Mildly Weird Wasteland of Momentary Gloom

Today I feel like nothin'

Do I even exist?

What are these walls? Are they just part of the illusion of life?

I am restless and a little bored but unmotivated to do any of the things on the to-do list. I just want to stare into the void and feel nothing. I don't know what could bring me back to life.

I need to go get some stockpile water in case the world tries to end tomorrow. But part of me is ready to burn away with all the other discards.

"Sit and think about myself" (but no sex or candy in sight)

God doesn't even want to hear about it today. (Worn out Jesus)

I would tell the trees but they are busy shedding their leaves and concern

The crows don't care about me - they never have even though I never gave them any reason for their indifference

Waiting in queue to be anyone's business

Patience is a curse

"Quiet desperation" 

Feeling evicted

Shapeless, aimless stray spirit haunting forbidden margins

Unable to knock on doors slammed shut

So maybe I'll just dissolve into the threshold and become the squeaky hinge

Might be the only way I'll ever be noticed

Becoming Baba Yaga, Part Two (In the Garden)

Time, time, time. 

Ticking away, the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long
There's always time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

So you run and you run, you catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught
Or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
Time is gone, the song is over
Thought I'd something more to say

Time by Pink Floyd

This summer the big lightning bug bloom made the woods look sparkly and magical.  It was such a pretty time of year with all the bursts of life all around - Nature doing her thing, as designed. Life in waves and seasons. Growth then rest. Emergence then decline. Flowers bloom and make the world beautiful and then they set seed and fade away. The world is really is just a big garden. Or maybe a petri dish to the supposed aliens. 

We were always meant to be gardeners. Caretakers and developers of creation. Yes, we have the divine gift of creation. We've made gardens of concrete and steel and wood and glass and plastic using nature's resources. Some believe we have ruined the planet, but not really, not any more than the insects with their earthmoving and hollowing and the aggressive plants overtaking everything in their path. Every organism wants to live. Grow. Expand. We are as much a part of the ecosystem as anything else. 

From an alien perspective the human world might look like just another layer of water-based life on the edges between the oceans and the atmosphere. We in our houses and buildings and running about our communities might look like another kind of coral reef built up and living and shifting and changing with the movement of the watery atmosphere. Watch the movements of clouds and weather systems and you'll see that it is just another kind of ocean.

Individually, our time here is pretty short, just like the flowers' blooms and the tiny fishes of the coral reefs and other little bugs living their purpose. We all have our place and role and destiny.

In this Baba Yaga origin story we are at the point of deliberation and reckoning, when acceptance of fate is still incomplete, not yet ready to assume the new self and stage of life, not yet ready to wither after blooming and dropping seeds. At what point will I be ready to be the Crone without any hope of lust and carnality?

Time is getting away from me. 

Each passing second felt and noted, define this life moment by moment. Some moments are so perfectly beautiful and divine and some moments are miserable torture.

This year has been full of upheavals and adjustments, repairs and healing, culling excesses and finishing things that have waited much too long. Here it is already Autumn even though summer held on long past Equinox. I'm trying to tend to this little piece of property, my little garden carved out of a shrinking wilderness, too rustic and messy for some tastes but it feels peaceful for me despite its imperfections. (Rustic and messy is a good description of me and my life overall.) But I have my sacred well and temples to fire, earth, and air that I have built and that are continuous works-in-progress. God made us gardeners, first and foremost. Moving earth and air as we work. Trying to love the life we live in the space between breaths as much as the life we hope will happen.

There have been some real ordeals, and the shoulder surgery and recuperation were so much worse than I let on. I didn't complain much so I guess it might have looked easier than it actually was. It really was one of the hardest things I've done. I let it hurt my feelings when people didn't check on me. But I know that everyone has their own gardens to tend and that I cannot expect the attention that I think I need. One thing I've learned, though, is that I will drift as far away as someone's neglect pushes me. I might try to bridge the gap sometimes but mostly I try to let go. I am not always successful. The shoulder is good now but still gets a little sore and stiff with exertion. And the spirit is still wounded. The sting of overthinking and overfeeling. Misplaced, misused.

This time, this place
Misused, mistakes
Too long, too late
Who was I to make you wait?
Just one chance, just one breath
Just in case there's just one left

Far Away by Nickelback

When I was a teenager my mom went to a psychic who told her to tell me to never have a red Corvette convertible because she saw a serious accident. Well it happened anyway and that day I think my guardian angel intervened. There might have been some kind of soul imprint, but I lost all the evidence and now I question the accuracy of my memory. The uncertainty is a vexatious curse that burrows into my mind trying to find its name and place. Sometimes it strikes some chords of recognition and I feel a temporary freak-out in my zen garden. Then I remind myself that if nobody cares then it is not enough. I'm tired of things living only in my mind.

Invoking the wisdom of dead lovers while simultaneously throwing wards against the wrath of collateral casualties I whispered that prayer for reunion. 

Generally I can find happiness wherever I am existing in the moment, focusing on it and just being. There are some bad moments when I have to use the same technique to remind myself that nothing is permanent. This too shall pass. 

Just like when little girls outgrow their desire to play with dolls and pretend to be grown up, mature women sometimes outgrow their need to be desired, to be the fertile flashy flower in the garden. The seeds are set and the bees are no longer interested. 

It's probably time to accept my Crone's staff and lantern and cauldron. The staff to assist the last part of this journey while the body weakens, the lantern to light the path in the growing darkness, and the cauldron to craft the medicines from the garden's harvests. No more desires for eroticism because what kind of weirdo freak is into crones anyway?  

I might be about ready to become Baba Yaga now.      

 

        

Jars of Clay

6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

2 Corinthians 4:6-7

It's easy to become perplexed by the shadows of invisible forces, like the swirling dark spots on the pool bottom - not true shadows but refraction of light through eddies in the water's currents.  Our eyes see a shadow but not its source. Sometimes we go through fits of melancholy and struggle with illusions and confusion about our own perceptions. It's overthinking everything and forgetting to let go of our own understanding, weak jars of clay that we are.

God put great divine treasure within us (eternity in the human heart), even though we are fallible and frail, made of earth and water just like jars of clay. And while we live, and rejoice and give thanks for this living, we also feel the pain of loss when our loved ones' jars fall empty and broken. Life crushes us all eventually, back to the dust from which we are formed. But our light lives on.

