T a o S p r i n g -

New England Patriots - One game, one play at a time.

2012-01-23T06:41:00.000-05:00

The New England Patriots won the AFC Championship game yesterday. In a nail biting, you never know what's going to happen next kind of game, the tough and formidable Baltimore Ravens saw their field goal kicker, Billy Cundiff (the new Bill Buckner?) miss a 32-Yard field goal attempt with eleven seconds left on the clock. Instead a tie and a run into overtime the Ravens were sent packing with their wings and the hopes of receiving any Super Bowl rings defeathered, plucked and dashed upon the rocks of broken dreams.
Sucks, huh?
But isn't that just how life goes? One day we're the victor, one day the conquered. And this is not a signal to get all down and defeated. No. It's a reminder that you need to play one game, one play at a time. You never know what the outcome may be. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. And sometimes a loss can be a win or a win can be a loss.
What a page turner!
As my bud Rick, over at Cook Ding's Kitchen reminded us recently, "Maybe".

A very old Chinese Taoist story describes a farmer in a poor country village. His neighbors considered him very well-to-do. He owned a horse which he used for plowing and for transportation. One day his horse ran away. All his neighbors exclaimed how terrible this way, but the farmer simply said "Maybe."

A few days later the horse returned and brought two wild horses with it. The neighbors all rejoiced at his good fortune, but the farmer just said "Maybe."

The next day the farmer's son tried to ride one of the wild horses. The horse threw him and the son broke his leg. The neighbors all offered their sympathy for his misfortune, but the farmer again said "Maybe."

The next week conscription officers came to the village to take young men for the army. They rejected the farmer's son because of his broken leg. When the neighbors told him how lucky he was, the farmer replied "Maybe."

Dharma in disguise...

2012-01-16T22:46:00.000-05:00

Gaia Girl has given me a copy of the workbook, Get Out of Your Mind & into Your Life; The New Acceptance & Commitment Therapy. I must say that this book confirms most of what I have learned from the teachings of the Buddha on groundlessness. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. My struggle to free myself from suffering amplifies my suffering; running away from pain only serves to leave me as exhausted as the man who ran through the marketplace attempting to outrun his own shadow.

Let me use the words of Alan Watts, from that wonderful book, The Wisdom of Insecurity, to try and describe a little of what I mean:

"We are all familiar of this kind of vicious circle in the form of worry. We know that worrying is futile, but we go on doing it because calling it futile does not stop it. We worry because we feel unsafe and want to be safe. Yet it is perfectly useless to say that we should not want to be safe. Calling a desire bad names does not get rid of it. What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking it is painful, and that when we imagine that we have found it, we don't like it. In other words, if we can really understand what we are looking for - that safety is isolation, and what we do to ourselves when we look for it - we shall see that we do not want it at all. No one has to tell you that you should not hold your breath for ten minutes. You know that you can't do it and that the attempt is most uncomfortable....The principal thing to understand is that there is no safety or security."

In a well presented format Hayes & Smith, without the use of robes, incense, or being thus infused with all the beautiful and colorful iconoclasm of Buddhism, present a Dharma talk that I feel, the Dali Llama himself would approve of. The Buddha taught, "Suffering and the end of suffering" and never sought a patent on the teaching. If this book unveils another view on suffering and impermanence and the impact of how dualism impacts our mind, is this not good? If examining delusion, which is created by the constant use of aversion and craving (the exact opposite of mindfulness) leads us towards living a mindful and compassionate life, then I expect that good karma is being made manifest.

The book is designed to present the reader with a list of tools and exercises that are designed to help the reader understand in a very compassionate way, why we think and act and do as we do. As the Buddha said, "What you think, you become."

And I think this book is a very good thing.

A Wood Horse and a Water Rat living in a Water Dragon year

2012-01-13T21:20:00.001-05:00

The dragon, as seen in the East, is associated with the divine. As seen from the West, the dragon is hunted and slain or driven from existence.
How interesting.
But I'm not about to launch into some soliloquy about the East vs the West. Nor do I want to speak of China or Chinese thought, economics, philosophy or politics. I am after all, no Jacob Needleman for God's sake!
In ten days the Chinese New year will begin on January 23 and will come to its close on February 9 2013. It should be an interesting if not a very revealing year.

No winter for New England -2012

2012-01-11T19:40:00.000-05:00

On the day before Halloween 2011, we found ourselves shoveling, plowing and snow blowing two feet of snow. The horror of a long and brutal New England winter filled everyone with fear as the surprise attack found most ill prepared. Panic set in. Snow blowers were sold at the rate of several a day; depleting last years stock since the new arrivals hadn't arrived yet. Shovels and gloves flew off the store shelves. Snowmobile dealers found themselves happy as used car salesman dancing in a booming economy. The mind's eye of every New Englander envisioned ice dams, snow piled high as mountains and piles of firewood being buried under several feet of snow. Many in the snow zone envisioned oil companies rubbing their greedy little hands together like a preying mantis waiting to go in for the kill.

And then.....

Nothing!

Warm temperatures. Light jackets. Green grass. Right through Christmas!

Today's forecast is for unfavorable weather beginning tonight and continuing right through tomorrow. Word of the day? Ice pellets! (Another bad word!) After the ice storm of 2008, when millions lost power and millions of trees lost their limbs, everyone that hears the word "ice" is as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs! I cannot describe how amazing a sight it is when as if on cue, like a horde of lemmings, the masses flood the grocery stores to gather the proverbial "Milk and Bread" whenever the forecasters even hint of coming ice or snow.

And this is New England?

I've begun to feel that most of the population has been shipped in from the states that I never think of. Like Oklahoma, Nebraska or Delaware! And don't get me started about winter driving! Is everyone that drives our roads new to New England? Is this your first time?

Well, I for one have had it. Not with the snow and ice. Although the deep cold, I can do without. No. It's the people who act like New England virgins every time the snow falls or when we get a nice sheet of ice turning the landscape into Boston Garden and the Bruins play-offs!

Put all the virgins in the penalty box until Spring - and give me a rest....

"We're not gonna take it"

2012-01-04T19:55:00.001-05:00

The gig is up.

We're not gonna take it.
Gonna break it.
Gonna shake it.
Let's forget it better still!

Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us, "People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar."

We are all guilty sometimes of putting up with way too much, for way too long. Fear of change and fear of where the unknown may lead, can leave us clinging to doing absolutly nothing; laying our heads on a pillow of suffering in search of a rest that will not come.

Yet sometimes, in the quietness of our hearts, we are moved to stare down the bullies, to push against the wind, and make the brave decision to take the path with heart. We gird up our loins or lift up our skirts and decide that, "We're not gonna take it."

As a highly skilled and widely recognized Paramedic, Gaia Girl has responded to many emergency calls that you or I would run from. And like the many who don a uniform in recognition of their career calling; be it Firefighter, Policeman, Paramedic or Soldier, high stress calls, shootings, suicides, accidents and death in all it's myriad forms, can and often does take a toll. Nightmares may surface revealing just the tip of the iceberg. Disruptive sleep patterns, self medicating, internalized stress, all serve to make "off days" seem like "on days" - Ever at the ready, never relaxed, ready to respond.

And the bad calls? The really bad calls? They just continue to roll through the mind's eye just out of reach like an itch that refuses to be scratched.

Gaia Girl loves her job. She is good at it. A natural. She is often recognized for her ability to seem at rest and take charge when it would appear that the whole scene is going to pot. She alone knows what her body and her mind experiences when an emergency call comes to an end.

Yet she knows that she has not been at her best. She has been unable to rest in the moments of the day. It's easier to become comfortably numb with the help of three or four vodka tonics every night while in search of sleep. And the effects like to carry on into the morrow to remind her that she is still not free. Like a whisler in the dark trying to ignore the shadows, the creaks and the rustle of things unseen, she has come to rely on the end of day relief found on ice, in tea or tonic.

The Uniformed Services Program located in the beautiful and historic southern Vermont town of Brattleboro, serves just such a purpose: providing relief. The program offers tools designed to help with the anxiety, depression, addiction, and post traumatic stress so often found in the ranks of those professionals in uniform. Utilizing cutting edge tools such as neurofeedback, or the ancient science of mindfulness, and yoga, the program offers a wide array of training, education and support.

When Gaia Girl made the decision to act it was the age old process of, "what to do, where to go, where to start." Me and my ever sense of being pragmatic is often balanced by her view that, "The universe will figure it out" and we sought to hash things out together. Mystery unfolding, her old partner is dating the daughter of the CEO of Brattleboro Retreat. A few calls and she is in. No special treatment. Just a big fat arrow pointing to THIS IS IT!

And I am proud of her strength and courage.

And I"m her champion??

Ten reasons why I Google Blog

2011-12-30T09:25:00.002-05:00

a day in the life

Unemployed due to company downsizing, writing a book, planning to get back into shape starting tomorrow. I have been drinking too much since the permanant lay off on January 7th, and the morning meditation has become almost non existant.
A web associate stated that this time has been selected as the "reinvention of Tao". I hope to use this space to vent, speak of my sucess, hear from some of you comments and perspectives that will allow a deeper personal insight into what it means to be a human being.

This was my first post to Google Blogger - February 14, 2005. Much has happened since then. My book, a labor of love and solace, as well as being the source of my "going Hemingway" for a season, was lost due to my faulty backing up practices. A lengthy novel lost forever and no strength to repeat the story. What tale to be told is next?
My marriage has come to an end. Enough said.
I'm working now, but at 60% less the pay of what I earned when in my previous position - and I don't feel special. I see the readjustment of the American workforce coming into the store all the time. Working retail, I hear my story being told over and over again. I soon realized that this is no longer my story, but our story. My story retold about being down-sized, laid off, fired, outsourced or excused and finding only menial service and/or retail positions readily available for a fraction of an earlier wage. It's discouraging.
And the Blogger community that I once traveled with has all but disappeared. Ghost 91, Desultory Butterfly, Alix, capegirl, transience, Rowan, De.vile, Loralee Choate, hear no evil, buddhamonkeydevil, James, Mystic Wing....and many, many more. Yet I continue to write.
In the spirit of yearly traditions - of top tens and countdowns, I decided to list the top ten reasons for my continued blogging -

10) Like a smoldering coal buried deep within the ashes of a forgotten fire, I have a hidden punch you in the face, snap like a mouse trap reaction buried deep inside my being. Since one cannot possibly go around punching people in the face I use Google Blogger to help vent my frustrations and to let off a little steam. It works!

9) I enjoy writing. Google Blogger is like a good stretching routine. I have no need to be at my writer's polished best and it keeps me flexible while I prepare for my next book adventure where possibly I will have a editor at my disposal.

8) "Clearly it's a process". Google Blogger allows me a venue wherein I can try and unwind the mysteries of life. Like a therapist at my finger tips, blogging helps me reflect and untangle the knots that would tie me up and seek to steal my bliss. Like the "little foxes that spoil the vine" journaling assists in employing a little bit of a one man psychology aimed at creating self understanding and empathy.

7) Blogging can help to find friends and associates of like mind, interest and passion. A great big world may be found on Google Blogger..

6) I like Sharing a wee bit of what I have learned from my travels through Christian World, from my traversing the hidden hills of the Tao, and from listening to the teachers of Buddhism. As my bio states, I have known monks and musicians, preachers and physician, the religious, agnostic and atheist; they have all come as teachers and to all of them, I bow in gratitude.

5) To introduce to those who have not yet read his works, I like to quote and reference time and time again Alan Watts. Every field has had its blazing pioneers and its masters. Alan Watts has thoroughly guided the Way of Zen and Taoism and Buddhism into the west with the same degree that Bruce Lee brought martial arts to the west.. Their contributions were extraordinary and are often forgotten.

4) Google Blogger is used by people the world over. I have and continue to have communication with persons I would have never encountered without having this blog.. In South Africa, Copenhagen, Hawaii, India, and across the U.S. It's amazing.

3) Google Blogger is better than Wordpress. At least in my experience. I have created a few Wordpress blogs and they may possibly still be in existence (?). I will admit that I have encountered some fanciful Wordpress layouts, but as the driver of a Karmann Ghia and the owner of three pairs of jeans, K.I.S.S.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle is my kind of acronym.

2) I blog to remind myself and others that the meaning of life is just to live. It is so plain and so simple and so obvious.

1) And the No.1 reason why I continue to blog? I thought that it may have something to do with Legacy. In fact, I wrote several paragraphs on the subject. But then I realized that that's all fiction. The past or what we may leave behind through stories about ourselves may have purpose. However, it should never serve as my legacy.

As Anais Nin once said, "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect".

A hint of contradiction?

Guilty as charged.

.

Growing a Beard

2011-12-29T16:50:00.004-05:00

My picture now adorns the gallery located at beards.org
My face however has adorned facial hair in it's myriad form since the age of fifteen. Sideburns, mustaches, full beards, partial beards; my face has played with them all. Around ten years ago I turned my short and trimmed beard into a goatee and began to let it grow. Shortly thereafter I began to shave my head. (go figure?) I have cut my beard in the name of conformity several times and I have at times excessively trimmed it trying to find a little more fullness.
When my two daughters were under the age of ten, all those many years ago, I shaved my entire face wiping away any hint of burns or stache or beard.
They wept.
Why is it that there are those of us who feel compelled to sprout facial hair while there are perhaps an equal number of men (?) who shave chests, faces and their pubes? WTF?

In homage, in some weird way, I can hear the C S N & Y song beckoning to me. I think that I'm done with cutting, trimming or conformity.
Let it grow......let it grow.......

Chickens do not celebrate Christmas

2011-12-25T17:00:00.000-05:00

I once read about the grouping of stars that we call the "Big Dipper". Throughout history this grouping of stars has been recognized throughout Eastern Asia, India, and England to the Americas. It has taken on many names such as the plough, the ladle, a cart, and sometimes it has been recognized as a bear or the home to the "immortals". This grouping of stars has been shaped and defined by culture and imagination.
It's all a matter of perception.
And to my mind's way of seeing things the chickens appeared quite celebratory on Christmas morning. My imagination perhaps. I know that I was anticipating Gaia Girls arrival and that I had a very sick chicken sitting in my kitchen. But it truly did not seem as though I were projecting. They looked like they were going to break out into song! I thought that they might miss the absent hen now being nursed in the chicken hospital but they went on without skipping a beat.
A little while after Gaia Girl made her triumphant return to waiting cats and a small Christmas gift, she tended the poor girl and gave her a thorough examination.
After the regretful and unceremonious cull an autopsy was performed to see why this hen suffered in spite of being well tended to and hospitalized. Located deep within the gizzard she found this weighty brass object lodged and obstructing the passage of any digestion of food. I would estimate the weight to stand between ten and fifteen grams and we are puzzled by the fact that she was even able to swallow it!
We are so glad that it wasn't something more or something that could spread through the flock killing them one by one. Our crew of the original fifteen now stands at thirteen: a true baker's dozen. And perhaps that is why they were all in such rare form. A stay of execution? More food for the remaining brood? Or was it Gaia Girl's return?
I do not know. But I know that it was Christmas; and it was celebrated.

All we want is Happiness

2011-12-15T22:31:00.000-05:00

One of the casualties of divorce is the sometimes violent disruption cast upon the children of divorce, be it the adult children or the grand-kids, the whole world is forever changed.
While attending the deployment ceremonies for my son in law, my grand-daughter looked up at me and asked, "When are you going to watch me again?" Her presence was once a staple in this house and it had been more than a year since we've been able to spend more than a few minutes alone together. This weekend she will be coming to TaoSpring and this seven year old girl couldn't be any more excited. Of course, my plans are to spoil her and to let her know just how much she is loved. I know that she has many questions and I plan to answer each one as tactfully as I am able.

It's really not all that complicated

While people can seem oh so complicated, it all boils down to this; all we want is to be happy. Ignorance leads us away from happiness. Ignorance has us breaking the most simple of rules on how to be happy, many of which we learned before the age of seven.

Don't hit.

Share.

Be nice.

This would ensure the happiness of everyone if everyone could mindfully play by these rules. But we know that people who don't get their own way will often use violence. And that some people will strive to have more than everyone else and that sharing is seldom done freely and without the hope of receiving something in return. Living while steeped in misery and then trying to be nice is like trying to laugh while your dog gets run over. It's not possible unless you're a little off balance. And off balance, much of the world lives: Hitting / Not sharing / Not being nice - but laughing at all the road kill.

How silly this world we live in.

Chicken Life: From the egg to the Roaster

2011-12-11T18:57:00.001-05:00

White Broilers are shipped in a little box and arrive filled with a whole lot of peep. The little fur balls are always a hit, melting the heart of even the hardest of the New England curmudgeons. Everyone wants to hold one. Anyone standing in the wings will soon make their way forward like paupers in a soup line waiting their turn to hold one.
And in the end the same can also be said of these tasty plump morsels. Weighing on average 8 Lbs, after just nine weeks, organically fed and raised, they

are happy and playful. And come next Sunday they will be in the freezer. Shortly thereafter one will grace the table where it will be received

with thanks.

Seven Hundred Full Moons

2011-12-09T21:00:00.001-05:00

My lifetime has witnessed approximately 700 full moons. Come the year 2012, my birth month will hold two full moons, with the first full moon of that month falling on the day of my birth.
He shook my hand insincerely and walked back up the hill and back into the shadows. And the thing that I remember most is the way that the light of the full moon made his grimace look more like a smile. But I felt that his eyes told the truth. He held nothing but contempt for me.
Tonight's moon lit the landscape and made the cold December night as inviting as a midsummer campfire. I walked the perimeter drawing on my pipe watching the mix of heat and smoke rise up high and disappear into the night sky. Peeking in on the chickens always draws a smile from me and tonight was no different. The light of the moon faded their colors to shades of light and dark, white and gray, making only my familiarity distinguish one hen from the other. A bucket left in a corner of the coop startled me for one tenth of a second and had me thinking that perhaps a skunk or a cat had wandered in.
The moon forever reveals her one and only bright face and the light that she shines is not her own. What degree of truth does her light send our way? Grimace, startle, shades of gray.
The moon looks very different when she holds high over the big sky of Montana or rises up through the hills of Vermont. The same moon. The same refractory. The moon held as a mirror or a magnifying glass playing tricks upon our imagination and what we think we see. What we think we see. Grimace, startle, shades of gray.
Illusion abounds.

Faith Made America Strong

2011-12-08T19:24:00.001-05:00

"Our party cannot be all things to all people. It can't be.

Our loudest opponents on the left are never going to like us

so let's stop trying to curry favor with them." Rick Perry

Jefferson penned the opening words in the Declaration of Independence to inspire opposition to the political belief of the era: The Divine Right of Kings;

We hold these truths to be self-evident,

that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator

with certain unalienable Rights,

that among these are Life, Liberty

and the pursuit of Happiness -

...and it would appear that a certain faction would like for us to return to a time when the populace will be once again governed by the government (A Christian government) Will the President of a Christian Nation rule by and through divine right? When a man such as Rick Perry states that "as President, I will end Obama's war on religion," I am frightend. His message was openly anti-gay, unapologeticlly divisive and sounded Crusade inspired.

