I had a friend once who said she was a witch. She was real proud of that, that connection to a greater source. She also thought that canaries escaped their cages and somehow found their way to her back yard where she had seed out for them. I tried to tell her that goldfinches weren't canaries, they were wild birds that went to anybody's yard where there was seed, including mine. She didn't hear me. She also was convinced that Death was the Enemy and Life was all about defeating Death. The term "witch" has it's origins in "wise one" and the concept is that like many folks in meditative and magickal paths a person should try to shed delusions and confusions and find a Truth at least once in their life. One of the Truths I believe in is that Death is a short step from one form to another and that like the very fabric of Existence itself, Life is eternal. Only the forms change.

Today I said goodbye to an old friend who by now is making that short step to another form. Oona was a gentle lady who wanted only to be stroked and listened to. She would follow me about waiting for the chance to stick her head under my hand, even if I was napping on the couch or working on something in the house. Lately Oona has been sharing her form with a growth, a kind of cancer, and that cancer was slowly taking away her ability to enjoy life. She was able to eat a few teaspoons of milk and then sometimes would throw it up. Not a very lady-like way to go about the day. She also was getting confused and would forget which food dish was hers, or even what room she was in, and she would call out for someone to come and help her out.

So today I helped her Out.

It's a funny thing that people can read about all kinds of things like tsunamis and torture chambers in Syria run by the CIA but when a little furry friend seems to be stumbling in the Way of Things, we cry.

I was a little nervous this morning about my choice to let some technician stick a needle in Oona and pump her full of drugs. I always think of Janis when the subject comes up. She probably had a moment or two when she realized that this particular high was not going to end.

Years ago I was swimming in a canal in Yuma while my babysitter was away in the bushes making out with her boyfriend. She had given me a floatation vest but didn't take the time to tie it on me before she trotted off with her little friend. So as I paddled around the canal I somehow paddled out of the vest. Contrary to what some people may think it does not require only a relaxed mind to float in water; it requires a certain ratio of fat to muscle and I had the wrong numbers for floating. I sank like a rock to the bottom of the canal. At five years of age or so I knew enough to kick when I hit, to try for the surface. Maybe that's an instinct. I also had seen in cartoons that, like baseball, in drowning it's three strikes and you're out. I hit the surface lightly, not even enough to get out a yelp and then dropped again to the sandy floor of the canal. That was two. I had one more chance for life. I had my eyes open by then and could see the rocks on the surface and the sparkling ripples on the surface of the water as I once more kicked to the sunlight, but once again my body had other ideas, and I found myself going down for the third time, just like in the cartoons, with my arms outstretched upwards. I recall thinking that I was supposed to see my life flashing before me but maybe at that age there wasn't a lot to see and I just relaxed and figured, "Well, this is it." Then my fingers touched the vest floating on the surface and I kicked up in a frantic last ditch effort. I caught the vest and hugged it to me, coughing and gasping for air. I managed to paddle slowly to the edge of the canal, a muddy little canal used for irrigating the cantalope fields. As I struggled to pull myself up onto the mud my hand slapped down on a little insect known as a mud dauber because they pick up bits of mud and sculp nests for their eggs on the sides of things, like garages and bridges. They also have the ability to sting several times without dying, unlike a honeybee. So I got hit several times on the palm and would have let go of the beast, but that would have meant slipping back into the water and another round of drowning. I think I either crushed it or it slipped away, saving it's own life. I don't really know for sure, but I lay there coughing up dirty water and wheezing and crying in pain. My babysitter heard me and came and got me. She knew things had gone badly awry and took me home, leaving me there alone while she took off with her boyfriend. When mom got home she found me with a swollen hand, a bad cough and a blackened, burnt back from the hot Arizona noonday sun, the same sun that sparkled so pretty on those dirty waters. My back bled and peeled for some time and they couldn't even smear Noxema on it for a few days until some skin grew back. The babysitter was never re-hired and I doubt she got paid, although I don't recall being able to tell anyone about the boyfriend. I figured that out years later when I thought about the event. Dad was upset with my version of the story because he was one of those folks who thought that all you had to do was relax and you floated. "Everybody floats in water!" he would say when he tossed me into the public pool to teach me how to swim. Eventually I learned how to swim underwater and got good at it, so that worked out. I still float about twelve inches under the surface, in spite of a much greater proportion of fat on my frame, thanks to years of beers.

My early experiences with death very many and all included this feeling that "Well, this is it..." My bouts of pneumonia, complete with feverish hallucinations of monsters sitting on the bedside watching me; my falls off rocky mountains, tall trees and the occasional light pole. I came to accept that death was just around the corner and so far it wasn't so bad, certainly not "the Enemy". It was almost an old friend who always seemed to have to leave the party early. but always with a promise of a return. I couldn't quite understand my father crying when he got the telegram about Grandma Shirley passing away with a heart failure. I got a better taste of it when Teddy took the turn and my wife of the time told me to "get over it." When I had decided to take a turn off a cliff on my motorcycle and join Tedddy one morning he stopped by to give me a heads-up about timing. "You have things to do. It's not your time." Granddad Shirley passed away in the Vets Hospital about two weeks after he asked mom and dad not to put him there because it's where old soldiers go to die. When I saw him years later on the other side he was sitting on a tall hillside watching the storms over the mountains across the valley. I asked him how he was doing and he smiled that slow Tennessee smile and told me, "Well, Billy, it's not too bad. See those clouds over there? Real pretty." Teddy said much the same thing. "It's interesting."

When old Fred Brighton lost all her teeth and was wasted away to a bag of fur and bones and infections were eating up her jaw I knew I had to help her make that last step. To say I cried like a baby was not quite true. A baby cries because something is all wrong and it's the worse pain they have ever felt. I cried because it was all right and it was a familiar pain, one you get to feel too many times. I buried her in the garden in the sun, along with a tee shirt for a pillow and some catnip to make the journey colorful.

I told Oona on my word of honor that I would make her a crypt inside my altar under the apple and cherry group that shades my Goddesses. Like an Egyptian princess she would become some part of a great holy thing and would listen to my prayers and receive my offerings. I told her I will make a nice statues of a Cat in Glory, with her feet all close together like she could sit on a quarter. Like angels on the head of a pin she will sit on my altar to my Lady of Life and Death and in the sun the goldfinches will come and fight over thistle seed. If a canary should break loose from it's cage I hope it will find it's way to Oona's statue and sing it's little heart out for my old friend to hear.

As I handed Oona to the girl at the vet's I started to cry like I had hoped I wouldn't, but wished I would. If I hadn't cried it would have meant I was not being compassionate, just dumping off an old cat who had outlived her time. But like a man I cried, like a baby I cried, like a friend who is saying goodbye I cried and when the poor girl offered me some tissues I said, "It doesn't make it better..." but I knew it was right. It was time.

I know Teddy will show her around, Fred will find her some nice catnip and Granddad will be happy to sit by her and stroke her soft fur while they watch the storm clouds that create the rainbows on the other side of the valley. See ya later, Oona.

I've been reading the Book of Exodus, trying to understand a god whose name is stated as being "Jealous". It seems to me that if you know the name of something, according to the principles of western magick, you can control that thing. The God of the Hebrews, Christians and Muslims certainly needs controlling. He's asking for more and more blood sacrifices these days.

For years I have said that if any man were to exhibit the traits of the God in the Bible they would be considered psychotic. It seems to me that the description of the life of Moses is a prime example of a psychotic in control of a group of people, not unlike Charlie Manson, except Charlie only killed one man and sent his followers to kill for him. Like Yahew, Charlie is a jealous god and punishment for worshipping others is death.

So there in Exodus are all these nit-picking rules for everthing from cutting your hair to what food you can eat and how to prepare it. It's as detailed as a government manual and as vague in a way so a psychotic manager can turn it to justify anything they want to do. Go and read Exodus and Deuteronomy and see if all the rules and regulations don't seem a tad over zealous. The origins of Jealous, the name of the God of the Hebrews, is in fact zealous.
Here's a description of the BTK killer, recently captured and currently being held by the Kansas City police:

Two neighbors said that he was particularly hard on a woman dying of cancer, an arthritis sufferer. He repeatedly wrote her warnings and costly citations for not keeping her lawn properly cut.

"He knew my mother couldn't get around, and he would come down the street and measure her grass, and if it was a little bit over he'd write her a warning or a citation," said Joshua Thomas, who moved into the house after his mother died.

Neighbors' Perspective

"What little power he had, he abused. He was a very petty man," Reno, another neighbor, said. "It's kind of curious that dogs that were in back yards suddenly came loose when he was around, and then there he was to write the ticket."

Margaret Farmer said her daughter's garage burned down a few years ago, and within a day Rader was demanding she pay to have the debris hauled off. "I don't know anyone on the street that didn't despise him," she said. "He acted like his word was the only law. Everyone else was supposed to do exactly as he said and when he said."

Now, in the real world a person who was so zealous, so jealous, so controlling, was a dangerous man. After Moses snuck up on the Egyptian man who was beating his Hebrew slave/employee and murdered him, he hid in the sand/desert because the Hebrews were so frightened of him that they drove him away. He was a dangerous man. He didn't try to negotiate with the Egyptian, preferring to beat him to death. When he set out to rule over the Hebrews he made a deal with God. God would manipulate the heart of the Pharoh and Moses would lie to the Hebrews and eventually Moses was in control. Once he was in control he took them into the desert, isolating them from anyone else and making up rules to further isolate them. This is what that freak who captured Elizabeth Smart did. He, too, was a dangerous controlling religious zealot.