8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

2 Corinthians 4:8-12

I keep thinking about the movie The Waterboy. Silly as it is, it touches this theme of allowing ourselves to be perplexed and overcome by our own perceptions and illusions. The Mud Dogs' coach didn't know how to move past his playbook being stolen and used against him until the Waterboy gave him the advice to replace the image of his foe with something cute and nonthreatening. Likewise, when we are struggling we should look at the divine treasure within instead of trusting the reflection of the world in our eyes.

16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Wizard Jewel: Epiphany

Your words to me just a whisper
Your face is so unclear
I try to pay attention
Your words just disappear

'Cause it's always raining in my head
Forget all the things I should have said

So I speak to you in riddles
'Cause my words get in my way
I smoke the whole thing to my head
And feel it wash away
'Cause I can't take anymore of this
I want to come apart
And dig myself a little hole
Inside your precious heart

'Cause it's always raining in my head
Forget all the things I should have said

I am nothing more than
A little boy inside
That cries out for attention
Yet I always try to hide
'Cause I talk to you like children
Though I don't know how I feel
But I know I'll do the right thing
If the right thing is revealed

'Cause it's always raining in my head
Forget all the things I should have said

Epiphany by Staind

I'm not quick. I'm slow with the witty replies - they always crawl out of the gray muck much too late to be relevant. Like in this song above, the words get washed away in the chaos of my mind. Unlike writing when I can take my time and think and choose the words that fit, when I'm speaking, especially about vulnerable emotional things, I get nervous and anxious and freeze up like a deer in the headlights. It feels like I dissociate from my body and the thoughts don't get translated into words and I pause too long. What did you just say? I didn't comprehend it because my ears were disconnected from my brain while I was trying to access my tongue to speak. How many important statements have I missed due to this executive failure to multitask processing and expression?   

But sometimes I get struck with an insight from the simplest of instances, like a misread word, and it resonates and clears the internal disarray to a path of epiphany. I recently experienced this spark that lead to a quiet but much needed prayer of hope and appreciation. It came from an unexpected and humorous uncertainty. I love when surprise inspiration comes from seemingly mundane events. It's funny how we can make love out of nothing at all.

Sometimes we feel things that no words are adequate to express. Some experiences and people are unlike anything we've ever known. These are the enigmas and mysteries that burn and churn in the mind and heart and soul. I've been taught that good writing should employ an economy of words, careful use of flourish, precision and thrift, but let's not be miserly about our feelings. There are many kinds of love and sometimes all of them get concentrated in one place. Care, affection, attraction, desire - all together and still insufficient to define this thing. 

I was handed a Wizard Jewel and it led to an epiphany that I am still trying to fully comprehend. Is its luminance real or just a mirage, a limerence, a chimera, a fantasy pulled purely out of my own nonsense? Making love out of nothing at all?

I know just how to whisper
And I know just how to cry
I know just where to find the answers
And I know just how to lie
I know just how to fake it
And I know just how to scheme
I know just when to face the truth
And then I know just when to dream

And I know just where to touch you
And I know just what to prove
I know when to pull you closer
And I know when to let you loose
And I know the night is fading
And I know the time's gonna fly
And I'm never gonna tell you everything I gotta tell you
But I know I gotta give it a try

And I know the roads to riches
And I know the ways to fame
I know all the rules and then I know how to break 'em
And I always know the name of the game
But I don't know how to leave you
And I'll never let you fall
And I don't know how you do it
Making love out of nothing at all

Out of nothing at all
(Making love) Out of nothing at all
(Making love)
Out of nothing at all
(Making love) Out of nothing at all
(Making love) Out of nothing at all
(Making love) Out of nothing at all

Every time I see you all the rays of the sun are all
Streaming through the waves in your hair
And every star in the sky is taking aim at your eyes
Like a spotlight
The beating of my heart is a drum and it's lost
And it's looking for a rhythm like you
You can take the darkness from the pit of the night
And turn it to a beacon burning endlessly bright
I've gotta follow it 'cause everything I know
Well, it's nothing 'til I give it to you

I can make the runner stumble
I can make the final block
I can make every tackle at the sound of the whistle
I can make all the stadiums rock
I can make tonight forever
Or I can make it disappear by the dawn
I can make you every promise that has ever been made
And I can make all your demons be gone

But I'm never gonna make it without you
Do you really wanna see me crawl
And I'm never gonna make it like you do

Making love out of nothing at all

Making Love Out of Nothing At All by Air Supply   

      

 

Event Horizon

I saw your eyes
And you made me smile
For a little while
I was falling in love
I saw your eyes
And you touched my mind
Although it took a while
I was falling in love
I saw your eyes
And you made me cry
And for a little while
I was falling in love
I was falling in love
Falling in love
Falling in love
Falling in love
Falling in love

Space Age Love Song by A Flock of Seagulls

Thinking back on my life all my greatest achievements were fueled by delusion. I believed a thing and pursued it hard despite whatever opposing practicalities tried to hinder me, and many times I found enough success to fulfill the delusion and move on to the next. I was never very special. I was just very stubborn and persistent. Someone once called it fortitude. I might call it illusion. Or folly.  

Some of my most impactful relationships have also been based on some delusion of love. And for a little while I was falling in love. Most of them ended in heartbreak and the mental devastation of discovering that it was absolute delusion and completely unattainable. The utter desolation of empty space, the empty darkness of oblivion, indifference is equal to nonexistence (to be forgotten). And you made me cry. I have reached the event horizon of the black hole several times and each time it's a bit harder not to succumb to the irresistible void. Each time I lose another bit of myself to the gravity. And now I am weak and tired and yet I don't want to completely disappear. Not yet.  

In the TV series Game of Thrones the character Melisandre is a centuries old witch or priestess who uses glamour magic connected to a ruby collar necklace. When she takes it off the illusion of youth and beauty and seemingly all of her powers are gone. That's how I feel right now. My glamour magic has faded or been drawn away by the gravitational pull and I don't know if I am able to reach the escape velocity this time. Maybe I will just keep falling, falling into and then through and then out of love and then into whatever lies beyond that event horizon.

Yes, all of this sounds somewhat morose and depressing. No, I'm not going to do anything any more stupid than saying something that I shouldn't. This is just me navigating yet another "dark night of the soul" and narrating the scenery. When my light and loving muses abandon me I have to rely on the dark and sinister ones. (God rest the soul of that one who already fell into the abyss.)   

