Kenai Peninsula Online Newpaper – Alaska Game department plans Anchorage bear awareness campaign 04/20/03

ANCHORAGE (AP) — State game officials will begin a media blitz next month urging Anchorage residents to help keep bears wild and alive — or face a $100 fine.

The campaign will encourage residents to keep garbage away from bears and stow bird feeders until fall to so bears don’t seek food on decks and in driveways.

Since 1995, at least 99 bears have been shot in the city after they became too bold seeking food from humans. Last year, only six were shot.

Bear experts credit the decline to broader awareness about correct handling of potential bear food.

Peninsula Clarion

 

In Talkeetna over the weekend I noticed several of the “Bear Necessities” posters telling residents and visitors alike how to avoid bear problems.   Bears in homestead yards and in the streets of towns and cities are dangerously out of place.  Environmentalists and the State Fish and Game officers have long been advocating human care to make our streets and yards less attractive to bears.

It’s so easy to inadvertently lure a bear into the yard.  I did it.  Greyfox hadn’t been here but a few months, his first summer here.  It was hot, and no AC, no fridge, no power grid over at our old place.  Putting away groceries after a trip to town, after filling the ice chest in the coolest, shadiest spot near the door (our “fridge”), I left a bag of apples on top of it.  They’d keep longer there in the cool spot, I thought. 

I wish I had thought beyond that.  A little bear beseiged the family in our house, guarding its apple cache.  It chased me up the steps and I had to fend it off with a broom to get in the door without letting the bear in after me.  Doug got chased back into the house twice.  Greyfox ended up shooting and wounding the bear and it was a sad episode all around.  I’m all for bearproof storage caches, and garbage cans (always was), and I’m a lot more mindful of using them since being beseiged by that bear.

P.S. The bear image here is one I took, without any long lens, up close and personal, in a separate stupid human trick.  That story is here.

He is risen !

This is from the promptings of and for the exaltation of my own heart and soul, but as much as that, it is also for my sweet sister Sarah, who knew, followed, and loved the Master while he walked the Earth.

Excerpted (without permission ) from The Urantia Book:

PAPER 188
THE TIME OF THE TOMB

  ^188:0.1 THE day and a half that Jesus’ mortal body lay in the tomb of Joseph, the period between his death on the cross and his resurrection, is a chapter in the earth career of Michael which is little known to us. We can narrate the burial of the Son of Man and put in this record the events associated with his resurrection, but we cannot supply much information of an authentic nature about what really transpired during this epoch of about thirty-six hours, from three o’clock Friday afternoon to three o’clock Sunday morning. This period in the Master’s career began shortly before he was taken down from the cross by the Roman soldiers. He hung upon the cross about one hour after his death. He would have been taken down sooner but for the delay in dispatching the two brigands.

  ^188:0.2 The rulers of the Jews had planned to have Jesus’ body thrown in the open burial pits of Gehenna, south of the city; it was the custom thus to dispose of the victims of crucifixion. If this plan had been followed, the body of the Master would have been exposed to the wild beasts.

  ^188:0.3 In the meantime, Joseph of Arimathea, accompanied by Nicodemus, had gone to Pilate and asked that the body of Jesus be turned over to them for proper burial. It was not uncommon for friends of crucified persons to offer bribes to the Roman authorities for the privilege of gaining possession of such bodies. Joseph went before Pilate with a large sum of money, in case it became necessary to pay for permission to remove Jesus’ body to a private burial tomb. But Pilate would not take money for this. When he heard the request, he quickly signed the order which authorized Joseph to proceed to Golgotha and take immediate and full possession of the Master’s body. In the meantime, the sandstorm having considerably abated, a group of Jews representing the Sanhedrin had gone out to Golgotha for the purpose of making sure that Jesus’ body accompanied those of the brigands to the open public burial pits. 

1. THE BURIAL OF JESUS 

  ^188:1.1 When Joseph and Nicodemus arrived at Golgotha, they found the soldiers taking Jesus down from the cross and the representatives of the Sanhedrin standing by to see that none of Jesus’ followers prevented his body from going to the criminal burial pits. When Joseph presented Pilate’s order for the Master’s body to the centurion, the Jews raised a tumult and clamored for its possession. In their raving they sought violently to take possession of the body, and when they did this, the centurion ordered four of his soldiers to his side, and with drawn swords they stood astride the Master’s body as it lay there on the ground. The centurion ordered the other soldiers to leave the two thieves while they drove back this angry mob of infuriated Jews. When order had been restored, the centurion read the permit from Pilate to the Jews and, stepping aside, said to Joseph: “This body is yours to do with as you see fit. I and my soldiers will stand by to see that no man interferes.”

  ^188:1.2 A crucified person could not be buried in a Jewish cemetery; there was a strict law against such a procedure. Joseph and Nicodemus knew this law, and on the way out to Golgotha they had decided to bury Jesus in Joseph’s new family tomb, hewn out of solid rock, located a short distance north of Golgotha and across the road leading to Samaria. No one had ever lain in this tomb, and they thought it appropriate that the Master should rest there. Joseph really believed that Jesus would rise from the dead, but Nicodemus was very doubtful. These former members of the Sanhedrin had kept their faith in Jesus more or less of a secret, although their fellow Sanhedrists had long suspected them, even before they withdrew from the council. From now on they were the most outspoken disciples of Jesus in all Jerusalem.

