Canoe Haiku

Cedar slats and ribs
Sharp brown knife in the water
Shiney new canoe


How thin the wood wall
That curves two ways around me
As I paddle home


This canoe seats two
As the sun sets I plow home
With one place empty


Knees chaffed by cedar
Kneeling for hours working
Bright hardwood paddle


Wiley pike looks up
Wooden bubble floats above:
My cedar canoe


Hickory paddles
Stab and rip black silk water
Through green lily pads


Waveless glassy lake
Sound of a couple laughing
Canoe almost still

Advaita, "in" vs. "as"

Yes, I understand that there is much good in many religions. I certainly affirm that my Catholic school education was in many regards superior. I am very grateful for that. I'm only commenting on aspects of the whole religious phenomenon that might keep those pious folks ignorant who have the capacity and will to discover something more foundational for themselves.

I'm not sure that "Advaitist" is even a word, but I have used it as a tag to loosely point in the direction of what I understand to Be. "Advaita" is an Indian philosophical system based on non-dualism. It might, I have recently found out, be called "Non-Dualism" in English. Very simplistically, it is predicated on the premise that God and Creation are One and inseparable. Or one might say "There are not two, there is only one." So the statement attributed to Jesus that "I and my Father are One" is a statement of the necessity of being, not of a special kind of person-ness or miraculous manifestation.

It has much to do with your question about "in" and "as." As far as I can tell, most "Christian" religions are dualistic in nature. By this I mean the idea found in many religions that there is a God and an objective world created as something apart, or objective to, God and vice-versa. To me, this is a misinterpretation of existence now being addressed by quantum physics as it has been addressed for thousands of years by the Great Teachers. In fact, a reading of some of the words attributed to Jesus in the Bible lead me to this conclusion as well. That is based on the observation that a very important sense of the word "I" does not translate into English in other than an egoic way.

"Christian" is in quotes because of the simple fact that if there was one Jesus called The Christ, then the several main Christian denominations, not to mention its unnumbered subdivisions, cannot all be practicing what must have at one time been an original teaching. They are all, in a word, beliefs. That is a fancy word acceptable to adults for "let's pretend." That is fine, there is nothing wrong with that, except that if you take it for Reality, you lose. What do you lose? Any chance of perhaps perceiving what that original Teaching might have been. You also lose a lot of playmates because you insisted that it is your game and they have to play by your rules and die or suffer if they don't. This is true of many non-Christian faiths as well, and many "-isms" and "-ologys."

The crux (lol) of the matter is perhaps the difference in knowledge by information and knowledge by identity.

Information is always by its own nature partial. It is always a best guess, an ad hoc, or a pro tem. Due to the human need to be right, to be validated, which is an emotional, not scientific, issue; partial understandings masquerading emotionally as reality get adhered to and practiced unflinchingly by many who wish the security of a closed system. Information is not a closed system, and beyond that, it is a speculative endeavor largely because of the narrow band perceptive ability of our senses, which are further restricted by operating in local time and space, as far as I can tell. This is the realm of operation of most, if not, all religions.

Knowledge by identity works Now, outside of time and space. It works outside of time and space in that it is "bigger" than that continuum and the only substance to it. If you put a pencil dot on a very large piece of paper and called it "all of time and space," the paper would represent Eternity, but wouldn't be nearly large enough or even begin to have enough dimensions. Moreover, that Eternity has no component of duration. It IS. Advaita is the descriptions offered by those who know this of what IS as distinct from what seems to be. Those descriptions are offered as a way to alter thinking in order to bring about a thought pattern congruent with Reality in order that an individual might SEE, and thereby exponentially know At-Onement with Reality, or God. In other words, there cannot, as is purported in Christian and other religions, be a Creation apart from God. Creation is a manifestation of God Himself. The human mind, being limited in scope, is the seeming barrier through which God, Reality, can experience Self from a localized perspective and thus enjoy the infinitude of Creation. But the sense of Self is unlimited and genuine and Whole. It is why many who become enlightened exclaim, "I have not been deceived!" It is the aspect of Divinity called Soul, which Dr. Mills referred to as "The feeling of Being I AM."

This is why to me to say that God is "in" something smacks of pantheism. Yet to say that God is manifesting "as" this or that allows at least the possibility of acknowledgment of the inseparability of, what to our senses, only seems to be a discreet object. The idea of "objects" having no independent existence is as well in accordance with quantum physics.

You might, in addition to F. Merrell-Wolff's books, enjoy David Baum's Wholeness and the Implicate Order.

Typical Daily Update

Hi Mom, Everyone,

The floors were finished today, with grout included. The floor tiles in both the bathroom and the kitchen are the same, but will have slightly different grout colors to tie in the other features in each room. The toilet is now also installed and working (YEAAAAA!!!!). the kitchen cabinets are also all in, as well as the microwave. That includes the little cabinet for pots and pans which will also be a work surface for the stove. The electrical is not tied in anywhere in the new construction, however, and the pulls all yet have to go on to the doors and drawers.

Yet another person stopped by today to ask "Who did the landscaping?" It is certainly an eyecatcher. Today I spent some time in the yard because the weather was just too lovely to pass up. I trimmed the bottlebrush tree so it can be walked under without fear of poking something. A rose bush also got trimmed, as well as the birch in front. I did some cleanup in the back yard, but a good deal of time was used to clean the multitude of weeds from the junipers in front of the house. The Wong's benefited a bit from that as well, because I did their half of the junipers between the two driveways and some of their planter near the birch to "spruce" that up, lol! A little bit was done along Schmidt, from the corner up through the first section of fence.

The lawn is to be mowed by Wednesday. It is growing like wildfire! It is one of the richest greens I've ever seen. Everyone compliments Joseph's design and work. The painter, Frank, stopped by to check how it was going with the windows, and I told him that Marcio expected the windows to be arriving this week some time. He also said how nice the place looks, and I thanked him for his good work. I have had a chance to look around the house and see how they did things, and I was pleased to see that even the roof vents were nicely done to complement the house. Gia the realtor was here as well and like what she saw and unlike Marcio estimated ten days to completion. I hope Marcio's estimate of seven is more accurate. Gia also encouraged me again in my artistic pursuits. (I found a gallery in Albany that will take what I have on the coming truck on consignment as soon as it gets here.)

The next major thing outside is the back yard and finishing at least a cursory cleanup of the curb plantings on Schmidt. The garage driveway is now clear of debris, which clears the way for more cleanup in the back, of which there is a lot. I've got the behind the garage area done, and have started piles of various catagories of trash for disposal, recycling, greenwaste, and hasmats. Right now, the inside of the garage is a hasmat and maybe that will be my priority tomorrow as the dumpster will be useful in that regard.

Love and blessings,

Anton

A "Take" on Good and Evil

Someone asked me about good and evil and this is what came to me:

As for the problem of good and evil, it has according to my best lights, nothing to do with God, as the God I know is not a personal God. I find the idea of a personal God an impossibility and too small to fit the facts as I see them. The sort of personal God I percieve as being commonly worshiped by most religionists can at best be a well developed entity far enough beyond ordinary men as to appear to be God like, in the way a competent technician might be to someone of a mentality that could belong to a so called "cargo cult." God, in my estimation, is so far beyond any anthropomorphization that our ideas offered about a diety by religions is insulting to and demeaning of Diety, and astonishingly misleading as to what might be called "salvation."

