mixing mind with miksang

My first miksaang experience, so far loving it, an online class taught by Miriam Hall.  Now we are at the lesson on space. And then on to dot in space.
Like Alexandra Horowitz in her book On Looking, i walk around my block that i've walked so many times, but now with each lesson i walk with new vision, or with new aspects calling to me. Colors, light and shadow, texture and pattern, noticed for themselves, not as an attribute of something else.
   Experiencing space and photographing it are two different things. The sky...easy!  And so seldom boring. A field -- not so easy. It becomes a photo of a tree, or of tufts of grass, or a hill. The road, looking down it, is still a busy picture of things. But looking straight down at it...there is space!  Is space in a photo just sameness?
   We're talking about what you see in the picture. I looked down AT the road at my feet and did not exactly experience spaciousness, but did experience not-thing, not-object, not-pattern. It is surface, but not texturey nor patterny. It is a dusting of powder and sand ground down from mountains and boulders by the miles high ice of the glacier over thousands of years and piled by our rivers and lakes to be dug out and spread on this dirt road. There's space for you! But is there someone who can show that in a photo?
   Still, the photo i take of the road is quite calm, easy on the eye, pleasant, even nice, a spacious experience.
   Ok i will try some more today. I only took 75 pics on my walk around the block yesterday (one mile half on dirt road and half on 2 lane paved road.
   Oh, and also, the idea in my mind of Dot in Space brought to my attention several astonishing things i had never noticed before on my block -- pictures that are not space nor dot in space really, but hmmm maybe in a way they are.

birthday musings, is the best yet to come?

it's my birthday!  started out windy dark snowing hard.  now the sun is out. i wonder what it was like the day i was born?  i think mom told me but i've forgotten.
in the book Americanah, which i read recently and liked very much, there's a sentence about how Lagos doesn't revere old buildings as other countries (USA, GB) do, but just tears them down to build something new, and that is because Britain, USA, etc see there best as in the past, whereas Lagos sees their best as yet to come.
in terms of my birthday, something to think about.  how much am i revering the past, how much letting it go as i look forward to the future?

reading Writing a Woman's Life

nov 11 2014  (i keep finding these posts i never posted)

i've been re-reading and old book i saved to see if i want to continue to give it shelf space. lots of Writing a Woman's Life goes right over my head now that i am so long away from scholarly thinking and writing. the book is amazingly interesting; not as out of date as i'd hoped...the put-down term Chick Lit comes to mind...
i did come upon a phrase that reminded me of a recent discussion about a woman who had been asked to leave the opera in France because she was wearing a veil over her face.  The discussion had to do with whether France is saving women from religious oppression of womankind, or is it denying them religious freedom.  The sentence in Writing a Woman's Life is p.41/42 : 

To put it differently, as Elaine Marks does, American feminist critics see women as oppressed by sexism, "their voices unheard within the dominant culture," whereas for French critics, women are repressed, equivalent to the unconscious, and therefore not representable in language.  

 think about this difference...and if in the case of repressed, how to determine what is repression and what is personal preference!

later: almost finished Writing A Woman's Life.  it is like reading history, and making more sense of it all. it's like "Oh so that's what happened,"
one of the women in my book group is waiting to read it. she loved the mystery we are reading for the group, "Death in a Tenured Position" and wants to know more about Carolyn Heilman and her writing. 
she mentioned she is in another book group in town, of younger women (probably in their 40s and 50s as compared to ours -- we are in our late 60s and 70s) and they are reading Gone Girl.  i said i'd started it but didnt get very far and did not like it nor want to read any more of it. she was amazed and said same thing happened to her.
her theory is that it is an age thing.
in which case it is a good example of something Heilman mentions, that we take things to be personal often not realizing they are political or historical (sociological?)

