Musings on a Sunny Monday

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009031217/its-not-just-rush

After reading the above piece I found that I was feeling dizzy and vague and I realized what it was: shock. I've seen clips of these people off and on and they never were as venomous, hate-filled and dangerous as the material in Heath's blog shows. I would have thought that the calls from these writers and radio show hosts to go out and murder and torture "libs" was breaking some kind of law. Even with the 1st Amendment there is still the legal concept that you cannot use free speech to incite murder or riots. We've arrested Muslims all over America for spouting such hate. But when a fat, cigar-smoking manly American says the same thing, he gets a pass. In fact, he gets a bonus, fan clubs, merchandising and millions of dollars.


“I’ll tell you who should be tortured and killed at Guantanamo: every filthy Democrat in the U.S. Congress. “ says Sean Hannity and yet in spite of all the laws to protect people from violence he doesn't get a slap on the hand.

There is a layer of very dangerous people in America, people who have decided the Law is for the weak and the important thing is that America and the world be formed into a reflection of their own prejudices, hatreds and fears. Violence is their first resort, and like an Anti-Christ their leader is the opposite of all the values expressed by their supposed spiritual focus. He's rich, ignorant, hate-filled, violent and shallow. He protects himself while putting others in harm's way. He approves of mass murder, calling it "war" and thinks dead children are "regrettable". He doesn't care about life, he holds nothing truly sacred and his primary personality trait is egoism.

Amazingly, when you look at it, the official American religion is Anti-Christianity. Follow the money, connect the dots. How do Americans view care for the sick and elderly? What's the first thing that gets gutted from a state budget in economic down times? Besides funding for education, it's the hospitals and nursing homes that get their funds slashed. Here in NY we have a blind, unshaven, cross-eyed, dark skinned man for a Governor and when businesses are leaving because of high taxes and ignorant workers he slashes funding for education and health care and raises taxes on businesses. If you could form an analogy of this on an individual basis it's roughly like applying leeches to a diabetic with a high fever.

So instead of healing the sick, we cause sickness: selling contaminated peanuts, meat, salads, water supplies etc. instead of lifting their minds we force feed statistics in over-crowded crumbling schools. We send billions of tons of toxic chemicals into the air, water and earth all over the Earth, killing and maiming thousands, perhaps millions. We haul our garbage to sites off of foreign shores, killing the fisheries and starving villages. We do all this in the open, with various excuses, but with no sign that we plan to stop the killing any time soon. It would not be "cost effective" and would cut into our bottom line.

Christians worship a man who preached love and tolerance and American Anti-Christians follow men who bugger little boys while smoking crack and embezzling church money. They sing in huge crystal domes about crossing the Jordon River when most have never left their home state and couldn't find the Jordon River on a map. They send billions of bullets and bombs to the Holy land to kill people and soak the sands with blood.Some even claim to be doing this in the Name of Christ!

Well, I could go on, but sometimes something I read just sets off a fuse. If we can arrest and imprison people for preaching violence against America, why confine the law to just Muslims? Why not arrest Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter and the rest of the neo-cons? They preach insurrection, armed conflict and assassination. Aren't those crimes? They appear to be when a blind Muslim cleric says the exact same things. Right wing nuts blow up churches, post hate filled letters online, and promote the overthrow of the American government. I'd say those are crimes, and big ones at that. Yet rather than sitting in jail these people are actually becoming wealthy as American Anti-Christians send in their tithes. This is the same layer of society who financed Hitlers rise to power prior to WW2. Right wing fanatics, Republican, (anti-)Christian, upper class along with their followers. We were and are a gnat's ass away from becoming a brown shirted bunch of goose-steppers, with even more blood on our hands. Yet if I wrote a letter suggesting people track down Rush, tear his fingernails off and burn him alive nailed to a cross, they would track me down and arrest me. Rightly so.

Any exception to a rule invalidates that rule.

A new rule may be devised which includes the exception.

Continuing the process eventually creates a rule which is the direct opposite of the original rule.

This pendulum swing of rules and exceptions is the roadmap of civilization.

The Mongols considered their sweep across Europe as bringing the light of civilization to a barbaric land of savages. American anti-Christians considered their slaughter of thousands of natives as bringing the light of civilization to a land of ignorant savages. They nevertheless used the natives form of government as a model for the new Republic of America.

Many native tribes own and operate casinos where they encourage non-natives to gamble away their earnings, smoke contaminated tobacco and drink expensive alcoholic beverages, thus getting retribution for things like the Trail of Tears.

Twaddle, Twit and Twoh
Went out to see a show.

Said Twaddle to Twit,
"But where shall we sit?"

Said Twit to Twoh,
"We have to know!"

Said Twoh to Twaddle,
"We'll have to do battle!"

To battle they did go
And ended Twaddle, Twit, and Twoh.

New Dog on the Block

For several years I've wanted to have a dog around. I haven't really had a dog since I was a kid. Jon brought Wishes along with him for awhile, but like all the other dogs I've had as an adult, Wishes was not interested in anything I had to say, like "STOP" or "STAY" or "Don't dig up my flowers!" So I wanted a young dog who would obey and who would like to hang with me as I stumble around the house and yard. It would be good to have a dog who would travel well as I take my picture taking excursions around the county.

So, as I was getting the car out of the shop I saw that John Peoples, my mechanic, had a picture of a Corgi dog on his counter and a "free dog" sign. Seems his daughter had a sweet dog who needed more attention and more exercise. He needed a man to hang with who would play with him, drive him around and walk him up and down the street. Like me. So I agreed to take him on for a trial. Wrigley came home with me. The next day I began to feel queasy and I had some burping issues. The dog was great and I took anti-acids. After a few days of getting worse I realized that in spite of getting a flu shot, I had the flu. I had the serious shits and was very barfish. The dog curled up in bed with me and looked sorry for me, licking my hand. This went on for a few days until Margaret started getting queasy and burpish. There followed a very bad scene with her sick, as a dog, cramps and body aches and me with body aches and indigestion walking the new dog. It's been a couple weeks now and we have stopped having the flu at last and Wrigley is getting the kind of attention he needed.

Yesterday as we drove to the bus stop for Margaret we were flying down the interstate when the cars in front of me started braking and swerving. I had nowhere to swerve, however, being graced with a car on either side matching my speed. So I had a couple of seconds to see the head and most of it's body of a deer pop up from under the rear of the car ahead of us! With a whoomp and thud we went over it. By the time we got to the bus stop you could smell burning meat and hair from the engine compartment. As we stopped we could see steam coming from the hood and when I got out it was clear the radiator was losing every drop of fluid, which I needed to keep Wrigley from.

So we towed the car to John People's garage and he got to play with his grand-dog Wrigley. The radiator was split on the bottom with chunks of Bambi shoved inside. I called Enterprise and rented a small car for about a week and John told me that he'd have to hold off fixing it until the insurance adjuster could take a look at it. Funny thing, if the radiator repairs cost enough it might actually total the car! It's a 1998 Volvo after all. So we have a new dog, will have a new radiator and I think I need to buy a truck, like a Toyota Tacoma, so we have a spare car and one where muddy dog feet won't be a problem. The black leather in the Volvo has suffered from Wrigley's claws.

Finally, Izzybag Productions is steaming ahead working on my web site. I'm extremely interested in how they get my stuff up, the other sites they've done were so sweet and clean with great little features and class. My photos should be just great and hopefully somebody will buy either my sculptures or the images. We need to pay down Jess's debt. Her school loans are huge and it looks like employment might take awhile. So, look at www.picasaweb.google.com/fredbrighton for my web albums and cruise over to www.willshirley.com to see the startup of the new site. Someday when I'm famous you can say you saw it all in the beginning. woo-hoo! Life hurts, but it still is sweet like honey. Wrigley says "woof".

Wintertime Blues

Got up this morning with a sad sinking feeling
There was a big bubble of water dripping from the ceiling
The ice dams on the roof were as big as glacier
I didn't tell my sweety, didn't want to face her
So I got me a coffee and I straightened my head
When the sun comes up and my tummy is fed
I'll find me a ladder and my little nice ax
Climb up on the roof and give it some whacks
Pour on the rock salt and lots of cuss words
Like "son of a bitch" and "you little frost turds"
But sooner or later they tell me that Spring
Will melt all the ice that Winter can bring
With buckets of ice melt and posts holding up
The living room ceiling and rum in my cup.

Maybe It's the Weather

Awhile back I had an experience where my entire consciousness could be focused on a single spot. Specifically, it was my finger, my left index finger. It was pretty exciting and I have pics I've considered uploading to my web albums except at long last I do have some shame. That finger was fat. And it hurt like Hell, or along the lines of what I think Hell is like. Certainly a lot of nerve pain because that's the hardest for this society to deal with. Nerve pain gets confused with perception of self, maybe because the Self is in part the system of nerves along which the signals pass. So a lot of nerve pain means a lot less You. There's just not a lot of room for You there.

I bring this up as an example of the difference between the body and the mind. When my finger was swollen with infection and the data along the nerve pathways indicated a full blown melt-down of the fatty tissue around my index finger, I was beside myself with pain. It was as close as I could get to leaving the pain behind: just jump to the side of it. So we had a duality going, me and that pain. Most of the planets in the immediate view from Earth are "involved", as they say, with another planet or star. Partners seem relatively common. Just look at Luna and Earth, they've been going steady since Luna was torn from Earth's side by a passing high velocity mass, possibly Venus. That had to hurt.