Good vs. evil, as I see that dynamic, is the evaluation of events natural or artificial by standards pertinent to personal wishes of happiness or well being. Ignorance, particularly ignorance of the laws and forces of Nature, or Self, have not yet been recognized publicly as similar in nature to such things as hurricans, tsunamis, and avalanches. These things are not "evil," they are conditions of of our nature. As I see it the vast majority of humans are uncivilized, ignorant, and immature, despite good intentions and aberrant ideas of self esteem. I agree with Mahatma Gandhi's reply when he was asked what he thought of Western civilization. He said "I think it would be a very good idea." This applies equally to the ones who have the toys which control the ways of the world, namely banks, corporations, governments, and religions, likely in that order. These are for the most part found to be sociopathic institutions if they are subjected to ordianry personality tests. These institutions, and people who do harm, do it because they are looking out for their best perceived self interest. This is normal and everyone does it. The difference might be in what those percieved best self interests are. Being on the whole a phenomenally uncivilized and experi-mental race, few of us are on the same page, even nearly, with those who have an inclusive overview of what our potential as interactive beings might be. In other words, "evil" is Nature's way of saying "Hey! You (plural) are not congruent with your own best self interest! Wake up!"

Of course, one of the most impossible things to do is to tell someone who is asleep to wake up. It takes forcefull action. Imediate action, in fact, if the house is on fire, for instance, such as our planet is at this moment. Thing is, too many are too involved with what's in front of their own nose to notice, i.e. physically feel, that things are horribly awry. "Evil" is a teleological component of life and seems to result from the ignorance and immaturity of individuals who have not percieved their own right identity as co-creators with a rather astonishingly beyond-our-intellectual-understanding WONDER of a Universe. Conscious and aware of our underlying unity we can build a paradise. Ignorant of it, we will continue to blunder against each other's ignorance and create the result of that. Primarily, ignorance is not necessarily of facts and knowledge, it is of the nature of Self. One who knows experientially what they are before they the sense of being a person cannot harm others without knowing that they harm themselves. In either case, experience of good and evil is for the benefit of our education. But no one said we had to survive it as person.

The power that is Love is like electricity. Directed, it can do immense good. Undisciplined, uneducated and undirected it wreaks havoc. In any case it is the same force. And regarding the idea that "good" and "evil are a matter of vibrations high or low, vibrations of every kind and degree always already exist. The point is: am I aware of them and what they mean at various levels of consequence. (the consequences reveal the rules.) If I'm not, I am certain to step on toes, and that will be called evil. If I learn and change, that might be called good. The labels of good and evil belong to a limited two valued logic system which is incapable of including the actuality of the infinite value system of Universe. Good and evil judgements are blinding us from perceiving and acting on dynamics that would free us of the need to make such poor and inadequate evaluations.

Where is Music and Art in Schools??

This is one of my favorite rants, so I will refrain from anything of book length here, since it is a response to another's journal posting.

All subjects are important as facets of a diamond are to the proper reflection of its light. Music is the Queen of all of these because its practice can form neural pathways that correspond to actual relationships in the universe of experience. Art is the way of practicing connectivity with the palpability of the invisible, which is the very source of ideation. Both of these disciplines act to form an individual of perceptive and expressive facility, as does a firm foundation in grammar, which is the rules of expression of words as music. This means that if there is the right grounding in language, the speaker/writer can use the instrument of language to convey nuances of exquisit finess and practicality, and even of poetry. The understanding of patterns and the ability to detect semantic error are enhanced as well. But most of all, a competent teacher or Mentor in any discipline can guide the pupil in the ways of maturity. This maturity would be the "table" of the diamond, that part that gathers and reflects the light of experience. Enough for now, and thanks for asking a very important question. (You might find it interesting to look at my journal entry about the nature of the artist.)

Oh, as for technology, I agree with Mahatma Gandhi's answer to the question he was asked in London after visiting the spectacles of the city. He was asked "What do you think of Western civilization?" He answered "I think it would be a good idea." We seem not even to have the tools to percieve our monumental lack of development of our own remarkable abilities. We have, as a culture, dismissed maps of experiential and physical reality that were at one time easily navigable and were richly rewarding. We have given them up, perhaps, to be willing wage slaves of a few astonishingly wealthy individuals. Do the math on who earns what for doing what. Are you happy with it? As Adolph Hitler said "It is great luck for leaders that the people don't think." In part we don't think because our schools don't teach us to. In part it is because we have broken the links of social interactions that brought us the subtlties of percieving our own worth and abilities, both of which are, it seems, "old fashioned." We also do not police ourselves and thus invite tyranny. The soul of you, before it is stiffled by a religious definition, is an astounding treasure of incalculable wealth, and most do not know they wear its key to the grave.

Bell--A Ringing Revelation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?hpid=topnews

This might have to do with the post below titled "Where is Music and Art in schools?" Thanks to Hugh Comerford of NLP Canada ( www.nlpworks.com )

Making Our Own Prison Bars in Other's Minds

Habits can facilitate skills or be prisons. Judgement is one of the most common prisons. It puts one behind the bars of their thoughts of what someone else ought to be like. In a way the judge-mental person is in their pretend mind of somone other than themselves. So if we do this we are either in God's business or someone else's business. This means that in judgement we are not at home in our own business where we all rightfully belong. Unfortunatley, we may, through habit, not know we are not home by attempting to live an opinion as someone else's "ought to be."

A simple way that can remind them (and us) of where they (we) are, if there is a modicum of honesty, is to ask four questions, like this: "Is it (what is being said about someone) true?" If "yes," then ask "Do you know it is absolutley true? (as in: are you a God who can see every tiny possibility, and is the judgement absolutly true in every case?) Most often it can be easily seen that there are exceptions or differences. Then ask "How do you feel when you think that thought?" like anger, disapointment, etc., including how the body feels when that thought is paid attention to. Then ask "Who would you be (in that situation, with that person) without that thought?" This question often allows the person to assume an impartial perspective or emotional distance. Sometimes it can be asked if there is an unstressful reason to keep the judgemental thought, or if there is a situation contrary to the thought that is equally true, even in some instances. Then turn it around. In other words, if the judgement was "So-and-so is blah, blah," say "I am blah-blah." See if it fits and how, and see if there are more ways of varying that turn around. Never try to give up the thought, just see if there is any reason to, or if there is some other possibility that simply wasn't on the radar, or wasn't given weight. Just seeing in this way allows the thought to leave you of it's own accord. As my Mentor, K.G. Mills* said, "The thoughts you think are not your own." Attention to a thought gives it, and its train,** life. This method allows the hold of attention to be broken so the thought can go back to where it came from. In some cases these questions have changed lives. They are from Byron Katie,*** a woman of remarkable compassion and understanding.