  ^188:1.3 At about half past four o’clock the burial procession of Jesus of Nazareth started from Golgotha for Joseph’s tomb across the way. The body was wrapped in a linen sheet as the four men carried it, followed by the faithful women watchers from Galilee. The mortals who bore the material body of Jesus to the tomb were: Joseph, Nicodemus, John, and the Roman centurion.

  ^188:1.4 They carried the body into the tomb, a chamber about ten feet square, where they hurriedly prepared it for burial. The Jews did not really bury their dead; they actually embalmed them. Joseph and Nicodemus had brought with them large quantities of myrrh and aloes, and they now wrapped the body with bandages saturated with these solutions. When the embalming was completed, they tied a napkin about the face, wrapped the body in a linen sheet, and reverently placed it on a shelf in the tomb.

  ^188:1.5 After placing the body in the tomb, the centurion signaled for his soldiers to help roll the doorstone up before the entrance to the tomb. The soldiers then departed for Gehenna with the bodies of the thieves while the others returned to Jerusalem, in sorrow, to observe the Passover feast according to the laws of Moses.

  ^188:1.6 There was considerable hurry and haste about the burial of Jesus because this was preparation day and the Sabbath was drawing on apace. The men hurried back to the city, but the women lingered near the tomb until it was very dark.

  ^188:1.7 While all this was going on, the women were hiding near at hand so that they saw it all and observed where the Master had been laid. They thus secreted themselves because it was not permissible for women to associate with men at such a time. These women did not think Jesus had been properly prepared for burial, and they agreed among themselves to go back to the home of Joseph, rest over the Sabbath, make ready spices and ointments, and return on Sunday morning properly to prepare the Master’s body for the death rest. The women who thus tarried by the tomb on this Friday evening were: Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Clopas, Martha another sister of Jesus’ mother, and Rebecca of Sepphoris.

  ^188:1.8 Aside from David Zebedee and Joseph of Arimathea, very few of Jesus’ disciples really believed or understood that he was due to arise from the tomb on the third day.

 

 PAPER 189
THE RESURRECTION   

 

  ^189:1.7 1. His material or physical body was not a part of the resurrected personality. When Jesus came forth from the tomb, his body of flesh remained undisturbed in the sepulchre. He emerged from the burial tomb without moving the stones before the entrance and without disturbing the seals of Pilate.

  ^189:1.8 2. He did not emerge from the tomb as a spirit nor as Michael of Nebadon; he did not appear in the form of the Creator Sovereign, such as he had had before his incarnation in the likeness of mortal flesh on Urantia.

  ^189:1.9 3. He did come forth from this tomb of Joseph in the very likeness of the morontia personalities of those who, as resurrected morontia ascendant beings, emerge from the resurrection halls of the first mansion world of this local system….

  

2. THE MATERIAL BODY OF JESUS

  ^189:2.1 …the chief of archangels — the angels of the resurrection — approached Gabriel and asked for the mortal body of Jesus. Said the chief of the archangels: “We may not participate in the morontia resurrection of the bestowal experience of Michael our sovereign, but we would have his mortal remains put in our custody for immediate dissolution. We do not propose to employ our technique of dematerialization; we merely wish to invoke the process of accelerated time. It is enough that we have seen the Sovereign live and die on Urantia; the hosts of heaven would be spared the memory of enduring the sight of the slow decay of the human form of the Creator and Upholder of a universe. In the name of the celestial intelligences of all Nebadon, I ask for a mandate giving me the custody of the mortal body of Jesus of Nazareth and empowering us to proceed with its immediate dissolution.”

  ^189:2.2 And when Gabriel had conferred with the senior Most High of Edentia, the archangel spokesman for the celestial hosts was given permission to make such disposition of the physical remains of Jesus as he might determine.

  ^…

…larger of these two stones was a huge circular affair, much like a millstone, and it moved in a groove chiseled out of the rock, so that it could be rolled back and forth to open or close the tomb. When the watching Jewish guards and the Roman soldiers, in the dim light of the morning, saw this huge stone begin to roll away from the entrance of the tomb, apparently of its own accord — without any visible means to account for such motion — they were seized with fear and panic, and they fled in haste from the scene. The Jews fled to their homes, afterward going back to report these doings to their captain at the temple. The Romans fled to the fortress of Antonia and reported what they had seen to the centurion as soon as he arrived on duty.

  ^189:2.5 The Jewish leaders began the sordid business of supposedly getting rid of Jesus by offering bribes to the traitorous Judas, and now, when confronted with this embarrassing situation, instead of thinking of punishing the guards who deserted their post, they resorted to bribing these guards and the Roman soldiers. They paid each of these twenty men a sum of money and instructed them to say to all: “While we slept during the nighttime, his disciples came upon us and took away the body.” And the Jewish leaders made solemn promises to the soldiers to defend them before Pilate in case it should ever come to the governor’s knowledge that they had accepted a bribe.