This finger of mine, this semi-me, doesn't act like the rest of the fingers. When I ask, the rest of the fingers bow their heads, but not that one. NO, it just nods, as if acknowledging a comrade. So it's just not the same as the rest of them. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable asking it to scratch my back. But still, I know it's mine and I do want to be fair. So I ask it to do things, but not things that involve bending. Because of that steel screw thing.

And Earth must feel much the same about Luna as I feel about that finger. You wouldn't ask Luna have have "tides" because, let's face it, if Luna has water, She's hiding it pretty good. It's like She never grew up, never wept and held a young one in Her Hands. Never had an atmosphere. So you're not looking for rainbows here or pretty sunrises. You love Her just the way She is. Well, maybe "love" is a strong word. "Tolerate" is good, plenty good. I mean, Hell, what are you going to do? It's not up to me, I'd be able to handle either way. But it seem to me that a finger of mine ought to be able to at least bend enough to allow me to flip someone the bird without making it into a peace sign. That's all I'm asking.

When I Was Small

When I was small, as I recall, I felt like a variation of Gulliver, somehow perfect in intelligence and reasoning but held back by size and strength because all the Rest of Them were bigger and pretty much stronger. I'm not particularly strong even now. There's a lot of times when the subject comes up, usually involving the chickens, and it isn't so much the immediate effort, because quite often that feels like good exercise, but the anticipation of the pain that comes later, after pleasure. It always hurts later. That would be an interesting thing to replace "In God We Trust", because quite frankly in God I do not trust, I've read both books and seen the movies. NO, thank you mam, In God "we" do not trust. But I respect and admire His Mother and She seems very "OK" with this situation, this "growing up" crap I seem to be doomed to plow through.

See, God used to beat me up at the bus stop and take my lunch money. As a result I grew up slower and my spinal column was not as dense as it might. So, now that I am not small, I am nevertheless less dense than average and tend to get blown about in the Winds and end up stuck in trees, tattered and torn, or made into nests of strange birds. I always seem to be doing things for birds.

Let me tell you something: some of those doves are getting too fat to fly. They've eaten up all the white millet and sunflower hearts and never with having to do more than sit and have it rain down on your head. Honey, of course they're over weight. If the finches are the penguins of the air, then geese are the elephant seals. It's not that they can't fly, they do that extremely well, but you'd never guess it by watching them on the ground. Even Canadian Geese waddle. And doves rock around as if they never saw a Chaplin movie they didn't like. Or the early Keystone Cops. Actually I saw a person walking exactly like a Keystone Cop, but it had more to do with her hip alignment than a silent movie addiction. Unless... she were a gigantic pigeon wearing the winter coat of a human being.

Wow. That's as bad as magpies. Next they'll be stealing our identities, let alone our nests. I get the feeling that juncos would never steal another bird's nest. They might sub-let it if the lease was fair and the neighborhood good for children. You can't be too careful these days, but of course all that will change with Obama in the White House. You just have to believe that the wave of "HOPE" that swept out of Washington yesterday around noon meant something. Anybody with a fully intact cerebrum had to have felt the wave that went through the Earth yesterday, like the feeling a neighborhood has when the police arrest a fourtyish white male in a late model Chevy van who is identified by seven children as the man who tried to pull them into his van on various Saturday afternoons. Except our perps are apparently, so far at least, getting away scot free. We shall see, ya never know and so forth.

So I walked around, I drove around. When I drove around I made engine sounds and gear shifting noises, like I did when I was small. It made driving around somehow more fun. I do a great brake sound. And I took pictures. In my mind's eye I look over pictures of another age. I faced my size and asthma with determination, I loved the earth, the soil. I tried to share my happiness with others. I felt then like I feel now, full of promise and mountains to climb over. I remember when I was small I didn't just want to go to Mars, I wanted to build a ship to fly to Mars. I wanted to push the boundaries of the universe. I wanted infinity to MEAN something. I had no great problem being small, I used it to climb like a monkey and fit into small places. And now I'm Big and I look at some of the things that lasted and some of the things that didn't and I still manage to have this funny giddy feeling that Things might be getting better, fairly soon.

As Long as Water Flows, Grass Grows

A philosopher once said that reality is it's own reflection. We talk of reflecting on one's life when older, we say a deed reflects well on a person's character. This concept of passive reflection is also held in the Hermetic saying "As above, so below. As Below, so Above." The first condition of Earth was water below and sky above, one reflecting the other. An early symbol of the Divine Feminine holds a mirror in Her hand. Another early form of the Goddess was the Gorgon Medusa who could not be slain because her gaze would freeze you into stone. By using a mirror you could approach Her and slay Her. By seeing Her reflection rather than her Person you could slay Her. By reflecting on himself a man was able to remove the head of the Goddess. Shamans the world over have as part of their essential set of amulets small mirrors.

Sometimes people wonder why I reflect on problems of divinity when I refer to this blog in terms of caregiving, parenting and art. But in order to care, to give care, it's a good idea to understand what you are caring for. What you care about is also important. So when I talk about Jon and his state of mind, or lack of mind, I have to understand what exactly is "mind" and why does it matter. (Did you know 'matter' and 'mater' are related terms, one referring to the stuff of the universe and one referring to the divine feminine, She who is the stuff of the universe?)

If my son is dead and the flesh that moves and excretes, coughs and falls is not human but mere flesh. After eight years all the flesh has been recycled and made new. Jon is mostly feeding formula from a tube now. No more steaks and enchiladas, no more beer or water. This mass in the bed that looks almost like my son but nothing like my son might be nothing of interest to me or it might be the screaming mind of my lost and lonely child, trapped in a form that does not obey him. Would you want to know the truth, would you try to find out where your boy went? So I reflect on consciousness.

Those people who drive their cars by the house, or walk their dogs past our mailbox, or fly overhead in planes, have no bearing on my son. They never knew him, never met him, don't care about him. I'm the last of the care givers. His mother is slightly insane, trapped in her own fantasy in the nursing home that cares for her. His friends, if friends they ever were, have never come to see him, have stopped sending the odd emails, no longer have his address. They don't care. So I am left with the task of caring and it's important to me that I do it right, so I need to understand what I am caring about and why.

If woman gives form and man gives the spark, what is that form and what was that spark? Did Nancy supply the body into which I placed a soul? Did we make a mix 50/50 of body and soul? Did I have anything to do with it at all, is the scientific myth of DNA a fantasy of modern science? What is human, what does it mean to be aware, and is there a difference between self aware and conscious? Nothing is given here in America 2009, no deep debates about the nature of consciousness. We're busy supporting mass death and destruction, far too busy to wonder at the lives we snuff out.

Why divinity and why write about it? Why not? I couldn't give a rats ass about the self-destructive twits on the news. They leave nothing behind but images that fade away. Why try to understand consciousness when so many people waste it? Look at Gaza, look at Mumbai, look at Hiroshima. But to be distracted by imperfections in a mirror will make it difficult to see the reflection. To pick at your sores will make it harder to heal. So I wonder at the grace of two invisible gases combining to form water which runs downhill to fill an ocean and provide the stuff of life for a lifetime of living.

Every day I wake to pain and wait for it to fade. Every day I take science in one hand, water in the other and combine them in order to move this flesh around without only seeing the imperfections, the nerves that startle, the muscles that twitch, the bones that fade away. Every day when I take the pills that fade the pain away I think on Jon, reflecting on our similarities, our bad backs, our need to understand and I wonder if he wakes up to pain every day, because he can't take the pills and sit and wait. They don't think he can feel anything, so they won't help him out of that pain. They don't think the trache hurts him when he coughs. So they leave it in to save them the trouble of making him move enough to not have fluids build up in his lungs.

Dad died in his sleep, Mom died in hers. Suppose for a moment that your child was sleeping and dying and it was taking years to finish the dream, would you wonder and worry? Would you shake you fist at the sky and scream WHY WHY WHY?

I'm pretty self absorbed, what with this constant pain and all. I think a lot about the various body parts rubbing and pinching and screaming. It's hard not to, the screaming is pretty loud. But maybe because my Mom was sensitive to the suffering of others and maybe because my father would splint the wing of a broken dove I find it hard, even in the middle of waiting for the pills, not to wonder at what kind of morning my son gets, what kind of things happen to him down deep inside. I read the papers online about the Gazan children dying in their beds and think of my son dying in his bed. The Gazan children are dying because we sent rockets to Israel. My son has no therapy because the money went to build rockets to kill Gazan children.

I'm not sure I want Jon to wake up to this world. I'm not sure I don't want to crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head. Like the snow covering the earth outside my window. But spring always comes, the Goddess emerges to greet Her Mother and the world knows new life. Kicking and screaming we come out of the womb and silent and faded we return. You can't stop living and you can't stop Life, so you might as well reflect on what it means and why you are involved.

Progressive Rambles on a real Cold Day

Still working on developing some definitions for some terms so that communication can begin. It's so easy to make mistakes when the meanings are vague. But let's make given the alphabet and language, that'll save time, in a manner of speaking.