*Kenneth G. Mills www.kennethgmills.com
** train of thoughts, or the training of habits
***Byron Katie www.thework.com

Crow's feet and Fire

I like to see the lines on the face of someone mature and experienced, perhaps more than the unlined porcelaine face of youth. Those lines are the marks of having been somewhere, of gathering the material of personal transformation, the riches without which we have no fuel for the fire of change, the refiner's fire of our own realization.

This is silly, but someone asked....

One of the favorite sports at a particular dating site is sniping at the "Improve Matches" questions, whether it's their logic, lack of appropriate choices, grammar, or what ever. This one I responded to was about spelling: "What are 'mosqutoes?'" from the question "If you could kill all the mosqutoes in the..."

Well, there are churchtoes, templetoes, synagogtoes, and mosqutoes. They all look pretty much the same and have to wear different things so they can tell themselves apart because if they were naked they couldn't. They fight each other because despite being exactly the same they think their special "clothes" make them the best and only, despite each acting exactly the same. People come from other planets trying to figure this out. "Why do all these 'toes that are exactly the same destroy each other so no one has anything when they could all have everything, because they are all the same and want the same things, except they make themselves think thay are different. Why, why, why?" No one has figured it out yet, and then they all leave because they are civilized and don't wish to be in such rude company.

To Val, re Winter and Cedar Canoes

Boy, I sure miss all that chipping, scraping and shovelling of snow and ice....NOT! Funny you mention about the canoe. Last night I dreamt about that scene you described about being out on the water at night.... I love canoeing, and used to go out in a friend's cedar canoe. It felt like it was alive, and it fit into the water so well, and knew it had it's right place in the wild. It felt more like it was drawn to where I was going, than me having to paddle it there. The paddling was like something to keep me busy while the canoe hunted out secret places like a ranging dog. It also knew when and how to be still, so in its shadow I could look down and see pike and bass waiting.... I often came back with wild rice in the belly of the boat, and scraped it up for the cook. That boat was a lake skimmer of the highest order as it shinned and glistened its way, quiet and fast in the silk/velvet water, propelled into its ways by warmth, sunshine, and air that was like a smooth, cool elixir of peace.

In the Moment

E.E.: You ask some fascinating questions. My Mentor defined Heaven and Hell in these terms: Heaven is the feeling of Unity, Hell is the feeling of separation. I'd add that we can experience each to various degrees. But the important thing is, like Shakespeare said, "... thinking makes it so." The Heart of each of us desires whatever the mind convinces us leads to the feeling of Unity. Since the mind works by making destinctions, it is quite capable of misleading us as to what will, in Fact, lead us to that certain, gut felt, intuitve knowledge of Unity. My sense is, that ultimately all of our experimentation will lead to the discovery that there never was a separation, but the we created the sense of it in order to find that out at an experiential level, no matter what the cost. Love, it seems to me, at one level, is absolutly impartial and will let you find your own way. That way it is utterly and irrevocably yours. You made it, you own it, and ultimately you know what it means. Maybe our difficulties stem from trying to find happiness as an addition of something from "out there" as we decline to percieve that the difference between "in here" and "out there" is purely cognative and is supported by English grammar which is emphatically not true to fact. I think that fits both with many Eastern systems as well as with quantum physics. It is the way of complete responsibility. (See my journal entry on Ho'oponopono.) I think also that it fits with Christianity as it was originally intended before its coruption. (I agree with the famous Christian playwrite, G.K. Chesterton: "It's not that Christianity doesn't work, it just hasn't been tried yet."*) This Way of complete responsibility has been taught for ages everywhere under many names and is, as far as I can see, the root of many religions. Religions happen as an attempt to codify the undefinable, experiential Teaching of a Master and are therefor poor substitutes for being in The Presence. It is also why those who accept the responsibility to whatever extent seem to naturally seperate from those imersed in the re-ligion** of dogma. One could write books on the awesome miracle of it all, but for "pop" digests, one might see Down the Rabbit Hole and The Secret, both oversimplifed, yet useful.

A moment or forever? Most folks think that eternity has duration, with which come the commensurate myths of Heaven and Hell. That it doesn't have duration is what makes it eternal and therefore able to support a moment and one's thinking it is this or that. Now there's another book!

I am wondering how common, and how popularly unsupported in the West, your experience with your Hindu friend might be, the one where you realized "IS IS." I was what, maybe 17, and walking throught the house thinking about the nature of things and it hit me: IS IS!!! It was such a remarkable insight for me that I, right there at that moment, penciled it in under the light switch for the kitchen overheads. It was there for years. I could walk by and see it even years later when I came to visit.

For me it had yet another resonance. My Dad was an armchair Egyptologist. Of course, one of the great goddesses in that pantheon is ISIS. I later became more intruiged by MAAT, but at the time of my inspiration I was quite taken by the coincidence in the name of Isis.

This is not where I would go in to my 28 year association with my Mentor, but suffice it to say that just at the time that, due to the undeniable pressure of experience, I started to question my birth religion, I met him and very soon after I heard his first lecture he reconciled my ambiguities about Eastern/Western religious thought in a spontaneously given poem.

Lately, in addition to the Ho'oponopono, I have been reading Byron Katie. You might enjoy her work as well. It is VERY IS IS.

*this statememt of Chesterton's resonates for me with what Gandhi said when he was asked what he thought of Western civilization. He said "I think it would be a very good idea."


** look up the root meaning of the word; compare to the verb "to be," 1st person singular.

What Do We Want???

To a friend: "I know from experience that we, as the U.S., have a horrible and declining reputation outside our borders. I don't think that the majority, especially our young adults, have ANY clue as to the horror of the situation. Why are Americans wearing Canadian flags when travelling abroad? It must be because of the desire to insulate against the very common perception of our country as an overbearing imperial state whose internal affairs are rotting.

"In the face of all this, I really have no desire to cry "woe is me; woe is us." I think that we are getting what we ask for by way of accepting our own ignorance and choosing comfort. As I often say, the consequences reveal the rules. Perhaps the consequences in due time will be rather horrible.

"I ask myself what I can do in the face of all the stuff I hear about the shenanigans around me. I don't know. I don't even feel that I can escape. Even in your situation up there, you are living the horror by association. You know them as intimately as I do. If things go very very wrong with our infrastructure, then you will be perhaps insulated from that for a while, as distinct from folks in cities who will have three days and then chaos.

"I maintain, adamantly, that we have everything to make this world a Paradise. yet we have not the will to take the world from the hands of its destructors. Was Walt kelly right? His cartoon character, Pogo, exclaimed as an all too accurate misquote: "We have met the enemy, and he is US!" How is THAT to be turned around? What do I do, I, ME, to make a difference in vectoring this ship away from the reef its bottom is already scrapping? What do you think? how would you advise me on this? I would really like to know. And most importantly, I would like to know it from a standpoint of having a constructive attitude in the face of it all. That is what I would like to know. How do we precipitate an actual civilization from what we have as a public picture. Is there anything even equal to a grain of sand that you can give me in that direction?

"Thanks for hearing me out. Even if the whole shebang goes to hell, I want to know that as far as I could, I tried to put my hand on the wheel and turn the right way."

