Short term memories are still memories

 

New Year’s Eve, 2024, Rock Row

     RS taught his web Work group an exercise called Roll Back the Day.  I like it so much that I hardly ever do it, yuck yuck.  

     

     I may not have its precise format, but one practices it at the end of the day as a sitting or meditation after collecting oneself through body sensing and breathing awareness.  Review backwards in time the events/impressions/observations of the day, possibly as if reenacting them briefly.  I think it’s ok to start at the morning and move to evening also.  

    

    This practice, in my experience, moves through memory and subconscious like dream work, perhaps exemplifying a form of Gurdjieff’s self-remembering.  It can certainly fix impressions in short term memory, providing food for pondering.

      I had intended to “Roll back” yesterday at this point, but it was very active, and I’m out of the energy required to continue today.

        Lord help me and all of us to manage our energy and ponder our time with each other and with you.  Thank you for our helpers and for strength to be helpers.  Bless all my webinar friends, whom I remember with love along with the friends and family I know in the flesh.  Grant us a happy new year.  Grant this world a happier new year.  IJN

Comforts of fortunate old age

 

March, ‘21, at a Windham farm

     So the first thought after the morning devoirs was, thank you, God, for warmth.  The sun shines deceptively, bestowing its energy on icy winds to announce their cold intentions in varied bursts and volumes.  I am grateful, Lord, for this small room with its cozy little gas stove and tinking electric bar heat— a noise I don’t love; for layers of sweaters, some gifted by sisters which raises warm memories of them; and especially for a small, soft warm dog curled asleep in my lap in his own little black t-shirt snug under his blue blankie.

      So why the peacock pic this am?  Not sure.  Was texting SB about bluebirds, which you will see on the other blog, when this guy popped up in old photos.   He certainly is a reminder of the beauty and color of Your creation, Lord, yet another material reminder to give thanks.  He’s also the common symbol of vanity, one of my own “personal best” weaknesses.  It, strangely, can afflict me with lack of generosity and fear of losing by giving.  “I’m keeping all those tail feathers for myself thank you very much.”  Lord, lead me out of my Scrooge syndrome, and forgive me my trespasses.

     Bless all those in need.  Bless my loved ones.  IJN

Food

A Christmas gift for A

SDW pic, Old Town Hunter’s Breakfast

       God, I am grateful for the food you require us to eat to live.  I am more than grateful for the flavors, abundance, and quality available to me and mine all my life.  So many of our memories, associations, impressions form around it all our lives. Nor can I fail to mention the sheer sensational pleasure food gives.  I acknowledge that we are rare in history, that many people and creatures have/do suffer hunger, privation even now.  I know this blessing, but not how it is bestowed on my tribe, Lord, so can only repeat my first learned childhood prayer:  “God is great, God is good, Let us thank Him for this food.”  

    And mean it. 

    You give us so many gifts.   I am thankful, Lord, for the simple, homely food preparation/cooking skills taught me and used to serve loved ones.  I am grateful for food industry workers whose skills serve me with taste, socializing, and relief from labors.  I thank You for my dear ones who bring me so much delight in Your First Being food.  God bless and prosper every one of them.

     I pray for help for folks who abuse food, especially overconsumption to the harm of the body, as I did so much of my life.

      Odd.  I hesitate to ask you to feed all those who hunger physically in the world today, even this single day, because….  I believe it to be an impossible task, one we should do for one another but do not do.  I do not do, relying on occasional charity checks or dollars passed to beggars standing in roadway intersections to assuage my conscience.  I dare not even ask Your forgiveness for me or my fellows.  Surely, here is a prime source of your sorrow, and all I do is think about it.  

    Perhaps a change is coming.  Wait on the Lord.

     

Joyful, joyful we adore Thee

 My Christmas gift is still fresh and fragrant.  And non fattening :)

 

    Lord, give me that old time religion, and thank you for it.  I attended Redeemer SB 8:00 am service despite a couple of obstacles including 6 degree temp (I’m virtue signaling).  Uplifting New music led by EH included lyrics set to Aulde Lang Syne that made it a song of worship. Pastor JM delivered a message/sermon from Matthew 2 on the three Magi that revealed aspects of the story I’ve not heard in my 73 years’ hearing it. He connected  perfectly to other Biblical passages, so I can only conclude and say, thankYou, Jesus, You obviously have a hand in this man’s ministry.  I left the service feeling the joy I knew at Welch Avenue FWB and the southern churches of my childhood.  Thank you, Lord.  There’s nothing quite like it, and I have missed it, I realize.

    I have also been pondering, not too deeply yet, as to a possible connection of that religious joy with stirring Hambledzoin and awareness of Astral body within a collective link to groups generally.  LvL in a Substack discussed those Work experiences extensively and convincingly, though certainly not applying them to non-Work groups.  That’s me.  I’d say I wish to tiggle his descriptions into live groups of folk  with no Work knowledge because they seem to be what I’m given late in life; all my Gurdjieff groups are, after all, “electromagnetic,” ie, on line.  I intuit that I’m attempting to verify the validity of that kind of non-physical spiritual association.  I also seek to parse the differences between the depth of sharing among participants in these different teachings as well as our odd nouveau computer-driven platforms.  