Now we have three cultures based on the rantings of a dangerous, controlling, jealous religious fanatic. And the convergence of those cultures is the Middle East, where babies scream near the bodies of their blood splattered mothers. Like Moses before them, our leaders speak religion while they gather up gold and power over others. Osama is precisely like Moses. The BTK killer would be right at home in the Old Testament.

So the Name of that God means "Jealous", a not-very nice emotion when found in a human and since we are all of us supposedly made in His image, we have a predisposition to be like Him: jealous, zealous and dangerous.

I wonder if perhaps all that crap about detroying all the temples to the Mother of Life might not be a family squabble, a manifestation of the jealousy He felt when His wife was offered devotion from others. She had communal sex, Her priestesses were encouraged to offer themselves to men who came to the temple, freely and without holds. He got jealous and He saw wasted opportunities there for money making, something He seemed very obsessed with. All those golden decorations described in the Old Testament and She just screwed anyone for free! Small wonder He turned to killing, to moving people to travel the desert killing and destroying. He was having a little shit-fit that has lasted all these thousands of years. Now we have a born-again Christian President who is following in His footsteps. Bush even has been described as "annointed by God to lead the people"... into where? why, the Holy Land, of course. Into Bagdad and the other holy cities of old. Still jealous after all these years, oh, still crazy after all these years.

Curious to note that when the Italian reporter was freed by others, she was attacked by American forces and only the self-sacrifice of her liberator prevented her death. Another curious irony in the ever-ending story of a Jealous God and a Zealous little man.... dangerous and nit-picking, controlling and not well liked, but too dangerous to oppose. I wonder if we dug up the Rose Garden if we would find a collection of skulls dating back over 200 years?

Today I'd like to try to speak about empathy. I got denied disability recently and in the letter it was stated that my claim was based on my assertion that I had had a bad disc and had surgery and it got better. Well, this was a piece of a fraction of what I had put in my application. This was when, 15 years ago, I had blown out a disc and had the pieces removed. For about a year I was relatively pain free. Then the pain began to return and now, 15 years later, I have two herniated discs, two compressed discs, severe arthritis and apparently either fibromyalgia or maybe a return of the shingles. Not really my call to make, the doctors haven't really decided why this pain down my left side and arm is so intense at times. But I was refused disability. I know eventually they will give it to me because in fact I cannot be retrained because I cannot remember things anymore, nor can I sit for more that a few minutes at a time and I hurt all the time. But I digress.
My thought was that some person reading my application and those of my doctors, came away with this tiny fraction of information, missing the doctor's reporting that there was no chance I could work again because it's a degenerative condition and that's what degenerative conditions do: they get worse. I was wondering why they didn't "get it" and I had this flash of a chimpanzee I saw in a PBS show. She had been caring for her child and the child died. She carried that dead piece of flesh around for a couple of days and then took it out into the jungle and came back sometime later a changed and angry chimp. I felt for that chimp as I don't feel for our President, who cheerfully orders the deaths of thousands of babies a day. That's called empathy, because I have held my son inmy arms, knowing that he is very slowly dying. The average life span of a person in his state is about 4-7 years, so he's on the downhill slide to death. The nurses with children, who have nursed them to health, relate to me and my pain better than one of my doctors who admittedly is concerned over the fact that he is leaving his practice to move to a northern lake town to "shoot snowmobilers". ha ha.
This doctor wrote in his last report on me that I was "an enigma" to him. He couldn't figure it out why, when the MRIs on me didn't really show that much pressure on the nerves, why I told him I hurt that much. He didn't understand, apparently, that everybody is different. Everybody has a different chemical mix inside them. I seem to have more of a substance that pain doctors call "substance P" (no kidding) which allows for the transmission of pain to the brain. He didn't test for this, nor has any doctor. It may be an expensive test that the insurance companies won't pay for, but anyway it would just tell them that I hurt all the time. Bottom line, he couldn't relate to my pain. He interrupted me when I tried to tell him how I felt. He started up his dictaphone in the middle of my saying goodbye to him, dismissing me without even a hand wave. He did not have an ounce of empathy with me.
I have a friend, really a friend of my sweety-pie's, who studies gnosis and such things and is trying very hard, as all good gnostics do, to eliminate all empathy and other human bindings from her psyche. I doubt she would see it this way, but I know a bit about gnostics and gnosism, and they want to leave this frame of mind and achieve enlightenment. So they say things like "Why do you think you have chosen to be sick?" Now this, on one level, is a very good question, because on one level we have chosen to be sick. We created this universe and sat down in it, specifically to feel sickness and pain and all those parts of an infinite existence. But on this level, the level below the clouds, we didn't choose a blown disc, a life of pain meds and limping. We just hurt and want it to stop. This very fine and hard working lady has never had a child and will never be likely to have one. So when we talk about my feelings about my son she tries very hard to understand what I am going through, but like that distracted doctor she just can't bring in empathy. She can't understand and so we don't connect. We agree silently to disagree.
In gestaltism a person tries the opposite of gnosism.INstead of trying to leave this body and these human frames and concerns, a gestaltic (?) tries to connect with others. They try to blend with others to form a new mind formed of all those people around them. The idea is that a body thus formed is greater than the sum of the parts. You quantum-up to a higher level, working your way towards the All. It's not a better technique than any other, just a different technique. you might say it's using empathy to achieve enlightenment.
My primary care doctor listens intently to what you say. He holds your hands and looks at your face and only when you are done speaking does he speak. He chooses to have empathy for his patients, whom I am sure he thinks of as friends. So he is pretty good at diagnosing my problems. He understands that I sometimes hurt where my son hurts before I even hear that my son has a new injury. He says he sees no reason why a parent would not be that close to a child. he says that doctors know very little of the "why" of the body, only a bit of "what". He gestalts rather than gnows.
There is an experiment wherein they attach electrodes to a chimp and let it do things, like picking up a peanut. They record the brain patterns of this effort. Then they have the chimp look at a peanut without being able to reach it and the same patterns occur in the brain, even though the arm is not moving. Then one day a doctor reached over and picked up the peanut and the chimp showed the same brain patterns as when the chimp was reaching out to take the peanut. He empathized with the doctor. He related to that white clothed arm with the pale hairless hands. He gestalted.
Maybe when we try to see if chimps and apes can speak or otherwise communicate, we are actually forming a gestalt with the beast, causing them (and us) to achieve more than we could before. Maybe both the researcher and the ape achieve a higher consciousness by empathizing with one another.
When we send out boys and girls to kill other boys and girls we try to turn them into killing machines. Lean, mean, killing machines is what the TI says and he means it. if they were boys and girls it would be harder to kill. We send out robotic planes to drop bombs, piloted by video game experts. They see the dots on the screen and zap them, getting higher marks and going to the next level, when their planes can carry nuclear bombs and zap entire cities. But the science of war has advanced to a point whereby we no longer try to push our boys and girls out into the killing fields armed with a stick or a sword to thrust that thing into the guts of another frightened boy or girl. It doesn't work as well as it used to. I think maybe it doesn't because we know more about those other boys and girls. We know about where on the globe they live. We know a bit about their religion, thier lifestyle. We might even have heard their prayers on a PBS special on religion. So we empathize with them. You can't kill a person with whom you fel connected, any more than you can cut off your own arm unless you somehow first disconnect with it, like that man trapped under the boulder who knew that his arm would be the death of him if he did not sever the link at the elbow.
I am told that eventually I will be in front of a judge armed with a lawyer and then I will likely get my disability. I wil look that man or woman in the eyes and explain about my pain and my son and his pain, and they will empathize. They will be asked how can I work, how can I continue to connect with the other workers when I feel so disconnected from them? My life is one of pain and joy. Pain when I awaken, joy when I no longer feel my body. The life of a worker is one of disconnect. They become grades. "I'm a 27, you're a 12. I know more than you and make more money. I am somehow slightly better than you." You probably see their children as diferent from your own, if you have children. This disconnect works for certain kinds of jobs. It does not work for seed planters. Rice farmers sing in the mud, thrusting rice plants into the earth like a cock into a vagina, creating new life. They become a single entity creating life. Office workers shuffle paper, move spots on a screen. Until their office is hit by a suicide bomber they relate to their grades and their desks. Then, screaming in unison, they run to the exits, freed of their grades and running towards life. They empathize with those left behind and struggle to run back and save them, even those whose grade levels are so much higher than their own. A manager comforts a mail clerk and they are one in pain.
Empathy allows us to achieve a higher consciousness. I have a name. If I name my chicken it becomes that much harder to kill them and if I am not a chicken killer, then I am forced by my connection to that hen to apologize for taking their egg. I explain to them why the egg won't hatch, why it becomes a health problem if allowed to rot. People think it's funny and strange that I talk to my hens, talk to my garden and the trees in my yard, but I try to empathize with my world, to achieve a higher consciousness through empathy with the life around me. It's a Way, maybe not your Way, but I have had a break of light through the clouds from time to time and miraculously the pain in my back was lessened.

A friend of mine in the support group has just lost her loved one. He was there a minute ago, and then he was not there. He left behind a broken body and a grieving woman. I'm sure he didn't mean to, in a way, but there was no other path for him to follow. He left behind a trail to follow, and it leads to a spot just behind her, slightly behind her eyes. If she could just move her vision a bit she'd see him and she could stop crying, but it takes a while to master this. Most of us die first and it becomes a moot point. I tried to at least let her know how much he is with her still and how happy he is to be able to move anywhere he wants, to see anything he wants. It's very easy to say that he is out of pain now, but that's not the half of it. Releasing one's hold on the here and now and the physical is a bit like sliding into a see of joy, of ecstasy, where vision is complete and understanding advances past words and barely manages concepts. It takes awhile to filter out the words and just let the universe flow through you. Every dead guy I've spoken with has had to struggle to finite down their concepts to deliver their messages. I can see why shamans find it a lot easier to ascend to the Planes to communicate with the All, rather than like the prophets, try to understand what that burning bush is trying to say. How to see a painting done in all the colors of the spectrum, right down to matter and on up to ether?