Grammar Geeks

response to someone who was concerned about being perceived as a grammar geek because of her going to a copy editor's seminar:

"Personally I find nothing odd about this, and actually wish that the world was filled with grammar nerds. We do, to a large extent, perceive our world through our grammar. Musicians are a special lot, because they also have at their disposal the tonal scales and their infinities with which to feel the world. However, those with only verbal tools are limited by the structure of their tongue. That is why I hold correct grammar, epistemology, general semantics, NLP, and the Philosophy of Consciousnes w/out an object as being so vital. English, despite the ethereal beauty that it can be used to express, is a pathetic language for thinking about Reality. Its very structure and assumptions blind one to the obvious."

Anyone who has two or more languages, especially if they are, in our case, non Indo-European languages, perceives quite clearly that the structure and feel of experience is different through a different filter of grammar and vocabulary. One case comes to mind where a friend saw her sister, back from a mission assignment of a few years duration, speaking Portugese. She said "I was shocked: she was a different person altogether!"

Further to this, I was delighted to read in a story by Robert Heinlein that in English "'I' is the only form of the verb 'to be' that is true to fact." This is so, and is at the root of HUGE misunderstandings and mistranslations of sacred texts from the East and Middle East in particular. The sense of personal responsibility as confessed in the article on Ho'oponopono farther down the page is more like what I (lol) would consider accurate.

In fact, entire systems of experience, understanding, and expression are based on this different understanding of the word "I." The renowned Canadian Philosopher/Poet/Rennaisance man Kenneth G. Mills prefaced each of his books with an explicatory note regarding his use of the words "I," "me," and "you." Such a note is worth reading, especially if you are a musician.

Educating the Soul

This was in response to a young lady who had encounterd much rudness and uncivility in her dating experience and decided to try here, yet with concerns:

"Being human is an aquired skill. Having the body gives you the animal part to get around with, but only indicates potential. Our particular society goes out of its way to avoid any deep and significant training in the higher sensibilites that can mark an individual as being a fine example of our race. Some folks are, of course, but they are straglers in time from cultures that had some concurance on what constituted excellent behavior, but even then these are usually partials. I find myself agreeing with Mahatma Gandhi. He was asked at the end of a tour of London what he thought of Western civilization. Without skipping a beat, he replied "I think it would be a very good idea." He knew in his heart what we publicly deny: Toys and comfort do not make a civilization and neither does technique or the ability to bash someone out of existence. We have no rites of passage for our young men and women, save something like Outward Bound, that makes them reach inside to discover what they have as resources in mind, body ans spirit, alone, or in a group. That's why barn raisings and tragedies unite people. They have to cooperate and the consequences reveal the rules. It's why the elders used to take the young men aside, and the crones the girls. It is a matter of soul education. How can you expect an ordinary raised in front of a TV short attention span, shootemup, what about them Nicks, society to know about etiquette and your sensibilities? Yes, there are guys out there who have a fine background and will make you a loving parner. See clearly what you want and practice living it in your mind. You will find that activity not only a wonderful filter, but there is a subtler level of life than just looking in a site like this. Feel what you want as if you have it, and see if it isn't yours in due time. I wish you the very best."

How I got to California

Well, it is a long story, but simply put for the benefit of those interested, here it is:
In early December 2006, I got a call from my sister that my Mom was not doing well. Indeed she wasn't. She has had a history of heart/blood pressure problems complicated at times with difficulty in breathing. This time it was pretty serious. It was everyone's sense that she was on her way out. Part of all the considerations as well, was the looming prospect of having to do something to free my Mom of the burden of taking care of her house, the one that she had lived in for fifty years and where most of the four kids had grown up. The upshot was that it would be a very auspicious time for me to go out to California. I could both see my Mother and help with the final decision of getting her house up for sale.

My Mother is a scrapper, and came through the whole thing noticeably weakened, but still going strong. In fact, today, she is for the most part back on track and doing as well as can be expected, and in general good health for someone in their eighties.

In the mean time, the decision to sell the house involved me here in a project that grew way beyond my original intent of just painting the interior and going home to Canada. There was a lot in disrepair that had to be addressed in order just to get the house on the market. It became an all or nothing decision that rested on the fact that the house is my Mom's nest egg and we all wanted her to get the very most out of it that she could.

The research and advice we got indicated that any money put into the house would at the very least be returned at double the investment as far as reasonable upgrades were concerned. They would also make the house far more attractive to any prospective buyer, even one who might want to remodel.

The only point of contention in all this was my brother's room that he had occupied some years ago and made into his art studio. It is a small bedroom in the back of the house. He had, very competently, I might add, textured and painted the walls and ceiling to look like stone. He had also added faux 6x6 wooden beams to the corners and across the ceiling. The base board, window, and door frames matched as well. This configuration was very controversial to the real estate agents who insisted that it should be made into a plain bedroom again. At first we agreed. However, as the various contractors, visitors, etc, came through for whatever reason, it turned out that without exception this "cave room" was a hit. The consensus became this: that the room ought to stay as is for the potential buyer who wools like it this way for a child or whatever, and if they didn't like it but wanted the house, we could easily enough get it changed over within the escrow period. This made sense, as there is other work that will be done then as well.
Suffice it to say, then, that in the midst of all this it became obvious that it would be a great advantage to Mom's interest if there was someone on site who could deal with the exigencies of the renovations. Because I was a family member and could be trusted to deal with the large amount of personal belongings yet here from several of us, and because of my extensive experience in renovations and additions, I was the obvious choice to be that one. Mom's health, being compromised, put her out of that role, what with so much construction activity scheduled. As for my other sibs, they were enmeshed in work and family matters. I, being an independent sub contractor for a GC in Ontario, was the only one with the necessary skills mobile enough to fill the bill.

So, here I am. One VERY distinct joy of that is that I am NOT in the snow and ice of that Ontarian Winter. I am here enjoying some very good weather. There are blossoming orchids, quince, and lush torolosa pines right out the window as I type this. The sun is shining and it is warm. Am I happy to have that? Considering the Northern alternative, I am overjoyed.
Do I miss my friends? Very much. A few in particular. But in this case, I feel I have no choice but to do this. Other considerations, including some continuing concerns surrounding my Mother, will keep me here as a resident for some time at least. I will continue my application for "independent business man" status in Canada from here, as that is a promising opportunity. It has long been a wish of mine to be there for the loveliness of the seasons that are lovely, and AWAY from the season that is white and shivery.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I am sorry to miss my friends, but life deals cards and you have to play them as best you can. It is, after all, a learning experience. It very certainly has been that for me in Canada. I worked for and was often in the Presence of, in my estimation, one of the most remarkable individuals on the planet, perhaps ever, that being Dr. Mills. What a timeless and priceless legacy that is for me, too large even for me to feel in its entirety. And the gift of being with all to the precious friends up there, of whom I was blessed with many. So if anything, I feel that I am carrying an immense blessing into a new land, and am the beneficiary of a remarkable legacy that I can discover by its sharing. That has to be good.

Who's Driving?

