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October 24, 2005
What today, Magpie?
Thought for the day (Sunday, 23 Oct 2005):"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.
--John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1667
Brought to eye/mind today:
a magpie flitting from roof to fence to roof again.
Thank you, Lord, for...being able to get the windows shut, because it's winter again.
Today's Log:
• Using silicone spray got the two upstairs windows to close all the way. It took about an hour of scraping old paint, spraying, opening and closing, and (toward the end) cussing. It would have helped on the last one if I'd had both latches in the same--and the bottom one in the correct--position. Remember: up is open, down is closed.
• Didn't paint again today. Caught myself sighing a lot while I was making dinner. I made spaghetti and used shiitake mushrooms in the sauce. This is the first time I've worked with them. The older ones have a sweetish smell; I don't think I'll be serving them uncooked. Funny how organic forms smell sweeter when they're decaying.
• Watched Finding Neverland and was moved by it -- almost started crying when the Mom (Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, played by Kate Winslet) stepped into Neverland. Johnny Depp did a fine job, playing playwright J.M. Barrie. I think I'm a sucker for a Scottish accent.
Posted by Marge at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 16, 2005
Cousin to the Bear
Thought for the day (15 Oct 2005):"Originally written as a Introduction to Kathleen Sullivans upcoming book Recurring Dreams: A Journey Into Wholeness.
"All dreams help to move the individual dreamer toward a greater understanding of confusing emotions, greater expressive strength and clarity, and a greater integration and conscious focus of scattered personal energies. The recurrent dream is particularly helpful in healing deep personal psycho-spiritual injuries and resolving individual emotional dramas."
--Jeremy Taylor, "Recurring Dreams"
Brought to eye/mind today:
Dream realities and bear scat (not necessarily related)
Thank you, Lord, for...final pieces of fence fitting together so well. For this, thank you very much.
Today's Log:
• Returned to circumstances and location of a previous dream to visit friends and see how they are doing. In this dream I was a musician and these were fans in a city I visited on tour. At the present time they were glad to see me, but not overjoyed; the circumstances of their lives had changed, but were still much the same.
I was surprised to return to this dream, because it didn't seem significant or have that feeling something important was afoot.
I started thinking about recurring dreams I've had and came up with this list
- Black pool (approx. 15 years of age): a recurring dream that evolved. At first I just drowned in the pool, at the end I transcended drowning and saw a horizon with translucent hills
- Seven-League boots (lifelong, but seldom): Basically I'm flying (shades of Erica Jong). I remember enjoying the dream a lot and the viewpoint of seeing things from above.
- Leaving apartment to catch the bus (approx. 24): Often with Julie, my daugher. Just recurring, felt like I was rehashing stuff that happened during the day. At the time I was renting a house.
- Landing in a spaceship and finding evidence of an ancient civilization (~24 to 36): A wise old man pilots the ship and teaches me about our findings. This dream didn't occur very often--maybe twice, but I always felt good after experiencing it. Sometimes I would just see images from it while experiencing other dreams.
- Key West (approx. 39-44): This was a complex dream with many things happening and changing. I never understood all of it--it was both forward-looking and therapeutic. I was in an abusive relationship at the time and dreaming about finding a man who loved me. There were two men in the dream--a dark man with one arm or a limp and the other tall and blonde. Key West was significant, but also a real place in the Florida Keys. After beginning this dream sequence, the relationship broke up and I went back to school.
- Running up the school steps, late for class and unprepared (lifelong, but usually when I'm not in school): I'm very distressed because it's finals time and I haven't done any homework. Often it's a language, Latin or French that I neglected. I think this is a reminder to get back on track.
• Finished fence today; tomorrow will work on the gate. Estimated the materials pretty well--3 split slats and the 7 set aside for the gate left over. Each day when I finished working I realized my feet were cold; today I realized I have warm boots in the house and could have been wearing them.