Yesterday I had a bit of a grasp of a concept that I thought I would try to turn into words. If you really understand a god, you first have to really understand where you are in relation to that god. So if you seek a relationship with an infinite deity, you have to come to grips with your finite existence. This is hard for us to do. We are so confined in the body of ours that you tend to think of your mind as somehow bigger. But when you talk to a god you see how small finite is and most of us turn away in fright. It's a normal reaction for a great ape to run from a nuclear explosion, but a nuclear explosion is so tiny when compared with the sun.

Another aspect to relating to a god is that as we recognize and define within our souls the parameters of this god, what we accept and what we leave behind, we define ourselves as well. Those who see a small god with beard and anger, jealousy and even lust, we define ourselves as aspiring to those atributes. Difficult indeed recognizing within ourselves the ability to murder small children when you have accepted a god who demands their hearts on an altar. But defining a god as an amorphous energy field with no parameters doesn't do us much good in that we need some defining limits for ourselves. Those who refuse to think about that diety and rely on meditation to expand their consciousness beyond this field of dreams are sometimes ambivalent about the rest of us. That's why they tend to go to the hills away from us all. The monkey relates to the human hand grabbing a peanut. If you don't want to be a monkey anymore it's best not to be around a human, but I think it might be a good idea to also leave behind the peanut.

We're going to buy a new car, a new used car to replace the ailing Inga. She doesn't always wake up in time to drive my sweety-pie to the bus. I have found another Volvo, a V70 t5 and it looks great, but at a time like this I always ask Larry what he thinks andhe always was able to give me a whole lot of information in a small email or phone call. Now it's more problematic. Now that he is infinite, a car issue is moot or at least not as interesting. When you can ride a galaxy why bother thinking about a Volvo? Well, Larry, you can ride the galaxy all you want, but I need to know if a 1998 Volvo with 113,000 miles is okay to buy or should I be looking at a cheaper truck with cap? Bad timing. It's always a matter of bad timing when we see things going wrong, or difficult. So I have to trust not only my own judgement but my ability to convince anyone else that I have good judgement. I don't have a lot of success at that. It might be my choice of hats, or my ability to wear dirty jeans to meet an important person, but I don't have a lot of credibility with the folks close to me. Part of the Casandra thing.

Well, Larry, meet Glenn. Teddy, meet Glenn. I'm sure you all have a lot to talk about, but if in the middle of it all if any of you have any thoughts to share about a 1998 V70 Volvo with relatively high milage, I'd apprecite it if you might dip down here and give me a dream, a vision or some insight.

I haven't seen Jon but once since October thanks to cars and my back degenerating more. The meds I'm on make some of my reaction times get just too problematic. And they make me forget things, like directions, time, stop lights. People who read my postings on the support group say I should publish, not realizing how hard it is to organize a bunch of online postings into a book. One guy has offered to edit and convert into pdf and that's tempting. I could have a web site dedicated to my musings and funny stories about my critters. But, still, I would have to be able to find and copy my writings into a common place. Not sure I can handle that.

Tuesday I got a speeding ticket. The car has electrical problems, like suddenly stopping at a corner. I was trying to see the fading instruments and go as fast as the tailgaters behind me when a trooper turned on his lights and pulled me over. I'm hoping to convince a judge with the receipt from the mechanic that it was an accident and I will never do it again. It was an accident and what with Jon in his state from a car accident, you KNOW I am careful about driving. But they may not care, it means money for the town, less money for my meds.

Mom and dad are filing bankruptcy because the bank was not auto-paying their rent for several months and now they owe many thousands of dollars. Phone scammers also did their bit to destroy the old folks. They were getting 15 magazines. Mom can't read because of her memory problems... she has none.. and dad is blind. They thought that the mags and the gold coins in the mail were free. Dad apparently gave out his credit card number to some nice guy on the phone. Probably got mom to read it to him and mom promptly forgot it so nobody told my sister what had happened. It was a mystery to them.

There's a line in the "Highlander" movie where the bad guy says "It's better to burn out than to fade away..." Stupid immortal. You don't have a two pronged choice. Sometimes it goes in leaps and bounds, sometimes there are grey areas, like Jon in his wheelchair. Is he gone or not? Did the accident take him out and leave a new Jon with no voice? Not much different than dad except dad can talk, like tell some asshole what his credit card number is. And then there's me. I'm not fading away. It's more like a sword fight in which the one guy gets nicked repeatedly. Or that guy in "Little Big Man" where the gent loses an eye, a hand, a leg....But like my totem animal, the badger, I just dig in and get madder and fight harder. Ya know, if they think they can take me out just be taking all my parts away, they are sadly mistaken! Like the Black Knight in Monty Python's "Holy Grail" I will bite their legs and spit in their eyes.

The Pieta always shows Mariam holding young Joshua bin Joseph after he dies on the cross. I'd like to see a sculpture of young Christ being held by his ankles and spanked after emerging from Mariam's womb. Don't know what you'd call it but think of the effect on Christianity. S&M folks would have a new acceptance and wouldn't that be good. Or maybe a painting of young Joshua badgering one of the old rabbi's at the temple. They'd be explaing things to him and he's standing there saying "You old fart, things are different now!" Think about a New Testament with JC preaching "Up the Liberation, down with the old ways!" or "Eat your oatmeal, God wnats you to be healthy!" "Beware the military industrial complex!" Things would be diferent now.

I'm carving walking sticks for my goddess-children to encourage them to walk in the woods. I'm thinking about carving power runes on them so at some point they will be able to change weather patterns or dismiss some mugger. I think there aren't enough magical items fully charged just laying around for some Harry Potter to find. I always wanted one growing up and now that I have a good idea how to create them, I figger maybe I'll make a few and leave them about the planet. In the 60's there was an upsurge in interest in magick and maybe now we need those middle aged magicians to get off their asses and do something. Take their lights from beneath their baskets. Forget levitating the Pentagon, heal the rich of their disease of money worshipping.

Well, time to check the hens and see what is going on in the yard. Tomorrow there should be about a foot of new snow out there. She may be close to waking up, but for the most part She is still sleeping, happy in her warm bed, waiting for the sun to do it's thing. I think I would like to sleep for a few weeks, but who would gather the eggs and who would teach old Red to pronounce "water" when the supply runs low?

I just returned from NYC. That's a funny place, filled with opinions and yet strangely tolerant of others. The fences are screaming "Down with Facism" and "Vote Bush and Cheney". Personally I find the tags and other graffitti to be interesting bits of art. I know there are those who photo the walls and keep some records, but there are so many walls. Future archeologists will wonder at the religious meaing behind the drawings, as they do with all obscure material. Did I ever tell you about the chicken pits? There's a place in Denmark where they built a neolithic village and populate it with university students who live the life of the neolithic farmer, herdsman, potter and shepherd. One day the university brought some researchers for a tour and they were all excited about the authenticness of the place. One professor had recently written a paper on religion of the neolithic communities and he excitedly pointed to the shallow depressions beside each home near the front doorway. They had a small amount of grain in each pit and he said, "I've just written a paper on the Goddess of the Threshold! That's amazing!" and one of the inhabitants replied, "That's where we feed the chickens."
On the way home I decided to pull up my old delights and think about poetry. Since finding out that my bad chloresterol is way too elevated (taking Lipitor now) I determined that I need to get my head straight. I need to find my bliss again. So here's some of my latest poetry, written on the train from NY to home:

Confused V of geese
are pulled behind
by Amtrak's
forward thrust.
Beside the
fractured
Hudson
the grey-etched
trees
occasional islands
and the
soft moan
as we
cross over.
The Holy Sycamore
and
muted pine
accompany my
northward
rail.

Gulls stand
on
ice flows.
Underneath
flows
cold water-
while
down
below-
the
dark frozen mud.

The ice boats
no longer sail
the shattered ice
the celadon water
the turk coy sky.

The holes we dig
in our life
we fill
with our life.

Sad taxi stand
at Hudson station
the trees
devoid
of
passengers
await
another ride
the stone walls
like Mayan
cities
in
some distant
mountain
pass
await
another
eye
the train
trembles
I'm in
a greyscaled
landscape.

Well, it's been a long time since I wrote that much and I hope it pleases. I used to try to be published and I try to think of this blog as being published. I took two rolls of film to be developed before I went to NYC. One was filled with pictures of the desert outside of Phoenix from when I took Larry's ashes down to his family. The other was blank. I wonder what was in that blankness? My thoughts, my deeds, my future? or was it just that I had broken a roll of film and then rewound it back, forgetting my error?

