There's a Chinese proverb which declares "The best memory is not as good as pale ink." That was penned by a writer or artist who 'froze time' so that a previous moment could be perserved as it was. It's been nearly nine years of chronciling my life. Nearly nine years of savored bits. I celebrate each one. It is the mind of the writer which collects these bits. I do not live for 'the record'. But this record serves as a scrapbook of hoarded moments. The words and images cue my memory. It all comes back to memory.

This Spanish filmmaker said it so well:

"You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing."
Luis Buñuel (1900–1983), My Last Sigh, ch. 1 (1983)

And so I savor these hoarded memory-aids, this record of my path.

We went to Mandarin Palace afterwards. I tried to remember to just take A TINY BIT of each thing that appealed, and I did okay. I didn't have a huge pile of leftovers I couldn't eat. It's funny, I eat less at buffets than I do with what they serve as 'normal' portions. Nearly always, I have stuff to take home.

My fortune cookie made me laugh:

"Enthusiastic leadership gets you a promotion when you least expect it."

There's only one problem: I'm always expecting it!

Meanwhile, there's plenty to occupy my mind. There are fascinating conversations going on via the web, which is always intriguing. A show on meteors engaged Julia's mind, and I enjoyed what I could catch of it, while I was busy with other things. I stopped while they showed the meteors at NYC's Museum of Natural History, remembering being in those rooms and touching those gigantic rocks from the heavens, feeling their hard cold surfaces. Many centuries ago, they were not so cold as they were hurled across the sky.

Also, I felt in the mood for some intuitive explorations via the 'automatic drawing', and came up with another of my quirky drawings:

But I can't say I'm TOO surprised, for no doubt this picture was influenced by my recent stay at the Luxor pyramid. That was quite a surprising place, indeed!

I had an interesting exploration with this weeks 52 Figments question:

2.5.06 :: [Part One] What does heaven mean to you?

I first tried words. Then I tried an automatic drawing, while I kept my frame of mind geared to 'heaven'. Then I tried to explain rationally the image I obtained intuitively.

THEN to meet the gallery display requirements, I had to condense all that to fit a 499x361 pixel space! It was a challenge to get the gist of all the verbal explorations to 'small poem size', but I'm happy with the results.

Original uncolored drawing underneath...

'The trip that I didn't know I needed to take', that's what this was. I wasn't even excited about it. I'd looked up the museums in Phoenix, read the schedule of events at the Mensa gathering, and felt 'ho-hum'. However, pretty early on, I got the idea this trip is what I really needed.

The visit to the Phoenix Art Museum touched places of an old memory. As Julia and I looked at the tiny, but exquisitly detailed, Thorne minature rooms, I remembered the time Laura took me to see these rooms twenty years ago. A different 'me' saw those rooms, for this time I was more attentive to all the details, AND I had a camera, which is good for perserving just some of the more well lighted effects, as well as some unusual mirrored effects:

If I hadn't told you, you would think this was an actual life size room.

This looks like a 'breakdown of the holodeck illusion' on Star Trek.

This, however, looks rather dreamlike, two worlds meeting in an appealing way.

Andrea Della Robbia made this in 1490, called 'The Aged Apostle'

This re-inforces something I read earlier this week about the inability to know all the results of our magical intentions. 'Intent', I think it all begins with the INTENT. I can bog down, for instance, in analysis of all my communication, when what I really need to be looking at is my intentions. For I must be aware, what is my intention, and this takes a fully involved consciousness. This is operating from what Gurdjieff called the fourth level of consciousness. Otherwise, I will sleepily let some routine and rote aspect of self (note small 's') run the show, with less than favorable results.

But when I'm fully engaged, Self (note large 'S', indicating the Essence) is in control, then I will be aware of all the interlocking influences.

