JOSEPH'S COAT ROSE

This was a climbing rose we had in our yard years ago. Honestly I don't remember If we planted it or if it was already in the yard. I've going through old files, cleaning out for the newer computer and ran across this. It's called Joseph's Coat. Finally died of old age and we coule never find another that looks like this one. Pops right out of the page doesn't it?

THE BEAT GOES ON

I'm certainly in the joyful mood this morning. Although there is one ray of sunshine. Michelle Bachmann isn't running again in 2014. But, we're still stuck with Mrs. Pray Away the Gay until the end of her term. Oh, joy. NOT.

I briefly crossed swords with somebody with the screen name 4given4ever in the comments section of a story on the upcoming Supreme Court decision on gay marriage. Typical fundie. “I’m right. God told me so and everyone who disagrees with me is going to hell.” More words were used buuuuuut, that’s the short version. And frankly, I’m not going to waste my time replying to his/her comments. There’s that old saying. Never wrestle with a pig. You just end up covered with mud and the pig enjoys it too much.

We wonder how we come up with kids who plan to bomb their high schools, shoot as many of their fellow classmates as possible and then kill themselves before the SWAT Team arrives. To be honest, I don’t believe we need to look any further than the twisted world of the religious fundamentalist. There’s something sinister about their willingness to consign those who disagree with them to eternal punishment. And the suspicion that they agree with the medieval church is that one of the joys of heaven is watching the torments of hell.

Heck hit the comics pages and read the Wizard of Id if it’s there. Almost every strip has a subtext of violence. The violence surrounds us. The violence is so pervasive that half the time we forget it’s there. Until the next kid shoots up a school. Until the next Marine kills his wife and goes on a rampage. Until the next young fundamentalists blow up bombs at the finish line of a race. Until the next kid plans to blow up his classmates. And the crazed dance of the fourteenth century skeletons goes merrily on. I’m a fairly bright member of the human race but even I didn’t realize how tight the tentacles are wrapped until I explored the roots of my Quaker ancestors’ beliefs.

But, I’m at the point where ever the Quakers aren’t enough. I think the final spiral off the reservation has come.

9. We believe that evil is not a matter of inheritance but of intent, therefore actions are not in themselves evil. Rather, it is through the intent behind actions that evil can manifest.

The ninth entry on the list of a druid group’s list of beliefs. I’m not sure I totally agree with this. Genocide is evil no matter what, however the intention to wipe out a whole people through hatred or greed is evil and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I’ll never make a philosopher that’s for sure. And volumes have been written to allow us to get around Thou Shalt not Kill.

GNOMES

I don't know if this mural is still there. Summer camp kids painted on the bridge support closest to the park. The rainbow is made of of handprints. Trouble is the picture has no protections from the elements. It's been a few years since I've been to the park. All I know some high water has taken it the way.

STARSHINE

Every once in awhile I remember the website NASA supports. Once picture every day for about twenty five years. Galaxy M31 in the constellation Andromeda. Some two million light years across and about 200,000 light years across. The light we see now left the edge of the stars closest to us two million years ago. Scientists believe that our galaxy and M31 will begin to "collide" in about a billion years. Stars are so far apart that collisions are highly unlikely. But it will be a heck of a light show for anyone with eyes to see as M31 answers the pull of gravity. Just a little tired of politics today.

A SENSE OF SOMETHING 2

I wrote this several years ago basically when I was first exploring alternate paths. At the moment I seem to be Quaker/ darned if I know. I still believe that we are letting fear rule our lives. I have learned more since then. If I had been a member of an earlier culture or a native population what happened to me might have been seen as the beginning of a Shamanic experience. And the word shaman has become an umbrella term for individuals from many cultures that become healers, diviners, seers. It takes years and all I'm describing are a few experiences. And some I had forgotten until I started rereading these journals. More later.

I suspect that some of the individuals we call “insane” may be tapping more deeply into this sense of what we’re doing to the earth and ourselves. And they just can’t take the pain. Is this attempt to communicate always there and we’re drowning it out with drugs and objects? Or think it’s the devil tempting us and run screaming to the nearest fundamentalist house of worship. Oh, there’s a devil all right. It’s called fear and we’re choking on it.

