The Power of RE

My energy was down.  My moods had grown dark as I empathized with current news stories.  I was upset from looking at the hole ripped out of the Earth next door.  I’m turning it around by meditating on all the wonderful aspects and symbolic depth of the single syllable “re”.

The Grid

In the past five weeks I’ve helped assist five people in their conversion from one form of energy into another.  All of them were dear to me, and each was unique and interesting.  Because I did not meet them until they entered dementia care in the last chapter of their lives, I knew them in simplified form compared to their former selves.

Buh-Bye Motel 2 1/2

We get the keys to our new home today.  Important truths have been re-emphasized in this arduous process, but the lessons are old ones.  I did develop some new skills from living for three weeks in a cabin with no air conditioning and no ordinary source of hot water.

Turn of the Wheel

Soon after the turn of the millennium, we took a sailing vacation on the boat my wife’s friends had built.  I once lived on a 25 foot boat for a couple of years, but this one was over 50 feet long, with several rooms, electricity and an array of instruments and computer-assisted navigation aids.  It was built to sail anywhere.  I had not expected we would sail into a time portal.

Sisyphus and Me

One of my favorite authors I have not written about in this space is Albert Camus (1913-1960), a Nobel laureate (1957) who was both a superb novelist and an influential philosophic essayist.  In Camus’ view, life is an unsolvable situation which we (being what we are) will nonetheless die trying to solve.  This is not a condition which must lead to despair.

The Best Unturned Stones

La Liseuse (The Reader) by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

It’s a holiday weekend, but I’m going to be working my tail off pulling extra shifts.  I won’t have time to visit with you lovely people for a few days.  Just in case you’ll miss me, here are my picks of FIVE GREAT EARLY POSTS

Eight Miles High

It’s raining so hard the rhododendrons are losing their petals.  When I was little I didn’t like rain, but I’ve changed.  My desert-born wife loves rain.  It rained like this on our wedding day, one of the luckiest days of my life.

Free Electric Service

There were several responses to yesterday’s post that touched on BIG ISSUES.  That’s one of the things I like best about the interactivity of blog-world.  It is sometimes an extended issues panel dedicated to the exploration of essential philosophical questions.  I’m going to ask some of you to suspend disbelief willingly for the sake of examining a question.  Let’s assume God exists, just as a hypothetical construct, in order to frame this examination.  Why would God allow all the terrible, unjust, unfair things that happen to innocent people?

Adventures in Woo-Woo (Pt.3)

“As I Count Backwards,”

 

 

There’s still some debate about whether Franz Mesmer was a charlatan or a visionary, or some combination of both.

Adventures in Woo-Woo (Pt.2)

One True Reading

When deciding whether or not to undergo a medical procedure there’s a guideline used called “risk vs. benefit”.  Every procedure has risks, but if the potential benefits heavily outweigh them your doctor will advise you of the situation and recommend you accept the risk and consent to the procedure.  Another way of looking at it would be “upside vs. downside”.  In my experience, the biggest problem I encountered in exploring the nature and character of the unseen world was that it takes a ridiculous amount of time sorting out and throwing away the nonsense and non-useful results in order to gain a small nugget of valid information.

Adventures in Woo-Woo (Pt.1)

You See What You Want To See

If you think I was always directed by traditional rational and scientific forms of inquiry you would be mistaken.  Despite having great respect for logic and evidence due to a love of Greek philosophy and writings fostered in childhood, I spent many years in energetic pursuit of every kind of woo-woo imaginable.  If you haven’t read my concept of “woo-woo” you can check that out first:

Money & Values

The Ethics Test Answers + Reflections on the Comments

This tree has roots in my neighborhood.

First off, I want to offer my heartfelt thanks to all those who participated in the Ethics Test exercise immediately preceding this post, including those who just read it.  It’s gratifying to see that people think about these things and care about them, as I do.  One day when I got dressed I put my cash in the same back pocket as my wallet, which I don’t do usually.

Yellow Brick Road

You’ll have a richer experience of life if you can look below the surface.  Our lives have meaning beyond what they appear to be outwardly.  A big part of learning to understand anything in more depth is to be able to make connections and recognize why and how things represent other things that are bigger in scope and more universal in significance.

That’s why I love the arts.  Great works of art open the door

Subduing the Demon

We are animals.  When animals get stressed there’s an adaptation response called “fight or flight”.  It’s more like fight, flee or freeze, but the point is it’s biological.  It’s a built-in.  You can learn how to use it properly, but you can not keep it from happening.  When you get stressed, adrenaline will pump into your system, and adrenaline can turn you into a monster.

Island Adventure

Some of the San Juan Islands are on a main ferry route, but the boats taking people and their vehicles there are not large.  It’s wise to make reservations, or to walk on if possible.  I had to take two ferries to get where I was going.  Fortunately, I drive a Honda Fit.  I got squeezed into the Keystone Ferry without a reservation.  Small is beautiful.

Northeus Descending

I’m lonely, and so is this pebbled beach.  Wooden posts line up in formation along the shore, like the last soldiers of a besieged regiment.  I’m impressed by their resolve,

Jump-Rope Rhyme Time

I RAN FROM THE RAIN DOWN PLAIN JANE LANE,

Commercial Icon

This is Warner Sallman’s painting Head of Christ from 1941.  It’s an archetype.  When an image or an idea becomes so ubiquitous that it becomes the model for most people’s understanding of the subject, it becomes an archetype.  This is what most people think Jesus (Yeshua bar Yosef) looked like.  Most people NOW, that is.  For hundreds of years after his death, Jesus wasn’t even portrayed as having a beard.

You’re Only Jung Once

The memes are at it again.  By answering 72 questions, you can be with Allah in the company of 72 virgins.  No, wait.  It’s Instant Psychology 101!  You can do it too, if you must.

Unseen & Outspoken

Interview with an Invisible