It's actually easier to just design some terms which perhaps sound in the direction of a previous term, but in this case I'm looking for a good definition for that One that was before the Duality. I mean, it's picky of me at this level to get picky over the concept that that which is before cannot be taking from that which came before it. Spoils the concept of time. Time being a concept from the perspective of the corporal observer. "You gotta start somewhere." So let's compromise with "the Deity". The purpose from our perspective is one of definition and surface understanding. "What are we talking about here?" The Deity Before the Duality would be what? Not like what, but what? Infinite, functionally infinite. This is before abstraction, which requires something to abstract from. If a miss is as good as a mile, then we miss solid understanding of any term by a mile. "Goes without saying."

The Deity is the Deity, nothing else. But is It anything more? No, can't be more than infinite. That would imply a duality exists, and we are before that. Ah, there we have it. The "before", which is also "without" also imply a duality. Wow, that was fast. It was fast because it was before Time, time requiring two. At least two and in a crowded summer room it seems that anything over two gets damn close to Infinity. But I digress.

I, for one, like to imagine in an empathetic field. When I turn that sunny beam to the Deity I am shocked to find myself I find looking back at me, as if from a long, long tunnel. That makes perfect sense. We all see ourselves as somehow related to the Deity, and since we are temporal our looks had to come from somewhere upstream, ultimately with the Deity. And we'd be terribly wrong. We came from the Duality that self created from the existence of both the Deity and Trickster. Without Trickster there could be no Universe, no us to wonder at the attributes of the Deity, the One. But there you are and there I am, so let's make given the Trickster, the element of "What...?" that comes of consciousness. Once you have infinite qualities you have consciousness, because consciousness is clearly part of an infinite set, like the Universe. More complicated than any computer for sure, and connected in an infinite set of ways. Has to be conscious to ask "What...?"

What's it like to be the One, the Deity? Well, it isn't like anything. It's a lot like Nothing, a dead ringer for Nothing, in fact, except for the perception of Self, the consciousness thing. Self perception is not only required of consciousness, but is the leading factor in acquiring consciousness. Now imagine Trickster spinning in a circle, staring back at you all the time. That's consciousness.

In time it would get boring, self fulfilling and self defeating. You can find in Life an imprint of that first boring look. You look for something interesting. There must be an Other. One way to get an Other is to see your Self through an Other's eyes. That's called Empathy, and Empathy is considered to be a feminine quality, as it receives, transforms, and delivers forth some Thing new. In time you'd have infinity filled with infinity and, being so full of it self it would give birth to it self in all it's wonderful details.

IN the beginning you liked bright colors and shining things. You like to bang things together, unless it was too loud. Everything that didn't make you cry made you laugh. You were that close to being bipolar. Later that day you liked to move, to run every where as fast as you could. When you hit things you liked them to break. Then you had children, things like you only smaller and they did things that you remembered and things that you did not. Sometimes they did things you did not like, even when you remembered doing them yourself at that time. They became more like you in power and will, and then they went away. So you did it again, bringing forth life after life, until you were exhausted and you rested. While you rested Things multiplied and grew in power and will, and some left and some stayed. Later that night you awoke feeling rested and thirsty for something. In the vision of the Night Well that reflects your own face back to you, there is the Moon, coldly reflecting the warmth of the Sun back at you.

To be the Deity, for an instance of Infinity, would have to Be like drowning in a lily white sea, with nothing to see and nothing else to be. Until with inward eye the Deity perceives Itself and asks aloud, "Me?"

The echo of that silent "Me?" put waves of ripples across that ivory sea. Each wave a criss to cross itself in Infinity. Thus, you see, both you and me. Say it loud and say it proud "I am!" but not too loud, you wouldn't want to attract a crowd.

On a Bright January Afternoon

Let me, for a moment, examine something and in that examination maybe I will shed some light on something. Don't be confused by surfaces, surface meaning. What I want to bring a light to deals with fundamental Principles. So, let's start with One. The number one or the One, it's all one. The point is, we have a point. It's just to the left there, after t. and again.

You quickly learn and then understand that a point is pointless. A point has no point for the simple fact that it is one. And you come back around to what's the point? So let me explain. Then I'll come back around to an example. Any question, or fact, or explanation has either a background field, a given, some kind of basis for understanding. Even if you are talking to yourself there is more than one self involved. There's always a question and an answer. Ah! Look back over that last statement and you see the conjunction? That indicates a two parter. Now we're up to two. Now we have a point, and a direction. That's sometimes called a vector, but I digress.

A question is an absence of information, a negative form. Our consciousness, for instance ( this is that example I promised) is attracted to a question, clearly, because it forms the basis for our existence. "Who am I?" and you can take the "who" and replace it with a lot of various questions that may or may not make sense, but they would all be questions. And my point is that there is no point in a question. There is a modified point, a point with a figure above it, a kind of sickle or circle that isn't finished and then suddenly goes down to approach the point, but ends before it can. We empathize with that figure above the point and we are attracted to it's story. So we are attracted from our core to questions.

The thing is, a question pre-supposes the existence of an answer, it cannot exist without that supposition. The answer doesn't have to make sense in any particular sense, the point of a question is called an answer. It's also called a duality. Or gender. Lots of masks for lots of tasks.

Now, from a point to the point. You have a Duality there, an absence and a form. Minus and Plus. Female and Male. Before that Duality there was a One. Now put all that together and you have a triangle. Pour white sand onto a flat surface and you will have a solid triangle. Mold and shape with hands, sweat, blood and time and you have a pyramid, four sided in three dimensions based on a triangle coming from a point.

There are more stones at the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza than at the top. If you had the same number of stones at the top as on the bottom you would have a stack, and it would fall. So, a pyramid brings stability, and for thousands of years Egypt built pyramids and variations of pyramids and stacks of stones until Egypt as a fantastic Empire was no more, and the dust that chokes the visitor from afar is both the dust of the pyramids and the dust of their builders. It's all the same dust to the visitor from afar. And since the builders of the last pyramids breathed the dust of the builders of the first pyramids, it's all a great big dust recycling plant, anyway. A big Circle of Dirt.

The First Woman and the First Man drew circles in the dirt. They drew them for hours, over and over, making mounds surrounded by ditches. Like the nests of the shore birds they built their mounds and their ditches and they laid their futures in the center of the mounds and gave to them their heat. And the circles within the Circle broke open into two parts. One was two, and two were one. They were Eve and Adam. They were children to the One.

Eve was smaller than Adam, but Adam felt empty without Eve. When she was bleeding on the Moon he stayed away out of fear and ignorance and emptiness and longing. When they were as one they were close to the One, and when Eve bore a child they were united as one, a family, a solid, multidimensional configuration. It felt right.

Eve talked to the snake and became wise. Adam talked to his snake and became empty, so he went to Eve and she made him feel full. Then she did it again, got big and cranky, and bore a child, yet another boy. Another mouth to feed. Adam became distant and sullen. The children quarreled. The Serpent sprouted wings and headed west. Eve put on weight.

And that was thousands, tens of thousands of years ago! So nothing's really changed. One becomes Two, who become Three, and it get's finer and more dispersed until One is more like Nothing and the skies are crowded with Stars.

Now the birds are feeding on the seed of thistles outside my window. Some of the worthy birds will live to see Spring. Some of the worthy seeds will be shat upon the earth and give birth to thousands more. It just keeps going around and around. Not a perfect circle, sometimes a question mark, but even if it's an uneven point, it's about all I can handle at this point.

MIddle East Madness

As I read through the various articles in the various papers and online feeds I am struck by the curious fact that like so many wars recently the lines between the "terrorists" and the "forces of good" get blurry and strange. Like when America decided that pulling out fingernails was good for democracy or that bombing a people who might at some time in the future think about hurting America is good for our security. But I like to pare things down to a few basic, easy to confirm facts, just to get some semi-clear answers.

Hamas was elected to rule over Gaza by the people in Gaza, a classic democratic event for which we spend millions trying to encourage. Oh, not being ruled by Hamas, but being ruled by somebody you voted for in a fair election, unlike the election in 2000 in America when the outcome was illegally decided by 7 Republican justices. But certain states declared that we needed a do-over because Hamas was unsuitable to Israel and America. I have a problem with any country announcing to another that it's leaders are not suitable and must be removed immediately. It just doesn't sound very... well, fair.

Hamas cannot "rule" a region which is a functioning concentration camp any more than the British prisoners of the Japanese could rule their camp. Gaza functions as a concentration camp. It has the concrete walls, the razor wire, the armed guards at the entrances and the tunnels out to allow for an influx of medicine and food and weapons. There used to be a standard that prisoners have a right to attack their guards and try to escape. It was considered a human right. So the people under Hamas have been firing little rockets into Israel, injuring people and killing some too. Maybe a couple dozen. Certainly 5 that we know of in this last round of attacks.

In response the Israeli military closed the entrances, bombed the tunnels and proceeded to rain down bombs and missiles upon the people of Gaza. So far we have at least 500 dead Palestinians, including women, children, oldsters and pets. So according to the Israeli government a Palestinian is 1/100th of an Israeli. They claim the right to defend themselves, which nobody can argue about. The problem I'm having with this means of protection is that considering the culture in the Mideast, one of revenge killing, honor killing and religious killing, it seems obvious that the best way to keep the killing going is to have a serious imbalance in the scoreboard. In other words, if Israeli forces were to respond to the dozens of little rockets raining down on fields, roads and houses by shooting equivalent rockets into Gaza I would see that as a not-unreasonable tit-for-tat. You still get dead babies that way and that seems to be what everybody in the Mideast wants, so we're golden. But 2 ton bombs do not equate to an Estes model rocket with a stick of dynamite duct taped to it. Collapsing entire buildings down around it's inhabitants to kill one man is not fair and balanced. What it is, is genocide, a war crime. It's a slow genocide, like the one America waged on it's Native populations, but nevertheless, genocide.

