photo taken looking in back window of doug's place near toe river yesterday.

had a good evening painting and off loading music files.

most of yesterday spent riding with doug up to toe river and spending a few hours at camp. great break, all in order up there, the air and the wind were enough all by themselves to go.

photo my son eric sent me from st. george utah. he and angela live in sunnyvale and took a trip to utah to visit her mother and new husband. it sounds as if it has been "discovered" and well off californians are pouring in. there may be some small high-tech industries that are migrating there also.

last 24 hours have been a real hassel. i don't even want to write about it. the sudden low i had at the doc's office yesterday morning seemed to linger on all day: felt like i "was not myself". lay down in the after noon.

doug stopped by around 5 and we spent an hour or so catching up. i was still feeling a little shakey so i skipped carolina virginia game at steve's, went to bed early.

after going to the head about 5 times during the night, and not sleeping much, i finally figured out infusion set had detached so at 5 this morning changed sets and gave myself correction bolus for 500 BG.

it's almost 9 and i'm down to 353 (and up and out of bed). another correction, i guess by 10 i'll be able to eat. meanwhile getting battery alarm from insulin pump i have to take care of.

if i can get past all this biomedical frou-frou this morning i hope to drive with Doug up to toe river territory for the day which is another beautiful one, they're talking snow maybe by the week end.

since i wrote the above doug called, he's out eating breakfast and i'm getting myself together to hit the road.

scan of picture that i found in house we moved into in efland about 1970. it is some kind of die and fold paper similar to tie-dye. i don't know who did it. i refound it at sally's house when she died.

doc appt this morning. i did a correction bolus before i left the house, was fine when i got there, BG was 100 plus, and before i left i was acting goofy, remeasusred at 27 which was not pleasant. but it dropped that much in 20 minutes. now, about 5:00 i think is the first time all day sugar has been normal.

got a call from doug, he's headed up from old fort. talked to april who sent me some beautiful flowers. i couldn't figure out why. cause she thought it was my birthday. it used to be.

that slow flat winter depression. limbic disturbances. malaise. and now march is upon us, which when i lived high up in the mountains was definitely the hardest month of the year. the winter's were physically very tough there, and by march people began to snap.

there was one winter when march occasioned the suicide of two brothers in their 70's who had lived all their life at the bottom of the road. one of my neighbors, a farmer about a mile down the road was hauled off by the EMS or whatever they called it in those days after apparently drinking a bottle of rubbing alcohol. and the mail lady who live a couple of miles up the road had her husband committed to broughton after he chased her around the kitchen table with a knife. (he was back in 2 weeks.) they were staunch southern baptists and good folks.

there is one personal difference on my part to the end-of-winter doldrums. i just keep on working despite the ennui. paint scribble write, maybe a bit more slowly than i would like, but i don't spend much time staring at the wall.

from an old photo i must have taken. . . somewhere, sometime.

not this winter, that's for sure.

happy birthday to my nephew jon in phoenix az.

thanx and a tip of the hat to tucker for this - long - piece. read it anyway. print it out. make the onscreen fonts gigantic. you know the drill.

--------------------------------------

Swami Calls for an Up-Wising
The Evolution Has Begun!

By Swami Beyondananda

For years now, we've been hearing "shift happens," and
wondering when, where and how. Now finally, it looks
as if the shift is about to hit the fan. This is good
news for all those shift fans who've been wondering if
the new age will arrive before old age does. Of
course, if you're looking for signs in the news, you
won't find them. At least, not yet. The news might as
well be called the "olds," because the world still
seems stuck in greedlock, ruled by fossilized fools
fueled by fossil fuels. But I have been receiving
encouraging intelligence reports that say indeed,
humans are becoming more intelligent. Yes, people
everywhere are wising up. And that's great, because we
could sure use an up-wising!

The evolution has begun. But before we see changes in
the old needy-greedy, we humans must change our
consciousness -- and the first step is becoming
conscious of how unconscious we've been. As the saying
goes, the truth shall upset you free, and last year
saw lots of disillusionment. But what better to free
us from the far more dangerous condition of
illusionment? If we want to stop the abuse of power,
the first step is to disabuse ourselves. So, here's
some good news: Despite a massive media impropaganda
machine that feeds the public "babblum" (strained
bullshit made digestible for a simple child's mind),
more and more Americans are reading between the lyins'
and peering behind the Irony Curtain.

In 2005, Americans had to face the sad realization
that the Bush Administration's "pro-life" stance
appears to be limited to the unborn and the
brain-dead. Despite being panned by critics
everywhere, the Iraqi Horror Picture Show continued
its run, as thousands and thousands of born fetuses -
ours and theirs -- lost their right to life. While we
may or may not have saved face by staying there, we
have most definitely lost ass. And we've been assured
we'll be stuck in that morass until -- well, until
there's no more ass to lose. Meanwhile, more and more
Americans reached another sad conclusion: We're not in
Iraq to keep the peace, we're there to keep the
pieces.

The signs of up-wising are everywhere. Even the most
unpleasant stories are beginning to break through the
soundless barrier and defy the President's "don't ask,
don't tell" policy: "You promise not to ask us what
we're doing, and we promise not to tell you." Although
we've been inundated with "fear-gnomes" and ominously
warned we have to protect ourselves in this
dogma-eat-dogma world, a majority of Americans are no
longer comfortable with the notion that the only way
to defeat the "evil-doers" in the world is to out
evil-do them. Although our President has assured us
that "we don't torture," it is now common knowledge
that we simply send detainees to countries that do
torture when we want them to "testify under oaf."

As for those progressives who've been whining that the
President "never listens" to them, well it turns out
he's been listening all along. And thanks to the
so-called Patriot Act (which, I understand, is about
to be renamed the Eternal Insecurity Act), it looks
like he'll be able to listen in even more -- all in
the name of making us safe. But now even some
Republicans are beginning to see that there's a
difference between protection and the "protection
racket." And with the recent revelations about Tom
DeLay, Jack Abramoff and other gold collar criminals,
some of the more devout conservatives have come to
realize that the "family values" they voted for bear
an uncanny resemblance to Soprano Family values.