  ^189:2.6 The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus has been based on the fact of the “empty tomb.” It was indeed a fact that the tomb was empty, but this is not the truth of the resurrection. The tomb was truly empty when the first believers arrived, and this fact, associated with that of the undoubted resurrection of the Master, led to the formulation of a belief which was not true: the teaching that the material and mortal body of Jesus was raised from the grave. Truth having to do with spiritual realities and eternal values cannot always be built up by a combination of apparent facts. Although individual facts may be materially true, it does not follow that the association of a group of facts must necessarily lead to truthful spiritual conclusions.

  ^189:2.7 The tomb of Joseph was empty, not because the body of Jesus had been rehabilitated or resurrected, but because the celestial hosts had been granted their request to afford it a special and unique dissolution, a return of the “dust to dust,” without the intervention of the delays of time and without the operation of the ordinary and visible processes of mortal decay and material corruption.

  ^189:2.8 The mortal remains of Jesus underwent the same natural process of elemental disintegration as characterizes all human bodies on earth except that, in point of time, this natural mode of dissolution was greatly accelerated, hastened to that point where it became well-nigh instantaneous.

  ^189:2.9 The true evidences of the resurrection of Michael are spiritual in nature, albeit this teaching is corroborated by the testimony of many mortals of the realm who met, recognized, and communed with the resurrected morontia Master. He became a part of the personal experience of almost one thousand human beings before he finally took leave of Urantia.

4. DISCOVERY OF THE EMPTY TOMB

  ^189:4.1 As we approach the time of the resurrection of Jesus on this early Sunday morning, it should be recalled that the ten apostles were sojourning at the home of Elijah and Mary Mark, where they were asleep in the upper chamber, resting on the very couches whereon they reclined during the last supper with their Master. This Sunday morning they were all there assembled except Thomas. Thomas was with them for a few minutes late Saturday night when they first got together, but the sight of the apostles, coupled with the thought of what had happened to Jesus, was too much for him. He looked his associates over and immediately left the room, going to the home of Simon in Bethpage, where he thought to grieve over his troubles in solitude. The apostles all suffered, not so much from doubt and despair as from fear, grief, and shame.

  ^189:4.2 At the home of Nicodemus there were gathered together, with David Zebedee and Joseph of Arimathea, some twelve or fifteen of the more prominent of the Jerusalem disciples of Jesus. At the home of Joseph of Arimathea there were some fifteen or twenty of the leading women believers. Only these women abode in Joseph’s house, and they had kept close within during the hours of the Sabbath day and the evening after the Sabbath, so that they were ignorant of the military guard on watch at the tomb; neither did they know that a second stone had been rolled in front of the tomb, and that both of these stones had been placed under the seal of Pilate.

  ^189:4.3 A little before three o’clock this Sunday morning, when the first signs of day began to appear in the east, five of the women started out for the tomb of Jesus. They had prepared an abundance of special embalming lotions, and they carried many linen bandages with them. It was their purpose more thoroughly to give the body of Jesus its death anointing and more carefully to wrap it up with the new bandages.

  ^189:4.4 The women who went on this mission of anointing Jesus’ body were: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the Alpheus twins, Salome the mother of the Zebedee brothers, Joanna the wife of Chuza, and Susanna the daughter of Ezra of Alexandria.

  ^189:4.5 It was about half past three o’clock when the five women, laden with their ointments, arrived before the empty tomb. As they passed out of the Damascus gate, they encountered a number of soldiers fleeing into the city more or less panic-stricken, and this caused them to pause for a few minutes; but when nothing more developed, they resumed their journey.

  ^189:4.6 They were greatly surprised to see the stone rolled away from the entrance to the tomb, inasmuch as they had said among themselves on the way out, “Who will help us roll away the stone?” They set down their burdens and began to look upon one another in fear and with great amazement. While they stood there, atremble with fear, Mary Magdalene ventured around the smaller stone and dared to enter the open sepulchre. This tomb of Joseph was in his garden on the hillside on the eastern side of the road, and it also faced toward the east. By this hour there was just enough of the dawn of a new day to enable Mary to look back to the place where the Master’s body had lain and to discern that it was gone. In the recess of stone where they had laid Jesus, Mary saw only the folded napkin where his head had rested and the bandages wherewith he had been wrapped lying intact and as they had rested on the stone before the celestial hosts removed the body. The covering sheet lay at the foot of the burial niche.

  ^189:4.7 After Mary had tarried in the doorway of the tomb for a few moments (she did not see distinctly when she first entered the tomb), she saw that Jesus’ body was gone and in its place only these grave cloths, and she uttered a cry of alarm and anguish. All the women were exceedingly nervous; they had been on edge ever since meeting the panicky soldiers at the city gate, and when Mary uttered this scream of anguish, they were terror-stricken and fled in great haste. And they did not stop until they had run all the way to the Damascus gate. By this time Joanna was conscience-stricken that they had deserted Mary; she rallied her companions, and they started back for the tomb.

  ^189:4.8 As they drew near the sepulchre, the frightened Magdalene, who was even more terrorized when she failed to find her sisters waiting when she came out of the tomb, now rushed up to them, excitedly exclaiming: “He is not there — they have taken him away!” And she led them back to the tomb, and they all entered and saw that it was empty.