Amazing Gadget!

use it to hold harmonica around my neck while i play guitar and sing.
use it to hold up a book or manuscript while i type.
and -- used to hold ipad while i read ebook or do facetime!

surprise frog package *sniff*

froggy things arrived by post
two of the things i love the most
two funny books! for laughs or napping
all in wondrous froggy wrapping!

from Osprey, a fellow doggerel lover,
a lover of silliness and surprise
a person of remarkable energy and humour and passion,
the funnest and most creative time of my life is due to her.
it changed me for the better.

now she is on her way out the door,
into the next something or nothing,
a light will go out in our world. 
she plans her exit for the solstice,
to steal off in the darkness while everything sleeps.

all of us who knew her will carry a little of osprey within us, and feel joy and loss when we think of her -- and i have her books!!

i had some Lear and Carroll and even Don Marquis, and all those funny books, but of  Belloc i only knew to be kind and tender to frogs!  osprey wanted to further my education in this respect, and as she will have no more use for these books, i am so happy to receive them.

 the synchronized unicycle and knitting drill team at an early rehearsal

visions of hallucinations!

i've read a number of books on the para normal.  tale after tale of people's  real experiences with the dead, with their own near-death, trips out of body, religious or ecstatic visions and visitors. 

in some the point is to convince us these things happen, and that they are quite common.  sometimes the conclusion is they must therefore be real.

in some, it's just part of someone's story, like Hildegarde of Bingham's visions and revelations, taking at face-value that they are from god.

and i read Mary Roach's "Spook" -- her scientific investigation into ghosts and after-death experiences.  lots to laugh about and be amazed by, but no final answers to be found.

i just finished Oliver Sacks' "Hallucinations" which covers some of the same territory from a neurological point of view, appropriately not considering any other possible explanation.  he begins with simple hallucinations in some blind people (Charles Bonnet syndrome), easily understood as the brain's reaction to loss of vision. then he leads us on further into various phenomenon not so clearly explained neurologically, but then goes on to explain them now that we are primed to hear such views.

so he tells of patients with ecstatic religious visions, hearing of celestial voices, seeing deceased loved ones, having out of body experiences, and gives us the details of how the brain is bringing all this about. he ends with the neurological explanation for the not uncommon feeling of a presence, that we are not alone, in a helping way or in a threatening way, and he surmises that this leads humans to the idea of god.

round and round we humans go trying to understand our experiences and our brains, using our experiences and our brains -- each expert feeling a different part of the elephant. (you know the elephant story i'm sure). my conclusion so far...it's all hallucination!

well then go ahead and panic

happy birthday to Doug Adams.
oh no! you're still dead. :(
just pour me some old janx spirit

“Oh don’t give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don’t you give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won’t you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit”

from "brushes with"

from "brushes with" by emily toder
the last 6 lines of the book:

I got back in the house
my woolen farmprint pajamas of petting zoo textile
I let them on me
and they hung on me
ways I have managed to sleep after this
vary little

(reprinted here without permission! sorry! but her little book is a favorite of mine, and it comes from Tarpaulin Sky Press)

suddenly i remembered the feral clothing museum that Osprey created in Second Life, and i wanted to add a picture of it because these lines remind me of it.  but alas, the museum is gone, vanished in whatever mysterious disaster  took away Cowell and Salazar as well, and i can't even find any old pictures of it!

for love of winter

sunny and 30 F today!  i took some more rugs out and broomed them...didn't bother with my jacket, and walked on the frozen snow in my sneakers.  w00t!

had some eggs to use up so i found a simple and delicious quesadilla recipe.  this used up all the eggs (so now am out of eggs) and have now to use up a bunch of cilantro, 1/2 can of black beans, and most of a jar of salsa, 2/3 a package of whole wheat tortillas. 
 there is also cheddar cheese left over but that won't be a problem!

for the book groups i am trying to read Pillars of the Earth, and for the other one, Founding Brothers.  omg they are both so bad.  xtian told me to read Geek Love and the library got it for me -- a paperback covered with tape and well used.  i'm already into it.

what are they thinking?  this looks like it must be popular, can't they spring for a new paperback at least?  but i know it's not that easy accessioning a book, lotta paperwork and stuff.  anyway, Geek Love will save me from death by ponderous tomes.

my own time capsule

all kinds of stuff was in my old desk drawer.  

cleaned it out and i found a notebook with lists of books and comments about them.  one of my doomed attempts to do that sort of thing where you write something every day, draw something every day, take a photo every day, etc.  

it never works out.  

but it was fun looking at several years' worth of books, most of which i have no memory of ever reading.

also in the back of the drawer, i found THIS!!

