The Spiritual Cafe

Tonight I met a diverse group of earnest people who meet in what they call The Spiritual Cafe to discuss questions of a spiritual nature.

Each Friday a topic is presented for discussion. Those attending divide into groups of about 8 people and share their ideas for about an hour. Then these smaller groups gather in one large group to share their insights and ponder more questions over tea or coffee.

Tonight the weather was so lovely that we all moved outside for the second hour, so we could feel the fresh breezes on our faces.

The entire experience was energizing and I came home feeling very good.

I had a dream years ago in which I was in a circle talking, and people were listening to me with attention and joy.

Tonight, when I contributed my thoughts in the large group, I realized that the scene matched the one in my dream. As in my dream, what I said resonated with a number of people.

Needless to say, I plan to attend regularly. I felt at home with the people I met and, over time, I may make some good friends.

Tomorrow I will be attending two great functions.

The first is a Mother's For Peace Mother's Day rally in Peace Park at noon.(Mother's Day was originally founded by Mothers to protest conscription and loss of their sons to war.) The second event will be a picnic in Gibbons Park at 2 p.m. with the people from The Spiritual Cafe.

Peace Park is a five minute walk from home. Gibbons Park is about a twenty minute walk from there - maybe longer - but I think I'll bike over. Maybe I'll take some photos tomorrow and post them here. I'll need to pack a lunch - I'll take my backpack.

Well, I've stayed up later than I mean to.

Let's see what Rumi, my old friend, has to say.

Yesterday at dawn
My friend said, How long
will this unconsciousness go on?

You fill yourself with
the sharp pain of love,
rather than its fulfillment.

I said, "But I can't get to you!
You are the whole dark night,
and I am a single candle.

My life is upside down
because of you!"

The friend replied, I am
your deepest being,
quit talking about wanting me!

I said, "Then what is this
restlessness?"

The friend:

Does a drop stay still in the ocean?

Move with the entirety and with the tiniest particular.

Be the moisture in an oyster
that helps to form one pearl.

From The Illustrated Rumi translated by Coleman Barks

A lovely thought upon which to fall asleep.

Martina Navratilova Creates Art

Tennis great Martina Navratilova and conceptual artist Juraj Kralik have teamed up to create a playful exhibition with the theme of "tennis as art" called Art Grand Slam.

Fun and colorful, and created through skillful use of forehand strokes, it demonstrates Navratilova's ability to put the ball where she wants it.

What a delightful tribute to her skill!

A Brilliant Poem: OVERHEARD

Overheard by Jonathan A. Reynolds strikes me as a brilliant poem.

It contains so many possible human emotions and points of view.

For instance, is it accurately describing "her" self-deception about "her" self-image?

Or is it revealing the faulty character of the observer, who is too critical?

Is there any degree of just cause for the criticism? Or is this simply a predictable expression of judgment by one for whom criticism is a habit?

Does it reflect the second thoughts of one who cannot - or will not - love his Beloved unconditionally? Is it a result of growing familiarity breeding contempt? Or is it based in some experience of being abused, ignored or unloved by the woman in question?

And who thinks these thoughts? A stranger, acquaintance, friend or lover?

If the observer is a woman, is the intent one of cattiness, with the desire to diminish the observed woman's greatness?

Or is the intent to register a complaint to the Universe - or confirm to oneself - that the observer has been ignored by a self-absorbed or self-aggrandizing friend or lover?

Is it based on insecurity, and the fear of being thought low class by association? Or is the observer annoyed because he has been ignored by the crowd gathered around the woman and feels unimportant?

If so, is the observed woman a mirror for the writer's fear of being inadequate? Is this, deep down, an unconscious criticism of the observer for himself? Would he like to be the center of attention, a center this woman has claimed?

Whatever the truth, "she" is a mirror for the observer, and the observer is a mirror for the reader. So what is the reader to learn?

Perhaps the lesson here is to love better, or to learn to receive love better. For when we are unable to receive love, we attract those who - whether through coldness or self-absorption - cannot give love, or cannot give it in the form we need.

Whether the woman in this poem is self-absorbed and holds back love, the observer is unfairly critical and holds back love from her, or the observer is jealous of the attention paid to the woman since he, himself, is unable to hold the crowds attention, the lesson is the same. The observer holds back love from himself in some way.

Our lovers hold back when we cannot receive. Likewise, the world as a whole will ignore us and not give us the respect or acknowledgment we crave when we cannot receive.

I imagine that this poem came into being as a result of the author overhearing a woman, and finding her to be too full of herself. The woman might have been a stranger in close proximity, a celebrity on television, a lover who no longer seemed so desirable, or a regrettable date. Whatever the circumstance, the observer found her vulgar. It seems a simple and all-too-common scenario.

Yet was she inferior goods? Maybe, maybe not. All perception is in the eye of the beholder.

Yet, certainly we have all stood in judgment of someone in this way. We have felt, perhaps, revulsed by someone whom we found false, someone who talked him or herself up, who claimed to offer gold, but had only brass.

We have all, certainly, felt either embarrassment or distaste over what has come out of some person's mouth, whether stranger or relative.

Interestingly, for me, the person that comes to mind as a result of reading this poem is Ann Coulter.

Yet, while we can ignore strangers and self-styled celebrities, it's tragic when a self-aggrandizing, critical - or even insulting - person pulls the wool over our eyes, enters our personal lives as a friend or lover, and then, like a bull in a china shop, does damage.

The lesson is always to learn to love ourselves so well that we do not attract such people.

Yet more than that, if we love ourselves well enough we will have no need to criticize others as entertainment, and will not, ourselves, turn into false friends who gain pleasure through cutting others down. In learning to love ourselves better, we are better able to love others.

The result is that we will create beneficial relationships in which we give and receive with equal ease.

Great literature gives voice to this constant struggle to form reliable and mutually beneficial relationships. Crucial to forming good relationships is the requirement that we both know ourselves and perceive the truth about our motivations. The Achilles Heel of the protagonist always centers upon his self-delusion and ignorance about himself, his motivations, and his weaknesses.

Yet it is difficult enough to pin down an accurate description of what we see and feel. Figuring out, then, what makes us perceive and feel as we do is so challenging that we seldom try. We tend to leave the topic of motivation to the speculation of writers and psychologists.

So isn't it marvelous when we read a good novel or short story and learn something about ourselves in it? We can consider our possible motivations dispassionately then, and without shame or guilt, because they are not labeled as ours, but those of fictional characters. And, just maybe, through observing the actions and motivations of characters similar to ourselves, we can learn some lesson on what to do, what not to do and how best to live.

Ice Cream, Flowers, Smiles, Meaning

Today, as I walked down the street, three teenagers were playing around. Two were on small bikes. They all went to a small dell by the river. There kids fly down a steep bank on their bikes and try to make it up the other side with the momentum.

The two boys on bikes were trying it as their friend sang—like a comic opera star. He made me laugh, yet the quality of his voice was good. He sang so playfully. I have never heard a teenaged boy sing with such comic and yet melodious abandon.