Lamentations: Thorns, Poison, and Passion

The woods next to the house are full of thorny locust trees and blackberry canes and very aggressive poison ivy vines and more polite passionflower vines. I'm terribly allergic to poison ivy and someone could probably kill me by rolling me down the poison ivy covered hill (please don't - what a horrible way to go). The locust trees are difficult to trim and are growing too close to the house, but I like the privacy screen they provide. Everything is a compromise. Blackberries make delicious cobblers and jelly but picking them requires a bit of blood donation. The passionflowers look like some kind of alien plant - exotic and fancy with a heavy tropical perfume, but they make a an effective tea and tincture that help with sleep. I haven't figured out how to use their fruits.

We live in what can seem like a lively temperate jungle when we get plenty of rain, as we did earlier this summer. Its life can be loud and insistent with all the bugs and birds and other little critters singing their songs of exaltation and desperation. Their time is short so they must be heard. We know summer's winding down when the doves begin their cries.   

(Why do we love rhythmic movement? It's so cool that cicadas and other insects can vibrate their bodies to make sounds and communicate. Life is rhythmic movement - heartbeats, brainwaves, breathing. Our voices are vibrations. All energy vibrates throughout the universe. Our eyes tuned to see the wavelengths of what we call visible light, but other creatures can see beyond our limits. We have created machines to extend our vision. We are creators, made in God's image. God is the great conductor of the Universe. We search for Him in synchronicities. Sometimes our vibes match with others and sometimes it's hard to escape that rhythm. Eternity in the human heart. Sometimes I need to move my chi because it gets caught in the eddies, vortices, and currents. Sometimes we are overwhelmed and sometimes we are just watching the outermost fringes of a passing evening storm. Grief is a trickster. Time keeps flowing like a river. Let's move on from this stream of consciousness.)

People nowadays don't exercise their auditory sense. Sure they are constantly listening to music, podcasts, social media, etc., but I'm talking about really listening to the world and hearing the distance. How many people can hear a siren and know where it is going and where it came from without seeing it? It takes practice and spacial awareness. People can't look upon the horizon and know where other towns and communities are located because they have become so dependent on map apps. They don't learn the maps in their brains. I am sad for this technological age and the people who are losing the sensory acuity of a life lived in the real world. We are transitioning away from a pure human existence, too dependent upon our machines and now giving them too much control.  AI has no discernment and neither do most people. This is the decline of humanity.  

It's a very hot and dry late summer. The leaves are turning and falling early. The passionflower vines are wilted and dying. The locusts have lost nearly all their leaves already. The blackberry canes are brown and brittle but still viciously sharp and ready to take their blood. The jungle is receding. It's so hot that the katydids have gone quiet. I miss their chatter. It's one of my favorite parts of summer evenings. What do they talk about? Katy did, Katy did, Katy did. Maybe I want to too... Like the end of summer, some things pass and we have to lock away feelings and desires, send our roots into the earth, let our leaves go and hope for spring.

This year has been a lot of upheaval and repair. Of course, there has been the shoulder repair and healing, but we also have done major work on this twenty-five year old house. Beginning with new roof and all new windows. Our dwellings contain and absorb our energy, the reverberations of our lives. Big renovations stir up what's settled into the framework and foundation. Banging on the roof to replace to old roofing shook awake the walls and roused old feelings, and then the windows cut out allowed the house to exhale deeply, to expel the stale before the new windows were installed. Our homes do need to breathe. 

After having to move everything around so the window guy could do his job, I decided to evaluate every item and decide if it still has place here. I gave a lot away. Over the years I've curated a sort of vintage store in my house, collected things hoping to preserve interesting and useful items. Some for future projects, some just for the joy of having and seeing and sharing. But as the house breathed so did I. I was ready to exhale and release adornments and hoards. This was the future time I'd saved them for. Time to pass along to my kids anything that they might like to have. Why wait until I'm dead? Let them enjoy them now.     

Demolition has its own kind of appeal but it takes a lot of effort. I am tired. Sometimes we need to live with the blank spaces for a while, cleared out of ideas, feelings, thoughts. Allow new inspirations after a time of rest and emptiness. The reverberations of all the structural changes and bits of disarray will fine-tune into their next expressions. After the waves of big change then smaller waves and wakes continue to jostle and rearrange ideas and hopes until they settle into place. The blank canvas will show us what it needs. No need to cajole. 

Twenty-five years is a long time to live in a house. Will we both still be here in another twenty-five? Will this house hold up for 50 years? Will my life's imprint haunt this place? What would someone else do with these rooms? Would they tear the whole thing down?

Sometimes I am overcome with horrific amazement at the changes brought by age. Somehow the wrinkly knees are the most shocking, probably because they are so easily visible. Mortality looms large on the horizon, yet I don't feel impelled to move or act. (Except the shoulder repair that allowed me to return to full function I am not interested in major physical renovations just for appearances. Cosmetic procedures are unlike house structural renovations that actually extend its useful lifespan.) I sit in stillness. Just observe, perceive, sense. Find the rhythms and ride the waves. If this is the fourth quarter of the game I'm not sure I care anymore about the score. I try not to think too much about the future because it distracts from the the here and now and it can seduce and create delusions and expectations. My heart has been broken enough. I have regrets. Time is running out. 

Am I repeating myself? It seems like after living this long I can't always remember what I've already said or if I am repeating what others have said. 

Sometimes I feel like the wilted and withered passionflower vines stretched out over the locust trees' limbs, reaching as far as I could until the heat and dryness took its toll. But sometimes I feel prickly and sharp like the blackberry and locust thorns, ready to chastise a careless touch and demand a penance of pain and blood. Sometimes I poison the air against the things that want my blood. Repellents against mosquitos and curses.

Every generation thinks it's the first to suffer, that anxiety and depression are modern developments, but thousands of years ago people wrote of all those same feelings, no less intense than we feel today. I was a very tense child, born tensed up and not knowing how to relax. I didn't know how to release the tension in my body. My muscles were always in resistance, even while stretching. I still have to consciously work to release and relax and breathe. I still catch myself holding my breath too long. Maybe most people are born full of tension. I don't know. Maybe it's because my mom still smoked cigarettes while pregnant and I was born with a nicotine addiction? Not blaming her, not shaming her at all. Just pondering the possibilities. 

The Earth seems to be exhaling and releasing tension itself. It is always doing so but sometimes it needs to shake and shudder in greater intensity. We are all part of it and sometimes we get swept away. We mourn for the loss of life. We fear the destruction that is ever approaching. This dynamic planet was set in motion by God who knew it would move as it was designed and that sometimes we would suffer. We chose that option. We chose to add the thorns, poison, and passion to our Garden. 

