Commodification of everything is the biggest problem of how things are run these days, in my humble opinion!
For (Heraclitus), reality is not a constellation of things at all, but one of processes. The fundamental ‘stuff’ of the world is not material substance but volatile flux, namely 'fire,’ and all things are versions thereof (puros tropai).
Process is fundamental: the river is not an object, but a continuing flow; the sun is not a thing, but an enduring fire.
Everything is a matter of process, of activity, of change (panta rhei). Not stable things but fundamental forces and the varied and fluctuating activities they manifest constitute the world.
We must at all costs avoid the fallacy of materializing nature.
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“The Goddess doesn't enter us from outside; she emerges from deep within. She is not held back by what happened in the past. She is conceived in consciousness, born in love, and nurtured by higher thinking. She is integrity and value, created and sustained by the hard work of personal growth and the discipline of a life lived actively in hope.”
Evan Thompson describes:
Part of the problem, however, comes from thinking of the mind or meaning as being generated in the head. That’s like thinking that flight is inside the wings of a bird. A bird needs wings to fly, but flight isn’t in the wings, and the wings don’t generate flight; they generate lift, which facilitates flight. Flying is an action of the whole animal in its environment. Analogously, you need a brain to think, but thinking isn’t in the brain, and the brain doesn’t generate it; it facilitates it. The brain generates many things—neurons and their synaptic connections, ongoing rhythmic activity patterns, the constant dynamic coordination of sensory and motor activity—but none of these should be identified with thinking, though all of them crucially facilitate it. Thinking is an action of the whole person in its environment.
Evan Thompson, “Spring Forward or Fall Back: Changing Times for Neuroscience,”
Psychology Today, May 13, 2015, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wakingdreaming-
being/201505/spring-forward-or-fall-back.
From Midwives of the Soul, Facebook
Meryl Streep once said: Let things fall apart — stop exhausting yourself trying to hold them together. Not everything is meant to last forever, and forcing what is already breaking will only drain you. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is let go.
Got my COVID booster yesterday. Sort of rushed in between all kinds of other things. Picked up my box lunch and took it home to eat. Good rice, fish (maybe with parmesan on it - couldn't taste it.) Jello (orange!)
Hey yesterday was Gun Violence Awareness day, wear orange - I didn't have anything orange. Wore red (which used to be the color to wear.)
After tossing the lunch foam box into the bear-proof garbage bin outside, drove to CVS and as I arrived they sent a text canceling my COVID appointment. I asked the pharmacist if it was because I was 2 minutes late. No, he said, it was that a my insurance wouldn't cover it...did I have my Medicare card? I gave it to him, and the shot was covered that way. It was a Pfizer shot this time. I had had my last booster last fall, so was due for one. I just hope the one this fall will be including the latest strain.
I did as a nurse had shown me (being in line before me one time for a booster) and swung my arm around a bunch, hoping it would disperse the drug more. It was still sore that night and the next morning. Oh well. I didn't have to take a pain reliever at least.
I had a $4 coupon, and received another $2 coupon when I got there. So I had to find something to buy (that I might use!) I started with a folding camp chair (priced at $29.) By the time I paid for it somehow it was $14...less than half price with tax! I like to go up on the Blue Ridge Parkway and sit at one of the overlooks and just absorb the beauty - when they are open again, and when weather is ok too. Some of Parkway will be closed for a year I've heard.
Pain now is in my right hip, running on the outside of my hip down my leg. So walking activities have been canceled for today. I continue to do my early stretch each morning. After all, if cats do it... Some back stretches and some hamstring stretches. Yesterday I was proud of myself for doing 8 minutes of Qigong breathing exercises. Didn't help that much. Lots of coughing by evening, and even woke me up a few times.
I skipped the evening nebulizer treatment, just huffed a couple of times on the albuterol inhaler.
Do Not Skip Nebulizer, Barb!
That's not my inner mother talking (I hope) but maybe the cheerleader or coach who wants me (really wants me) to win. Another day, another night.