     So far I can only say that it certainly matters what you (and group) think, but also what you (we) feel and sense, receive or give.  Nothing profound there.  But the changes that can be made likely will be. 

     You know, Lord, I fear “crossing the streams” this way:  blasphemy; offending You or Them.  Vanity may play its part, too:  just pick a lane, Fool, before lightening strikes you!  And of course I’m rather glad no one reads my blog (do You?) when I blather on like today.

     So in this prayer now, I thank You again for the Joy in this Morning; I ask forgiveness for my missteps and I ask Your clear direction day by day. And so may it be for all of Us. IJN

Children and dogs and innocence

      Lord, I am so thankful for the pet animals you put into our lives. They have been such a blessing, especially now Red, who squeezes love from the hearts of 99% of the folks he encounters.  I feel I share him with two particular kids in our neighborhood, and I told of the hug I received from one a few days before Christmas.  Bless the boy, Lord, all his life.

 

Red and Mini-Red

      Yesterday we stepped out into the bitter cold for a refreshing breath and a short walk. Two houses down we met young F and her mom with a reindeer sack containing a gift for me—a cloth doll that they said looked like me, and a pup with a collar and leash that looked just like a mini-Red.

     His reaction was immediate and not quite like receipts of previous gifts. He stood on his back legs, as indeed he often does to dance, then he gently grasped the new toy in. his muzzle and scampered home.  I was slow following then, to his chagrin, I took his prize back because we needed to go back to say thank you to the givers.  As we humans peeled laughter in the freezing air and sunshine at the sight, on receiving it again he dashed back and demanded immediate entry into the warm house for the two of them.  Gotta protect the newbie, I guess!  When I delayed with happy chatter once more,  he used the time to remove his new bestie’s collar and leash—after all, what dog wants those?

    Lord, bless the dear girl who is learning to give.  And, God have mercy on the “two-brained beings” who, in Mr G’s words, teach us to love.  Show us, Lord, our opportunities to protect them and save from cruelty; prod us into fulfilling our duties to them, and also to the “two-legged beings.”  I confess our cruelty too often overpowers us, but you promise a light that cannot be overcome by the darkness. Unless, I think, we close our eyes and create darkness.  Lord, have mercy; may we, too,  be merciful.  IJN

Deflation?

Unusual Christmas Days

L broke her hip, so I traveled to nurse her for a month; fun for me if not her😝

 

Cali Christmas.  I wasn’t there but this is a fave pic for me.

The boys visited the other side of their family, I hope not 

for the last time.

     Lord, help me.  No more “assignments” or excitement for the next ten days, plus bitter cold predicted.  It’s the winter doldrums.  Can I hang out with you?  I know I should.  Pray, sit/meditate, sense the body, contact my contacts, walk/play with Red, avoid TV, help someone somehow every day.  That’s the cure, that’s the aim.  Lord help me—to stick with the plan. IJN

     And You know we have serious issues in the family, ones we who wish to solve can not.  God have mercy and protect these dear ones.  Amen

     

Noel, noel

 

     Welcome to this trembling world, creator Lord of Love.  What beauty and fun we wrap round ourselves from bits and pieces of what you give us. It lasts just a short moment and our woes emerge again. We thank you for the respite, and ask help to find solutions that last, knowing the solution is to follow and merge with you.

God rest ye merry…

     Lord, stay close to our hearts and souls to remind us to love each other always. Is that not the crux of joy? 

     You see the evils people perpetrate on our loved ones, so I pray especially for your support of my niece M and her family in the adversity they now suffer.  As in the world’s broader targets, even so the personal agonizes us.  Remind us to give the benefit of the doubt because we do not know as much as we think we do about anyone’s life.

   “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” you taught us to pray. And you said to remove the log from my own eye before I go after the mote in a brother’s eye.  I confess I’ve always been judgmental, so should it be a surprise that the issue arises for examination this holy day?

     You give unexpected gifts, including the rough ones, and I thank you.  Happy Birthday, JC

Joyful and jovial

 

My rendering from 2013 life drawing classes. 

     What a wonderful humor in which to awaken.  I credit the blessed season.  

     Lord I pray for the travelers and visitors today, wherever, whoever.  May they be safe, content, and loved in their process; may they take a thought of the travelers to Bethlehem whom we commemorate with many of our journeys this week. And Lord shift us past the awful perils that we create with our travels in the wide world, especially now. IJN

     My dreams often make narratives that are more or less comprehendible to me, packed with symbolism and bits of Scrooge’s “underdone potato,” ie trivial recent impressions.  They can entertain me, even if I don’t resist making meaning of them.  Then, psychologists say dreams access subconscious, and Gurdjieff pegs subconscious as our real, primary thinking center.  Bottom line, I may be rationalizing writing my ephemeries, which, for all I really know, consist of momentary, worthless vapors. That said, this morning I dreamt….

     I was contemplating joining a spa which promised to reduce me to perfect body size and to set me on the “right” contemplative path.  Oh, and can my three sisters join in? Of course, and look, I was immediately made skinny and the spa acolytes were beginning to work on my transformation.  At which point one sister whinged she wasn’t getting the full treatment, and I replied, “That’s ok.  It’s fair.  I’m the one with the money. I’m the one who will pay for a whole program.  How much do you expect for free?”  