As I walked to Wortley in the warming sunshine in order to buy oranges and bananas, the boys on the bikes sped past. They waited, ahead, for their friend who strode on foot. As I passed them, I couldn’t help but ask who had been singing.

They laughed and said it was their friend on foot, saying he sings all the time. I told them that, although he had made me laugh, I thought his voice was very good. They were happy to hear it and one friend said: “awesome.”

They were having fun on a beautiful day and their high spirits were contagious.

Then I saw a young father walking with his tiny son. The boy was dressed in a blue jacket that looked like a slicker, and orange hat with a brim so that he looked like a little seafaring fisherman. Very cute.

I wound up with such an astonishing feeling of well-being that I took time to take a few photos—I had brought the camera rather grudgingly—and I bought an ice cream cone from The Dugout.

The previous customer had dropped her ice cream and made a mess. While the guy behind the counter was getting her more (at no cost to her) I grabbed a few napkins and cleaned up for him, which he appreciated.

It was wonderful, carefree. And I felt connected to the world.

In my constant busy-ness: writing stories, creating designs, fretting about the fact I have not done anything on the Peace Collage in six weeks, I forget all the blessings I have. I forget there are good and funny people all around me, and often forget to notice and enjoy what’s right in front of me.

Acutely aware of my age (55) and how I sabotaged myself, beginning in high school, so that I would wind up today, without a career or a pension, I too often tend to see the glass half empty—sometimes all empty.

When I wore holes in my shoes and my mother could not afford to buy me another pair, I went to the local convenience store, lied about my age and got a full-time job in which I worked from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. every night after school as well as on Saturday and Sunday. As you can imagine, I had no time for homework. I tried to burn the candle at both ends, staying up often until three in the morning, but then I would fall asleep in class.

It’s a shame, because I had been on track—although I didn’t realize it—to be able to pick the university I wanted.

My self-esteem was so low—my mother always told me I didn’t deserve to go to college—and I guess I believed her.

In 9th grade I had gotten straight A’s. Placed in Honors English and Honors History classes in 11th grade, that was the year I got the job. Needless to say I wasn’t put in honors classes my senior year. Instead, I worked full-time. It is amazing to me that I wound up with a B average. I was the only one of my friends who did not get into the National Honor Society.

I also was the only one of my group of friends who was told by my high school guidance counselor—his name was Mr. Bean and he was a round man in a white shirt and nondescript tie, probably in his thirties, who looked and sounded as though he didn’t have a brain in his head—that there was no point in my going to college as I would probably get married.

I wasn’t even dating at the time, and had no interest in boys. So much for his insightful acumen.I said nothing but thought he surely had to be a sexist moron.

I went to college, but it was a struggle. Because I had not gotten better grades, I did not qualify for a scholarship. Sad to say, I never even considered—even when I was an A student—that I would qualify for a scholarship. The result was I had to work full-time during college. Of course my grades suffered.

But the real icing on the cake came when I let my university guidance counselor talk me out of my major. I had wanted to be a psychologist. Yet, he had just created a new major—Social Sciences—and he was anxious to get recruits.

I signed up and wound up, after four years, with an absolutely worthless degree. The result? I got a job in insurance instead of becoming a counselor or working in the field of human potential and thought—which has always fascinated me.

I'm writing all this for anyone out there who is still young and thinking about blowing off school. Please don't. You'll seal your fate and regret it bitterly, especially when you reach middle age.

If you get A’s you can call the shots. And you can get A's. Most of school is effort. Work hard enough, keep at it, ask for help - demand help - and you can learn anything. You will then be able to get scholarships, you can determine your fate, and you won't be begging for jobs or loans. Goof off, get C’s and you will bounce around like a pinball, trying to find your place for the rest of your life.

Show the world you can apply yourself, and that you can learn. It may be tedious, it may be boring, but a dead-end job you hate will be more so. Endure school and master it, and you can make the rest of your life far more interesting.

Choose a decent profession and you will be able to afford whatever lifestyle you want. Get stuck at minimum wage and you will live your life as someone else’s wage slave.

My ex-step kids didn’t believe me. I begged them to apply themselves. They laughed at me. They are in their late twenties now, working like dogs, unable to get ahead, living from paycheck to paycheck on rent with no future in sight. They’re not laughing now.

It’s not cool to reject the system when you will wind up being controlled by it all your life.

I wish someone had explained it to me. I wish someone I respected had said: quit that damn job, get A’s in your honors classes, work like hell to get a scholarship and get into the best school you can, because that will determine your entire future. And, for God’s sake, if you want to be a psychologist, let no one who has his comfortable niche and nice paycheck talk you out of it.

So, anyway, back to seeing the glass half full. Here's a beautiful church in Wortley Village.

I’ve been working so hard, editing stories, getting them ready for submission. I sent off one on Friday entitled A Couple Of Eggs.

Saturday I pared a 5199 word story—The Jewel Box—down to 5000 words to meet submission requirements. Also finished a 2500 word essay entitled Angels In The Field on the topic of “restoration” which I intend to submit to Pilgrimage Press.

By today—after working 10 and 12 hours every day last week writing—I felt I deserved a break. I slept in, got Angus to take me out for breakfast, laid on the swing and read until I dozed off.

I’m reading Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning. Although I have two books of Alice Munro’s stories to read, am reading Ronald Wright’s A Short History of Progress and have a few more pages to go in a book on playwriting, I felt compelled on Friday to go and get Frankl’s book out of the library. I’m half finished with it.

A psychiatrist, Frankl spent 3 years as a prisoner in concentration camps in Germany during WWII, including Auschwitz. He is the founder of Logotherapy, about which I intend to learn more.

Frankl talks about how one finds meaning when all meaning—normally imparted to our lives by loved ones, possessions, comfort, food—has been taken away. How does one go on living when one is treated like rubbish, worked and starved, beaten and in pain day after day without any hope of escape or reprieve and the knowledge one is very likely to die at the hands of one’s captors?

Frankl quotes Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.”

So the answer to those in the camps—as well as for each of us—is: What why gives our life meaning? How could we possibly justify, under such wretched terror and agonies, a reason for living? God knows it was easy enough for a person in the camps to get the attention of a guard who would beat him to death or shoot him.

Here is, to me, a most profound answer from his book:

“What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves, and furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.

We needed to stop asking ourselves about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly.

Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

He goes on to say that these tasks are different for each person and that no one’s path is like any other. We each must come to grips with what we are asked to do, what we must give birth to. If we are alive, it is for a reason. We have work to do, revelations to comprehend, meaning to impart to the lives of others, love to give and receive.

Matthew Fox, author of The Reinvention of Work, quotes St. Francis of Assisi in saying that we are here to alleviate pain and create joy.

He, of course, means not just for ourselves but for others.


If we spend our lives alleviating our own material pains and creating material joy (and that’s all we can do when we ignore the well-being of others), we will wind up spiritually bankrupt due to our selfishness. If we, however, work to alleviate pain and create joy for all concerned, then we will find our lives rich in meaning and joy.