I was reading Deuteronomy this morning. So full of blood and intolerance. That crazy god of the Isrealites. Cut off their penises, not once but whenever I feel like more blood from innocent young men. Rape the little girls, but stone the Isrealite girl that gets raped. I am trying to figure out the name or the image of the god of fire, the god of volcanoes that first was worshipped by those who became known as the Jews. He was a trickster god for sure, but also a terrible one. I never thought before about the other volcanoes. I never knew that central Europe had them, but now that I know, I need to explore the very early remains of that faith. There isn't much to go on. It makes sense, though, that they ran their sheep and goats up on the fertile mountainsides and occasionally the god would speak to them in fire, brimstone and deep, booming voice. The innocent died and they trembled with fear. Curious that they would worship a mountain fart.
I wonder if it's possible that other volcano gods would give us a clue as to the nature of that beast? Human sacrifices are common, great fear and jealousy is common, but what about the name? Is it possible that the Norse would provide a clue? Was Thor ever a mountain god, or Woden? Was Loki ever associated with mountains or fire? There was a god of fire mentioned in a tale of Thor and Loki, but briefly. There's a book on the Gods of the Ancient Northmen, by Dumezil and that has many obscure stories from central Europe that will help out. If I find out who that bastard was I'll let you know. Once you have a clue as to who they worship, sometimes you can negotiate a back-door deal. I just want him to stop them from killing so much. The neo-Christians are clearly ignoring all the teachings of the Christ and taking all of thier cues from the Old Testament. I don't think, somehow, that the American crew are worchipping the same aspect of Trickster as the Jewish government, but I could be wrong. Deuteronomy clearly tells them to rape, plunder, pillage and then occupy and that is what both groups are doing. The Isreali government is taking over lands as fast as they can and the neo-cons here are occupying Afganistan and Iraq, as well as looking into other small, easy to conquer places. I wonder why they haven't taken over Cuba yet? I suppose it's because they have no oil. That would indicate Nigeria is on the short list. For the sake of "security" I expect that in the next 5-10 years they'll have to place a security zone into Mexico and Canada. Maybe a 50 mile wide strip we patrol and occupy but never officially own. We'll just call it a place of needed security and force the Mexican government to sign a document declaring that they want us there. Canada will be ore difficult but with a paper in hand we can do anything. Do you suppose somewhere there's a god of both volcanoes and law? Those lists of things in the Books of Joshua and Deuteronomy sure sound like a cosmic lawyer.

I was standing in my bathroom this morning after shaving. I dried my face and looked out at the house going up next door. It's a huge semi-Victorian that's replacing a cobbed together ex-garage that was just starting to look like like a neat house when it burnt up. It was early in the morning and bitter cold.
The warm air from the bathroom escaped into the cold outside air and there was mist on the window. I wondered about what I was seeing. For instance, I know that I see by figuring out patterns in the signals from my optic nerve. Those signals have their origin in light hitting the cells of my retina, so they are delivered to my consciousness at least light speed. That being said, what I was thinking about had happened some time in the past and I was just now becoming aware of it. Something that takes very little time, or no time at all would happen to us before we could, by vision, become aware of it. So we can't trust vision to help us figure it out. I see the smoke from the hood of one truck and the men looking sadly at it. I sniff. In the morning hours I always wake up stuffed up and besides, I am notoriously lacking in the nose department, That's always been a gift when picking up after pets, even sick pets. But in figuring out what I was seing was no help at all. You can't trust smell to help us out. You go thru all five or so senses one by one and they all depend on interaction between two things, or many things and one mind. I wondered how I can trust anything I think is going on? You take it all on faith. You decide at some point to place your trust in what you see is real and hard... or soft... and you can touch it...or not. But it all has obvious levels of meaning.
This logic fails for those of us who have taken in the past large amounts of mind expanding drugs. It isn't the mind that expands, but the doors open wider. But we can accept that it all has meaning, levels of meaning. We reach this point where we all of us take it on faith. And it depends on what you decide "it" is. So "it" is something you decide. Self referencing, the definition of a being. There's a lot of bagage in proving that You are Something with logic that is based in faith. You get into circles of logic and that usually means you lost some meaning somewhere and your thoughts are circling a black hole. Bad idea.
So back to being something. You hear sometimes people expressing the view that faith is somehow the antithesis of knowlege. Knowlege is gnosis and that is the domain of the goddess, and faith, the way it is expressed in humanity, is the domain of the god consort. So you see a yin and yang to "it" all, a duality in the middle of which is the ALL. Nice for an early morning shave and a face wash. Now the window is all steamy and I have to get some windex and paper towels. It needed it anyway. Sometimes everybody needs to break down and clean the windows as well as widen the doors.
You need to widen doors to let the wheelchairs through so if it turns out that someone you love is in a wheelchair they can follow you anywhere, or lead you somewhere, maybe somewhere you'd normally not go.
And that's about all I could type before the pain in my arm made it a great idea to stop.

And there is no more to Eden
Than a fleeting backward glance
As we race into tomorrow
Like a dancer in a trance
As we stumble to tomorrow
Like a madman on a roll
Like an angel on peyote
And we never pay the toll
And the Serpant tries to stop us
For the Tree is past it's prime
And we race toward tomorrow
But there isn't any time
And the parents of the children
Are the children of us all
And are racing to that Eden
And not listening to His call
So He slithers to the Garden
And He sheds His itchy skin
And He curls up round the Goddess
And He tells Her where He's been
And the Children of Tomorrow
Are out running on the track
That revolves around the Garden
And they're never coming back
And they race into tomorrow
Like a dancer in a trance
Giving no more thought of Eden
Than a fleeting backward glance.

There's a new friend of mine I'd like to introduce. He's called fibromyaglia. It starts at the base of the neck on the left side and goes does like molasses around my shoulder and down to the elbow where a few lines of pain trickle to my fingertips. There are one or two spots near the elbow that feel as if someone had driven a steel rod through the elbow and occasionally twist it, as if someone were trying to pull it out but it's stuck. It's strong enough to wake me up when the meds run out and the meds they give me so far simply bring it down to nearly tolerable. So now I wake up early, shut off the alarm so it won't wake my sweety-pie, choke down a handful of pills and start the coffee. Then I pace about waiting for something to happen, like a decrease in pain. About an hour or so goes by before I can stop making little sounds in the back of my throat if I move my arm. Mostly I walk about rubbing the elbow and holding it like a wounded bird. It's a good friend in that it never fails to be there for me and it always pays attention to me. I think that somehow the body has misunderstood something. Response to stress should not be increased pain. I would think a better response to stress would be a calming squirt of some enzyme which is like THC and you get calm and quiet and able to focus on little details. Instead you get mind numbing pain which wakes you up and drags you down the hall, away from your sweetheart and warm bed and into a dark place where mysterious thoughts come and go.

They want me to return to the list where we got support for those living with coma and brain injury. I cheered them up with my "gallows" humor. They don't see it that way, of course. I try to say things which give hope and I tell them about the cats and the chickens. I always respond around people in pain with humor, little stories to take their mind off it. Trouble is, nobody takes my mind off my pain. People suggest drugs, which I have either tried or cannot take because of previous adictions. They say try prayer, but they usually want me to pray to their god and that will not happen. I've prayed to their god and I don't like his responses. At least I understand the Crone and the Maiden.

I will return and I will help them get through the day. I will tell them about my undying faith in the face of death and dis-ease and pain. I will tell them about my tailess chickens and the fights over bits of bread or the attempts to escape into the garden. I will tell them about my boy and his latest trip to the hospital, my father's latest trip to the hospital and my latest pain. It helps them take their minds off their problems, which amazes me, because these people are struggling with matters which would bring me to my knees. But they say my words help. I don't understand how that can be, but then I don't understand why my friends watch soap operas either.

It's been half an hour now and the meds are not in the blood yet. Typing is interesting because my left hand can work just fine and the pain the neck and elbow do little to slow down my thoughts. But it feels like my hands should be shaking or my arms should be frozen at the elbow. After all, isn't there an invisible rod of hot steel driven thorugh the elbow and up the arm? I guess my metaphor needs adjusting.

I have to call dad up and tell him to relax and tell him that it's a good thing we are taking all control over his money. He understands that mom can't have a credit card, because she will give out the numbers to anyone on the phone who asks for it and then forgets to tell dad what the call was about. So they subscribe to 15 magazines and mom can't read because she forgets what she just read and just sits there staring at the first paragraph over and over and dad, bless his heart(what's left of it) is mostly blind. He told me they keep sending him free gold coins and other collectables but he doesn't realize that like mom, he too is giving out credit card numbers and forgetting about it. They both sob when they think that they are going to a nursing home someday and there they will be seperated because homes haven't enough beds or double rooms. It isn't true, or doesn't have to be. I would gladly take them into our house. They could stay in Jon's room and have their own back door and a nice window over the herb garden. I could make a porch for dad to wheel out his chair and watch the sunrise. He might not see the trees or the flowers but I am sure the shining sun would make it through those clouds in his eyes. But they say it's too cold here. They want to stay in California where they can't afford to pay for an apartment and can't seem to remember how to handle money or meds and can't afford to pay someone to stay with them on weekends. Here they would be a treasure and I would care for them every day, every night. I could watch their meds, answer the phone and tell them my funny stories. But I would also probably have to watch them die. The role of the shaman is not only to cure, but to help people die. We are close to the Crone because we frequently have to help spirits find their way Home.

I need a cup of coffee to help speed these meds along. the cloud of pain over my own eyes is masking the promise of this morning. I don't want to dwell on it and my parents pain. I want to talk to a chickadee, open the hen house and look out across my sleeping garden and see this summer, with everything growing and blooming. The garden is like the snake which goes underground, sheds it's skin and is reborn as a new shiney beast. My garden will be filled with flowers and fruit and soft smells of lavender, rosemary and hops. In the summer when my arm hurts enough to wake me up I will grab my coffee and walk out into the garden to let the pain go away amidst the beds of lettuce, tomatoes and beans. I'll reach out to connect with my Goddess and tell her I thank her for this pain, for this reminder that I am part of this world, bound to it by my body and soul. Like the serpant I will shed this skin and emerge as a shiney new me.

