuum or nothingness between all physical manifestations. It is the SPACE between atoms and their components. Modern science has begun to study this space between everything. They call it Zero point. Whenever they try to measure it, their instruments go off the scale, or to infinity, so to speak. They have no way, as of yet, to measure infinity accurately. There is more of the zero space in your own body and the Universe than anything else!

What mystics call the Void is not a void. It is so full of energy, a different kind of energy that has created everything that we are. Everything since the Big Bang is vibration, from the first Word, which is the first vibration. The biblical “I AM” really has a question mark after it. “I AM—What am I?” So creation is God exploring God’s Self through every way imaginable, in an on-going, infinite exploration through every one of us. I began to see during my near-death experience that everything that is, is the Self, literally your Self, my Self. Everything is the great Self. That is why God knows even when a leaf falls. That is possible because wherever you are is the center of the Universe. Wherever any atom is, that is the center of the Universe. There is God in that, and God in the Void.

As I was exploring the Void during my life-after- death experience and all the Yugas or creations, I was completely out of time and space as we know it. In this expanded state, I discovered that creation is about Absolute Pure Consciousness, or God, coming into the Experience of Life as we know it. The Void itself is devoid of experience. It is pre life, before the first vibration. Godhead is about more than Life and Death. Therefore there is even more than Life and Death to experience in the Universe!

When I realized this, I was finished with the Void and wanted to return to this creation, or Yuga. It just seemed like the natural thing to do. Then I suddenly came back through the second Light, or the Big Bang, hearing several more velvet booms. I rode the stream of consciousness back through all of creation, and what a ride it was! The super clusters of Galaxies came through me with even more insights. I passed through the center of our Galaxy, which is a black hole. Black holes are the great processors or recyclers of the Universe.

Do you know what is on the other side of a black hole? We are; our Galaxy, which has been reprocessed from another Universe. In its total energy configuration, the Galaxy looked like a fantastic city of lights.. All energy this side of the Big Bang is Light. Every sub atom, atom, star, planet, even consciousness itself is made of Light and has a frequency and/or particle. Light is living stuff. Everything is made of Light, even stones. So everything is alive. Everything is made from the Light of God; everything is very intelligent.

As I rode the stream on and on, I could eventually see a huge Light coming. I knew it was the First Light; the Higher Self Light Matrix of our Solar System. Then the entire Solar System appeared in the Light, accompanied by one of those velvet booms.

I could see all the energy that this Solar System generates, and it is an incredible Light show! I could hear the Music of the Spheres. Our Solar System, as do all celestial bodies, generates a unique matrix of light, sound and vibratory energies. Advanced civilizations from other star systems can spot Life as we know it in the Universe by the vibratory or energy matrix imprint. It is child’s play. The Earth’s wonder child (Human Beings) make an abundance of sound right now, like children playing in the backyard of the Universe.

The Light explained to me that there is no death; we are immortal Beings. We have already been alive forever! I realized that we are part of a natural living system that recycles itself endlessly. I was never told that I had to come back. I just knew that I would. It was only natural, from what I had seen during my life-after-death experience.

I don't know how long I was with the Light, in human time. But there came a moment when I realized that all my questions had been answered and my return was near. When I say that all my questions were answered on the other side, I mean to say just that. All my questions have been answered. Every human has a different life and set of questions to explore. Some of our questions are universal, but each of us is exploring this thing we call Life in our own unique way. So is every other form of life, from mountains to every leaf on every tree.

That is very important to the rest of us in this Universe. Because it all contributes to the Big Picture, the fullness of Life. We are literally God exploring God’s Self in an infinite Dance of Life. Your uniqueness enhances all of Life.

As I began my return to the life cycle, it never crossed my mind, nor was I told, that I would return to the same body. It just did not matter. I had complete trust in the Light and the Life process. As the stream merged with the great Light, I asked never to forget the revelations and the feelings of what I had learned on the other side.

There was a “Yes.” It felt like a kiss to my soul.

Then I was taken back through the Light into the vibratory realm again. The whole process reversed, with even more information being given to me. I came back home, and I was given lessons from my near-death experience on the mechanics of reincarnation. I was given answers to all those little questions I had: “How does this work? How does that work?” I knew that I would be reincarnated.

The Earth is a great processor of energy, and individual consciousness evolves out of that into each one of us. I thought of myself as a human for the first time, and I was happy to be that. From what I have seen, I would be happy to be an atom in this Universe. An atom. So to be the human part of God—this is the most fantastic blessing. It is a blessing beyond our wildest estimation of what a blessing can be. For each and every one of us to be the human part of this experience is awesome and magnificent. Each and every one of us, no matter where we are, screwed up or not, is a blessing to the planet, right where we are.