If there was any warm feeling in 2005, chalk it up to
climate change. Katrina hit, and in the government's
response we saw a future when at last all Americans
will be equal -- where everyone regardless of race or
creed will be treated like Black folks.


Alarming Policies Have Awakened Millions!


Fortunately this is the State of the Universe Address,
and from a universal perspective, things are humming
along quite nicely. It turns out that the Earth is the
talk of the Universe these days. In fact, the
odds-makers at the Intergalactic Enquirer say the odds
are actually in our favor: "We're betting on the human
race to reach critical mass before they get to
critical massacre." And we could beat the odds, if we
finally gave up our addiction to getting even and got
odd instead. It stands to reason. If each of us used
our unique oddness to improve the odds for everyone,
there would be no need for getting even.

Yes, the up-wising has begun, and intergalactic
observers are saying that we have none other than
George W. Bush to thank. How is that, you may ask?
Well, I am reminded of a story my guru Harry Cohen
Baba used to tell. A well-known minister died and
arrived at the Pearly Gates at the same time as a
cab-driver from New York. The cabbie was ushered in,
but the clergyman was left waiting outside. After
waiting and waiting and waiting, he finally called
over the attending angel. "Excuse me, but I'm a
renowned minister. How come you let that cab-driver
in, and I'm left waiting out here?"
"Well," the angel said, "when you preached, everyone
slept. But when he drove, everyone prayed."

For millennia, spiritual teachers have been calling on
us to go for the highest common denominator, but we've
always seemed to end up with the lowest common
dominator instead. And now, George W. Bush has done
what preachers, teachers and other far-sighted
visionaries have failed to do up until now: His
policies have been so alarming, that he has awakened a
slumbering body politic that slept through all
previous alarms. Where others have failed, he has
people all across the world praying, "God help us!"
And instead of waiting for an intervention from above
-- after all, we cannot expect to be fed intervenously
forever -- people are beginning to help themselves,
and even more importantly, help each other.

Sure, there are still plenty of Not-Sees out there who
insist on not seeing that we humans are all in the
same boat. The good news is, more and more Americans
are getting that sinking feeling that there's only one
Earthship, and ignoring a leak because it's "on the
other side of the boat," is a mistake of titanic
proportions.


We Are the Leaders We've Been Waiting For


America, the world's only super-power, doesn't need a
revolution. We've already had one, thank you. What is
needed now -- and what has already begun -- is the
American Evolution where enough of us wake up and see
that those two political parties have been partying on
our dime, and we the people haven't been invited. Time
to go beyond choosing the lesser of two weasels. If we
want to evolve the dream of our Founding Fathers --
instead of devolve into the nightmare of Big Brother
-- we must become the leaders we've been waiting for.
I've said it before. The only force more powerful than
a super-power is a Super-Duper Power -- the power of
the people plus the power of love. And anyone who
doesn't believe we are a Super-Duper Power, well they
have been super-duped!

It's true, many people still feel that the affairs of
the world should be left to the bolder and badder
among us. But look what that leaves us with: Are you
satisfied choosing between Saddam Hussein and George
Who's-Not-Sane? Now I know those "God, guns and guts"
Old Testament Christians might have forgotten, but
Jesus did say that the meek shall inherit the earth.
In all undue immodesty, maybe it's time for us meek
folks to boldly step forth and accept our inheritance.

For just as 2000 years ago Jesus stood up to a class
that placed the rule of gold above the Golden Rule,
today we face the modern version of the Pharisees --
the Phallusees, I think they are called. They
cynically cloak themselves in religious robes, but the
only power they trust is the power of the stick. Well,
there's another old saying: It doesn't matter how big
your stick is, if you stick your stick where it
doesn't belong, you're stuck.

Another sign of the up-wising and coming evolution is
that people are growing dissatisfied with the
positionality of "my side vs. your side," and are
seeing the whole issue of sides from a new angle:
Maybe we're all on the same side. For example, this
argument between creationism and evolution is just
another way for dueling dualities to steal our energy.
I believe in both. I believe the Creator created us to
evolve, otherwise Jesus would have said, "Now don't do
a thing till I return." I have it on good authority
that the Creator is pulling for us: "Come on, you
children of God. Time to grow up and become adults of
God instead."


Time to Overgrow the System From the Grassroots Up


The time for revolution and overthrowing has past. Now
we need an evolution where we "overgrow" the current
dysfunctional system from the grassroots up. You are
probably familiar with the story of the Native
American grandfather who tells his grandson that there
are two wolves fighting inside all of us: The wolf of
fear and anger, and the wolf of love and peace.
"Which wolf will win?" asks the young boy.
"Whichever one we feed," replies the grandfather.

And so when people ask me to predict what will happen,
I tell them the only thing I can predict with
certainty is the uncertainty of any prediction. The
future's just too unpredictable these days. This is a
Universe of infinite possibilities, so it all depends
on which futures we invest in.

There is something far more empowerful than
predictions, and that is Tell-A-Vision. If you're fed
up with the current programming, my advice is turn off
your TV and tell a vision instead. That way, we will
have healing and functional visions to step into --
and that beats what we've been stepping into. So I
will tell my vision for 2006: This is the year of the
American Evolution, where all those who prefer the
Golden Rule to the rule of gold get past left and
right, and come front and center.

I see Americans of all political stripes, plaids and
polka dots (not to mention solids), choosing to face
the music and dance together. Sure, we'll have to
learn some new steps, but it's time for a new dance -
A-Bun-Dance. That is where we get up off our assets,
move our buns, and dance together in rhythm and flow.
And what better way to turn the funk into function,
and leave the junk at the junction?