So today add that 20 minutes before doing anything, and again before going to bed. My inner child really rebels at discipline. I do have a good book to read, so will give myself that reward.
My friends don't use behavioral modification to give themselves incentives.
I do, but don't know if it really works. But it's fun to look at chores and figure out a reward.
I didn't like the last person who cleaned for me. She would be a good "organizer" and take everything apart and put it together the way she likes, if I would let her.
So now when I mop the kitchen floor (which I did, seriously, all by myself) I call myself her name. And do I pay myself? You betcha! That's how I got the new book to read. I maybe mentioned it on another blog,
Visual Learning by Temple Grandin. I am pretty sure I learn with visual cues - by my age I should know what works and what doesn't. But I'm not sure I think with pictures. I process a lot about verbalization but not by listening (particularly by writing so many thoughts down.) So I definitely do have a verbalization methodology. But I have an innate sense of my place in the world...in relation to where I'm standing, which way is north, how close I am to other people, and how noisy it is before I'm really uncomfortable.
I have an inner map, and can usually find my way back to where I started on most new trips...give me visual cues - not turn left, right 3 blocks etc. directions. These are visual thinker's methods.
It's playing with raining outside today. Perhaps some severe wind. We shall see. It rained quite a bit last night, waking me up a couple of times with it hitting against the window. I've finally dried out the air inside so I'm able to move about comfortably.
Off I go to nebulize saline solution and then inhale more albuterol!
I hope whoever reads this can add their own opinions. Thanks to one person who does comment! I wonder if anyone else even reads here.
I am quite busy looking back usually. Fifty years ago was probably my prime. Twenty years ago seems like yesterday. I investigate the lives of ancestors who lived hundreds of years ago!
But then I realize I don't have twenty more years ahead. That would make me 102...a count which I don't see is realistic.
Shock!
Do I have 10 more? At least 5 more? Geese, maybe just one? I'd better get busy!!
Thus I'm pushed back into today.
Those Zen folks knew what they were talking about.
If I had just one more day to live...what would it look like?
Well, I'm eating yogurt with blueberries. A bite must have both in it...the sudden squirt of blueberry juice between my teeth just is so grand. Then a bit of chewing in the soft yogurt through out my mouth kind of sticky since it's the thick kind. One berry has a stem on it too, do I eat it? Well why not...it disappears into becoming me. Just a bit more fiber there!
Oh wow, a bite with two berries in it.
OK, enough of breakfast, which includes a bit of bark in my coffee. Osho bark packed in honey, which is good for throat and lungs, I've been told. The coffee is French Roast, practically an espresso. what a medly of flavors, with French Vanilla creamer to take down the acidity.
I wondered if I were to lose my senses as I age (like it's still somewhere distant), which would be the easiest to live without. Smell. It's gradually gone. Taste comes and goes, with sweet remaining ever constant. I'm so grateful my eyes and ears work still. And touch - except for the shaky fingers. That is hard when I'm trying to center the cursor on something with the mouse. So far I can wiggle them up and down and type on the keyboard.
OK, enough about the physical beingness of myself.
Entertainment has been a free week of Brit Box. I'm also trying to live without YouTube TV...which affords me streaming live channels including seeing local news. I can finish binging Hawaii Five-0 soon. Do I want to switch to Brit Box (much cheaper per month actually!) Oh the movies they have! And old Agatha Christi...and new Brit murder mysteries! But I have to read the captions usually, which is a strain on the eyes.
Why not out in the woods you ask? Because the air has been full of Canadian wildfire smoke...but it rained most of yesterday, so it's only moderate this morning. Maybe later when the weather guys say it's good.
Off I go to write a birthday card to my daught-in-law, and get it in the mailbox going out to her!
What am I doing all this blogging for, anyway?