When Jesus begins to wear a gun and then declares everyone as heretics and atheist if they don't tow the party line, we need to listen. The propagating of Christianity through force and violence is "The faith that made America strong" by Rick Perry's definition of things. What other form of faith can he be possibly referring to if it is not the same faith that was used to subdue the Americas, beginning with Columbus?

"I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter your country and shall make war against you; and shall subject you to the yoke and obediance of the church - and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their Lord and resist and contradict him" CC

Shall we round up the gay men and woman and segragate them or place them in camps? Shall we proclaim, "Merry Christmas" and "Christmas Tree" as a government mandate every December?

Does any of this sound familiar?

Rick Perry is a dangerous man.

The way to a man's heart

2011-12-06T19:58:00.001-05:00

It is said, or maybe I should say that it has been said, that "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach". And quite surprisingly so, I find that statement to be well, true?
Okay? I admit it. Or at least to a portion of it.
I am not saying that it's the solid foundation for a good homesteading relationship but man, it sure makes for some damned good mortar holding everything together.
Last evening Gaia Girl made for me four of the finest pork chop marinades, with leek fritters and an incredibly delicious aromatic rice. (and she does not eat them)
I ate one chop for dinner. One for breakfast with fresh eggs. One at lunch with the most heavenly carrot and butternut squash bisque. The last I had for dinner again with rice and added a sprinkle of Frank's Louisiana hot sauce.
And lest I seem to make light of the bisque, it was Food Inc. front cover material. Beautiful in color.Texture was picture perfect. Smell was heaven made. The taste, liquid Prozac. I could have laid on the couch like an opium parlor customer; pie eyed; eyes glazed over, smile on my face, my eyes two slits wide.

Gawd........Bliss

A gift for which I am grateful.

A blessing rich with revelation

that the heavens still shine.

I humbly bow in gratitude.

Pizza on Christmas

2011-12-05T21:05:00.001-05:00

Working retail.

The new world.

Not that I'm complaining, because I'm not. It's just how things are. There's a host of gems available to me now that I would have surely missed out on had I not been directed down this pathway.

Gaia Girl works on Christmas eve and a portion of Christmas day too. She is greatly needed in her profession and excellent in what she does.

Being in retail, I too will be working on Christmas eve. The store has to be open after all. This is how retail works. In order to do better than break even, you must take the good with the bad. Even if the employee wages and the electricity aren't covered by the sales of the day. Sunday, Christmas day, we have off. Come Monday, it's back to the same old grind.

Ahh! Working retail.

The new world.

Not that I'm complaining, because I'm not.

But you know, I review that past and count many more stress filled and unhappy Christmas days than I do days of comfort and joy. I'm glad to be easing into a sleepy Sunday morning, feeding that cats, putting on the coffee and feeding the chickens. Gaia girl will arrive home around two and we'll click on the radio and make some pizza. We'll exchange a few gifts and we'll ease into a warm fire and a pajama filled evening. In the late afternoon, I'll collect the eggs and talk to the girls and bring them their silly little treat of cheap white bread. I'll bend down to scratch their butts and the Barred Rocks will fluff to twice their size.
And the pizza? My favorite food. On Christmas day or otherwise. It may very well be the last Christmas that I will spend in this house. I raised four kids here. I have many memories here; both good and bad. I feel that it may be time to move on. And regardless of my feelings on the subject I may be forced to move on; move out.

The new world.

Not that I'm complaining, because I'm not.

HOLIDAYS GREETINGS!!!

2011-12-04T20:31:00.001-05:00

An old friend from blogger days past has sent me this video from You Tube. She is an amazing gal and I am proud of and for her.

Please watch and comment and I hope this finds you all well and puts a smile on your face.

Unseasonable weather, happy chickens & skunks

2011-12-02T09:51:00.001-05:00

Okay. Enough of the soapbox exhalations about what a mess we're all in. The warm days have been celebrated by even the grumpiest of the New England curmudgeons that wander into the store each day. They can't help themselves though and often feel inspired to leave a benediction behind asking the powers that be to give us a winter that will shine with mercy upon us.
Have mercy. On me.
If it wasn't for the few perky people still out there shopping in these dismal economic times, I don't think that I could make it through the day. We are far from the days of the great depression. No one likes that they have to tighten their belt. And this frustration is magnified while the "top" grows fatter and the rest of us focus on getting lean.
But I digress. (again!)
The chickens are still laying plentiful and the afternoon sun has them playing like kids in a schoolyard. The nights do get cold though and leave their water bucket coated with a half inch of ice by morning. Fresh water and a few trails of scratch get them moving and talking. With the many treats that we give to the girls, they are most excited about bread. Plain, ordinary, cheap bread. Nothing I would eat. In fact, they seem insulted when given a nice grainy piece of hardy dark bread. No, they want the King Size loaf type cheap white enriched bread. (enriched?)
The skunks, which are so plentiful around here that they for the highest road kill numbers of any creature in the state (even higher than the abundant gray squirrels) have settled down for winter hibernation. But then you will see the young and dumb ones who don't have enough sense to go to sleep and you'll see the rabid ones who just can't help themselves (The Walking Dead?) For us mere mortals, it is hard to tell the difference.
Tradition and need finds thousands of New Englanders performing the ritual of buttoning up and all of the many chores associated with winterizing. Jim, who can't hear a lick, was saved by his still intact peripheral vision when a rabid skunk charged him like a Rhino on the flood plains of the Zambezi. Like any other person in this kind of situation, Jim ran up onto his second story porch and lowered his garden hose to nudge the skunk's departure.
Seriously!
The skunk grabbed it with his teeth and severed it in two. (D'oh!)
Twice! (Double D'oh!)
Flowing with more bright ideas, Jim ran down the stairs with a plastic bin and held it in front of him. He dropped it over the skunk and ran inside to call animal control, only to return and find an even more mad and rabid skunk running about his yard look for revenge. I don't know how Jim escaped the putrefying spray of a good skunk dousing but he managed to re-crate the poor creature and put a cinder block on top to keep it contained. Four hours later animal control arrived to animal control.
Exciting, eh?
My only chore today is covering the Karmann Ghia garage with a giant tarp to protect her until Mid April when cruise season will begin once again. The skunks will come out of hibernation and the store will begin selling grass seed and spring type items. Now, I'm not one to wish my life away, but I can't wait.

SNAFU is not a new word

2011-11-25T19:07:00.001-05:00

No, this is not an endorsement for Yellow Tail Shiraz, although I wouldn't mind receiving residuals for such a seemingly perfect product placement.
And I don't have much to say about the cat n' hen either. Curiosity could hardly obscure what these two were really feeling toward each other that day.
"Dude! You're in my space."
"Man, you're ugly!"
"Go away already!"
They would of course, choose to walk on opposite sides of the street if they could - (and they can't you see, as we have indoor cats and chicken coop chickens) but you do get the point. There's just no reason in trying to mix the two.
As a rule, feline and fowl do not mix.
And the same rule applies for the Democratic party and the G.O.P. No such alliance or partisan politic will

ever exist for the two. There is a long and arduous game at stake here and those that sit around the political round table are the only ones who really know what the rules are and non-partisanship, I tell you, is part of the game. I enjoy watching Morning Joe as much as I enjoy watching a good football game. I may jump, swear and yell a little, but it's all in good clean fun. And as long as our discussion of politics follows the same vein, it can be very entertaining. Discussing politics is like wiping your arse; it's a dirty job, it smells, you can't really see what you're doing, and it all ends up flushed down the toilet and is quickly forgotten until the next time.
The Presidential debates are unbelievable. Have you seen them? Simply unbelievable. America has many brilliant possibilities and we end up with the likes of these? And when poll after poll cites Ronald Reagan as perhaps the "best" president that the office ever held, I know we're screwed.
Reagan, Seriously?
The love of money is the root of all evil. It is the grease that greases every aspect of Washington's self perpetuating, money seeking, power hungry political wheel and money keeps it turning, turning, turning. We (the 99%) squeak and rust and slow down to a rusty halt while Washington and Wall Street greases palms that guarantee to produce more grease somewhere down the road. Back slapping, hand shaking, back room deals; now that's part of the game. And we're not allowed anywhere near the table.
In my remaining days, I will no longer vote. I will not join or participate in any club or organizations or church with a charitable agenda.. I will pay no dues, (only to my sportsman's club - beer is cheap ) as I fail to see the point. My steering rudder is not party nor church or country driven. I will do good and act charitable and pass on; not looking for result, reward or recognition. No hurrahs, no backslapping, no greasing of palms. I will continue to make my way towards love and self sufficiency. I will right myself and expect others to do the same. I will choose to walk on the other side of the street and pray for the grace to turn the other cheek if to do so is for the greater good.

My home and club, my church and country is TaoSpring. You can find me there.

Vonnegut in his later years noted a belief that Mark Twain and Albert Einstein had given up on the human race in their later years. Vonnegut concluded that he too had finally given up on people in his later years. As he watched the case against Iraq unfold, as having weapons of "Mass destruction" and while he watched the Bush administration's call for war he had this to say: "Our President is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler. What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say person's without consciences, without senses of pity our shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations and made it all their own?"

Perhaps it is fortunate that Vonnegut died prior to seeing the unfolding bank crisis, the Wall Street scams, the unconscionable Ponzi schemes and the ongoing bleeding of America. I can imagine him sinking deeper into despair after reading a report such as that in Think Progress. And his despair saddens me. For my departure into the realms of TaoSpring is not a giving up, a despair for the ridiculousness of the likes of a Newt or a Mitt being elected to the White House. Christ, we lived through Nixon! It is but a slowing down. An awareness in contrast to reaction. Peace in place of violence. The annals of history, of life itself have not changed.

S.N.A.F.U. is NOT a new word. And neither is S.S.D.D.

For Gawd's sake. Lighten up!

Thanksgiving

2011-11-21T06:21:00.001-05:00

The meat birds are happy in their new digs. Playful, fat and full feathered, they are now about twenty one days away from the freezer. That's farm life!
I took a walk through the old flood plains early Sunday afternoon. The weather, unseasonably warm, provided me with a chance to walk an area that few now visit. These many trails and cart roads we once traversed freely. They are now closed by barricades made of steel or stone and are only accessible on foot or by bicycle. In winter there are many miles of snowmobile trails that crisscross the area. Many of these roads, closed by decree and that now go nowhere offered a place to hunt, fish and a hidden place where you could go necking with your sweetheart. In the last few decades these enjoyable places of beauty and solitude became dumping grounds for demolition, tires and items that no one wanted to pay a disposal fee for.

But not all was lost. There remains a haunting beauty evident in an area where once 1930's automobiles rumbled over the cobble-esque roads. The Hurricane of 1938 changed forever the role of this parcel of Northern Massachusetts land converting it back to a place abundant with deer, fox, beaver and herons, cranes and water fowl.

On this warm November day I was surprised by the seeming lack of wildlife. A mile east lies crow hill yet, no crows, no birds at all. No squirrel, no Osprey, Owl or Blue Jay. It was all very quiet. I found it very puzzling, and sad.

My return to TaoSpring reawakened my joy as I sat with the girls; had a call for eggs and we picked out a tree and tagged for the season. A cute, slightly off kilter tree that will adorn our home with the smell and color of evergreen celebrating the continuation of life even in the darkest and coldest of days. Life is short and fleeting. The landscape of memory calls for us to move forward. Mourn not for what was; Love well, do good and act kindly today. These acts and intention are deciduous and add smell and color to our lives. In contrast, life, as empty and as puzzling and as sad as the barricaded dumping ground proved to be on Thanksgiving week, I give thanks and ask of the heavens for grace:
I am blessed.

Meat Birds and Thanksgiving plans

2011-11-15T19:25:00.001-05:00

For the last four weeks we've had meat birds living in our basement. The brood gathered under a heat lamp sitting comfortably upon fresh wood shavings and they began to eat. And eat, And eat.
By the third week you remove the feed from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m. and then watch the bedlam when the morning feed is lowered back into the pen. On Sunday Gaia Girl collected the twenty five plump little broilers and moved them to a coop and run several miles away.
I can still hear them cheep, chirp and squeak in the basement. Creepy!
Thanksgiving is fast approaching. With the pending divorce all tradition as I have known it is no more. Time for something new! Thanksgiving has been a huge holiday for my family and for my parents before me. And with following tradition, Grace is said while that responsibility often falling to me. My dysfunctional sons, my drunk wife, my daughters (my hope) made it feel more like an Irish wake. I was much more mournful than thankful. With every passing year Thanksgiving was a moment remorse and a gasp of wonder asking the question, "Why are we here and why are we doing this?" Yes, Grace. So in need of grace.
TaoSpring is a place of new beginnings.
TaoSpring is a story that unfolds with each day.
And like the Plymouth Pilgrims on whom the Thanksgiving holiday is based, it is a new beginning. A mixture of hope and thankfulness. A realization of bounty in all it's shape and size.

All Hallow's Eve

2011-11-01T18:00:00.000-04:00

Twenty four inches of snow. When it arrives one day before Halloween it's not a surprise, but a horror for everyone. The area where I live had the highest amount in snow totals and yet we did not loose power. We were prepared with our wood all stacked and lanterns full and wicks all trimmed. We came away unscathed and little worse for wear. Not true for a larger part of New England and all of the way down into New Jersey. As I write this, many homes are still without power. Unlike TaoSpring, many homes rely entirely on electricity for their homes to operate. It's true that we too need and use and rely on our local power company more than we want to. And as a part of our future goal for TaoSpring, whether or not it be the TaoSpring in it's current location, we will seek to lessen our dependence.
And why? There may exist all sort of tree-hugging, ethereal, new age reasons for lessening our imprint upon the planet we call earth. But simply put, in contrast to the non-ceasing idea of the American Dream and of more, more, more: what has all of this "more" really provided for us?
Really? Answer me that.

家人 Chia Jên

2011-10-24T18:06:00.000-04:00

On Saturday my granddaughter, the daughter of my oldest daughter, turned seven years old;
Oh !The apple of my eye.
And on Sunday I attended the wedding my good friend's son. Many years ago I went to this same friend's wedding while four years ago I also attended his wife's funeral.
Ob La Di - Ob La Da.........
How often do we find ourselves seeing people that we really like and have truly missed only to see them at birthdays, weddings, and funerals?
Busy, busy, we are. And spread out too.
Family, friends, community. They really are precious resources.
And much of my weekend had me thinking about how important family is and about how my experience of family has changed. Family can be a true example of grace.
Gaia Girl shed tears as we watched the father and the bride dance while for me, I felt a little anger at having been forced to keep away from my daughter's recent wedding. Life is so short.
Tears and anger should be short lived.

Chicken in the big house

2011-10-23T22:31:00.001-04:00

TaoSpring - Chickens, potatoes, stew and trivia

2011-10-21T20:18:00.001-04:00

I know that it sounds derogatory but I assure you, we love Little Fattie. She is loud, brash and full of personality. Just like those girls from Jersey.
We're up to a dozen eggs a day now. The two Barnevelders that we introduced about six weeks ago? They segregate themselves like they're too good for the rest of the hen house. They strut about like a pair of aristocrats and stay so close to the coop and roost that they get top bunk most nights. They really threw the pecking order into a spin by their arrival. They're supposed to be great birds to have but I'm not sure I even like them! I imagine them wearing fancy coats and powdered wigs expecting preferential treatment.

We harvested the last of the peppers and potatoes. The eggs and the V-dub bus sat quietly watching the scrub and dry process.
Last night we went to the local pub and joined in for a night of trivia. First timers, me and Pants were. I think it was the beards that did it. And damn! Does my face look fat! Gah!

I stacked wood today, fed and watered the girls, and tended to the new meat birds. They have tripled in size in less than two weeks. I tried to get up some of the leaves but the heavy rains from last week matted the leaves into the still very green grass. By noon the sun had warmed up the day into the low 60's so I took the Ghia out for a ride and looked for a present for my granddaughter who turns 7 soon. I quickly decided that a stack of one dollar bills should work just fine.

The day came to a close with chicken stew, cornbread muffins and an open fire. Flame, flame - crackle, crackle. Gaia Girl had a very busy day. She should be rewarded with a the full comfort of TaoSpring. And by that restful look on her face, a full tummy, and the glow from the 1977 Vermont Castings, I think my job here is done..............

Prayer

2011-10-19T21:07:00.000-04:00

I was a man of prayer. In time, as my "beliefs" became less concrete, I knew that I did not know. The more knowledge that I gained the more I realized that I really knew nothing at all. And I also began to realize that I was not alone in this realization. I found it to be a very universal rung on the well traveled spiritual ladder. As Lewis Carroll once quipped, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there."
Prayer began to cease as I found that I no longer knew who or what to pray to. Almighty God, Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus? It felt so woefully inadequate. My view of God became more like that of the experience of Tao:

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things
Thus, constantly without desire, one observes its essence
Constantly with desire, one observes its manifestations
These two emerge together but differ in name
The unity is said to be the mystery
Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders

What name could be named?

I began to pray like breath; natural and rhythmic. My prayers were built of gratitude, of asking for wisdom and compassion. I did not question the vehicle of my transcendence. For doing so would be like stopping mid-dance in an attempt to investigate my dance moves. Or like stopping a song only to concentrate on a single note. Oh my delusion! Prayer? God?

Many mornings, as the sun rose over the trees and the birds began to move with the unseen rhythm of the day, I would find myself singing a doxology;

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow

Praise him, all creatures here below.

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Amen, Amen.

I sang free of belief and with the sheer joy of it. It illuminated something within me. Saying that you believe in God or saying that you are an atheist are just two sides of the same coin. Both are belief. Yet there is that which exists beyond the limits of belief: it is a knowing. And you know that you know. It is a realization that lies beyond description and belief.

Is this God? Tao? It's laughable! Do you need to name it?

As Krishnamurti said, "I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. This is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead ot to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others".

Tracie's Farm

2011-10-14T17:29:00.001-04:00

http://www.traciesfarm.com/

TaoSpring - Meat Birds

2011-10-13T19:47:00.000-04:00

Here they are!!!

Our Jumbo Cornish birds arrived via the post today. We received the call this morning and within minutes they were here. Cute as buttons and closely examined by our two cats, they quickly settled down to eating, drinking and taking comfort under the heat lamp. A week or so before Christmas they will be sitting pretty in the freezer. Recently this little ditty was found in a news paper:

Outside, our brood is fairing well and we're up to ten eggs a day with fifteen birds. The Fort Seuss/TaoSpring/ Pallet coop withstood the wind and the rain of hurricane Irene and methinks a good old fashioned New England winter will be just what the Dr. ordered to break in the coop sufficiently.

I am planning a hive in the future. I have a natural affinity for bees and with my planned expansion of raised bed gardens it will be advantageous.
While this has been a good autumn weather wise, wood needs to be stockpiled in anticipation of whatever the winter may bring. Meanwhile, my son in law will be leaving for a third tour of duty, this time in Afghanistan, the day after thanksgiving. My daughter will need to learn much about home-ownership and independence, something she severely lacks, as they're in a new home and there is wood to be burned, snow to be shoveled, plowed and pushed and with just her and the dog and two cats, adjustment abounds.