The intent will inform every aspect of my being which is relating to myself and the world around me. The water studies! (Paraphrasing)"If a drop of water can be so influenced (to make 'pretty patterns') by the power of a word-thought, when then can our thoughts have upon ourselves, whose bodies are mostly water?" The main character in the show stops her self hating accusative words and begins to embrace herself with love.

Truly, as Don Webb said in his "Essential Guide...", "Emotions follow thoughts," and this movie shows just how, the mechanics of it. It really is in our power to change our lives by changing our thoughts. Both Julia and I emerged from this film happy and hopeful for the future.

Maybe in your world, things are. But here in the United States, with a thing called 'factory farming', things are not so simple as that. All the words of vegetarians have not moved me to quit the meat. But when I went to the fair yesterday, I had a good awakening. Words of passionate reasoning have not moved me. But when I saw the pigs yesterday, this has made me think. Several were peaceful in their slumber. One enjoying his slumber had a genuine, bonified GRIN on his face, he was having happy dreams, and the one responding to Julia's hands, oh, that got me thinking, there is some intelligence and personality going on in those beasties.

I did not get a picture of the one that was up close to me, grinning big, for my disk was all full, but I did get a picture of one farther back in his stall. Even so, I can see a bit of a smile:

This is the life of the sows who are pregnant 20 times a year!
(picture credit Farm Sanctuary)

I don't think I will be buying any more pork.

But alas, I don't. The letter advised that perhaps other tests I've taken in the past might possess validating scores. However, for the ACT test I took back in 1975, the qualifying score is a whopping 29. I only received a 24. My math scores must really suck.

I was feeling oh so sorrowful over this, oh, I do not want to admit just how sorrowful, when the phone rang. It quit before I could answer it. I looked at the caller ID, and a strange message appeared: DATA ERROR. Call me superstitious if you want, but I'm going to take that as a message. I'm going to take that as saying there's 'error' to this data. The tests cannot measure all aspects of one's cognitive skills. The tests certainly cannot measure success in life, regarding what one does with one's cognitive and other skills. I shall keep plugging along with my rather unique, although not Mensa quality, brain.

"F" - Friendship: If we have friends, we are apt to be happier. "I" - Independence: If we are independent, we will use our own judgement and resources to decide things. "S" - Self Love: If we do not have this, we are lacking the very basics, for without this, very little is possible. "H" - Honesty: To be trapped by a web of one's own lies is a sure path to misery.

I thought whatever he would tell us probably wouldn't be much different than that. However, I was surprised to find it was. This is from the copy and paste of the email he sent out to listeners on his mailing list:

"FISHING FOR HAPPINESS - 12p Can eating fish make you a nicer person? A seafood-rich diet has long been shown to ward off depression. Now research shows that people who dine on fish are not only happier, but they tend to have more pleasant personalities than people who don't eat seafood, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. People who don't eat much fish are more likely to report symptoms of depression and a negative outlook on life. Source: Psychology Today, 6/06

Of course there are things to be concerned about, to not eat the mercury tainted albacore, or to eat the more endangered varieties. (Farm caught is better than wild caught.) But, yes, a certain amount of fish is a good source of protein and other nutrients. Vegans may disagree, and have real challenges to get enough protein from just beans, nuts and other vegetable sources. Meanwhile, fish is definitely on my menu.

With great amusement, I read this morning of another recipe for happiness, from 4500 BC, by Ptahotep, via the High Hopes Gardeners:

Be a scribe! Your body will be sleek, your hand will be soft. You are the one who sits grandly in your house; your servants answer speedily; beer is poured copiously; all who see you rejoice in good cheer. Happy is the heart of him who writes; he is young each day.

I could do worse than to be a fish eating writer who values Friendship, Independence, Self Love and Honesty!

He declares on page 12:

"Man is nothing but a project. His consciousness itself is a project. To exist is to ex_sistere, to project (to hurl oneself forward)."

This reminds me of the process of Xeper, and the Xepera Xeper Xeperu formula:
"I have come into being, and by the process of coming into being, the process of coming into being is established". There is a sense of 'hurling oneself forward' in this process.