Dancing and dessert

is there a standard length for a minuet? i got a new recipe book -- one recipe mentions 'minuet' several times but it doesn't list it in the back under the measurements section!

must be a commonly used measure, because when i google "how long is a minuet" there are numerous sites addressing the question.

answer is, it depends.  but not on what you are cooking -- it depends on the piece of music, and also, it is usually played faster if there are no dancers.  so if i dance, this will take longer to cook.

long dark monday

yesterday i happened into second life just in time to listen to an hour of "The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul" in Raglan, thanks to Shady Fox's Sci-Fi Radio Theater.  

definitely, i thought, i must re-read this for the nth time, soon!

this morning, monday, is overcast, barely 60 F, rainy off an on, that is to say cold and dreary in the way that makes it hard to even get out of bed and no amount of coffee seems to help energize the day.  finally i went to the bookcase and took down "The Long Dark etc" and sank into a big chair. 

ahhhh blessed relief!

reading the first sentence "It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression 'As pretty as an airport.'" was like sliding down into a warm bath.  

no other author understood so well as Doug Adams the kind of book that makes a cold dreary damp rainy day feel like a gift!

to read or to weed

thoughts think themselves while you pull up weeds from the flower bed.  just back from talking to the librarian, and hearing my neighbor next door, i idly make a connection.  

he (the librarian) doesn't know them (the neighbors) because they don't go to the library, altho they live 3 doors down from it. 

they (the neighbors) perhaps don't even read.

my brain connects more dots. 

they (the neighbors) are seriously, germanically,  industrious.  

while they garden dawn to dusk to provide themselves with veggies year round (and sometimes some for us) i read on my back porch.  

i try to back into the corner behind the bush so they don't see me.

i believe that People Who Don't Read have a certain view of People Who Read.

People Who Read have a certain view of People Who Don't Read.

pulling weeds my brain lights up  AHA!  

he (the librarian) asked of the book i recommended to him: "it's not science fiction or fantasy is it?"

People Who Read have a certain view of WHAT OTHER PEOPLE READ.

there is a sort of hierarchy of what kind of reading is a waste of time.

readers of history and literature have a certain view of readers of mysteries.

mystery readers have a certain view of sci fi and fantasy readers.

who, i am sure, believe they are not wasting time like romance story readers!

it's fun to realize this.  my brain is cheerful about it.  it is one more clue in my life-long obsession called "What is it that people should do with their time?"  

hardly anyone approves of how anyone else spends their time!
 

bumpersticker time warp!

sooo many books!
one day we go through the ones on the living room shelves
our oldest shelves, that daddy built for us
when we first bought the house.
this book donate to the library, this to the swap shed, this - trash pile!
have to search thru the give-aways for bookmarks -
we tend to use what comes to hand
eviction notices, love letters, photographs, blade of grass, strip of newsprint
omg - a bumper sticker marking a place in a really big book.
ok we have lots of bumper stickers
but this one!  we could sell it on ebay... or ...
put it on the car!

which we did.

books!

after the floods i needed some escape from the strangeness and disorder and difficulties of for example no running water.

many friends and strangers were helpful in many ways.

liz brought me a bag of books!

thoughtfully chosen, each different, each thoroughly enjoyed.  i met a couple of new authors and lots of laughs and new ideas. 

only one could i not get into and i may try it again before i give them back to her.

here's what she brought:

The Thread that Binds the Bones by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker
Hunting Party by Elizabeth Moon
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross
Zodiac: an Eco-Thriller by Neal Stephenson
Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
 .

a long strange Sunday!