Tonight I made a zuchinni lasagna. Halfway through the layering of it I realized that the baking dish was too small. I flipped it into a bigger one and found that one also to be a little on the wee side too. But it smells and looks delicious. No front cover material but we will feast well nonetheless.

Adjustment abounds..........

Increasing awareness: The undetermined mind

2011-10-11T06:05:00.000-04:00

I've spoken before about having an undetermined mind; A mind focused and aware: that understands and experiences life like a person climbing a staircase in the dark. Where each stair lights when you step on it and not before. No looking up at the top stair or looking two stairs ahead. It's one stair at a time. It is a state determined not by desire or aversion but through the clear force of equanimity.
But to get there I determined, (no pun intended) arrival at having an undetermined mind, or awareness, comes via a very determined awareness. An awareness with intention. Tools such as meditation are often used as an aid to help increase our level of awareness. Martial arts, dance, playing music, acts that produce a forgetting of the self, can help us to experience the now in its fullness. With practice, we slowly empty the cup of self focused mind and there is just, "Look". That is why we practice. For those times when life can get messy. Our suffering is lessened through a mind that takes one stair at a time - An acceptance and a non-judging view of the present moment.
But along with our practice comes a continual deepening. It's not like we just come to a place of heaven and we're all given halos and harps. Our practice allows us to push through to greater depths of wisdom, compassion and stillness. Once, the stress of losing a relationship stretched the bounds of our equanimity. Later, perhaps the loss of a job; a death, a divorce. We must press on and experience our This Being Human and see what it has for us.
Last night I was driving upon the road and had to pull to the side for an oncoming ambulance. Not an unusual occurrence mind you, but following closely behind was a police cruiser with it's blue lights on. There are times that I lock my basement door from the outside as I have done a million times before. What do these two experiences have in common? The pain of suicide. It insidiously slithers through your mind as an ugly viper. Multiple threats, cuttings and attempts are etched upon my mind. I guess they achieved their purpose: guilt, powerlessness, fear. Fear that it is her in that ambulance. Fear that I would find her in the basement. The volume of emotion that I would feel if in fact she were to succeed scares me deeply. I fear the ignition of a nuclear explosion. People who know nothing yet have inserted themselves into our relationship like some expert on our marriage and divorce. You who have been in my house less than five times and have plied my wife with alcoholic ambition.
People talk about moving on and I am comforted in knowing that the pain of divorce is universal although through the process you truly do feel all alone. But to move on, truly move on, you just do it. It is hard. No shit. But I like to think of the analogy of the Space Shuttle. At lift off, the greatest amount of power and strength is required at the start to have the Shuttle lift-off, move on. During the first two minutes of flight the two rocket boosters produce over 80% of the thrust needed to move the Shuttle closer to weightlessness. After the rockets are jettisoned there is still much work to be done to push her into position enabling the Shuttle to break through those last layers of atmosphere. Then, at long last she pushes through to orbit where she begins her move into Earth's gravity.
It is hard at the start: requiring all your strength to move on. There is a reason why they say that time heals all wounds. But time will not do it all. Moving on requires something of you. Thrust, power, might and intention. Or we can do nothing at all and we'll find ourselves stuck in anger and remorse finding our conversations littered with talk of divorce, pain, sadness.
TaoSpring is my moving on.
Stay tuned.

The Kings desire

2011-10-05T20:06:00.001-04:00

The Love of money is the root of all evil - The Bible

The Dust Will Settle at TaoSpring

2011-09-29T12:25:00.001-04:00

My understanding and experience of meditation
is to let it be whatever it is;
you just remain silent, without any concern,
without any judgment,
without making any appreciation or condemnation.

Soon all the dust will settle,
and you will be left behind in your immense glory,
in your tremendous beauty,
in your peaks of consciousness.

~ Osho

Marriage. Huh! What is it good for?

2011-09-29T07:01:00.001-04:00

Marriage is a conspiracy from Tiffany, florists, the diamond industry, and Christian fundamentalists. The only good thing about it is the diamond ring, the wedding gifts and the honeymoon. - Suzanne Finnamore

Any man in love with his wife must be so dull that no one else could love him. - Montaigne

I haven't spoken of my pending divorce lately. The divorce process is like a lot of things in life: you never fully realize just how painful something is until you experience it for yourself. And when it comes to marriage the opposite is also true: when marriage is good, it is really, really great. When a marriage is bad, it really, really, fucking sucks. You never realize how wonderful marriage can be unless you have experienced it.
My spouse has always been a handful. But at times, it was wonderful; like a warm sun after a blistering rain. But if its always raining and you find yourself beginning to live for those brief intermittent breaks of sun through the darkened clouds, well then, you're going to grow mold.
The ideas that we fashion and project upon marriage have little to do with how marriage has evolved through time. More often marriage was arranged out of convenience, survival or as in many families for allegiance and power. This L0VE stuff, well that's all fairly new.
All these self righteous pols seated on the right proclaiming that marriage is an institution ordained by G_D and defined as one man/one woman; what the fuck do they know? As usual a lot of high fluting ideas based upon belief in belief. Go educate yourselves!
But I do like the idea of marriage. Of union. When in a well thought out agreement a couple says, "Hey! Let us partner up. And to the best of our ability we'll look out for one another."
That would require maturity, something that is all too often lacking these days. It has to begin in trust - the watering which provides growth and nurturing to any young seedling. It will not survive if it is built upon endless fear of abandonment countered by the demand, "You will love me!" That is not nurturing, that is a pulling out by the roots.
I did not file for my divorce but I should have. And now, this woman who had quit her job when I was out on a prolonged disability, who so often was willing to lose the family home if it required something of her, now wants it all. And in her all or nothing, black or white, love or hate world, she really believes that I am the bad guy here. She is a pagan inspired by the likes of Lori Bruno and Scott Cunningham who has forgotten the Rule of Three.
Like I said, when it's good its really, really great.
And when its bad...........

Eggs, eggs and more eggs - Gifted

2011-09-24T19:56:00.000-04:00

The chickens are giving us up to eight eggs a day now. Soon we will be gifted with more than a dozen eggs a day and we will gift others in return. There is nothing better than "fresher than fresh" eggs and eggs that are given to you for free. A gift within a gift.

How cool is that!

Zen

2011-09-22T08:59:00.000-04:00

A recent post over at The Buddhist Blog had me thinking about this post from last year. I thought it an appropriate re-post.

Pouring water into the ocean to make it wet...

Who are we really? What is really the meaning of Life? How can we attain lasting happiness in the face of our seemingly endless troubles? These questions are basic to our lives, and it is from these questions that the practice of Zen has its birth.
Zen can be the compassionate scalpel that removes the layers of accrued opinions, beliefs, and frozen expectations that stand between us and true experience. Zen shows us that what we mistakenly call ourselves, our personal identity, is really no more than a mask over our true selves and natures.
Beliefs, opinions, prejudices, educational and cultural training, our family backgrounds: All these are merely accidental factors, if you will. They are necessary tools for survival and integration into the larger society, but they are not really who you are.
Without falling back on convenient definitions of job, religion, sex and so on, who and what are we? If you lose your job, will you lose yourself? If you convert to another religion, do you substantially change? It may seem so if you are overly attached to these limiting definitions. Despite all these changes, however, something remains the same. What and where is the thing upon which we can stand firm? If the outside is so unstable and prone to change, then it would make sense to look within—to ourselves. But what are we on the inside? What in the world are we?
Zen can help us answer these questions, although Zen itself is not an answer. Zen is, if anything, the biggest question of all. It is the question that becomes a wedge in the cracked shell of our true self, prying us open to a meaning and truth that will have relevance to ourselves alone. It is a dance and a tug-of-war with ourselves. It demands no belief in anything, and instead insists on a great doubt concerning everything we had heretofore taken for granted. While belief is not a requirement, faith most certainly is. Faith is the unspoken, nameless and formless yearning for completion and wholeness.
Alone and unaided, it can pull us to union with our God or true self like a great free-floating balloon. Belief is the anchor that keeps our faith from ever ascending and testing its limits. Belief is the limiting and inhibiting of faith.
Zen points out to us the area of our lives where our faith in our selves has been silenced by the rigidity of belief. Once pointed out, we are freed to ride our faith to heights unimagined and certainly not permitted by the jealous jailer called belief. In Zen practice, the process of identifying and reducing our attachments to our own beliefs, ideas and opinions is sometimes called "putting them down." Just as we would put down a load that has gotten too heavy for us, so too can we put down our heavy load of self, which we identify with our personal situations, ideas and beliefs.
Zen is simply nothing more than paying attention to your life as it unfolds in this moment and in this world. The mindful, non judgmental perception of this process is the action of your true, original self, which exists before thinking, opinions, and beliefs arise and seek to name and divide experience. By becoming mindful of our original nature, we are able to lessen the grip of the denial that separates us from true experience. As we become more spontaneous and intuitive in our relationships with ourselves, others and the world, the world and our deepest selves start to act as one, and we come to realize that there's never been a problem except in our thinking.
Zen is the ultimate and original recovery program. It exposes our denial of true self and shows us how we've suffered because of our diseases of attachment, judgment and division. It suggests a program for recovering our original nature and teaches steps we can take immediately. It shows us how all our other diseases and discontents flow from our fundamental denial of unity with each other and the universe.
Zen is there when you swerve out of the way of a speeding car without thinking. It is there when you cry at a movie, feeling deeply the suffering of another. It is there in the unconscious grace of your walk, the elegant flow of your thoughts, and the automatic breathing that keeps you alive. No, Zen never forgets about you. It is you who have forgotten about Zen. It is you who takes this moment for granted and believes that you are separate from all you survey, alone and unique in your suffering. It is you who search high and low for meaning, contentment, satisfaction or deliverance.
To try to fill your emptiness with meaning from outside yourself is like pouring water into the ocean to make it wet. The practice of Zen is the alarm clock that wakes us up to our lives and enables us to stop sleepwalking through reality. It is the friendly map that says: "Right here is the place. You have always been here. Where else is there?" It is the calendar that says: "Right now is the time. Who could want another?" Zen practice identifies the liars and thieves in the temples of our hearts and casts them out so that we may live as we are meant to live: whole, fearless, and rejoined with that for which we so desperately long. (text by What Is Zen? by Mel Ash)

The art of play - It's fun to be silly

2011-09-16T17:52:00.000-04:00

Remember when we were kids

and thought nothing of acting goofy

and making weird faces?

Somewhere along the line

we made the fade to being serious;

all silliness locked away

to be forgotten,
made to be still.

Let us dance like dervishes;

like the wind through the trees,
Let us laugh; giggle and snort
at nothing at all.

Let's get silly
What is wrong
just having fun?

Pecking Order

2011-09-14T22:02:00.000-04:00

We thought it best to bring our flock back to the original number of fifteen and Gaia Girl ventured out to fill our quota. She introduced a pair of Barnevelder to our community of very settled and content girls in the sneaky fashion of putting them on the roost while the girls slept. As Gaia Girl explained, "Sometimes the chickens will just wake the next morning and just say, Hi."
We have deduced over time that Pox, an Ameracauna, reigned as number one in the pecking order. Bess was a contender but it appeared that Pox came out on top. The Golden Comets are content to follow while the Barred Rocks often appear as a tribe unto themselves being not followers or leaders: Individuals giving neither protest or support, doing their own thing.
This changed radically when the new kids came to town. The largest of the Barred Rocks, a.k.a. Fatty McFatty gave chase. She ran down one of the new kids and pinned her between the coop and a metal feed barrel. She stood upon the Barnevelder's back and wailed away just like it was a cage match in Ultimate Fighter. The problem is, its very difficult for a hen to "tap out." We had to intervene like a pair of aggressive referees and drag McFatty away while chasing the new kids to their neutral corner.
It's still a work in process. We'll see how it goes.
I'm in the process of observing the pecking order at work as well. A new guy was hired who has hands on experience with woodworking, plumbing and electrical. Truth is, the further I get away from the Paint Department, the more things begin to get fuzzy. I know that in retail our job is to sell, if I don't know the answer I"ll find someone that does. I won't make things up just to make a sale. Many of my co-workers will scramble like we're on commission to be helpful. But true helpfulness is found in knowledge and wisdom and experience; not bullshit. I will sooner return to a store where someone speaks the truth as opposed to having someone loading me with useless guesses in trying to making a sale. And the new guy knows some stuff - and the old guys (and girl) feel threatened. Fun to watch.
Fun to watch........

Social Security

2011-09-08T20:25:00.000-04:00

New from the TaoSpring Front

Watching the GOP presidential candidates debate is equal to watching a squirrel water skiing. It's just plain silly and I can't be bothered. The misinformation bantered about regarding Social Security is just another GOP joke. Social Security costs less than 5% of the GDP and is easily fixable if you can factor out the greed and factor in some common sense with a sense of commonwealth. And I'm not saying Socialism here, perhaps a little consideration and fairness. What ever happened to, "All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten?"

Everyone should pay into Social Security and not everyone should receive it. The think tank Third Way believes that individuals making $200,000 or jointly $400,000, should not receive Social Security, that we should boost benefits for poorer retirees and scale the benefits of those making $150,000 or $250,000 jointly. Fair? I think so.

Will it fly? I doubt it.

Could it? Yes, if government was really of the people and for the people.

But it's not.

On another note Jer, pictured above, was found with a prolapsed oviduct. In other words, egg bound. We had to cull her. It was the most humane thing to do. She was a beautiful bird and we had great affection for her as we do for all our"girls." She is in the freezer now. Such is life.

My youngest daughter is getting married on Saturday and I cannot attend. Not because of anything that I have done - and not because anything that she has done. She is greatly troubled because I will not be walking her down the aisle and giving her away. Thanks Mom! You "high conflict/no resolution narcissistic selfish woman. It is my daughter's day. At least it's supposed to be. Some people are selfish and make life all about them.

Sounds like the GOP debate all over again

2011-09-06T17:27:00.000-04:00

Me and Gaia Girl took the Ghia down to valley on Sunday. The Ghia always arrives to waves and points. She (and me) love it! We picked up some incense at the Tibet store and poked a little. Just a little. Seeing that Labor Day weekend was in full swing Northampton was crowded with tourists and college kids. We had to flee. We had made up a picnic lunch with an iced tea for Gaia Girl and a pint of Guinness for me. We picked up a nice sandwich from Whole Foods and added it to the cran-raisin cookies that we picked up at the local farm stand.
We made our way over to the Peace Pagoda to have our lunch. The pond next to the Dry Garden is usually noisy with frogs as they jump for cover whenever anyone approaches. Seemed quiet today. As was much of our ride through the meandering hills and flats and curves that make up the Connecticut river valley. The river looked the color of a coffee milkshake after Hurricane Irene had her way throughout the North Country.
It was a nice day. A very nice day. A good day. A very good day.

Chickens...laying eggs

2011-09-05T18:04:00.000-04:00

The "Girls" have been exhibiting behaviors indicative of a fast approaching egg laying season. We knew that they would begin laying by early October so we were a little slow in building our nesting boxes.
When putting away stock at work I thought that these plastic storage containers would work fine. Drill a drainage hole for easy cleaning, mount and place a 2x4 along the inside bottom behind them; to give them a slight tilt inward. Cut the covers, build a bench to help them get into the nests and presto!
We had the incentive we needed when Annie found two eggs in the coop shavings and one broken out in the run. After the nesting boxes were complete Annie placed the fresh eggs into the boxes just to help promote the idea that this is where you lay eggs.
On another note.... Fort Seuss, as we like to call the coop that I made using scrap pallets, weathered Irene quite nicely. I do need to extend the roof though. Perhaps build a slant around all four side to allow for better protection allowing the rain to fall away from the coop.
The chickens are great fun and seem to like our company as well. Annie says that I shouldn't be fooled because we're nothing more than human Pez Dispensers to them. And that may be true - however who is really popping out treats? Eggs, eggs, and more eggs. Who is the dispenser now?

Writers Block - 100 Drafts

2011-09-04T22:25:00.000-04:00

It has come to my attention that in my five plus years of blogging and my more than 900 blog posts, there exists just shy of 100 drafts: unpublished and incomplete stories, thoughts and random musings. Here are but a few...........

I've come to believe that most people do the best that they can do. People are composed of emotion and reactions and are knocked about by what they are attracted to and what they want to avoid. It really is that simple.
Some people do seek to climb out of the world of Pavlov's dogs and Skinner's pigeons and look to attach themselves to some discipline, moral code, ideology. This however is still not the way. They identify themselves by the labels that they have attached themselves to. And...yes, I see it in every community. It isn't just the "Christians". I've seen people identify with labels such as, "bi-polar" "computer programmer" "republican".....Oh, these are just words we use to identify who we are to each other! ......Examine this....It is much more than that! 3/12/05

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. 6/17/05

'First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. 6/22/05

"The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or as a curse." --Don Juan 3/12/06

When I was in elementary school, I discovered that I could write to NASA and that they would send up to date pictures and press releases from the space program. Unlike those of my age that followed baseball, I followed the space program.
In 1986, when you would have thought that I may have out grown this phase of childhood, I watched with eager anticipation Christa McAuliffe train for the shuttle Challenger. I can clearly remember coming down the stairs at work in anticipation of an extended lunch hour with the Lady. I was going home for lunch today. On my descent down from he laboratory a coworker told me of the explosion. 6/13/06

When I was fourteen, my father's mother died in upstate Vermont. It was quite a trek back then driving old Interstate 5 into the land of milk and honey. It was a gaudy affair. It was a scramble trying to find a catholic church and a priest that would accept someone who divorced one man and then remarried another.
This was the one and only time that I met my father's extended family of great aunts and uncles. This was my first clash with impermanence. While visiting my father's aunt, I studied a very old family picture, taken on a farm, of my great aunt and her family. My eye was drawn to a most beautiful girl that stood in the front row. Her beauty blazed upon the mind and stayed with me. The now eighty plus woman pointed to herself in the picture. It was her. This stuck with me for days. As I stood looking at the picture, I couldn't help but experience an erection. The juxtaposition of seeing her then and seeing her now was an early awakening. 8/18/06

In thinking of all the Thanksgiving Holidays that I have lived through, (yes, there have been fifty-two of them) several things come to mind.
My father worked in the kitchen of the State Mental Hospital working every Thanksgiving day. He would arrive home about one hour before the family dinner was ready. By this time, he had seen close to two hundred turkeys and carving ours could be, at times, more tedious than he could bare. The State had containers of mixed nuts that were scooped into wax paper bags, folded, and then stapled shut with one staple. They were, by far, the best mixed nuts that I have ever enjoyed. Ever - to this day! My Mother would nag him accusing of stealing. He felt justified in taking a dozen or so bags every year. The kids glee at having these nus pleased him but my Mother eventually won out and the nuts came to an end.
I remember when Thanksgiving was a time when everything shut down. Few cars on the road. No stores opened their doors and I recall several major snowstorms with snow that fell feet deep.
As I grew to a teenager, it seemed a lonely, almost desolate time with all being so quiet. A local FM station began a tradition of running Alice's restaurant in it's entirety. It was a point of connectivity as I listened each year believing that perhaps peers known and unknown were also listening. The Beatles held the charts and folk seemed unfamiliar. But Arlo was clearly a hippie with an anti establishment message, making it a very popular listen. My cousin was in Vietnam. I loved Jimi Hendrix. The world seemed so big and in such turmoil.
When I arrived back home in my late teens and early twenties to once again celebrate Thanksgiving, I came home as a Christian, seeking the ministry, I gave the dinner prayer with earnest thanks. I got married, started a family, and the tradition of going home continued. With our growing families and the stress of going home each year intensified, we began to have Thanksgiving at home. 11/22/06

As an astute observer of This Being Human....I often find it difficult being in social and/or business situations. I have developed a combination of discernment and intuition that can at times, be both a blessing and a curse. Simular to reading minds I suppose, but not really, I sometimes have an X-ray like ability to see the defences, faces, images, and shows of bravado that people use to show others who they are. It is like watching characters in a play, when all the while you know all of the performers and can see them for what they really are; characters portrayed by real bu others exist underneath. 12/06/06

There are so many intelligent people out there. There are many people that make me laugh. There are those whose lives and experiences lend a sense of awe while some, respect and others feelings of love and of compassion. I appreciate this, however

"What I am most longing for and thirsting after is inspiration.
I've been searching for the word that best describes my longing, so I decided to take a closer look.
Inspiration
The act of inspiring or breathing in; breath; specif. (Physiol.), the drawing of air into the lungs, accomplished in mammals by elevation of the chest walls and flattening of the diaphragm; -- the opposite of expiration.