• There's another pile of bear scat in the yard. This bear really wants to declare my yard as his/her territory. Is this good or bad? Am I Cousin of the Bear now? Or first on its grocery list? At any rate, when the gates are done, the scat gets cleaned up and the yard is off-limits.
Posted by Marge at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2005
The moose swerved
Thought for the day (14 Oct 2005):
Hymn
I know if I find you I will have to leave the earth
and go on out
over the sea marshes and the brant in bays
and over the hills of tall hickory
and over the crater lakes and canyons
and on up through the spheres of diminishing air
past the blackset noctilucent clouds
where one wants to stop and look
way past all the light diffusions and bombardments
up farther than the loss of sight
into the unseasonal undifferentiated empty stark
And I know if I find you I will have to stay with the earth
inspecting with thin tools and ground eyes
trusting the microvilli sporangia and simplest
coelenterates
and praying for a nerve cell
with all the soul of my chemical reactions
and going right on down where the eye sees only traces
You are everywhere partial and entire
You are on the inside of everything and on the outside
I walk down the path down the hill where the sweetgum
has begun to ooze spring sap at the cut
and I see how the bark cracks and winds like no other bark
chasmal to my ant-soul running up and down
and if I find you I must go out deep into your
far resolutions
and if I find you I must stay here with the separate leaves
--A.R. Ammons, The Selected Poems, Expanded Edition, 1986
Brought to eye/mind today: a moose changing course
Thank you, Lord, for...the moose's changing course.
Today's Log:
• Called daughter Julie to wish her happy birthday. She is unavailable still.
• Researched color profiles for my HP PhotoSmart 912C camera. Not much info--looks like I would need to make a custom profile. Tried again to update the camera's firmware, but HP's software can't connect with the internet. All other programs can and do. Also researched whether I should get an LCD or CRT monitor for digital graphics. All the references I found say CRT's have more color depth, better contrast, and better color quality and purity. So off to finding the best monitor for the job. Am seriously considering a ViewSonic G90F. (My current monitor is old and getting dimmer by the day.)
• Worked on the fence for ~3 hours. The temperature was hanging around 40°F. While I was working in the narrow corridor between my neighbor's fence and mine, the dog next door spooked a moose passing by and he/she bolted. I looked up to see the moose beginning to turn into this corridor. For a minute the world stopped. I looked at the moose, the moose saw me. And it swerved. Thank God.
Measured and counted cedar slats. I'm 15 slats shy.
Felt warm enough while working, but when I quit for the day and came into the house, I was cold to the core. Odd.
• Don't know why but I keep infringing on MLF's jobs. Maybe it's because he so caught up in his gaming, I don't know when or if he'll do them.
Posted by Marge at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2005
Streaming out vs. streaming in
Thought for the day (25 Sept 2005):
"The two psychic poles are here contrasted with one another. They are represented as logos (heart, consciousness), to be found under the fire trigram [Li], and eros (kidneys, sexuality), under the water trigram [K'an]. The 'natural' man lets both these energies work outwardly (intellect and the process of procreation); thus, they 'stream out' and are consumed. The adept turns them inward and brings them together, whereby they fertilize one another and produce a psychically vital, and therefore strong, life of the spirit."
--a footnote in The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life, p.31
Read on for day's notes and mockup of work in progress...
Brought to eye/mind today: flow
Thank you, Lord, for...for clarity concerning the fence.
Today's Log:
• Read a TIME Magazine article about J.K.Rowling and her latest addition to the Harry Potter series--The Half-Blood Prince. The article mentions that in the book Harry is psychoanalyzing Voldemort. For some reason this seems odd to me, coming on a day when I'm looking at Himmler's (Head of Hitler's SS) motivations and intents.
• Looking at reverse flow of energy for female.
• Applied gesso to the canvas for "Yellow Lily." A mock-up of the painting is below; a thumbnail of it above.
• Set up guides for aligning fence slats when putting them up. It took me a while to figure out that I need to cut them to length (didn't have to with back section).
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Posted by Marge at 06:14 PM