That is the ultimate measure of any thought, word or deed: will it, can it, is it alleviating pain or creating authentic joy? If not, it subtracts meaning from our lives—and others—rather than adding it.

And, for those who think they have to choose between altruism and financial independence, think again. Wanting to help others, to be of service, to make a difference, does not preclude being materially well off. Just look at Oprah.

Birthday Cake Photos

May sixteenth was Angus' birthday. I bought him the Buena Vista Social Club DVD produced by Ry Cooder and a double CD of the music. He loves it. Old Cuban folk music from the fifties. Here's his cake just after I poured the bittersweet chocolate icing over it.
I told him to pick out a recipe and I'd bake whatever he wanted. He wanted an orange rum cake. It was delicious. I should post the recipe.

59 candles.

I was a brat and ran around the last minute to find enough candles. He said one package of 24 would do. Nope. I don't think so.
With all the rum in the cake, we were speculating that the whole thing might burst into flame, but it didn't.

The cake was so good, it did not need ice cream. (Good choice, honey.)

Here's my baby blowing out all the candles. We didn't help him.

The Sunday before Angus' birthday, Andrew had his birthday. I made an asparagus quiche and rhubarb strawberry pie for Sunday brunch.

(For some reason I took about 8 photos showing the whole process of rolling out the pie dough, mixing the fruit, fruit in the pan, putting on the top crust, etc. I thought it all looked very pretty at the time.)

Also went out and bought myself a new pair of silky pajamas. They are cream colored with red hearts. I love them and feel very feminine in them.

I've been writing stories and perfecting them for the last couple of weeks. Angus says one of them is the best thing I've ever written.

Read three collections of Alice Munro's short stories this month. I'm almost finished with another: headship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.

She always succeeds in surprising me. There's always a twist, something going on that I didn't realize would wind up being the point of the story. Some of it is quite poignant.

Saw Roy McDonald at Covent Garden yesterday and we talked for over an hour. It was raining outside. He paid me for the copy of my book that I left him. He was so enthusiastic about my book. Said he really likes the prayers.

Roy is not false in any way and it was just what I needed to hear.

Also, someone bought 25 of my "Democrats: For The People" bumper sticker. That's very gratifying. I'm glad I made it.

Went out for a cappucino tonight which is why I'm still wide awake. But I'm winding down.

Oh, yes. Here are photos of the CD cover and back. These are neat, but it's the DVD with its interviews of the great old musicians that I found so wonderful. The last member of this group, Ibrahim Ferrer, just died a month or two ago. Ry Cooder did the music world a big service when he recorded these musicians and filmed them for posterity.
Angus and I went to see Thank You For Smoking on Wednesday night. Quite wry and a very clever approach.

It was warm and humid here today and apparently will be warm and humid tomorrow. I wore capris and sandals. Very nice.

It's four o'clock a.m. Saturday night (Sunday morning actually) and I need to crawl into bed. No Rumi or pie photos tonight.

But I will say I woke this morning laughing. I had a silly, fun dream - the first in years where I woke up in delight.

That was a pure gift.

Spring Is Sprung In Ontario

Spring is blossoming in Southern Ontario. Today I walked downtown in a short sleeved shirt, over the pedestrian bridge and the river not cooled at all by the breeze.

It may have been even warmer yesterday. A woman came to the door around one in the afternoon selling chocolates. Overweight, she was panting, sweating and miserable in the unseasonable heat of the sun.

(Here's a Red Bud Tree, native to Ontario.)

It was, in retrospect, a lack of tact for me to turn her away with: "Oh no, I need to lose weight, not gain it." Then I meant to get out in that hot sun, to experience it, but didn't.

But heavens it was beautiful today!

Look at these gorgeous flowers. I took these photos yesterday on my walk downtown. I like to walk downtown every day, but I often get so engrossed in writing a story - or working on an image - that I let the day go by and wind up going when the sun is low and I need a jacket.
Yesterday evening no jacket was needed until quite late.

By the way, I submitted a 2200 words story to Glimmer Train and a 4900 word story to Dirt Press. I'm working on another story - I have over four thousand words in it so far.
But the number of words is irrelevant. What matters is which words are in that story, whether it is skillfully layered or just a stream of consciousness.

I was absolutely lost for four hours on Saturday. I remember noticing that it was two o'clock (I had been working on the story for over an hour.) The next thing I knew, Angus had come in from golf and errands and it was six-thirty. I had no idea that four hours had passed or where they had gone - I had been so engrossed in crafting that story.

I bought a notebook so I can keep better track of my submissions. Keeping track of them via computer doesn't work for me. I need a place to write all the details down, in order - and whether the publishers/contests are open to multiple submissions - so I can keep track of what I've sent out and what I can submit elsewhere.

Tonight, after Angus came home from the driving range, we went out. I bought two pair of pajamas from La Vie En Rose (Finally! What I've been wearing to bed is depressing) and we picked up a few plants for the planters.

Angus was insistent he didn't want anything planted until after May 24 - when folk wisdom says there is no longer danger of frost - but it's been so warm I convinced him frost is very unlikely from this point on - not this year, not with these trends.

So that will be a little project for tomorrow, to get me out in the sunshine earlier.

I've done nothing on the peace collage. Did not practice drawing tonight and it's already eleven. I'm going to bed after I upload a few photos - tomorrow's another day.

There's an idea. I can take photos of some of my drawings from Nicole's class and post them. I told myself that I would draw every day with this class. I did for the first two weeks, but since then I haven't drawn much - had to do taxes, was ill for a week (probably because I hate doing taxes enough to get sick over it) so my improvement has slowed. Still I like a couple of the drawings I did.

Let's see what Rumi has to say tonight - it's been so long since I consulted the poet.

I have turned to the end of The King and the Handmaiden and the Doctor and my finger has landed on the moral of this long poem:

Any love based on physical beauty is not love.

This is immediately followed by:

"This world is a mountain. What we do is a shout. The echo comes back to us."

From page 232 of The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Banks.

Wise words from the eighth century.

Saturday Was Earth Day

Here's a peace bumper sticker. Saturday was Earth Day. It was also "Clean and Green Day" in London. It rained during the night and the morning was overcast - perfect for working outdoors.

I met up with people from the River Forks neighborhood association, got bags and gloves and spent the first two hours of the morning picking up litter on our street between our house and the pedestrian bridge.

After two hours my back was hurting from bending over and picking up garbage. I could not believe I am so out of shape. I went home, took two extra strength aspirin and went out again. So much for paying attention to the body.

I picked up more cigarette butts than anything. The result however is that piles of unsightly garbage - the wet overflow from dumped garbage cans - is gone. The street just looked beautiful in the afternoon. It was warm and glorious with the flowers all starting to bloom, the grass fresh and green after the night of rain and the trees in various stages of budding.

During the last hour I went down to the Thames itself, on the other side of the pedestrian bridge and down in the park to the dock where we feed the ducks bread.

