Adventurata

In every Now there is a thousand yesterdays.  As much as we want to isolate the present, to appreciate it for what it is, the past follows us.  If our mother was mean, we can only be conscious about that self-talk she put in our minds, refuting it with positive, constructive self-talk.  Our minds swirl around the ether, mixing with the thoughts of others.  The atmosphere in the ether is very much the ideas, thoughts, feelings we catch, we pick up from our surroundings.  Perhaps where we are most comfortable is where we lived as children...the loving, or critical, environment.  If we are critical of ourselves, we are critical of other people.  How to advance ourselves?  To let go of that harsh voice, to acknowledge it, to name it, and to be kind to it saying, "I no longer am a child criticized by a harsh controlling mother or a harsh controlling wife. I believe in myself."

It is  human thing to match people around us?  To emulate them?  Is that the way we form our hunting and gathering groups?  That is why it is of utmost importance to surround yourself with people who support your best, not your worst, characteristics.  

I have things that I am good at, and places where I need work.  Spiritual discipline, daily meditation, or daily practice is one major thing I need to do.  My writing can be my practice, as it was for Natalie Goldberg.  she spent years studying Buddhism under Katageri Roshi.  She still had Western sensibilities, and was terribly offended that Roshi  made the moves on her, rather  than seeing it as another form of prayer.  The sacred sexual as in the Kamma Sutra.  To our western sensibilities, sex equals exploitation.     

C?

Right now I am listening to a rather strange Christmas album.  It has a man, then a woman, singing Celtic Christmas songs.  They are something like folk songs, only with a Christ/child theme.  Isn't that a contradiction?  The Celtic winter celebrations were more pagan...with Santa as the King of the Elves.  It goes back a long time.  I can't believe that Christians were upset when astronomers stated that the heavenly astrological event we think of as the Star of Bethlehem occurred during the summer.  Jesus Christ.  You don't think that Jesus was actually born in the winter on the exact time as the Winter Solstice celebration, do you?  It might be when we celebrate this birth, but probably the Rabbis who guard his bones in Palestine know the actual birth date and are keeping it secret, like they have kept secret the bones of Christ for all these years...in deference to Christian dogma.  I was one of the amazed ones to read in Spirituality and Health Magazine that Rabbis have attended his tomb in secret for all of these years.  After all, he was a holy man to them, too.  I wonder if my mom would like to visit Jesus's tomb?  I would.  Would it make him less God-like to her? 

Crazy again.

Okay.  I woke up crazy again this morning.  This was why Gregg left.  I made him crazy with my ideas of an eco-village, restored wetlands, and eco-farming. No wonder he took up with his nurse who was steady as a rock outcropping on the Cedar River.  Wait, a rock outcropping on the river is not steady, especially during a flood or wind or freezing and heating cycles.  It breaks up.  But it does so slowly so you don't really notice it.  

Gregg did steady me.  I could always count on him to slow me down and make me think.  It probably was hard on him.  Now I have to slow myself down and think. That is what I've tried to do with this eco-community idea.  It is too much for one person to handle at once. Yesterday I was sick and headache-y, which I never am.  All I wanted to do yesterday was move to South Texas or Florida or California.  To heck with drought and earthquakes.  Someplace by the ocean would make me feel a lot more cheerful.

I do well to surround myself with people who are a balancing influence.  For example, Tom is balancing, and I think his significant other, Wendy, is too, but I don't know her as well.  Julie is steady, Sundee is steady.  Clark Rieke is very steady.  He is a good person to have around.  He's so smart in terms of evaluating housing, as is Gary.  I'm glad Gary recommended him.

Gary.  Tall, wonderful fine longish blonde wavy hair, muscular, friendly, outspoken, fit and health conscious.   He follows his own Way, is passionate, he likes to help people, even when he meets himself coming and going.  I think he also likes a steadying influence.  He's pretty hyper and tends to be self-critical, and a bit of a control freak, and he gets a lot done. He's always on the go.  I really liked working with him on Saturday.  We worked on a woodpile, him cutting with the chain saw, and me carrying wood to the pickup.  I miss having a partner...being able to work together on common projects. Gary was right when he said I would have been one of those women who liked working beside her husband.  That's what my mother did when my dad was in the timber, logging, or in the field stripping bluegrass.  We-kidos were there, too.  Do I try to recreate my childhood comforts in my old age?  I do have a fondness for the sound and smell of chain saws.  

Susan and Paula have been a substitute for a partner in a way.  They are incredibly hard, willing workers, and are extremely loyal. I can't believe that yesterday I told Gary how wonderful they were when he was complimented me on my work.  I must think that am not enough alone.   I wonder if that's why I rebelled when my banker said I should fire my part-time workers, sell all of my land, horses, and move into a condo.  I don't see myself in a condo unless it was a condo in the eco-community.  I could see myself moving to Guatemala or Nicaragua for at least part of the year, or to Fairfield.  There is a certain freedom in selling everything and starting anew.  I do realize that I feel better when there is less confusion...when things are more Zen.

I want to talk to someone besides my banker about my finances.  