Perhaps a coping mechanism to avoid a). current events, b). my chores that always need doing or c). my problems which have no solutions, like medical problems that might also be mental. I still am waiting for a neurological consult to see if I'm exhibiting signs of dementia....as well as my shaky finger problem.
I think at one point, how about I copy my blogs all into one volume (of course digital) and there are these different chapters, like each of my blogs.
Then save it on one of those nice thumb drives that have at least 50 g of memory. That should be enough for the 20 or so years of multiple blogs.
Maybe I'll save the family tree on a separate one.
So I need to be considering my descendants...who might someday be interested in these daily quips.
Imagine if an ancestor could have left all kinds of information for me to find. A very great library book, I think.
Currently I have enjoyed looking on line to find information about affordable housing in Colorado so I could move and live near my son and his wife. I forget the limitations I am currently dealing with. Today I didn't do any more research, but did the laundry. Now it is waiting to be folded and hung up. Lots of clothes over three weeks worth, plus the bed needs to be made with clean sheets.
And a few pieces aren't quite dry, so I should hang them on the shower rod. So now to enjoy real life. I also baked a frozen Dutch apple pie, so had a slice when it was still warm...and it kind of fell apart. But it still tasted great. My favorite desert.
Now on to the tending of fabrics in my life...
This YouTube video has many of the second wave feminists (not Susan B. Anthony era, but the 1970s) sharing their insights. The trio of videos originally was broadcast by Canadian Broadcasting, directed by Donna Read. I shared these with some of the women who were interested in my teaching about goddesses over 30 years.
The original people featured:
There is darkness. There is light. The YinYang symbol has equal parts of each, with it's opposite as a small dot in the center of each.
So my thoughts continue to go toward knowing more about the negative, the darkness, the force of evil. I don't want to think much about it, nor talk about it really. Somehow that's giving it more power in my life.
I get a kick out of entertainment which focuses on dire straights, many characters or situations where fabricated negative forces almost win the day...but you know each horror film will have some kind of good ending. I don't watch them, but I'm pretty sure those who do would concur.
I like murder mysteries, and adventurous books and films and even TV. The good always wins against the evil. May the Force be With You...a few days ago from the Star Wars films, is not talking about the Dark Side.
Shakespeare's plays are tragedies or comedies.
I seriously want to know.
Where does the negative force come from? Is it equal to the positive force as Yin Yang would have me believe?
Darkness as opposed to light in my life is understandable.
But evil is not.
The devil, Satan, I don't believe in. I think the Christian church kind of invented them.
But error was what I learned about in Christian Science as a child.
And that phrase kind of puts in mind a psychology of "it's all mental". Yet people don't wish upon themselves all the bad that happens to them without their intention. That way of thinking ends up blaming the victim for accidents and being thrown into horrible situations.
Now I know many folks believe its their destiny. But I don't believe in an outside force running my life. I've too much belief that I am in charge of my life by my own choices.
See my conundrum? Bad things happen to good people. Accidents happen. Our lives now are impacted by huge climate events.
Is there a force of evil, and if so, where does it come from?
Sometimes Facebook provides some intelligent posts.
life became less exhausting once I stopped trying to be the smartest person in the room
“The crone is the irrational power of nature that causes all things to decay and be changed. The experience of change is terrifying to both men and women who have lived their lives believing that material reality is all there is and that reason is the ultimate means by which all our problems will be solved. Whatever else she may be, the crone is most certainly not reasonable. No more reasonable than the forces that cause leaves to decay when they fall in autumn, transforming them into leaf mold that will eventually bring new life to the forest. No more reasonable than the hurricane which, irrespective of man’s wishes or longings, blows its course through city and countryside. No more reasonable than the earth herself as she ques and trembles with the shifts taking place in the continental plates of her body.
It is little wonder that male-centered religions have diabolized the crone, for the crone is the ultimate destroyer, the emasculator of male reason.”
-Leslie Kenton, Passage to Power
These bookmarks came from a slightly offbeat independet bookstore - Back of Beyond in Moab UT.
They gave me this one...