The act or power of exercising an elevating or stimulating influence upon the intellect or emotions; the result of such influence which quickens or stimulates; as, the inspiration of occasion, of art, etc.
A supernatural divine influence on the prophets, apostles, or sacred writers, by which they were qualified to communicate moral or religious truth with authority; a supernatural influence which qualifies men to receive and communicate divine truth; also, the truth

communicated. (wiktionary)
The roots of the word can be found in ancient Greek, early Christian Latin.
Ancient Greek = qeovpneustos
theopneustos
enthousiazein God Breathed
Early Latin = spirare ... common translations are;
Aspire - rough breathing

Conspire - breathing together
Expire- out breathe
Inspire- breathe in
Perspire- through breathing
Respire - again breathe
Spirit- to breathe
Transpire - across, beyond, through breathe 6/19/07

I have been unable to attend any car shows this year due to the Ghia's ill health. If I had the funds, her troubles would have been cleared up by now. I could have bought a new carb outright or I could have hired out some of the work to be done by an air-cooled VW professional.

This is true of our own health too. With the proper funds and/or insurance, we can address many health issues more aggressively and also take advantage of many preventative care programs.
As a former manager that had employees working under my supervision, I saw all too well the effects of ill health from marginal health care. For years, corporate headquarters kept us under their "self insured" plan. After years of advocating for a real health care plan, they allowed me to seek a broker to help us find an affordable plan for my Massachusetts employees as opposed to that which was being doled out to the corporate North Carolina employees.
One of my men was an inner city dude with a limited education. He was a hard worker that sought to earn a decent wage for a days work. He was, like me, an insulin dependent diabetic. Although he was eligible to have the company health plan paid for by the company for single employees, he opted for the services of the free clinic. He received his insulin and syringes free of charge. But there was no education to speak of regarding the importance of diet, exercise and of what foods had the quickest impact of your blood sugar levels. White bread and cheap soda was regularly consumed by him and he learned to compensate by adjusting his insulin levels according to what he was eating. Whereas I use 35 units twice a day, his use of insulin changed daily. Not a healthy choice. But that was all he knew and that was all that the free clinic had to offer. 8/22/07

At the young age of about seven I discovered that my Grandfather, was not in fact my father's "real" father. I learned that his mother had divorced her first husband and married the man that I had affectionately called my Pepe'. This trickle of information was the beginning of what I came to know about my family history. To this day there are so many pieces left unknown just waiting to be discovered.

I met my father's father only a few times. I discovered that he had been a drinker and very abusive. He suffered from severe depression. He had an older brother as my grandfather was the second born of of twins. The mother died giving birth. I also discovered that my given last name is not my name of birthright and neither was it his. The older twin boy was given over to one family; and he took their last name. The younger, my grandfather, was given to another. The last names of the two children being different from each other and different from that of their father. There was no legal adoption or name change. My last name begins there.
Doing a search through my daughter's college library database ancestry search, I did finally learn the names of my great-grandparents; and the name that I have longed to know. What was the mother's name? Her name was Sophia. His was Alexandro. At the time of the twins birth, the church records list them with their correct last name. 12/01/07

MIDDLE CHILD
Is "sandwiched" in. May feel squeezed out of a position of privilege and significance.
May be even-tempered, "take it or leave it" attitude. May have trouble finding a place or become a fighter of injustice. 3/10/08

Liberals all too often seem to be pointing out what is wrong with America while conservatives seem to spend a lot of time pointing out what is wrong with liberals. The conservatives will proclaim an all or nothing mentality, "America. Love it or leave it," while the liberals shake their heads in shame over the blind eyed loyalty of the conservatives.
The American spirit of democracy and liberty, of faith, hope and charity, are also the foundations of Freemasonry and are founded upon the self evident truth that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. But these rights are bound by license and not by an unbridled freedom for us to do as you will.
With Freedom comes responsibility.
As stated by James Madison, "As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed."And that they are!
At the heart of the American spirit and that of Freemasonry, the guiding rudder is and should be that of faith, hope and charity; with the greatest of these being charity. As a group of Americans, or as with the Fraternity of Freemasons, we believe that we can overcome all odds (faith), we believe that we will endure troubled times (hope) and we believe that it is our responsibility to aid and assist others. (charity)
Albert Pike stated, "What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal."
These ideals are not alone Christan, but are found at the base of many faiths; whether or not it is the guiding rudder or found deep within the hold, it doesn't cease to exist among those that come to know the true religion: that compassion is the mind of the universe.
But idealism shouldn't be clouded by naivety either. In my youth, as I sought to discover the truths and ministry of Christianity, I encountered falsehoods and many bold statements and proclamations of dedication to God and to the community of believers. I could not believe that someone could make such statements and professions (unless they were true) out of fear and embarrassment and the possible judgement of God or from those they proclaimed to serve. But alas, there are those seated on the right and those that are seated on the left and those seated within all of humanity that know only of self preservation at the exclusion of and concern for others. And there are those within the walls of Freemasonry that know only self promotion in true Machiavellian form and will never know the bonds of true brotherly love.
Where then, should our focus be? Although there will always be those that that think they know what your responsibility is better than you do, "Friendship (and brotherhood and patriotism) is always a sweet responsibility; never an opportunity."

Which brings me to this idea of a Free Election.
With all of the smart, well experienced, seasoned and wise Americans that live and breahe within America, the two party system spits out from every election year the same ol' thing. (Sorry Obama fans...he's a chip off the ol' block)
We are so inundated with political opinion that we cannot escape the cult of personality and all that money buys to elect the final candidate. 3/22/08

........................more to follow

I love my chickens

2011-09-04T17:51:00.001-04:00

Hurricane Irene

2011-08-28T14:48:00.000-04:00

Not much to report from the hills of Central Massachusetts. Although we were officially located on the right side of the now downgraded to a tropical storm Irene, the wind was rather minimal with only a few gusts of 40 mph accompanied by a boatload of rain. If you look close, you can see a faint orange line in the top right of the picture. That is a hose which is attached to a sump pump located somewhere in the black hole just below it.

We're used to the hype that goes on before any storm; major or minor. Like the boy who called, "wolf" many of us ignore any warning while a majority seem to flood the grocery stores like a famine is approaching. In December of 2008 we had an ice storm of gargantuan proportions and the memory of it weighs on some as the Great Depression did on a much earlier generation. Some residents were home bound and/or without power for a month.
Mother Nature can be such a cruel bitch. But we know that it's all projection, don't we?
The pump is pumping about seven gallons a minute so the lake will be drained by morning. The chickens are safely locked within Fort Seuss. When the waters clear they can again roam the run and perhaps the yard will offer up some new morsels for their inquisitive beaks and ever hungry stomachs. Tomorrow the sun is scheduled to shine and I'll be back out enjoying pumping my pedals, my lungs and heart.
I've made some New England baked beans. First of the season. And they do look ready....

The seven virtues of Bushido

2011-08-27T08:53:00.002-04:00

A great post was recently featured on Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen . He examines an idea proposed by Steven Batchelor that speaks of an existent need perhaps, for violence. I suggest that you read the article for yourself and draw your own conclusion.
My daughter is getting married next month and a month later her new husband will be deployed for the third time after having served in Iraq twice. He is now being sent to Afghanistan for a year.
For some, there exists a sense of duty and that is also true for him. And while I respect that, I can't help but have the feeling that while there is duty, there also exists sheep and pawns who are easily duped into a loyalty founded upon empty political and emotional charged rhetoric. (remember Freedom Fries?)
Our war on terror has drained the economy of both money and spirit. I trust very little in what may be guiding the American Government to do what they do. If there exists any principles at hand that seek to guide Washington, it is simply money and power. I am more inclined to listen to Major General Smedley Butler than to hold up as truth statements made during the yearly State of the Union address or the nightly news or via the President's weekly radio address.
I am convinced that there are times that exist in which we must defend ourselves. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and our fingers poking the pie in Libya? I think not.
I am convinced that not unlike the Samurai of Bushido or the Buddhist monks of Shaolin, there may exist a duty to protect and to defend our liberties; and to do it absent of malfeasance; But seldom is that the way of things. It is for me no wonder why there exists a high (record number of suicides and those taking anti-depressants) percentage of P.T.S.D attached to our returning vets.
I remember a story relayed by Joseph Campbell in his highly viewed interview conducted by Bill Moyers. Campbell told a story about a samurai warrior whose master was assassinated. It thus became the duty of the samurai to take the life of his master's killer and he plotted for that end. The day at last came when the samurai had his chance and as he raised his sword to take the head of his master's assassin, the man spit in the samurai's face. The samurai then sheathed his sword and walked away.
What reason could provoke the samurai's action?
That is my Koan for you...
While I seek to conclude my convoluted diatribe against our government and it's highly manipulated military my friend Doug just stopped in seeking a ride to the park where he now resides. Homeless, car recently repossessed, deemed by the V.A. as there is nothing left for them to do, he is in the last stages of disease rooted in his continuous exposure to Agent Orange when he served in Vietnam.
Don't get me started and what a ridiculously naive post overall! Virtue? Duty? War?
Virtue is not found in war but can be found in moments of war.
And as Teddy was quick to remind us, "The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first and love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life."
And as for war, what can be said that hasn't been said? The very word "war" is almost equal in status with the word, "candy bar." Unless you're the one digging in the dirt and trying to live, and kill, and live until you're able to return home; and unless you're being sent back for a third time.

Al Anon

2011-08-18T08:24:00.001-04:00

I attended my second Al Anon meeting last night.
You see, sometimes you reach a point where you may find it impossible to just "sit through" your experience and considering that my days of "sitting" are now almost nonexistent, Mindfulness Meditation is the absent tool in my bag. My frustration and anxiety, along with the feeling that "I need my day in court" so to speak, has left my body feeling tight, and my heart experiencing palpitations. Along with a deep feeling of loss and grief, feeling disconnected from my family and her....my soon to be ex-wife.
I felt the need to do something! I felt an overwhelming sense of disconnect. As most seasoned mediators will tell you, feelings of disconnection are uprooted and slowly replaced with an awareness that just the opposite may be true. We are all interconnected, one with the other. I needed to remind myself of that! Disconnect is a projection of mind. Connection is found via the peace of awareness.
Al Anon was recommended to me by my family physician, my acupuncturist and a few other supporters that I give ear to. Within the confines of my blog I began to lay out the events of last week that brought me to the point of making this decision. But I think not. Suffice it to say, I was brought to the full edge of feeling powerless, helpless as a naked baby laid out for the carrion's feeding. And my first response was to grab the sword and plunge forward.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

I went to my first meeting last Friday morning. Held in the basement of the Unitarian Church a small group began to assemble and we began. There was a reciting of the twelve steps of Al Anon, some opening business and then the group began with a topic; a suggested jumping off point through which we opened the floor to anyone who wished to share of their experience. It reminded me of the Quakers, wherein we sat as group, silent and humble, until someone was moved by the spirit to speak. And the process was repeated again last night only at the Congregational Church down the road. The Serenity Prayer shown above, is yet another view on the truth which we behold as self evident as we travel on the path to liberation, enlightenment or spirituality. It is but another finger that points the way. To use once again my favorite Alan Watts quote:

"The common error of ordinary religious practice

is to mistake the symbol for the reality,

to look at the finger pointing the way

and then to suck it for comfort

rather than follow it."

It is hard for me to envision a life wherein one is dependent on attending several meetings a week in order to find serenity, connection and liberation. In true Buddhist fashion, when you get to the other shore, you leave the canoe behind. You don't carry it with you everywhere you go. Once transported you leave the it behind. As with the finger pointing the way, one follows where it is pointing and does not suck it for comfort. And I'm afraid that programs such as Al Anon and AA may possess an inherent danger of forever finding dependence on meeting after meeting in lieu of finding transcendence.
Don't misunderstand what I am saying here. And please do not project an arrogance upon me. I know that AA and Al Anon have been instrumental in helping thousands gain healing and independence from the ravaging disease and pain of being under the thumb of alcohol and/or alcoholics. That is a glorious thing. And I am finding my attendance and participation with Al Anon healing. And I am thankful for that.

And I am also thankful that I will know when I have reached the other shore.

Layla

2011-08-14T00:54:00.001-04:00

A year ago today my old friend "chick" passed away at the ripe old age of seventy five. And it's not that I had a remorseful day or anything but I sure did act melancholy. I visited the family graves and lit some incense at each site. I said a prayer of sorts and I felt a tear or two. I guess this divorce shit has helped lead me to stray from being the guy who has it all together. Sheesh!
Later in the evening I went to movies with my eldest son. On my way home, after I had dropped him off, Layla played on the radio. The last few minutes of the song I finished sitting in my driveway with memories of laying in Mary's arms late at night as Layla faded in and out on the one tiny a.m. speaker. I must have been fifteen.
The years that have passed!
Nothing in life has gone off as planned but isn't that always the way? What is it that John Lennon said? "Life is what happens while you're busy making plans"? Well, I'm more than halfway between Layla and those cemetery plots that I visited today and nothing has gone as planned.
In regards to my divorce and all the ugliness and blame that has blown my way, I have said often that I feel more like an observer than a participant. Like a book that is being read, not written.
Or would that be written, not read?

Elvis has left the building..... Trying to escape the clutches of an abusive woman

2011-08-12T00:27:00.005-04:00

I sit here seething

with what feels

like a great weight upon my chest.

I find it hard to breathe.

It's a tale that cannot be told

within the confines

of some stupid little blog post.

My restraint is beginning to wane;

someone could get hurt.

I have suffered at the hands

of the poster child

for why you would

go to Al-Anon.

A no contact order:

it continues.

No trespass?

It continues.

Property destruction -

Once, twice, three times

the charm?

MY WIFE IN A NUTSHELL

***The End Result***

DARVO

rOMNEY FOR pRESIDENT!!!

2011-08-09T19:05:00.000-04:00

This is not a Romney endorsement. I've known better car salesmen than Mitt. While Romney states that Obama's leadership is built upon a "blame presidency" he continues to lay the blame for almost every problem in America at the feet of the current President. Then he continues with the sort of rhetoric that strongly concludes that he the kind of leader that would put America back to work. The sort of people that buy this message are the same kind of people who buy used cars with 95k at $17,000, while the salesman drives off in a new version of the same model and the dealer drives a Mercedes, Lincoln, Audi or Porsche. I don't begrudge them their nice shiny automobiles. Not at all. No one tells more falsehoods than a car salesman or the man running for President. I'm sure that there are exclusions to the rule. But Romney?
People feel safe in tiny little boxes of dogma. The more authoritative he sounds, a watchful eye will reveal that he is a master of the flip flop with a penchant for morphing into whatever is needed for that given moment.
Isn't that the definition for a politician? Which means of course that he stands a pretty good chance of getting elected.

Not about winning or losing

2011-08-08T21:09:00.001-04:00

I went to my local Air Cooled V.W. show on Saturday and I placed second in the Karmann Ghia class. Being that we are a rarity in New England, I've seen only six to ten Ghia together at one time and only when attending this show. This Saturday there were ten. Although the show presented more than over fifty beetles of every year and style style - custom - Baja - stock - the show had them all and they were sandwiched between the lowly represented Ghia on the one side and the Buses/Transporters on the other. I've taken two first place wins, one second and one third at this show. I also have several others that all fit nicely in my trunk set as wallpaper: decorations for showing. I have four others as well that stand tall in my dining/library room.
My car is a stock 1600 dual port with the original carb and dizzy combo. It has factory leather and air conditioning. The paint is worn and has several rather poorly done body patches.
But the car shows are about camaraderie, sharing a love for the V.W. and a love for the automobile. I have known what we refer to as"trophy whores" and "trailer queens" but the true love is to be found in self made restoration on the one side and true patina on the other.

Gun at the ready

2011-08-04T16:42:00.000-04:00

Many of my Buddhist friends do not eat meat. They will avoid the killing of a fly or any household pest. And that is fine. That is where their path has led them. I begrudge them not.
Now I certainly don't receive any amount of pleasure in dressing a meat bird for the freezer. It is done in reverence and with the satisfaction of knowing that I have fulfilled an age old path of raising what is eaten. It is not taken for granted. It produces the same sense of thanksgiving as with the eating of a fresh picked tomato or the preparing of fresh corn or broccoli. It just happens to be slow grilled with Jerk seasoning liberally applied.
But the gun is at the ready - and I will kill. A rat that is. A rat has taken up residence under my pallet coop. He has a front entrance and a back one. When the girls are perched on the opposite side the coop he will let himself in and eat their feed, drink their water and for desert dig through the compost bin. Before you know it, word of these luxurious accommodations will spread - as will the rat population.
I tried a trap which he readily out witted. I tried to rig the trap in a fool proof way using the top from off of a beautiful red pepper. It would require a nice tug in order to get this tender and sweet morsel. And then, "SNAP", I would finally have him. What I am remorseful of is that the trap did work - and it worked well. The down side is that it got a rather young skunk. The look on the skunk's face is forever etched upon my mind's eye. That sort of look that a guy would have seconds before a bus smashed him flatter than a pancake. I buried the skunk, trap and all.

I have the gun pumped and loaded and I am at the ready. It has been a very long time since I walked about with a gun in my hands and I take it with me into the yard. I catch the movement of every little twig, leave, squirrel and chipmunk. When I get my chance, and oh, I will get my chance, the rat will be sent off to rat heaven with a pellet along side the grain in his belly.
Of course, there's always Decon, But that seems much too cruel.

How to write a book

2011-07-31T20:36:00.001-04:00

Poor back up policies - note to self;

The next time you spend countless hours writing and researching a book idea,

back it up on a good CD

double check that it's right.

Do it twice and put one copy

in a safe place.