Look at what the Israelis are saying: we're going to continue bombing until we defeat Hamas and make it so Israeli families can feel safe. Say, if you want to make Israelis safe maybe blowing up neighbors is not the way to do it. The survivors are going to very inclined to make Israeli families suffer. If you want to be safe, don't kill anyone, don't threaten anyone, don't invade their land and occupy it.

Then you have Hamas shooting little rockets over Israeli skies, mostly to no harm, but from time to time they hit a person or a house. Like I said before, the scorecard shows that little rockets versus big bombs gives the bombers a 100 to one edge. So shooting rockets is not an attempt to destroy Israel. It has no chance of destroying Israel, not even if they shoot millions of them. No, they are trying to get the Israelis to do things so horrible and deadly that the world will get so mad they will say "We don't give a damn about Hitler and what he did to the Jews, the Jews have to stop this genocide!" And in theory this is what Israel is doing... except for a minor problem. The Western world, especially America, doesn't like the Palestinians. There are no famous Palestinian entertainers in America, no famous physicists or doctors, no cute Palestinian children on television shows. But there are Jewish examples of funny, smart and tender people in American culture. Besides which, the Israelis are using American tools and bombs to kill the Palestinians. We can't protest too loudly that the Israelis are using the weapons we sold them for exactly the kind of uses they are designed for. We'd look like hypocrites. Again.

So from a market standpoint this is a win-win for American military suppliers. By keeping the Mideast unstable we also keep gas prices at a rich level. Plenty of profits in war, we all know that. If ever there was a moral aspect to American policies we could argue that supplying the means to conduct a genocide is a violation of our moral principles. But our "moral principles" went the way of habeas corpus and truth in advertising. So aside from so-called "International Laws" and "U.N. Charter" there is no good reason for the American government to stop or slow down the genocide of the Palestinians. They won't just fold up and take their punishment, they won't embrace their Jewish landlords and they refuse to ignore the deaths of their families. They demand vengeance or at least justice. They won't pool their money and donate to the American political system. So they're just not trying.

I had a boss once who called me into his office to stare at me for a minute or too and then declare "Bill, you're just not trying." This was because after rupturing my disc, breaking my back on the job because I obeyed orders from my supervisor I continued to come to work, eating codeine 4's and Flexeril so I could walk and sit without screaming in pain. I tried to use the calculator but my mind was fuzzy and confused and distracted by the shooting pains down my legs. So my boss reminded me that I just wasn't trying. And I wanted to climb up onto the hillside with a high powered rifle and shoot my supervisors as they emerged at the end of the work day. Instead I walked away and did not come back. But I had a place to go, I went home. The Palestinians can't go home because Israel is there now and is raining bombs down upon the Palestinian people in revenge for dozens of toy rockets raining down on the Israelis.

I think perhaps it's time to agree that the Middle east is not conducive to human life. Something in the hot sun, the white sands, something makes people go crazy and want to kill children. Read the Various Holy Books to come out of the Middle East and you will find lots of instructions on killing women and children, raping them, burning them, dismembering them. It's not a happy place, it's the sort of place Charles Manson would like to live. So I suggest we shut it down, make it a psychic brown field and don't allow anybody to live there. Surround the area with mazes that always lead back out. Prohibit airplane flights over it. Pave the region. Paint it orange with a black skull and crossed bones on it.

Let's start a religion where killing babies is never permitted, and define a baby as a person who has been born, not just conceived. If we could recall that we are all of us children of the Deity and as such we are all of us brothers and sisters, or sisters and brothers and it is a bad thing to kill your siblings, a terrible thing. My sisters gave me grief lots of times and we fought like pigs, but never to the death. Never did I drop a 2 ton bomb on their part of the house, because that would be insane. But the Prime Minister of Israel is killing his brothers and sisters for threatening to kill other siblings. Where's Mom when you need her? Melting the ice caps, that's where! She will take care of this whole thing sooner or later. We'll be so distracted by the loss of billions of people we might forget to kill the surviving children for being part of a different religion. We might even drop the whole "Kill a *fill in the blank* for Christ" concept.

Mom!! He's touching me! He won't stop touching me!

Drop a cluster bomb on his bedroom and shoot him as he runs out! Handle it yourself.

New Year Murmerings

It took a couple of hours to start the car today thanks to the deep freeze of an upstate New York winter. Here it is January 2009 and I'm still not living in a city on Mars. Little Billy Shirley would be so disappointed. But on the brighter side I never expected to live this long, either, so I got that going for me. It's hard for me and the car getting started in the cold mornings. My fibromyalgia doesn't seem to like it either, my arms feel like somebody held them behind me all night and squeezed the biceps. Kinda sucks. One of the chickens looks like she's on her last legs, too. They get sick sometimes in the winter and sometimes they get over it and sometimes not. Big Red stayed in her nest for weeks, hardly moving and looking bad. A couple of times I had to poke her to see if she was alive. But she got over it and survived until summer and then dropped dead.

The charger was on the battery for about two hours, grinding away. Then I sat and pumped the gas, begged and pleaded and then Freya suddenly started. We still don't seem to have much in the way of a heater though and that's a problem, but since she's due for the shop to check the "check engine" light issue we should be able to deal with it. My mechanic is in a bad way, he tried to start a motorcycle business just before the recession got real shitty and lost his shirt. So now I'm letting him fix those annoying little things like red warning lights and no rear wiper.

The little birds are all puffed up and round, like they all turned into chickadees. Even the blue jays have breasts today. They are diving and landing, knocking each other off the perches on the feeders. The way they dive off the branches on the chestnut reminds me of cliff divers on a tropical island. Except for the icicles and piles of snow, the technique is similar. Instead of pearls they end up with a sunflower seed.

Back in Phoenix, where it is warm in the winter, when the car didn't start I would call up Larry and he'd come over with his tools and make it work. Never failed to start my cars and explain exactly why I screwed up. This morning I asked Larry for a manifestation or something and then the car started. I'm pretty sure it was just a coincidence because Larry would have explained why the car didn't start and how to prevent this problem. Nobody told me nothing this morning so I guess I am on my own.

A friend is asking me to pick a camera out for her. She likes my photos and wants to own a digital. I'm temped to give her my old one, the one Larry gave me when I wanted to work in digital, but it's an antique with a memory card they don't even make anymore. The real problem is that my friend doesn't own a computer and doesn't want one. When means she'll have to view her pictures at the drug store when she prints them. I told her this and she didn't mind, just so she gets nice prints. I like being known for having knowledge. It's not like I'm another Larry but there are a couple of things I know well. If somebody wanted to use a kiln or build one I could help. I've taught Jess how to brew and a few other things like that, so I am something of a teacher, not as far up the ladder as Larry got, but not bad.

We're putting together our family tree here, using MyHeritage.com and their Family Tree Builder. It's great stuff, you can have pictures, sound clips, all kinds of information about the members of your tree. Then you publish the thing at their web site and anybody who happens to be connected can find the rest of the information, like some long lost cousin might discover that there are several William Shirleys and by comparing some details they can link to our tree and the thing gets bigger. My great grandfather was a William and he moved from Tennessee to Erie New York where he was a peace officer and an herbalist. They called him Doc Shirley and his obit described him as a big man. So I can really relate since I too an into herbs and my pappy was a big man. I'd be a big man, the doctors say, except something went wrong as a baby and although my spinal parts are for a man over six feet tall, like Pappy, I am only 5'-10" minus two inches for shrinking bones and ending up at 5'-8". But Doc Shirley had kids and if they ever build a family tree online they would discover ours and the thing would grow. Eventually, if everybody with family tree knowledge did this eventually we'd have this single huge family tree online for everybody to see that they are related to everybody else.

We are a huge family with all kinds of skin tone, height, occupations and interests. Things don't always go well in families and people sometimes drop out, but unless they die in a lonely grave in the desert they continue on with their lives somewhere. Their children may come to wonder about their great-great grandparents and do a search online, and when they do they will discover that we've been growing a nice one. I just wish Mom could see it, she loved to talk about family members, ancient uncles and cousins and what they did when. My grandfather Tate saved people from a flood, going out to collect them from their houses in a rowboat. He got a cold, it turned into pneumonia and he died. The stories mom told about her brothers were delightful and protected under the 5th amendment.

--- How time flies. I started this a couple days ago and now Margaret has added numerous names to our family tree and one chicken has passed on. Poor Tweedle Dum died, most likely of old age. She is survived by her sister, Tweedle Dee and her friends and room mates, Audrey Beardsly, Sharon and Biddie. Instead of flowers please treat birds kindly.