     So I was as skinny and barefooted as  spa graduates began to coat me in Will Farrell’s handsome green plaid sports jacket from movie “Elf” and to cut off chunks of my shiny dark brown hair.  The women epitomized the program’s ideal.  They looked like daughters of Akhenaten: unsmiling, emaciated, ascetic, shoeless, naked, bald, long headed.  The haircut they started left grizzly gray shocks on my head, going for bald from the short pixie style of my youth.  “Are you sure this is what you want?” asked sister D, and she stopped me in my tracks, just in time.  “No.  I don’t want to walk around naked all the time.,” said I, and told the manager, “I’ll let you know my decision.”  I thought, is not this a path to sanctimony, not sanctification?  Caveat emptor.  The sample was ample.

     Lord, I really hate to think I’m still a “seeker,” not a “finder,” by now. My dreamt dialogue with sister C is surely a subconscious key as to why that is so. Forgive my meanness and hubris which hides from friends in the conscious world, but reveals itself in my subconscious.  Help me to do better, to treat others universally kindly.  IJN

Too much sugar

  

     How far off?  Lord, to you or to myself, I dare to ask for etwas to complain about, with a fast Nooo! chaser.  I am most surely ingesting too much sugar literally and emotionally in this season. Cloying describes me. My friend said yesterday I was sweet, I quickly countered,  “No, I’m not,” but I realize. that’s an unreal virtue I project and many acquaintances accept.

     But, God, you know the secret lies and flaws I hide. You know my attempted disguise: “It’s not that bad; I never killed anyone.” But there’s a flowing stream of guilt and remorse that I feel and refuse to yield to your simple promise of redemption. Mental self-flagellation. I need/want to beat myself up, to pay for the sins of humanity, perhaps to think I can thereby save myself from this guilt.

     Isn’t such speculation food for depression? despair? It’s assuredly hubris, refusing to look to you. Not sweet.  I think, speculation is idle thought, and am I not conflating it with prayer, since this is the general content of my prayers for myself?  Seems unworthy: let me be the judge, not You.

     Don’t I have something better to do? 

     B said he is called by the dissolution of thought, by the “little mind” from his shiatsu practice.  This points me again to emptying, nothingness, which I fear. 

      Lord, lead me on Your path, fearlessly. Help me aim to be kind, not sweet.

     Lord have mercy

Best Christmas gift this year

 

Charles de Gaulle Airport, April, 2013. Must be all grown up now.

     Young JS stopped to play with Red on his way home from the school bus stop with his mom three days ago. I told him, “I have a Christmas present for you, and I wish I was carrying it right now.”  “For me?” “For you.  And you don’t have to wait ‘til the Big Day to open it.” The surprise and delight shone on his face, but we all agreed we had plenty of time to bring it.  Such a wonderful child!  Every year I eagerly anticipate receiving his picture on the family card, this year he’s clad in a yellow and green elf costume.  His photos smile at me all year from my refrigerator door.

      So I was impatient to deliver his gift, but no one was home on the first attempt the next night, icy and cold (I said I was impatient).  Success yesterday, also in cold darkness, but not stormy!  My brother phoned and I answered my Dick Tracy watch just as J’s dad came to the door, so I kerfluffled an explanation of my presence to both men, including that A and Red were waiting for me in our car at the end of the driveway for a trip to pick up dinner.  Bro hung up, of course, and dad called J to the door.  We exchanged happy greetings, and I handed him a big purple bag.

     A sweet wordless moment, then he flung his arms around my neck.  What an unexpected gift to me,  dear boy!

       Lord, thank you for the wonderful presence of children.  Yes, I sometimes try to make you my Santa Claus God, which I admit is inappropriate.  But this time I ask you to bless all the children in world.  Too many loving young hearts suffer things I prefer to shove out of my thoughts.  Yet I know you hold it all, and I pray for your help for all of them.  IJN

What a difference a day makes

                 Liz pic 8-25, concretion at Shale Hollow Park. First rock I collected was a concretion.

    Water is such a powerful force.  No snow on the ground now, back to green grass cold due to yesterday’s heavy rain.  Thank you, Lord, for the palette You work in Nature and for eyes, and other senses, to appreciate your work.

    Bizarre dream this am, involving 3 cats, the old old neighborhood, a mouldering gothic house, and witchery.  Don’t feel like spending another thought on it however.  Just note it herein case I change my mind.  I can’t stop believing some dreams are important: I recall Joseph in pharaoh's prison.  My issue is, I would not verily state that God sends dreams to me.  And I don’t know which are important by picking through Jungian symbolism.  So….what?

   Thank you , Lord, for another day of sunshine after one of deep gloom.  You refresh us in so many ways.

    Five days til Christmas.  God bless us everyone.