Writing is very cathartic for me and for millions of other aspiring writers as well. Some stories churn in your gut like a bad piece of meat. You can hear it gurgling and twisting its way through your bowels and you just have to get it out. My last book attempt had me writing in my sleep. I don't know if I coined the phrase or not, but I was sure living it as I came to a point of, "going Hemingway". Late nights, drinking hard, the story taking over my every waking moment. It was a pleasurable hell. And then I had to put it down for a spell. And when I took it back up, I found that I had lost most of the book and the task of starting over seemed daunting and perhaps a waste of time.

However I still feel the need to write above and beyond my "more often than not" unedited blog. Perhaps something that you would want to read. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Yet recent advisories have suggested that I get into something a little more on the light side. Something funny or interesting (?) and to shy away from my usual deep, spiral laden and morbid tales.

A few excerpts: Does one story tidbit shine above the rest or do they all just (a-hem!) just suck....???

From - Caleb Green

As my only source of warmth, I rode my steed through a night of blinding snow and blistering cold. We traveled as ordered in single file, each hoping that the one before us did not lose the trail. As the sun rose, the wind and snow bowed in obeisance and bothered us no more. Our approach did not silent the winter's Jay and I took comfort in the new day.

We rode over the crest of sparse wood revealing tall pines stabbing at the sky. The sound of anxious riders sounded with coughing and snorts. I stood in the stirrups to lengthen my spine as the Captain signaled us to form ranks. Seven men and horses wide and ten deep, we took to the hill top.

Captain Josephus Moore liked to quote from books and poems and authors known and unknown to spur us on.

"Now this is the Law of the Jungle

as old and as true as the sky;

And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,

but the Wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk

the Law runneth forward and back

For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,

and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."

No one was sure what and the hell he was saying. I didn't try to figure it out. I just liked the way it rolled off his tongue with such authority and prose. He always seemed satisfied that his recital fulfilled its task. In some strange way, I had to agree.

"Upon these kinsfolk meeting for battle, my limbs go weak and my face withers. Trembling comes upon my body, and my hair stands upright, my bow falls from my hand, and my skin burns. I cannot stand upright; my mind is whirling. I see evil. I see no blessing from slaying kinsfolk in battle."

"Know who said that?" said the Captain one night around a low fire "A king who lived hundreds of years before Jesus. War is always with us and our responsibility as soldiers will never change!"

We looked down the hill with our kinfolk lying but five hundred feet below us. The Captain readied us with his glare. In a brief moment we would be a parcel of hooves and shot delivered to their front door.

There were two things that took my notice and will forever be branded upon my memory and will alight my mind's eye. A large Raven stood not seven paces away upon a lone stone outcrop of ragged boulders. As my head turned his way, my eyes became fixed upon a blue cloud that wormed it's way through the branches of a ragged evergreen. It was the report that followed that awakened me and we looked to Captain Moore for the order to charge.

Captain Josephus Moore sprayed the snow white hillside with a deep contrast of red. If he intended to give the order it had morphed to a cough of propelling proportions, as if a deep clearing of his throat would allow him to do so.

The pack was no more as the Captain fell unnaturally backwards and his horse broke back for safety. A barrage followed and the warmth that coated my neck revealed a loss of my right ear. I did not feel anger nor did I feel fear. My duty was duty. As the Captain had said, "Ours is not the reason why, ours is but to do or die."

I drew my broadsword and made contact with an enemy officer cutting a new smile only inches below the old one. My pistol stopped an approach on my left while my right heel was as effective on my right. Moving on instinct, I began to daydream and disassociated my thought from my actions. Enveloped in smoke with a palatable taste of metallic, I leaped from my horse. Broadsword met broadsword. I countered with a sweeping undercut and followed with my right leg acting as a scythe reaping a late summer hay...........and like a flash in the pan the battle ended and we tended the wounded and buried our dead.

I smoked a pipe of a fine cut tobacco and sipped from a jug of good whiskey. The leaves turned themselves in anticipation of a mid day rain.

I felt neither good nor bad. I watched the day unfold and thought of Captain Josephus Moore.

From The Parade

The long anticipated fourth of July had finally arrived. While most of the kids in our small town wore Keds, Nick had Thom McCann's handed down to him by his father. Slightly larger than his feet, he ran slower than everyone else. There was that time that Mr. Fortier chased us for climbing his apple tree and Nick lost one of his shoes during the chase. He didn't dare come home with only one shoe because his mother would endlessly shame him and his father would kick his ass. Like an action packed James Bond thriller Nick made a miraculous dive to retrieve the lost Thom McCann. Mr. Fortier had Nick in his grasp! And yet, somehow, Nick dove and slipped away like the proverbial greased pig later catching up with us at the Catholic Church woods. This heroic effort earned him the nickname Thom McCann, a name that still sticks with him today.

But it is Bucky Addams that stands forefront in my memory. His family moved into town long after the rest of us and he had the unenviable task of trying to make new friends in a new town. With jet black hair, a small framed body and a slight French Canadian accent, he made up with mouth what he lacked in size. A few years older than us, he spoke with the voice of experience about girls, beer and fighting. After all, his father had "the gloves" having once won the Golden Glove boxing title as a lightweight sometime during the fifties.

Bucky didn't come with Keds or Thom Mccanns. He came with a pair of boots. No shit. A pair of boots!

The second child from a family of four and the only boy, he found himself under the thumb of a very loud and large mother. To memory, I can hardly recall hearing his father say more than ten words. So much for "the gloves." His mother could often be heard to command the girls to rub her feet and make her a highball. Especially on Saturday nights when Lawrence Welk was on the television. Dad sat silent as Mom ruled the home as she saw fit. Bucky stood his tallest when out of the house and away from his mother. But insult his mother. And to his face. A sure way to start a fight. I've never seen anyone get so off the cuff when it come to protecting a mother's holy name. Never much understood it. Maybe it was a catholic thing like the whole Hail Mary, full of grace stuff.

Oh, but the boots.

Evey kid gets up and runs out of the house as they slip on their sneakers (except for Thom McCann) to play ball, or play Army or just to hang out on the wall in front of Amy's house. We all ran the neighborhood over until the sound of the noontime whistle when you would run home for lunch. After lunch you repeated the same process until supper arrived. After that, the call home at night was the streetlights going on. If you noticed them that is...

Well anyway, Bucky it seemed, would never join us without one of us going to his door and to invite him out. We would have to go through the process of getting by his mother and we then wait for Bucky to perform his morning ritual of putting on the boots. He would retrieve them from a box that was tucked into a small utility closet. They had a coat and shoe closet mind you, but Bucky had this special place where he would box and place his boots away each night only to retrieve them from his safe spot again the next morning. The boots come a full five fingers above his ankle. Not really black or brown, they had the look of old but well maintained leather. Bucky would reverently take them out of the shoebox, wipe away any dirt present or not, and then he would line them up before the stoop leading out into the sun porch. He would slip in a foot and pull at the laces from the the toe to the ankle until they were perfectly aligned. Then he would cross the laces through the open clasps up to the top of his boot. An adjustment here, a wiggle there, and he would at long last tie a perfect knot pulling his pant down over his fine work of art that he so studiously perfected.

In hindsight, I envied those boots a little. They never came off no matter what trouble we found ourselves involved in. His feet never got wet. Even when we walked through the drainage pipe that ran from the pond and under the road down to the river. He did stand taller than us and he sure seemed sure footed.

Bucky taught us how to pick out who was and who wasn't a virgin amongst the girls. He was the first person I ever knew who was legitimately addicted to smoking cigarettes. He was the first one to get a driver's license. Soon after that the old gang was lost in his dust. We didn't see much of one another after that. Occasionally we would hang out but this was the time of emerging personalities. Some gravitated towards being jocks, some to being rebels and long hairs and freaks while some sought to retain the look and appeal of the old motor heads. Everyone seeking to find his own way in the quickly changing world of the late sixties. I last saw Bucky when he came by to tell me that he joined the Army. He was home on leave. He no longer spoke with a French Canadian accent. In fact, to memory, he sound like a boy from Tennessee or the Carolina's.

It was the summer of 1969. I was fifteen. Hair to my shoulders. I do believe that I invented the mullet. I wasn't sure where Bucky's original boots got off to or to their origin for that matter. Sometimes I think that they were what his father wore in the ring. Perhaps they were just a pair of boots that had no meaning at all. But I readily admit that I found it deeply unnerving, or perhaps poetic, or maybe just plain spooky to see those boots placed upon his casket among the flowers. He died far from home and came home to rejoin his boots in a grave not far from where my father was buried. I always think of those boots lying beside his body when I visit go to visit my family plot. I know that they're better preserved than his body is and the thought seems so weird. Almost mocking and intrusive.
Oh. I was saying that it was the long anticipated fourth of July before I went off on the whole shoe thing. Happens a lot when I'm trying to tell a story. Mind races off in all directions. I was going to tell you about our band, the fireman's fair when my mind just ran to Bucky's boots and Tom Mccann.

I began to tell you about the fourth of July when the "all volunteer" Fire Department would set up a row of games, hire a small carnival of rides, and set off a fireworks display. There was food, a sound stage and various vendors and hawkers. Since this was the biggest thing going all year, everyone would come to play, eat, have fun, and raise money to support the fire department. It was cool when that kid from Columbus Ave got a dart stuck in the side of his nose. But that's another story.

What I wanted to tell you about was our garage band. "Ten Cent Nickel Bag". I owned a Jazz Master Fender, Al had a Silvertone that could play a good rhythm and bass. Bucky played the drums. As I remember, Bucky wanted to play the fireman's sound stage. "Great way to get to get laid," he would say. This idea scared the crap out of me. Playing before a crowd and getting laid. But Bucky was determined and he kept after us day and night until the Fourth came out of the calender and just stood there. We were going to play.

We played one song that I wrote called, "She's the one." If I were to liken it to any song in memory, it sounded like the "Stray cat strut." Maybe Brian Setzer heard it and ripped us, I don't know. But I did the song first! We did a spazzed out Inagaddadavida. sans keyboards, of course. We did a "Sunshine of your love." and some fun nonsensical Jamming and that was it. Bucky thought that was all we needed.

In hindsight its funny to think that all we had for amps was a 50 watt Silvertone amp and some 40 watt something or other amp. At least the Silvertone amp had some cool re-verb. I had a wah-wah pedal but was too confused and without talent enough to use it properly. If not for the cheap sunglasses, I would have fainted. In my mind no one really noticed us but that did not stop Bucky from telling every other girl that we were "in a band" like Jimi's. When we sang "Fire" instead of saying "Move over rover and let Jimi take over," we sang, "let Timi take over."

Oh brother!

We were forced into playing. As soon as Bucky began his drum rolls and the cymbal banging, we had to do something. It was an awful rendition of the Iron Butterfly song; without the drum solo. It seemed that we kept playing and playing it because we were too scared to stop. Then we went on to massacre Cream. Then we went on to my song. Ugh! But then we went on to jam. Just plain screwing around. When we began to have fun, and forget ourselves, we sounded pretty good. My body loosened and I actually began to move like a rocker. Al blazed some bass/chords while Bucky slapped those toms and snare like a slinky descended the stairs. We drew quite a crowd! Like speaking in tongues, we started as a babble and by the end we started to make sense. Satisfied, we packed up and joined the crowd for the evening.

It did seem to help us with the girls. They were friendly. Some guys would joke about knowing us before we were famous. Bucky disappeared into the night and we all went our separate ways. As the fair began to wind down, Bucky's father came to pick up our stuff in his car. Bucky wasn't around, so Al and me decided to cross the river and cut up through the woods to go home. We sat on my front stoop recounting the days' events when at long last Bucky arrived to join us.

"Smell my hand," he demanded, pushing his fingers into our faces. "Smell my hand!"

"What's that," we demanded, not really smelling anything.

"Smell my hands. They smell like cunt! Smell!"

That was Bucky. Bucky, all the way.

Chapter six-The passions of Mr Bostwick

The two men stood over a corpse that looked hastily thrown upon the top of an old meat cutter’s table. With bare hands and garden tools, the two skillfully pulled the dead man’s innards out onto the floor, while a pig calmly grazed through the dead man’s remains. Mr Bostwick did not look so gentlemanly now. Not as he did on his trips back to England. His eyes were glazed and his arms and torso were covered in blood. His long fingers seemed destined for a surgeon’s calling. His usual neat and trimmed mustache drooped in the heat and sweat and his nose flared from the stench. It appeared that he enjoyed his occupation immensely.

The victory of Britain over China, in the war of opium and trade agreements, opened four more ports in the turbulent year of 1842. Regardless of the English victory, opium was still considered banned by the Manchu Government. Smuggling opium into the heart of China could be a torturous event, and being caught was avoided at all costs.

“What better way could there be to transport opium into the interior? “Just carve out an occasional coolie and stuff him like a holiday goose!” Bostwick would joke in appropriate company. “This one is ready for stitching. Wash and dress him and we’ll get him ready for his trip home,” snorted Bostwick. Tell Chou X’ing we have three going up river today.”

The unrest caused by the “Sabbath Keepers” justified this brutal guise in the mind of Bostwick. Since their rise from obscurity in 1847, the trip up the Yangtze river required out foxing the keepers in an all out effort to avoid risking death either by a brutal flogging or beheading. By the month of May in the year of 1853, Bostwick could only safely deliver as far as Nanjing, where his opium stuffed corpses were delivered to their “grieving families” waiting to be processed for distribution. By this point in time, Bostwick dared not risk going up river himself and had to trust that his assistants were acting trustworthy. In all truth, Bostwick sacrificed the least, risked the least, and profited the most. He felt damned proud for having arranged it so.

“What are you going to do with the boy?” inquired his cadaver slicing assistant. “He is too sick to be of any use.”

“I will get my use out of Master Isaac. I will get my use,” Bostwick murmured. “I can’t do anything until Chou X’ing returns, so it’s holiday until his return, huh?” he said more to himself than to his assistant. “Clean up and double lock these doors. I will contact you when I need you. And make damned sure you don’t leave this bloody swine in here. Christ, mate! Bring him over to Chou X’ing’s wife and give it to her as a gift from me. She’ll eat every last knuckle, I’d imagine. Nothing I want to see, he laughed. Nothing I want to see!”

********

Mr. Bostwick unlocked a small drawer beneath the wine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of a creamy, white substance and poured some into a glass of wine. He swirled the glass until it was fully dissolved and poured a little more than one half into another glass and topped it off with more wine. He then poured a little more of the raw opium into the opened bottle of wine and replaced the cork. He gently swirled and poured himself a glass and quickly drank it.

Isaac Stearns had recently learned through one of the Chinese housekeepers that he was in the port of Shanghai. This young housekeeper spoke broken English but Isaac suspected that she could speak more English than she let on and he made a game of trying to trick her. Since the dismissal of the old Chinese woman who had been responsible for Isaac’s daily care, Mr. Bostwick had been true to his word and took good care of Isaac. He brought him fresh clothes and food each day, and prayed for his recovery. After a night of sweats and fever, Mr Bostwick would lovingly wash him and give him words of encouragement. Isaac was began to believe that he would eventually get well and began to stop resisting his illness and adjusted to letting it take its course. Each afternoon, Isaac would take comfort in the library and made a commitment that he would read every book that it contained. The afternoons were pleasant as Mr Bostwick had presented tea each day and further presented himself as being very nurturing.

“Master Isaac,” Mr Bostwick soothingly stated, “I have a little treat for us today.” He had with him a tray with two glasses of wine already poured, and an important looking bottle of wine beside them. “Isaac, let us have a little wine and enjoy our solitude, huh?” and passed a glass to Isaac. Mr Bostwick appeared calm and serene with a slight smile of pleasure upon his face. It made Isaac feel relaxed and hopeful that he would soon recover and repay Mr Bostwick for his kindness. Although never particularly religious, Isaac found a renewed faith due to Mr Bostwick’s prayers.

“Why, thank you, sir,” Isaac stated with great appreciation, and sat up straight in his over-sized chair.

“Isaac,” Bostwick sighed, “Feel free to call me Richard. I want us to become quite familiar. We are in one another's good company until you are well! We might as well realize that we’re the only God fearing Englishmen for miles. We only have each other to rely on, don’t you think?”

“Richard it is!” Isaac voiced with exuberance as he drank a fully enjoyable honey sweet wine.

In a short time, Isaac realized that he could hardly feel his body. Yet, he could feel it, and the feeling disturbed him not. There was no alarm, for he felt as comfortable as a baby in it’s mother’s womb. He didn’t refuse as Bostwick refilled his glass. Isaac leaned back and smiled. There was little conversation. With Bostwick, it was typical to show his care and attention through deeds and not by words. Isaac would often think that “Richard” was so “Christ-like”.

“Drink up, Isaac. We’re on holiday,” Richard said soothingly.

Isaac slowly drank his wine and realized that he had never felt better. He tried to stand just out of curiosity. He could think “stand” more than actually achieve standing, and he didn’t care. He relaxed every muscle as Richard stood and began to rub his hands through his hair. He felt like a balloon as Richard carried him to the large red-fringed day bed. Richard loved him so, he thought. He relaxed into Richard’s touch and soon found his clothes being removed with an already unclothed Mr Bostwick laying beside him. It felt wrong to refuse him and Isaac decided to relax with the wine’s effects rather insult his gracious host. Richard kissed, groped, and grunted like a man possessed. As Richard’s sense of frenzy increased, he rolled Isaac onto his stomach and with a painful thrust he found his mark.

In the morning, Isaac awoke in his room and struggled to shake off his slumber. His head felt both heavy and light. As he moved to stand, he felt pain from his back sides and noticed some blood and feces on the sheets. After a quick knock, his door opened and Richard stood with a basin of wash water with linens draped over his left arm. In his usual non-conversing way, he began to wash Isaac from head to toe, front and back, and toweled him dry. Isaac feared reaction as Richard delicately cleaned his private areas, particularly the source of the bloody sheets.

“Lord God Almighty. Bless your humble servant Isaac with health so that he may, in his strength, walk the hills and valleys of the yellow heathen, and spread your holy word. May his health come swiftly so that he may glorify your name. We ask this, in the name of our blessed savior, Jesus Christ. Amen!”

Isaac did not feel like returning to the library for his afternoon of reading. The look upon his face revealed contorted emotions and he tried to find his place in this unusual predicament. He recalled how some of the older boys at Coll’s school would wrestle together under the bed sheets late into night. He did not solicit this, did he? Is he the male mistress of Richard Bostwick? To rid his head of these disturbing thoughts, he decided to explore the rest of the lower level. He felt better now than he had in recent weeks. Other than the courtyard that overlooked the garden growing within and without the walls, he had not once strayed outside. He had confined himself to the inner courtyard where the lack of a roof allowed the rooms of the house to be warmed by the sun. He would only go to the small room off the courtyard declared as the library. He would spend time in his room. He never felt the need or felt well enough to explore anything further. Until today. He tried to open the many doorways into several of the rooms of the house but found all of the double latticed doors locked. One room gave off an unusually sweet yet pungent smell and Isaac felt his curiosity piqued. It was at the back of the house. The house contained many rooms, some upstairs, some on the lower level. Isaac retreated to the pantry and found a suitable knife and ambitiously returned to his point of focus hoping to force the door open.