I went through the reincarnation process expecting to be a baby somewhere. But I was given a lesson on how individual identity and consciousness evolve. I was so surprised when I opened my eyes. I do not know why, because I understood it, but it was still such a surprise to be back in this body, back in my room with someone looking over me, crying her eyes out. It was my hospice caretaker. She had given up an hour and a half after finding me dead. My body was stiff and inflexible. She went into the other room. Then I awakened and saw the light outside. I tried to get up to go to it, but I fell out of the bed. She heard a loud “clunk,” ran in and found me on the floor.

When I recovered, I was very surprised and yet very awed about what had happened to me during my near-death experience. At first all the memory of the trip that I have now was not there. I kept slipping out of this world and kept asking, “Am I alive?” This world seemed more like a dream than that one. Within three days I was feeling normal again, clearer, yet different than I had ever felt in my life. My memory of my near-death experience came back later. I could see nothing wrong with any human Being I had ever seen. Before that I was really judgmental. I thought a lot of people were really screwed up. In fact, I thought that everybody was screwed up but me. But I got clear on all that.

About three months later a friend said I should get tested, so I went and got the scans and so forth. I really felt good, so I was afraid of getting bad news. I remember the doctor at the clinic looking at the before and after scans, saying, “Well, there is nothing here now.” I said, “Really, it must be a miracle”’ He said “No, these things happen; they are called spontaneous remissions.” He acted very unimpressed. But here was a miracle, and I was impressed, even if no one else was.

During my near-death experience I had a descent into what you might call Hell, and it was very surprising. I did not see Satan or evil. My descent into Hell was a descent into each person’s customized human misery, ignorance, and darkness of not knowing. It seemed like a miserable eternity. But each of the millions of souls around me had a little star of Light always available. But no one seemed to pay attention to it. They were so consumed with their own grief, trauma and misery. But, after what seemed an eternity, I started calling out to that Light, like a child calling to a parent for help.

Then the Light opened up and formed a tunnel that came right to me and insulated me from all that fear and pain, That is what Hell really is. So what we are doing is learning to hold hands, to come together. The doors of Hell are open now. We are going to link up, hold hands and walk out of Hell together. The Light came to me and turned into a huge golden Angel. I said, “Are you the Angel of Death?” It expressed to me that it was my oversoul, my Higher Self matrix, a super ancient part of ourselves. Then I was taken to the Light.

Soon our science will quantify spirit. Isn't that going to be wonderful? We are coming up with devices now that are sensitive to subtle energy or spirit energy. Physicists use these atomic colliders to smash atoms to see what they are made of. They have got it down to quarks and charm, and all that. Well, one day they are going to come down to the little thing that holds it all together, and they are going to have to call it...God. We are just beginning to understand that we are creating too, as we go along. As I saw forever, I came to a realm during my near-death experience in which there is a point where we pass all knowledge and begin creating the next fractal, the next level. We have that power to create as we explore. And that is God expanding itself through us.

Since my return I have experienced the Light spontaneously, and I have learned how to get to that space almost any time in my meditation. Each one of you can do this. You do not have to die or have a near-death experience to do this. It is within your equipment; you are wired for it already. The body is the most magnificent Light Being there is. The body is a Universe of incredible Light. Spirit is not pushing us to dissolve this body. That is not what is happening. Stop trying to become God; God is becoming you. Here.

I asked God: “What is the best religion on the planet? Which one is right?” And Godhead said, with great love: “I don't care.” That was incredible grace. When Godhead said, “I don't care,” I immediately understood that it is for us to care about. It is important, because we are the caring Beings. It matters to us and that is where it is important. What you have is the energy equation in spirituality. Ultimate Godhead does not care if you are Protestant, Buddhist or whatever. It is all a blooming facet of the whole. I wish that all religions would realize it and let each other be. It is not the end of each religion, but we are talking about the same God. Live and let live. Each has a different view. And it all adds up to the big picture; it is all important.

I went over to the other side during my near-death experience with a lot of fears about toxic waste, nuclear missiles, the population explosion, the rainforest. I came back loving every single problem. I love nuclear waste. I love the mushroom cloud; this is the holiest mandala that we have manifested to date, as an archetype. It, more than any religion or philosophy on Earth, brought us together all of a sudden, to a new level of consciousness. Knowing that maybe we can blow up the planet fifty times, or 500 times, we finally realize that maybe we are all here together, now.