Lately I've been thinking about survival. Maybe it's the tsunami, maybe it's the two out of three cats we have suddenly developing cancer, maybe it's my father going in and out of hospital with pneumonias and maybe lung cancer. My sweetheart cries almost daily for the ones who are sick or who have died.
But what is this "survival" thing? Why did those mothers survive after watching their babies being swept out to sea? Why did Larry drop dead in my house rather than on the plane or at his home? How come I seem to be surrounded by so much death lately? I started wondering if maybe I'm in some kind of battle with Trickster, like Job before me. Maybe it's a bet. Bottom line is, I seem to survive when others do not.
In some cultures the survivor does not speak the name of the dead in order to assure that they make it to the afterlife and are not bound to the earth. In Gnostic teachings Yahweh is criticized because He has trapped souls in mortal forms. Dying there is a release, so surviving is remaining trapped in a mortal form. There we suffer pain, sickness and grief. Truth be told, every dead guy with whom I have chatted seems pretty darn happy, so I am inclined towards the Gnosis viewpoint.
But as the cats wane, dad declines and my son gets no better, I wonder how I have managed to do so many terrible, deadly things and still walk about, albeit in a lot of pain but still alive. I drove cars through the night country, drunk and blinded by drink with a six pack between my legs and one eye open I bouced out of ditches, dodged cats and foxes and ran stop signs. I've eaten enough illicit drugs to choke a psychedelic horse. Then there's the barrels of guns I have stared down while some jerk suggested the various ways they might make me suffer before shooting me in the head. Still I survived and many of them are dead.
But, I did not shoot drugs, so no hep C. I did not take heroin or crack cocaine, not a hell of a lot of meth, although probably enough to kill your average guy. The alcohol deaths I skipped are plentiful and the various strange ladies I slept with yet did not end up with AIDS...
Why me? As a punishment Life seems about right. You get to love and lose, try and fail, sacrifice and still end up short. Your friends die in accidents and from heart failure. Eventually even your sweetheart could let go. I can tell you it's not easy to lose your kids even if it takes years for them to finally step away behind the veil.
I think it's punishment, or extending the joke. Maybe it's trying to solve a puzzle which can be approached only by living. That would be great! But I need to know the puzzle. I mean, if it's a maze I just keep a wall on my right side. If it's a word game I need a good dictionary. If it's a complex puzzle I need to take notes. If it's a joke.... I don't get it. But here I am, aching and whining about the pains, limping down the hall to take my meds, phoning doctors and accupuncturists in an effort to get some relief that doesn't involve poisoning the liver. I even bought swim trunks so I can walk around inside the pool at the Y. I'll try just about anything.
So how long will I survive? Suppose in fifty years I'm still hanging tough, still in pain, still lonely for lost friends and still taking in cats, just to lose them in 15 years or so? That would suck. Then we'd know it was a sick joke. If someone like Mother Theresa dies before her work is done, if Issac Asimov dies without writing his best book that he's had in his head for decades... why am I still writing? How come the universe kept me around when it took those others?
The worse part is surviving your children. So far. That's just wrong. My boy should be bringing his kids over for me to watch while he goes to work, or better yet, on a holiday with his sweetheart. Well, maybe my daughter will do that for me. I'd like to see a grandchild. Maybe that's why I'm still here. Maybe it's because I still haven't bounced a grandchild on my knee. I have acquired a few godchildren and that's pretty cool, although it would be even more fun if they really thought of me as a Fairy Godfather. I could teach them about spirit walks, about rituals and psychic armor. But I have to be patient.
When I was young and getting lots of shots because of my allergies and asthma the nurses would complain that the thin needles couldn't penetrate my skin. It took 2 or 3 times to get the injection. Not a lot of fun for a six year old. But maybe that's a clue. Maybe I'm so damned tough that each time my time was up I was so tough I didn't get the message. Maybe the bullets bounced off. Like that Bruce Willis character in Unbreakable I can be pushed around but not killed. I'm not sure I'd like that.
On the other hand, survivors in some cultures are free to wail out the name of the dead and so we get stiring videos of fathers and mothers in Sri Lanka crying for their babies lost. WE hear sisters weeping for their brothers, snatched from in front of their faces, lost to the waves. Time like a wave breaks over us all. Surviving is not a sign of immortality, it's just an indication that we have more to go through, good and bad. We aren't done yet.
When I think about the things I want to make with my old beat up hands: the sauna, the statues and boxes and furniture. When I think about the poems and novels I'd like to get out so they'd stop bouncing around inside my head, I understand why I'm a survivor. To be dead and unfinished would be a real downer. I'd have to try spirit writing or channeling and that would be a drag. On the other hand, it might be fun making some construction worker wander over to the house and take a couple of weekends to finish up my sauna. But I'd never be able to use it!
No, I think surviving may be a good thing. So long as I remember the names of those who passed before me, their voices, their artwork and words.... as long as I carry them in my heart I suppose I'm surviving for them all.

In Fifth Element, the movie, they describe the star as "perfect" without really getting into what they mean. What would be considered perfect has to be a variable, right? The teacup we use for a tea ceremony is not going to be the one you use drinking tea with the Queen Mum. If you went to a bar and were looking to get laid you wouldn't think a sweet 17 year old was perfect, unless you were a seriously sick person. Or horny. But the point here is that perfection is relative and variable. Yet we speak of achieving perfection as a kind of goal, as if it's a single point we can reach. We speak of a perfect government, although most politicians give themselves some wiggle room by claiming they think that true perfection is not possible. I think it's possible, for the moment, but they act like it can only be attained at a 50%-75% rate. Like a discount perfection. Thing is, what was perfect will change and what received that perfect thing will change.

Then there's the time you had something horrible happen, like a flat tire, in the rain on the way to an important event, like a birth. You say to the universe, "Perfect!" and dig out the jack. But you meant it at the time. That final straw, that broken back, was perfect for the moment. It was the tip of the pyramid. In that moment you knew that Someone was watching.... and laughing. Well, maybe not laughing, but certainly involved.

So perfection is often the moment of transcendence when we have tangible proof of celestrial involvement. The perfect woman walks in the door just as you are thinking of going celibate. You look over the recipe to make sure it doesn't contain any ingredients that would make it problematic and find only those things you need. It's perfect. Then the perfect woman ages and grows hair on her chin and farts under the covers. No longer perfect for that young man, she has become less than desirable.... for that young man. But the young man has aged, has grey hair in his ears and farts in unison. Together, their child exclaims, they are a perfect match. Like two sides of a coin, or two pieces of a puzzle, they fit.

When damaged goods match damaged goods, they are perfect. And all goods are damaged. Unlike the concept of Original Sin, which is a sick device for keeping people under control, being imperfect for one simply means being perfect for another cause. If our original sin was that we acted according to our nature, then we were perfect for the time. We knew nothing of sin, nothing of right and wrong, and because we could not conceive of such things, we believed the serpent, the symbol of the Goddess. We were told that the fruit of knowlege would give us understanding and would not kill us. After tasting the fruit the first Man said to his wife, "Perfect! Now we have to put on some clothes and live in pain!" Well, that's what they tell us. Actually the first thing that would have crossed his mind is that Eve had a perfect figure. She had perky breasts, having never given birth. Her waist was supple and her skin tanned. She had never known disease or bad breath. She was perfect. I'm sure they weren't so much hiding from God as playing at the two backed camel game. They also would have known that their God, their Father, was capable of lies. They would have gathered up some concept of that basd on the fact that they were alive and not dead, dead, dead. Maybe they thought they had a few minutes before the death thing kicked in and so took a few minutes to explore their perfect bodies. Knowlege of good and evil would have included things like how good it was to snuggle and whisper to one another.

Having found that they were human, naked, and offspring of a Being who could lie and threaten, they hid. They understood "wrong" and their Father was "wrong". He was not a perfect being. But that thing that Eve did to Adam came real close to perfection, if you asked Adam.

The place they came to must have been perfect. Plenty of water, good soil, plenty of game nearby. The kids were hard workers, although they fought sometimes. Life was good, not evil, and they did alright by themselves. Perfection is attainable is small amounts and you get to keep it for a small amount of time. Expectation of more is greedy. Not evil, mind you, but greedy. Perfection is not perfect in too great an amount. Say you're in that bar, looking to get laid and the 19 year old with the firm body comes up to you and seems to want to connect. Then another young thing comes up and chats and another, until you have 30-40 sweet, desirable young things all demanding your attention. This is fun, but disturbing. This makes you wonder what's going on. Not exactly perfect. You get a beer and it's a nut brown ale with just the right amount of hops. Perfect head, perfect color. Maybe you don't notice because perfect young thing #25 is suggesting you two leave for an apartment nearby. That's not perfect, it becomes more nightmarish.

We demand too much of perfection. We expect it to last, unlike the perfect triple rainbow we saw once. We expect it to last unlike an orgasm lasts. We expect it to last like a summer afternoon in the garden with a child examining a flower. Perfection lasts as long as it is perfect, like a soap bubble.

When we popped Jesus's bubble he was far from perfect. He was dirty, bloody, scarred and dying. We made him as unperfect as we could before discarding him. When we get a shirt that is perfect for going to work we wear it out going to work until it becomes a perfect dust cloth. Like all living things, perfection changes or dies. Or both, changes and then dies. Like Osiris being chopped up and scatterd and then resewn and restored, perfection changes. Things which do not change, never evolve or grow, would soon become not perfect because we would change. Being living things, we move on and our perfect concepts change. That 19 year old with the beautiful body would never understand about watching a child being played with by a grandmother, or the feeling of loss when the hand you are holding grows cold and the eyes on that face must be closed. That perfect body might not have a perfect mind and so even in perfection there is room for growth and life. We are offered both crystals and mud. It's up to us to see the perfection in each. By doing so we can become perfect for an instant.