“You no go there,” the housekeeper interrupted. Isaac ignored her and continued to jiggle the knife between the door and doorway. “No. You stay out!” she persevered. “Master man no like!”

“I no speak English,” Isaac teased. “I no speak chop-chop!”

The housekeeper inserted herself between Isaac and the door quite effectively. She was no more than five foot three inches tall yet there was nothing frail about her. In her peasant clothing you could see the outline of a very attractive feminine body that on most days Isaac could easily ignore. Her face was perfectly round with eyes that looked determined to stop Isaac from going through that door no matter how high the cost. She looked oriental, but not Chinese.

“You tell me why I shouldn’t and perhaps I’ll listen. Perhaps, I won’t, he giggled." Her skin was as soft looking as anything he had ever seen. Clear, clean, without a hint of powder used by the girls back home. Naturally beautiful. He pressed his lips against her soft cheek and surprisingly she did not flinch.

“You go! You go!” she insisted.

Isaac smiled and peered into her eyes. She was very attractive. He had not fully realized this before now. He slowly leaned in and kissed her mouth. She grabbed him by the hand and led him through the inner courtyard to a door placed below a step recessed into the wall. She led him through a short closed alley and up a stairway that opened to the roof. The roof area was a leaning walkway. This was where the upper hall and lower hall of the house were joined. The roof overlooked a splendid view of many homes and buildings leading out towards a river, or perhaps the sea, filled with what looked like thousands of boats large and small sitting almost a mile away. She turned Isaac towards her and began to kiss him feverishly. Isaac placed his arms around her and rubbed her shoulders and back. She pressed herself tightly against him while Isaac could not resist touching her breasts as they pressed out from her heavily padded peasant’s smock. As his breath became heavy with the lust of the moment, she broke off.

“If you ever try and go through that door again, you will not have love with me. Understand?”

“I thought you couldn’t speak English,” he asked, amazed at the entire event.

With a giggle that sent chills of pleasure down his spine, she proceeded back down the stairway to the main house leaving him breathless. Isaac regained himself and began to take in the view. Although it seemed to be at least a mile from a very busy waterway he saw that the house where he now resided was enveloped in a crowd of homes and businesses that led to what appeared to be a very modern area of commerce at the water’s e. The weather in May was very comfortable and even at this late hour activity everywhere was very apparent to him. He was startled by the contradiction of Bostwick’s words as he saw many non-Chinese and English men walking the narrow streets nearby. Looking off towards the southern point of the roof he could see what looked to be a medieval walled city. Satiated with the pleasure of fresh air and sunshine and a kiss and a promise, Isaac laid down on the roof to bathe in the day’s last rays of sun.

Isaac slept.

Well, anyhow.....

2011-07-29T20:25:00.000-04:00

The hens, or as we affectionately like to call them, "the ladies" are months away from any egg laying. Nor has the brood developed their grown up voices. They exhibit a collection of squawks, squeaks and clucks. And although they do all share the same living space they do not all share the same personality. Each hen is different from the other and I am beginning to form my favorites. Gaia Girl has names for them all. I only know them as this one or that one. The runt, little Andy, the bigger one, the lighter one. Gee, I can barely tell Gaia Girl's two cats apart. Reminds me of the twin boys that used to live down the street. Together Rob and Curt was Rob and Curt. Apart, I never got it right. I felt like I was shouting, "tails" while it always come up "heads".
Whoops!
But she loves me anyway. And I am heads over heels for her too.
The garden is growing as well. That's what they do! It's whats growing in there that has me puzzled. I always grew red tomatoes, green peppers and green beans. Gaia Girl has us growing Green Zebra Stripe and Black Prince tomatoes. (huh?) We're growing Carmen and Chocolate peppers. Purple potatoes and Thai Eggplant. The list goes on.
Now, I am not complaining. Far from it. I've never been happier. You could not buy this level of entertainment.....and love....and happiness.
I Love You, Ann!
I will be taking the "Little Hottie" to the all air cooled show next week. My 1973 dual port - all stock Karmann Ghia has in recent years seen two first place finishes, one second and one third. I am hungry for another first. And I will be accompanied by my estranged brother of recent. It is good. Meanwhile, (don't you love those meanwhiles?) Gaia Girl will be attending the Daughters of the Earth on the same week end. My only request was that she not come back as a lesbian. Not that there is anything wrong with that but it would kind of screw with (no pun intended) my plans.
We recently put up a clothesline and Gaia couldn't be any more ecstatic. Her joy warms me like an autumn fire. The smell, the crackle, the warmth. Comforting. Not too hot. Full of possibilities.
The night has ushered in a light rain. It's warm. I think that I'll go put up feet and smoke my pipe on the porch.

We find diamonds in coal -

we find the most precious thing in the darkness -

a very black, sooty place

-rubin naiman-

A Path with heart. A path of intention.

2011-07-29T08:19:00.000-04:00

I sat down at my local sportsman's club the other night and found myself sharing a conversation with the mother of a friend. She is in the position of being a full time caregiver to her failing mother while her son at age 40, continues to behave much like a teenager while living under her roof. Meanwhile her siblings offer little support. She was feeling worn out as many caregiver's do and needed to unload. By my line of questioning and my unstated offer of a listening ear she had a lot on her plate that she readily shared.
At one point she stopped to ask me who I was and what I did for a living. I offered her a different perspective on the role of her mother, her son, her siblings and how it all related to her and she to them. With a clear view you understand your strengths and your weaknesses and wherein lies the balance and responsibility of all parties concerned. Ultimately you know when to hold them and when to fold them - you become less identified with your role and more aware of walking with the moment and find ways to make positive changes in lieu of being a hostage to a tough situation.
In return, she strongly encouraged me to follow my calling; whether it be as a counselor or chaplain - an idea that I easily dismissed. But the point is this:
It is easy to give counsel to another and difficult to take your own counsel. Physician, heal thyself?
...But tonight I did. If you remember this blogger post from several weeks ago, I spoke about the path of courage and of responsibility. We can stop in any given moment, day by day and say, "Okay. Now what"? In stead of wallowing in regret with what only exists in the past and being stuck in a dis-associative state of escapism over how things seem today and gasping onto a passing branch of hope for a better future, we have this:

Mind creates the world;
what you see arises with your thoughts.
If you speak and act with a confused mind,
trouble will follow you as certainly
as a cart follows the ox that pulls it.

Mind creates the world;
what you see arises with your thoughts.
If you speak and act with a clear mind,
happiness will follow you as certainly
as your own shadow in sunlight.

-Buddha's Dhammapada-

I took my bicycle out for a therapeutic lung pumping/leg pumping seven mile spin. My heart and mind was filled with angst and loneliness. The wife of over thirty years is gone. My kids have shot off into the stratosphere of who knows where. Everything has changed beyond belief. The details are not worth the telling of this oft told story. Divorce is painful.
"Okay, now what"?
Take the path of heart; of responsibility. I pedaled and pedaled and noticed my breath pump in unison with my legs, the pedals, the wheels, the trail, the trees and the occasional passersby. I realized the simplicity of what I already knew and I took my own counsel.
Now what?

Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are

2011-07-21T16:44:00.001-04:00

I'm reading a very interesting and informative book that my acupuncturist thought I should borrow. Byron Katie is best know for "The Work" a series of steps and questioning used to confront the stories that we tell and define ourselves by. This particular book uses the backdrop of the Tao Te Ching. While offering insight on "The Work", we learn to question the stories we tell ourselves that lead us away from a state of mindfulness and to that of following that untamed elephant that we call our mind.
An example of how "The Work" would have me tackle my story head on might unfold as something like this:

The Judge your Neighbor Worksheet

1) Who angers, confuses, saddens, or disappoints you, and why? What is it about them that you don't like?
I am so pissed off at my ex and how she has managed to play the victim through our ongoing divorce process. She's stubborn, manipulative and hard. She is unwilling and unable to take any responsibility for what she has done, for what she has destroyed and for what she has lost.
2) How do you want them to change? What do you want them to do?
I want her to realize that she has done this. That she has been abusive, unreasonable and unfair. That she has been so unreasonable and choking in her demands, wishes and needs, that she was killing me!
3) What is it that she should or should not do, be, think, or feel? What advice could you offer?
She should release her anger. She should stop drinking. She should realize that honey always works better than demands.
4) Do you need anything from them? What do they need to do in order for you to be happy?
I want a real apology. From the heart. I want her to be happy and healthy and whole. Only she can do that for herself. It is not my responsibility. I need her to realize that.
5) What do you think of them? Make a list.
She manipulates everything and everyone around her in an effort to feel safe. She is a high conflict-no resolution type of person. No one close to her can ever win or compromise in a disagreement with her. It is her view. Her opinion. Her needs.
6) What is it that you don't want to experience with that person again?
I don't ever want to engage in another drawn out - pretzel logic, high conflict-no resolution discussion, argument or conversation with her again.

Inquiry: The Four Questions and Turn Around

1) Is it true?
2) Can you absolutly know it's true?
3) How do you react when you believe that thought?
4) Who would you be without the thought?
and - Turn It Around.................... So I guess that it would go something like this:

1)Yes, it is true. I firmly believe that she is suffering from a personality disorder. There exists a long list of people that she has alienated and exhausted throughout her life. It just took over thirty years for me to get there.
2) It is. It truly is. The evidence is in. It is not in me to review this again right here and right now.
3) I am sad. Sometimes angry. But perhaps I should be content in knowing that I hung in there the longest. I did my best.
4) I would feel free from regret and I could move on with my life.

Turn It Around

To do the turn around - rewrite your statement. Write it as though it was being written about you............

I am so pissed off and play the victim through the ongoing divorce process. I'm stubborn, manipulative and hard. I am unwilling and unable to take any responsibility for what I have done, for what I have destroyed and for what I have lost. I want me to realize that I have done this. I have been abusive, unreasonable and unfair. I have been so unreasonable and choking in my demands, wishes and needs, that I was killing me! I should release my anger and stop drinking. I should realize that honey always works better than demands. I need make a real apology. From the heart. I want me to be happy and healthy and whole. Only I can do that for myself. It is not her responsibility. I need to realize that.

I manipulate everything and everyone around me in an effort to feel safe. I am a high conflict-no resolution type of person. No one close to me can ever win or compromise in a disagreement with me. It is my view. My opinion. My needs. I don't ever want to engage in another drawn out - pretzel logic, high conflict-no resolution discussion, argument or conversation with me again.

Now, I'm not dismissing "The Work" in any way. However methinks that I'm missing something here. I'm reminded of the guy who mistakenly read an in depth analysis of his birth sign all the while nodding his head in agreement over this and that only to discover that he read that of Scorpio and not Libra, Leo, or whatever. Of course I can see myself in portions of "Turn It Around".
It is so easy to project one's thoughts into anything. Like pissing off a bridge; you're bound to hit something!

I think I'll just go meditate.

On a lighter note........

2011-07-19T22:55:00.000-04:00

I have always enjoyed riding a bicycle. My friend and I were discussing recently that we never saw our parents ride a bicycle. It was a vehicle designed for children or men in parades or professional racers and entertainers. We were glad of heart on a recent run where we saw many people who were well past retirement age. I swear that I saw a few guys who were over the age of seventy five!
It would seem that injury and fear of pain kept me off my two wheeled enjoyment for more years than I should count. Last year I threw caution to the wind and began to push my limit to the limit. It was painful and lung breaking. There were times that I thought that I could not endure. But a pending divorce has it's gifts. A devil may care attitude spattered with specks of wisdom had me push on: never too much - never too lenient.
By summer's end I was at the top end of what I like to call my "fighting weight". Not the result of some unhealthy body image, the result of knowing what is healthy for me. I was riding the challenge hills. I began to have a fairly good range of motion. I glided into the winter season fully expecting to ride all winter indoors. It did not happen. I gained my winter weight. My muscles tightened like a wrung out dish rag.
I'm happy to say that today I made it up "my wimpy hill" for the second day in a row. I'm sure that you would have no problem with it but that is you. I cannot afford the distraction of looking either to the right or to the left making comparisons. This is my hill. My struggle. My challenge.
Go you! Go me!

Hexagram - Exhaustion to Joy -

2011-07-19T19:29:00.003-04:00

The Hexagram

K'un / Oppression (Exhaustion)
above TUI THE JOYOUS, LAKE
below K'AN THE ABYSMAL, WATER

The lake is above, water below; the lake is empty, dried up. Exhaustion is expressed in yet another way: at the top, a dark line is holding down two light lines; below, a light line is hemmed in between two dark ones. The upper trigram belongs to the principle of darkness, the lower to the principle of light. Thus everywhere superior men are oppressed and held in restraint by inferior men.

The Judgment

OPPRESSION. Success. Perseverance.
The great man brings about good fortune.
No blame.
When one has something to say,
It is not believed.

Times of adversity are the reverse of times of success, but they can lead to success if they befall the right man. When a strong man meets with adversity, he remains cheerful despite all danger, and this cheerfulness is the source of later successes; it is that stability which is stronger than fate. He who lets his spirit be broken by exhaustion certainly has no success. But if adversity only bends a man, it creates in him a power to react that is bound in time to manifest itself. No inferior man is capable of this. Only the great man brings about good fortune and remains blameless. It is true that for the time being outward influence is denied him, because his words have no effect. Therefore in times of adversity it is important to be strong within and sparing of words.

The Image

There is no water in the lake:
The image of EXHAUSTION.
Thus the superior man stakes his life
On following his will.

When the water has flowed out below, the lake must dry up and become exhausted. That is fate. This symbolizes an adverse fate in human life. In such times there is nothing a man can do but acquiesce in his fate and remain true to himself. This concerns the deepest stratum of his being, for this alone is superior to all external fate.

Lower line

Six at the beginning means:
One sits oppressed under a bare tree
And strays into a gloomy valley.
For three years one sees nothing.

When adversity befalls a man, it is important above all things for him to be strong and to overcome the trouble inwardly. If he is weak, the trouble overwhelms him. Instead of proceeding on his way, he remains sitting under a bare tree and falls ever more deeply into gloom and melancholy. This makes the situation only more and more hopeless. Such an attitude comes from an inner delusion that he must by all means overcome.

Fourth line

Nine in the fourth place means:
He comes very quietly, oppressed in a golden carriage.
Humiliation, but the end is reached.

A well-to-do man sees the need of the lower classes and would like very much to be of help. But instead of proceeding with speed and energy where there is need, he begins in a hesitant and measured way. Then he encounters obstructions. Powerful and wealthy acquaintances draw him into their circle; he has to do as they do and cannot withdraw from them. Hence he finds himself in great embarrassment. But the trouble is transitory. The original strength of his nature offsets the mistake he has made, and the goal is reached.

Upper line

Six at the top means:
He is oppressed by creeping vines.
He moves uncertainly and says, "Movement brings remorse. "
If one feels remorse over this and makes a start,
Good fortune comes.

A man is oppressed by bonds that can easily be broken. The distress is drawing to an end. But he is still irresolute; he is still influenced by the previous condition and fears that he may have cause for regret if he makes a move. But as soon as he grasps the situation, changes this mental attitude, and makes a firm decision, he masters the oppression.

All lines

Six at the top means:
He is oppressed by creeping vines.
He moves uncertainly and says, "Movement brings remorse. "
If one feels remorse over this and makes a start,
Good fortune comes.

MUTATION :

The Hexagram

Chung Fu / Inner Truth
above SUN THE GENTLE, WIND
below TUI THE JOYOUS, LAKE

The wind blows over the lake and stirs the surface of the water. Thus visible effects of the invisible manifest themselves. The hexagram consists of firm lines above and below, while it is open in the center. This indicates a heart free of prejudices and therefore open to truth. On the other hand, each of the two trigrams has a firm line in the middle; this indicates the force of inner truth in the influences they represent.

The attributes of the two trigrams are: above, gentleness, forbearance toward inferiors; below, joyousness in obeying superiors. Such conditions create the basis of a mutual confidence that makes achievements possible.

The character of fu ("truth") is actually the picture of a bird's foot over a fledgling. It suggests the idea of brooding. An egg is hollow. The light-giving power must work to quicken it from outside, but there must be a germ of life within, if life is to be awakened. Far-reaching speculations can be linked with these ideas.

The Judgment

INNER TRUTH. Pigs and fishes.
Good fortune.
It furthers one to cross the great water.
Perseverance furthers.

Pigs and fishes are the least intelligent of all animals and therefore the most difficult to influence. The force of inner truth must grow great indeed before its influence can extend to such creatures. In dealing with persons as intractable and as difficult to influence as a pig or a fish, the whole secret of success depends on finding the right way of approach. One must first rid oneself of all prejudice and, so to speak, let the psyche of the other person act on one without restraint. Then one will establish contact with him, understand and gain power over him. When a door has thus been opened, the force of one's personality will influence him. If in this way one finds no obstacles insurmountable, one can undertake even the most dangerous things, such as crossing the great water, and succeed.

But it is important to understand upon what the force inner truth depends. This force is not identical with simple intimacy or a secret bond. Close ties may exist also among thieves; it is true that such a bond acts as a force but, since it is not invincible, it does not bring good fortune. All association on the basis of common interests holds only up to a certain point. Where the community of interest ceases, the holding together ceases also, and the closest friendship often changes into hate. Only when the bond is based on what is right, on steadfastness, will it remain so firm that it triumphs over everything.

The Image

Wind over lake: the image of INNER TRUTH.
Thus the superior man discusses criminal cases
In order to delay executions.

Wind stirs water by penetrating it. Thus the superior man, when obliged to judge the mistakes of men, tries to penetrate their minds with understanding, in order to gain a sympathetic appreciation of the circumstances. In ancient China, the entire administration of justice was guided by this principle. A deep understanding that knows how to pardon was considered the highest form of justice. This system was not without success, for its aim was to make so strong a moral impression that there was no reason to fear abuse of such mildness. For it sprang not from weakness but from a superior clarity.

The Scotsman and the Taoist

2011-07-16T09:27:00.004-04:00

THE SCOTSMAN & THE TAOIST

I laughed at this one! I am the Scotsman. I am the Taoist. How beautiful the mutual arising!

News from the front...

2011-07-13T19:12:00.001-04:00

Statistics proved right when one out of our fifteen chicks turned out to have a rooster lurking in their midst. He is now learning to crow. He's beginning to pester the hens. And you can tell by the glint in his eye and the proud strut when he walks, that he is really beginning to believe that he is the, "Cock of the block.
Wrong!
Can you say, "The circle of life?" Ahem.
Pot - Bound!!!

My old friend, "Chick" gave me a handful of sticks a year ago last fall and told me to stick a spade into the ground; opening a gap just wide enough to shove the stick into the smiling slit of earth. Last year I saw sprouts spring begin to spring up as the sticks themselves just dried up and fell away. This being the second year, I am getting a few helpings of raspberries. These are the thorn-less variety and are planted in such a way that you can pick the nut crunch and sweet red berries from both sides of the bush. Chick died last August. He would get such glee and be so be proud. Thanks, buddy!