"For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love."

Lamentations 3:31-32

 

Social Entropy

I have lost my chill and my spark. The last couple of years have just about done me in. I'm physically healed from all the shoulder stuff but I'm so tired from life right now. I'm especially bothered by very disappointing long term business relationships. We like having long lasting relationships with other businesses, especially when they have been consistent in good service, but times are a-changing. It seems like nobody wants to work anymore and nobody knows how to communicate or do their jobs.

We have had the same insurance agency for all of our business and personal property for about 16 years. They describe themselves as providing "concierge" service which to me that means acknowledging and appreciating customers when they reach out with questions and needs. They used to be awesome about that, but then their people started to retiring. None of their younger new employees seem to have any sense of commitment to service and some have been absolutely incompetent. How hard is it to send a quick email to acknowledge a question or request and let me know that they are working on it? I'm left wondering if they got my message and if they even care enough to follow through. Do they assume I trust that they are working on things? Maybe I used to but not anymore. Did they never get trained in customer service? Do they actually know what concierge service is supposed to be? Concierge service means that I should not have to beg for answers. Concierge service means that I should feel appreciated and respected, not ignored and unappreciated. Like, come on, do I need to run a seminar on business etiquette? Just shoot me an email letting me know you got my message and understand what I'm asking and how long it might take to get it resolved.

It seems like it's mostly younger people, 40 and under, who do not perform their jobs at the best of their ability but I'm sure older people are falling behind as well. Maybe time and cultural and genetic muddying have created this social entropy where all organization and order fall apart into apathy and disorder. People want the collective to do everything but what they forget is that the collective is only as good as its worst members. The collective can't achieve what the individual is too incompetent to do. There is no personal work ethic if everyone thinks it's someone else's job. When I pay for a service I expect it to be done promptly and correctly. Now I really don't care if it's done by one, two, or twenty people as long as it's done right. When someone is assigned to do a job then they need to make sure it is done to the client's satisfaction. 

Another aspect of this social entropy is how so many people are voting for socialism because they think that it will provide them with everything they want with as little effort as possible. But that is an unsustainable fantasy. I just heard a news report about how so many towns are losing their volunteer fire departments because nobody is volunteering anymore. The young people want the services without having to pay for them and without having to do their part in providing those services. What do you mean all the young socialists who believe in taking other people's money to pay for their crap aren't willing to volunteer their time to help others in need? Dang, see, the collective is only as good as its laziest, greediest members. I'm kind of glad that I'm in the last quarter of my life and might not live long enough to see the total collapse of our society. 

My high school civics teacher used to say that socialism and communism always lead a society to the muck of mediocrity. I fear it is worse than that. What we have now is less than mediocrity. It is pure incompetence and apathy. Social entropy.    

Becoming Baba Yaga, Part One

(This post have been sitting in my drafts folder for a very long time and has ungone many edits as time has passed and I've had more insights and experiences to include and adjust. The topic has become so varied and complex that I am breaking it up into parts, mainly for my own mental organization.)

I've spoken in the past about becoming the Crone and welcoming the mature feminine experience into my life as opposed to "fighting" aging and rejecting its natural changes. I don't particularly care that I might look old to those whose expectations are warped by the industries that profit from telling women that we are no longer "worth it" if we don't cover our gray and inject our wrinkles with toxins. I've noticed a lot of my peers seem to share my views, or at least share my refusal to cover my natural hair color. Honestly, I find it a really weird concept that I would not know the real color of my hair. The women who've always colored their gray are missing out on a that fundamental self-knowledge. It seems to me similar to not knowing what my own toes look like. It's really not a trivial thing to purposely and sometimes forcefully refuse to know something about oneself. 

Anyway, aging is a totally natural part of life and I hope that as we humans evolve we will begin to accept these natural changes and processes. In past centuries life expectancy was shorter. I don't know if that made aging less acceptable or desirable. It might be that aging has always been feared and that the elderly have often been vilified or otherwise maligned. There seems to be some cultural differences in way that aging and the elderly are treated. But in modern Western culture of the 20th Century aging was seen as something to "fight."  

Perhaps my generation is fed up with all of our development being "socially engineered" by modern society. From infancy on into middle age our lives have been molded by "expert" expectations and demands. Our mothers were told that it would damage us emotionally if we were held too much as infants and that our being potty trained by 2 was the sign of both of our successes in life. For god's sake, if a child was still in diapers past 2 there might as well be prison cell put in reserve for that child's future and a crown of shame for the mother. Anyway, my kids were in diapers past two and they've all turned out to be emotionally well-developed and successful in their own ways. Whatever my failures as a mother might be they seem to have overcome them.

I've talked here about the Maiden/Mother/Crone stages of life for women and in my younger inexperience and intellectualized view I kind of thought that the stages would be more distinct without so many conflicting urges, feelings, and adjustments. I thought that once I got this close to the Crone stage that the Maiden might stay in her restful coma for the rest of my life. I did imagine that advanced aging would bring back some of the child-like aspects but I assumed that the Maiden's libido wouldn't be revived. Ha, the universe always finds ways to tell me I'm wrong. Maybe it's all just part of the reverse "puberty" of menopause where the body is adjusting its hormonal levels. The last year I've felt more like a teenager with raging hormones than the old lady who's drying up. I haven't heard any other women talking about that happening to them so I tend to think that it's more of a reaction to a specific stimulus. I question all of this stuff because part of me says I really am too old for all that and that it's pure ridiculous delusion to imagine that I could be seen as anything other than the almost Crone that I am. But maybe I am wrong to think that being a Crone and feeling sexual are mutually exclusive. Maybe that's just the stupid societal conditioning about aging women. (Though there is my personal experience of that part of me being dormant and seemingly dead for quite some time so it seemed natural to assume that was the norm. And no one ever tried to make me think or feel different.)

Approaching Cronehood I had imagined would be much more stable and emotionally secure. But this whole "change of life" thing is hitting me really hard this year. In some ways I've aged a lot in the last six months, but I also feel about 15-20 years younger physically due to weight loss and lifestyle improvements. So there's this dichotomy of feeling like I'm just old and gross and all those other things society tells aging women, and on the flipside there's this energy that feels somewhat urgent and intense, like I need to do things before it really is too late. The biological clock is ticking faster and faster as the days pass.