To my delight, the great mound of trash had been cleaned out from a hollowed part of the retaining wall by the dock. But there was all sorts of old garbage still in the water, washed up in the shallows.

I went beneath the dock, since the water was low, and dredged up all sorts of awful muck. Amazing the number of old rotting garments I pulled out of the mud, including the stray sock. It was heavy, smelly, muddy stuff. Also pulled out a bunch of old plastic bags half buried in the rocks, yards of goopy tangled fishing line, a fish hook and lots of broken glass from bottles. There was the occasional smashed aluminum can, weird things like "plastic burlap" bags that had filled with mud and - the thing that was heaviest and most atrocious - an old rusted out chair that had been sticking out by the dock for the last year.

I had to wade in and get my sneakers completely wet and smelly to get that little piece of hideousness, but I did it.

By then I was tired and it was really hard carrying all this heavy sodden crap - that I had put in various plastic bags except for the chair - up the stairs. My last energy was spent hauling the bags to the closest of the 55 gallon garbage cans in the park. It was not close, but I did not feel right about just dumping those dripping bags - and the chair - on the sidewalk and assuming they would eventually be picked up.

I fairly limped back up and over the bridge and down to Sylvia & Kevin's place for our pizza lunch break. One piece of onion and feta pizza and a glass of water and a sit and then it was time to head down to the park for tree and shrub planting as part of "Reforest London."

I had to go home and change into shorts. The sun had come out - it was a spectacularly beautiful afternoon like early summer - and I was miserable in long jeans and my sweatshirt.

Came back and worked with a whole group of people planting until 3:30, then I just had to go home. I was so achey and tired. I kept thinking it was hard to believe that, at one time, I worked a 12-hour day doing physical labor. I couldn't make 6 hours of it on Saturday and during half of that I was less than energetic. I have really allowed my physical strength and stamina to deteriorate. It's staggering how old and out of shape I've become without realizing it. What this tells me is I need to change. I need to get a bicycle, start bicycling and also start working in the yard. If I don't get some of my strength back now, I will be a creaking shell in another fifteen years when I'm seventy.

Now that thought gives me pause. Only fifteen years until I'm seventy.
Let's move to another topic.

I took out three books of Alice Munro's short stories. I have one more to finish reading in Runaway. I want to find out why her stories are so loved.

Started a short story of my own this afternoon. Began writing around twelve-thirty and didn't stop until six-thirty. Five words short - so far - of 2700 and the story isn't finished. It's taken on a life of its own and what I thought the characters were going to do, they haven't done. I may well have to start another, different story to tell what I originally meant to write.

I realized again today that I have so many stories I have meant to write. Most of them have something or other to do with my parents. It hit me that, because I was their only child and because I had no children to pass their stories to orally, if I don't write them down in some fashion their lives will be lost.

So today I decided that I will not die without committing my parents and their lives - or at least what I have always found striking about their lives - to paper.

It's no longer going to be writing about me or my perspective about them. It's going to be about them.

Tomorrow is drawing class and I haven't drawn anything today, but I want to. I want to put a couple of photos up here before I log off. First is Hobbes asleep.

Hobbes, by the way, is throwing up. I think he ate the dead bumble bee that I saw on the floor in the basement because it's gone. I know he ate some of my flowers because there were telltale petals on the table and chewed up fern on the floor.

As a result he can't keep any food down. He's been throwing up all day. I'm hoping he'll get over it. If he doesn't, he'll get dehydrated, weak and die. If he's still throwing up tomorrow, I will have to get him in to be seen by the vet and ask Nicole if she can take us since Angus is in Florida and left the car parked at Ray's en route. I've lost too many animals, including poor little Marlowe who never was going to live. I cannot lose Hobbes also.


Beautiful, round and roly-poly Hobbes asleep in a chair.

Warmer And Rainy Today

It's rainy and warm in Southern Ontario.

Had my hair done today. Here's a photo of Najee, my hairdresser. He's a great guy. We talk about everything - including religion and politics - when I'm there.



Put on my long olive colored raincoat - the one I wore when a woman in Paris stopped me and asked me where I got it - it looks bohemian I think. Took the umbrella I love - it's covered with the scenes from a famous picture in which people on a rainy Paris street walk under umbrellas, but I really didn't need it. The downpour didn't start until I was in the shop!

A light rain was falling when I came out after my appointment. Bought 12 grain bread at the Wortley bakery, kitty chow from Dr. Doo's and decided to stop at the new coffee shop, Synergy. Once inside, the rain began again in earnest.

Nursed a cappucino while reading most of Arthur Millers The Crucible as it poured outside. I was quite absorbed for well over an hour - with no desire to leave - and, without trying, tuned out the conversations that came and went. I was nearly finished when a trio of women - and I am sure none of them have ever tried to run a business - came in and immediately started criticizing the Little Red Roaster. They really were unbelievable. I found I could not listen to them - they were so negative, ignorant and petty. They made me want to write a wicked parody about them.

But no matter - by that time the rain had stopped. I didn't need to put up my umbrella once on the way home.

Miller wrote that play during the ungodly witch hunt in the U.S. that ruined so many people in the 50's. He was very smart to allow his audience to see the similarities between the abominable Salem witchcraft trials and the search for "communists" in his day without ever mentioning it. People, I'm sure, could see the parallels quite clearly without having them pointed out.

Back home, while cooking dinner, I looked through my kitchen window and saw that the heavens had opened. Ah, how fortunate I was. Believe me, I thanked God that I had not found myself trying to manage walking with a ten pound bag of cat food, a bulky loaf of homemade bread and an umbrella in driving rain.

Fixed a macaroni and cheese dish. Such a cozy smell; so nice to have the oven on. The fresh bread was heavenly with butter. Angus and I played cribbage after dinner, over cups of steaming tea.

I meant to draw - to practice. I was so good last week about drawing every day - but I felt too tired to concentrate. (I'm taking a drawing class so I will be better able to help Jo-ann in creating our peace project.)

I wound up doing a crossword puzzle (I told myself it was good for my brain, although it really was a waste of time) then lay down in bed under a blanket and just rested. Now I've gone through e-mail, read all the news, uploaded an image for CafePress and realized what I was doing wrong in trying to get a transparent background to look right against a black shirt sample.

Here are two of the designs I've been working on:




Tomorrow I must tackle my taxes. I've procrastinated enough. When they're done, then my mind will be freed to begin serious work on the project.

Let's see what Rilke has for us tonight from his Book of Hours: Love Poems To God:

Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.

Chosen at random, that is one of my favorites.

Rilke, I'm convinced, must have felt God's presence very strongly. He was so in love, so reverent and on such intimate terms with the One.

Another thought: I felt so ungracious toward those women today. I could not believe how I wanted to chastise them and ask them: have you ever tried to run a business? How dare you want people to slave for you for nothing?

For they begrudged paying three bucks to the Red Roaster for a sandwich. They had no concept that the Roaster has to pay for rent, wages, insurance, power, etc. and that all that must be included as a percentage of that sandwich. After ten minutes of their petty bitching, I could stand it no longer. I had to leave or call them on it.