I see us in a new reality show -- Extreme Planetary
Makeover -- where everyone can play and everyone can
win. Just think. Something more compelling than
reality TV .... it's called reality!

I know, I know. Only a crazy person would dare to
propose anything that sane. But maybe it's time to
declare the current institutionalized insanity
illegally insane, and set about building a sane asylum
big enough for all six and a half billion of us. As my
guru Harry Cohen Baba has said, "Life is like a good
deli. Even if something isn't on the menu, if enough
people order it they have to make it." So what kind of
new world order are we ordering up? Do we feed the
wolf of fear and buy into the "it's every man for
himself" story? Or do we nourish the wolf of love and
evolve into the "we're all in it together" story?

If we're going to be a Super-Duper Power, we have to
be super-duper powerful in activating the power of
love, and cultivating the power of joy. So laugh more.
Why not? We all know there's something funny going on.
The wall of lies cannot withstand the vibration of
laughter. All seriousness aside, only a farce field
that combines truth and laughter can bring down the
Irony Curtain once and for all.

Release the old story -- been there, done that -- and
speak the new story into the world. Dare to imagine
what we could be doing if we weren't spending so much
of our livelihood on weapons of deadlihood. Think
about it ... think tanks where they think about
something other than tanks. Young people living for
their country instead of dying for it. Health and
education fully funded, and the Air Force having to
run a bake sale so they can buy a new bomber.

Can we change the course of history? Can we shift our
karma into surpassing gear? I cannot say for sure, but
if we choose to give up that old Dodge and trade it in
for an Evolvo, that's a good first step. So ... let
the Evolution begin. We don't have to wait until the
first Big Shot is fired. If we create a powerful
enough field, the Big Shots will end up firing
themselves.

May the FARCE -- as always -- be with us.

(c) Copyright 2006 by Steve Bhaerman. All rights
reserved. Find out more about the Swami at
Political humor, political satire, new age humor - Swami Beyondananda

restored black and white photo of my father's father taken in 1906.

got a bumper sticker phrase i may use:
"be more timeless"

it's still a little wordy.

i remain in a creative rut. not in the usual sense of the phrase. i'm getting a lot done. paying a lot of attention to unfinished creative business, or maybe i should say abanded projects still taking up disk space.

i'm closing pictures, scans, animation, and surprisingly a whole lot of muzak, by that i mean finishing them and putting them out to pasture. very tedious, being doing a little each day. on the other hand i find things that i have forgotten that maybe need to be completed, like the photo above which is from a hundred year old black and white.

plus freeing up enough disk space to do. . . stuff.

other stuff: if it's not one stuff it's another stuff.

i'm in the penultimate phase of laying out magnum opus whistling in the dark. above is one of the many neo-wingdings i've made to sprinkle thru the pages, along with other visuals.

received the following email yesterday:

"Hey there,
Just wanted to tell you that you are a googlewhack!
The words I used to find your googlewhack were - epicaricacy nether
Have fun!
Dan"

Googlewhacking: The Search for The One True Googlewhack

i think this made me famous for a nano-second. infamous?

Kat. my companion since around late last century, '92.

lots of cyber-antics yesterday. including off loading files to CD, ran into a problem where one file, maybe, glitches the write to CD process. will i take care of this problem? who knows.

probably today also, altho that remains to be seen.

i got a walk in around 5 in the evening despite the cold and raw weather.

from my inaugural walk yesterday. taken about 2 blocks from homebase. the photo is helpful to me because it reminds me that i am surrounded by beauty.

i forget this most of the time.

if you're feeling down about the shape of human life today, check this link out; always gratifying for a person like me to realize that others realize.

"The fight for the bottom line: Capitalism is a finished chapter in world history. Not politically, but economically. That is according to Arie de Geus, author of The Living Company, and former head of Shell's Group Planning unit. If today's companies want real success, their leaders must accept the production factor that has replaces capital as the most important - people."
Don't Stop thinking about tomorrow

today's cryptoscope: looking out the back window of my 86 mazda yurt.

i got out for the first walk of the year around 5-6 this evening.

such a beautiful day. short walk. i'm changing my strategy: short walk every day instead of thinking about going up sunset mountain while i stay locked inside the world of painting, electronic graphics, final mixes of dozens of unfinished music.

so what else is new?

example of home-grown wingdings that i am making for forthcoming book whistling in the dark.

spent yesterday in usual mode, multiplexing oil paint, photoshop, flash and constructing a Styrofoam castle. really.

today, among other things i'm going to take a walk downtown if it's the last thing i do. if it is you probably won't see much more of this blog.

it's funny: i can talk to the worldwide net and myself at the same time. i think i need to work a little on listening to both.

today's cybergram is from a shot i took while visiting him awhile back. we went on a looooooog walk.

gearing up for run to grocery store. i've gotten into some mindset where i'd rather stay home and putter than go anywhere. a little lopsided. i'm debating whether to sign up for any classes for old and in the way at unca. i guess i might continue on with piano.

today besides paint i'll scan photos from old "harry's" book. it'll be a challenge, they are xeroxes.

anything else?

politics: [shudder]:
if something is neither provable nor non-provable, it has been considered conjecture in modern times. now, because of a great many surprising twists and turns in the culture, "facts", particularly in the political arena, are incapable of being known as true or false.

a disturbing trend. thanks and a tip of the hat to karl rowe.

found shot in my computer hovel.

i mean a photographic image i made in my computer hovel.

i heard senator biden on one of the sunday talking head exhibits. he was saying - or i heard - that the only area where the dems score lower in the polls than the junta was "national security", where the republicans still maintain their "all bizness" image and can run a war like a PR campaign, effectively.

what to do about this?

i am going to write biden and suggest:

the republicans in their decadent organizational phase are not capable of effectively running any large enterprise. lack of capability runs thru the last 5 years, communications down, overriding the military and not listening to the, or the CIA or the american people. the initiation of bush's war included not only lying to the american citizenry, but willful, simple-minded ignorance of where they were going and who lived there.