Since today is Independent Bookstore Day, I posted on my other blog about some of my favorite bookstores.
I also included some bookmarks with messages on them, which I just gave to friends.
They really didn't need more bookmarks...but these were light for traveling, and somewhat given with my own feelings toward my friends.
Emergence Magazine...which has produced 4 soft-bound and now a hardbound huge volume, also gives some of it's essays as tidbits sent to me in my emails.
Here's a fantasy rich story from Australia, which leads me into thinking in new ways. It comes from the latest issue of Emergence.
For me, I listened to the voice of the author while reading his words...since I'm visually able to "listen" better than with my ears only.
I hope you take 25 minutes sometime to just be with it.
There are links to other great ! essays at the bottom of the written essay.
¨There is an ancient and well-kept secret to happiness which the Great Ones have known for centuries. They rarely speak of it, but they use it all the time, and it is fundamental to good mental health. This secret is called The Fine Art of Not Being Offended. In order to truly be a master of this art, one must be able to see that every statement, action and reaction of another human being is the sum result of their total life experience to date.
3 Ways to Activate and
Experience More Joy Every Day
1. Make a list of things
you know you enjoy and love to do. Be imaginative and uncensored. Write it
down. And then do these things, at least one or two every day. Notice
what it feels like just to start thinking about all the things you enjoy, and
how you will make this happen.
2.Find what you feel genuinely
joyful about in the present moment, throughout the day, no matter what
is happening, or what you’re doing, There are always things to feel
joyful about.
3. Take 5-7 minutes every
morning, and before you go to sleep, to simply feel joy
within you, by bringing to mind things that feel joyful to you, and
focusing on the feelings and vibrations of joy in your body and heart.
I used to be a person who would turn a cold shoulder on a stranger...especially a man, except maybe one in a wheel chair.
I sat down to wait for my friend at a small coffee shop early Monday morning, while my car was being given some TLC. Then the man who had been sitting in a corner while I ordered my coffee wheeled himself into the same area I was sitting, with my back halfway to him.
I'd mentioned to the barista that it was also St. Gertrude's Day, the Saint of travelers and cats...as well as St. Patrick's day! He asked me as I turned away with my coffee and scone, what was the name? I misspoke and said St. Agnes...and later said I had trouble with names.
So here he wheeled himself halfway toward me, and mentioned, "can I tell you a little something I learned?"
"OK," I said.
"When you say you have trouble remembering names, I've learned that you are reinforcing your not remembering them. I've learned that to imagine seeing the names written helps me to remember them," he said.
"I also remember better from visual cues," I replied.
He then introduced himself. I kept putting my coffee's sweetener in and stirring it...and listening to him, and when he said his name was Ray "Sunshine" I replied that in my 30s I'd gone by Barbara Sunshine because I was an artist who signed her work Sunshine.
He then tried to tell me how he received the name Sunshine, coming from a Shoshone Indian, but he seemed to forget part of his story. And that's when my friend arrived with her tea. I said thanks for visiting as Ray wheeled away. Later I saw him through the window walking his wheelchair across the 5 lane highway to the other side, where most of the businesses were still closed from hurricane damage. We wondered where he was going, and if maybe he lived in one of the nearby recently opened low-income apartments.
I finished my scone, still not tasting it much, and my coffee, same flavorless warm stuff. Even though the scone said cinnamon nut, I didn't have any taste of cinnamon this morning. I sure hope this goes away soon! Then called the car place, where she told me my inspection, air filters and rotating the tires would be $181.
"Geese," I said to my friend, who drove me next door to get my car. "That's a lot, I would have expected maybe $100!"
But we went through the ticket, and it showed all the expenses, as well as a note that I needed to get new brakes on the front wheels. I asked what that would cost, and said I'd be back as soon as I saved enough money for it...asking how long I could wait. If I hadn't said I use the brakes more than the accelerator it would have been a few months...but that told him I should be back in a month.