I have planted two raised beds. They are doing well. The house, both inside and out, has experienced quite a transformation. The energy of the house is altogether different. And that is a good thing. No more dark. No more skulls, crows and pentagrams. Not that there is anything wrong with that but when they emit the energy of maalocchio, you know that it isn't good. The house was once a place of respite for friends and travelers. Perhaps we are entering the return. After all, the old Irish neighborhood, once known as "The Patch" now has an Irish living back in the house.
Irish in the hood!

I was fortunate enough to have the first seven days of July off for a vacation. The weather evolved to meet my every need. How cool is that?
At the ocean? Hot! On the bike trail? (almost 30 miles) Nice! I packed a lot into that week off. Up time. Down time. Yard and play. Not a complaint to be had. (of course I still did - duh!) And of course riding twenty eight miles was more of a task than I was ready for. The final eight to five miles found me giving pep talks to myself. I envisioned EMS rolling down the riverside bike path only to find me with my eyes rolled back and my tongue sticking out. The last five to two miles rekindled my hope like smelling a bake shop when you hadn't eaten all day. The final two miles found me pedaling like a school girl with pigtails blowing the breeze. Not that anyone else saw me that way. My bike partner laughed as he looked at me my sunglasses, helmet and beard parting in the wind.
"Man. You got to get a Harley," he said.,

The capacity for living...crying over spilled milk

2011-07-05T12:06:00.001-04:00

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now. - Alan Watts

I am on a weeks vacation. This is the first vacation in over thirty four years that has not been time spent with my soon to be ex-wife. I'm still grieving over what could have been/should have been. And when I review the tale of our marriage dissolving, I often feel the observer and not a participant. It did not seem that it could go any other way. And for me to concede (once again) to that of her role of the perpetual victim and of her inability to survive without my having to conform to her "high conflict-no resolution" mind and personality, I would have surely soon turned to stone. My hollowness of heart is being replaced with love and life and hope and I'm finding that it is a painful transformation.
Divorce does suck!
I am reminded however that that was then: and now is now. Life lived now, in a mindful and constructive way are the building blocks of a better future. The chickens, the garden, my Karmann Ghia; are just things. But they produce simple pleasure - and there is no harm in that. Meanwhile my children seek to find their way to manage their own feelings about the divorce. They are all adults. To see their parents apart is difficult, I understand. For them to see their mother flounder as the powerless and angry, yet controlling victim, is a challenge. The buffer (me) has been removed and my youngest daughter has felt compelled to pick up the mantle of responsibility. I hope that the weight of the ridgepole is not too much for her - but I hope in vain. It is her lesson to learn.
And I'm trying to learn mine.
Ann - I love you!
But feeling the intense emotion of divorce or the numbness of trying to withdraw from pain is not the way. There is yet a middle way, as the Buddha himself discovered.
The grand master of the Complete Reality School of Taoism, Lu Ting-pin (Reid Chinese Health & Healing 1995) via a Thomas Cleary translations stated: "Since the refinement of the three treasures requires the removal of emotions, it is necessary to govern the mind. What is governing the mind? The mind is originally pure, the mind is originally calm; openness and freedom are both basic qualities of the mind. When we govern the mind, this means that we should keep it as it is in its original fundamental state, clear as a mountain stream, pure fresh, unpolluted, silent as an immense canyon, free from clamor, vast as the universe, immeasurable i n its extent, open as a great desert, its bounds unknown".
It is a a calm and serene joy. Not incapable of emotion; not a captive to emotion. It is light, free, airy and natural. Not some zombie eyed blissed-out state of mind. A man of Tao is a man of calm and joy.
So I return to alchemy, nourish the spirit, go to my acupuncturist, ride my bicycle in breath in-breath out/ leg up-leg down meditation.
And the natural man, an undetermined mind, will ascend.

Independence Day

2011-07-03T22:31:00.001-04:00

I have so much to say on the subject, but not the will...

But...cut & paste I will

"Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead."
Arundhati Roy, author

TaoSpring - Karmann Ghia, Chickens and back yard fires...

2011-06-22T20:28:00.000-04:00

Physician, heal thyself...get out of your past and get into your present

2011-06-18T13:33:00.000-04:00

Several years ago I found myself employed as a mental health counselor. Invariably, upon meeting a client for the first time, he or she would tell me their story. They would tell me a story of all that had taken in their lives leading them up to now. In was as though each client came to me with their own personal box of stuff that in their minds defined who they were. The ritual seldom changed. Each one would rummage about in their mental "box" pulling out item after item in an attempt to show themselves to me. It was my practice to allow them to go through this procedure as I listened attentively. When I felt somewhat satisfied that they had reviewed the most important stuff from their individual boxes, I would interject my plan for taping up the box of stuff and putting it in the closet or basement or in some cases, have us prepare for a yard sale.
"Well", I would say, "you have before you a great opportunity. This opportunity is there for all of us but we fail to see it. There's all this stuff and stuff and this stuff, and that's okay, but what do we do now? We have all this stuff in our box and can hardly fit anything new. All our energy is focused on our past. This happened and then that happened. It's all taking up too much room in our mental little boxes. Not that we're trying to diminish or deny the good or ugly events that have happened in our lives, but if we want health and happiness we need to try a new approach."
It was usually at this point that I would try to have those who were able or at least willing, to stand and shake off the cob webs. "Take a deep breath and shake your hands and body like we're shaking off dust or cob webs from off your bodies."
It was always a great focal point.
"Now let's say it together. Okay. Now what?- what do I do now?"
Our focus on the past distorts the present or denies it's reality altogether - and ultimately the future becomes our present - and we find ourselves having never progressed beyond the continuous stories that we tell ourselves from out of our tiny little box.
..."When I was in High School this guy...my father used to beat me...my company fired me, my wife left me, my house burned down, my husband killed himself".......
"Okay. Now what? - what do I do now?"
If we truly want to grow beyond the pain that these stories tell us, we need to get out of the past and get into our present. As an exercise, I would ask that every time my client was to realize that he/she found themselves sleepily listening to the stories calling from their box, they were to shake off the cob webs and ask themselves, "Okay. Now what? -what do I do now?" We worked through the answers together. And often quite successfully I might add. And I add that this takes heart. It takes a willingness to take responsibility. To confront a victim mentality where everything happens to you. The day begins not in the box but with you saying, "Now what?" It's a little question, but with practice it creates empowerment. It takes you out of your head and into your heart.
...And it is here that I find myself. So I stand to dust off the cob webs. I breathe into my being.
"Now what?"

Waterfront Ghia - TaoSpring

2011-06-13T20:14:00.001-04:00

I enjoy a New England summer morning. I enjoy New England period! But this year's rain and the almost endless progression of cloudy days can try the most patient among us. I am patiently waiting for summer to burst through mother nature's womb and shower us with the joy of a new day after a new day but I can't help wonder, is the weather in New England always like this? You kind of forget last year. And it's a New England tradition to grumble about the weather. Like the old saying goes, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute. It will change".
I can't help but lust after a warm sunny morning. Greeting the day with the energy of excitement. Stretching, tending the chickens. Checking on the garden. Enjoying the day. Work when work is due. All else is a slide into the joy of TaoSpring.
The ritual of taking off the car cover and warming up the Ghia and making spot checks like I'm about to soar above 10,000 feet. Her low HP, yet throaty rumble. She holds the road like a blind man reads braille. Tight corners, holding hill and valley, clutching close the outline of the "S' or "M" and occasionally spelling out a word that makes the maidens blush and the masters drool.
Yeah, I know, Ye Olde Moto-Head: You sheepishly look at the Karmann Ghia like you did at your blossoming sister or at your Aunt Rose. You want to look - or look away. But you just can't help yourself. You look when you think no one is looking.
It's okay Grandpa. You ol' greaser. Get your hands outta yer pants.
She's just a car............

TaoSpring 2011

2011-06-10T22:03:00.001-04:00

TaoSpring; a place of rest and renewal. I am older now. My gardens are smaller, my yield is great, my bounty is shared. The chickens are by far, the most pretty group of girls that I have ever seen together in one room. In a few short weeks they have progressed from egg to roost. Can't wait for the eggs!

Sunday Morning coming down

2011-06-05T10:31:00.000-04:00

I sit at the kitchen table savoring a cup of coffee trying to ignore a festering ache of anger, resting like a bird on a wire, on a beautiful Sunday morning. And I think,

A man is born gentle and weak.
At his death he is hard and stiff.
Green plants are tender and filled with sap.
At their death they are withered and dry.

Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.
The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

I am in the process of a divorce from a stiff necked non nurturing woman that I have given my all to for over thirty years. Much of the content of This Being Human... has been the diary of a drowning man. It is beyond hard living with a no resolution, everything's a pissing contest, her way or the highway kind of woman. And after all her bullshit, her arrests for domestic assault, her destroying my property, her emptying the house of all property, I only wish her well and peace of mind. Kind of like wishing that a bear could turn into a domestic dog. Not really possible at this stage of life. Or is it?

The court issued a no contact order upon her for one year. That did not stop her from coming to the home twice late into the evening and attacking the coop and sundry things about the property. I then had to serve a No Trespassing order on her allowing the police to arrest her on sight if found on the property.

Yesterday I wrote my weekly check that the court ordered in lieu of my having to add her to my health insurance plan. I went to the post office to drop it off. Upon returning to my truck I met with her face to face as she slowly passed by, a passenger in my daughter's car. And true to her nature I was met with a hateful glare and a middle finger radiating the energy of hate like a bright spot light in my face. At first, I felt nothing. No shock. No surprise. Absolutely neutral. But slowly it took hold. Like a slow smouldering coal it grew bright red and hotter than hot deep in my gut. And all the wishing that it and her, would go away will not make it so. Ignoring her, trying to appease or please her has never changed what was. And if I were to die today, she would not be pleased or victorious. She would still be the victim of all that ever was, asking everyone she knows to conform to her needs or to become her safety net; like the scorpion convincing the frog for a ride across the river, she will be true to her nature and everyone about her gets stung. So I should not be surprised by whatever she does. She may kill me yet; but forewarned is forearmed. As Thomas Paine said;

"Could the peaceable principle of the Quakers be universally established, arms and the art of war would be wholly extirpated: But we live not in a world of angels...I am thus far a Quaker, that I would gladly agree with all the world to lay aside the use of arms, and settle matters by negotiation: but unless the whole will, the matter ends, and I take up my musket and thank Heaven He has put it in my power."

Chickens - only an egg’s way for making another egg.

2011-06-04T21:44:00.000-04:00

It has been fun watching the chickens grow out from what was once a crack in an egg into the young gals that they have become. Funnier still, I think that we might have a rooster in the mix. They love dandelion greens and relish a treat of worms and roll like dogs in the dirt. In the morning they flee the coop like children running to recess. They are learning to roost but still sleep at night huddled together behind the feed cans. Occasionally I can hear a peep develop into a cluck.
The garden is being planted; small raised beds. Pole beans, broccoli, tomatoes and peppers. Several other vegetables will follow.
Welcome to TaoSpring.

Pallet chicken coop aka Fort Suess

2011-05-23T07:27:00.000-04:00

Coop almost complete. The "girls" moved in yesterday and were quite ecstatic over their new digs. I plan to paint the coop to match the house. Chesterton Buff, white trim and black doors. Gardens soon to follow. TaoSpring. A place of peace and respite.

Freemasonry: Is there greatness in you?

2011-05-10T22:07:00.001-04:00

There's a resurgence in the number of people taking an interest in Freemasonry. I am witness to it. And as the numbers began to show signs of increase, I made a decision to take some time off. In June of 2010 I stepped down from the appointed position of Chaplain and later, in September, I offered my demit. (petition to resign from the fraternity)
Flash forward to April 2011 and I find myself slowly returning back to the Lodge. It is hard to stay away. Many of my friends are there. I admit that my return is not without some difficulty. My return is tentative. I look within to find my source of angst. I'm not placing blame or offering criticism toward the Lodge or the Fraternity. I'm looking to unravel a very palatable, heels dug in, resistance.

Theron Dunn used to say, "Freemasonry: It's not about me changing them, it's about me changing me".

So wherein lies the rub?

1) "Lighten up, Francis". No one has to tell me that I take many things in life too seriously. When I became a Mason I gobbled up all of the Masonic Education material that I could find. I poured over the Internet and the blogosphere. I read recommended and non recommended books. I formed opinions, ideas and thoughts on what it meant to be a Mason. I took it all very seriously. And then I ran into some difficulty. A lot of difficulty. I concluded that not all Masons fit into this List - and why should they? I judged that the fraternity of Freemasons is only but a reflection of the community at large. After reading this I rationalized that the emphasis on recruiting new members was leavening the bread. But as one brother stated, "I think of it as digging for gold. You keep digging until you find that one precious nugget. I've found lots of nuggets. I've made many friends that I would of not have met if it were not for the Masons".

And I agree... but would it be fair to conclude that there may be more digging and less nuggets to be found as a result of the West Gate being left unguarded, untended and in need of repair? And why should I really give a hoot? In the grand scheme of things...

2) Fear and selfishness - The sense of one's isolation from the world is formed from a sense of resistance to the world, or a sense of pulling back, a defensiveness. So all of our psychological defenses, including denial, have been built upon the premise that the world is treacherous, that if we let it in it will hurt us. So we build boundaries to the world, we build limitations, we keep the world out because the sense of self feels frightened by what the world could do to it. And where those boundaries are formed, where that resistance is created, that's where we hurt. We suffer. - Rodney Smith TRICYCLE

No one also has to tell me that I have labored and labored hard at learning how to keep my own company well. It's safe. Effective. It is my number one go to defense mechanism.

3) Religiosity - I have a fair understanding and familiarity with Christianity; historical, fundamentalist, denominational doctrine and dogma, mystic and monk. The extensive use of biblical terms, the use of scripture along with a very liberal use of history and geography was troubling to me. That anyone would take the Hiram/Temple story as literal and as historical fact freaked me out. To further compound the issue with claims to Isis and/or the pyraminds (?) .... Manly P. Hall? Please!!!! You're Killing me!

So.....I have decided to take it easy..slow and easy... I went to lodge tonight and experienced a full blown SAD attack. And not without some good reason. So lets see what happens. Slow......and easy.... That's me.

Tao Spring: Pallet Chicken Coop P III - Dr. Suess style...

2011-05-07T20:09:00.001-04:00

This is the extent of my progress. Four Pallets per side, covered with OSB, trim is rough cut spruce.
Interior measures 7/1/2 by 8 feet. Enough room for 15 chickens. The "girls" are now three weeks old and have quadrupled in size. We have 6 Barred Rocks, 3 Golden Comets, 6 Aracaunas. With all the rain and so many days spent on other high priority projects it has been difficult to find time to complete this project. The top (between the sides and roof) will be securely meshed with chicken wire. The bottom secure from the inside using 1x3x8" pine slats with the other end overlapping the outer 2x4's. The roof will hold it taught. I'm going to lay 3 4x8' OSB to create a 12x8 roof. This will ensure adequate overlap and protection.

Mental illness and politics.....All is madness

2011-05-03T21:55:00.003-04:00

Once upon a time in the Soviet Union, people who held views in opposition to "The Party" were thought to be mentally ill. They were sent for "treatment" until at which time they could show that their understanding would prove to echo completely that of the party manifesto.
The changes in the American manifesto which seem to ebb and flow like fashion (remember those awful hairdos of the eighties?) have me feeling on more than one occasion "mentally ill". I often feel that I see things in such opposition to that of my peers and of my community. I feel so isolated.
In my small community during the first Gulf War, a small group erected a "peace tree" and held signs asking that we think before we leap before we as a country send our troops into Kuwait. Several other members of the community (some were firefighters) decided that the protesters did not have this right and they assaulted them. Years later, against overwhelming evidence and testimony, the US entered Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction. When you look back at the facts (and who does?) it is amazingly ridiculous. But is better to not rock the boat: and for what end?
My dearest and best friend was is in D.C. to receive well deserved kudos for her line and quality of service. She was front and center at the White House just after word of the killing of Bin Laden was announced. At midnight as the crouds gathered, I can imagine that it was quite a moving experience. She called me at 12:15 a.m. to share the excitement. And I love her for it. But I couldn't sleep after she hung up. The nationalistic fervor chilled me to the bone and made a knot in my stomach that wouldn't leave. Shouts of U.S.A! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! put me on alert.
I just wanted to share these two articles:
ONE

TWO What do you think?

Grandchild N0. SIX

2011-05-01T18:28:00.001-04:00

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens"

2011-04-26T22:07:00.000-04:00

.. all gathering is followed by dispersion.
Therefore the superior man begins to distribute while he is accumulating.

In the same way, in developing his character he takes care not to become hardened in obstinacy

but to remain receptive to impressions by help of strict and continuous self-examination.

After a seven years of estrangement I met my brother over a pizza and beer. Neither of us have carried a grudge or anger in our pocket for these seven years. As he put it, we have just ignored each other. It's curious that we never bumped into one another in our travels seeing that he only lives the next town over and less than a fifteen minute drive away. I like the Nietzsche quote which says, "There are no facts; only interpretations". Yeah, we had a falling out after my Mother had died. The "whys" are no longer important. I just wanted to hear his view of things: if only to gain a better understanding of myself. Shortly after we met I sent him an email stating that I was glad to see him. And to this he replied,

Good to see you also. I wasn't sure what I would find. You're appearence

has changed a good deal. In fact some of the pics on you're Facebook page

could scare someone that doesn't know you. Just my opinion. But the voice

hasn't changed. It's still the gentle, kind, warm-hearted voice I

remember. Still just a little bit irratating,

not always unbias and hiding a volcano's worth of

"why me God, what did I do to deserve this?"

anger waiting to blow.

Well things are looking better for you.

You now have some time all to yourself.

You're responsibilities are not so great maybe.

TaoSpring - pallet chicken coop

2011-04-23T08:31:00.000-04:00

This is the frame of the coop. It will measure approximately 8ft x 8ft. Saltbox style roof will be 9 feet at the front and will taper down to 8 1/4 feet in the back. My inspiration is drawn from the bottom photo taken from a shed also built using pallets. I varied the plans to accommodate the unevenness of available pallet size. In a perfect world a perfect 4' x 4' pallet would make pallet building as easy as playing with Lego's. Unfortunately downsizing has effected everything. Most pallets now measure 48" x 40" and the solid 4' by 4' pallets are usually reclaimed by their owners. Oh, they're out there, but I am looking to build for as little cost as possible. All that I have purchased thus far is a box of nails for less than $2.00 The pallets were free from my place of employment including the two 4' x 8' pallets that make up the floor. I plan on siding it with bark slabs and running a run from off the front: 8ft x 16ft long and 7 1/2 ft high. There's a window on the east side of the coop and the top (the space between the pallet ends and the roof) will be for ventilation and will also be covered with chicken wire.

The girls have doubled in size since their liberation from the egg so I need to build, and build quickly. I'll publish my progress!

TaoSpring - Happiness

2011-04-17T18:01:00.001-04:00

While the autumn moon is pouring full
On a thousand night-levels among towns and villages,
There meet by chance, south of the river,
Dreaming doubters of a dream....
In the trees a wind has startled the birds,
And insects cower from cold in the grass;
But wayfarers at least have wine
And nothing to fear – till the morning bell.