  ^189:4.9 All five of the women then sat down on the stone near the entrance and talked over the situation. It had not yet occurred to them that Jesus had been resurrected. They had been by themselves over the Sabbath, and they conjectured that the body had been moved to another resting place. But when they pondered such a solution of their dilemma, they were at a loss to account for the orderly arrangement of the grave cloths; how could the body have been removed since the very bandages in which it was wrapped were left in position and apparently intact on the burial shelf?

  ^189:4.10 As these women sat there in the early hours of the dawn of this new day, they looked to one side and observed a silent and motionless stranger. For a moment they were again frightened, but Mary Magdalene, rushing toward him and addressing him as if she thought he might be the caretaker of the garden, said, “Where have you taken the Master? Where have they laid him? Tell us that we may go and get him.” When the stranger did not answer Mary, she began to weep. Then spoke Jesus to them, saying, “Whom do you seek?” Mary said: “We seek for Jesus who was laid to rest in Joseph’s tomb, but he is gone. Do you know where they have taken him?” Then said Jesus: “Did not this Jesus tell you, even in Galilee, that he would die, but that he would rise again?” These words startled the women, but the Master was so changed that they did not yet recognize him with his back turned to the dim light. And as they pondered his words, he addressed the Magdalene with a familiar voice, saying, “Mary.” And when she heard that word of well-known sympathy and affectionate greeting, she knew it was the voice of the Master, and she rushed to kneel at his feet while she exclaimed, “My Lord, and my Master!” And all of the other women recognized that it was the Master who stood before them in glorified form, and they quickly knelt before him.

  ^189:4.11 These human eyes were enabled to see the morontia form of Jesus because of the special ministry of the transformers and the midwayers in association with certain of the morontia personalities then accompanying Jesus.

  ^189:4.12 As Mary sought to embrace his feet, Jesus said: “Touch me not, Mary, for I am not as you knew me in the flesh. In this form will I tarry with you for a season before I ascend to the Father. But go, all of you, now and tell my apostles — and Peter — that I have risen, and that you have talked with me.”

  ^189:4.13 After these women had recovered from the shock of their amazement, they hastened back to the city and to the home of Elijah Mark, where they related to the ten apostles all that had happened to them; but the apostles were not inclined to believe them. They thought at first that the women had seen a vision, but when Mary Magdalene repeated the words which Jesus had spoken to them, and when Peter heard his name, he rushed out of the upper chamber, followed closely by John, in great haste to reach the tomb and see these things for himself.

  ^189:4.14 The women repeated the story of talking with Jesus to the other apostles, but they would not believe; and they would not go to find out for themselves as had Peter and John.

  

5. PETER AND JOHN AT THE TOMB

  ^189:5.1 As the two apostles raced for Golgotha and the tomb of Joseph, Peter’s thoughts alternated between fear and hope; he feared to meet the Master, but his hope was aroused by the story that Jesus had sent special word to him. He was half persuaded that Jesus was really alive; he recalled the promise to rise on the third day. Strange to relate, this promise had not occurred to him since the crucifixion until this moment as he hurried north through Jerusalem. As John hastened out of the city, a strange ecstasy of joy and hope welled up in his soul. He was half convinced that the women really had seen the risen Master.

  ^189:5.2 John, being younger than Peter, outran him and arrived first at the tomb. John tarried at the door, viewing the tomb, and it was just as Mary had described it. Very soon Simon Peter rushed up and, entering, saw the same empty tomb with the grave cloths so peculiarly arranged. And when Peter had come out, John also went in and saw it all for himself, and then they sat down on the stone to ponder the meaning of what they had seen and heard. And while they sat there, they turned over in their minds all that had been told them about Jesus, but they could not clearly perceive what had happened.

  ^189:5.3 Peter at first suggested that the grave had been rifled, that enemies had stolen the body, perhaps bribed the guards. But John reasoned that the grave would hardly have been left so orderly if the body had been stolen, and he also raised the question as to how the bandages happened to be left behind, and so apparently intact. And again they both went back into the tomb more closely to examine the grave cloths. As they came out of the tomb the second time, they found Mary Magdalene returned and weeping before the entrance. Mary had gone to the apostles believing that Jesus had risen from the grave, but when they all refused to believe her report, she became downcast and despairing. She longed to go back near the tomb, where she thought she had heard the familiar voice of Jesus.

  ^189:5.4 As Mary lingered after Peter and John had gone, the Master again appeared to her, saying: “Be not doubting; have the courage to believe what you have seen and heard. Go back to my apostles and again tell them that I have risen, that I will appear to them, and that presently I will go before them into Galilee as I promised.”

  ^189:5.5 Mary hurried back to the Mark home and told the apostles she had again talked with Jesus, but they would not believe her. But when Peter and John returned, they ceased to ridicule and became filled with fear and apprehension.

The greatest story ever told continues….

Have a joyous Festival of Ishtar, everyone.

Springtime in Talkeetna

A week or so ago, I got an email from Sephiroth, one of Doug’s friends who is now in the Army.  He has some leave time and would be here whenever he got here by military standby flights.  A couple of nights ago, he phoned to say he was nearby.  We arranged to pick him up the next morning (yesterday), and since then I’ve been enjoying the visit with one of my favorite “boys” and not getting any further work done on KaiOaty’s site.