Occasionaly, as we all do, I spend an hour or more on the phone or sitting with someone who needs a navigational mirror, or a staunch wall off which to repeatedly bounce the ball of their considerations. That happened last night and here is part of what I wrote to her this morning as a follow up:

I have utter confidence in your ability to resolve in the most kind and loving way possible, whatever the outcome. Surely it is a painful process, but that is a gift of life: it tells us in no uncertain terms its rules by where we are. Pain seems to be one of the large indicator dials on the dashboard of our vehicle of awareness. There is, therefore, a lot to be said for emotional detachment. What a mark of maturity it is to sense and feel, and yet to function as Love in its most impartial dispensations. It is very reflexive; you get to drive the emotional body through its time-space environment as an observer, yet experience every nuance of consequence. Blessed are those who deal with the road as it is in front of them without the foggy insulating windsheild of denial. Blessed are those who have competent navigational consultants. Blessed are those who know they have the wheel firmly in their own hands.

How does someone put things on a table so that they may be embraced as having bearing and be looked at impartialy? I am told that this is the scenario of our own last judgement at death. Perhaps another "beatitude" is in order: Blessed are those who voluntarily see themselves dispassionately before it is too late. No wonder, then, that so many adepts have told us to use our own death as an advisor. That's not morbid, it's just sober. What better condition for the mind when driving?

Overburden

In the English language we care so much for and hold in high esteem, the word "love" has been burdened with far too much weight of meaning to bear in its simplicity. We have all these words for so many things, and for one of the most trans-dimensional, deep, subtle, variable in kind, depth, and degree of emotive feelings, we have one word and its paltry goup of emaciated handmaidens. Surley the word is much like the caryatid fallen under her stone. It makes me weep. No wonder we are such an imature race; we have no discernment of multi directional variables in the most power laden field of our experience.

Respecting the Feminine

I just had an interesting question about this, as to wheather I respect the feminine as it appeares in others, or in my self. Huge issue, even if (for the non-dualist crowd) you postulate the semanitc impossibility that there is such a distinction as self and other apart from a delusion of incomplete perception.

Yes, I respect, Isis and Maat, not to mention Palas Athena, Sumeramis, and such historic women as were queens, stateswomen, inventors, adventurers, and artists. Not to mention my friends, who are mostly female. My Mentor often said that this was the age where the power of the feminine must be raised. Yes. Look at the shenanigans of today's church, state, and corporations in their unbalanced and unmitigated patriarchic frenzies. Not good for Gaia or her children, eh? My Mentor was a classic archtypal polyphrenic according to Jean Huston. He always was for balance, always exemplified it, and hopefully some of that rubbed off on me.

And yet, yours is a good question: What about men who respect their feminine. Well, very often they are regarded with epithetic comments as to sexual orientation, as if one had to do with the other, except as coincidence. It seems to me that gender and sex are two dimensions that are factors in a bigger equation yet. I know it is not quantifiable, but what do you consider to be attributes of the feminine nature, and what constitutes respect? I've experienced "respect" for different people to mean anything from "tolerate" to "militantly celebrate."

I guess one of the seed ideas in my mind about his area was first verbalized for me by my Dad. He said that generally, women have the power to guide the perciptation of ideas and things by men. I took that to mean that for the most part there is a gender/temperament tendency *on the face of things* that has women percieved as having perceptive abilities that can be seeds for men to use as ideas influencing what they do. So, again, generaly speaking, the feminine has to do with reception, the male with penetration. (Please don't take this to the physical though the "outer" tends to reflect the "inner." I mean psychic tendencies. As in perhaps people with "dirt paths" (see "Announcement:..., next entry down) may be able to concentrate intensely on some small thing well enough to make a breakthrough. And yet, the need to do that may have come from a destinctly receptive component, internal or external.) But things for me in this regard are somewhat blurrrrrred as to the male/female thing. Even as a young man it came to me that there are at least four genders. Later I modified that to twelve. As icing for that view, I found a book called "The Clock of Sex" that personified twelve archetypes, with examples, of six male and six female catagories of gender predeliction. That did not include genuine hermaphrodites. I can't say that there are other than statistical probabilities in gender expression that are surely masked by the need for public appearances. We are, I think, very repressive in general, as witnessed by our poverty of words for the infinite shades, gradations, intensities and kinds of love. We've in English stuffed an infinity of possibilities into "love" and "like," which regardless of some other poor phrases, cannot bear the burden of meaning required of them. I agree with Gandhi, who was at the conclusion of a tour of London was asked what he thought of Western civilization. Without missing a beat he replied "I think it would be a good idea!" Part of that might be to elevate the gender qualities one might encounter and support their creative aspects regardless of the sex of the body they manifest in. For my part, they seem to be coexisting in a mostly balanced happy synergy and are an aspect of my sexual orientation, my art, my trade, and any activity I am blessed to partake in.

Announcement: How the Male Mind Works

Elaine Boozler is talking to a large audience, primarily women. The topic (surprisingly) is men and their "unfathomable" behavior. However, Elaine thinks she has a clue, and explains it something like this:

Well, it's obvious we're different. But you see, ladies, you have to understand how the male mind is constructed. I mean, think about it. All people have two halves to their brain, and they're connected with this bridge. But now, we know how we women are: there's always something going on. There's all kinds of communication going on between our two hemispheres. We're thinking about all kinds of things at once, in all kinds of ways. Everything we think about has a history, a future, it's implications, feelings and agendas. We might as well have, ladies, a ten lane superhighway at rush hour that's going on between our two brain parts. Am I right? But the guys, what have the guys got? They've got this little tiny dirt path! Ya gotta feel for them, now don't you? (Roaring laughter and applause)

Of course, on reading the above, a friend of mine said "Well yes, but us guys can tell which truck on that freeway is important, and expedite it!" There's something to that, eh?

That's the goods, as I remember them. If you ever find something by Rita Rudner, you might like her, as well. I saw her live and she was absolutely wonderful!

Sagacious Serpent

Someone whose screen name is the same as the gallery I show at asked me for another true animal story. Here it is, plus a bonus at the end:

I met a remarkable woman at a workshop in Tucson, Arizona. After one of the sessions we went to dinner at a local Indian (East) restaurant and she told this story amongst others: Her main work was in acclimating zoo animals to new and mostly far better environments when there was restructuring of many large zoos. There was a python at one such zoo that had been in a cage display of very small dimensions. So small, in fact, that there was no possibility of the poor creature ever unwinding to it's full 17' length. It was, I gathered, at the most coiled into thirds or less.

Anyway, the python was released into its new pen which would not only accommodate it's full length, but would allow it to move around freely in that state as well as climgb trees, etc. Unfortunately, the keepers found upon its release that it remained in the folded up configuration that it had become habituated to in the earlier cage. Mentally it could not comprehend the fact of its new freedom and remained psychicaly caged in a small space. How so like the majority of the human kind. What do you expect then, from a snake? So they called this lady to work with it.

Well, she did that, and spent three days with the creature, acclimating it to its new, greatly enhanced territory. After three days of massage and cajoling, she got it out to its full length in the sun. Soon thereafter, the python began to move about, tentatively at first, and then with obvious enthusiasm. Her work was done, and she went about her business in other parts of the world.