Sometimes I wish my house could sprout legs like Baba Yaga's Hut so that I could escape the encroaching world or maybe chase after whatever strikes my fancy. But I'm getting tired. I have to conserve my energy and meter it out wisely, without wasting it on pointless fantasies. While I still feel pretty spry for my age most of the time, I am reminded of the cruelty of aging's limitations. The telomeres aren't what they used to be. I shift between feeling hardened by life and feeling worn into a comfortable softness. Am I soft and gentle or just tired and weak? I think I've been hurt enough.

 

   

     

Spirits and Ghosts

(This is certainly not an original idea and I'm not sure where I first read this metaphor/simile but this is how it resonates in my life.)

Like a ghost on a mission I have a routine of haunting the rooms of this house. Sometimes I float through checking lights, doors and locks: sometimes clumsily knocking things around and sometimes stealthy like a ninja - quiet, quick, and completely unseen. One of my superpowers is invisibility. 

I enjoy occupying the spaces I've made, rooms of particular purpose. Moving through each doing upkeep, cleaning and other work until the evening when it's time to attend to myself with relaxing rituals of inhaling/exhaling, movement and stretching, heat from the sauna and gloriously hot baths. It's therapeutic to dissolve into my surroundings, releasing tension and restriction. 

The rooms I inhabit the most have collections of things that are homes for my overflowing spirit - similar to haunted dolls and dollhouses but not scary, just charged with my excess energy. I am putting away some of my magical things for a while, letting them rest. Like trusted allies I want to care for them and treat them with appreciation. Also these things are not for all eyes to see. I don't feel comfortable letting strangers into my home, my sanctuary.

Our 25 year old roof and windows need replaced so we're having people come to give estimates for those jobs. Most of them have been fine - not intrusive nor bringing bad vibes. The ones who are like us, who have actually done the physical labor and are honest and upfront, do not leave behind any negative energy. But there was one who left me feeling the need to sage the entire house and take a bath in holy water. On the surface pleasant, nice, polite, but the unclean spirit leaked out all over the house where he insisted on lingering in each room longer than necessary. I was uncomfortable with his presence in my most private areas - my bedroom and bathroom. Spiritual hygiene requires the rooms where we sleep and take care of our most intimate needs be guarded from intrusion by anyone with deceitful or other untrustworthy motives. After he left I decided to treat each room with a sage spray (didn't have any to burn) and before going to bed I burned frankincense and copal on the front porch to drive away and place a barrier against any loitering unclean spirits and energies.

I wonder how many people actually fall for sleazy sales tactics and how those who use them can sleep at night. How can they profess that they are "going to the kingdom of Heaven" after manipulating people with unethical practices? Of course, anyone's salvation is between them and God, but I am allowed to call out their bad behavior when they are trying to take advantage of me. I was not impressed with his attempt to justify his actions after I confronted him, very politely, with his unethical approach to sales. No sir, I don't think your CEO pays you so much that he can't afford to send you to the same house twice. If he truly valued his customers he would send you out as many times as necessary to satisfy their needs. And no sir, claiming your windows are the best available does not really make them worth six times more than any others (or actually better for that matter). And no sir, your presentation of your competitors' prices did not even make any sense when they were a fraction of the cost you quoted for your products. Is that really supposed to be some kind of flex? "Oh, look at me, I way overpaid for these windows that some guy claimed were the best available"? As if drastically overpaying for windows is going to give me some kind of status? No thank you. I'm old enough to better. And finally, no sir, I'm not signing your contract today just to get slightly less overpriced windows. (No sir, buying windows cannot really be compared to buying airline tickets. Besides, not even first class flights cost as much as one of your ridiculous windows.) That whole tactic of pressuring people with a today-only discount is the worst. I guess it works on some people sometimes, maybe enough to keep the practice going, but that just is not the best way to serve people and provide them with goods. It is greed, and greed is not good. 

Be gone unclean spirit, leave my home and never return.         

Undoing the Laces

Wait a minute, baby
Stay with me a while
Said you'd give me light
But you never told me about the fire

Drowning in the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
But now it's gone, it doesn't matter what for
When you build your house
Then call me home

And he was just like a great dark wing
Within the wings of a storm
I think I had met my match
He was singing

And undoing
(Oh-oh-oh) and undoing
(Oh-oh-oh) ooh, the laces
(Oh-oh-oh) undoing the laces
(Oh-oh-oh)

Said, "Sara, you're the poet in my heart
Never change, never stop"
But now it's gone, it doesn't matter what for
But when you build your house
Oh, then call me home

Hold on, the night is coming
And the starling flew for days
I stay home at night all the time
I'd go anywhere, anywhere, anywhere
Ask me and I'm there, yeah
Ask me and I'm there 'cause I care

In the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
But now it's gone, they say it doesn't matter anymore
If you build your house, then please call me home

Sara, you're the poet in my heart
Never change and don't you ever stop
Now it's gone, no, it doesn't matter anymore
When you build your house, I'll come by

Oh, Sara
Oh-oh
Oh, Sara
Crazy, there's a heartbeat
And it never really died (ah)
Never really died (Sara, ah)
Would you swallow all your pride?
Would you swallow all your pride?
All I ever wanted was to know that you are dreaming

Sara by Fleetwood Mac

I'm full of mixed metaphors and random thoughts right now so this might not come together as well as I'd like. 

My shoulder is healing. So very slowly, but steadily. Physical therapy is such an essential part of the process. I am grateful for the knowledge and assistance my PT provides. Healing movement and touch. 

My last blog post was pretty somber. I was in a dark place emotionally, really feeling like the anti-hero wounded dragon casting wards and cinching tight the laces around my heart, closing off and containing the bleeding stuff. Tied those laces pretty good, or at least I thought. 

The other night I was sitting in the dark looking out the window and appreciating the shadows cast by the outside light. Not all darkness and shadows are scary or threatening. No shadows exist without light, but the darkness came first anyway. Does the light carve out the darkness giving it shape or does the darkness contain the light to its own designs? 

Sometimes I need to be in the dark, sensing the night sounds, sights, smells, and air on my skin. Our bodies are of nature and need to be in nature not just when it's pleasant, light, and warm, but also when it touches our thresholds of comfort. Our thresholds need to be tested and exercised. It is another form of therapy to feel the cold and the hot and sometimes our bodies tell us what they need. Sometimes our eyes need to look in the darkness, adjust to their perceptive limits. Sometimes our ears need to listen to the stillness of the winter night and hear the movements of the nocturnal creatures that also listen intently and move with purpose. Sometimes the cold, clear air carries subtle scent waves of burning firewood, and sometimes vehicle or dryer vent exhaust. Our machines are part of this world too. I've learned that the sounds and smells carry differently depending on the moisture and clouds. Machinery and traffic sounds carry very far through the fog and low clouds.   