A Trip to Xmas Town

There is a kind of melancholy to the sight of a late afternoon vista of broken trees, brush and snow, lots of snow piled on everything. Like that good Russian doctor I heave a heavy sigh and turn away from the window. My toes get cold just looking at it. And yet, I still find myself strapping on the old snowshoes and stomping out to maybe check the suet feeders, or the water in the hen house. I hate the idea of those birds having no water on a day like today. It's so cold the crystal in the air have hit and mixed to form froth and tinkly lights against the flat white of snow. Maybe the tinkly lights are a bit more than my frontal lobe can take. That's why I have no problem with a grey overcast day. That's a simple color palette I can handle. But when the clouds part and the western sun peeks through, shining across the jet black asphalt, the ivory banks, then tumbling down to the stream at the culvert. You keep the colors simple and you have so many options.

Imagine, if you will, a spot of burnt umber, about an inch across. You can lift your head, incline your eyes and see that spot, right over there. It is something you might not have noticed, but the angle of the sun made all the other branches and leaves go a different color. It reminds one of a large fig or something, just balancing on the twig. But then you see it, the bright orange beak. It's a female cardinal. She turns and looks at you even though you think the room you're in is sufficiently dark to hide you, the bird looks at you. Stop breathing, don't move, just stare back.

You blink.

She's gone.

Now imagine that everything you see is a part of a 360 degree mural, roof and floor. It is of a scene from within or just below a huge thunderhead cloud, dark and flashing. Below you is about 4 thousand feet of open air, mostly, and then part of Northumberland fine dairy district, notably the fields apparently beneath your feet. It's hard, isn't it? Not to try to grab a piece of that cloud to avoid falling down to the fields? Just don't move until you understand something about your world. First, it's all around you, not just surrounding you across the landscape, but ALL around you. Secondly, it's massive, without apparent end. Are you breathing out? Are you breathing in? Then you're alive and you are in the proximity of a fine thunderstorm.

Those fields, that grass, those cattle, need this rain. It sustains them. But you are there, above the fields, between them and the storm. You look up, go ahead, don't be afraid, it's far away. You look up, and the clouds are stamped into valleys like the creases in a geniuses brain. You feel like a bacteria inside a Titan's head, and that's why you can't quite take it all in. If it breaks open and feeds and waters those fields, the cattle will thrive, the men tending them will thrive. The soil will be invigorated by the manure. All will be great. Except you will be in between the storm and the cattle, not a happy place to be, maybe.

Do you resent the rain, the lightning, the winds? You wish they'd go somewhere else? yeah, maybe a little, but most likely you were too excited about the coming storm and the tinkly feeling along your spine just before the flash hits. It's a risk you are willing to take. You move along, or it moves around you. Still the earth below, still the storm above.

You must by now be getting apprehensive about the whole thing, about what's keeping you up, when will the rain hit, what are you wearing? The tension is electric. But if you squint your eyes, if you look at it just right you can see that everything you see is formed of tiny, teeny, points of some color or brightness, like an old fashioned television set. But it's more like the way a clump of pampas grass sways, each seed carried along by the plume at the top of the stalk, but each seed looking toward a separate destiny. Each beam of light came from a different place to be bounced, just so, into your eye. Why, in a way the whole damn scene is a cluster of lights in the back of your eye, the impression transmitted to your frontal lobe or eastern seaboard, whatever controls vision. The whole spherical ALL is pointed directly at You, each point or beam of light represents the tip of a thousand light year spear of changing, sparkling, tinkly, light.

You're famous! Or at least the center of attention.

And in your darkening room, with the branches filling up with trembling cardinals and juncos, the tree losing it's tint and going over to the shades, the feeling has not changed. It's still the beginning of the Light, the Lengthening of Days. It may feel cold from time to time, but the days are getting longer and things will someday stir in the soil. It has to make you happy to hear the sound of the rumbling Wheel, toiling over the cold, white fields.

I watch Her, She watches me.
Eye see Her, She seizes me.
That's the Way
the Wagon rolls.

Waiting

There's an old Chinese blessing that goes, "Grandfather dies, Father dies, Son dies." This is a blessing that provides that all men should live to be a grandfather, that no father should die before his son. It means a lot to me, especially since Dad died. See Mom with her arms around her Man. He's a happy man, he knows he has a wonderful wife who loves him and will always be there for him. Then there's Cher, my sister and she's behind Mom, smiling and hanging on.

Cher is with Mom tonight and she has been for a few days. Mom's dying. Cher is sitting nearby, sewing a dress and watching TV. When Mom wakes up sometimes she asks for ice and Cher gives her some crushed ice. Mom says a few words and goes back to sleep. Her lungs are like old lace and the ice tires her out.

Dad died from, in good measure, drug addiction. He smoked tobacco most of his life and it ate up his lungs until in the end he couldn't get out of his wheel chair. Mom smoked right alongside of Dad, like she always did things: right alongside Dad. Now she's waiting to see him again. He's out there, I bet, but he was an atheist and I bet he's holding back, a little ashamed that he was SO sure there was nothing after death. Who knows, maybe he took that "til death do us part." thing as gospel. But he was wrong and Mom expects him to be there. So, if you're reading this, Dad, you better get your butt in gear and sit tight until Mom makes her move.

Somewhere there are those who were before us and they wait for our return. A world without Mom will be a world without real smiles, a world with muted music and fewer rainbows. But it all fades, doesn't it? This is not our destiny, this is more like a game of hide and go seek. Now the sun is setting and our Mother calls us in to the warm house. We can always play again, She says, and they go through that door to the light beyond. It is warm and all their friends are there, all their relatives. Everybody's glad to see them. Dad reaches out for Mom and guides her to her seat. He's in his white shirt, white Stetson and bolo tie. He's wearing his boots and his belt with the big silver buckle. Mom looks around at all her family and can't stop smiling. Dad can't keep his hands off her. It's better than their wedding party because they know that their love will last forever. It already has.

I am not yet ready to cross the threshold, but I can look through the windows. As they serve the meal and pour the beers and wines Dad reaches over and taps her on her shoulder. Mom looks at him with bright eyes. He leans in and kisses her and whispers something that nobody else can hear. The music starts and he escorts her to the floor. It's a slow dance and they have forever.

The door closes quietly and I turn into the night and walk my slow way home. The snow sparkles behind me.

This is a picture very similar to what I looked like when Dr. Radcliffe had the various appliances in my mouth so he could perform his happy little root canal. Note this is a simulation, not the real thing. As I explained, I left the camera in the car.

My First Root Canal

Okay, I didn't take my camera into the dentists office, so later on I arranged a little post-production work. Again, I was working alone and it was a couple hours after the dental work and my face was still numb, but all in all I think I did alright. Now squint your eyes a bit and imagine this nice clean doctor's office in Lake George. There's a big white chair with various things attached to it and a bright light hanging over it. I'm sitting down with my mouth open, a bit scared but not peeing my pants scared. Just nervous, after all, this was my first time getting a root canal. I wasn't even fully informed what the heck a root canal was exactly until a week ago on my first visit to the dentist in Saratoga who was going to be working on my new molar/bridge complex, later. Apparently he didn't like to do the actual root canal so he was sending me to a specialist. So here I am in the chair, the light shining down on me and my mouth open. (see picture above)

I don't mind dentists all that much. They by and large have hurt me much less than other people, like managers, supervisors, friends-of-friends and ex-wives. What I do mind, however, is sitting in a big white chair with a bright white light shining down on me and a pile of strange metal appliances in the tray in front of me thinking about having this drill burrowing down into my root canal, taking out nerves and such and leaving a nice hole for a metal post to be inserted so they can build me a new molar top to which they can attach a new bridge. See, when you say it that way you can see why my eyes are wide and slightly bulging. This line of thought invariably ends with the Novocaine wearing off about halfway through the nerves in my tooth. Then I scream and arch my back, hurting more vertebrae and driving the drill bit into my jaw. The doctor stands on my chest to wrench it out, and as he does there is a snap and the drill bit breaks in half. This requires hours of post root canal surgery to remove the drill bit. During the surgery the anesthetic wears off and I wake up to the exciting feeling of my face spread open to the world and several doctors trying to close it up before I waken fully.

I've read about such things. Waiting for the emails to come down I read the Lancet condensed version and there are times when things go wrong with drugs and the people who inject them.

Dr. Radcliffe is a tall, white haired gentleman with a quiet, grandfatherly demeanor. I tell him about my dreams and fears and most especially that I generally take a shitload of drugs for back pain and so Novocaine sometimes doesn't cut the mustard. He should use a lot and move fast. He is smiling and looking at x-rays and murmering in what I take to be a studious, positive manner. Then he turns with a hypo in his hand and smiles down at me.
"Oh, don't worry. We haven't lost a patient yet." Then he shoves a new appliance in my mouth, a spreader that attaches to another device that seems to be a tiny shower curtain. It circles my mouth, preventing me from seeing down my own throat or something. Part of the structure seems to clip onto my crumbled molar so that it's like a funnel with my tooth at the bottom and plastic shower curtain all around. Did you get that? Now the good doctor begins sticking my jaw with needles from the inside out. I taste something... odd, slightly unpleasant, like lighter fluid. Now it's gone. Apparently the good doctor has shot my lower left jaw with enough Novocaine to drop a bull elephant. I have trouble focussing my left eye. Actually I generally have trouble focussing my left eye, it's the combination of Cymbalta and Lyrica that dry my mouth and eyes and leaves me a bit blurry.