About a year later she happened to be in the vicinity of the zoo where she had worked with the structured serpent and went there to visit and see how the creature was faring. As she entered the zoo, she noticed something unusual. In the center of the place there was an elevated mound and there was a crowd of people there. She stopped and looked at the scene and soon discerned that there was some kind of a jungle movie being made up there, the set and crew being surrounded by a good number of onlookers. Suddenly, as if Moses was parting the Red Sea, the crowd opened to form a passage that was directly in line with her.

At this point in her story, as she did relating many of her tales, she said with great enthusiasm; "SO!! THERE I was!" she looked up at the commotion and saw some ripple of movement heading in her direction. IN short order she realized what it was and was somewhat astonished. In a few moments, the very python she had workd with was in front of her, with it's head up at the level of her face, weaving around and flicking its tongue! It had remembered her scent and recognized her as she came into the compound! She embraced the snake "hello," and to the amazement of the crowd, walked back up to the set with the snake trailing behind.

Could I invent something like this? But wait! I remember another python story that happened to me. It was again in Tucson, AZ. I lived in the old Freeman farmhouse off of First Avenue. There was a 7-11 at the corner and I often walked down there. Well, this one day I got there and there were five police cruisers. I knew the clerk who was outside having a cigarette, and commented "Another beer run, eh?" He said "No, you wouldn't believe it, what just happened!" I said, "OK, spill; a gunman, or what?" He said "Nothing like that. They just caught an eleven foot long python in front of the store. It took eight officers and animal control people to catch it and cage it. Strong sucker!" "You are B.S.ing me," I said. "Nope. Read about it in the paper tomorrow. Some guy's pet got away and slithered down here. People were freaking." OK, so I checked it out in the paper the next day, and sure enough, there was a pretty portrait of the python and its captors in front of the store. That was a week after someone's horse got loose in the alley by our house and the neighborhood turned out to see the doings.

You are....WHO???

I'm pretty much camping out. I'm down from Canada and coordinating the reno's on my Mom's house preparatory to its sale. All the amenities, save the flush, were ripped out some time ago. (see other entries) So before I had figured out how to keep clean with no shower, this one day there is the doorbell. Thinking it's likely a friend of my Mom who doesn't know she's moved to Mountain View, I prepare my little schpiele. I open the door, and there stand four rather nice looking women about my age and younger. Probably not my Mom's friends, so I politely say "Yes?"

The woman in front of me looks a little taken aback and says "Don't you recognize us?" I look around at the faces, and sure enough, there is some vague but strong feeling of familiarity. But: "Uh...no...?" Then she says: "I'm Terri, that's Rina, That's her friend Gail, and that's Mary. Does that help?" Blank stare from me, dazed from being crazily out of context.... "OK," she says, "I'm Terri, who used to be married to you. Does that help?" I knew that by then, but I guess you get the picture of how stunned I was by this apparition before me. They might as well have been the Four Horsemen, but much nicer.

Holy Jehoshaphat! It hit me like a sack of wet potatoes from atop the barn--back to here and now. "Wow!..... OK, come in," say I. So here we are, this woman I was married to some 30 years ago, and whom I haven't seen or heard from in some two decades; she's here from out of state, bringing a long time ago neighbor and a friend to "just drop by." Her hair is a different color and style, she's a bit thinner, and her voice is somewhat changed since twenty-odd years ago. She was near here visiting her sister and was touring her (our) old neighborhood with some friends she re-connected with.

I had nothing to offer them, had paint cans for them to sit on and tarps for drapes, looked pretty scruffy in used work clothes and unshaven, and likely smelled bad. The place was a wreck; drywall dust was everywhere and I'd come of several bouts of avoiding the murder of at least two incompetent "tradesmen" by somewhat less than a hair's breadth. Quite the reunion, eh?. Well, we got along OK, and they all left after about twenty minutes. She hung back for a minute or two to impart some bits of news, and then left me standing there, still wondering what the heck just happened. Well, at least Rina said she wants to buy one of my sculptures, and Mary wants a copy of one of my poems. It wasn't all bad. Just one heck of a shock out of the blue.

So there it was, my twenty year re-union with my ex and half again as long for most of her entourage. They lived through it, I hear, despite me likely looking like a male Medusa. I reflected that there are such surprises in life, and such will likely come at the most awkward times. What can one do? Smile and enjoy!

The Consequences Reveal the Rules

A friend just wrote about the afternoon and evening she spent with her grandchildren. Her passages were full of recounting activities that proved the endless energy and infinite curiosity of small children. I think we all have that energy always, despite a public campaign to train it out of us.

I went to a workshop once in Tucson, AZ. On the front table the moderator had placed an extraordinary photo of a gurgling baby. It was impossible to see it and do anything but grin and feel happiness. He found the picture as a greeting card at a Walgreen's. It made such an impression on him that he and his wife used it as an energizing icon at all of their seminars. He called the kid "Guru Baby Ga-Ga." That one photo spread more joy in a few minutes than many grumps have spread in their whole lives. People were grinning everywhere, like the plague in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." Except they weren't dying. They were remembering innocence and joy, bringing it into the present. A child's bright energy can be a rejuvenating force. I recommend frequent exposure.

In the balance of recieving that from kids, I remember my Grandmother and the world of wonder she opened for me with her stories, and more important, with her behavior. As children we osmose. I was lucky. Despite her high strung nature which was her worst enemy, she managed to impart to me a way of being inquisitive about the world on the planes of ideas, people, and things. That was the heirarchy of importance. Yes, name one thing you see, do, be, or have, that did not start as an idea. I guess what I mean is that she was the first to guide me into an appreciation of the what I call the palpability of the invisible.

That phrase, the palpability of the invisible, means to me the feeling tangability of the underlying laws that manifest our experience. I thought about that when I went down to the Bay near Point Richmond yesterday. The water, always complicit to the whims of the wind, looked very much like the aluminum foil that the Catholic school kids used to shape and smooth over the covers of their catachisms. Some of the shore, there, was a tragic mess. The mark of careless man was everywhere to be felt. and yet, amidst it all, the water was the water, doing what water does. It will do it with or without its contents of polution, it will do it without regard to the debris on shore that is equally being treated impartially by the laws of Nature. All of what makes it go will always abide. We are in the position of learning about the magnificence of ourselves by cooperating with it, or about the tragedy of disrespect if we don't. Nature cares not a whit. It is complicit to our desires. However, we always find that the consequences reveal the rules.

The World's most unusual thereapist

The World's Most Unusual Therapist
by Dr. Joe Vitale
www.mrfire.com

Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a complete ward of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any of them. The psychologist would study an inmate's chart and then look within himself to see how he created that person's illness. As he improved himself, the patient improved.

When I first heard this story, I thought it was an urban legend. How could anyone heal anyone else by healing himself? How could even the best self-improvement master cure the criminally insane?

It didn't make any sense. It wasn't logical, so I dismissed the story.

However, I heard it again a year later. I heard that the therapist had used a Hawaiian healing process called ho 'oponopono. I had never heard of it, yet I couldn't let it leave my mind. If the story was at all true, I had to know more.