Sometimes we need to relax into the world and just exist as part of it. I've been grounding myself a lot by exhaling and pushing stale energy into the earth. The inactivity of this long recovery has my chi a bit bound up and stagnant, so now that movement is becoming easier I am working on improving its flow. Healing creates bi-products like scar tissue and spent fluids that need worked out from the elemental level - air, water, earth, and fire.    

Heat is what seems to be most healing right now. I just need to be in hot water sometimes. It helps improve the circulation, warmth and bloodflow, relaxing scar-bound tightness and stiffness. It makes therapeutic movement easier. Undoing the scar tissue laces around my shoulder. 

What I am needing more of now is therapeutic touch. I have a massage scheduled next week and I am so glad to be able to get back to that part of my wellness routine. 

I feel like my heart needs some kind of additional therapy as well, to deal with the loosening laces around it. Do they need to be retightened? Are they dissolving like internal sutures? I'm not sure if I can trust anyone to touch my heart. Being wounded creates a sense of self-protection and guard. The wards I cast don't know if they need reinforcement or repeal. The kind of touch that best heals the heart isn't quite available anyway. 

The song Sara quoted above is the song that makes me cry about losing my mom so long ago. It's just the whole sound of the music- melody, rhythm, harmonies, and part of the lyrics. It's a dreamy emotional song- hypnotic and lush with a sadness laced with hope. Mom loved Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks. Mom was kind of an exotic gypsy like Nicks. Mom is the poet in my heart. I came out of her so there will always be that connection in my heartbeat. The aura of that song will always undo the laces...      

Anti-Hero

And I'm a monster on the hill
Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city
Pierced through the heart, but never killed...

It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me (I'm the problem, it's me)

Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift

I'm not a "Swifty" but I do like some of her songs.

This year has been one of the hardest - emotionally and physically - of my adult life. Probably in the top five along with 1997, 1999-2000, 2007-2008. Not that there haven't been rough years since then, especially that weird covid era 2020-2022, but those weren't quite as traumatic to me as this year. 

Much of the pain has been deeply private and unshareable which is part of what makes it so horrible. I am the problem and I am that monster whose heart still beats despite being pierced and broken so many times. 

I just watched the new Netflix Frankenstein movie and the Monster's story really resonated with this whole thing of only wanting to be understood and loved despite being pieced together from discarded scraps, held together by scars, and unnaturally strong and resilient even when fatally wounded. The Monster only wanted companionship and love. His first experience of that was not from his creator but from an old blind man who taught him to read and learn. Then he had to see that first loving person die and be blamed for it, shot and left for dead. But the Monster didn't die. He discovered grief. Then his greatest love who wanted to be his companion gave her life to protect his. This time his grief grew into vengeance and a deep longing for his own death to escape his heartbreak. Eventually he got his revenge and decided to take refuge in the vast empty arctic, as far from people as possible because what else would a monster who is really an anti-hero do? They tried to kill him so many times.   

Maybe most of us have our anti-hero moments. I think I have had a few. I have this Frankenstein arm held together with screws and string. I also have a heart that seems to keep beating no matter how many times it is pierced.

Another monster-turned-anti-hero I feel some affinity with is Darth Vader. This sling I have to wear while my shoulder heals looks a little like something he would wear. Of course his whole body was kept alive by his armored suit and helmet. As much as I might wish I could use The Force to throw my enemies into the abyss I can only take solar radiation to energize and heal and use the wind to carry my wishes and hopes. Rudimentary Force use I suppose lol. I really don't seek revenge or retribution against anyone. I think the universe will take care of that without too much of my effort. Even those who have used me and broken my heart will have God to contend with and not me because like Frankenstein I've retreated for all of our protection.  

Like a wounded dragon I've withdrawn to my lair. Taking refuge. Resting, recuperating. Attended to by only my most trusted allies. Regaining my strength, occasionally breathing some fire and blowing out smoke to signal my presence against intrusion. As part of my healing I feel like I've unwound and detached a parasitic worm from my heart, leaving holes and tears that will be filled and repaired by God's love. I hope that I can clear any poisons that might still circulate through my system. 

Being physically injured and vulnerable puts me in a very self-protective position, and it has shown me who are my true friends, the ones who actually care and are willing to help me even when it's inconvenient. I've noticed and noted the absences. Yes, it's true - love means not keeping score, but Jesus also told us not to cast pearls before swine. It seems I've wasted a fair fortune of pearls on the false hopes that they were going to love. 

I usually try to be goodness and light, but there is a monster inside. We all have that potential. There is a lot of power waiting to be released, but I think I will be the anti-hero and keep it to myself for my own healing, and by doing so spare those who might deserve it some measure of destruction and pain. There has been enough pain. Whatever hollow and temporary victories others might feel from my suffering and misfortune will fade as quick as my next breath. If my pearls were traded as bargaining chips for some brief moment of imaginary peace then let them be crushed into a glittering dust that chokes and sticks.

As Aragorn said in The Return of the King, 

"What you love is but a shadow and a thought."     

Left-handed Path

In spiritual terms the left-hand path is concerned with self-determination and control of outcomes for one's own benefit. It's not necessarily negative, though sometimes people will make it that way. It's considered more morally neutral. There have been times in my life when I leaned toward that path. It is not related to political leftism except that many self-proclaimed leftists are actually very selfish despite claiming to be concerned for the "collective." 

At this time my left-handed path is literal since my right arm is confined to this sling due to the rotator cuff repair on my right shoulder. Typing this with one hand is slow and tedious, but I'm actually getting pretty good at eating and other daily activities with my non-dominant hand. But it's tiring and time-consuming. Everything takes longer. Some things I just cannot do.

I'm having a bad day today. (started writing this on 11-13 but didn't finish until 11-17) Yesterday was great though - felt very energized and I think that was because the November 11 auroras energized me like they did last year. 

This was the third time in about a year and a half that the Northern Lights reached far south enough for us to see them. There were very faint Lights again last night, but nothing spectacular.