But if I had said anything about this, I would, no doubt, have begun a rant next on all the Chinese workers who slave away making things for us in the Western world for peanuts. Workers don't even get a day off. They work 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. That's 91 hours per week. There are no sick days, no over time, no workers' compensation. They get maybe 40 cents an hour - and some get much less - and can never get ahead. When they get too tired or sick to keep up their speed of production, they're fired.

I think the ignorance and selfishness of most consumers in the West is obscene. We can't go on using other people and trying to get something for nothing forever. It must catch up with us sooner or later. Everyone deserves a living wage. No one should work for starvation wages or have to put up with an ungrateful public that forever wants to pay less and less, with cost as its only concern.

What ever happened to caring about others, of wanting to see them do well, of being willing to pay a fair price for a fair day's work, of being grateful to those who provide us with the wonderful and amazing and beautiful things that fill our lives? For instance, a tasty sandwich and a good cup of coffee can lift the spirit and allow one to do things with energy and good humor. Have it in a cozy coffee shop and it's such a treat.

Well, someone made that bread and what's in the sandwich. Someone grew the food and the coffee. Someone made the table and the chair you sit at. People made it all and yet we take all that work - all that life's energy expended for our pleasure - for granted.

I suppose I should pity those women more than anything. They know the cost of everything, yet the value of nothing. My impression was that they have nothing in their lives to talk about except their outrage over the fact that they had to ask in order to get a pickle with their sandwich.

They are, evidently, unaware that most people don't eat their pickles and, for a restaurant, putting pickles on every plate is a waste. So they were offended that they had to ask! I suppose I should be laughing, it's so absurd. God forbid they should live in Dafur and have someone chase them with a machete. Imagine how offended they would be then!

I wonder if they have even heard of Dafur? They struck me as such empty-headed and bored and - dare I say it? - useless people. This, in turn, has made them unhappy and discontent people. They aren't grateful for their experiences because they don't enjoy them. Perhaps they are all just very lonely and cannot enjoy anything.

Of course the irony of my wasting so much time and energy on them is not lost on me. Perhaps the lesson for me is to face down the fact that I really don't have much compassion for the well-fed, but only for those who suffer deprivation. Yet I read what felt like a reminder from God afterwards to "be kinder to others than you have to" because "everyone is standing in some fire."

So I'm glad I did not lose my temper and speak sharply to those women. Obviously some real fear that I live a petty, worthless life was activated - for we always project upon others the dislikes and fears we have in regard to ourselves. And that is the real issue.

Free Lewis?

[Image found at: Free Lewis]

The story of Lewis, the kitty "imprisoned" in his home as a menace, has made national news and "Free Lewis" sentiment appears to be in the air.

Yet I can't help wonder why the public doesn't react to real injustice as fast. There are people unjustly imprisoned, tortured and dying as I write this, but so few people seem to care. Is it because people don't know? Or because they really don't like themselves, don't like their own species and would rather save a cat than a human being?

Yet, as Mark Konrad, the founder of Global Importune states, "If you're silent about injustice, you're giving consent to it."

Other than donating to Amnesty International, I haven't known what to do about the terrible injustices around the world. Now I've found that I can make a little start. Global Importune has been a painless way to get involved that requires, at most, about five minutes of my time each month.

Each month Mark selects a political prisoner from a list assembled by Amnesty International. Then he writes a letter on behalf of that prisoner. Mark then mails copies to more than 400 Global Importune members scattered throughout the U.S. and Canada. Each member is asked to sign and date his or her letter and return it in the postage paid envelope. When he receives them back, Mark forwards the letters en mass to the government leader or ambassador of the offending nation.

When writers and peace workers, members of opposition parties, bloggers and whistleblowers are thrown in jail, governments count on no one caring. But when a national leader receives a bag full of mail from strangers who say: we know you have this person and we are watching what you are doing with him, it not only gives that leader pause but often leads to release.

No leader - no matter how dreadful - wants to be embarrassed or wants attention called to his wrongdoings.

As a result of Mark's work - and those who sign these important letters - more than 200 political prisoners have been released around the world.

Mark also sends out letters in support of legislation that remedies injustice. Here's an example from this month that I signed and returned to him:

His Excellency Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
State Governor
The Round House secretariat
Alausa, Ikeja
Lagos, Nigeria

Dear Governor,

I welcome the current discussion of a "Domestic Violence and Other Related Matters Bill" by the Lagos House of Assembly.

In Nigeria, women suffer from violence in the family: they get 'punished' for supposed transgressions and are beaten, raped or murdered.

If the Bill is passed, it will help to protect those women who face violence in the family.

The government of Lagos State, along with the federal government of Nigeria, has an obligation under international human rights law to prevent violence against women and to assist women in escaping violence. Perpetrators must be prosecuted, and victims of violence given full support.

As the Governor of Lagos State, you have the power to make a difference for these women.

I urgently ask you to voice your support for the "Domestic Violence and Other Related Matters Bill" and undertake a thorough public education campaign on this issue. I urge you to publicly condemn violence against women: say it is never normal, legal or acceptable and that it is a human rights abuse.

I thank you for your attention to this important matter and anxiously await your reply.

Sincerely,

As Martin Luther King stated: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

I urge you to contact Mark today and get on his mailing list. Your signature can mean freedom from rape as punishment for third world women. Your signature can mean release for a person languishing in jail for no good reason except that he or she is for peace, told the truth or was working for justice.

Mark can be contacted at: globalimportune@sympatico.ca and his website is www.globalimportune.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. Isaiah 61:1

Serious Thoughts About Apology

Three pieces of the candy I bought Angus for Valentine's Day:
Fantastic News!

The Thomas Merton Society has accepted my presentation proposal for their Conference Climate of Fear/Commitment To Peace.

Jo-Ann and I will be going to Winnipeg in November.

I've been working on our materials - which will include presenting a paper and unveiling a work of art - since I found out.

My energy level has gone way up and I am so jazzed about my projects again.

After several hours of work on the presentation, I was struck with ideas for a couple of cartoons. Worked on one of them for an hour.

I have a CafePress site and if I can work out my idea to my satisfaction, I'll put it on a T-shirt.

For anyone wondering - no - my ideas have nothing to do with religion or with the protests over the Muhammad cartoons.

Regarding what's happening - although I am horrified at the violence and deaths - and now a reward posted for the execution of one of the cartoonists - what can Westerners expect? We have done nothing to understand Arabs or co-exist peacefully with them. Instead, everything in our attitude and actions indicates we think they need to change, need to "get with the program" and become westernized.

It's never been enough that they would leave us alone and let us be who we are. We wanted them to become like us.

To that end, the West has demeaned, ridiculed, manipulated and attacked. As a result, the whole culture has been hurt and angry for a long time.

They are reacting, in my opinion, much as a person does in response to a lifetime of bullying. Especially after the debacle of Iraq, this perceived insult to Mohammed has been the "straw that broke the camel's back." It's a symbol of how we have belittled and invalidated their religion and culture - doing whatever we want - until they are sick to death of it.