Roads taken

 

On a Christmas path, 5 pm

     Behind us the path was barely lit, black, wet, and chill.  In the slowly flowing Presumpscot, white and golden squares of light cast by houses broke and repaired their symmetry in a beauty that prompted “Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus!” in my brain.  Might have uttered it;  sometimes beauty pulls that out of my lips.  But we turned back on the trail, discouraged by the darkness and uncertainty ahead; also lured by the bright colors and spirited voices of children in the park.

    This way, the path feels like Christmas, that is, what we hope we will receive from Christmas, from You.  Gifts, surprises, delight, love, connections—comfort and joy.  As several cars passed down the same road where we walked, I realized the distraction required in taking care not to get hit.  Even mumbled, “Watch out for us, Lord,  All of us. Drivers too.”  

     The season of joy seems not so long and certainly not uninterrupted by dark, ugly business attached to a load of drama.  I watch loved ones hypnotized for hours, staring at screens with tragedies unfolding in, to me, nauseating repetition.  But I don’t say much to stop them. Their choice, I think, with pity and a headwag.  Sometimes I join in, stupidly rationalizing, “At least it’s not gladiatorial games.”

     Lord, forgive me my foibles and excuses.  They are often a source of humor to me, probably to ameliorate the intolerable.   Which is another excuse I’m making.  Show us all—me, my darlings, the myriad strangers—a righteous path of goodness.  IJN

Slow going today, but pleasant

 SB is trying to lure me to FLA. She took this Christmas picture for me. Don’t tell her: it might work.

    Late, late sitting practice this am, then every thought/feeling/sense of You flips back to me.  Am I talking to you or myself? Can I parse the difference?  Whichever, paraphrasing Rita Moreno’ ask on “Sesame Street” many years ago, “Just keep asking, Star, baby.”  

    Lord, I wish to find often that quiet space in the cosmos of my body where soul resides and can at times touch the hem of your garment…some bit of your Divine Being. I confess that I hide self doubt and fear of being overwhelmed, which surely must close the door.  Yet I read accounts of people who have such experiences, not with envy but with yearning.  May I have patience to wait and learn; may I learn especially to find the still emptiness where they say you can be found.

      God bless us everyone especially as we approach the commemoration of your special entry into this trembling, beautiful world. May the Spirit of Christmas—peace on earth, goodwill to man—shelter us in this last week before the Day.

      

Crotchety

 

Approaching home airport, 1-18-25

     Jerked awake rudely was I by a nasty electrical C-pap smell. All water had burnt out, prompting a dream of me trying to scrub clean an angelic blonde baby girl who stank to high heaven. Bad parents! Not my fault!  First hour of the morning grew more and more grouchy, including spousal shouting and the strong urge to skip the new disciplines in favor of plunking down with np comics and puzzles in hand—the old routine.  But here I am, sulking much less, sensing, praying, and writing.  

     Lord, I definitely did not want to talk to you or myself a hour ago.  Yet where would that get me?  I don’t think “it is written” per se that resentment of Divinity is a sin, although many stories speak of the wroth of God due to the People “turning away.”  Looks like a matter of degree and modern language. So, God please forgive my resentments of you and me.  The consequent necessity for soul work sheds light on my lazy resentment, among all the other weaknesses, which I obviously don’t take kindly at times.  But no excuses before You.  

    I pray for peace and prosperity and mild tempers for my tribe and the world.  IJN

Uber Disturbia

 

Cormorant on the Park Trail, 4-6-24. Not a common sight.

    Lord, I do not know how or what to pray when the weekend yields news of three horrifying murders.  One would have been too many.  This overwhelms the season of your advent with my expectations that Peace might rule us for a few days anyway.  I had already sent wars and homelessness on vacation from my awareness, now this.  In my head, I can hear MS reminding us of Mr. G’s Solioonensius, although not at last night’s meeting, and that causes a reflection that somehow the deep meaning of this cosmic law generally eludes me because I just don’t want to admit or see the violence attached to it.  I want softness and sentimentality and true loving kindness to dress all holidays specially.

     See “Beelzebub’s Tales” pp 622-3 for starters.  I just reviewed it and refreshed my perspective.   The author is correct. Cosmic tensions periodically stimulate humans both to religiosity or yearning for self realization and, horribly, engagement in “reciprocal destruction” en masse. 

     It reminds me that I can’t resent You, Lord, for these catastrophes, as is my first tendency; people create their own suffering, says a common wisdom.  Plus I remember that I must be careful to be aware of just who I pray to: You, not myself.  

      So I pray, Lord, let my tribe and the world see your light in our darkness, at least in this season. IJN 

Disturbia

Solar Eclipse  4-8-24 from PC’s back porch

     Hauled out of bed at 8am, pushed by an urgent mental sense of disturbance.  I had already been awake 3:30-4:30, what we old folk lovingly call the witching hour. I spent it sensing my body, this time collecting unusual impressions, such as an itch in my left armpit which felt oh so good to scratch, as well as the softness of the skin there, and the whole posture of lying in fetal position on my left side.  I reached up emotionally to touch Divinity, but I cannot write the impressions therefrom; rather, I wish not to set them out for others to see.  I will say I felt disconnected, still wonder why and pout “I won’t do this anymore.”  Can’t hear my own voice in this sitting, so what to do?  

