“The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kind.”
| — | Dalai Lama |
Monthly Archives: February 2013
“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”
| — | G.B. Shaw |
Ear Buddied
Imbolc Valentine Moon
Found the Ipod shuffle. I mentioned it a few posts back. As I finish the last rearranging in the study, I’m listening to music through earphones. Becoming part of the current generation. A soundtrack for the activities helps. I’m not sure what I think of the tendency younger folk have to soundtrack their whole life. Does it add or detract? Don’t know.
I’m listening to it right now and it does demand at least some attention, so I imagine it does distract me from certain trains of thought. But. Does it stimulate others that I wouldn’t have had?
My suspicion, though only that now, is that the music is a distraction from contemplation, from moving below the surface of things to a different level. I base that notion on the firmly identified limits on multi-tasking. Listening is a task. On the other hand I think nothing of writing with music coming out of loud speakers. In fact I just ordered a new set of speakers for the study so I can do just that.
Does having the earbuds in change the experience? I think it does. Makes it more immediate, blocks out the outer world. Which I sense is its primary attraction to those rarely seen without the wiry appendages. For me, unless I’m involved in manual, non-intellectual labor, I’m not sure. Gonna experiment for a while.
Out of the Salt Mines and On to the Treadmill
Imbolc Valentine Moon
Well, I’m close, but not finished. As the books got shelved, the remaining space seems to be inadequate for what I have left. Probably a way around it, I’ll find it tomorrow. Right now. Tired again.
(a salt mine cathedral in Colombia outside Bogota. I visited in 1987.)
Just brought in more bags of feed for the animals. 40 pounds at a time. Then salt for the water softener, 50 pounds a bag. But. They have nice plastic handles. Working in the salt mines doesn’t mean what it used to.
Discovered that my glucometer needed calibration. Once calibrated it told me a story I was glad to hear. At least by today’s reading my low carb diet has lowered my blood glucose level. And, I’ve lost a bit of weight, too. All in all a good thing. Though Kate, a carb lover of some note, has expressed some dissatisfaction. No pasta, no breads, no cakes or pies. We’re figuring out now how to add carbs back into her diet without creating a cook two meals at a time situation. We’ll figure it out.
Right now I’m getting on the treadmill. Which, for that matter, doesn’t mean what it used to either.
This is a Landice treadmill, the brand and model I’m about get on.
A Big Day
Imbolc Valentine Moon
Barring setbacks and further challenges today should be the day when each book has, at least for this moment in time, either a place on a bookshelf, a bin for storage or a box in which it will leave the house for good. This will be a big day for a number of reasons.
1. The daily drain of things out of place will change into the brisk, ordered feeling of a working library.
2. Skimmed off and discarded will be the material no longer germane to my current work.
3. This task will get ticked off the list of things to do.
4. It will mark my return to serious labor. Also fun, enriching and potentially gainful.
“The invariable mark of wisdom is seeing the miraculous in the common.”
| — | Ralph Waldo Emerson |
“Nobody’s perfect. We’re all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.”
| — | Jeannette Walls – Half Broke Horses |
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever
Its loveliness increases ; it will never
Pass into nothingness ; but still will keep.”
| — | John Keats |
It Takes Courage To Get To The Ancient Altar
Imbolc Valentine Moon
“It takes courage to get to the ancient altar
of the moment where I create individual time…I am making it, my time visibly becoming me.” “Individual Time,” Alice Notley
If I interpret her poem correctly, in it Alice Notley has commented on this author picture, arguing against those who would have had it prettied up. And I get it.
When we talked about wrinkles and road map faces last night, I believe we were in her territory. I wanted then to quote a favorite author Jorge Luis Borges, but the quote was longer than I could recall easily. Here it is:
“Through the years, a man (sic) peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, 
mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, tools, stars, horses and people. Shortly before his death, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the image of his own face.” – Jorge Luis Borges
Combining the two we could say that it takes courage to get to the ancient altar of our own aged face. And to follow Notley, why alter what it took courage to gain?
The Keaton side of my family, my Mom’s family, wrinkles early and the men go bald. That means I look my age and then some. I have no problem with that. This face is what you get when you look at me; it’s the one I’ve earned and I’m glad to have it. No amount of smoothing, lifting or making up will change what it is, the patient labyrinth of lines that trace my own image, the long journey to this ancient altar.