For a period they had to keep setting off more bombs to get it in to us. Then we started saying, “we do not need this any more.” Now we are actually in a safer world than we have ever been in, and it is going to get safer. So I came back from my near-death experience loving toxic waste because it brought us together. These things are so big. As Peter Russell might say, these problems are now “soul size.” Do we have soul size answers” YES!

The clearing of the rain forest will slow down, and in fifty years there will be more trees on the planet than in a long time. If you are into ecology, go for it; you are that part of the system that is becoming aware. Go for it with all your might, but do not be depressed. It is part of a larger thing.

Earth is in the process of domesticating itself. It is never again going to be as wild a place as it once was. There will be great wild places, reserves where nature thrives. Gardening and reserves will be the thing in the future. Population increase is getting very close to the optimal range of energy to cause a shift in consciousness. That shift in consciousness will change politics, money, energy.

After dying, going through my near-death experience and coming back, I really respect life and death. In our DNA experiments we may have opened the door to a great secret. Soon we will be able to live as long as we want to live in this body.

After living 150 years or so, there will be an intuitive soul sense that you will want to change channels. Living forever in one body is not as creative as reincarnation, as transferring energy in this fantastic vortex of energy that we are in. We are actually going to see the wisdom of Life and death, and enjoy it. As it is now, we have already been alive forever.

This body, that you are in, has been alive forever. It comes from an unending Stream of Life, going back to the Big Bang and beyond.

This body gives life to the next life, in dense and subtle energy.

This body has been alive forever already.

Amuse Your Inner Artist

My niece Cindy posted this Jackson Pollock.org site a while back. It gives you a chance to play Jackson Pollock... sort of... or just to fart around for a while. I have to admit that I'm not much of a Jackson Pollock fan - pr an artist (clearly) but I had fun playing anyway. Here are a few of my less hideous creations. I have to add a caveat here. This is mindlessly easy but also kind of frustrating in some ways because you don't have a lot of control over where/how it comes out...

UnMused and Grumbling

Well, my muse - such as she is - is still refusing to speak to me. Whether she is still in the cave or off vacationing somewhere with beaches, pretty flowers and no snow is another question and one I can't answer. I just know she isn't speaking to me. Once again even thought there was a great prompt for One Single Impression (forks in the road), my brain remains blank. Not even a five little poetic syllables can I squeeze out, none-the-less 17 beyond that. And you know I hate posting just one poem in any case... or one of anything. But I don't want to go back to not posting because I think that's bad for me, so I'm going to take this opportunity to grumble about a few things. ("Oh joy!" my generous readers mutter to themselves. Isn't it bad enough when she's cheerful?")

So here are a few things that are irritating me.

Irritation #1: Endless winter. I have to concede, though, that we have had a couple of warmish days and that there are actually large patches of green showing. Carletta posted pictures of forsythia this morning so hopefully Spring is making its way north. Not fast enough for me, though. My spirit needs something soon. I've barely picked up my camera lately. I probably should. There are no doubt subtle changes to catch if I wasn't sulking because there's been no high drama and flowers.

2. Irritation #2: Republicans... and the news media... Well, my first complaint in this category is could the media (and of course I COULD turn my TV off and stop listening to them 24/7... what a concept) stop the non-stop assessing of whether the economy has improved. It will take time. The endless second-guessing every 20 seconds is just crazy making for everyone. I think it has a negative influence on people's psyches and that has a negative influence on the market.

Then, there's the whole Rush Limbaugh thing. Why do we listen to people like him? Why are we giving mean-spirited creeps like Limbaugh and the creepy blond (what's her name?) who spew nothing but hate and hooey so much air time? Why aren't more Republicans (and of course here I am falling right into the trap and quoting the aforementioned creep myself) expressing outrage that someone has wished failure on the leader of our nation when we are in a state of crisis (or at any time). I thought patriotism involved wishing success on the nation no matter who is leading it... Oh and then I guess attention for being crude and offensive must have been waning because he went on to announce that Ted Kennedy would be dead by the time we have changed health care. Mr. Limbaugh is just a walking obscenity. Crude and ugly words are all he ever speaks. I don't know why anyone listens to him or why those who know better help him to spread his hatefulness. I wish we would stop.

And then there's the whole "fear of socialism" crap. Give me a break. And the continuing delusion that cutting taxes for the rich will fix everything. It's worked really well so far, hasn't it (she muttered with bitter sarcasm). Obama has been in office for 7 weeks. We've seen and heard more from him than any president in recent history. He's confronting more - and more difficult problems - than any president in recent history and he's communicating with us... and still there are people out there acting like he's failing because in 7 weeks, with an incomplete staff, he hasn't undone the damage of the past administration. Agggghhhhh! I think he's doing a pretty good job so far and I also think he's one person trying to accomplish miracles.