A perfect instant lasts a perfect eternity. As above, so below; as below, so above.

this was Jon 

this is me 

Well, Jon is no longer feverish and hasn't thrown up blood or food today, but he's still going to be in the hospital for a couple of days. Jess and I are going to see him tomorrow if weather and the car permits. If she drives I can take more drugs and tilt the seat back so it doesn't hurt as much, so that's good.

Furlinghetti the cat has a lump or something on her chest, maybe a cyst, may be a tumor. With Oona cat carrying a big lump in her stomach that is most likely cancer I'm starting to get tired of all this death and dis-ease around here. I wonder what all these pain meds are doing to my liver? Can't be too bad or Jon would be dead by now, right? He gets a hell of a lot more than I do. So maybe I'm okay.

Listening to Tom Waits. I think the man is doing meth, his music sounds way too speedy to be straight. It's the sort of poems I wrote on speed in the 60's. The beat matches your heart. What I wouldn't give for some opium and a few hours alone....They are testing ecstasy on terminally ill patients. Gets them in touch with their emotions before they die. Seems to help. Howcum nobody wants to test drugs on me? I'd be willing to try some things. There's a new drug out made of deadly snails. They inject it into your spinal column and it kills the pain. Supposed to be 1000 times more potent than morpheine. Hmmm. 1000 shots of morpheine would stop your heart! Maybe they're geting rid of the people with severe chronic pain. I could live with that.

Boy it would be nice to sit in the studio with my kids, drinking some home made brew, smoking a bowl of home grown weed, and talking about those terrible days when I was full of pain, Jon was PVS and Jess only did drugs and booze when she was out of the house. Assuming she does them at all. I suppose next life I'll be doing just freaking great, no pain, no family tragedies, no dying cats. Probably no good art, either.

Soon as I figure out how, I'm going to upload some pics of my work.

In some cultures winter is owned by the Goddess of Death, the Crone. Things that sink down into the earth are thought to have died and will be resurected in the spring when the Goddess Eostre comes to the surface. Oddly enough, the male God, the consort, has a very small role in all this. When you consider how good males are at killing and burying you'd think the myths would be all over the role of the male God. But, back in the day when She was well thought of, I suppose death was looked at in a different light.
People often say that things would be different if we had to kill the food we eat, actually take it down, skin it, deal with the parts we can't eat.... the whole native thing. But we don't kill our food. We kill one another and then we just waste the meat. But the plants and cows and chickens that we do eat we buy ready to cook from a merchant. The merchant is considered to be under the domain of the Trickster. (oh no, here he goes again with the Trickster) but if you think about it, it does make sense. In our culture, here in Amerika, we take chickens for instance. We grow them in warehouses, never seeing the sun, never feeling the earth. We kill them in an assembly line and gut them and throw the parts into land fills where it can attract rats and disease. We wash them in chemical baths and huge vats of feces, water and for all we know, chlorine. The end result is sometimes dyed yellow to look somehow fresher. People like yellow food, they don't like skin colored food. Well, skin colored if you are a caucasion. That all costs x pennies. Then, we exchange the carcasses for more pennies than it cost to prepare them. The guy who buys them exchanges them to a store owner for even more pennies over the cost. He sells them to us for a couple of bucks, many pennies over the original cost.
This series of exchanges involve the use of coins, which are bits of metal which represent labor. But since we are trading more symbolic labor than actually went into the dead bodies, we are creating an imbalence of energy. Anytime money is involved you can see the work of Hermes, the Greek Trickster. Most people know Hermes as the messenger of the Gods, but in fact he was more than that. He was also the God of Magic and the God of the marketplace. Crossroads, where you sold your soul to play the guitar really really well, was sacred to Hermes. His temples were built there and offerings made at a crossroads went to him. He was also a bit of a cross dresser, sometimes known as a hermaphrodite because he was a God that like to live on both sides of the coin. Nothing trickier than thinking you got a babe on the make and then find that your partner has one too!
So this food thing today is an obvious sign of the rise of the fortunes of said Trickster. What about human death? Well, look at what happens when someone dies now. Instead of laying the body out in the dining room and having a feast to celebrate their going to live with the gods, we pay someone to take the corpse away, clean it up, fill it full of dead chemicals and then paint it to look un-natural. The clothes are phony, split in the back and tucked in. The box is often hermetically sealed. All designed to make Death seem somehow clean and safe and removed from everyday life. In other words, Trickster has stolen authority from the Crone. STealing is also a common trait with Trickster. Now since e pay someone to do all this to our dead loved ones, we see commerce is now a huge part of Death and commerce is a Trickster domain.
One of the things about Trickster, though, is that he lies. He tells you something is going to happen a certain way and then it doesn't. Sort of like how Yaweh told Eve she would die if she ate from the Tree of Knowlege. She didn't, he lied and that lie is the first of many in the Bible.
So everything in the funeral is made to look as if it is going to last forever. The stainless steel, hermetically sealed coffin, the chemicals poured into the veins of the deceased, the granite monument we place on the gravesite and the fact that no one will ever build a house or a highway over that grave. Except of course that the commerce god can easily arrange for the graves to be moved if the mall needs to expand. Or, like in one mall I know, you build the mall around the grave!
What the Crone says is that Life is a circle. Everybody lives for a time, then dies, and they return that borrowed body to the earth from whence it came. you know it came from the earth becasue you are what you eat and we eat plants from the earth and animals that eat those plants. Everything from the Goddess is returned to the Goddess and in exchange for that relationship we come to realize that we never die as in stop, but we return to life almost instantly... in a changed and new form. She brings us into this life as Isis, loves us as Aphrodite, feeds us as Gaia, and lays us down inside her as Crone. Trickster just gets us to waste our life playing stupid games and then robs us of our dignity by forcing us to pay huge sums of money (representing our labor) to have some stranger do those last few things to honor our loved one.
Trickster is not evil, mind you. He runs this show right now, but as a God, he knows that the Great Mother... his mother, too, is all-powerful and will come back again at some point to run the show the way she always does. She's letting Trickster have some fun at our expense, and because it's just a game she know we will not be seriously hurt. But I think if we play too rough, if we kill off too many critters, plow too many furrows, steal too many babies, kill too many loving children, Crone will appear and bury us. Not all of us, but enough to make Her point.
Picture this. China and Japan call in their loans, all 10 trillion of them. We don't have enough laborers to create enough things of value to pay back those loans, so we default. Now everyone knows our money is not worth the paper it's printed on, so they stop dealing with us. China has more than enough consumers to take up the slack. India has lots of scientists and programmers and such, and so on and so on. Amerika is bankrupted and the government collapses. It's a form of death, the domain of the Crone. Now, the country splinters as various factions accuse one another of being the cause of our collapse. Infighting is something Trickster loves to promote. Regions split off and keep their resources within their needs. People begin to have more gardens, because so much of the marketplace is trashed. We have farmer's markets... another Trickster arena, so He's happy. We barter more, home school more, fight a hell of a lot less, especially with no money to buy bombs. So a rebirth occurs. Several healthy states from one screwed up facist nation. Like the way Neanderthal would bury gramps in the back of the cave, we bury the nation in the back of our minds.... because a nation is a mental object, a phony creation. There are no nations when you look for them from space. We made them up. But these new toys will grow and go through all those stages of growth new living things do, until they screw up and collapse too. Rome did, Britain did, USSR did. They may try to come back under a new name, like a man who left his children might move to another city and call himself John Smith. New Amerika might involve part of the Northeast, part of the Deep South.... maybe even Cuba. But it will be a new nation, under the Goddess with liberties and rituals for all.
So I figure that even with Adolf Bush in the Grey House, killing as many people as he can by proxy, and his insane group of psychotics taking down the nation from the inside out, eventually the Crone has her way, the Goddess shows her strength, and we all sleep better in our beds at night without fear of a terrorist attack.... because who would attack a two-bit, down on it's luck country with nothing to threaten anyone and only a huge supply of natural resources? Why would any sane person invade and occupy a country so messed up it can't defend itself? How many Adolf Bushes could there be in the world?

There's a stack of forms and folders on the little table in the living room.They're what I have to fill out in order to get disability status. I have to write down the history of my back and the projected future, allow strange men and women to examine me, ask me questions and even ask my friends and relatives about my pain and my ability to function. One aspect of this strikes me.... well, maybe many aspects, but one is that the first reaction to hearing about my back, the crushed bones, the herniated discs, osteoporsis or something... is disbelief. If I was so screwed up, how cum I'm standing here, or sitting there, in apparent good health?
Because I'm sitting here or standing there in a great deal of pain. There's a jolt of electricity that bounds down my left leg like a car battery being leaned against. There's the cold firey tingling that always exists between my shoulders, sometimes going down the back. Then the right leg gets started. All in the first hour of the day. But I have to convince these people that chances are leaning over a CADD terminal moving a mouse all day is out of the question. Then they have to realize that the ability to work in short clips of 15 minutes or so and then take at least 10 minutes to ease up the pressure on the nerves somehow eliminates most kinds of employment. That said, it would be interesting if the thing took a whole nuther tack. Suppose they decided that as an artist, what I have left is 100% of what I need, so I'm not disabled. But I bet it would be fun to have the government put in writing that I am a fully functional artist. Just for jollies, ya know.
Well, at some point I'll go fill them all out and send them off. See, even typing this blog is maybe 75% typing and 25% correcting, so I make a lousy typist/clerk. I suppose I could find some other kind of work, like a sauna clerk. If that exists I'd like a job that made me sit in a sauna a lot of the time, maybe testing new setups. That would work for me.
Once they're filled out, someone reads them and decides if I fit into a certain mold. If I'm close, and I won't be, they move me on the line. It goes like this until they notify me that they have refused my application for one reason or another. Eventually you get a lawyer and a judge sits in front of you. I'd like a good, long session while everybody says their piece, because by then I'd be screaming in pain and jumping up to limp around the room swearing. Then I'd open up my camera case and pull out my drug store and grab a bunch of pills and swallow them down, washing them with a juice pak laced with vodka. It wouldn't be an act, and I would get the disability check. By then I'll be getting a percentage of my pension, too, just because I survived long enough to qualify as "old". So the point is, that although I will be "poor" most of the income will last long enough for me to finsh some nice pieces, if I start NOW.
Suddenly I'm seeing projects and "problems" and series of archetypes. Such nice work and if I can start now, just in case the ole back decides to go deep south, I can still work small, I can do assemblages...doing some now, in fact. All light work, easy to do from a wheelchair if need be. Clay is always something a confirmed artist can do. But wouldn't ya know it, I'm also suddenly thinking large wooden projects, finishing Andy's family.
For years Andy has walked just outside the ring of light set by our bonfires. 12' tall, he is made of cedar and watches over the bonfire site as well as the nearby altar. But he always was promised a family, some siblings to watch over with. I have parts here and there but am just now putting them together. It will be a busy back yard if I pull it off and Andy will never stand alone. And then there's the hops vine we're trying to get to grow pants for Andy in the summer, some shorts or coveralls so he doesn't get sunburned. It will grow about 8"/day and eventually will send out many shoots to weave a nice year round covering for Andy and his family, too.