snow this morning
bob brown died last week.
The Independent: News & Triangles: Features: Bob Brown, activist and inspiration, dies at 72

i hope his passing was gentle. he was part of a world that i encountered for the first time when i left high school and went to chapel hill. for me it was an exhilarating and puzzling time, plopped into an ambiance that seemed more real than any i had experienced before.

beday card from grandkidz corbin and lyly. it was nice to hear from them.

i don't think i have ever in my life been so snugged in. a combination of season, light, and inner activity just seems to keep rolling and as a consequence:

don't get around much anymore.

big snow didn't make it here.

it may never make it here.

bodega bay, northern california. my son eric emailed me this after he and his buddies spent what i suspect was a superbowl guys weekend in a rented beach mansion. of course i had to pretty it up, kind of an obsession with me.

here it snowed last night, actually leaving some on the ground.

which is ok with me, i got nowhere to go and a lot of paperwork to catch up with.

blogger seems to have misplaced it's posting preview. and it's spell check. hope they reappear.

replaced the pic below with the pict below. didn't much like it, not sure i like it now.

but it doesn't matter much.

cyberdoodle of the day. hey, i'm fine, it's probably something about the human condition.

trip to the doc's today, everything A-OK.

dr. R. paid a surprise visit this afternoon. a real pleasure.

working on an oil pastel on the back of a large antiwar sign. somekind of slippery, white corrugated cardboard. i just went into it with turpinoid.

i've been making final mixes of lots of half-finished muzak. mainly so i can throw out the source files and free up some badly needed room on hard drive.

i made several trips this afternoon: drove to the bank, library, home depot, and targets. i've been putting off these errands for weeks. the zeitgeist in these spaces was very topical, capture it in a movie and folks would immediately think "2006" or maybe "1996", but it is unique to our world now.

lost in the deep woods of the merchants of desire.

yep it's my birthday. in the "passed", i distanced myself from my birthday because i never felt part of the chronological sequence. my train had jumped the tracks.

today i feel exactly my age.
-----------------------------------

bush's war:
Are We Really At War?
maybe not "...because Al Qaeda is a free floating nihilism, not a nation, or even a network. "

photo from jemez mountains i believe.

yes i saw the rolling stones.

they are a rolling monument.

is the world a ghetto? or is it disneyland?

...

it's disneyland. just stumbled across this link:
Odeo: modern peasant - 01

working this photo i learned way more than you might guess. i guess.

took it while driving 240 around the north side of downtown. didn't get much. played with it and ran into the famous take out the telephone wires dilemma which i've never had to do in a careful way on high resolution print.

and some other stuff but that was 30 minutes ago so i forget.

blowing ever so little snow outside.

sunday has become clean the house day.

saw it in my backyard last nite? or was it the living room?

been listening to coasttocoastAM too much.

COAST TO COAST AM WITH GEORGE NOORY: SHOWS

it's almost 4 in the afternoon. i've successfully stalled all day on grocery shopping. think i'll do it now before it snows.

did it. yum.

now here is a quote from a mystery i am reading:

"the quality of light, the expression on her face,, the whole atmosphere of the dream, tell me it was a communication from her of some kind, though i cannot decipher its meaning. she and i occasionally discussed buddhism. she was a keen meditator herself, and our backgrounds were so similar we often speculated that we had known each other in previous lifetimes, perhaps a great many.. . . only when karma is very favorable do such soul mates succeed in having a full-blooded relationship; after all, that would be the next best thing to enlightenment itself. more often we look out for each other at a distance, like guardian angels."

from bangkok tattoo by john burdett.
Amazon.com: Bangkok Tattoo: Books: John Burdett:
"Burdett does an impressive job of depicting an often romanticized society from the inside out."

from my driver's license i renewed yesterday. no problem passing vision test. i'm good until 2011.

and 2012 is the year that it all flips according to various emerging opinions based on the mayan calendar, the toltek 4 agreements, the harmonic resurgence, and peale's how to make friends and influence people.

by that time my truck will be. . . let's see. . . a quarter century old. so maybe i'll park it and myself and enjoy the celestial searchlights that accompany these epic and startling kosmik changes.

at 11 this morning i get my eyes checked, find out if retinas will last or slowly disintergrate like a painting thrown out in the rain. before that, in other words in 30 minutes i'll hit the grocery store. then maybe (shiver) the mall. i found a coupon from lenscrafters yesterday and phoned them about it. if i bring it by they will knock off some of the price on glasses i got last week.

i'm finishing one oil and starting another, so i suspect a roll coming. i remember david of myrtle beach saying he was doing 5 at a time and that has stuck in my mind as a good way for a maniac to stay out of trouble.

ummm... my living room on an off day.

ive been reading wisdom of the ennegram by riso and hudson. about the ennegrammatic approach to personality typology. ran across this sentence:

that which is eternal in us experiences the world through our personal experience.

what is maybe eternal in us it seems to me is consciousness, experience, identity. the wilberian kosmos consists of consciousness all the way up and all the way down.

the experience of being "me" is universal and somehow useful to the eternal. remember: the real is that which does not go away, so reality is eternal, outside time.

"me", i'm stuck in time.

but there is a connection between the real and "me". the real experiences my experience, but the reverse is not true.

summary: i see my foot but i am not my foot. something sees "me" but is not me. that something is not only unknown to me, it is unknowable.

the absolute mystery.

beautiful day. nothing visual around the house or in my intentions to put up. oops, found a drawing i did over the holidaze. i have no idea who she is or why she is here, but i do have a clue: she's on the subway.

