January 16, 2004
"The Pace Will Soon Pick Up"
6:07am
It is Friday. I can't imagine what we will do for amusement this three day weekend. I must say, with no ability to really taste food, we've saved a bundle on restaurant trips lately. Sunday, we went to Quiznos Subs for steak sandwiches. Any more upscale, and that's money gone to waste.
With so little creative imput, I have to look in the mirror to see if I'm alive. Well it's almost that bad. I did rearrange my Vampiric Visions section, removing some really crappy articles and sorting the rest. One should always strive for the most elegant display. And those rambling, nearly incoherant . . .
. . . well, they served their purpose at that time. One story almost made the bit bucket, but it's quite engaging until the sorry end. I leave it there with hopes that poor Jasmine will find a way to defeat the evil power mongering despots there in her kingdom.
Perhaps such things are simpler in fiction than in real life. But we like to imagine we are giving these matters a good try, for whatever good the imagination. Reality is where all the meanderings of imagination bear fruit. Look there to find the ripe and plump, or shriveled and dead.
Well, that is all the philosophy I can muster for today. To . . .
. . . my thought has been broken abruptly here by a reminder that there wasn't enough memory to type any further. Now that a new journal section has been established in a new page, I can't recall what it was I was going to say. Well, that's just the way of the 'willed conscious evolution'. Sometimes the changes come in torrents of enlivening enlightment, and some times it's just the slow plodding of effort to keep going forward. I think perhaps the pace will soon pick up.
I shall direct my Will in that effort, at any rate.
Giving the wheel of Xeper a good swift kick?
I think of the sophisticated balance of one of the ancients, who said:
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Nothing human is alien to me.
Terence (d. 159BCE, |
There is no need to have fright, sorrow or embarrassment over the thoughts, emotions and vain wishes that come over us. It is all part of the human experience. When we can put these things into their proper perspective, wisdom comes and imparts her gentleness. Though I give you fair warning, at first we might find ourselves over the rack and stretched!
Only in retrospect, we can find amusement.
While hunting for the above quote, another appeared in the list of possibilities for my search:
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Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
Perhaps the two most relevant dictionary definitions of 'sacred' are 'entitled to reverence and respect' and 'highly valued and important'. Respect which is extended to the strength of reverence only deserves to be given to our minds. Not other persons, not other institutions, no matter how otherwise worthy, nothing written by other humans, no matter how 'divinely inspired', only that space within our own heads is sacrosanct.
Should we fail to see this, a certain diminishing of ourselves will result. This diminishing can also have a distorting effect, as when we find ourselves 'over the rack and stretched'. The only solution is to realize WE have put ourselves there, and it is well reachable by our own hands the button which turns off that dam stretching machine, thereby releasing us back to our proper proportions.
I am glad to be all of a proper proportion this morning, calm and of clear heart. But, oh, the processes we go through! It's all part of the learning, it is. It's all part of the fully aware human experience. One can, if one chooses, elect NOT to be 'fully aware', and many be the penalties for that. I would rather the full life, rich in both tears and laughter. To be fully aware is to be fully ALIVE.
Some tears are unavoidable in this process.
January 20, 2004
"Sick Of Coughing"
9:09pm
I begin:
And she answers
I am so weary of this blowing and snotting and coughing up phlegm and . . .
sorry all I'm sharing with you today is nothin' but complaints!
Perhaps soon, I'll have something better. Oh! I got my picture finally hung up. It is occupying the space above my sacred place which the jewelry chest used to be, which is also occupied by the star tossing picture below it. There are quite a few additions and some more to come, which I've ordered. I will take pictures when all are in place.
Stay well, all of you!
Cough, Cough!
Cough, Cough!
January 21, 2004
"Sweet With The Bitter"
6:02am
The 'cosmic forecast' predicts SIMPLE PLEASURES BRING GREAT ENJOYMENT, (Saturn trine Venus) Laura would say, ''Are you STILL reading those silly things?'' I would answer, ''Yes, it amuses me!'' And 'simple pleasures' are good to enjoy any day.