Worse of all, the cartoons contain an element of truth. And this violence - ironically in Mohammed's name - proves the point. Yet most Muslims can't see it. Or don't want to admit it.

They're too furious: furious at the West for decades of belittling and furious at themselves for their powerlessness, for their lack of ability to command respect, love, understanding and for the way the West has worked toward keeping them powerless.

So the protests are growing stronger, and violence is escalating.

It's because we're not hearing them.

Because attack of every kind is always a call for love and respect.

Bottom line, they have demanded apologies. They have demanded a show of respect and consideration and, with sincere apologies offered by the West and all governments of those involved, it's possible they could get past this.

But they haven't gotten the apologies they feel they need.

What does that say?

We're telling them how they should feel, just as they're telling us how we should think.

Who can deny that a goodly number of secular people think the Muslims - and all religious persons - are deluded fools and see this as a battle of wills? There is no way they are going to apologize for the cartoonists echoing what they think.

Who can deny that some Christians think of Muslims as heathen who either need to be converted or conquered?

Who can deny that the establishment of Israel - a tiny country - has wreaked havoc in terms of resentment and bloodshed? (While it may have seemed like a good idea, after the Holocaust, to give Jews a homeland in which they could feel safe, the establishment of Israel hasn't given them that.)

Who doubts that the U.S. government gives the impression that Middle-Eastern culture is inferior, backward and expendable or that American corporations are looking to expand their influence and markets in the Middle-East and would like to get rid of those pesky Muslim values that interfere?

The U.S. has stoked conflict in the Middle-East for over half a century in so many ways and has treated every Middle-Eastern nation - with the exception of Israel - as though it has no intrinsic value.

As long as I can remember - in my lifetime of fifty-odd years - Arabs have always been portrayed as "lesser peoples" with whom we, unfortunately, must do business because of their oil.

So who's going to say "I'm sorry" first?

Don't expect it to be the Muslims.

They, rightly, perceive that the West and non-Muslim countries have long degraded their values and refused to take their religion seriously.

I'm not saying we haven't had legitimate reasons to be appalled by things done by Muslims.

But appalling actions have been taken by Christians and Jews. If we start a list of the guilty, everyone's going to be on it.

Bottom line, if we want peace, non-Muslims have to apologize.

Sure, we're being bullied into it - since our hearts are not open enough to see how we've helped create this monster and that we're just changing places in this unholy dance.

For we bully, they bully.

We attack, they attack.

There are no victims, only volunteers.

So, are we going to be big enough to apologize?

Because the stakes are getting higher with every day that passes.

I wonder. Maybe I could start an "apology" campaign. People - identifying themselves as non-Muslims - could begin sending letters of apology to the U.N. with the messages to be conveyed Internationally.

Something has to be done.

A battle of wills is taking us to hell.

What have we got to lose by telling them they are our brothers and sisters and we are sorry they are hurt?

I'm going to sleep on it. I have so much to do, but what could be more important?

For now, let's see what Rumi has to say:

Look on the terrible and stupid things I've done
and cause herbs and eglantine to grow out of them.

The sun does this with the ground.
Think what glories God can make
from the fertilizer of sinning!

I know I'm ugly to you.

I'm ugly to me!

I'm perfectly ugly!

But, look, you'll be sad
when I die, won't you? You'll sit by my grave
and weep a little?

All I'm asking is
be with me that little bit of time
while I'm still alive.

---

From The Long String on pg. 81 of The Essential Rumi

The Stupor Bowl

Isn't this a beautiful scene? It's a small section of park-like area between our street and Stanley street, near the river.

There's a big old - must be over a hundred years old - apartment building that is quite stately which looks over it.

I walked past this to go to my hair appointment and to buy bread from the bakery in Wortly Village. We had a big snow storm about a month ago, then it all melted.

It was like Spring around here for a couple of weeks. We had some lashing cold rain - just like we can get in Springs - and then it warmed up, was sunny and beautiful. Angus actually hung up laundry outside on a couple of occasions.

Now we've had another storm.
The snow was so wet and heavy it brought down power lines in parts of Ontario. Fortunately for us, we have had heat and power. There was a scare about the water supply. The power outages had affected the water pumping station so there was a call to conserve water.


Here's the bakery.

I admire these people. It's a family. They come in early, bake about 14 kinds of breads, including sundried tomato, flax, whole wheat, olive, sour dough - you name it - and open at 6 a.m. 7 days a week.

A loaf of bread baked today sells for $3.50. You have to slice it yourself. I love it when I'm able to buy a loaf just out of the oven.

I won't buy mass produced bread any more, the kind that's full of preservatives and sits on the shelf in the grocery store for a week with a "stale" date. There's just no comparison.

Grateful to have water at all, I cut my shower very short on Tuesday morning. I hate to waste water anyway. But the call to stop using washers, dishwashers and cut down on water usage lasted less than 24 hours. We can now return to be our wasteful selves, if we choose.

These are photos I took while walking up and down our street. You can't see it, but sunlight glinted off the snow so it looked like an enchanted world.

Okay, I've got the tea. And I've got some thoughts, although I would expect the following to be about as popular with the general public as the Muhammad cartoons are with Muslims. [For my views on that, see my Feb. 2, 2006 Prayerforce blog.

Although it happened three days ago and in modern terms is ancient news, I find myself thinking about the Super Bowl. My brother-in-law calls it The Stupid Bowl.

I think a more apt name is The Stupor Bowl.

Honestly, isn't that name perfect? It demonstrates so well the stupor of unreality in which affluent Americans live. It typifies the mentality of kids who can't garden, couldn't sew a button on if their lives depended on it, but can surf the Internet all day.

It typifies the "it's all about me and what I want" attitude, the self-aggrandizing, self-promoting lie that corporations have sold us. They tell us we're special, our team is special, our lives have meaning through the mattress we use - have you seen the "Transform Your Life" (a trademarked phrase) commercial for a mattress?

We're special, all right, as long as we buy all the stuff they tell us we need. Poor people aren't so special. They have no voice at all. They're swept under the rug where we can't see them.

We're not about making a difference. We're all about living through technology, about living vicariously and being entertained. If the electricity goes off for two seconds people panic. Yet people in Iraq - and throughout the world - are not only without electricity, but without food, plumbing, heat or even shelter.

Why don't those wealthy corporations make a big deal out of that? Why don't they enlist our aid in alleviating misery? They're the ones shaping us, shaping our ideas, our needs, our wants. But they encourage us to be totally selfish, then say: it's what the public wants.

It's the easy road. Pander to the flesh instead of the spirit. It'll do this country in, in the end. We're like the Romans: decadent imperialists only concerned with ourselves and our petty desires.

Whatever happened to people playing on their own little teams instead of living their lives through the television?

The answer, of course, is we've been sold the idea. Our adrenaline gets falsely charged - add to it the copious amounts of booze people drink as part of "the celebration" - and there you have it.

The corporations are so good at selling escapism to us. And the more participants, the more money for them and all the advertisers.