     Of course: I can and did read Lee van Lear’s posts on Substack.  They have reeled me back in. I surmise that I may have been making demands on my “Santa Claus God,” and how often does that work?  That may be a worthwhile impression but it brings back hopes to encounter the Almighty in a manner that can be survived, which possibly, as they say, exceeds “my pay grade.” IE, Me making “non-law-conformable” demands again just as fast as I recognized I did so. “Yea, but, Lord….”

       

     Forgive me my impatience and hubris.  Abide sweetly in my being today.  And do likewise for my tribe, I pray.

      I pray healing for our young PW’s father, who suffered heart attack about two weeks ago.  Restore him quickly, Lord, to full function and grant him long, healthy  life, for the sake of this close knit family. I ask in the name of your Beloved Healer.

     

Hunger

    I feel a hunger pang; it has my attention, and I mentally nod at it with a tiny smile.  Because I can move into a warm kitchen to gather and consume my choice of tasty foods—fruit, milk, bread, cheese even meat.  Then I pause:  it’s not that way for everyone today, all times, all places.

    Thank you, God, that we have our daily bread, and may we see and share with those who are hungry, in your name.

One woman’s vin extraordinaire, another’s vinegar

My uncle Junior, nee Wilson James, Jr, in some So Am port, if memory serves me, during. WWII

      My big surprise for the PSC class last night was to read “Stave 1, Marley’s Ghost” from the pretty little green and gold facsimile copy of  A Christmas Carol I had purchased two days earlier, instead of “something from the Gurdjieff tradition,” as threatened the week prior when I volunteered to present.  My idea seemed perfect to me:  written 1843, about the time spiritualism debuted acceptably in Europe and America, the best redemption myth ever, in my opinion, presented in lively descriptive language and unforgettable images.  Vin  extraordinaire.  And the vast number of its recapitulations in the last 182 years indicates a proper opinion, I’d say.  Except…as demonstrated by the outcome of the reading. 

        I introduced the evening’s topic to five spiritualists, showing the book, then proceeded through 18 pages in lively voice.  I stopped as Scrooge and his clerk closed the office, exiting to bitter cold foggy dark.  No spirit, no Marley’s ghost yet.  “Would anyone else like to read.”  I passed the little tome left.  “No, let’s talk about what we’ve read so far.”  “OK.”  

         The thirty minute discussion that followed emphasized the muppets and the Muppet Christmas Carol and personal developments from the past week in the the lives of our attendees, with smidgeons of the meanings and morals of Dickens’ invention filtered through that movie primarily with honorable mentions to other versions.  The book never passed on, so I recovered it and read  two ending pages of the chapter, the description of Marley’s ghost’s departure into a world of moaning mournful spirits unable to aid the suffering mother and child in the street.  Then since talk varied between what we glean from what we know about the movies to personal events, I “dismissed class early.” 

     I admit I was disappointed and even shocked with that hour and a quarter.  But it revealed again an important, usually buried, piece of my personality.  I wish to be a “ marketable artist,” but literally almost no one buys what I put out.   That includes my drawings and paintings, stone jewelry, poems.  Can’t even give it away, and I “know it’s good,” not just mediocre.  This includes these blogs, which people don’t read after or with an invite, far as I can tell.  This isn’t a reference to financial gain; it means I want an audience.  Sure looks like vanity, doesn’t it.  (And can I ponder whether God feels vanity and disappointment with creation?  Or will lightning strike! Is it not part of the Sorrow of the Absolute?)

    This blogging may be my last art form, last productions, and it remains to be seen how long I slog on sans feedback.

     Perhaps I was a successful visual artist in a past lifetime, and karma is teaching me a new lesson this go-around….

      My grandson just posted a new song, his best so far to me, with a broken Picasso-esque self portrait cover.  I think it should be a million-hit adolescent anthem.  

     He sings “ I can’t decide what to do with my Life”. 

     Listen and see if you, like me, relate. 

     I expect one of these links will take you there: 

   https://youtu.be/07QuX6liheg?si=uuqYAhpmubimfVmz

https://skyseeker.bandcamp.com/

The title is Skyseeker”My Life”

    

     Lord, thank you for the lessons learned from disappointment.  I must admit the humor I find in this recent one, and you know I love to laugh.  So maybe I can infer that you love me.  At least within the whole realm of your Creation.  I sense that I’m afraid to think You really love me; this deems more reflection later, however.  I thank you for voices that speak on your behest from all ages; I was startled to recognize that Dickens showed us a Scrooge who required agents from your realm to effect salvation.  Duh!

     May I, my folk, and the world receive and open to your agents in this special season as well as the coming year.  IJN

       

  

     

     

Do you believe…?

  

Not usually a lapdog. That’s how cold it is.

   Just discovered my plans for today have likely shifted.  This raises the opportunity to observe how I handle change in use of time. In this case, I lose the hard symmetry of the plans in my head to work internally this morning then externally this afternoon.  I lose my lofty projection of spiritual quest all day to a mundane practical vision of shopping again in the big box store for exercise, human contact, and weather relief.   