Irritation #3: Greedy people. Well, of course first there are the people on Wall Street (or the ones we hear the most about... I'm sure there are decent people on Wall Street too) who helped put the nation in the mess it's in and have no shame or compunction taking salaries and bonuses that could rescue a host of other human beings. One $2.5 million bonus could provide more than 80 families with $30,000 in assistance... or 176 families with what I subsist on. And 2.5 million is (from what I've read) a modest bonus for these people who have done so much harm in order to line their own pockets.

Then there are people like Mr. Madoff... Isn't it funny how so many of these crooks have names that suit their crimes... the man who made off with so much money that belonged to others... What pisses me off about him is that he isn't negotiating from jail. Some jerk who stole a loaf of bread or $80 from a convenience store wouldn't be lounging around in his apartment while the wheels of justice ground away. Why isn't this man in JAIL!

Then there's "Me, Me, Me" view of life. I know that there are people out there who speculated on houses who are part of the big housing crisis, but there are more people who just wanted a home for themselves and their children and who genuinely didn't know they were getting in over their heads. When I was looking for a house, the bank offered me a mortgage for a house that - I know now - I could never have afforded. It was the cheapest house I had found, not a palace and it was a fixed rate (7.5% or something like that, I think). On paper, to someone who had never owned a home before, it looked like I could just barely afford it, but that I could afford it. And the bank offered me a loan. I'm old enough and watched enough old movies to think that banks only gave you loans when they knew you could pay them back. So anyway, I don't get the logic that says only my fate counts and that some guy who was stupid or unlucky should live on the street or starve to death so I can have an extra cookie or because I didn't make a mistake or was luckier than he/she was. I don't get the logic that says only my health counts and screw all the people who can't afford a doctor. Or that it will be the end of the world if I have to wait a day or an extra 20 minutes to see a doctor but it doesn't matter that there are hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people out there who can't see a doctor at all so that I don't ever have to wait. I can't tell you how sad and cranky that makes me. That to me is society shooting itself in the foot. I think we're also losing doctors to the current system but that's a conversation for another day. In our society and in the world, I personally believe that we are all interconnected, materially and spiritually. When we minister to our neighbors - at home, around the nation and around the world - so that we all share in the bounty of the Universe - we will be happier and the world will be a more peaceful place. I don't get the whole "let the poor and unfortunate fend for themselves... it's not my problem" view of life. I could rant on and on about this, but I won't.


Irritation #4: The Stem Cell Debate: I understand that there are differing opinions on when life starts and whether non-viable life is life, but... the ruling the president made this morning involves material that would otherwise be thrown away and is available by donation only. The argument that the 600,000 stem cells will all be adopted is just silly, particularly when there are live flesh-and-blood already born children (whose aliveness and viability are beyond question or debate) out there pining for parents. It sometimes seems to me - that some of the love for life stops once embryos turn into actual babies. Then you can get into the question of where does the sacredness of life end? All the millions of dollars and energy spent protecting these cells from serving a purpose could feed children here and in underdeveloped countries, it could provide health care for unprotected children... That seems so much more life-loving to me. Then what about cruelty to animals? I was a a vegetarian for a while. I eat meat again and when I give thanks for my food, I don't give thanks for the food itself as much as for the LIFE given. And if you want to take it a step further, plants give their lives too. Where does the sacredness of life begin and end? I realize that this is an issue beyond rational conversation. The debate here arises from world views that are so profoundly at variance that there is no middle in which to meet. I think great good will come of today's decision.

Irritation #5: Naughty cats: Angel Joy has a new obsession. The stove. Add that to all her other pranks and misdeeds. She is living on borrowed time. Lucky for her she's also really cute and gives good hugs in between acts of terror.


Irritation #6: Daylight Savings time: My psyche is just not cool with this time change thing. I got myself to bed at the appointed hour but something in me doesn't care a bit when morning comes. I got up an hour late this morning and felt grumbly about doing that. The life of a curmudgeon is not an easy one.

Irritation #7: Being disabled: OK. This is a really pathetic part of my rant. As disabled people go, I'm really lucky. My pain is relatively minor, though consistent and even though it's a wobbly go to walk across a room, I can still do it. I'm not in a wheel chair. I'm ambulatory after a fashion. Where I get cranky some days is that I'm not self sufficient any more. Well, I am and I'm not. I was never a good house keeper, now I just can barely do it at all. I need help for most things and that takes advantage of the good nature of my friends and/or leaves my house pretty messy most of the time. Even simple things are beyond my capacity. My inner demons scold me none-the-less. They tell me I'm just lazy. Trouble with my inner demons is that they have been with me for a long time and I'm prone to believe them even when I try to dismiss what they say. Right now the house is a mess and between that and the weather....