This is the day of the night of the winter solstice bonfire. This is one of the pillar holy days of pagans, pretty much worldwide. Even the other faiths celebrate this time. So, as I sit and think on the symbols of this time, I started finding things in my own life that met the standards as "high drama" or archetyipal life style.. somehow. Anyway, that kind of cold spell-stay-in-your-house kind of thought, past things, past people. I saw a small picture of my first wife, Jon's mother, back when she looked like a high school girl because she was. I realized that I met her thru Larry, who just died here at Thanksgiving. He was visiting her at the hospital, bringing her a meal of steak, baked potato and green beans. She was about 16 and pregnant. I helped him prepare the food and deliver it . She seemed kinda tough, but sweet. Sometime later, at an event, she was escorted in by a mutual friend, a kid named Oz. I turned to my friend Danny and said "that will be the mother of my son..." and she was. But before that, she had a child, a boy, and I can't recall what she named him or if it stuck. But I suddenly realized that my son has a half brother, about two years older than him. He'd be about 32 and he doesn't have any way about knowing about his brother and what happened to him. Very odd.The sort of stuff that makes you reflect. We could all of us have these half-siblings all over the earth. We don't know what happened to our mothers or fathers when they were barely teens. We might be related to a whole lot more people than we think. So we should think about that. I think we ought to consider how we interact with people in case Mom is in the next room. We know what happens when Dad is in the next room...Besides, we're all related.

And now he lies
ashes, all ashes, all ashes
And now he lies
ashes, all ashes, away.
Gone into ashes
the passion, his passion;
Gone into ashes
all ashes, away.
Like salt to the ocean;
an ocean of ashes,
blown to the ocean
of ashes away.
Cold were his fingers.
it lingers,
those fingers.
Gone into ashes
those fingers - away.
Lost to us ever
he'll come again never,
gone into ashes,
and ashes away.
The best and the kindest
reminds us of ashes.
He ne'er closed those lashes
now ashes - away.

So, Larry in a bag, in a box, in a room, in a dull, dark, and lonely old world. I held his hand tightly, not unlike a lover might, as if by holding him tightly I could stop his slide downward to that dark room. Like leaving my boy, my child, I kissed his brow and told him we'd meet again. They asked me if there was anything they could do for us and I told them only one thing would work: Bring back my friend.

Thanksgiving for a winter survived long ago would simply not do for a friend removed from this life too soon. No amount of turkey or pie, no amount of gravy and wine could satisfy this hunger in my gut. The last of the best, aged over a lifetime, brought out once or twice a year for hugs and promises and pictures taken in the driveway. Two smiling faces, two cheery hands clasped around two sets of strong shoulders.... two friends parting the way it should be, with promises of next time and jokes and worries over long lines and lost baggage. But not this. Not this terrible slide from "Your friend is a very sick man." to "Larry passed, he didn't make it." No amount of food or sunshine or birdsong can cope with the vast emptiness.

The worse part were the wails. A sister driving to work, foolishly answering a cell phone while on the highway hearing those words that make no sense: "Larry just died this morning."

A friend of decades, soft and beautiful in spite of age and miles, somewhere across a newly emptied landscape, wailing like a hurricane through the wires, like a baby caught in a car door, like a father in a hospital hallway, like a friend caught in disbelief. "Larry died today."

Why was I considered the strong one, the one best able to take the box, the ashes? After all these years of mockery and laughter and shaking heads in disbelief at the things I thought to say.... why now, of all times, was I the one to bear the Crone's gift to the family? Such strength as this I never owned, never wanted, never claimed, never understood. There was no strength in carrying Larry back to his sister and brother and all the rest of them, only a promise made on the bathroom floor while holding furiously those cold fingers, stroking that panicked brow: "I'm here for you, buddy. I won't leave you." So I didn't, until someone else could take the box and carry it away.

I know the taste of ashes, I have tasted them before. I know the feel of ashes, I have felt them before. I know the stabbing pain of sorrow for a friend ripped away by Her bony hand. I have no strength enough to carry this pain somewhere, I am burdened with it until someday it puts me down. Kisses along the way, hugs from children too young to understand that shadow in my eyes.... nothing will do anything to remove that stone from my back. I trudge along carrying a smile and speaking a joke and not waiting to see or hear if any of it made an impact. Because it doesn't matter, you see. It doesn't matter when a friend is taken, that you went on and did some things and said some things. What matters is that on some lonely night, out back where they can't hear me, where they can't see my weakness, my shudders, nor hear my own soft wails, that my friend will not comfort me nor listen to me, nor be able to care enough to be there for me. But still he comes and still the hand upon my shoulder, the quiet eyes that never close again... these can be found out back, in the dark when it's just me and Larry and the taste of ashes.

So, Larry, don't be a stranger. Don't wait til next Thanksgiving to visit me. Without being greedy, or at least without wanting it to be greed, I'd like you to drop by from time to time. You can see the light in the window from where you are, I know. You can bring Teddy and the rest: Granddad Riley, Roderick, Shiela....the whole crowd. Bring 'em all to the fire and we'll talk. Hugs all around, barkeep, keep 'em coming.

For the last few years my old pal Larry came here for Thanksgiving. We always go to friends and have it with their family, so we end up linking several extended families into one. This time Larry wasn't feeling well. Sunday he was having trouble working his computer and still not feeling right. Monday morning he got up, went to the bathroom to shave and collapsed on the bathroom floor. We called the medics and while he lay on the floor I held his hand and told him to hang in there. At the ER we were told he was very sick. His heart was racing, his O2 was bad and then, in a few minutes, he had passed. My best friend, my oldest buddy, was gone.

It's hard to recall a time when I didn't KNOW that if I had a question or needed a shoulder to cry on, Larry was just a phone call away. He would send money so I could fly down to see my son in the ICU, or send a computer for me to play with, or photos of old friends. Larry could fix a computer, repair a car, heal a broken heart. He is the kindest, gentlest man I ever knew.

Last night I had a bonfire for Larry. I cried, I told him how I will miss those hugs, that sweet smile and helping hand. There is a great hole in my life now. Larry is smiling and offering to help, and it's hard to not cry even though I know he'd rather I smiled, rather I looked at the bright side. He wants us to share with one another, to see his life for what it was: continuous love and devotion to friends and family. He is a hard worker, an honest man, a man who loves people so much and yet never married, never had a child to carry on his name. He loves cars and music and phtography and people, not in any particular order.

Larry was the last man left, maybe the last person, who would really listen to me. My rambling thoughts sometimes go in fields that others are afraid to follow, or simply can't see the paths. Larry could always find a way to figure out just what the hell I was talking about. He never doubted me and I never could imagine Larry having a wrong answer or an unkind thought.

The selfishness of sorrow is that we want what we can't have. At the ER they asked me if they could do anything and I said "Give me back my friend."

I suppose we will swear to do better, to honor his memory. We'll lose weight, take walks, write our loved ones more often, try to visit mom and dad before they too pass. We may even do it. We may shake ourselves up and try to give our loved ones as many decades as nature will allow. We will love one another more openly and see beauty in the small things. Some of us will turn our lives around. Some will falter and fail. Over it all, Larry the kind, Larry the gentle....Larry the well loved... will be encouraging us to not worry about the results, that as long as we are trying to be happy it's going to be okay.

But for me it's not okay. I have lost another brother, another dear piece of my heart and the pain will never go away until I can hug him again and show him all the things I've done since we last saw each other. Larry will look at them even if he doesn't find it very funny, or pretty or even sensible, he will look and talk to me about it. We'll talk for years, until the sun fades and goes dark and then we'll talk by the starlight. Teddy and the others sitting around a fire listening to the pipes, watching the beauty and loving one another. I'm pretty tired, but the sun is shining and the birds are chirping and dancing.

See ya later, Larry. Write if you get a chance, call if you can. Don't go far. I'll miss you.

Surprisingly enough, many of my friends are talking about leaving the country. The surprise is that I thought I was the only one that scared. See, it's not just that the Moron has been sent into the White House for four more years....or more. Many people think that they wouldn't try to toss out the Constitution completely, but I say, why not? Why not, indeed? They do it in increments.