I tried to watch the Stupor Bowl this year, but I just couldn't do it. I found it to be just so much pompous ado about nothing that I wandered off to bake a cake.

What really showed the perversions being ingrained by the Super Bowl was the total insensitivity to Motown musicians. Aretha Franklin wound up being a warm-up act for the Rolling Stones.

Imagine.


Why bring the Stones over at all? What do they have to do with Detroit? Or football? They're English, for heaven's sake.

Maybe I'm not the only one bored by this whole dog and pony show. Maybe getting the Stones involved was to generate interest.

But I think it backfired. It did with me. Making the Stones the headliners was a slap in the face to all the black musicians who put Detroit on the map via music.

Another thing that really hit home for me on this whole issue was the MVP saying something like he was "King of the World."

Maybe he meant he felt like king of the world, because helping to win a football game does not confer that title. If he or anyone else thinks he's a "king" in a real sense, they are kidding themselves.

If football was used to settle conflicts between nations and avert war - if the players in the NFL were, in a sense, real warriors instead of pretend warriors - then it would have a higher purpose. As it is, its purpose seems to be to distract everyone from what really is important.

It's nice, of course, that the players get to use their talents and succeed on a grand scale. But, again, what are they doing that merits all this celebrity? Solving crises? Eliminating polio? Eliminating a perceived need for war?

What is it that they really do? Catch balls and knock people down.

What empty heroes.

There are 25 to 30 million slaves in the world. Is the purpose of the NFL to eliminate slavery? A billion people are starving. Is the purpose of the NFL to eliminate starvation?

It is so telling in regard to where do we put our money. We put it into acquiring things and diversions, not making the world a better place. A football player makes more than a Nobel Peace prize winner.

It sure seems like this is a screwy world of upsidedown priorities, priorities that a five-year old might have as opposed to a full-fledged adult.

Speaking of upsidedown, the cake I baked was pineapple upsidedown cake and was delicious. Gave away most of it away.

The secret of making a truly delicious golden cake is cream. Instead of using all skim milk, use half cream. If you're worried about cholesterol or calories, give away half of it to people who can afford the calories. Eat less of the cake. But, trust me, what you do eat will just melt in your mouth.

Finished reading The Spiritual Universe

I just don't seem to be able to blog early in the evening. And when I blog this late (it's nearly 1 a.m. my time) it wakes me up so I wind up going to bed around 4!

Angus and I are supposed to get up at 6 a.m. and go to breakfast - this is my idea - since he's not working tomorrow. For over a year we've talked about going to this great eatery called Billie's for breakfast. Now we'll finally do it - if I'm not comatose five hours from now. Let's see - I have 8 minutes to finish this blog, change the date on my website, brush my teeth, get into my jammies and crawl into bed.

What are the odds I'll make that? Especially since I have photos to upload?

I've been working on redecorating the kitchen. I'm through, for the most part. I have a few things to touch up here and there. Also want to put up the border in our bedroom that has been sitting around for two years.

My real work, of course, is creating my Peace/Forgiveness Collage and finishing the edit of my novel, The Loved One's Club.

Tonight I finally finished a book I had been reading: The Spiritual Universe: One Physicist's Vision of Spirit, Soul, Matter and Self by Fred Alan Wolf.

It was not easy going. Reading examples that demonstrate principles of quantum physics - and having trouble understanding them - made me feel senile.

I know age plays a big role in how open one's mind (and neural connectors) are to new thoughts and concepts, but, really, I was shocked at the resistance my mind was giving me to understanding what I was reading.

Fortunately, most of the book was understandable to me - it didn't contain completely new concepts. But in regard to the mathematical/conceptual explanations that were completely foreign to me, I felt like my brain was like a brick wall - it refused to understand!

Otherwise, I found the book exciting, for Wolf is a reputable physicist who has presented a quantum model that explains how the soul works and how spirit is the flip side of matter. In addition, he gives a detailed history of how science has viewed God - being first reliant upon the idea of God and then moving into a purely materialistic perspective.

The problem is that science cannot verify consciousness. We know we're conscious, but, according to science - since consciousness can neither be located in space or time nor verified in experiments - for all intents and purposes, consciousness does not exist!

Clearly science can't provide all the answers through its current methodology. Yet its methodology of reproducible results is a sound basis for research.

What was most extraordinary for me is that Wolf has come to the conclusion - and he explains how this is a function of quantum physics - that there is only one mind and all our minds are part of it.

This is a relief. It explains so much. It explains why Master Minding works, why prayer works, why the 100th monkey phenomena exists.

It also gives credence to my intuitive feeling that if we can calm our own minds - bring peace to our own inner selves through resolving our conflicts - we actually create peace and resolve conflicts in society as a by-product.

There is so much I could say about this book, but it's late. I've used more than my 8 minutes.

I took two more books out of the library: The Hebrew Alphabet - because these letters are considered to contain sacred energy and I want to understand something about what they mean and what energy they are supposed to carry - and The 72 Names of God.

This latter book practically jumped off the shelf and into my hands - I kid you not - so I knew as soon as I held it that it was coming home with me.

Things do hold energy. I know that, but every once in a while it seems I need a tangible reminder.

Wolf also wrote about a film called Wings of Desire. Note to self: see if I can find it.

So - shall I get a few kitchen photos up?

Here's just one.

I need to put the rest in PhotoShop, cut them down, resize them, flip some of them. But here's the new border above the fauxed wall. It really is fun.

I think, instead of quoting Rumi, tonight I'll quote a portion of one of my own prayers:

Through me, truth is spoken.
Through me, wrongs are righted.
Through me, bravery survives.
Through me, a free spirit lives.
Through me, compassion has a voice.
Through me, love prevails.

I am a force for good.

Amen.

Time For Catch-Up

It's been over a month since I blogged. There was Christmas, then my old laptop crashed. This last week I've been redecorating the kitchen, but more on that later. For the next few posts, I'm just going to catch up on old news and put my Christmas pictures up. Here's the delicious quiche I made for Christmas morning. The "petals' are sliced portobello mushrooms.

Here's Hobbes. He's asleep as I will be in about fifteen minutes.
As you can see the cranberries I strung did get hung on the tree. The tree looked just as beautiful when we took it down during the first week of January as when we put it up.
The bower on the banister is still up. I'll leave it up until after Valentines Day.

Fast-forwarding to the present, Angus and I went to see Capote this evening. It's a very powerful film. I was so struck by how he used the murderers and the story they created - and which he so skillfully told - for self aggrandizement.

I read In Cold Blood in the 70's. I was struck not by its prose or Capote's skill as a writer, but by the bleakness of the story, the bleakness of that underbelly of America in which children are abused, insecurities turn into mental illness and pain translates itself into violence.

Capote himself, if the film is at all accurate in its depiction of what he went through in researching and writing the book, felt great guilt and conflict in both writing the story and befriending the murderers. While he grew to care about them, he found his relationship with Perry - and all that it entailed - a drain.