Ok... so that's a WHOLE LOT of whining. Had to get it out of my system. I could probably add other things but I've already gone too far so just to be true to my belief system and to be a little less negative... I need to add some positives... some gratitude.

Here are some counters to all the things I just whined about.

First... even though it's gray and gloomy and there's still snow on the ground, there's much LESS snow on the ground, the trees are starting to show bud-lets, birds are returning and it's not nearly as cold.

Republicans and the media may irritate the hell out of me, but they are a reminder that I live in a free country. The media may be biased and frivolous, but it isn't state run... yet. Republicans are incredibly irritating, but thank God, they don't have complete control of the government any more. We have a leader who has a heart for the poor, doesn't think tax breaks for the rich are the only solution to every problem and doesn't have war as his first response to every conflict. Whether President Obama will be a great success or not, I don't know, but I think he is a great man... and perhaps uniquely suited to face and hopefully conquer the dreadful challenges facing the world right now.


As for stem cells, I'm grateful that there are minds out there working on cures for some of the most dreadful diseases facing us. I'm grateful that even though our passion expresses it self differently, that there is so much passion for life out there in the world. I'm grateful that there may be cures on the way for Parkinson's Disease and nerve and brain damage. I'm grateful that the voices on my side of some of these deeply divisive arguments are getting our turn to have expression.


Naughty cats... well they are entertaining.... and they do give good hugs.


I suppose daylight savings time has it's function. I'm not sure the world and our bodies wouldn't be better off just going through the natural adjustments of nature's cycles, but... I'm grateful that I don't have to get up tired and go to work while my body and mind adjust to the time shift. Being home bound has it's virtues.


Disability. I'm grateful that I live in a society that offers SSD so that I'm not homeless. As I said, I'm grateful that even though walking is hard I can still walk. And I have wonderful, kind friends who help me out with cleaning and other things. And now... in the next few months... at no cost to myself and totally without having done anything to deserve it, I'll have a front entrance to my house that will be navigable and a bathroom that's easier to use. No more wondering if I'm going to make it in and out of the shower... it will be walk in... no more groaning as I sit and stand on the toilet. I've been thinking about those extra few inches that my new toilet will offer and what a remarkable change such a tiny thing will make in my life.

I know my current funk will pass eventually. It has been a long one and I apologize for that. I'm also grateful for those of you who visit here and read and add a word of encouragement or response. It means a lot.

Not going to re-read this. Sorry. If I did, I probably wouldn't post it and then I'd feel bad about that... so...

"Have a great day!" she grumbled.

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 53

This is week 53 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. I had a really hard time with the mini this week. I really pretty much hated this week's words, but I guess since I came up with them myself, I'm not in a position to complain. I'm not satisfied really with anything I've done, but such is life. Hope you all had better luck than I did as we start the 2nd year of Saturday Wordzzle challenges. Thanks to Dr. John and the dragons for the lovely award last week. It was much appreciated.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: chopping block, reading list, bangles, oracle, plan, fandango, spelling bee, calendar, utilitarian, flower pot Mini Challenge: Siberia, citrus fruit, roofer, shamrock, twinkle twinkle little star

Here's my ten-word offering for this week:

Some might not think that seeing a fortune-teller was a particularly utilitarian way to prepare for a spelling bee, but to Samantha Sanders it seemed a perfectly logical plan of action. Samantha loved visiting Fandango Florenza in her colorful apartment with all its beads and bangles, the wonderful smells, the flower pots in all the windows and the large crystal ball which she used do give her readings. Today, she hoped that Madame Florenza would reassure her that she had a chance of winning the upcoming National Spelling Bee, that her neck would not be early on the chopping block – or on it at all, hopefully. Now the fortune teller was speaking. “I see something,” she intoned. “It is becoming clearer… I believe it’s a calendar... yes… that’s what it is… it’s the month of April… and now the words reading list have appeared…. The oracle says you must study every book in the reading list for April… and May and that if you do, you will do very well in your competition… perhaps… the voices are not totally clear on this… perhaps you may even win.” Samantha’s heart leapt with joy. Madame Fandango had not been wrong yet. She knew now she was going to win… and do a lot of reading as well over the next two months. Life was good. Luckily she had already left when Madame Florenza’s phone rang. “Yes, Mrs. Sanders,” she responded to the voice on the other end of the call. “I told her April and May, just as you asked.”