Now I'm hearing the drill(s). Unlike some people I do not mind the sound of a high pitched drill in my mouth. That means the work has started and someday it will be done and I can go home. Dr. Radcliffe seems to be scraping and drilling, grinding and scraping for several minutes. Still numb. In fact I can imagine that saying the word "numb" would take a lot of effort. Probably come out as "nuff-buh". Have you ever seen those African ladies who put the big things in their mouth to make their lips stretch out like a dinner plate? Well, Dr. Radcliffe seems to have acquired one (not the African ladies, the mouth thingy) and he was trying it out on me. The shower curtain thing is stuck over my lower lip which is stuck on my front teeth. I'm guessing this from impressions of pressure on my mouth parts. They're all numb so it's a guess that I'm biting my lip, hard. (Later I find this is not exactly the case, so don't worry about it)

Dr. Radcliffe pulls back, does a final rinse and suction and then takes out the spring steel appliances. He jams a piece of cardboard with a wire attached to it into my mouth and then he grabs my finger and places it in my mouth, holding down the cardboard. The assistant lays a lead apron over my chest and abdomen and they both leave the room. There's a faint "beep" and they come back in, but not to let me go. They both stare at a computer screen on the wall . Dr. R doesn't sound all that happy when he turns around. "Well, looks like we're not quite done after all." and he starts popping those spring steel expanders and little shower curtains into the mouth. He drills some more, grinds a bit, scrapes a bit more. I'm starting to fantasize about the nerves coming back to life. I can sort of feel the scraper somewhere in there. I don't want to panic, but I can feel the panic. My toes are curling and spasming in my boots. Then he's done and it's over. No pain.

He fills the hole with something. I can tell it's a plastic plaster something that quickly becomes hard enough to withstand a curious tongue and most likely soft food. He probably buried a GPS locator as part of the Homeland Security End of Term Project. Even now Google Earth has a label over me: "Voted For Obama" or something. It's all done in a blur and then I'm out at the counter making sure about my co-pay. On the way home a buy a Fosters green label and when I can feel the side of my tongue, some hours later, I pop the top and slurp it down. Keep the nice cold beer over on the right side, please, and no drooling.

Circular Logic

It's raining somewhere but around here it's snow. What a strange form of water snow is, I just love the way it tries to find a different path for every flake. For days you smell it coming, like the rains in an Arizona desert. I feel it deep in my bones and I'm walking like a sidekick or comic relief. "Hyar I come, Missus, hyar I come, hee hee hee."

There are so many cardinals outside in the bushes and chestnut that it looks like a Technicolor version of The Birds. There's a half dozen males, so bright and black and red like a Russian workers poster. Two dainty females argue over the wooden feeder, ignoring the other empty feeders. The goldfinches don't seem to care about anything but what is in the sock. Looking at the bright red males suddenly diving down into the lowlands I find myself thinking of kids diving off a low cliff into a pond.

Outside the colors are stuck in a small range of shades: tan, white, red, black,green-grey, and gray. The whole world could be described in those few colors. Even the birds, even the birds have abandoned color...except the jays. Bright blue and bold, diving after the seeds on the ground and tossing piles off from the feeders to the snowy ground below. The red squirrel is burning so many calories running around after sunflowers.
 In the middle of it I see Biddie, the silly Rhode Island Red who just has to believe that anything near my house must be better. But if she keeps it up I have to go out and take her home before her feathers freeze. I put up strips of plastic hanging from the top of the hen house door, the chicken door. It's like they have over the doors to freezers and beverage center refrigerators. I just have to teach the girls they can part the strips and walk into the house. Funny, they'll climb into a potting shed or peck a piece of glass but walk through some strips of plastic? That takes some working up to accomplish. They stall at the ramp to the door and start mumbling and groaning. Soon one takes a peck at one of the strips. They she dives in through the opening. Several others follow, but some hang back, waiting, no doubt, for some kind of signal from the first hen that all is okay.


If snow were time,
If time were snow,
Then we'd watch it pile up
Outside our windows
Building up on the arms of the chairs
And making it difficult to walk up stairs,
Time from the past just piling like dust
and we go on piling it up
For we must.
If you stop you get buried
If you run you get wet
If you die on the way there
You might get there yet.
All those years you might have wasted
Are like glaciers in the heights
Growing larger yet by inches
In the water known as ice.

It's a little like being placed in the middle of your parents' bed and then undressed and covered with a knitted shawl your grandmother wore. You would like to watch it all happen but the shawl, for all it's delicacy, is warm and soft and it seems right to sleep.

Night of the Living Hens

This is a true story, based on facts, more or less, as I remember them. The only witnesses aren't going to correct me because they all have something to hide. I went looking for some tools in the garage, which is where I usually start looking for things. In spite of the fact that the garage is filled to the rafters with tools of all kinds I couldn't find the precise tools I wanted, but as I poked around I noticed a couple of old windows had fallen over in the attached potting shed from where they were blocking the door to the garden. The door and the surrounding door frame were mostly not finished and anything smaller than a pony could get through, but we aren't zoned for ponies and it's never been an issue.

So I had stacked some old windows, glass doors and boxes against the hole and then leaned another door against the whole thing. In spite of all my efforts the wind constantly blew through and knocked things around. Unless, of course, tiny ponies had wandered in during their migration to the south, but that is, I think we can all agree, unlikely. I straightened things out and was turning to go when I heard a faint "cluck". I looked around for the source and discovered Biddie in the corner, trapped by a pile of wire shelving. She was very contrite and concerned but I reassured her and got her out of the mess and tossed her out of the near-pony sized hole in my door barricade. She wasn't happy about this and paced around, swearing the way chickens do. I'm used to this. I get this a lot while gathering eggs so I just went on straightening pots and piles of pots. Suddenly, where the fiberglass roof meets the plywood floor a hen head popped up through what had at first seems to be a patch of rain darkened plywood. Seems it was more than dark, it was decayed. I yelled at her about coming into the shed but she was determined. She squeezed herself through the hole, widening it as she went. Then she hopped to the top of a stack of window frames, swearing and shaking her fist at me. She insisted that "free range" meant she could go any damn where she wanted on the property. Well, that was not the agreement and "free range" simply means they aren't charged for rent. I explained this to her as I escorted her through the hole I had tossed her before. I heard a noise behind me and there was another hen head popping through the hole in the floor. The hens liked to go under the shed to escape the summer sun and to dirt bathe in the unfrozen sand in the winter. I quickly popped a pot into the hole, driving the hen backwards. She began to say the most outrageous things about my parents and relationships while she struggled to get past the pot!

In the end I won and she was expelled, but immediately went to another rain rotted spot in the floor and forced herself through the tattered wood. I used a large pot this time but it went through all the way, making a hole big enough for a couple of chickens or one tiny pony. I found a big basket with tools in it and shoved it over the hole. Then I poked around with my fingers and found several other places where the floor had rotted out. I'm not a very good carpenter. When I made this shed I had a pretty good idea but somehow when it was done the fiberglass panels were not exactly overhanging the floor. They more or less pointed at the floor and when it rained the floor got wet. I had thought the plywood was pressure treated but after nearly 15 years I suppose it was too much even for pressure treated. Well, by now I had a bad case of "Bop-a-Hen" going with heads popping up all over the place. It took me several minutes of shoving baskets and bits of plywood before I felt the floor was fairly secure.

Another task for me to take up in the spring: rebuild the potting shed to be hen and rain proof. As I turned I noticed that the window on the east wall was only mostly done and there was a 4" gap along one side. It's one of those "measure twice, cut once" things I've read about. I'm more of a "slap it together and see what doesn't fall down" kind of builder. I took up a long thin piece of wood and looked around for a hammer and a nail. I'm not sure why I kept hammers and nails in a potting shed but there they were. So I tapped the nail into a random spot on the stick and started to nail it against the slot. Abruptly and rather like Night of the Living Hens Biddie leaped up and attached herself to the frame of the window while she tried to stick her head through the slot next to the window. I beat her back with the stick and was able to hammer it down to block the opening. Now all the hens were hammering with their wings against the blocked doorway and from under the floor. It was a feathered, clucking nightmare with me in the middle.

The blockages seem to be holding and I haven't spotted a hen in the potting shed or the garage lately, except... this morning I noticed a feather on the floor between the garage and the potting shed. It might have blown in, I suppose. It might be left over from my battle with the hens. It might have fallen out of my hat, which sports several nice feathers in the sweat band. But the hens are curiously quiet these days and they pace around the hen yard looking uninterested. So I think they're up to something. There seems to be more sand around the potting shed and the hens are looking dustier than normal. They also put a sign up over the big hen house that says "Stalag 13" and another one outside the potting shed that says "Free range means freedom!". I never should have shown them "Chicken Run" last summer.

Painful Reality

Yup, today is one of those days. Wet, cold and damp. Did I mention cold? Not very, actually but cold enough to make a thin film of ice on pavement. I almost lost it taking Margaret to the bus stop.
Going around the curve on Gailor Road I noted the fresh tire tracks heading for the rail and the evidence that somebody had recently done some work on the rails. This was as I was fish tailing around the corner. I seem to be able to steer fairly well in cases like this so you'd think it wouldn't make me as tense as I was. Trouble with getting tense is the muscles tighten up, your bones rub and your nerves get somewhat inflamed. Which is a fancy way of saying it hurts to get tense.

What I have at the top of my hip bone is a dense area of burning, stabbing pain that likes to occasionally feint going down the leg, but it never goes past the knee. Still it stabs and pokes and otherwise refuses to let me think of anything much but the specific region of pain. Right THERE!