One of the things Seph wanted to do was get his six-foot nodachi sword sharpened.  Dancing Bear, the knifemaker in Talkeetna, has sharpened it before, at a reasonable price, so we headed up the road.  Greyfox, here with his new red roadside stand, was already in Talkeetna, it being a nice sunny day with some prospect for business.

The first thing I noticed as we turned onto Main Street was a bass fiddle in the park.  I parked our car close to Greyfox’s stand and wandered across the street to the park as the string quartet was tuning up.  Bob Durr (at left in this shot), one of my favorite local musicians and humorists (quirky, dry humor and GOOOD music) left the Fairview Inn about the same time I started across the street, headed in the same direction.

I was hoping that Bob would join the jam, but he just schmoozed a while and went back to the bar.  The unconventional string quartet did fine without him.  After I got a few shots of them, I went back over to Greyfox’s stand, because I could hear the music just fine from there.

The highlight for me of the trip to Talkeetna was when a stranger, pretty obviously a local resident (on the right, in red hat, here, sitting on the edge of the Tomb of the Unknown Hippie) walked up and asked “Aren’t you SuSu?”  I gave a startled gasp, a little jump and said, “You’re Jim, aren’t you?!”  It had to be my cyber-friend Jim Kloss of WholeWheatRadio.org.  No one else there knows me as SuSu.  I’m Kathy to the ones I know, of whom there were quite a few wandering around on that sunny day in mud season. 

Nobody calls this season ”spring”.  The spring is where we get our water, winter or summer.  This time of year is “breakup” as the ice is breaking up on the lakes and rivers.  Wherever the snow and ice have melted, the mud has taken over.

I hung around and persisted long enough for Seph to get used to my camera eye so I could get some unposed shots.  Doug had wandered off toward the river, down at the far end of Main Street, so we just hung around some more until he came back.  Meanwhile several of our friends and neighbors wandered by and shot the breeze before wandering on.  An audience had begun to gather around the quartet in the park.

When the first half-rack of beer showed up, it had obviously turned into a party.  When Greyfox got home last night, he said the party had gone on throughout the day.  And the weekend doesn’t start until today.  And no, that isn’t me there on the tomb, but another woman wearing my hair.  We’re strangers to each other, but there were some of those secret redhead grins exchanged between us.  It’s a redhead thing; you wouldn’t understand.

When we got home, the boys carried sword, boken and broomstick, and I carried my camera, out to the end of the cul de sac, where Seph taught Doug some new disarming moves.

Looking at the images later, Doug said they look like scenes from The Ninja versus The Hippie.  I think he nailed it.

Dancing Bear wasn’t around yesterday, so we didn’t get the sword sharpened.  I think we’re going to head up that way again today.  Seeya later, all.

The biomass has hit the roto-impeller.

I’d been so rapt up in my own concerns I must have missed the impact.

I was ranting to Doug this morning after a defensive email from the professional defensive people in Newman’s Own customer service department.  (Reminds me of a George Carlin rant on “service”.)  A jar of their salsa, the first of theirs that I’d tried, was awful.  Tasted to me more like ketchup than salsa, more sweet than spicy.

I kvetch whenever I’m not satisfied with what I buy.  Knowing that any normal customer service rep would ask for it, I looked for the usual, expected, stamped code with the sell-by date, lot number, etc. and there was none.  Neither Doug nor Greyfox could find one, either.  In addition to complaining of the taste, I complained of the lack of freshness info.  Today’s email addressed that.  I suppose some other defensive lackey will address the flavor issue.

The email I got back said their salsa has an infinite shelf life… no kidding.  It will keep forever, they say, as long as the safety seal hasn’t popped, and for FIVE DAYS after it is opened.  It has been open in my fridge for a couple of weeks.  Since no one will eat it, this indestructable stuff has turned to garbage while I wasn’t looking.

 My acerbic rant caromed around a bit and then zeroed in on that “infinite shelf-life” bit.  I said it was too bad the stuff was so crappy-tasting, because with that shelf life, if it were edible we could stow a bunch of it away for when the shit hit the fan, instead of all the nitrogen-packed seeds and grains and stuff that only keep for ten to fifteen years.

As usual when I rant at him, Doug’s eyes glazed over at some point… but it wasn’t the usual blank stare I was getting.  He was obviously harboring a comical thought in there so I told him to spill it.

He looked at me (seeing all the little brown spots, my freckles), looked around, sniffed, grinned even wider, and said,  You mean you haven’t noticed those flecks flying through the air?  The biomass hit the roto-impeller some while ago.”

It’s just an ordinary morning here.  Greyfox won’t be up before noon, probably, another four hours.  Doug got up around seven yesterday evening, in time to watch The Chamber of Secrets (review to follow sometime soon, maybe), so he’s got enough time and energy left to do some dishes before he crawls in the sack.  Getting him on task with dishes became my main objective when I got up around 6AM.

One of my jobs around here is pointing out the chores being neglected by the rest of the family.  When I took my coffee out of the microwave, its pleasant aroma was mixed with the less than pleasant mingled fragrances of rotting food spills.  Since Doug was soon to have a sinkful of clean soapy water to work with, I wrinkled my nose, went “eeew” and said, “that needs cleaning.” 