And here's my mini challenge:

Igor Borovosky, despite growing up in Siberia, had always had a deep fascination with thing Irish, so when he first moved to the United States he made up his mind that before he reached the age of 35 he would open his own pub and call it the Shamrock Inn. He would serve beer and ale like a true Irish pub but also those fru-fru drinks that were popular with genteel ladies. He would even invent his own drink which he would name the twinkle twinkle little star. It would use lots of citrus fruit and tooth picks with stars on the end and be served in a large frosted glasse. In order to accomplish this dream he worked long hours as a roofer, saving and saving, At the age of 34 and three quarters he had saved enough money and opened his pub. It was everything he had dreamed of and within six months he met Megan Mullaly a beautiful red-haired Irish lass with whom he fell madly in love. Six months after that they married and lived happily ever after for 50 sweet, poetic years.

And for the mega challenge:

Floretta Fandango – or Flower Pot as her father called her - was grateful for Miss Shamrock, the new English teacher whose passion for her students was unmistakable even to the most resentful of them. Besides the weekly spelling bee designed both to expand their vocabularies and to increase their comfort with competition, she presented them with a daunting reading list, announcing that it was her plan for every student in her class to graduate quickly from the childish “twinkle, twinkle little star” kind of literature they had been reading to an assortment of creative and utilitarian materials that would put them all on the road to both college educations and careers. She had worked out a three year calendar of study that eliminated – put on the chopping block was how she put it - all of what she called “foolish bangles and busy work”. It was also her plan to guide her students towards reading about those things which interested them: for Fred, who wanted to be a farmer, she found materials on maintaining healthy citrus fruit orchards, for Martha, books on geography, starting with a book about Siberia. She even found Lenny a summer job working for a local roofer. This would keep him out of trouble and help him safe up for his college education. And she used her determination and connections to get Martha, the class genius, an internship with the Oracle Corporation, thus ensuring both her education and her future. Miss Shamrock was a once in a life time educator who changed the lives of all her students through the magic of her determination and her passionate love of both knowledge and her students. Her own life had been so changed once and she had determined then and there to pass that gift on. In her long life she would be the inspiration for dozens of creative geniuses and would turn around many young lives. Floretta didn’t know this yet, but her life was about to be changed forever in ways that would enrich and benefit not just her own life but that of generations to come. Amazing what one good teacher can do.

~~~~~~~~~~

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: sugar bowl, cotton, wizard, fund-raising, Ben Hur, salmonella, luke warm, telescope, bank, walk-a-thon

Mini Challenge: challenge, sparkling cider, melancholy, snail mail, master carpenter

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

Quilly's Three Word Challenge x Four

Quilly - over at her Pacific Paradise - I guess, felt the need of a tough mental challenge for us to chew on and she has come up with a new (well it's a few weeks old, but I was sulking in my cave so it's new for me still) word challenge. She comes up with three words we often have to look up in the dictionary and asks us to use them. It's like a mini wordzzle for braniacs. Lucky me, I missed the weeks when all three words had totally obscure meanings. This week there's was only one that left my brain whirling with the cogs not connecting. So here's what I have to say about apanthropinization; paucity & zither.

Ok... Once I got started, I decided to try and use the words from the previous weeks as well: isangelous, volvigant, cynicocratic, opprobrious, quondam, casuistry, fracas, numismatics, perspicacious Whew! I'm exhausted... but victorious!


"Harold Manglewitz, I don't know what your story is, " Miranda intoned in frustration. "I don't mean to be opprobrious, but when I married you twenty-five years ago there was no paucity of words between us. Your current state of apanthropinization is breaking my heart. You used to be interesting. Challenging. Now you just sit around all day strumming that stupid zither with a bemused look on your face like you're some angel on a cloud. Personally, I don't find you very isangelous and I miss your quondam kindness and connection to life. Now, it's more like you have become king of all the cynicocratical bastards I've ever met... and I've met too many... I know that horrible fracas at the church last year shook you to your core and I thought I'd give you time to recover. You are - or were - one of the most perspicatious people I have ever known. What you are doing - pushing everyone away and sitting here pretending to be a mystic isn't noble; it's a failure to honor your true self, a kind of pathetic casuistry that is heart-breaking and shameful both. And it's beneath you. But I see now that you aren't willing to come back to the world even for me, so I'm leaving you for Charlie Cashuary, the local numismatics expert. You may think he's just one of the volvigant masses, but at least he's alive, at least he listens to me and talks to me. I loved you so much, Harold, but you have left me and now - if I'm going to survive - I have to leave you. I hope you find peace."