I’m still a little overwhelmed by what happened this morning and frankly it scares the hell out me. I’m getting an overwhelming sense that the scales are tipping and it’s not in our favor. I’m also convinced that the answers we need won’t be found in the organizations that run the churches, mosques, synagogues, ashrams or political parties. 

Too many groups are too invested in defining who belongs and who doesn’t. Too worried about what might be happening the bedrooms and not enough about what is happening in the boardrooms. Too tied up in the power games. Too busy screaming that they have all the answers that they can’t even hear the questions. So damned scared that if someone else gets a little “more” of something we’ll end up with “less.” Somehow we have to tap into the individuals that realize that the balance needs to be righted. That if we stick to what really matters, there is enough to go around.

We matter simply because we are. Each of us is unique. Each of the over six billion people on this planet is unique. No one is expendable. And I think that’s what scares us. The refugee in Darfur is just as unique in the universe as President Bush. And just as special. What we can’t seem to admit is that the whole universe matters simply because it exists. Too many are chasing things that they believe will make them better somehow. And so many have so little that just surviving takes everything they have.. One group can’t make the time to look up and the other group can’t find the extra strength.

I know that getting everybody to join hands and sing Kumbayah isn't going to solve the problem.But, I'm not going to give up, I've got too much riding on the outcome of this little thing we call life and so do the rest of us.

There it is. More later. I hope. Comments would be appreciated.  You go looking for the universe and I guess sometimes it comes looking for you.

A SENSE OF SOMETHING 1

This is an older entry slightly edited to reflect the fact. 

Something totally freaking weird happened one morning several years ago. And folks that’s the mild description. I was thinking about the journal entry I had written last night. The phrase “the whole planet is alive” popped through my mind. That fits, that was the theme of the entry. Then the sentence completed itself. I was not expecting this, I really was not. I will still swear on a stack of holy books, rocks, trees rivers, whatever. "The whole planet is alive; and it'sscreaming'.  And just for an instant, maybe half an instant, there was this mind-bending sense of “wrongness." A jumble of sounds and images. Continental plates grinding, whole forests falling, winds howling and a feeling of bottomless, endless grief. Sorry, that’s the best I can do with the sledgehammer we call language. I had to get out of the office for a few minutes. I was almost in tears for crying out loud.

That’s the best I can do. I don’t think there are words for what I felt in that microsecond. And I hadn't had anything mind altering this morning. Last time I checked oatmeal, applesauce and lemon ginger tea aren’t on any list of controlled substances. I suspect it was the entry itself. If words are mind altering, then I’m altered. While my brain is still doing little (and not so little) summersaults this had to happen for a reason. What the reason is I’m not sure….yet. I tapped into........what or who?

There is a part two.

THE UNIVERSE CAME CALLING

The prayer that ended up in the entry in I Offer This started out as a more traditional litany. I wanted to use it at work, but I couldn't use a real candle so I decided to try to imagine one. I had a Christmas card that I had scanned in to use for my own cards. Just wanted one little ol' candle. I ended up with a whole room full. Without asking for them by the way.

OK I've got candles. Lots and lots of candles. Blazing candles. And this is where the universe got just a little bit wierd. This was back in the AOL Journals world when there was more interaction between bloggers. Anyway one of the guys who was following was having a hard time. If I remember it right I was commenting along the lines of "gee I wish I could help" when the universe did its thing. The candles popped up and one of those little beggers took off. A sort of US map was in the back ground and I swear that little flash of light headed in the right direction.Without any help from me. OK.

A few days a later a good friend was having some problems. And gee I'm sorry I'm down at the bottom of the valley and you are up north. Repeat performance. Only the candle headed north and it didn't go quite as far as the first one. The first one looked like it ended up around Kansas. The second one ended up just west of Portland.

I believe that's enough about the universe attempting to get my attention, at least for now. And frankly I've never really been sure about how I feel about this. Call me a Work in Progress.