     Now I will either rationalize or it’s true:  some good comes out of the store and mall visits. Yesterday we visited Santa, for instance, and we were rewarded with pleasant conversation, a heart shaped dog biscuit, and a candy cane. We found him after greeting a sweet little blonde girl in red and gold clothes.  She pointed the way to his location and, without prompting, wished us “Merry Christmas,” as she waved goodbye. Deserves mentioning that her big blue eyes shone with love and calm.  Now that’s blessings you would not expect to find in the Mall.

   Lord, Thank you for the surprise impressions that I tend to condemn as ordinary fare, until pondering shows me I might have encountered an angel, unawares. It’s not so far from the long-remembered miracle of Jacob on his journey, meeting angels ascending and descending a ladder from earth to heaven.  Please open all our hearts to your mercies and reminders—me, my kith and kin, and all earth’s inhabitants. IJN

Dogs are devils…

Very pretty Miss L, dog sitter, with her charges at the dog park last summer. 

No permission to use photo hence the face blur.

   So says Mr. Gurdjieff, although it’s hard to believe when we see a cheeky lineup like this pic.  Of  course the man is speaking allegorically, metaphorically, symbolically—you choose, so it becomes bearable when he says we must eliminate them.  Kill is his word, which I obviously feel the need to euphemize.  The issue becomes, what do dogs represent inside people, that daily Work must hound them (yes I did say it)?   

     The old time religion word for dogs could be sin, but that’s a totally different culture and mindset.  GIG presents a detailed, more complex image of all our egoistic and hereditary shortcomings that place humanity as a whole into a deranged, suffering condition on this beautiful Earth.  So the advice is to work daily to see and capture our dogs, to render them into a “pellucid” oil that can ease the running of our way.  At least that’s my takeaway from last night’s web.  And several years trying to reconcile literal with symbolic dogs.

   It’s personal.  GIG also gives us the term “magnetic center.”  What’s that?  My friend P was taking tea in the back room next to the stove with me a few days ago.  Can’t recall how, but the subject came up as a statement that she never felt responsive in church, so never attended or pursued “spiritual” interests, not even as a child.  Lord, I am grateful I got a call from you and I heard it. I suspect most people do not.

   Lord, if I pray help us reach back when you reach out to us, I seem to be asking you to do all the work.  Hardly fair.  Very human,  perhaps my devildog trying to shape the holy into the human. Lord, forgive.

    Even so, Lord bless my pack today.

   

Night lights, little town

 

   5:31pm for this picture in the park. Pitch dark and brittle cold and frozen snow on the ground.  Red and I took a short walk anyway, dodging cars creeping on the narrow driveway.  We watched very young children play and celebrate all these conditions, lovingly protected by attentive fathers and mothers.  

     Thank you, Lord, for such a gift and the body that can still receive the impression.

    I ask You for relief for the myriad young ones and their parents who suffer in darkness and cold and lack of shelter.  Send your agents even now.

     Thank you for my loved ones, most of them far away, and let your blessings still rest on them.  Thank you for dear caring neighbors right in my town.  Lend strength to us all, IJCN.

Still cold, not as annoyed, so far

 

My favorite painting, hanging on the bedroom wall with early morning reflections.  It’s my watercolor memory of the view from MMC ❤️ unit 8-99

   Annoyance is a current web topic, and I let fly many darts last night,  from cold darkness of the season to money squabbles.  Mine were many and minor, thank you Jesus, but I observed and felt the fatigue they caused all day as well as the irritation in my voice.  Which I would prefer not to inflict on folks in ear range.  Thus yet another example of annoyance! ie my lack of self control. GIG would surely name this friction, which helps us grow.  

   Listening to others’ descriptions of annoyance was not annoying, rather informative,  as we recognized experiences we held in common and an outright trauma that depicted the extension into pitiable violence and confusion.  Unfortunately also common expressions of our topic, but this time “close to home,” to our friend, not a stranger on TV news.  Hence annoyance is not always an innocent negativity, and my wish to control it, at least after observing it, becomes a reasonable prayer.

   Lord, I pray for your peace in this world, but I’m hollow, I don’t expect it. Forgive me. Give us this day sensitivity to our annoyances and frictions along with the self control and respect for all beings which surely must be some means of peace.  

   Bless my tribe, especially today LN.

Unpleasant dreams aren’t always unpleasant

 

September GA backdoor Jorospider

   Dreaming of death as I awoke; not a topic in my usual rotation of past jobs and trying to go home.  Of course I acknowledge going home is a metaphor for dying.  In this dream, I arrived home, greeted my husband, and we looked out the window to see three large shiny metallic green-black vans pull up. Three smiling slim handsome men exited, and we knew they were essentially angels of death come as escorts for some of us, us being whoever was in the house, ie my mind. (The angels were actually “a bit of underdone potato,” as Scrooge would say, brain whimsies from repeat viewings of three charming actors in black suits dancing to “Rasputin” on my YouTube shorts feed for three days; love those guys!  You can look them up, too.).  I notice all the threes I’ve mentioned, but will ignore them because I also see my ego based fondness for descriptive language as I’m writing this. 

   The point of this “visitation” was that we/whoever each selected an escort and were told, “You are dying now.  Do you prefer fast or slow?  You get to choose.”  One, C I guessed, said “fast,” but I asked, “What’s the difference?” “Slow means you have a few more moments to help.  And I can help you through any fear or pain.”