TaoSpring is the name being given to the renasaince of our little peice of The Patch. The chicks are in, the coop and run are going up. Every room of the house is undergoing a renovation and the property around the house is seeing the rebuilding of gardens along with the planting of herbs, flowers and vegetables.
Coop building will commence this weekend if the weather allows. Pictures will follow. Tell me what think.
Enjoy.

TaoSpring

2011-04-15T20:35:00.001-04:00

HOLDING TOGETHER brings good fortune.
Inquire of the oracle once again
Whether you possess sublimity, constancy, and perseverance;
Then there is no blame.
Those who are uncertain gradually join.
Whoever come too late
Meets with misfortune.

The old "Sullivan House" located in "The Patch". The girls are in. This is where the coop n' run will be. I will show you our progress as it unfurls.

Welcome to TaoSpring.

I Love a good western & a good Taoist parable

2011-04-13T20:29:00.000-04:00

Doc Holliday: And you must be Ringo. Look, darling, Johnny Ringo. The deadliest pistoleer since Wild Bill, they say. What do you think, darling? Should I hate him?
Kate: You don’t even know him.
Doc Holliday: Yes, but there’s just something about him. Something around the eyes, I don’t know, reminds me of… me. No. I’m sure of it, I hate him.
Wyatt Earp: [to Ringo] He’s drunk.
Doc Holliday: In vino veritas.
["In wine is truth" meaning: "When I'm drinking, I speak my mind"]
Johnny Ringo: Age quod agis.
["Do what you do" meaning: "Do what you do best"]
Doc Holliday: Credat Judaeus apella, non ego.
["The Jew Apella may believe it, not I" meaning: "I don't believe drinking is what I do best."]
Johnny Ringo: [pats his gun] Eventus stultorum magister.
["Events are the teachers of fools" meaning: "Fools have to learn by experience"]
Doc Holliday: [gives a Cheshire cat smile] In pace requiescat.
["Rest in peace" meaning: "It's your funeral!"]
Tombstone Marshal Fred White: Come on boys. We don’t want any trouble in here. Not in any language.
Doc Holliday: Evidently Mr. Ringo’s an educated man. Now I really hate him.

There was a man who was so disturbed by the sight of his own shadow and so displeased with his own footsteps, that he determined to get rid of them both.
The method he hit upon was to run away from them.
So he got up and ran.
But every time he put his foot down there was another step, while his shadow kept up with him without the slightest difficulty.
He attributed his failure to the fact that he was not running fast enough. So he ran faster and faster, without stopping, until he fell dead.

A good book

2011-04-09T18:21:00.001-04:00

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

I often read several books all at the same time. And while I have long suspected that this is not the most practical way to read, for me, it seems to fit. While I have noticed on more than one occasion that a hint of synchronicity may guide many of the books that come my way, as I may one day find myself pondering on the migration of geese and the degree to which geese have played a role in early American life (Yes, seriously!) and few weeks later I'll find Michener's Chesapeake tucked firmly in my lap.

Recently I have been struggling with how Machiavellian everyday life seems to be. It appears to be the natural/anthropological way of being for much of the human race. Be it the ongoing high conflict/no resolution of my soon to be ex-wife, to that of those found in the workplace. None of this is new to me as I've been in the thick of it several times before. The politics, the intrigue, the double speak. All naturalness fades away in the game of defensiveness and one-upmanship. I'm just not built for it, I declare. That I am ever forced to endure the mouths of these hungry ghosts makes me yearn for the dirk.
And thus, I was given the book, "The Pillars of the Earth" to read.

Set in 12th century England, the story presents a tapestry that speaks of the the struggle between peace and growth vs the love of power, wealth and status. The story tells of stonemason Tom Builder, who desires to build something of permanence and security for him and his family. Tom diligently seeks to fulfill a long held dream of building a cathedral. And we also meet Prior Phillip who strives to do the work of God by overseeing the building of the cathedral at Kingsbridge. It is not the mere building of a church but the building of a sustaining economy and a place of learning; where men can work and prosper and do what people do. Fall in love and get married, raise families, work hard and become part of a community. Phillip finds that this is no easy task as he is confronted by shifting political allegiances, diverse views of the church's mission and ongoing plotting by his arch rivals the Earl of Shiring, William Hamleigh and Bishop Bigod. Phillip finds himself as a man standing in a timber box on a dry forest floor. He has no idea where and when the next flame up will occur.

Characters in stories such as these serve as archetypes, providing varying subconscious levels and/or aspects of character to whom we may relate and be guided by. That is the reason for story telling. Many of us will relate to the life and experiences of the stonemason or the monk Prior Phillip. And some will perhaps see themselves or see others in the slithering Bishop or ambitious Knights, Kings and merchants that color this tale.
I, like the stonemason Jack Builder, have worked hard to build; a family, a career, a sense of security and something - anything, that may cloud over the oft ignored truth of impermanence. I, like Prior Phillip, have sought fairness, justice, the mind of God - and have been unexpectedly thwarted on numerous occasions.
The reader and the read, wherein lies the difference?
Look around you! As I am fond of saying, "You can't buy this kind of entertainment". If your life was an open book would it be on the New York Times Best Seller List? Probably not. But your drama is your drama. Read it. Learn from it. Be mindful of it. Is your life the back of the cereal box that you scan over and over each morning and still you haven't a clue what it is saying? Then get up and fry yourself an egg! Get creative! Have a slice of melon and prosciutto on the side!
You know what? I laugh and I cry. Sometimes I get grouchy (some would say randy - wth?) and sometimes I am quiet and a little moody. Sometimes silly - sometimes wise.
And I would say that makes for a pretty good book!
And if you think that I'ma slow page turner? Well, now that's okay too,

Premonition - repost (edited) from September 2006

2011-03-29T21:38:00.001-04:00

"Come in. Come in. Sit down and make yourselves comfortable. You know that you're going to come in regardless of what I have to say."

"We're only here to help".

"Well uh. okay. Begin with your sweeping and cleaning. I thought that things looked fairly empty already."

"Maybe it's your turn now. Could it be that you're just not unhappy enough to make the changes that you need to make?"

"Oh. Okay. So now it's my fault."

"There's no fault. Only what is. Awareness is the key."

"Awareness?" That's just a word now. My awareness has elapsed into neurosis."

"Are you aware of your neurosis?" Welcome that too. This fragile body is matrix for mind and soul. Do you believe that you are alone in your suffering? Is not the tie that binds, for all of human kind, that all is suffering? Where is your compassion for yourself?"

He who stands on tiptoe is not steady. He who strides cannot maintain the pace. He who makes a show is not enlightened. He who is self righteous is not respected. He who boasts achieves nothing. He who brags will not endure. According to the followers of the Tao, "These are extra food and unnecessary luggage." They do not bring happiness. Therefore followers of the Tao avoid them.

Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment. Mastering others requires force; Mastering the self needs strength. He who knows he has enough is rich. Perseverance is a sign of will power. He who stays where he is endures. To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.

"Think on these things and we'll not be back for a season, perhaps."

On a brighter note..........

2011-03-19T20:43:00.002-04:00

I've been painting (with help) as this is a rare opportunity. An empty house, a painter's canvas. New paint in every room, floors will be done, kitchen floor torn up and scheduled for a fine checkered pattern. It's still a mess but progress is being made.
Last week's weather melted away more snow revealing the level of work that needs to be done outside. But this year I face the task with more hope and gratitude. Things are and have been changing fast. Faster than I am accustomed to.
I also want to give "props" to a dear friend who has been for me a celestial catcher's mitt as I fell fearfully into the unknown and she has graciously caught me again and again. She, as a paramedic has been awarded as one of the few out of the many, to receive the high honor of being awarded the American Ambulance Association's "Star of Life Award". This accomplishment merits high praise. It also serves to remind us of all those men and woman who serve as first responders who often aid where others would fear to tread.

That's Cold...

2011-03-16T21:37:00.000-04:00

It was perhaps rather appropriate returning to an empty house and finding it as cold as a mid-winter bus stop. The tank had been run empty of oil multiple times and filled with a few gallons of diesel to squeak by while I couch surfed waiting for her departure. When I came home, she wanted to leave me nothing. Just an empty shell with a big price tag attached.
I had oil delivered. 150 gallons of oil hurts as much as a hard march through a long day without water. Looking at the dirty and empty house, I was parched.
Someone came to the store and told me that my chimney was spewing black smoke, giving me visions of a locomotive spewing smoke from track to horizon. Moments later my son called stating that the house is, "full of smoke". Like any other reasonable homeowner, I ran home looking rather unreasonable and I shut down the furnace. Then I called the repairmen. The furnace had angrily coughed soot all through the house and basement. And with $200, the furnace was fixed and cleaned. The house smelled of chimney and soot. The repairman calmly explained that this is what happens when you let it run dry multiple times.
"Welcome home", as they say.
It has been sad watching this woman implode, the reality of which is so analogous to how I found my 110 year old house one day after she moved out.
Cold.
Expensive.
Spewing.
Damaged.
And something that "I" have to fix and take care of.
And when the court sentenced her to a one year of "No Contact" and Anger Management classes, it was reported that she said, "I'll get him"!
It's no wonder that I wake up when the night is at it's darkest and in a heart racing panic feel that I have somehow abandoned her.
You love me, you have always loved me, you will always love me.
Now that's cold.........................

Clearly, its a process.....

2011-02-24T07:38:00.002-05:00

I've amassed over thirty years of "stuff"while living with my wife and it was all whisked away over the past few weeks. Every bit of it. The home is left in shambles. Dirty, broken and beat down. No heat. Ice had formed in the kitchen sink. No pictures. No curtains. No furniture. No remnants of what there once was. Only filth, dirt, emptiness.
How appropriate.
In the past six months, I have refused to sign any order of restraint and for two reasons. 1) To give my wife an opportunity to make amends; to reach back towards me in a non-controlling, punishing way. 2) My adult daughters did not want to be in the position of having to take her in and asked that I allow her to remain at home. The court finally issued one on their own after her second arrest; an order of "No Contact" - allowing me to be well within my rights to return home and have her vacate the premises. But I stayed away to give her time to move into her new apartment. You know, the apartment that she's been threatening to move into since last September? February 1st became the 6th....and the 6th became the...and I was patient. She moved last weekend.
But of course I was patient; for as it is seen from the outside, she is being forced to leave the house that she has loved and it is all because I have found someone else!
So of course, she is well within her rights to pick the house as clean as a carcass found on the African plains. To quote one of our four adult children, "You did all this"!!
And yet, I remain patient and understanding. This has been hard on everyone. But my patience is waning fast. When this spider returns to bite you, and it will, as it has done in the past, who will you run to?
The house that she loved?
I did all this?
How do you say, Clue Less?? But that is just not true. I know it. They know it. And I'm sick of trying to defend myself.
Over the years I would occasionally find myself being accosted because of what her mother said some 30 plus years ago. "......., if you ever get divorced, it will be all your fault"! And although I believe that it always does take two...I have to agree with her mother.
It's all your fault!

I Swear

2011-02-22T06:48:00.002-05:00

I swear by all that is good and holy, that after I returned home from being absent for four days after my wife's first domestic assault, if she had met me at the door with an apology and a desire to discover a pathway to healing, I would have crumbled at her feet in full surrender.
And that moment continues to reverberate through my mind because I was willing; but I was met with silence, and anger and an unspoken line was drawn. Drawn in a circle, a very familiar circle, a circle of control and containment.
But I would have still returned to her.
And I realize, fully, that it would have been the wrong decision. One born out of familiarity.
And here I am...her anger continues like nuclear fallout. It spreads across the land and everyone is sick. I look back into history and ask if there was any way in which I could have avoided seeing that doomsday button being pushed. And I don't know what I could have done. I feel as though I have been dancing around looking to avoid this day for years, and years, and years. I guess that I finally run out of steam.
And some cast blame as though it is unthinkable that I could or would pull up lame. And others speak to me about my happiness - and I find that thought just as foreign. As though I have let the world down because my happiness is to be placed perpetually at the bottom of the list.
And all I can hear now is, "Martyr"!!!
I swear by all that is good and holy......I never wanted any of this to happen.
Never.

It really is, what it is...

2011-02-21T09:07:00.002-05:00

The terrible truth is:

that the truth is not all

so very terrible after all.

No amount of anger,

or anxiety

or self - pity

or false bravado

will change the fact that

life is how we find it.

All the kicking and screaming

will never be an adequate

antithesis to us sitting still

and just plain

taking responsibility.

Toast and tea for Mitt Romney

2011-02-17T14:00:00.000-05:00

It would appear that my friends to the north are much less observant than I've given them credit for. I can understand the increase in the membership of the Tea Party, as the highly independent voting force of New Hampshire (along with everyone else) is seeking to escape the "status quo - s.s.d.d." rhetoric of our barnacle laden two party system. The Tea Party, based on its festering growth alone, would appear to offer a way out. It may well possess the ability to upset the worm filled political apple cart that sickens us so.
But Mitt Romney?
How was it that this guy was ever considered by the Republican party to be the next great white hope? And do the Tea Party people really consider Mitt as a potential candidate or is it the political machine of the Elect Romney for President, that is claiming Romney as a Tea Party potential candidate in New Hampshire?
Doesn't anyone look at the facts anymore? Romney? Seriously?
Well, no. The information age has done nothing to provide us with information that is compiled via reason and logic and a lack of bias. Perhaps it is not even possible anymore. Orwell is looking more like the prophets Elijah and Isaiah with the passing of each and every election. An overwhelmingly large asteroid of crap is about to land on the good ol' U.S.A. And I'm in a panic.
You just can't make this stuff up! And the problem is intensified by the people who can't cope with examining their beliefs - http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/
I guess that its hard work thinking for yourself. Waxing nostalgic for those days of a simple America where everyone believed in God, never questioned authority, ("Eat your meat! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat"?) and we all had dress codes in school. Was it all smoke and mirrors or did we really see things clearly then?
Simply put, it is a dog eat dog world; a rat race, an ongoing game of one-ups-man-ship and I all too often am surprised by my level of naivete.

Divorce - The other white meat.

2011-02-12T19:23:00.001-05:00

Strychnine makes your tummy pucker as it kills you and ice cold water will shrink your pecker every time. It's funny how divorce accomplishes it all in one bold swing. And I just can't seem to wrap my mind around it. And the very essense of me trying to wrap my mind around my pain and suffering has my friends telling me to be easy on myself. That this will all pass. And it will. I know that. Everything changes.

I've been with the same girl to woman for thirty five years. You cannot expect to ease out of that sort of history like a Hollywood revisionist changes the facts of what has happened in order to sell his story. Just can't be done. You feel what you feel. Acknowledge it. Face it. Explore it.

We in New England can find that the Winter season is able to start long before its scheduled entry date of December 21st. When flurries begin to fly in late October, leading the meteorological onslaught of snowstorm after snowstorm the months that should be leading into that oft glorified season of Spring, finds us depressed and willing to "give up" by mid February. Sometimes the snows of Winter will lead us into cold rains lasting through April, May and June, changing our desire for Spring into a plead for the arrival of Summer. Sometimes the bad weather just drags on and on. Six months or more of weather that has you day by day just putting one foot in front of the other. You keep on keeping on. Gah!

Yeah, it will pass. But meanwhile, I still have the need for warmth and sunshine. And while the lack of sunshine lightens the pigmentation of my skin tone, divorce follows suit; albeit closer to an old fashioned blood letting. Yeah, divorce is the other white meat. It bleeds you dry emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and financially. Ah, the whiter shade of pale!

My heart feels broken.

However I am exactly where I am supposed to be. Why? Because this is where I find myself! Wherever we go, there we are. But are we? If in my present moment, my today, my thoughts are filled with desire and/or aversion to my present moment and to my today, am I really exactly where I am supposed to be? Locked into the little whiny voices in my head, those little dogs that nip at my heels, those little foxes that spoil the vine? When I begin to believe that I am my emotions, my mind fills with smoke like a room full of cigar smokers and life is lived through a neanderthal haze. What is it that John Lennon said? "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".

So when I say that my heart feels broken, I can either focus on how "I feel" like a cat following a laser pointer, or I can observe my feelings and see what they might be saying or trying to teach me. Observation and awareness is like a pair of owls who, while sitting unobserved in a tall tree, look down upon the lay of the land and when called upon act in unison with their owl natures and easily find their prey.

I am feeling extremely anxious and my heart is beating erratic today. I have been living in another person's home while I wait for my spouse to vacate the premises. And sadly, she is taking everything but the kitchen sink. And I am not too sure that she is even leaving that. Nothing about this is fair. It all seems like a bad dream. But wishing it to go away is fruitless. It is my life as it is. Real life.

And I must stop the bleeding

T a o S p r i n g -

New England Patriots - One game, one play at a time.

Dharma in disguise...

A Wood Horse and a Water Rat living in a Water Dragon year

No winter for New England -2012

"We're not gonna take it"

Ten reasons why I Google Blog

a day in the life

Growing a Beard

Chickens do not celebrate Christmas

All we want is Happiness

Chicken Life: From the egg to the Roaster

Seven Hundred Full Moons

Faith Made America Strong

The way to a man's heart

Pizza on Christmas

HOLIDAYS GREETINGS!!!

Unseasonable weather, happy chickens & skunks

SNAFU is not a new word

Thanksgiving

Meat Birds and Thanksgiving plans

All Hallow's Eve

家 人 Chia Jên

Chicken in the big house

TaoSpring - Chickens, potatoes, stew and trivia

Prayer

Tracie's Farm

TaoSpring - Meat Birds

Increasing awareness: The undetermined mind

The Kings desire

The Dust Will Settle at TaoSpring

Marriage. Huh! What is it good for?

Eggs, eggs and more eggs - Gifted

Zen

A recent post over at The Buddhist Blog had me thinking about this post from last year. I thought it an appropriate re-post.

Pouring water into the ocean to make it wet...

The art of play - It's fun to be silly

Pecking Order

Social Security

Chickens...laying eggs

Writers Block - 100 Drafts

I love my chickens

Hurricane Irene

The seven virtues of Bushido

Al Anon

Layla

Elvis has left the building..... Trying to escape the clutches of an abusive woman

rOMNEY FOR pRESIDENT!!!

Not about winning or losing

Gun at the ready

How to write a book

Well, anyhow.....

A Path with heart. A path of intention.

Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are

On a lighter note........

Hexagram - Exhaustion to Joy -

The Hexagram

The Judgment

The Image

Lower line

Fourth line

Upper line

All lines

The Hexagram

The Judgment

The Image

The Scotsman and the Taoist

News from the front...

The capacity for living...crying over spilled milk

Independence Day

TaoSpring - Karmann Ghia, Chickens and back yard fires...

Physician, heal thyself...get out of your past and get into your present

Waterfront Ghia - TaoSpring

TaoSpring 2011

Sunday Morning coming down

Chickens - only an egg’s way for making another egg.

Pallet chicken coop aka Fort Suess

Freemasonry: Is there greatness in you?

Tao Spring: Pallet Chicken Coop P III - Dr. Suess style...

Mental illness and politics.....All is madness

家人 Chia Jên