Ummm … is this one of the outer rings of Hell?

Have you ever been driving along, distracted by conversation or thoughts about something coming up or events just past when … suddenly you realize that the surroundings don’t look familiar?  Or particularly friendly?

Driving through time and events to Lafawnda’s wedding on Saturday has been relatively glitch free.  Most of that can be laid at the feet of Lafawnda and her friends with the able guidance and assistance of the Lady F.  They have been ahead of the curve at every step of the journey and things are proceeding quite nicely.

With the possible exception of the Old Fossil himself.  It all began in late January when the Lady F and I joined a new and quite vigorous exercise program.  Hoo boy!  It took me about two weeks to really screw up the arthritis in my lumbar region and send pain shooting down my left leg.

I quit the program and started my own rehab.  I got a Bowflex machine – marvelous exercise machine and I love it! – and did a lot of walking.  Believe it or not, with careful work, it took me 4 months to get rid of the pain in my leg.  But …

When I was doing a yoga move  - and I lay the blame squarely on Ramana simply because I know him and he is from India, more solid reasons than people generally use when laying blame – I experienced an intense pain, a cramp, in my lower abdomen.  Sheesh.  More rehab.

So, I’ve been working around that for two months.  Recently it has gotten worse rather than better and it had all the symptoms of a hernia!  Finally, last Friday, I went to the doctor and it was confirmed that I had a hernia.  Well, it didn’t have ALL the manifestations of a hernia, but it had all the symptoms right down the line.  So, I was sent to a specialist.  My strategy was to find out how we could patch me together to get through the wedding and all the visiting family, then do the dreaded surgery afterward if that was needed!

So, I go to the specialist yesterday.  Turns out that I have something called Epididymitis, which mimics a hernia beautifully but is nowhere near as serious.  At least in my case it is not.  So, the show is back on!

Then, the insurance company decided that our insurance was inactive.  Inactive?  Even the insurance people said we were paid through the end of September!  So, at a time when we are pretty tapped fiscally, we get to write a check to the specialist.

OK, this gets better.  They discovered that the problem is that we have the wrong policy number on our cards.  Even though it is the same policy number they use on our bills!  And they had neglected to ever send us new cards!  Oy.  The dingbats are still trying to get their act together.

But, Carol and I stepped back and realized we weren’t in an outer ring of Hell like we thought, we were in one of it’s suburbs, Heck.  Instead of some devil damning us to Hell, some wannabe darned us to Heck!

We carry on happily because these devils have no potency.

Deadlines

I hate them!  Basically a natural Type-B person, I find myself in a Type-A world.  I love working on things … if they don’t have a deadline.  I hate to be hurried.  But, business – busy-ness – requires faster pace, especially in America.

What a wimp.  Think about it, boy.  Do you really need to ACCEPT all the rush?  Do you have to accept the panic?

No.  The only DEADline you really need to meet is at the end of this life.  As to the rest?  Well, it’s kind of like this:

Summertime

Check out what the other members of the Loose Blogger Consortium (links on the right side of the page) have to say.  Some of them may not have met the deadline, though …

Cooking Wednesday: Apologies to Grannymar …

The Beauty of Interdependence

The Beauty of Pollination

I am unsure how some of the photos were made or whether anything is computer enhanced.  However, it is a beautiful representation of the interdependence of nature.

In the past, that which some took as destructive, the wolf, was removed from Yellowstone Park.  Yellowstone was diminished in ways unforeseen.

However, reintroduction of the wolf in the recent couple of decades or so has restored balance.  The elk population has been cut in half or so to get it to a stable level.  This has allowed the aspens to reemerge as the overpopulation of elk do not keep them stripped.  The aspen resurgence has allowed the beavers to fell trees that have blocked some stream water.  The blocked stream water has led to regrowth of lakes.  The regrowth of lakes has added enormously to biodiversity.  On and on it goes.

Do not take the chain of interdependence I recounted here as gospel, for I am reconstructing from memory.  It is this or very close to it, though.

We are all interdependent.  People are not separate from the true royal dance and we must remind ourselves of the hidden virtue in those we see as enemies.

Gratitude to the LBC

I have reason to reflect on the gathering we know as the Loose Blogger Consortium on this, our third birthday.  It has given me much pleasure and friendship, companionship that I value for more than the obvious sharing of family.  I also want to salute the integrity and quality of what the members express.

I copied this from Seth Godin’s blog today because it is so apt:

In the relentless search for clicks, profit-focused media companies are racing to the bottom as fast as they can get there.

Can we do anything about this? Should we care?

I think the answer to both questions is yes. We should care about an influential industry that creates and amplifies fear, on deadline, distracts us and festers, like a fast-growing tumor, diminishing the healthy tissue around it.

We get what we click on.

Alas, we also get what others click on. And society does a poor job of marketing productive media to itself. We're consuming more media than ever before, but I'm not sure the mass media is making us much smarter, braver or more willing to take action.

The integrity, honesty and well-placed human values of my fellow members are a great counter to this.  This group does not race to the bottom at a time when not doing so really matters!

Caregiving

I’m late.  I was up half the night with an intestinal ailment – no details forthcoming, thank me very much.  But, last night I was the one who could have used some caregiving.  I’m glad my mother’s computer is down right now, or she would be booking a flight as we speak.  The irony of the timing does not escape me …

This topic is brought to the official beginning of the fourth year of the Loose Blogger Consortium Friday topic by Ramana, perhaps one of our premier caregivers.  Please check out the entries by our other members linked on the right side of the page.

Ramana takes care of his father after years of caregiving for his beloved wife even though facing physical ailments of his own.  He has turned it into one more element of his own personal growth path.  I, for one sit in awe of this accomplishment, for I can think of no higher in life.