  I won’t tell you which I picked.  But I will say that I am rather happier than usual to be awake this morning.

  Thank you, Lord for another day and this healthy body.  And “God bless us, everyone.”

   

Friends Near and Far, Present and Remembered

 

My drawing from a photo of George I. Gurdjieff

   Different start to this day: Up and at’em to an 8:00 AM Baptist Church meeting, a very small group of “new formation” whom I have visited 4 or 5 times since their September start-up at a familiar location.  I’d say I’m trying to revisit my roots, with live people. Pleasant, but no feelings of pending attachment.  Also visited my long-term spiritualist friends for another Friday night class and volunteered to bore them with a Rodney Collins reading next Friday.  Neither group exceeds ten people in attendance generally, but I must get something out of these in-person meetings. 

   Also participated todayin two Gurdjieff based Zoom webinars with mostly people I’ve known electronically for several years, enough to have developed real senses of friendship and delight in their company.  These webinars and web links are very important to me, and I wonder what the future holds for such disembodied relationships.  Especially since I recently saw TV news speculation on that psychology—human/machine anttachments—and films of the new human form robots, which I find alarming.  Hence, I suppose, my barely conscious motivation to seek live people in my increasingly lonely life.

   P and her little dog D came for tea this afternoon, and I expect to see C and little N this evening.

   Lord, I am grateful for all the people I can glean into my life by whatever means, but particularly for those who literally share air with me. Must admit I dearly love those distant folk whom I touch only with electromagnetic means, too.  Let your guidance reach us to negotiate this brave new world and keep us safely in your light.

More birds. But what’ s prettier?

     

           

DJ makes special food and feeds the birds right outside his windows.  Much better than TV. 1-17-25

  I had thought to insert a Shakespeare quote today, “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps…,” one I tend to remember, but I’m not feeling quite that dour heute.  This instead:

We suffer a lot the few things we lack 

and we enjoy too little the many things we have.

   It’s a dart, but not likely to hit its intended target.  So take it to heart, ye who will, including myself.

What a wise and brilliant man, therefore more quotes from him to come.  Dickens, too, probably.

   Thank you, Lord, for the preserved wisdom of centuries and for minds to comprehend it.  As beautiful as  birds are, they lack that third being brain, and I’m grateful I do not.  I pray for your tender mercies on all your creation and blessings on all those I am privileged to hold in my being.  IJC

   

Yes, I will resort to weather talk today

 

   We are in the deep freeze for the next week or 10 days. Even the dog hesitates to go out.  Yesterday, our noon walk started with sunshine, but a snow squall, complete with cold gusts, caught us ten minutes in. Can’t complain, it was invigorating and pretty, but I would have stayed indoors if I had known about it beforehand.  See how preconceptions and resistance can rob us of worthwhile experiences, even in “ordinary” passage of time?  Grab those minutes, yearn for them! Erase boredom from possibility in your day!  

  I’m preaching to myself here, not at you.  Our Common Master, Heropass—Gurdjieff’s term for “flow of time”—came up on Wednesday night webinar. Time always has been a topic of wonder and pondering, by greater thinkers (Thoreau, eg) than I, but me, too. I feel very lucky to have as many years behind me as I have, for example. I tend to observe its progress more intently daily in what can only be my waning days, weeks, years.

   Lord help me and every one of your creatures, young or old, calm or suffering, through the sacred process, the Sacred Rascooarno, as GIG called it; a neologism that sounds holy to me.  And please keep our memories green in our lifetimes for the people and events who have already passed; your divine agency therewith surely lends us wisdom and grace for the living time we still have.

   Huh!  Weather, I’m amused to note, is  cousin to time, as allegory, symbol, metaphor.  Odd I never paid attention to the connection before.  

This place is a real zoo

 

Turkey in the snow

   Saw the flock on the street, scratching through the white stuff for lunch yesterday.  All God’s critters gotta eat. First Being Food with me all my life, and I’m back on the Holidays Sugar diet again this year.  My breakfast wouldn’t be complete lately without a couple of chocolates, some fruit, and a slice of my homemade fruitcake.  Maybe I would be better served tossing it all to the birds. Anybody care to bet on that happening?

   Regarding the neighborhood zoo, deer appear regularly late at night. I only saw the back half of one booking up the driveway two houses down, but C snaps them almost nightly on her outdoor cameras, and I think I already mentioned the white squirrel she photographed by my house last month.  Come back! I want to see you, too, though the snow might disguise you.  

     Must also mention my faves:  friendly neighbors walking their dogs. Yesday, very happy to re-meet J and his three Westies as well as Co and his old boy Ash Still, still tall, slim, black but the muzzle grizzled with white.

    Strange dream this morning, featuring Dolly Parton Trying to set me straight on something, I think Christmas baking.  Could refer to the two intense conversations I had yesterday.  I wasn’t so stressed so much of stressing other people, I think.

