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.