[little did i know the brouhaha this simple statement would result in. emails have been pouring in from far and wide stating in no uncertain terms that she is on an airplane.

ok she's on a southwest jet headed for guam.]

working on 2 watercolors and one oil. also a movie for my old friend in NM but lack of software and suitable hardware is making this project a loooong time coming. i may never get it done.

below i'll put up a page or two from book of pomes i'm working on when the time comes.

later:

did the run to laundry, broke out the oils and am finishing a painting from last spring. after a long time out, they seem much easier to use, hardly any effort involved, a brush in one hand and a head full of infinitely recursive images that rise and fall like my breathing.

i'm feeling good. like to get together with some friends and play music.

doing this stuff changes your head y'know. doing anything changes your head.

"In the traditional view, the brain becomes frozen with the onset of adulthood, after which few new connections form. In the past 20 years, though, scientists have discovered that intensive training can make a difference. For instance, the portion of the brain that corresponds to a string musician's fingering hand grows larger than the part that governs the bow hand - even in musicians who start playing as adults. Davidson's work suggested this potential might extend to emotional centers."
from
Wired 14.02: Buddha on the Brain

took this picture a few nights ago while pacing thru the domicile.

got out last evening for weekly meeting of non-dual characters. somehow these occasions bring to mind a boxcar rolling thru the high plains at night , carrying a scattering of old friends along for the ride.

today's event of note: drive to west aville to drop off laundry.

portion of latest watercolor, the one i just finished on "watercolor canvas", a new substrate for me.

my take: it's an interesting material and i'll probably use it in the future. it absolutely will not buckle no matter how wet you paint. on the other hand, every additional application of watercolor completely obliterates what's beneath.

lifting paint becomes equal in importance to putting it down. that and a very light hand.

i could kick myself for getting tangled up with a 10 year old ray-tracing program, but that's what i did this morning and above you see the results.

no you don't because i just couldn't stand it. so i replaced it with one of the few remaining photos of yours truly when i worked on the sara dig in southeast crete.

there were strange spirits there, you might run into one on a hot summer day high up in the terraced olive groves, deep shade, gnarled trees a thousand years old.

there was a nato missile site 70 miles away.

right now, at this very moment, i'm thinking "...believe i'll clean up my act."

right now, at this very moment that's what i'm doing.

oops.

surf's up. so am i. another night listening to the ozone.

coast-tocoastAM is one of the weirdest phenomena of these weird times i have come across.

a nighttime talk show, the audience is a mixed bag, religious souls, paranormal freaks, so many women psychics that it gives aville a run for the money, and a whole lot of folks who have not quite been totally conditioned. last night featured a dedicated "fortune cookie" hotline for anecdotes featuring - you guessed it - fortune cookies.

they were invented not in china but california, the bay area, about a hundred years ago.

but in china they had a predecessor around the 15th c. when the mongols were pouring into china from the north. the chinese military resorted to hiding strategic plans and messages in "moon pies".

my point is that with a little metabolic tweaking you can absorb this stuff instead of sleeping.

personally i could use a moon-pie right now. hidden message so much the better.

maybe life works like this: you eat a moon pie from time to time, and there might be a message inside one of them. if there is, you know it's the last one you'll ever eat.

yum.

even tho, or maybe because, i am convalescing at home alone, i've been hearing a whole lot of babble lately, non-stop. not hallucinatory, just chatter drifting in from the noise machine, the airwaves, the silence at the grocery store.

"2005 will be looked at in the future as the year the nation state stopped working". substitute "institution" for "nation state" and spread it over a few years and that statement, probably heard on "coast-to-coast", is pretty much what i've been trying to say for awhile now.

ok. now i'm going to lay down but i am not, repeat not, going to stare at the ceiling.

must be on the mend did this one this morning.

actually i feel shakey but fine. still, i'm doing my best to r & r for 14 days per doc's instruction.

lots of dreams. more than i can say i have dreamt in maybe 20 years or so.

the geography and topography is about all that i can remember remembering when i used to dream at night what seemed like every night.

and that is still the case. the shape and form of the land i inhabit is the main character in the dreams. multiplex ancient cities on strange coasts, comlpicated and many roomed dwellings, obscure basements, forgotten hallways. the place last night was some kind of large dwelling, large, now that i think of it it was two structures with a skyway in between which just made me realize must refer in part to cabin in the woods which was two slave cabins tied together by a stone passage.

i'm edging towards movement. after a two day trance, not unpleasant, stirred my bones a bit yesterday. first the garbage must be put out, and much earlier than tuesdays a year ago. luckily it's bagged and doesn't weigh much, so i drag it up the stairs without any excitement.

spent the rest of the day drifting from room to room, slowly realized - i think - that i can finish watercolor on canvas because i don't much have to look at it. when i do it's from a good 10 feet away.

my sister jane phoned and has set up meals on wheels to deliver lunch here for a few days. i guess my first stab at driving will be friday, or monday at the latest, to the belly of the beast, the mall, to get new glasses.

i left a message for dentist that i needed to postpone upper teeth extraction but have not heard back from them. hope they don't get hinky with me.

-------> tick tock

thanks and a tip of the hat to tharpa who got this (and more) from his friend vic.

"Scrawl the following poem by Hafiz (translated by Daniel Ladinsky) incourthouse lavatories, on playground walls, and through e-mail lists:

AT THIS PARTY

I don't want to be the only one here
Telling all the secrets --

Filling up all the bowls at this party,
Taking all the laughs.

I would like you
To start putting things on the table
That can also feed the soul
The way I do.