Had she seen the tear that slid down Harold's cheek, Miranda might not have left, but he had turned his face in the zither. He too had made his choice.


Definitions (in no particular order)

volvigant - Of or pertaining to the uneducated masses
cynicocratical - Pertaining to or a reference to a ruling body of cynics
zither - The zither is a musical string instrument
isangelous - an obsolete word meaning equal to the angels
apanthropinization - withdrawal from human concerns or the human world
numismatics - Modern numismatics is the study of the coins of the mid 17th to the 21st century
opprobrious - Expressing contemptuous reproach; scornful or abusive
quondam - at some time, at one time, once, heretofore, formerly, on a time
paucity - Smallness of number, scarcity, dearth
fracas - A noisy, disorderly fight or quarrel; a brawl
casuistry - a resolving of specific cases of conscience, duty, or conduct through interpretation of ethical principles or religious doctrine 2 : specious argument, rationalization
perspicacious - Having or showing penetrating mental discernment; clear-

sighted

Whew! I did it! This is one scary challenge, Quilly!

Jon Stewart on the Economy

I love Jon Stewart! He has a wonderful genius for highlighting the absurdity of much of what passes for news coverage. These three clips - if I can ever get them to post - are basically last night's show.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

The Dow Knows All

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Joe Nocera

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Signs of Spring and More on an Eye for an Eye

Well, I guess I'm only half way back to the blogosphere, but half way is better than the cave so I'm going to be grateful for what there is. I still haven't been able to come up with anything inspiring (or even dull) for One Single Impression. Where is my muse and why won't she speak to me?

Thank you to everyone who commented on the eye for an eye post. I don't think that I could take someone's sight even if I thought it was in the interest of the higher good, but I might try to make a deal with the law to let him THINK it was going to happen and then make sure he did a good deal of prison time... or find a way to let him experience the reality of what he had put me through. When my sister was murdered, I was so grateful that there was no death penalty in my state. It would have made everything worse for me if a sixteen year old boy - or any other human of any age - had been murdered in Carole's name. She would have hated it. That said, I have no trouble (except that waste of human life in any form makes me sad) with him spending the rest of his life in jail. He comes up for parole in 4 years. I have often wondered if the values I think I have would kick in were I to learn that he has used his 20 years (so far) in jail for good - gotten an education, found a moral compass, truly repented. I like to think I would have compassion, but I don't know if I would. At the time he killed her - from everything I saw and heard - he really didn't comprehend the meaning of taking a life. His regret had more to do with having been caught than with what he had done. He seemed a lost soul to me: young and handsome, street smart but not terribly bright. My own psychic wounds - a pretty much total disconnect from my feelings - may have helped me survive the loss and all the other losses. Maybe there was deep rage and I just wasn't feeling it. Mostly I felt sad and tired. His father came to the trial with some regularity with his wife. I think they had a young baby. The DA told me the father was a drug dealer. Even so, I felt compelled at the end of the trial after Walter was convicted , to introduce myself and tell him that I was sorry for his loss also. He wanted it to be a mistake. I know it wasn't. I saw all the evidence. I heard a tape of the confession. At one point he had said that "he just felt like killing someone." Listening to his confession, I know he didn't necessarily intend to kill my sister... or he did and didn't. Once the first blow was struck and she screamed, he stabbed her again and again... more out of fear than malice. But she is just as dead. Back then I sensed in this tragic young man nobody to redeem. I wonder if that's true? I tell myself that I want him in jail for life because I saw no hope of redemption, because my sister is dead for the life of her children, me, my parents while they were alive. Murder of one radiates out to so many, to family of course, but also to witnesses who held her hand at the end, whose lives will never be the same, to friends and also strangers whose lives were suddenly shocked by ugly impersonal brutality that but for luck could have been themselves, to grandchildren who will never meet the wonderful woman who was their mother's mother. But sometimes I wonder. Sixteen is so young. If we had a different kind of prison system, I might hold out more hope for some such transformation for this young man, but our prisons are too crowded and too bent on punishment. I suspect Mr. Anderson's already damaged spirit is only more wounded. But one never knows. Anyway, I wonder about myself and my ability to live the values I think I hold. The line between vengeance and punishment is both subtle and huge. Life, the inner workings of our souls are such a wondrous and complex mystery to me.

But I seem to be rambling. I don't know why I'm writing about this today. The sun is out. The temperatures are out of the single digits (it was 5 degrees yesterday, 16 degrees at the moment). There are a lot of birds fluttering around, patches of earth showing beneath the snow here and there and the tree branches are showing those little knobs that portend blossoms and leaves. The changes are subtle, but they are there. This first photo was taken on February 17th, the second one this morning.