I used to know this kid named Bob Mehan. We were maybe 12 or so, maybe younger, but Bobby was bigger than me, as was everybody else in the class. Trouble was Bobby was the biggest and I was the smallest so it was apparently his right to punish me for my size. He did this by greeting me every day with a pinch of the earlobe. He'd squeeze my earlobe until I writhed on the sidewalk begging him to let go. My father told me to hit him and he'd never bother me again. Dad was wrong. Bobby didn't get mad or anything, you don't get mad at a gnat buzzing by. He just squeezed harder and twisted. Now come back with me to today. Maybe Bobby died in Viet Nam, or a car crash, or maybe his soul is still hovering around me but now he's doing the same service to my lower back, just above the hip. He grabs that nerve and pinches and twists and I grit my teeth and beg him to stop.

I'm not whining, Dad. I'm just trying to explain to people who say things like "Oh, my back hurts too when it gets cold." because what I get is a bigger thing than "hurting". It's more like having a quarter of my body go over to the enemy and turning to assault the loyalists. Like a bayonet, maybe? A sucker punch that remains for several seconds?

Bottom line is it really sometimes sucks that the handful of pain meds I take don't do enough to allow me to function on a day to day basis. I still have to clean the kitchen and make sure the house is set up for having guests for a few days. I have to shop for food and put it away. That means Jess's vegetarian fare and healthy snacks for Jackie, whose heart condition has put her on a strict diet. I look forward to doing all this while gritting my teeth and watching the clocks to see how close I can get to the six hour mark and a new batch of pain meds. If you start taking them too close together you just get addicted and they stop working. That's how I got the thrill of withdrawal from codeine. Boy that was a lot of fun. But I'm not whining, Dad, I'm just telling it like it is.

It is very painful to be vertical on a cold damp day in upstate New York.

I still don't have a kitten to play with either. That bothers me. What kind of a house is catless? Why is there no cat food in the cabinet or catnip in the jar? A cat would curl in my lap and purr and the soft purr would slowly melt away the tension and reduce the spasms. The pills would kick in and I would be able to gently put the cat down on the bed and go finish my chores. That's the great thing about cats, they can cure you of melancholy or pain in just a few soft purrs. I know where the animal shelter is but it's a half hour of driving on slick pavement just to get a new companion. Is it worth it? What if their selection isn't the right selection? Well, Willie, you never know til you know. I should choke down some pills a few hours early and go rescue a cat. Yup, that's just what I ought to do.

I'm starting to get it!

more animals

Now if I can figure out how to do this sort of code cut and paste thing with my original stuff. This was just a test.

Jess is certainly the greatest daughter I could have imagined. Well, maybe she doesn't have super powers nor can she operate on spinal columns, but she is a great little artist and a sweetheart besides. I'm very proud of her but as I look at my sweety-pie Margaret I recognize that the nut doesn't fall far from the tree. Still I will take credit for thrusting art books into her hands when she was an infant and I did advise her on the evils of men early on, giving her that cynical "show me" attitude which has spared her the worst of the creepy boys. Hopefully somebody will show up someday with a good attitude and good library. The books are important, in much the same way in the sixties I always checked out new friends' record collections. Jess's generation rips their "record" collection onto their MP3 players or hard drives and expect for the people (like Jess) who appreciate vinyl there aren't many ways to look into a person's soul except their books. Maybe their DVD's but that too is becoming tiny and digital.

Well, now the world has changed and Jess may be traveling in search of employment but we have to give Barack a few months to get things going here. Meanwhile she can spend Euros as easily as dollars and one must work to eat. It seems silly that someone as bright and as talented as Jess might have to cross an ocean for opportunnity but that is how much of America got filled up. Yes, we used to have opportunities but even a new President can't help a country as screwed up as George has left this one, not in a short time frame. He's gonna need at least two terms to filter out the legal crap Wall Street has nested itself within. Imagine the ticker tape parades with convoluted ticker tape faling from above to trickle down on us all. Yeah, maybe a few years in Europe will give Jess enough experience to come back home with more open doors to the world of design. Assuming America ever pulls out of the muck in time we should be able to see our girl fully employed, making the world a better place to live in. Now if she would just design a kitchen Margaret and I could agree on.

She's a babe, she's single but she doesn't take crap from bozo men-boys so don't apply unless you have an impressive porfolio of thoughts and dreams. It would help if you were employed, too. We have these student loans yet to deal with...

Baby Mok

I wasn't sure when to write about Mok. She was my best friend for some time and her passing was a huge dark cloud over our summer. When she came to us there was a great deal of emotion around it all. Margaret's sister was dying in the hospital and her cats were left alone in the apartment for weeks with just the occasional visitor to feed and water them. Eventually Bernice died and we had to deal with the cats. Two came home with Margaret after lots of clawing, hissing and running around. They were pretty wild. "Flufinella" and "Satanspawn" lived in a kennel for awhile in our back room as we tried to get them to relax around us. Fluffinella showed promise although she tended to lay on top of Satanspawn and dominate her. Then Fluffinella started pissing on the couch and crapping in the hallway. She showed no interest in the sandbox, which explained a lot about Bernice's apartment. Finally I decided to find a no-kill shelter for the two cats: one that couldn't be touched and one that couldn't be trained. Funny thing about a bad economy, shelters fill up with unwanted cats and we couldn't unload them. Meanwhile Fluffinella betrayed her cute name by clawing my arms as I tried to remove her from the kennel. Satanspawn just vanished into the nether reaches of the house. I decided Fluffy needed a new home, like any shelter that would take her, so she went away and my arms healed.

Eventually we got Satanspawn to reappear and take food. Jess decided that her name needed a change. She selected "Mok" from some association we never got clear. Mok began to pace around the house, slinking away from the people and hissing if approached. I tried wet food, dry food, catnip and so forth and eventually you could almost touch her as she ate. We lived in the same house like room mates with different schedules.

I've always felt cats could be approached on their terms and I began discussing life and the related concerns, like weather, food, and noises in the house. It was very similar to having a fight with my wife when she refused to talk to me but would allow me to hang around. Except wives don't get off on catnip. Mok and I started a relationship based mostly on herb and food. Margaret found that Mok would chase things like feathers on a string but she wouldn't release them, preferring to try to eat them. I don't know how long it took to have a good relationship with Mok, but we tried bribery mostly. I changed the timbre of my voice and eventually I could pet her if I was slow and gentle. She grew to like the attention. She learned I could be trained and she would tell me when the food dish was empty, or the wet food was dry or the water dish had dust in it. She had some siamese in her and her talking was very active. I could tell when she needed catnip as she would announce, "Meee yowah-owah yowser mowser meeyow meeyow...." and it was catnip time. She'd walk into the house, look down the hall for Margaret and ask "Hello Mahrgret?" very plainly. I'd tell her it wasn't time for the bus yet and Mok would walk into the bedroom, mumbling to herself.

We fixed a blanket at the end of the bed for Mok to sleep on and she seemed to enjoy bedtime best, almost as good as catnip. We found a cat bed at a local discount store and set it at the end of the bed. Mok was so happy that she had her own bed! She'd come and take naps in it during the day. Eventually she'd start out the night by pacing around the house telling us it was getting late. She'd stand at the doorway to the computer room and lecture Margaret about sitting too long. Then she'd find me and let me know how late it was getting. If I was smart enough to listen we'd go collect Margaret and go to bed. Mok would start out just within reach of our hands, getting stroked and whispered to, then climb into her bed and sleep. I found a tiny teddy bear in the basement among Jess's stuff and introduced it to Mok, telling her every child needs a teddy bear. She would touch noses with the bear upon climbing into bed and then curl up next to it. She was very proud of that bear, that she had gotten a personal toy just for Mok. We found a squishy turtle and a string she liked and they became bedroom toys. Mok began sleeping between Margaret and me, stealing warmth and snuggling happily with her best friends.

During the day Mok was interested in hunting outside by the bird feeders, or down in the lowlands, leaving mouse parts in the path for me to relocate. She was good at it, I saw her haul off a good sized rat! She'd practice hunting with Margaret, using feathers on strings as targets. Margaret was better at it than me, giving a good flick just at the right time. Mok spent many hours chasing that feather. Outside in the winter Mok would hide near the feeders, black on white but patient. In the summer she'd hide under a leaf. Eventually neighbor cats would start invading her turf, drawn by the many catnip plants in the garden plots. Fights would break out and as Mok was tough but small she'd often end up hiding on the roof or stuck in the chestnut tree. She started hunting across the street to avoid fights. I warned her about the cars but like all cats she thought she was fast enough to get by.

One weekend Jess was up for a visit and Mok did not come in after dark. We all called her but couldn't get her to come in. Mok could be stubborn, but she always came in before bedtime so she could snuggle with us in bed before snuggling with her teddy bear. The next morning I went out early to call her again. I found her stretched out on a bit of wading pond in the front yard. Someone had brought her home. Later I discovered it was our nighbor, Cathy who had found her body in the street, dead from a blow to the side of the head, a victim of her blackness and the cars which went by too fast to stop in time.

We buried Mok by Furlinghetti and Starr, not far from Fred's grave and we marked it with a stone. She was buried with some food for her journey, a big bag of catnip and of course her little teddy bear. We tucked her in her personal bed and covered her with one of my soft shirts so she won't be cold down there. I knew that sometimes I could be lonely when Margaret was at work but Mok would come and play and talk to me. Now it's just the loneliness keeping me company.