That way
We can invite

A hell of a lot more
Friends.

doing my best to not do anything, including this post. doctor's orders. to recuperate after non-invasive eye surgery last friday.

that includes this post. picture is a watercolor i found framed while pulling artwork together last week.

one thing i have found out: if doing nothing includes dreams, ie "do not dream", i'm in big trouble.

yesterday at 10 i kept my appt w/ retinal specialist. more or less assumed way back in my mind that diagnosis would be followed by treatment if needed on another day.

these folks work fast. i left at 3 after 470 laser zaps and what was much worse, some kind of slender rod poked around eye (not invasive but felt like it) to freeze where laser could not reach.

why? to weld spots where vitreous humor had separated from retina and keep the latter from leaking under retina, eventually separating it from wall. in a weird way this was a preventive measure, especially because i will have cataract procedure sometime in the future which apparently would increase chances of separation happening.

anyway 2 weeks of not jiggling eyes - this includes walking, driving, reading, writing, drawing etc.

and computer graphics.

so i'm signing off for a time. no news is good news. minimal posting. a blindfold helps.

later.

from a foto i took last nite.

getting book ready for lulu.com here i come. figured out that watercolor canvas needs india ink - sumi is probably better but i think i gave my set to son eli. finished another symphonic meander. last night the new neighbors upstairs invited me to eat supper, first class health food, including home-made sushi. tony is excellent guitarist, played along with dobro a bit.

reading the wisdom of the enneagram: the complete guide to psychological and spiritual growth for the nine personality types. i have avoided the enneagram for years because i am not very interested in sumerian psuedo-symbols and madam blavatsky.

as the authors make clear, this is not what it's about. the symbol is indeed found in early ancient history, and gurdieff used it, but to illustrate the process of change i believe. the personality types are a modern , 50 years old(?) method of slicing the personality pie. don't know how i feel about it yet. it's the textbook for a class i start next week.

-------> later

went off on a tangent looking for a gif of the enneagram to insert above and ended up taking an enneagram personality test. i took this test a couple of years ago, results nearly identical i belive. here they are:

Main Type	Overall Self

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

Enneagram Test Results Type 1 Perfectionism |||||| 30% Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||| 41% Type 3 Image Focus |||| 19% Type 4 Hypersensitivity |||||||||||||||| 63% Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||||||| 74% Type 6 Anxiety |||||| 26% Type 7 Adventurousness |||||||||||| 42% Type 8 Aggressiveness |||| 18% Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||||||| 66% Your main type is 5 Your variant is self pres

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

from a clayboard watercolor
something happened. wintry, windy. not only that but dark and gloomy too. from the far west a cold front has arrived in the millenial berg of aville.

what it means in today's climate is i might have to haul a coat out of the closet.

i wish i had something to say. i started this thing years ago, tweaked and twanked it specifically to make my statement.

then found out i don't have anything to say.

maybe some questions?

like:

does the worldwide rainfall change each year or remain pretty much the same?

what is the square footage of constructed space devoted to "dwellings" compared to the square footage of space devoted to commerce world-wide?

prehistorically, did speech or song come first? personally i think it was the tango that preceded them both.

ok ok i give up, i'm dog paddling here. talking to shadows. eating same.

no matter how you look at it all that remains is a

blip.

an email goody i received this morning from tharpa. since i don't read the new yorker much, nor, for that matter do i read much poetry it was a treat and so i reprint it here because i got a kick out of it. kick: two opposite meanings.

THIS IS NO GAME
by JACK HANDEY
Issue of 2006-01-09

This is no game. You might think this is a game, but, trust me, this is no game.

This is not something where rock beats scissors or paper covers rock or rock wraps itself up in paper and gives itself as a present to scissors. This isn't anything like that. Or where paper types something on itself and sues scissors.

This isn't something where you yell "Bingo!" and then it turns out you don't have bingo after all, and what are the rules again? This isn't that, my friend.

This isn‚t something where you roll the dice and move your battleship around a board and land on a hotel and act like your battleship is having sex with the hotel.

This isn't tiddlywinks, where you flip your tiddly over another player's tiddly and an old man winks at you because he thought it was a good move. This isn't that at all.

This isn't something where you sink a birdie or hit a badminton birdie or do anything at all with birdies. Look, just forget birdies, O.K.?

Maybe you think this is all one big joke, like the farmer with the beautiful but promiscuous daughter. But what they don't tell you is the farmer became so depressed that he eventually took his own life.

This is not some brightly colored, sugarcoated piece of candy that you can brush the ants off of and pop in your mouth.

This is not playtime or make-believe. This is real. It's as real as a beggar squatting by the side of the road, begging, and then you realize, Uh-oh, he's not begging.

This is as real as a baby deer calling out for his mother. But his mother won't be coming home anytime soon, because she is drunk in a bar somewhere.

It‚s as real as a mummy who still thinks he's inside a pyramid, but he's actually in a museum in Ohio.

This is not something where you can dress your kid up like a hobo and send him out trick-or-treating, because, first of all, your kid's twenty-three, and, secondly, he really is a hobo.

All of this probably sounds oldfashioned and "square" to you. But if loving your wife, your country, your cats, your girlfriend, your girlfriend's sister, and your girlfriend's sister's cat is "square", then so be it.

You go skipping and prancing through life, skipping through a field of dandelions. But what you don't see is that on each dandelion is a bee, and on each bee is an ant, and the ant is biting the bee and the bee is biting the flower, and if that shocks you then I'm sorry.

You have never had to struggle to put food on the table, let alone put food on a plate and try to balance it on a spoon until it gets to your mouth.

You will never know what it's like to work on a farm until your hands are raw, just so people can have fresh marijuana. Or what it's like to go to a factory and put in eight long hours and then go home and realize that you went to the wrong factory.

I don't hate you; I pity you. You will never appreciate the magnificent beauty of a double rainbow, or the plainness of a regular rainbow.

You will never grasp the quiet joy of holding your own baby, or the quiet comedy of handing him back to his "father".

I used to be like you. I would put my napkin in my lap, instead of folding it into a little tent over my plate, like I do now, with a door for the fork to go in.

I would go to parties and laugh and laugh and laugh every time somebody said something, in case it was supposed to be funny. I would walk in someplace and slap down a five-dollar bill and say, "Give me all you got", and not even know what they had there. And whenever I found two of anything I would hold them up to my head like antlers, and then pretend that one "antler" fell off.

I went waltzing along, not caring where I stepped or if the other person even wanted to waltz.

Food seemed to taste better back then. Potatoes were more potatoey, and turnips less turnippy.