So then I came home, (no parking place so just pulled over to the side of the parking lot) and am here happily full of scone and coffee, and a bit more broke than I started out this morning! And it's only 10:45!
Moments Cafe
Looking out my window is similar...though without the forsythia! I should have clipped some branches when I saw some about to open the other day. But it was on the town property so who knows what might have happened had I done so!
Spring is much celebrated in my life these days. When I worked, raised a family, and spent my 8-5 hours inside and my home hours either feeding, laundering, cleaning house, sleeping and maybe having some entertainment, it was only on weekends and holidays, vacations too, when I could get into my source of spiritual connection - nature.
The window view does help. I see how weather changes, light from sunshine makes different colors (unfortunately not while I write this). The ever present mountain above the other side of the valley...saying stability in earth...ancient movements and gradual changes have created this form that I see.
I look at videos of Kilauea with it's current eruption and am amazed that lava is coming up from the center of the earth (or somewhere down there.) The same forces that made these mountains, where my footsteps are so miniscule in comparison to it's stability. One mountain just gradually wears down with rain and wind, another spews forth molten rock and gases. All on this same earth!
It's amazing.
I read somewhere, and quickly passed on by, that those who have a firm belief system have less worries. That struck me as probably the basis of the many Christians - those are people I am familiar with, but I imagine Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and others have a similar system. They know their superior force, their faith in that force, and their living in a certain proscribed way will take care of things. No matter what.
So I imagine they have an easy way of life.
I keep saying they, because my continued interest in differing structures of ideas that explain the universe of all ideas leaves me with questions. I don't wake up and go to sleep with a prayer to a deity to save my soul and the world. and the surety that that someone out there is taking care of things.
I wake up with expectation that this day will bring new ideas to me. That the dog people who just had such fun meeting each other by the lake this noon will give me joy to hear their enjoyment of each other and their pooches...and I can get into the same feeling just by saying "I love how dog people can interact with others so easily!:
See by saying that I acknowledge them, but don't exactly say I'm a dog person, I'll get to pet their pooch if it's so inclined, and sometimes get a photo or two. I'm really a cat person in disguise. Nobody is out walking cats, so it's a bit harder to find other cat persons...usually friends I visit in their homes.
I digress from the spirituality of my message...but there are definitely some connections to belief systems by the kinds of pets people have. Ha ha...maybe just a jest. I'm of course open to considering it however.
So if all those with a set of rules of beliefs and behaviors have an easier life, is mine necessarily harder?
No. It's just more up to me. I have more choices. Today do I feel vegetarian? Or do I want to read all the alternative newsletters that I have in my in-box? Or is it get fit and do exercise day?
I kind of like all the choices I have. But I do admit a bit of envy for those who lie back in the great white father's lap and let him take care of their lives. Nah, not for a moment!
I learned in psychology that the belief in a great external other that takes care of you is considered external-locus-of-control. And if you believe in your own way of approaching problems, that's called internal-locus-of-control.
There are always a few who get at and feel the undercurrent, and these simply use the surface appearances selecting them and using them as tools to express the undercurrent, the real life.
If I cannot feel an undercurrent then I see only a series of things. They may be attractive and novel at first but soon grow tiresome.
Interfaces
Edges
Borders
Water
Mountains and oceans have whole worlds of innumerable wondrous features. We should understand that it is not only our distant surroundings that are like this, but even what is right here, even a single drop of water. |
Dōgen |
And a new image I hadn't thought of, for edges, the ice on top of water as it melts. Thanks to fellow blogger, Frog and Penguin for this image of gulls at the edge of ice.
While another blogger this morning, Beyond the Fields we Know, offered this beautiful photo:
So I know what the focus of today's meditation will be!
Thanks for all the pushes in the right direction! When I thanked some friends for telling me about things that linked to my pursuit of "Edges" they kind of changed the subject. But that didn't stop me from having benefited from their inputs! Interfaces between elements, and in relationships came to me from that conversation.