Not a lot of change... but some...


Oh... one last thing... today is my friend Dan's birthday. At the advice of a number of the wordzzle gang, he has started his own blog - Among the Clouds with Danny Boy . Maybe you could drop by and wish him a happy birthday. His day hasn't started out so well and he could use a boost.

An Eye for an Eye

Well, I had wanted to write something for One Single Impression today. It's an anniversary for them and I always like participating but my muse is apparently not out of the cave or if she is, she is keeping her mouth shut.

So I was sitting here tormenting myself with the Sunday morning talking heads. I don't know why I insist on doing that every Sunday morning. It just makes me cranky. A lot of pointless pontificating and people trying to do "gotchas" with other people and even the people I agree with being pretty inane and stupid. But do I stop listening? No. I thought about writing something about the budget arguments. Being as liberal as I am, I'm delighted with much of Obama's proposed ideas... and I do think that sometimes in life you have to spend money up front in order to save it in the long run or come out even. But that's a big subject and I'm not really qualified to speak coherently about it.

Then I was thinking about one of the most interesting blog posts I've read in a while. Mary the Teach posted an ethical dilemma over at Work of the Poet and had some interesting discussion on the topic. Then this morning I was listening to Fareed Zacharia (hope I spelled that right)'s GPS program where they were discussing radical Islam and the differences between the Taliban and Bin Laden and whether it's our job to fight only bad guys who are waging global jihad or to also fight people who are abusive to women and their own citizens. A whopper of a moral dilemma, but not the one I want to raise.

What I want to talk about is a story I heard a week or so ago and would have written about except for the whole withdrawal-from-the-world-being-in-a-cave thing I was going through. But anyway. There was a story - I think on CNN - about a young woman in Iran who has sought and won the right to extract vengeance literally in terms of an eye for an eye. In 2004, an unwelcome suitor threw acid in her face, blinding and disfiguring her. As a rule, these kinds of cases have been settled by the attacker's family pay a large sum of money to the victim. Ms. Bahrami chose instead to demand an eye for an eye. She says it isn't about revenge but about putting a stop to such attacks in the future.

My first response to this was horror. I'm not an eye for an eye kind of person. I abhor violence. I don't think revenge is useful. But then I thought maybe - if this is truly not about revenge - she knows her society better than I do. Historically, in societies like India, Pakistan, Iran and many Muslim countries there has been no meaningful consequences (other than monetary) for men who burn their wives or disfigure and abuse women. By insisting on a consequence - even a barbaric one - perhaps she is setting a precedent. Perhaps she truly is making a safer future for women like herself.

It's a horrific decision. But is it more or less horrific than there being no consequences for her attacker other than paying blood money. Is this less about revenge than making her society respect her pain and suffering and that of women like her and insist on true atonement. Perhaps her eye for an eye will make men stop and think before they commit such an act in the future. Perhaps the society will come up with a better consequence than an eye for an eye. And perhaps it is a profound shift in their societal dynamics which will alter the future for Islamic women. Or maybe it's just ugly revenge.

On the face of things it is anathema to me and my personal moral code. But is it wrong?

Here's the original story which prompted this post:

I'm curious to know what others think.

As you all know, I'm something of a curmudgeon about awards, but once in a while I can make an exception. I received the following message in my email last night and felt I should share it along with my gratitude for the lovely (though undeserved) honor.

Our dragons had their weekly meeting to pick the top wordzzle of the day.


The rules were simple. You had to post by 6:00 Eastern time to be entered.
Then you had to have fantastic writing that amused or enlightened our dragons.
Variety also scored points.


On this the year anniversary of the most important contest on the net ( dragons like to think they are important) the task was made doubly hard by the return of several people to the writing. This, of course, meant more reading. At least they didn't have to read Dr. John's or Betty's blogs because they can't be considered. Even if they could Elijah John's grandson interrupted the meeting of the dragons and knocked one off of the computer. If Dr. John was in the contest there would be lots of points off for that.


But today when all were read there was no question in the dragon's minds as to the winner.
The award goes to the Queen of wordzzles, the master of words, the great picker of phrases who today gave us three examples of how good she could be, all completely different. She had a little thing about her, a story on everybody's life, and a intergalactic adventure. All with superb writing.


That of course my dear Raven is you.
Congratulations

The rules for this particular honor do seem to have been stacked in my favor. On merit, I think we probably had a 14-way tie, so I gratefully receive this honor on behalf of all my fellow wordzzlers - whose creaitivity and cleverness are awesome and inspiring. Many thanks to the dragons and their spokesperson.