Anyway, some conversations Wednesday night left me feeling like my life is built on a house of cards and that several people are wanting to pull theirs out which would make mine collapse. I'm too old and tired to think about that stuff, especially in my current condition which is already struggling with one-handedness. Considering that, it's natural for my thinking to move towards self preservation even if it's uncomfortable to feel like others might feel challenged by my setting boundaries and stating my position. 

There is a lot of giving on my side and that is how I like it, but it's also important to feel appreciated without having to present an inventory of that giving. I don't like feeling like I am holding things over others' heads but I also need to defend my own self and encourage people to recognize what they are getting and how it would affect them to no longer have that. This might sound like narcissistic manipulation according to so much of today's popular psychobabble, but in the same breath those babblers speak of protecting boundaries. Well, as I've discussed in previous posts about negotiations, everything is multi-sided and one side isn't always the "bad guy." Anyway, we all need to have more discussions about these issues instead of making assumptions and hurting our own feelings.

The physical therapy on my shoulder is getting more challenging as more healing time passes. It will be three weeks tomorrow since my surgery. I fear the pain of increased movement because it can mean that it is causing some damage to the repairs, but it's also somewhat expected to have discomfort. It would be nice to know exactly what that threshold is before it's crossed. There also the concern of being overprotective of my shoulder and that causing it to become too stiff and immobile. Currently it still doesn't have the strength and range of motion for me to drive so that's another frustration. 

I had thought that the energetic charge I felt from the auroras had passed quickly last week but over the weekend I felt it again - just a recharged feeling. Perhaps some little extra boost for healing. Maybe this sounds very hokey but I don't really care how it sounds because I've lived long enough to know that some experiences are real even if they sound "unscientific." To the left-handed path what is presented as science is often the most popular current opinions of the collective that aren't actually based on evidence but are confused as fact because more people believe it. The left-handed view says that consensus isn't proof in itself - it is only groupthink. This not to say that there isn't a lot of bunk on all sides all around. But my feeling that massive solar energy striking the planet can cause us to feel something different has been backed up by three seperate experiences. The left hand receives and the right hand gives according to some spiritual practices. Hocum Pocum Abracadabra LOL

Okay I think I'm losing the plot as they say. This is mostly my one-handed attempt to document the current life, as it is.      

   

Fear Not?

I've been fretting over my impending confinement (long, painful recovery from shoulder surgery). It's like I've got a couple of weeks of freedom until I have to go away to some kind of prison or even torture camp. That sounds dramatic but that's how I'm feeling. 

Psalm 55:5 Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me.

Psalm 55:22 Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

Not sure if I'm really righteous, but I'm trying. One of the hardest things for me is to be helpless and completely dependent upon others. I know I'm supposed to trust my loved ones to take care of me and I'm supposed to trust that God will take care of all of us. Sometimes we get in a dark place and need more than we are comfortable asking for. I'm trying to release my need for control. It's really just an illusion anyway. 

Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Whatever people might believe or not I just really need uplifting thoughts and energies sent my way. I'm sending this out into the Universe, Heaven, Earth, 3I Atlas, and all the other comets in the solar system right now. Maybe it will land where it's supposed to. 

I think I'll listen to one of my favorite childhood songs that helped me overcome anxiety. My great Aunt Mildred played it for me before a skating competition when I was 10 or 11. She was a Light in the world and I wish I had appreciated her more before it was too late.

Where it began
I can't begin to know when
But then I know it's growin' strong
Was in the spring
And spring became the summer
Who'd have believe you'd come along?

Hands
Touchin' hands
Reachin' out
Touching me, touchin' you

Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I've been inclined
To believe they never would

But now I look at the night
And it don't seem so lonely
We fill it up with only two
And when I hurt
Hurtin' runs off my shoulders
How can I hurt when holdin' you?

Warm
Touchin' warm
Reachin' out
Touchin' me, touchin' you

Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I've been inclined
To believe they never would, oh, no, no

Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
Sweet Caroline
I believe they never could
Sweet Caroline

"Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond

A Multitude of Sins

That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight, losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no, I've said too much
I haven't said enough

Losing My Religion by REM

Continuing with some Bible study the next chapter I've been meditating on is James 5. The beginning of the chapter is a spiritual warning to the wealthy oppressors who have exploited everyone so that they could live lavishly. Many people today seem to believe that is a modern problem but it has existed from the beginning of civilization. Then James 5 goes on to encourage people to be patient and kind with each other through their suffering because the time of judgment will come:

7 Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. 9 Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!

Believers are then called to gather in prayer in order to share blessings, sorrows, and other concerns so that the power of prayer can heal them:

13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

We are told to confess our sins to one another so that we can be healed and forgiven. That is hard for me because I want to hide my shame and don't want others to think less of me. Sometimes spiritual obedience has been a sore spot for me. While I'm usually a pretty good rule follower and try to do the right and correct things most of the time I am not perfect and give into tempting thoughts. I don't like to admit that.    

Every whisper, of every waking hour
I'm choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
Like a hurt, lost and blinded fool, fool
Oh no, I've said too much
I set it up
Consider this, consider this
The hint of the century
Consider this, the slip
That brought me to my knees, failed
What if all these fantasies come flailing around?
Now I've said too much

Losing My Religion by REM

In my mind I have committed a multitude of sins and I find myself choosing my confessions as if any are less sinful. The Ten Commandments are mostly about actions we should and should not do to be free of sin, but that last one about coveting covers all the sins of thought. And really, coveting seems like the motivation of most of the other action sins (murder, theft, adultery, lying, idolatry). When we want what isn't ours we are tempted to do those things to have our way. 

Choosing my confessions. Well, maybe I'm not ready to reveal my worst even with the promise of forgiveness and healing. The hint of the century, the slip that brings me to my knees. Lord, help me, I'm not lost but I am longing for a path that isn't mine.

19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Oh no, I've said too much
I haven't said enough

   

Ecclesiastes 3

This chapter is so incredibly deep and profound. We humans think we are so all-powerful and all-knowing because of being made in His image, but we are in this temporary in-carn-ation of fragile flesh. Nothing is eternal and indestructible like God. 

The verse that has consumed my mind is 11: He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 

The particular phrase that really sears in my thoughts is "set eternity in the human heart" and I think that is the definition of love. It is God's love and the kind of love we are supposed to share with each other - timeless, eternal, and all the things of laid out in 1 Corinthians 13. We can't fully comprehend it but that does not mean it is diminished or not real. "No one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

(Today I am feeling really very sad. Feeling hurt, excluded, forgotten. I need to shore up a couple of my Four Agreements mantras: "don't take anything personally" and "don't make assumptions." It's hard sometimes to let go of feelings -good and bad, but I know there is a time for everything and that everything that is has been before and will be again. God is testing me and I'm failing. I'm just a stupid animal, dust to dust.)       