He used them and wanted them to lose their final appeal and be executed so he could both finish his book and get his life back. It meant he had an ending for his book that was satisfying to the public. It also meant he didn't have to face the uncomfortable fact that, in yet another way, he was an outcast. Not only was he a homosexual at a time when the term "gay pride" did not exist, he had a voice and mannerisms that singled him out as a very odd little man. Add to this that he was now someone who could see a cold-blooded murderer's humanity.

Despite his ability to empathize with Perry, Capote must have seen the truth, that Perry was still a dangerous and unpredictable man. A friendship with someone who killed a family of four in such cold blood is impossible to justify, not just to others, but to oneself. Capote had to be fighting the normal feeling of repugnance toward such a person. What a war within himself, to see Perry in one moment as a tragic figure, then blink and see the monster. Ultimately, Capote wasn't really trying to save Perry from death, but only buying time - through appeals - during which he could get the "inside" story.

And what of the family that died? They became mere footnotes to the "real" story, the story of what makes a murderer kill. That's what we all want to know. Or say we do.

Yet why do most people want to know? It's not to understand what creates a murderer so that they may help create a society that creates nurturers instead of murderers, but for the adrenaline thrill of the story. Of that I'm convinced. And that is the true tragedy inherent in the death of that family.

The film is brilliant and mesmerizing. It makes me wonder if I could write anything that would be as real or so self-serving of my own need to write. Everything I've written seems like Pablum in comparison.

Wrapping Gifts

Here's a 1998 photo of my old basset, Buddy, (deceased) and he was just as sweet as he looks. It was a black and white photograph. I colorized it in PhotoShop and sell it as a Christmas card through Cafe Press. I did it more as an attempt to immortalize him, and his goodness, than to make a buck. I put this image on a cup and ordered one for myself. But it is bittersweet to drink from it.

Here's a bit of a festive looking tree at the garden store we went to on Saturday. They had spectacular pointsettias. There was a very nice labrador retriever, too, and I petted her, but she was camera shy and trotted off before I could snap the shutter.

The day has escaped me. No editing done, nor work on the collage. Three bags of cranberries strung but not yet draped on the tree. It will need two more bags.

Wrapped Angus's presents, downloaded a few photos of pointsettias from our shopping trip on Saturday.

Sent an e-mail to Senator Nelson opposing the defense bill into which, at the last minute, a provision has been added to allow oil drilling in the Arctic's National Wildlife Refuge. There is no end of dirty tricks by the Bush administration to further its plundering agendas.

Sunday Caroline and I went shopping at Masonville for two hours. We had a good time. I really like Caroline - Angus's daughter.

At one point a salesclerk remarked to her, about me, that "I like your mother's boots." [the red ones I wear everywhere] Of course, I'm not Caroline's mother. I don't feel I can even claim "stepmother" as a title.
Besides, the word has such a wicked and unfeeling connotation.

Yet Caroline did not correct her, but let it stand. And it was nice, for that instant, to pretend to be her mother, to be allowed to be thought of as her mother.

Caroline's mother is beautiful and competent and has always been in her life. She is an excellent, intelligent and caring person; so Caroline hardly needs me to fill that role.

The best I can ever be, I suppose, is like some sort of aunt.

In any event, I am grateful for the time I got to spend with her.

Angus could not find his Santa Claus tie this morning so I gave him the tie I bought him for Christmas. It's quite lovely, I think, although its pattern is snowmen. He called and said it was a great hit at school today.

I think I'll walk downtown and buy some wrapping paper, maybe a coffee. I need to get out for a bit even though the sun is low and the afternoon nearly spent.



Shams
and actual sunlight,
help me now,
being in the middle of being partly in my self,
and partly outside.

From The Illustrated Rumi

Christmas, Dickens, Icicles

As Calvin said: “The days are just packed.”

Especially around Christmas.

That’s our tree, not quite complete. I still have to string the cranberries.

On Thursday, after working a few hours on the edit, I went down into the basement and brought up boxes of Christmas ornaments.

Alas, I could not find the lights for the tree. Since I had not torn myself away from the computer in time to make dinner, this worked out well. Putting on my long coat, red hat, scarf, boots and gloves, I walked downtown. (These icicles photographed on today's walk.)

It snowed almost all day Thursday, so by late afternoon it was a winter wonderland. I felt full of cheer as I walked. My black coat was glistening white by the time I reached Covent Garden. But I was warm. My secret? Long underwear.

Went first to Strano’s. Bought delicious lasagna for dinner. The man who runs the stand does all the cooking. Italian, he’s broad and graying. He wears a white apron and a black hat rather like a fez to keep his hair covered. His smile is great. I told him I was supposed to have made a meatloaf, but hadn’t and he was a lifesaver. He said, “That’s why I’m here.”

Went on to Field Gate for organic milk.

Next stop was the Red Apple store for Christmas lights. Since I was just down the block, I also stopped in at Starbucks for a coffee and a friendly word. Before heading home I bought Angus a sundae at McDonald’s as a surprise, since he likes them. It was below freezing outside so I figured it would keep on the walk home. (My neighbor Sylvia put out this little evergreen bear.)


On Friday I took a break from the edit because I had an idea for a new story. I spent the day writing down my thoughts and doing research on the Internet to see if it would be realistic to place my story where I was thinking.

After quitting the laptop for the day, I made what turned out to be the best meatloaf of my life, put it in the oven and decorated our tree. I had just finished and was vacuuming up pine needles when Angus came home.

We lay on the couch after dinner, I put my head in his lap and we talked and laughed.

Today, Saturday, Angus got his hair cut. Then we walked through Harris park and fed our leftover bread heels to the ducks.

Angus walks across the park with the old jail (it looks like a castle) in the background.
We caught the end of the Farmer’s Market that is held outside Covent Garden every Saturday morning until Christmas. I bought maple syrup since we were out, and asked the ladies selling it if I could take their picture. Brrr.
Took a photo of the young woman at the newspaper stand. This is where I get The New York Times or London Free Press although I'm thinking of starting to read The Globe and Mail.
We walked over to Starbucks and sat at the counter in the window. I read a bit of the old, leather bound volume I have of Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop. I’m up to page 108.
Although I bought this beautiful little book last year as a result of reading Robertson Davies, who wrote that it is a “must read,” I hadn’t made time for it. PBS aired a three-part series on Dickens this past week, so that clinched it. Now or never.

Yes, those are reading glasses. I’ve given in. I need them and wear them now – and this is the first year – for all reading and writing, including computer work. The line between my eyes is fading. I guess I was squinting a lot.


This is the view we had as I read Dickens and Angus read the paper.

We walked home, Caroline came over and I played a few Christmas carols on the piano.

We had meatloaf sandwiches before heading out shopping with her. But that’s another story, and more photos not yet downloaded.

No work today and it’s much later than I meant to stay up – it’s nearly two. I would like to go to church tomorrow morning, but if I don’t get enough sleep, I’m worthless.

I’ll see how late it is when I climb into bed. Angus went to sleep a couple of hours ago, but I wanted to get these posted.

Rumi:

An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.