Right in there with him is the shackman.  His situation, unless he reveals more today, is more private.  But, I must say that it is as difficult as any I’ve ever seen.  I feel much the same awe for his fortitude and determination to ever be a better human being as I expressed for Ramana.

These two stand out in some ways, because in our world, the face of the caregiver is usually female, usually a mother or wife.  Grannymar spent all those years caregiving for her beloved husband.  The loss pulls on her still, but any time any of us has needs, big or small, there is GM able and willing to help.  She also nurtures her entire brood in the parlor of her blog continuously and I love her for it.

Delirious cares in the right kind of way for people in many far flung regions and works tirelessly to help.  Maria the Silverfox has opened our hearts and minds through her care for one little autistic boy that she nurtures til he wants to pop.  Maxi, I know less well, but I can already tell that the caregiving roots there go to the center of the earth at least.  The same with Marianna, LBCer Emeritus, who goes with the moniker Auntie Stress and helps people with stress even though she herself faces debilitating arthritis, while Padmini radiates wisdom, health and peace.

I could go on, but I would just emphasize the deserving that I left out in the process, something that I know I have done.  What I am trying to say is that I take my greatest pleasure in this quality of the people I have had the joy to share slices of life with since we began this venture three years ago.

It is not just the LBC writers that demonstrate such caring spirits, but also the readers drawn to the various sites, people obviously cut from very similar cloth.  I salute all of you as we begin this, our fourth year of sharing, discovery and mutual caregiving!  Cheers!

This is where you run me out on a rail … but you get to meet Basil!

So, Anne was nervous and I was excited.  Ben had to go to his work shift, but wanted us to keep him posted.

Anne: I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

Me: Me either.  The only thing I know is to get a Ouija Board.

So we did.  This is where you would standardly run me out on the rail, because there is nothing dumber than a Ouija Board, right?  Or, nothing more evil if you have that frame of mind.  In our case, we just didn’t know what else to do.

So, we sat at the Ouija Board and waited for about 3 seconds.  Seriously.  And the pointer started moving and I asked Anne if she was moving it and she was asking me if I was moving it and we are both saying no and telling each other just put one finger on it to see what happens – all the stuff that happens when you are a little flustered.

So, it spelled out, “My name is Basil.”  That isn’t the name he gave us, but I have no desire to invade anyone’s privacy by someone being able to Google a name with which they are familiar.

He proceeded to tell us that he knew Anne in a monastery or some such in England back around the 10th Century or so.  I don’t remember that detail very well, but in any case, the conversation had begun.  Just like us, Basil needed some place to start.

When Ben got home, he and Anne tried the board and things picked up considerably.  This was to be the combination for our sessions from that point on, but the Ouija Board was a comfort for Anne and she really didn’t need it.  Very soon, the pointer was just flying around and never pointing to anything while she talked.  Indeed, Basil told us we could dispense with it whenever we wanted, but Anne always felt more comfortable with the board present.  I think with the board present, she always avoided the idea of a trance although she was able to speak for Basil real time with full expression without any sort of trance.  She was amazing!

So was Basil.  He told us that with our group around to use as a power source, he could do a session with a brick!  He told us that we worked together somewhat like a battery.

Now, to give you some tangible reasons from where you are sitting to take such seeming school kid silliness with more than a grain of salt.

The Light Bulb

About two weeks after our sessions started, I was lying down in bed, ready to do some reading when the image of a light bulb just appeared in my mind.  It was like the afterimage you see when you have been staring at a light for awhile and look away, but it was more vivid and had more detail to it.

I tried to blink and see if it would go away.  I tried to wait and see if it would fade.  I tried to think about things and see if it would disappear.  Nothing worked until it just simply disappeared after about 20 minutes.

The next night, I asked Basil this simple question, “Was that you??  No other lead in.  His response was, “Yes.  I wanted to use a simple image projected to open channels.”

Note that I had said nothing about an image and had not mentioned it to either Ben or Anne – or anyone else.  I was still in the “proving” phase.

The Car

Ben and I were going to go out one evening about a month or so after beginning sessions.  Ben’s car would not start.  Turn the key, nothing.  So, we didn’t go.

Later that evening, we had a session and Basil let us know that he was the one who prevented Ben’s car from starting.  He encouraged us to go out and start the car.  He specifically instructed us to turn the key and wait a bit.  We did and after about three seconds, it started.

Inside again, Basil informed us that he did it because we were going to be in an accident on that trip.  When I asked him how he did it, he replied, “dimensional overlap.  My consciousness was in your dimension while simultaneously in another where the rules are different.”

That’s a pretty specific answer.

Shared Dreams

Later, our group expanded to six.  One of the other members and Ben each reported having the other in a dream the night before.  Then, they found that all the details matched.  They had shared the same dream and what each perceived himself as doing, the other saw.

The Ranch

Another of our six was meditating with me one day when suddenly I was in a place and could move around in it by effort of will (and it took some effort!).  I went around the room, out a door and looked at the outside, looked at some adjoining rooms.  Eventually, both of us snapped out of it.

When we took a trip later that year to her father’s ranch, as we pulled up I knew it to be the place that I had experienced.  Before we entered, I described the rooms, where we would go, what we would see.  And, I was right.  It was the same place.

During the Sessions

These were not simply “mail in your question” sessions.  We were all participants.  I felt movements and impressions, received insights, etc. in the midst of the sessions.  At times, Anne would not be able to explain something when I would spontaneously know what it was and explain it.  Basil said that he needed my scientific knowledge where Anne did not have the concept, because it was impossible to say through her what she had no knowledge of and couldn’t conceive.

And, now you have heard of Basil.  Are there any questions?