this morning i was the umdze and it was my first time leading the new long chants. 

then i had lunch with karen, always fun!

home in time to go to Raglan Shire's annual talent show - fun even tho i could not always get the audio to work.  i took no pictures, but i am sure there are hundreds posted by now!

then to Show and Tell in second life, my sunday ritual.  Barney and Flo have organized and hosted it for i think 6 years.  i've been going for almost 5 years.  this was the last one!  they want their sundays back after all this time.  very sad...i will miss being at the forefront of creativity and with the funnest audience anywhere! 

and then...Gianfar Peaks sims invited all dragons, & dracophiles, of whatever breed, genre, world, age or style, to a memorial service for Anne McCaffrey, beloved author of the Dragonriders of Pern stories, who passed away last week.

held at the Weyr Bowl at Shaula Weyr, dragons of all sizes, and other avatars of every stripe gathered to keen, as is the tradition in Pern. it was heartbreaking and perfect.  i did manage to take some crummy pictures of this awesome tribute: (click for youtube to see bigger)

it is too much to be too long anywhere*

we always moved before 4 years, and usually not that long when i was a kid.
but i've lived HERE many times that now.
now everywhere HERE tells me stories. where cats are buried, where we played softball, where houses stood, where my friend was killed in a car accident, where my baby learned to swim.

everything is impermanent.
when you move around you don't notice this.
when you stay still things change around you like a slow carousel or a fractal kaleidoscope.

now a new baby has been born to a village family, and i am one of the few in the village who might recall that once upon a time another baby was born to that house. 

that house has had a few owners since then.

the tiny years-ago baby died of crib death, so heart-breaking that now i irrationally fear for this new little boy.
i tried for days to remember the name of the other little boy, to assure myself they don't have the same name! finally i remembered -- and to my relief it is not the same. 

i'll never say anything about this to anyone if i can help it, but it's a hard thing to know.

* said gimme the ax in the rootabaga stories

the biography of cancer

i never thought a book about cancer would hold my attention so completely. cancer is not a subject i want to even think about. but awhile back, the NYT had a fascinating article about The Emperor of All Maladies, and i suggested to the local librarian that he should purchase it. he said "sure, who's gonna read THAT!"  to my surprise, he did buy it -- even before it won the pulitzer prize! so then of course i had to at least sign it out and begin to read it. and something about the way it is written kept me reading. 

the author has a love for his profession and also for all of the great poetic scientist-writers. soon i was drawn into the stories of trials, theories, frustrations, successes, life and death, pride and battle, and enjoying the writer's vocabulary and use of words. over and over i was pleased and impressed by tangential quotes and references, the breadth of awareness beyond the medical world. i began stealing sly peeks at the author's photo and the brief bio on the back flyleaf.

that was it. i fell in love. if i were 13 i would put siddhartha mukerjee's picture on my wall and maybe write him a fan letter!  ironically, he totally looked like he should be dreamily holding a cigarette (smoking is one of the things in the book that gets him steamed).

400 pages and then another 100 of notes, index, bibliography, appendix. hard to believe i am sorry to have finished a book i would have expected to be gross and joyless.  and how does cancer's biography end? what's our prognosis?  well no spoilers, you'll have to read it for yourself!

the singularity will not be webcast

5 sends me a link with that as subject.
the link

i reply this looks good, but it's going to take awhile.

5 replies

I'm taking it slowly in bits, started it last night,
will get a bit further sometime today

also reading some very dense books on "jazz"
and apparently (according to the library) two novels
tho I had forgotten they existed

I believe they are on the coffee table under some
books of scale exercises, two rolls of tie-dye-colored duct tape, and a cowbell

tea room gets tweeted - also Henrietta Lacks book

while researching info on Salazar's lands for the upcoming event in june, i stumbled across a tweet Sal sent about my tea room!
so here is a picture:

click to enlarge

oh and yes that is Lucy, who is a woman of color lately, perhaps because i am reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
highly recommended!  an amazing book!  be sure to read it if you haven't already.