I had always understood "total responsibility" to mean that I am responsible for what I think and do. Beyond that, it's out of my hands. I think that most people think of total responsibility that way. We're responsible for what we do, not what anyone else does. The Hawaiian therapist who healed those mentally ill people would teach me an advanced new perspective about total responsibility.His name is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. We probably spent an hour talking on our first phone call. I asked him to tell me the complete story of his work as a therapist. He explained that he worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years. That ward where they kept the criminally insane was dangerous. Psychologists quit on a monthly basis. The staff called in sick a lot or simply quit. People would walk through that ward with their backs against the wall, afraid of being attacked by patients. It was not a pleasant place to live, work, or visit.

Dr. Len told me that he never saw patients. He agreed to have an office and to review their files. While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal.

"After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being allowed to walk freely," he told me. "Others who had to be heavily medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no chance of ever being released were being freed."

I was in awe.

"Not only that," he went on, "but the staff began to enjoy coming to work. Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more staff than we needed because patients were being released, and all the staff was showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed."

This is where I had to ask the million dollar question: "What were you doing within yourself that caused those people to change?"

"I was simply healing the part of me that created them," he said.

I didn't understand.

Dr. Len explained that total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life - simply because it is in your life--is your responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world is your creation.

Whew. This is tough to swallow. Being responsible for what I say or do is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in my life says or does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you take complete responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility because it is in your life.

This means that terrorist activity, the president, the economy--anything you experience and don't like--is up for you to heal. They don't exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside you. The problem isn't with them, it's with you, and to change them, you have to change you.

I know this is tough to grasp, let alone accept or actually live. Blame is far easier than total responsibility, but as I spoke with Dr. Len, I began to realize that healing for him and in ho 'oponopono means loving yourself. If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you want to cure anyone--even a mentally ill criminal--you do it by healing you.

I asked Dr. Len how he went about healing himself. What was he doing, exactly, when he looked at those patients' files?

"I just kept saying, 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you' over and over again," he explained.

That's it?

That's it.

Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world. Let me give you a quick example of how this works: one day, someone sent me an email that upset me. In the past I would have handled it by working on my emotional hot buttons or by trying to reason with the person who sent the nasty message. This time, I decided to try Dr. Len's method. I kept silently saying, "I'm sorry" and "I love you," I didn't say it to anyone in particular. I was simply evoking the spirit of love to heal within me what was creating the outer circumstance.

Within an hour I got an e-mail from the same person. He apologized for his previous message. Keep in mind that I didn't take any outward action to get that apology. I didn't even write him back. Yet, by saying "I love you," I somehow healed within me what was creating him.

I later attended a ho 'oponopono workshop run by Dr. Len. He's now 70 years old, considered a grandfatherly shaman, and is somewhat reclusive. He praised my book, The Attractor Factor. He told me that as I improve myself, my book's vibration will raise, and everyone will feel it when they read it. In short, as I improve, my readers will improve.

"What about the books that are already sold and out there?" I asked."

They aren't out there," he explained, once again blowing my mind with his mystic wisdom. "They are still in you."

In short, there is no out there.

It would take a whole book to explain this advanced technique with the depth it deserves. Suffice it to say that whenever you want to improve anything in your life, there's only one place to look: inside you.

"When you look, do it with love."

This article is from the forthcoming book "No Limits" by Joe Vitale and Dr. Len

Sensational cetaceans

I've never personally met a dolphin, though on a personality test I chose to be one if I had to be an animal. I've heard remarkable stories about dolphin behavior, and prompted by a photo of someone with a dolphin, I thought I would add to the record these stories that came to me from friends.One of them who lives in Providenciales (Turks and Caicos) told me that there was one there named "Jojo" who guided boats through rocky passages between the islands. It did that for years, until it's untimely death.

There was a lady who went to one of those "dolphin encounter" places on the East coast and was very disturbed because this dolphin kept bashing her in the side. She had to get out of the water. Soon she found out that she had a cancer at that spot which was discovered because she had the bruise checked.

A friend returned from Baja California. A couple by the pool told him of an encounter they had while boating in the Gulf. They were tooling along and suddenly found themselves surrounded by dolphins. The guy stopped the boat and told his wife "I'm going in to play!" he went in and the dolphins nearby stated roughhousing with him. It's what he wanted. He kept telling her "Come on in! They will be careful with you." She hesitated, but eventually went in. The dolphins treated her in an entirely different way. They must have picked up on the attitudes somehow. Amazing!

This one takes the cake, though, as far as I'm concerned. I heard it from a lady who did animal massage. She specialized in working with animals in zoos who had been adversely affected by captivity. Wish I kept her number. This was, actually, one of her less amazing stories: A friend of hers grew up in England, but her family had a beach house on the Gold Coast in Africa. They went there every summer for a couple of months. She got used to playing in the ocean and seeing many dolphins, some of which would come up to her in the water. Some years later she got married and did not go to the house for some time.She only went again when she had a two-year-old son, whom she took with her. Well, they were playing in the water, but she had him straddled, you know, like between her legs for safety. Well, this big dolphin comes up and parks in front of them and won't go away. She gets used to it and after a while gets up and playfully puts her son on the animal's back. It's right there, and what an opportunity to let him get a feel of something amazing, eh?Well, instinctively the kid grabs the dorsal fin. The second that happens, the dolphin bucks and takes off with the kid down the beach and then out into the water. The mother is panicking, screaming, out of her mind!! Finally, she can't see them anymore in the waves and she is just exhausted from screaming. She stops for a second and hears something familiar: she hears her son, somewhere out in the water, laughing and laughing and laughing! Soon, the dolphin returns with the boy astride. The mother grabs the kid, the dolphin squeals, and swims off.

Well, the next day, she's down at the beach with the kid again. That's what they do down there; the beach is the entertainment. So, she's in the water with the kid again, and this dolphin comes up again and keeps pestering her, nudging her with its side and nose. It's pretty obvious what's up: the animal wants the kid on its back. The kid is screaming, wanting on to the dolphin. Can you imagine the debate going on in this mother's head and heart? Well, guess what? To her own amazement, she finds herself putting the kid on the dolphin's back, and off they go! She's in tears, but again, there's the laughing coming from off the water, out there, somewhere! So what happens is that this becomes a daily routine, each day making a longer excursion into the sea, and it becomes, in my opinion, one of the most amazing stories of animal encounters ever. And that was the last summer they went to the beach house.

Reno ripped camping

I'm pretty much camping out here at this moment, as both the kitchen and the bath room have been ripped out. At least they put the flush back in before they left! The demolition has revealed an interesting thing. What was suspected about the house not having a shred of insulation is true. Can you imagine what a house up there (Ontario) would feel like, either Winter or Summer, without insulation? Fortunately, though this is not yet California's temperate "sweet spot," (that would be San Diego,) the conditions here are usually not that extreme. So -- the decor I'm currently enjoying is "old sub floor" with accents in "revealed framing." There are very tasteful highlights in the style of "let's leave this in the wall; nobody will know," and "Mickey Mouse and Insect companions were here!" The rest of the house is done in contemprary "old painter's tarp," "Makeshift Drapes," and a very generous application of "Let's put this here for a moment till it's stored or tossed." Delightful. I'm expecting the photographers from Architectural Digest to arrive a bit before the ones from Town and Country magazine. The people from the Tribune Sunday Home Supplement have already come and gone, having been suitably impressed and somewhat in awe of my decorating prowess.