He stuck his head in, pulled it out with a smirk and replied, “…smells like coffee to me.”

I agreed that the coffee did improve the smell but that the microwave, “needs more than a deodorizer.”

He paused a moment in thought, then broke out in laughter.  When it died down, he said he’d gotten the image of a little paper pine tree hanging in there.  Then we both laughed.

I turned to the keyboard here, while he moved the warm water from the woodstove to the kitchen range to get hot enough for dishwashing.  [Yeah, if you're new here, you may not know that we don't have running water.  We will go to the spring to refill the buckets and jugs this evening when Doug awakens, before I go to bed... or we will do it the next morning, but that's problematic because there is another role-play/writing, survivor-style tournament starting very early tomorrow morning.  Doug AND this computer will be occupied for however long it takes.  He's good, so he might make it to the finals again.  That could take weeks.]

He was reading over my shoulder, fiddling with the packing material in a little box on my worktable, when I looked up and saw this looking back at me:

Except for the eyebrows, it’s Doug’s usual dishwashing get-up:  bandana to keep his hair out of his eyes and wireless headphones to keep everything but his music out of his ears.  He whistles, hums, dances around and sometimes sings, though he inherited my tin ear and tunelessness.  We’re dancers in this family–dancers and drummers, great rhythm and no pitch at all.

Update: 1 PM

I won!  I had tried early this morning to get Doug to commit to a water run after dishes and before he went to bed, but he said no.  The dishes went fast and we both felt like getting out of the house, so we now have a full load of water, won’t need to go to the spring, possibly, until after that tournament.

Oh, and the microwave is all sparkly and sweet-smelling inside.

FREE SAMPLE

Just thought I’d share a little sneak-peek of some of the not-yet-unveiled new content at Coyote Medicine’s Clinic.

---

 

ThereAin’tNo SuchThingAs A FreeLunch

That’s a folksy way of stating one of the Laws of Physics, something about conservation of matter or energy or something.

When something flows in here, it flows out from there.

When you are in the FLOW, the Universe supports you. 

It’s a friendly Universe, designed to keep us alive and growing. 

Cooperate with the Universal Flow and you flow right along with it as it flows through you. 

And that’s my economic theory: nothing is free on this plane of reality.

Even the intangibles cost someone something tangible or intangible somewhere down the line.

Magical something-for-nothing thinking is widespread in our culture and far too few people look at the hidden cost and unsuspected value of freebies.  Any real magician (and even some prestidigitators) will tell you that any task you can do physically is best done that way, for it is a lot harder to accomplish magically.  Any dealer in ephemeral antiquities will tell you that freebies can be worth a fortune.

People tend to value things more if they cost more.  Humans seem to tend to keep things they don’t really need, if they had to go through a lot to get them.  Old ephemera is collectable and valuable through its rarity because most of those pamphlets and posters were discarded the day they went out of date.  They are works of art, influential political rhetoric, social history… but they were trash in their times because they came without price.

I place no specific price on my readings for reasons stated elsewhere, but I don’t do free readings, either.  I do pro bono work to stay in practice and as a public service, but nothing is free.  If I do a reading for you and you think it has value, do something to keep the flow going.  Do whatever feels right.   Consider it a sliding fee on the honor system.  Adding our energy to the flow helps the flow along, but not nearly as much as that Cosmic flow helps us on our way if we’re going its way.

We can’t even breathe without doing some work  Moving around and thinking take even more time, energy and attention.  The higher you go on the scale of complexity and satisfaction, the costlier the new levels become.  You get what you pay for, most of the time, unless you don’t.  And that’s all true unless it isn’t. 

Everything has its cost unless someone or something somewhere creates it out of nothing and nothing comes from nothing within this finite, gross, observable reality.  We make the most of what we have by getting along to keep it flowing along, until we transcend all of that altogether.

I am the wrong person to ask about money or luck.  I don’t go out of my way to pursue the former, and I don’t believe in the latter.

I’ve made my luck, changed my luck, and watched the way
chance flows and twists and turns along in concert with the attention and dedication that one puts into living in the Flow.

Jung called it Cosmic Synchronicity:  things come together.

It happens where space meets time, in the eddies in this pool of mingled chaos and order that is our reality.  Like everything else in our perceptible reality, luck is relative.  To improve luck, go with the Flow.  Follow your bliss.  Don’t spit into the wind or swim against the tide.  Do what Thou Wilt.

That’s one facet of my philosophy, for what it’s worth.

 

So much going on, within me and without me….

I got so sick of seeing my gap-toothed sun scowl in the recent profile pic, that I almost put up one of my baby pictures over there.  Then I remembered there was a smiley face over at the realm of redheads.  I got it, cropped out the mystery man (cute guy, wish I could recall who he was) and there it is:  me with front teeth intact… almost thirty years ago… twenty-some fuckin’ years, close to half my lifetime.  Time flies like an arrow… fruit flies like a banana or even an old banana peel.