   Thank you, Lord, for all your living creatures and especially the ones I contact in the neighborhood. Please pour your tender mercies on this struggling world.  Forgive us help us to forgive.  IJN

Near miss, closer to Thee

 

First snowfall of the season yesterday

   Body sensing is a practice I learned very late in life, yet I recommend it to anyone who will listen. DO people listen?  Of course not.  In fact I don’t always listen to myself…resistence. A snow day plunks me into chairs too often, so I CAN sense stiffness creeping in.  The better way is to sense the body and praise God for this gift and its relative health in my great age.  

 

   Walking Red yesterday at dusk, light snow falling, I slipped but caught myself with my cane, TYJ.   Ten minutes later some dolt in a little black SUV nearly hit me.  It passed between Red and me as I was stepping from mid-road to the driver’s right hand side, toward my little guy who had just bounded into a yard from there.  Car went right  on full speed, past the stop sign right in front of us all.  So close, the near miss elicited my exclamation, “Jesus!”  Hope I was calling for help, not swearing, but there it was in the air. Felt intentional, bad driving judgment rather than weather related since the driver kept going without slowing down to ask about us. Neighbor shoveling his deck on the other side of the street asked, “Did he get close enough to you?”  So we exchanged opinions about the incident.  This bit of talk startled and comforted me, too, because I doubt we have exchanged more than a dozen hellos in the decades we have lived so near each other.  I felt gladdened by his sincere concern.  

   I thank my guardian angel.  I do not know how I could have gotten to this age without one.

   Lord, please aid the rulers this nation and all nations, even if they are all Hasnamuss, to reduce Your Sorrow and the suffering of all creatures.  May I work to do my part.

    Again I pray for the welfare of all my unnamed loved ones

First snowfall of the season started an hour ago

 

   But my photos are from sunny yesterday, on Stroudwater trail beside the defunct 19th century canal. 

   I never saw anything like this.  Can’t be a paper wasp nest, can it?  Convinced it must be despite its enormous size, and hanging on the thinnest stripling of a weed.  Two more hikers overtook Red and me a couple hundred yards up the trail, and I asked if they saw it, but no, so I showed them the photo.  They speculated whether bird-built, and I declared emphatically, “That’s insect, and I’m glad it’s dormant.  Be sure to look for it on your way back.  We’ll probably never see it’s like again.”  And I say in my heart, Thank you Lord, for such wonders and surprises that you sprinkle on my daily path

   I searched on line and found matches to its size, shape, and color:  sure enough paper wasps or hornets, often Asian varieties.

  God, Your creations are varied and beautiful, set before us a feast for the senses.  I pray that we all see and sense them and know You as maker of all, dear Lord. Gratitude and thanks for the life You bestow on us. 

  Request today for special blessings on Baruch, Chad, Liz, and Melody Rose. (What a lovely name for a beloved grandchild.)

“At this time of the rolling year…”

Birthday flowers  Allan has never missed a year   Or any other holiday.

    

 

  Lost my post just as I was done!  Rather like the day is going so far.  

    Recap:  December 1 already.  Always hope to awake with God on my mind, but this 6:45 up with nightmare work dream, kicking out a pair of each gender, handsome, bright, contemptuous students, to a feckless young female AP’ s office.  No win for anyone ever.   Dream as memory, too real.  D had it right:  call the parents when kids misbehave, something I avoided like the plague.

  So sitting/practice not very effective. Sour hours this morning.  Still, hope for improvement when walk in the sun later, even with the brisk winds I hear blowing.

   My prayers now.  Lord, bless and prosper all those students whose names and faces are no longer in my consciousness but remain ever with you.  Send your mercy on this suffering world.  Care for those whom I can remember and name.  And thank you again for the peace in the day and in my life.  JC abide.

Thank you, God and Nature, for encounters

… of such magnificence.   

   An ordinary walk in the park by the river near the post office, and there we were, serenely eye to eye.  My heart thrilled and still does today at the memory and images   Felt like the beauteous bird was waiting for me to take photos, voguing for my ordinary iPhone camera. I have a dozen shots.  Then he majestically lufted away.  I’m not quick enough to capture such motion these days. But my  admiration and thanks went with.

No, I’m not going to resort to talking about the weather

 

A “birthday party” for me yesterday afternoon: two friends, flowers, cards, cake, maple walnut ice cream.  Not sure why, but emphasis was placed on that last choice, so I’m curious about its association in my husband’s head.  My own association was thinking briefly about birthday parties in my childhood and that I’ll never have a party again.  Then there it was, and he intended a surprise party, which I squashed when I announced I was taking Red to walk around the Christmas lights in the park.  He had to tell me why I had to come home by 3:00.  That’s ok. I don’t like that kind of surprise and found myself considering whether I really wanted to be there. How odd.  Internal considering when people are doing me a kindness!  Bottom line: I saw my curmudgeon part clearly in play, but hope they all did not.  I truly thank them all, especially my spouse, for their consideration.

    

  My sitting/practice preceeded the writing today. The blog is lodged too firmly in intellect to d otherwise, I think.

 A reminder of my hesychast prayer:  Lord have mercy, God have mercy.

 And my add ons:  Lord bless. Especially my beloved ones whom we both know without naming: peace,       health, prosperity, relationship, your divine love 

   Thank you Jesus and your holy Trinity for all and everything