Today, I will leave off the deep thought to enjoy such things as good music. The gentle circular meanderings of a harp repeat a chord pattern, while a soft alto sings:
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In my dreams we still return to summer fields where our love burned, in clover green where we once lay lay. Those were, my love, the brightest days. |
So starts Laura Powers album. Julia was moved to get this album purely on the basis of her name. And indeed, the songs makes me remember the LAURA powers!
A year and a half after Laura's death, tears still fill my eyes easily. But now there is a bit more of the sweet mixed with the bitter. Perhaps it is the hard lessons of 'Saturn' mixed with the sweetness of the beautiful lovely 'Venusian' aspects.
Oh, the pain of the rack! Transformation is not always easy. Hard the lessons those who wish to evolve must learn! Death is real, hard cold real. Love is real, bright radiant real. Tears mix pain and pleasure, that I have known such love is a blessing.
Many a wanderer never finds such love! That I keep it and tell its tales is a blessing. It shall not die, I shout to the heavens and to the depths.
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"Stars fade like memory the instant before dawn. Low in the east the sun appears, golden as an opening eye. That which can be named must exist. That which is named can be written. That which is written shall be remembered. That which is remembered lives . . ." - from the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. |
And thus it is so. I pray only that my voice get stronger as the years go by. The meaning we bring to life is not false. WE BRING IT, and it is not false.
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And I long for, how I long for The sweetness we have known And I long for, how I long for The wind that brings you home.
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So this young singer sings. Has she known of death? As in Morrigan's Quest, I align myself with the 'black raven queen of night', 'her quest, her destiny to set her people free', sending my will's aim 'swift as an arrow speeds'.
We will not be forgotten!
Sappho's words come to me:
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You may forget but
Let me tell you
From SAPPHO, a translation by Mary Barnard, |
Aye, Sappho has not been forgotten! To you in the future, reading this, I send my sure greetings. Know well the worth we can bring to life!
Ah, my reverie is complete this morning.
January 22, 2004 A
"Rather Tepid, With A Tiny Bit Of Bitter"
6:21am
Is there anything lurking deep which wants out? I give an ear to the inner parts and do I hear the faintest of whisper? I just hear Julia rustling in the shelves, looking for something. All mundane this morning.
Ah well, I did not have much sleep. I napped from 6:30pm to 8:30pm, got up, was awake from then until 2:30am, until that darned alarm clock woke me up. But I was so busy on the discussion lists. I had to visit them all, you know, to make sure not a one was missed. Mysteriously, some of my groups disappeared off my Yahwho groups page. Only the two main ones I visit constantly were there. Strangely, I do not mind a bit. With the new ones, located elsewhere in another format, I have plenty to discuss with intelligent folks. Mostly intelligent folks, at any rate. One iconoclast on one of the forums might be intelligent, but is also brimming with negativity.
Or he likes to give the appearance of such. He spoke of an organisation we were discussing that they were 'full of shit' and just 'another example of a bunch of nobodies who want to be somebodies.'
To which I replied:
Easy to be the voice of negativity in a sea of complacency.
And then there are all those somebodies who wish to be nobodies....
Why I think this is worthy of preservation, may be I just like my own words there. You're only 'somebody' if you think you're 'somebody'. You're only 'nobody' if you think you're 'nobody'.
People can spend lots of money on analysis to learn that.
Shake them up, the sleeping mortals?
May they wake before their candle is extinquished!
Let the buyer beware. Words and deeds have their own price...
You take your pick and you choose.
January 22, 2004 B
"If I Discipline Myself"
10:56pm
After consuming a piece of tiramisu, two raspberry rugalas and the remainder of this morning's tea I went to bed around 5:30pm. I am determined to get at least eight hours of sleep tonight. I might try for the gold and get a perfect ten. I will need to quit the computer at midnight to do so.
Strange helicopters have been circling our skies for a couple days now. There were a half dozen of them, going round and round. For two evenings, as I pass Kiwanis Park, parallel to Eighth Street, Marines have been stationed there. Several were standing near dark greenish black trucks, rifles in hard, very alert and at the ready. Tuesday evening, one of those helicopters circling above came to land so close to where I was waiting at the stop light. They are huge black birds which kick up a whole lot of dirt and leaves as they swoop down for a landing.