While I’ve been neglecting my SIR, my personal hygeine, and the PS2, and jotting off the occasional mini-rant on politics here, I’ve been focused elsewhere.  KaiOaty is going to have an interactive site when the dust settles over there.  Xanga wasn’t designed for such things, the weblog format takes some stretching to accomodate it, and I’m learning as I go, but field expediency AKA “mickeymouse” is my specialty.

I’ve been tinkering with my consciousness, too.  Working in an altered state facilitates creative work for me and I’ve been using psychoactive sound on tapes and CDs since the ‘eighties.  It helps me do readings, write… and when combined with suggestions, it lets me do “reality selection:”  mind-programming. 

My recent blowup with the used-car-selling couple made clear to me that I need to work on my temper, so I’ve been listening to suggestions such as these as I write HTML:

The strong are patient. You have the power and ability to remain patient and detached in the midst of chaos. No matter how irrational another person becomes, you remain patient and detached. You recognize what cannot be changed and ignore it. You are even-tempered and easily maintain self-control. You hold back and evaluate instead of immediately responding. You no longer take irrational behavior personally. You know it’s their problem, not yours. You remain patient and detached at all times and under all conditions. Detach and observe. You become an observer who lives in the world but is not of it. You always have a choice as to what you do, who you’re with, where you live, and how you spend your time. Remember this. You attract what you concentrate upon … so you concentrate upon positive, loving, successful things.

It is working.  I can tell by the way I feel about and the way I respond to the people in my life and the news of the day.  I like this new state of mind.  And that’s not all.  While I was picking out mind-programming CDs, I chose one to help me work productively:

Every day in every way you become more inspired, energized and motivated to do what you want to do. The fire within you burns hotter by the day. You’re warmed by the awareness of your intensifying motivation. You are persistent, ambitious and determined. You accept this. Your motivational energy begins to boil over. Intense, sizzling energy. Motivation. You drive yourself to achieve. Your motivational energy erupts, driving you forward. Driving you to win. You are a winner with intense motivational drive. It’s time to act. You act. Act, accomplish, win. You spend each moment doing the most productive thing you can to accomplish your goals.

Man!  Did I ever need that one!!  Right now, just the thought of wasting time on the PS2 makes me want to stop wasting my time here and get to work. 

In a special promotional deal, Dick Sutphen’s organization, ProHypnosis threw in a free copy of the “Say Yes to Life Zapper”.  It could be the most useful of the lot.

You say “yes” to life, and “yes” to love. You experience love in your heart and peace in your soul. You take the time to appreciate all meaningful moments. You master good timing, always sensing the ideal moment to speak or act. Patience and persistence take you where you want to go. You make excellent choices. You claim your power and are confident and self-assured. You live consciously, always recognizing that what is, is, and what isn’t, isn’t. You rise above ego concerns and enjoy life for what it is. Your future excels your past. It will. It does. You are open and attentive to the callings of your soul. Your body is strong and resilient. You bring your dreams and aspirations to fruition. You go with the flow of life. Allow life to happen. You are a channel for the light. You radiate the light, and you invoke the blessing of the source of the light.

So, kiddies, don’t mind me and don’t miss me.  I’m still around and sooner or later I’ll get around to all of you (sooner, probably, if you let me know you’re around).  Meanwhile, I’m just over here tuning my mind to the new reality I’ve selected.

.

.

.

War News

My last blog was about looting in Iraq and the Defense Secretary’s callous response.  Rumsfeld was on Meet the Press this morning.  A most notable feature of his responses in that interview was the number of different ways he found to state or imply the idea, “That’s not my job.”

He is correct, of course, that his job is to oversee the defense of this country.  I can’t dispute any of the factual things he talked about, because there’s too much I don’t know.  I can, however, take issue with the way he seems to flop around from one stance to another.  It reflects a lack of integrity somewhere, either in the man’s convictions or in the accuracy of the media where I’ve been getting the conflicting reports.

Sometimes I get frustrated with the naive questions asked by various interviewers.  Why they waste our time and that of the bigwigs they quiz, with stupid questions that will be answered, “I don’t know.” or “That’s not my department,” I’ll never be able to understand.  Some of it could be a pose, an attempt to put themselves in the place of a stupid, naive viewership, asking the same dumb questions one might hear from the man in the street.

If that’s what Tim Russert was up to when he went all wide-eyed and innocent while asking why Iraquis would loot their own museums and hospitals, he’s a consummate actor.  I was convinced that the man was as baffled as he seemed.

I have to give Rumsfeld some credit.  He didn’t laugh at the question.  He actually made some attempt to answer it, despite that handicapping lack of insight (or intelligence, as one other Xangan suggested) I noted in the previous blog.  Of course he tried to spin it the administration’s way, and he really didn’t address motivations or reasons, but he gave it a shot.

I wasn’t thrilled with either the interviewer or interviewee in that session, but Rumsfeld managed to come off sounding pretty good compared to the Syrian propaganda man who followed him.  It’s beginning to look like Congress might want our forces to move on Syria next.  If that nation’s government is accurately represented by the supercilious, vacuous, condescending PR flack who was on Meet the Press today, I can see the lawmakers’ point.

And then there’s Russia.  Throughout my youth, they were our primary enemy.  Then the Cold War and their unwise actions in Afghanistan stretched the USSR to the breaking point.  Could anyone be shocked that they would sell weapons to our enemies, in the desperate straits their economy has reached? 