Gary

seems to know a lot about saving money, and living off of what you have.   I really need to get it together financially.  I have this alimony  income for possibly another seven years. I have been working on reducing my monthly expenses, paying off mortgages, but not fast enough.   I should also save as much of this income as possible, while reducing my income tax burden instead of just getting-by with each paycheck and quarterly bonus. I don't know what is realistic any more.  Almost all of my saved money is in IRAs in the stock market.  The idea of buying gold coins appeals to me, but I don't know much about it.  It would be interesting.  I do have silver coins. Or should I  leave it in land?  Putting it into a money market account, or bank account doesn't sound reasonable.  Larry Nesset says his is in CDs.  I would get more interest with it in my high-interest checking, but then I might spend it.

It is funny that we have to agree that something has value...like we agree that gold has value whether it's in a coin or in a bar.  But if we didn't have food, would gold have value?  Probably not.  Then food would have value. We agree that the stock market has value, even if it's just numbers on a page.  We can exchange those numbers for money, which we can exchange for health care, drugs, property, taxes, and food at the grocery store.  We can give it to other people, and they will do things for us. We can buy their time and loyalty.  I wonder why we don't just exchange time or something else.  I guess that's why I'm working on this eco-community.  Now I feel less crazy.  There is a better way to live.  Self-sustaining Community.

Hell Freezes Over

Today.  The wind has died down from the winter blast of last night.  The sun is trying to come out, making long indistinct shadows on the green, frozen lawn.  Iowa transitioned with a jolt yesterday from a pleasant fifty-degree fall to a zero-degree, barren, broken, inhospitable winter.   Inside my warm little house, I stay away from the windows and their radiant cold.  I listen to the tinkling of a Christmas CD.  I wonder if I can both believe and not believe in the Christ Child, and the normal joy this season once brought me.  The softness and cheer of the normal winter is a thing of the past.  

The planet becomes more and more inhospitable every year, with larger and larger swings of temperature.  That which we took for granted...air, water, sun, warmth, seasons, rain, snow...have become our challenge for this life.  The Arctic ice melts and the polar bears die.  More and more species die each day.  We are in the midst of a huge extermination of our own making.  We have lived in denial...I have lived in denial.  I still drive my Chevy 250 truck to the barn instead of walking.  I have never used the bus system in Cedar Rapids.  I don't even know how.  I love to drive.   Yesterday I just drove around for no reason for an hour.  I wanted to be with people, even if it was a crowd of cars. The traffic yesterday was horrindous.  Everyone else is driving, too, looking for Christmas gifts.  In the United States, Christmas is the season of giving.  In Japan, it is the season of shopping.  We taught them that.  We just forgot to teach them about the giving part.  I wonder what else we forgot to teach the world when we set our example of consume, consume, consume.  Now our economy is split between retail sales and health care.  Our consumerism is making us sick, our planet sick, and my Fundamentalist mother believes the end is near.  I hope she is wrong.

Andy Rooney on Older Women

Andy Rooney apparently did this vignette on older women.  He said "over forty,"  I say, "over fifty."

As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all.. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, 'What are you thinking?' She doesn't care what you think. 

If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it's usually more interesting. 

Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it. 

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated. 

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40. 

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart. 

Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one. You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her. 

Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize.

For all those men who say, 'Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?', here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!

 

Newman

Crazy week.  I met someone that I actually like, think is funny, is the right age, and is not excessively compulsive about everything.  He lives on farmer time...schedules depend on when the cows come home...

I don't mind that.  It fits in with my time.  But he is very high key for a farmer-type, meeting himself coming and going, even though he makes his own schedule.  He is always helping others, giving blood, fixing or installing a new wood-fired furnace.  He's funny, spontaneous and good looking. He works on taking care of himself; watching what he eats, taking vitamins, meditating, singing, dancing, and laughing.  And I don't know what to expect.  I think I may have already, in one week, worn him out by calling him too much, although he insisted that I should call him any time I wanted when I asked about it at two different times.  I think he needs the same things I do...stability and peace, along with passion and dynamic, working meaningful living...a way to be joyful and centered in the chaos we create around us.  We'll see.

I really like him, so if it doesn't work out, I will know that there are people out there that I can really like and maybe even have a relationship with, when I'm ready.  I was beginning to believe that it wasn't possible to find any male I really enjoyed as much as I enjoy either Julie and Robin.  I guess I will try to be open to the possibility that there might be someone for me to enjoy being with.  We'll see.

Palette: To myself and my daughters

Your body is your masterpiece; the place where your being is manifest in all its palette brilliant color, shades of grey and black.  It is where your soul says to the world, "I am here."  Your body, the sacred vehicle that carries your soul, tattles on you.  It tells how you feel...it manifests your love of life or depression, care for others or selfishness, health or sickness, the lightness of your step, or the heaviness of your brow.  It is what we first present to others as a gift.  It is what they first accept or reject. 

How you take care of it, and how you take care of the extension of your mind, your home, gives away where you are right now.  Is that why it is so important to some to keep reaching out to have all the trappings of wealth?  If you have those trappings of success, it says something about you...about your mind...about your soul.  There is no wealth without cleanliness. 

Does that make sense?  Is that really true?  Are the wealthiest people the Zen Buddhists with their extreme simplicity?  It feels more peaceful to me to think of living in a Buddhist style.  Do you know anyone who does Zen makeovers? 

We think we can hide our true selves, but in the end, the body gives us away.