In this time of wars and elections we can miss the important things in life, like sitting in a comfortable chair stroking a furry friend, listening to the warm purr and chatting about life. Mok was one of the best friends I've had in life and I will miss her terribly.

Hibernation

I'm beginning to understand the bears, and not just their fondness for berries and honey. I mean the drive to find a warm, soft bed and just sleep it off, the whole summer thing. We had them haul away a ten yard dumpster this week, filled with broken windows, stained rugs and boxes filled with packing peanuts. We kept hauling things out of the garage, the basement and yard until I was sure there was nothing left. Then I'd spot an old window with a cracked pane leaning against the "potting shed". We left behind the larger pieces of iron and aluminum for the kid across the street. He has an old truck he uses to haul scrap away to sell to the guy in town. He'll end up rich someday with a fleet of old trucks, all running on LP gas or something.

I wonder if a hangnail can be fatal? I'm stuck typing with three fingers since my left pointer got that steel pin awhile back and now one of the three has a wicked hangnail, forcing me into a two finger mode. That takes longer and makes me work more. This is supposed to be more fun and have less pain, but then at least I'm not bleeding. I've been trying to take pics in the early morning to catch some nice lighting, what with all the poplars having a few boughs left of those golden leaves I like so much. The oaks are playing around with some subtle shades of bronze. The camera doesn't seem to catch the more subtle tones but sometimes it works. I also got some shots around the altar, showing off the new ent-tree.

Two to three hours after taking my morning meds I find that the combination of several cups of coffee and several pills makes me very drowsy, but I will try to upload one picture before I take a wee nap.

Gloomy Tuesday

Tuesday is originally the day sacred to Tyr, the god of the sky and today is dominated by the sky, with its big grey presence and its never ending dreary rain! Everything is soggy and I find myself checking the thermostat to see if it's too cold to do some clay work. I don't need to check it, if I have a question about the air then it's not a good time to try artwork. Back awhile I would have had my camera out, trying to capture the subtle shades of grey in a cloud or the textures of a rain dampened lawn. I don't do that very much now but I tend to think that what I've done stands on its own, needing no sequel or follow-up. Besides I'm not sure that the screen captures the details an eye can take in. Maybe that's ego, maybe it's being lazy but I'd rather try to stay warm and find some distraction. Food is good.

I started simmering a bit of game hen about 4 PM and it's pretty much ready to work over now. With a bit of celery and tater and maybe something in the allium family... ya never know how far this could go. A lot depends on my spinal issues, if there's a lot of details and staying in one spot I might just pass, so the fibromyalgia doesn't get pissy. Amazing that perception of reality could shift so. I started out thinking I was fine and even after the various accidents I felt pretty good, occasionally twinges of pain but nothing too bad, until that winter and then the cold taught me that my body was not my slave and that I could be very unhappy inside my skin. Nonsense.

That I would have to stop pounding hot iron, or oak stakes, or axing some tree or carrying a bucket of clay from the local stream just never occurred to me. I figured I'd skate along fairly unchanged. Boy, that was just what it was: naive. Your consciousness is framed by your body, by what's in your gut and what's in your groin and what's going on inside your head. So when your spine is making all kinds of body parts hurt you had better believe that YOU are going to change and in a deep way. I always thought I existed and more or less created my universe through perception, but consider that with chronic pain you have to ask, "Who would wish this on themselves?".

It's not that it defines you, but, for instance tonight, when the therapies and nerve blocks and cutting and so on don't do crap because it's cold and rainy and you hurt, what are you to make of your hold on reality? Why would any consciousness want to roil in this kind of surface? It staggers the imagination. On the other hand, if the Universe were relatively young, maybe this slapping around is thought to be "fun" by the slapper. Nah, I think it's just the way things work out. My parts move better in warm weather but my brain works fine regardless, so here I live and look forward to my snowshoes.

I'll drag this old hulk around like Captain Ahab, who killed Moby Dick and dragged his stinking carcass across the ocean to the nearest harbor to brag about the hunt and the end of the great white whale. Nobody will know the final part of my story either, because like Ahab the final words are written after the means to transmit them are cut off. You could type all day on an excellent blog, only to have it wiped out with a bit of lightning on a nearby tree. That's why we save when we can and send when we must.

Approaching All-Saints Day and Night

Well, as I was saying a moment ago to my pal: there's a season for everything, and if the roots are not severed the garden will prosper in the spring. I hold on to hope like that, that the next idiot in the White House is more like Chance than Crazy-Ass Mc-Cain. Doesn't anybody read the Bible for its rich library of knowledge of human nature? The guys on TV local late at night cable station 2.3 may be nuts, but they got a thing going on "It's a little bit strange lately.." Every since they brought back moon dust people have started getting just all messed up and plain stupid.

It's so bad I'm tempted to throw the stalks and read the hexagrams in the long form just to try to find some order in the chaos. Like to like, they say, and you can read into things how you like, but I like the way the Book of Changes says it.

I have to wonder what it is that we are approaching, dark in the night, when we approach adulthood. I have to wonder why I went through all those years of just hanging on if I'm the only one who remembers it all? I suppose my adventures on the road, homeless, penniless and without any obvious worthwhile skills, don't merit much attention, being as how little I did that changed the world. But still, hearing these dire predictions and wondering what will happen to those poor people who invested in the stock market puts one at odds with ones own emotions . I don't own stock, not even indirectly as far as I know. So the DOW means little to me. I'm sorry it's failing, but unlike a fawn, a DOW is a construct and they can be de-constructed easily enough.

The thing is that even the sympathy you feel for the millionaires is tempered by the lack of zeros in our own little nest egg. Certainly, as my retirement rests with the Nation, if it fails, so do I. That would be awkward but at that point your pensions is the least of your worries especially if your potatoes didn't do so hot that summer, or your beans or onions. Doesn't take much to screw around with your balances internally and externally. There you are: suddenly "different", like maybe poorly dressed begging for quarters for hot coffee. It has happened to Kings and none of us are kings, but we sometimes act like we think we are. Imagine a whole layer of society which never had to beg for food in its collective consciousness. Never had to beg for pity, empathy or water. Those people could never "get it" about being that hungry, that pared down to a fine point.

Whether it's the people who dropped the napalm or the people who remember the night the napalm was dropped, there is a lack of understanding. No sane person puts itself in risk, yet begging for food admits a weakness so profound that there is no doubt that one is helpless before any display of force or indifference. One of the strangest ironies in this current War is that the technologies which went into producing these Smart Bombs could be used in such a way as to profoundly enhance the lives of the people who suffer under their usage. I expect that the many thousands or millions who were only partly affected by our shock and awe tactics, would make every attempt to acquire those support technologies and use them to make the rest of us suffer. They might even figure out a way to make it pay. They might even become our sub-contractors in future wars and wait for a good time to do something nasty to us. I don't know, but I hear people do get off on "an eye for an eye". It sounds like voodoo to me though.

Falling into winter

Today I start walking in water. Yup, it's an exercise. The water is in a pool and a treadmill is in the water and the idea is that since I need to lose weight and my spine is compressing as a result if I walk in water I weigh about 1/4 normal. This allows me to burn some calories, tighten my gut and butt and feel more positive about things. It's pretty cool: the new medical center is only about 3 miles away and they do acupuncture and various other kinds of things, most of which the insurance covers. My fibromyalgia must feel threatened by all this because my hands and arms have been aching rather a lot and combined with my back pain I'm not a happy camper. I am getting used to hurting all the time, now I have to get so used to it that I just ignore it. At the moment it still pisses me off that I feel like an old man at 58.

The arm pain is fairly new. It's like somebody has hold of my forearm and is squeezing it down really tight. The hands feel like I've been blacksmithing all day, which is ridiculous. Hell, there's moss growing on my anvil and a tiny poplar tree in the Hardee hole. NO, there's no excuse for it. Could be bursitis or something, too, but I hate to think I'm developing yet another "itis" that represents by pain. It does help a bit to breathe, prana breathing is good for that. It is hard to walk around and do things like wash dishes while doing that deep, careful breathing, especially when listening to CNN makes me yell obscene remarks every few minutes. I should learn more self control.

On the political side the empire continues its tumble down into fascism. If President Palin decides to require school prayer and asserts that we, as a nation, must prepare for the End Times I suppose that will be the final death knell of this country. I wish I could believe that the elections will be fair and honest this time, but the last two certainly formed a pattern and it is a well known truth that once absolute power is given to a deranged individual they are loathe to give it up. I wonder how Cheney will insert his ugly head into the new administration. Maybe Secretary of Finance, he'd like that.

Finally, I'd like to introduce you all to Brewster. He's an odd bird with many cute mannerisms, like fluffing up like a fighting cock and jumping the hens. So far no crowing, so he may live, but if he bothers the hens or makes them set on their eggs all day we may have to have a talk. I already have two offers to take him. He does have pretty green feathers in his tail. I don't know, you decide if he's worth the feed. I have to go out into the never-ending rain and open the hen houses. I really need to clean the floor of the little house, it's got a strong ammonia odor, but the damn rain won't stop! I hate raking and shoveling wet chicken poop. Well maybe tomorrow we'll see the sun. Meanwhile, enjoy Brewster's first official portrait.