Our military forces get their morale lifted and their sweet tooth satisfied by care packages from home.  In the Russian Navy, sailors have been depending on such things to stave off starvation.  Of course their government is going to deal with anyone who offers money.  Who better than the enemy of their old longtime enemy? 

Some people are going to say that’s wrong.  I’m not making moralistic judgments.  I just say it’s understandable.  Our own country’s arms manufacturers have sold weapons to people who later used them against us.  Their profit motive is understandable, too, though perhaps less understandable to me than the economic NEED so apparent in Russia.

I have a hard time seeing the “trees”, the separate, distinct conflicts and interactions, because I keep seeing the “forest” of global issues.  I see a planet in big trouble.   I’d like to see some minimization of the parochial conflicts and more attention paid to universal human needs.  I’d be a lot more comfortable with cooler heads in command.

U.S. reacts to criticism on Iraq looting

Aid organizations said the lawlessness was worsening the humanitarian situation in Baghdad and urged the Bush administration to move quickly against it.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld characterized the looting as “untidiness” and part of a transitional phase after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government and on the way to freedom.

“Stuff happens,” Rumsfeld said.  (Reuters)

I can’t argue with that.  I’d just say it a little differently.  But I suppose RumPunch has to be politically correct.

As I watched the video of looters not just carrying away whatever they could pick up or pry loose, but smashing and burning, I identified with the mob.  That’s not hard for me, with this empathic thing.  I was actually more comfortable in the mind of the mob than I am when I get inside the heads of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or Ashcroft.

I feel for those aid workers trying to apply bandaids and serve snacks and help people pick up the pieces of their shattered world.  Empathizing with them is a snap for me–we’re pretty much in the same headspace, all in the same line of work:  crisis intervention.  But empathizing with their predicament doesn’t make me agree with their conclusions.

When mobs bust loose, there can be more long-term gains from letting them riot and loot for a while, in a contained area, rather than suppressing them with force.  Putting down a mob can turn it into a guerilla force or a bunch of saboteurs and terrorists.  I’ve been watching that happen.  Haven’t you?

While we are mopping up the rest of this war, let the Iraquis let off steam.  Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think any psychological insight motivated the choice to use the soliders as a military force and let the locals police themselves.  If the secretary had such insight, I think he’d have come up with a less callous statement.

It’s a Supernova

From NASA.gov (link above):

“Scientists have discovered that one of the brightest gamma ray bursts on record is also a supernova.”

I’m thrilled.  If you’re less than thrilled, get your nose off that grindstone.  Pick your heart up off the ground.  Turn your eyes to the skies.  It’s new… it’s exciting… it’s a SUPERNOVA!  Yaay.

Mercury Retrograde …

Not yet.  Not for over two weeks, but later this month Mercury will go retrograde.  That thought makes some people uneasy, but I’ll be ready for it.  I’ll have a lot to catch up on after the current intense period of novelty and challenge.

I’m planning again, after not having a plan for a while.  I hadn’t had a life strategy, a Master Plan, Plan A, for a decade or so.  My Plan A got shot down and I didn’t have a Plan B.   My strategy after that was to survive, continue in the Flow, see what happened and do what seemed appropriate at the time.  Then I nearly died, from an infection and an acute exacerbation of my chronic auto-immune syndrome.  Doing for myself, carrying my share became the objective–that and survival.  Giving and taking, writing the memoirs… none of that required a plan, I just let it flow.

Then I thought of something I wanted to make happen.  It was a bit more complex than just sitting at a keyboard and letting my thoughts flow out my fingers.  I had to learn new skills, handle unfamiliar tools, stretch my mind and make plans.  I’m having fun with it, but intensity does get tiring, and it has kept me away from my SIR and the PS2.  I’ll be ready to take a break when Mercury stations (R) at Taurus 20°33′ on April 26.  I can use the time to put the finishing touches on what I am building.  I can get into the memoirs and into past life regressions.  I’ve been having flashes of other times as I work away at these new tasks.  Exploring them could be fun and profitable.

The direct station at the end of this next retrogradation, Taurus 11°08′, impacts my curse/blessing pattern.  Both of the stations of the following one:  26 Virgo (August 28) and 12 Virgo (September 20), are impacting my stellia at the 10th and 25th degrees.  The retrograde station is conjunct my Sun/Chiron conjunction.   My solar return comes only two days before the direct station.  Then, mid-December to early January, there is the next Mercury retrogradation.  Both of those stations:  12 Capricorn and 26 Sagittarius, impact my curse/blessing pattern.  The direct station on January 6 is conjunct my Ascendant.

Surfing this set of timewaves is keeping me on my toes.  As challenging as it is learning to use new tools, I’m glad I HAVE those tools.  I have way too many people to thank for it to ever be able to get to them all, so I just thank God.  If you’ve gotten a thank you from me lately, or even if you haven’t, here’s a big one:  thank YOU.  The whole idea for this nutty new project that’s stretching my mind came from Xanga.  People here provided the use for it, its purpose.  The Xanga Team has given me an accessible, flexible home for it.  All I have to do is to make it make sense.  No problem. .

.

.