But then something happened, something that would make me understand that this is no game. I was walking past a building and I saw a man standing high up on a ledge. "Jump! Jump!" I started yelling. What happened next would haunt me for the rest of my days: the man came down from the building and beat the living daylights out of me. Ever since then, I've realized that this is no game.

Maybe one day it will be a game again. Maybe you'll be able to run up and kick a pumpkin without people asking why you did that and if you're going to pay for it.

Perhaps one day the Indian will put down his tomahawk and the white man will put down his gun, and the white man will pick up his gun again because, Ha-ha, sucker.

One day we'll just sit by the fire, chew some tobacky, toast some marshmackies, and maybe strum a tune on the ole guitacky.

And maybe one day we'll tip our hats to the mockingbird, not out of fear but out of friendliness.

If there's one single idea I'd like you to take away from this, it is: This is no game. The other thing I‚d like you to think about is, could I borrow five hundred dollars?

(Author's Note: Since finishing this article, I have been informed that this is, in fact, a game. I would like to apologize for everything I said above. But please think about the five hundred dollars.)

back from a 24 hour trip to slumberland where the last bit was a tour to some mountain town with the likes of mick jagger. it was a confusing but enjoyable visit, lots of folks in and around town for some festival or occasion. i had fun introducing jagger to folks as "mick", got some strange looks but no questions such as "hey, aren't you.....".

part of the activity was a dobro summit, room full of NC's best dobro players, about 50 i guess. no instruments in sight. i kept anticipating hearing all of them playing something together, like "danny boy".

lost mick in the crowd and realized that there was no way back from wherever we had traveled from, thinking hitchhiking on lonesome mountain roads with the sun going down might not be such a hot idea. aware too that time had passed, a lot of time, since those so inclined could hitchhike.

headed for the highway, woke up with a kat on my chest. purring, thank god.

another subject: have you been receiving spam, the usual, with a last paragraph algorithmically generated? for example from this morning:

"we are suffering from here. Why, sculpturally sir, I haven't had
conservatively a piece of mail darkroom in weeks. There should be several letters for me from Jane. a few minutes later with several pieces of bark and--wonder of wonders--a lead notice-board effectively pencil. we are suffering from here. Why, sculpturally sir, I haven't had herald a piece of mail dialectal in weeks. There should be several letters for me from Jane."

who knows what it means? i don't refer to "what sense it makes" but "what is it for?" aesthetic flourish? coded database? maybe the spam machine has developed a bias towards words for the hell of it.

took a look at ken wilber's latest, a foward to what appears to be a very interesting book:
Ken Wilber Online: Foreword to The Common Heart: An Experience of Inter-Religious Dialogue:
a lot on the pre trans fallicy (i think he calls it) wherein confusion exists between 2 forms of the non-rational. those beyond it who have transcended and included it, so they are rational plus, and those who "are not acting beyond reason, but beneath it."

sunday. lost day...BG (that's blood glucose to you) over the top. spent the day readjusting, dozing. back in whack at present, watching carolina and chicago second half.

first thing i did this morning: cyber-doodle.

somebody must have gotten to sleep last night.

now that that is out of the way i can tell you it's a windy, snowy day. i am going nowhere. don't take that as a metaphor.

haven't been outside, but it looks cold. the snow looks like flurries, don't know if it's "laying", which is appalachian for "sticking".

anyway i plan to stay inside and finish what has turned out to be this week's organization project. during the week it evolved into one of my increasingly often throw stuff away projects, and a lot of stuff has gone (again). when i could not find a stack of my best watercolors i flipped into sort thru everything mode.

the assassination attempt last night in the pashtun mountains via missles, bombs and other military devices reminds me of the book i just finished, Ghost Wars, in which is documented the long development of the missle launching drone by the cia. the air force wanted nothing to do with it. did not appear to be an asset when it came to military combat.

it was first thought of and tried out in afghanistan as a 24 hour in the air surveillance device because satellite imagery was not good enough to distinguish OBL (bin laden) from others. so it was always in a sense developed as an "up close and personal" aid. then a lot of money transformed the drones into missile-firing tools.

a side-bar to one of the stories the cultures are living right now, the personal missile.

kind of interesting how al quiada use an individual or two to deliver an explosion that - usually - destroys a small group, and we use b-52s, submarines, and military technology to assassinate one individual.

i have to stop this and eat lunch.

closeup of watercolor i am working on. the first attempt at watercolor canvas which is plenty different then paper.

spent yesterday doing this and that. discovered i have no idea of where i placed my watercolors that worked well, in other words my portfolio. i guess i hide stuff really well. have to run, have appt. with eye doctor.

more disposable art.

got the following via email from my friend donna in new mexico. makes sense to me...

CONCERNED ABOUT TOO MANY CARBS IN YOUR DIET?

For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
3 The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION

Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

i had to resort to grabbing an image from the past this morning. i mean really passed, it's probably many years old. i found it when i saw the name, baby. not sure of what was going on in my head when i did it.

on the medical front i just scheduled an eye exam, can't seem to see real good and i have to renew my driver's license next month so we'll see, so to speak. also getting all upper teeth pulled on the 30th of this month.

i'll be a new man.

meanwhile started a watercolor yesterday evening. it's on frederix watercolor canvas which i've never used, so it's a color doodle, no plan except to see how the surface works. and it's not like paper. i've heard folks grouse about how the pigment just lays on top and what's the point, but so far i think it's great fun and like it.

for those of us who know Phyllis ott, there is a new biography of her coming out co-written by barbara scott. barbara must be on a roll, this is her 3rd book.

meanwhile i'm about 75% ready to upload my book, whistling in the dark. i'm going to run it thru lulu.com and see what happens. the book is demented ditties (poemz) and art. i'm deliberately placing color in it to see how the reproductions look.

got an email from richard and debbie, they are ensconced in kiev with a grand piano and a lot of bob dylan. richard left two very interesting cds for me at tom's but i forgot to take them with me when i left his place monday.