They don't need a long run way to land, they can just swoop down like a bird. The first night we saw this, I thought perhaps they were helping to capture a criminal like a terrorist. So I found a local TV station which was broadcasting a local news program. It is the temporary Desert Talon Marines who are here for a short while training on techniques before they head off to Iraq.
This evening when I saw them, I felt much relieved to know this.
It is now 12:25am. I have skimmed a bit of the forums replies. In following a link given in one, I have ended up at an occult art gallery. Particularily interesting are the works of Nema, who did a series of tarot cards. I wonder how these subtle seeds might plant themselves in my deep under brain to surface sometime as something imaginative and vital.
Oh! Inspiration is everywhere! Perhaps other answers I seek shall manifest themselves as well.
And now if I discipline myself and turn off the computer, I can get the sleep I so badly crave. If I discipline myself, keeping an attentive inner ear always open, inspiration will come in those other matters, as well.
You might see some 'real' art from me, yet!
It is now 2:10 am, and I've had a bit of inspiration, No Better Deal Elsewhere
If I go to bed now, I can still get eight hours of sleep.
January 24, 2004
"Memory Of An Omelet"
12:52pm
Julia's creation . . .
In among the eggs were mixed sweet red bell peppers, a fairly mild dark green type of pepper used in making chile rellenos, muenster cheese and fresh chunks of avocado. It was so yummy!
Not only this treat, we have been enjoying all kinds of gourmet food lately. It was so much fun watching Julia fight with and eventually conquer a crab leg at River City Grill last night. She twisted it this way and that. She mangled it, she tortured it, but she got that crab meat out! And, No!, it doesn't taste anything like that imitation crab stuff. I had hummus, nicely garlicky, with pita triangles, spinach salad, and those lovely ravioli rounds with the generous sauces, and the creme brule dessert we shared, yes, yummy all.
Luxurious moments, now luxurious memories.
It is good to be alive.
January 25, 2004
"Planning For Retirement"
6:07am
In time to come, all these days will be the remembering, when I am old and thin. Maybe I will be old, thin of other means, if not the physical. But always I am planning for that day, to be able to bring to THOSE days all the power I can muster. I think it is my savings in the bank for those days.
For I envision myself eighty five and unbowed of spirit. What I might say of future physical back, I cannot not tell. Bowed it may be then, but never the spirit. I lay those bricks now for that future, that my voice might be secure.
For we cannot see ahead, except in determination. And then only a planning, a hoping. But without the planning and hoping, then it is only random what happens. And I am not ever one to let the 'willed conscious evolution' turn random. Call it my genetic basis, heritage, that which is in me, my 'true will', my own 'orbit among the stars' . . .
This that is in me given to reverie, I cherish. I bring to life its value and any other individual can do the same. Your values will not be my values, they will be your values and hence sacred for You. Namaste! That which is divine in me salutes that which is divine in you. We are the gods of our own making.
I have begun this in the 'mundane' journal. It shall stay here, for seeds of mundane bleed into the other journal. I am all of a piece, I cannot easily chop here and there to make neat borders. Life is not tidy, nor am I.
Though I try, I try. There are some uncluttered corners of my house, and some uncluttered corners of my mind. I will sort them out to my leisure one fine day. When I am old, perhaps? These spaces and places shall be that memory box I wrote of so many years ago:
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Memory
aka Joan Horschler published in Bittersweet © 1985, CSS Publications |
Okay, nineteen years ago is not 'so many' years for me. But for those of you whom the span of nineteen years is but the entirety of your known life, that is 'so many' years. I grab at time furiously, I will not let it go and just slip through my fingers.
Have I a method to immortality that way? Yes, of a sorts. Perhaps all such urgings towards 'immortality' are 'of a sort'. One writer I've studied wrote:
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'Approach infinity through indefinition, not definition'. Michael Aquino, 'Beyond The Abyss' |
And, yes, this statement I do understand. It is by hazy wishes we approximate such mysteries. Maybe the dead come back and tell tales and maybe they don't. Meanwhile, we the living, we tell the tales that shall be immortalized in stone, in whatever medium of lasting record exists. The tales shall at least live.
That is planning for retirement, as best as I know how. Let others save pennies of copper. I save these tales.