We had most of the Bill of Rights deleted under the Homeland Security Act and nobody really got upset. Or rather they got upset by recognized there is no apeal. The Moron has power to do anything, anywhere, at any time. So all the treaties we have signed are deleted, all the civil rights are eliminated. He will do it slowly and precede all the increments with red alerts and other devices. By the time people understand that they live in a facist dictatorship they won't care. They'll be too busy worrying about their neighbors turning them in, or that they might say the wrong thing on the phone. They might be too busy trying to pay all the new taxes that won't be called taxes or will seem not to originate from the federal government. IN four years it may be that we have to temporarily hold off on elections, just for awhile, just until the threat to our nation is eliminated. Then they will go off and invade more countries to make sure the threat is never eliminated. And the People will go along, or they will simply go.

Thing is, most folks never got very far into world history. Even the Talking Heads on the newscast never seem to want to call up the patterns. I suppose it might be that they are too worried about ratings, but more than that they are afraid of the results if they reveal what has happened. If you think you are alone in a room with a homicidal maniac, it would be unwise to point at them at scream "You're a homicidal maniac!" just in case they resent it. So if you start blowing the whistle on a corupt and dangerous bunch of facists, you better have a fall-back plan. If you are right, they will delete you. If you are wrong, you are making things worse. But history is a great thing, especially if it's been long enough for the scholars to have written about how things happened. Like how Hitler got into the driving seat and was able to take over most of the western world. He did it by fear mongering and vote manipulation. Just like here. He did it by scapegoating, selecting a minority group with a different religion. He did it by selecting weak nations to invade first, to whip up the idea of invincibility. Trouble is, in this case, in our case, the Moron is advised by business majors, not history majors. And he sure as hell never read a history book. He likes to read stories about yellow ducks and spotted dogs and kittens. So maybe they don't realize that their Plan has been done before. Viet Nam was never real to the Moron, because he was too drunk to notice what was happening. Besides, none of his rich friends died or were mutilated there, they were all cowards like him. All of his advisors were learning how to cook the books and fool stock holders and bank examiners, so a ten trillion deficit looks like a good thing to them, not because it's a deficit, but because they got away with it. They are actually planning on creating the most powerful bankrupt country ever.

What do you get when you take the most powerful military machine in the world, bankrupt it, and then put a group of idiots led by a Moron in charge.... oh yeah, and make them religious fanatics. You get big wars of acquisition. We go after the oil, after the iron, after all the things we can't make ourselves....which is everything now since the factories have closed. Then you polute the air and water and earth, because God will make it better and besides the Moron never did very well in science class and since he accepted Jesus as his personal excuse for religion he doesn't beieve in science, except as it makes him bigger bombs and more dangerous weapons. I expect we will bomb Iran and Syria, but invade Nigeria. They have a lot of oil in Nigeria. We'll do it to liberate the people in the same way we liberated Iraq.

And the net result will fool you all. The oceans go up 3-6 feet so all them tanks of chemicals will pour into the aquifer and the oceans, killing most of the life there. That means a lot of folks will starve to death, which means a lot of plagues and pandemics. God will be talking to the Moron a lot as people start screaming for solace. He will give them more wars, more bloodshed, more taxes. Eeventually the rest of the world will have to liberate us as they pick up the pieces. Our best hope is that enough of the militray will rebel once it is too late to deny that climate change is a bad thing, and too huge to fix quickly. We may end up banning all nukes, living under a world regime of strict climate rules. That may mean the survivors will get to use wind power and solar power. That will be good because the winds are going to be terrific, and so will the tidal waves. Hydro power from ocean currents might be a good way to go.

Those who survive may face a cleaner world, but I suppose the Yawehists will figure out a way to see this as something requiring that they kill everybody who doesn't worship their god, but hopefully they won't have the means to kill too many. A death cult is often too weak and silly to last long. I hope. I may have to rethink my garden plans in a couple of years. I have to figure out what can grow at the base of a glacier. Iceplants! Not very flavorful, though....

Tomorrow Jon is 30 years old, if he lives that long. On the 7th it will have been 4 years since he was thrown through the windshield of his van and into a coma. Twice I have driven past the spot where it happened....looking for blood or something I suppose. Curiously, on the way there I drove over a part of highway where some truck must have spilled some red paint in the back and trailed a line of red behind it. For a minute or two I was pretty freaked out, but of course there wouldn't have been any real blood left after several days. Still, it was disturbing.

The other day the hospital called and said they were confused about the DNR request. They wanted to be sure they understood our intent, so I explained that if Jon were to have heart failure they should peform CPR, even use the paddles, but he did not want to be on a heart machine, nor breathe with a machine. I added that if his brain were deprived of oxygen for more than a very few minutes I knew the additional damage to the brain would mean there was then absolutely no hope Jon would ever be responsive again. The doctor said I was talking about "full code". After talking with him a bit I felt that maybe Lake Katrine had not been very "out front" with me about what kinds of DNR were available.

Lake Katrine called me a little while afterwards and said they had been contacted by the hospital and been told that we had wanted the DNR taken off Jon. I explained that I had been told that Jon's wishes were to be observed, that mere CPR was okay but heart-lung machines were out. She was upset with me and explained that there was either DNR or full code and nothing in between. I said this is not what I was told when we talked about this before and she got a bit huffy with me. She suggested she put a couple of doctors on the phone and we could talk about it some more...but she told me that the doctors had made their professional opinion known on the record and it wa in the best interest of the patient that he remain with a DNR. I knew what she was saying: as a father I had no rights. The doctors credentials would trump my desire to do what Jon had wanted. It was the day after I had been given my first epidural and I was a bit sick and woozy. I told her we would maybe have to talk about this later, that I needed to lie down.

I know now that it doesn't matter what Jon wanted, nor what I want. The doctors want Jon to die and clear out his bed for someone who has insurance and will pay his bills. Jon is on Medicare and his expenses are reimbursed at a fraction of the real costs. His life is impairing the ability of the place to pay for care for patients who might be helped and they have given up on Jon. They won't say this very often, but if you speak to them carefully and sound like you agree with this line of thought they do open up. They don't enjoy this pick and choose kind of medicine, but they do it every day. They try to heal those they think they can heal, and abandon those they think cannot be healed. The problem with this sort of thinking...aside from the Nazi-like results.... is that it is based on a paradigm. In this case the paradigm is that severely brain injured people never recover, especially after one year. This paradigm is not backed up by any real study of the people who are severely brain injured, but more on a sort of "gut feeling". In fact, many doctors I have spoken with at Lake Katrine have never actualy been in the same room as Jon, but they have looked at his paperwork and formed an opinion. Never mind that had they actually looked into his eyes while they spoke they would have seen a human being in pain and trying to handle his fate. Never mind that the nurses and aides who bathe Jon and dress Jon see that human in there. Bottom line is the bottom line. It's better for Jon to die so these doctors can heal others. Or not. In fact they may just go through the motions and go home, open a couple of bottles of wine and fall asleep in their favorite chair to the strains of some Italian opera.

Well, today we go through the motions of selecting a government. Never mind that in the history of the world, no facist state has ever voluntarily given up the seat of power. We go through the motions and hope we are wrong. The current regime has stated that they want to do away with the "welfare state" and given it's citizens the oportunity to invest in their own health care, to choose their doctors and not stand in line for care.

Jon has no choice, nor can he stand in line. His fate, should he live that long, is to die in a nursing home somewhere. My hope is that wherever they place him once they close down Medicare, is better than the hell he was in at the begining, where he lay in shit with open wounds, drenched in sweat and urine and gasping for breath while the nurse sat at the desk reading her novel. The fine republican governor of that fine compassionate state closd down several hospitals that were not making profits for the state and dispersed the patients out into that compassionate conservative world.

I voted. I never hoped, but I voted. They took my name and gave it a number so that when they count the votes they can compare the names and the votes and know who voted for whom. As far as I know the votes then go somewhere else to be counted elsewhere, or perhaps they simply shred the papers and mark in a book who is with the party and who is a troublemaker. I guess I'll go into the book of troublemakers.

Abu bin Adam, may his tribe increase
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace
And saw within the moonlight of his room
Making it shine like a lily in bloom
An angel writing in a book of gold
Exceeding peace made bin Adam bold
And so unto the vision of the room he spoke
"What writest thou?" The angel closed his book
And then with a voice made of all sweet accord
Replied, "the names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" asked Abu. The angel shook his head.
Abu spoke more low, "I pray thee then, write me as one
Who loves his fellow man." The angel wrote and vanished.
........

There's more, but I forget the lines. I learned them many, many years ago when my sisters had to memorize it for school. The angel returns and shows Abu the names that the Lord has blest, and lo, bin Adam's name led all the rest! It's charming to note that it was considered better to love one's fellow man, even if one was not known to love the Lord. In fact, by loving one's fellow men, one loves the Lord.

Our President says he loves the Lord and by that he means, of course, the Christian God, the Silent Trickster who speaks in rhymes and riddles. It is clear that he has no love to spare for his "fellow men" because unless you are exceedingly rich, you are NOT his fellow men. His fellow men, his "base" as he calls them, are the millionaires who give him money and power. The power to kill hundreds of thousands of those who merely love their fellow men. Or those pitiful few who are sitting in wheelchairs, unable to vote or contribute to a political party. Those pitiful few who wait for the heart to slow and stop so that they may fly away, free at last.

The BIG THREE_OH Jon...... I'll bring a box of cupcakes for the nurses and I will slip a bit of frosting into your mouth. I know you like the flavor of chocolate. Last year you smiled so big when I did that for you.... It's not much, Jon, not much of a present, but it's all they will let me do for you. And it's the thought that counts, right? I think of you every day, son. I miss you all the time. Be well, sleep tight, dream dreams of pretty girls and bonfires and the sound of drums. Your daddy loves you.