winter slithers along with t-shirt weather. i guess i can take it.

working on a painting for my dad's birthday. it's going to be a tight deadline so i'll be spending the next few days staring at it and scratching my head.

just got back from the dentist. consultation, no work done. he has some beautiful pictures hanging in otherwise pretty typical small dentist office.

one picture is a watercolor of the "old kentucky home" before it burned down. news to me was that it was painted white rather than the yellow it wears in it's restored state.

picture above is of the snapshot variety. i took it yesterday during a very pleasant walk with tom out at his place. i am growing very partial to his side of town, out leicester hwy.

then on to weekly "deconstructing the seeker" conclave. it's very hard to describe what this is about so i won't.

but it lead me to the following thoughts this morning.

do you remember the buzz about "ego death" around 40 years ago? what was left after such an event was who knows, but the feeling in the air was that it offered a glimpse or glance at the world of the ego which is impossible for the embodied ego to experience.

today there are many thinkers, writers, charlatans, scientists who are talking about "identity" in a similar manner. or "frontal personality" (aurobindo). you might be able to squeeze into this set "persona" also, altho most would agree that it is less deep.

in any case there is a feeling in the air today that whatever you call it - ego, persona, identity - that it can be a problem. an illusion that does not - can not - know it is an illusion.

which would be fine except there seems to be a part of the human condition - soul? - which drives towards waking from the dream. this is experienced by the human as a desire for something else, be it erotic, aesthetic, power, or creative. the human dilemma.

i have an inkling that one way this dilemma has been worked with down through the ages is the idea of grace, a gift from the Giver.

another aligned and perennial position is "the witness", the Real that is conscious of the unreal. this objectifies the subjective. "i-I" (wilber).

"and though she feels like she's in a play
she is anyway."

i spent the morning doing "real" things, like paying billz, catching up on correspondence and getting organized. for what? so i can get organized.

it's like the folks who i used to work with at intel. everyone had housekeepers, merry mades, whatever, but the day before they came to do their thing, the inhabitant of the moon module - this was in phoenix - would spend time cleaning up so the help could clean.

it's a beautiful day so i'm heading out to breathe.

ps. photo i took from phoenix-prescott shuttle, speeding down (or up) hwy 17.

i've been pushing back my mangled diurnal nocturnal clock gradually. this morning i got up at 6, wide awake. it's now 9:13 am, and i've spent the time tangling with javascript to size new browser windows with no success.

i did eliminate a lot of ways to get it done (because they don't work), so in the cyberworld - i know, i don't like that word either - i guess i could say i made progress.

also thankfully finished a watercolor. if i'd worked on it any longer it would have been pure mud.

today i have to do some things i really resist: like paper work, arranging small bowls in watercolor room, inventory stock for printer... you know, normal life maintenance.

but first i'm going to make an image as fast as i can and post it above. ready, set, go!

[an hour later: maybe slower is better.]

if you ever read city of love, you know how at the outer margins of capitalism, your bones is worth a lot to somebody, probably not yourself. check this out from local paper:
Stolen human tissue sent to Mission, implanted in patients

i took this photo yesterday, noodled around with it this morning, and what you see is what you get.

i may as well admit it, i'm in a creative rut. but it's a strange rut. i'm having fun making art - lower case "a", please - but i don't do much else. is it some kind of tradeoff? you can create, but forget about a life? or is it, for some of us, life? i can't figure it out, or at least i couldn't last time i tried because anymore i don't even try to figure it out.

wonder about it from time to time though.

this morning's doo-dad was taken traveling "the big hill", hwy 40 climbing up from old fort.

every since the new year i have had days with no urgent actions to perform. there are little household tasks to be sure, and a few colossal long range projects to do.

i could read a book. or start a twine collection.

the UU blazer's, a hiking group, is going to just that this saturday. hike. i think i better be there.

uh-oh. i guess i went too far with this image.

[note: i replaced it with a simpler rendition 1.5.6.]

and had a busy morning doing it.

yesterday afternoon i drove out to tom's place in the boonies. as usual i got lost, but not too lost. had a most pleasant visit with tom and richard who just blew in from the coast. the ukrainian coast i mean.

when i got home i began noodling around with guitar and assorted odds and ends, had something recorded passable by midnight. up this morning i tweaked it here and there, one thing lead to another, hours passed, and i finally put it back in it's cage.

then i puttered with the above image for awhile to have something to post.

and i haven't even mentioned large watercolor i am ever so slowly screwing up.

so what's the point? two things: one, it is a beautiful day out so a long walk is in order; and two, i need to balance the activities above with getting my hands dirty. bounce off the world of the other. collide with tangible karma. take care of bizzness.

and today there is plenty of time to engage with the meta-mundane.

oops. i just noticed a glitch in the image above. it's a drawing i made in az and scanned this morning.dusted with photoshop. ill fix and reupload... pretty soon.

yesterday was a total blank. twenty four hours of the void. was horizontal the whole day. why?

i don't know, maybe fighting off sore throat or crumpled mind. plus the rain and thunder probably brought out some atavistic thread in my head.

but i'm full of vim and vigor today, ready to go... somewhere.

saw syriana sunday night with richard, debbie, tom, susanne, francy, and assorted generation Y folks.

it was midnight after a long day when we exited, so there was no discussion of the movie.

my take: the landscape and topagraphy of the middle east will alone have an effect on we the public. kind of drives home the point that it is a huge world when globalized, not a mcluhan village.

and that world is full of bad guys. there are more of them in this movie than any ten put together that i've seen. all wealthy sleazeballs. the patina of power was layed on thick. so many private clubs, ranches, villas, limos. one criticism i have is that all of the powermongers looked so stereotypically similar i couldn't tell them apart.

the one thing i missed: the oligarches had to shove overboard one of their own, a sacrifice to law, and then a second was demanded. who was it?