A Time for Everything

3 There is a time for everything,

    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2  a time to be born and a time to die,

    a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3  a time to kill and a time to heal,

    a time to tear down and a time to build,

4  a time to weep and a time to laugh,

    a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5  a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6  a time to search and a time to give up,

    a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7  a time to tear and a time to mend,

    a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8  a time to love and a time to hate,

    a time for war and a time for peace.

9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

15 Whatever is has already been,

    and what will be has been before;

    and God will call the past to account.

16 And I saw something else under the sun:

    In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,

    in the place of justice—wickedness was there.

17 I said to myself,

    “God will bring into judgment

    both the righteous and the wicked,

    for there will be a time for every activity,

    a time to judge every deed.”

18 I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 

20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

TURN! TURN! TURN! (Lyrics) - THE BYRDS

Not Karma, Just Aging

Turns out that my current shoulder troubles are not actually related to my youthful blunder. Apparently I have a 3-4 cm tear in my rotator cuff likely because of a bone spur rubbing it. The doctor say he didn't think it was because of the break in 1999. So I can let that stop being a source of self censure. 

I'm sure that the tearing is due to the increased physical activity of the last year. I probably overdid a lot because I had so much energy. Lots of heavy lifting, reaching, carrying, and exercise probably caused all the rubbing and tearing. The spirit's willing but the body can't keep up.

So let's just add shoulder surgery to this year's list of hard things. It's scheduled for the last week of October. Three months of recovery. Ouch.  

Be Still and Know

Psalm 46 has been on my mind a lot for a while. It does help to stop in the midst of life's chaos to just be in the moment, observing and sensing and existing without judgment or analysis but with gratitude and reverence. Whether it's God or Nature or whatever bigger thing one feels connected to it is calming to acknowledge and appreciate it. 

That being said, this week has been a doozy with the political assassination of Charlie Kirk. I didn't necessarily agree 100% with him but in general yes, we were of similar minds. He was so young and still being formed. His harder edges would have softened with time and life experience but that was stolen from him by an even younger man, deranged by social lies and propaganda meant to cause exactly what he did and whose life is now ruined as well as those of his parents. The Left has demonized the Right and has convinced too many young people that their families and neighbors who are conservative are dangerous fascists and need to be stopped at whatever cost. Well, Lefties, you are the real fascists. And the hatred that is the source of all your momentum is imploding upon you as the Right mourns the loss of a man who only wanted to have conversations. Gosh, someone else a couple thousand years ago was also killed for just talking to people. Not that Kirk was a savior but he was a martyr for the same cause. And instead of burning down cities, as the Left does when they are upset, we are praying for peace and giving each other solace. We are not the same as the Left. We know how to be still. 

Those who continue to blame the guns for the violence they encourage are engaging in idolatry - giving power to objects. It's not the guns. It's the people. And those who throw the bodies of dead children at us as ammunition against gun rights are the worst kinds of hypocrites. They don't actually care about those children. They are only using their deaths as props for their twisted arguments and to try to hurt those that don't conform to their twisted views. They don't really care about children when they are trying to justify and celebrate the death of a father. Two very young children had to witness their father's neck exploding from a bullet. Yeah, now tell me how much they care about kids.

Our country doesn't have a gun problem. (https://viciousmomma.blogspot.com/2018/10/happiness-is-warm-gun.html)  It has a mental health crisis. The 50 year experiment of closing down mental hospitals is clearly a huge failure. Mental health has always been the last area of concern for society, but it has become so obvious that what has been done is not working to help the ill nor keep the community safe from the unhinged. There are mental illnesses that are encouraged and promoted as protected identities. Doctors are taught to push pills for every complaint in the attempt to subdue, but that's just been more experimentation with negative unforeseen consequences. Prisons and the streets are full of people whose mental health needs haven't been met. And the mentally unstable are especially susceptible to nonstop manipulative media and propaganda that feeds their delusions and paranoia. I don't have all the answers, but first we have to identify the problems and that's what I'm trying to do.

Kirk's assassination was The Turning Point. It's very clear and obvious the difference between the Left and Right, their reactions to this event, and the strong consequences the Left is seeing for their hateful statements and reactions to his killing. Many eyes have been opened and they are making changes to their affiliations. This feels somewhat Biblical. I guess we will see how things unfold from here. Be still and know. 

On a kind of side note I am getting some feelings about this mysterious Comet 3I Atlas that is speeding into our inner solar system from the very far unknown. People are speculating that it's some kind of extraterrestrial alien technology or craft. Maybe it is. There are some valid concerns about its nature and highly unlikely trajectory. But it's more likely that it is just a very rare thing that just happens to be coming at a time when it could be seen as a big sign or harbinger. Comets have always been seen as harbingers of doom or big changes, and actually in my life the times that comets have been visible there have been significant life events, deaths, illnesses, and changes that soon follow. My primary thoughts on this one is that as it passes closer to the sun it will leave debris in the Earth's path that will have big consequences for us - either destructive impacts, new chemical compounds or elements, or even microbial seeds of change. Maybe it's some alien bioforming to make our planet more suitable for their invasion? Maybe it's a gift for further evolution of our own technology and state of being? Maybe it's Jesus's ride for His return? Well, I can't help but let my imagination consider all the possibilities, even the outlandish and highly unlikely. We all like to have our conspiracy theories sometimes. I am watching for news about it anyway and my ideas will adjust to new information. If nothing else I do hope that it will have a beautiful visible tail. Last year's Comet Atlas was quite spectacular and it did portend this year's impressive traumas.

Psalm 46

1 God is our refuge and strength,

    an ever-present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

3 though its waters roar and foam

    and the mountains quake with their surging.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

    the holy place where the Most High dwells.

5 God is within her, she will not fall;

    God will help her at break of day.

6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;

    he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

7 The Lord Almighty is with us;

    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

8 Come and see what the Lord has done,

    the desolations he has brought on the earth.

9 He makes wars cease

    to the ends of the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;

    he burns the shields with fire.

10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;

    I will be exalted among the nations,

    I will be exalted in the earth.”

11 The Lord Almighty is with us;

    the God of Jacob is our fortress.