This 'hurling oneself forward' brings to mind a consciousness of time, of this process happening in time. He answers those who say pagans go back to the past and mentally live there:

"In fact, it is not a question of going back to the past, but of connecting with it---and also, by that very fact, in a spherical conception of history, to connect to the eternal and cause it to surge back, to have consonance in life..." (page 12)

He says how this connecting with the past allows humankind "to escape time." (page 12)

I think this means if we don't understand all the interlocking influences, how this time now came to be, then we are a slave of 'this age', this fashion. We don't understand the cyclical nature of things, for instance, how civilizations rise and fall. I used to wonder what the mind set of an immmortal vampire (ala Anne Rice) would be. They would have seen many fashions, many wars, many empires come and go. Just getting this mind frame allows us a piece of that 'immortality'. We are not trapped by this present age. We can remember the past, and imagine the future, all while being immersed in the NOW.

And that is about all my mind can chew until next time. Like I said before, if I read just four pages a day, in 50 days, I'll have this book read.

I am Sufficient I am ever the unfolding, ever reaching out and expanding, I bring to earth the fire, I light the candles, I fan the hidden flames, I name the Gods and they hear me. I speak necessary and secret truths I walk where no one else walks. I pick flowers on that awful trail and study them, photograph them, catalog them and then make them into art. I am the wanderer. I do not know where I will be. But I know I will take that sketchbook with me. I will keep scribbling until the life is no longer in this body. I will keep struggling. I will not give up. I will toil alone. I will toil with the many mysterious messages that I ferret out of the great pool of the life-supporting essence which bathes us all. I will toil and hold these results dear to me and then I will release them I am the magician who does that. I am favored of Set. I favor myself. Maybe there is no names for me. I name myself. I am 'Illuminaria', I light my path with that hidden flame. I can feel it, that's all that matters. I carry this flame lightly. I carry this flame solemnly. I carry this flame joyfully. It is mine, and no one can take it away. Set will have the hide of the one who tries. Today is my day. This is my life, unfolding. I will not grow weary on the path, not such that resting spots along the way will not mend. I am Joan, I am Illuminaria, and I am sufficient. JAL, 6 -18 -06

I am answering in my mind someone who wouldn't like this poem:

"That sounds so boastful. How are you sure you won't 'get weary'?" No, truthfully, I can't say I'm sure that won't happen. It happens to people all the time. Of course I hope I will avoid that fate. This is a statement of my 'state of being' right now. I need to know my own strength, that I *am* sufficient. That's all.

What am I thinking about RIGHT NOW? Sufficiency. Hunger. Balance. Never to become so satisfied that I stagnate. Never to hunger so much that the ache drives me mad. Knowing the Balance between these two.

After I typed those words, I then picked up the pen and this drawing resulted. (In case you didn't see it, notice her dress's collar, like a measuring gauge between 'empty' and 'full'.) I am not talking about a physical state of 'emptiness' or 'fullness', but a spiritual one, in terms of motivating drives. Perhaps the picture has an eloquence that my words don't, in capturing what I was thinking about 'right then'. There's a sense of sadness at feeling 'insufficient' and 'fumbling'. Notice how she fumbles with her stirring spoon. So I don't always know how to manage the right 'recipe'. Feeling 'insufficient' at times is part of life, so long as we don't dwell there. As I ended my previous entry here, "I need to know my own strength, that I *am* sufficient," yes, I do. If I don't, then a sense of 'insufficency' makes me ache with hunger. There's that Pink song, "I don't want to be myself, I want to be someone else." That's not good. We can't really BE anyone else, outside of a miserable imitation. I want to be the best ME that I can be. A sense of balance comes again. I grab the stirring spoon, and will manage something.

I am indeed a 'memory hoarder'

If you have read this far, blessings on your own path and may your memories be rich and treasured!