The exterior painters started yesterday and will be doing a lot of scraping and patching today. It has been pretty noisy here. The occasional train going by the house in Palgrave seems very tame compared to this, as we are as well on a busy street, the cross street of which goes to the local recycling center some blocks away. You may be in a similar traffic noise situation, what with the QEW so near. By contrast, my sister Mary's place where I sometimes take refuge, is very quiet, being just off the old "Gold Country" highway running North and South. It is actually called Hwy 49, after the "'49ers" who came in droves to pick, pan, and placer the yellow stuff of dreams out of the foothills there in the mid 1800's.


Day before yesterday it was 76F in the house with all the windows open. The sun set was spectacularly lovely. Earlier I was up at my favorite look-out spot, about three minutes from here. I could see all the bay from San Jose to San Pablo. The sparkling water was wearing sailboats like a bright young girl might wear freckles. Green was everywhere. I ate my fudge chocolate ice cream as I watched the business of the Bay Area ebb and flow below me. I could see all three of the major bridges from my perch. Square across from me was the Golden Gate, with a an immense container ship furrowing its way towards Oakland. Sailboats scurried from it like water bugs from a beaver. The Bay bridge nuzzled Treasure Island to the left and the San Rafael bridge looked lazy with its characteristic mid span slump, designed to save millions in construction costs, and give a thrill to people who drive too fast. Across the Bay and to the right stands the majestic profile of Tamalpais, the "sleeping maiden" of local Indian legend. I wondered if the folks surely up there at the summit could see whales migrating in the Pacific hard to the West of the Maiden's skirts. I saw jet liners taking off and landing at the major airports and remembered the many times I had arrived and departed from here by air, and the remarkable aerial view of the span from the Faralon Islands at sea to the lofty Sierra Nevada Mountains with their treasures of scenery and gold. It was a good day that I held in my hands and drank of deeply.

Yes, the electrician came.(current events)

The excitement here is at a fever pitch. The Queen came by yesterday to see how things are going, and she was followed by several folks of note in the worlds of arts and letters, science, and global affairs. Bill Gates came by to ask me for some advice and got into it with Donald Trump who was already here for a cup of coffee. A start-up movie company is filming with some of the local talent in the back room and is claiming odds of making several millions of dollars. Oh, and my brother finally came by to move his stuff and direct the gardeners to scalp the back and front yards preparatory for new plantings and laying sod.

OK, I'm just a little bored and tired of the tedium here, and of all of this only the last line is actually true. But because of the waste generated in the scalping process, I had an exciting time at the dump. You see, instead of putting all the waste in easilly tipable containers, the landscape workers had just thrown everything, dirt and plant materials, in the truck. That makes for an impenatrable mass of muck, unshovelable and barely rakeable, if those are actual words. Of course, arriving to unload at the disposal facility, the tail gate of the truck wouldn't open.

All told, I spent two hours unloading the darn thing. It was a rainy day, and yes, the dump is such a lovely place to spend one's time. Two different imense tractors scared the daylights out of me as they charged by, honking loudly, bleeping, and pushing heaps of splashing, smelly debris into a monumental pile. I actually swore a few times, loudly, before someone came along who had exactly the right tool for getting the tail gate down. Serendipitously, he was a house painter and I got him to come and give an estimate on some exterior work. Turns out he is also a trombonist in a local orchestra and I got an invite to the next performance. Anyway, the truck mess won't happen again, as I had some carefully crafted explanatory words with the guys. Some of my crews in Arizona used to try to load trucks that way in order to get more hours. Unfortunately, my somewhat inexperienced brother was directing these fellows and the truck was loaded by the time I looked out the window to check on progress. My bad.

The interior paint job here looks great, and I've even had a few requests to do work from some of the contractors who have been here. But I've already been here in the States too long, but have to see this through as far as I can. I also won't be able to see the passport people until Wednesday next week. As my Mexican crew in Arizona used to say: "Mucho travajo!" Nevertheless, I'm thinking I might do a faux stone finish on the red brick fire place here to make it look classier. Right now it looks pretty sad compared to the improvements around it. I think I will do some kind of keystone pattern. Not sure what kind of rock I will make it look like, but a gray fieldstone would look handsome as a contrast to the mushroom colored walls and white trim near it. Oh, and by nearly unanimous consent, the outside of the front door will be a dark red brown.

Another issue is my brother's former room, the so-called "cave," which he has done in very realistic and thick faux stone. An excellent job, I might add. Almost without exception anyone who has seen it has recommended to leave it alone and price the house to include a renovation of it if necessary. The only opponents to this scheme are the realtors. But as the electrician who saw it said, "Oh, they all just want to paint all the walls white and put down beige carpets!" He may have a good point. What do you think?

We have had some colorful folks coming through here, and who knows, they may be more entertaining than the imaginary dignitaries I mentioned above! For instance, Brian, who came to estimate sanding the parquet, told of a job he just did up in the wine country in a town that is completely Amish. That was just after he did work for a coven of witches, a story that I won't even start to repeat.

There is no alcohol available there in that Amish town, nor meat even for sandwiches. He had to go vegatarian or bring his own lunch. But the contract, he claims, despite the thrifty, restricted, and archaic environs, was in a veritable castle. The owner answered the door, he said, swirling a cape that was two shades of violet, and he was brandishing a sword! Brian was sure that this character was loony tunes, so sketchily got his information and was about to make a quick exit. The swordsman/owner stopped him and proferred a check for $1000 for his bit of time scoping the site. Brian refused it and went back to his office to call his friend who refered him to the job. Well, it seems that he could hardly talk from laughing as he told what happened. He was nevertheless urged to take the work despite his certainty that his prospective client is nuts, as his friend had done installations there and had come away both with his sanity and large checks. So Brian called cape-man's banker to see if the money was good. The banker remarked about the thousand dollar check that "It would be good even if it had nine zeros on it!"

So, he takes he job and finds that the castle owner wanted his office done in quarter sawn oak. Quarter sawn is a pretty rare way of getting wood these days. It is an invloved, and in these ecologically sensitive times, a wasetful process. When he asked the mill about availability, they nearly ridiculed him. So what happens? On hearing that quarter sawn is not available in the needed quantitiy, castle guy calls the mill himself. To make it brief, he paid nearly a half a million dollars to put on a night shift to make his planks. Brian installed it, along with an inlay pattern around the edge to frame the antique and pricelesll Persian carpet to go there. That inlay was of exotic woods chosen after our floor guy did a complete installation of five samples, sanded and finished, in situ, all to be ripped out and restarted after the selection was made. The end product included four griffin inlays, one in each corner, at a cost of $8000 each, above the similar cost of the samples! Good thing this installer is a friend of the family, otherwise I don't think we'd get him to work here. This place is no castle, lol!

After all this excitement, I'm going up this Saturday evening to my sister's in Diamond Springs for a murder mystery dinner. Each course comes with three clues, and at each table is an unknown shill who tries to misdirect your guesses. After following the twists and turns of the above story, plus figuring out what some of the contracors were thinking when they did what they did, and managing to keep my sanity through it all, my guess is that I will solve the case. More next time!