First you have to turn it on.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

1986

(From an old journal of mine that happened to be under my bed today)

I basically would love to have a man to tell me what to do all the time.

(Of course this is not true. I was “playing devil’s advocate, as we shall soon see.)

As a single parent, for seven years I made all the decisions; made sure the car was fixed, the kids were fed, disciplined, washed, taught, loved, the bills paid, the house kept not-quite-clean-but –tolerable, etc.

The prospect of sharing all that – of having someone ease the weight.(blessed weight of being lovingly involved with four loving, bright, curious boys, but weight nonetheless.)

Much as I try to be saintly, I don’t do any better than anybody else. All humans need time to themselves. Even Christ spent long periods of time away from people. That’s where he tuned himself into the spirit; the still small voice that cannot be heard sometimes amid the din of responsibility and image.

Now, what was the topic?

Ah, as I was saying, naturally I’d love to have someone take over completely and tell me when to get up, brush my teeth, eat, write, phone, go out, cook meals, whatever.

Then I would have someone to blame if I failed to achieve my dreams: if I failed to live my life fully; to inquire where I choose; to be myself. I could daydream about what life could have been like if I hadn’t had to sacrifice myself to this marriage, these kids.

Oho. There is a block there while I am beginning to write as if I were writing for a magazine rather than just writing. Oh, I see why writing as if to reach “the public” doesn’t work right now for me.

Really right now I am writing for nothing; just for writing’s sake; just for the pure joy of seeing what comes out next; what effect varying degrees of control does to change the stream of material.

I like other forms of art. Writing’s true purpose is for the artist to get to know himself; of gaining insight by what comes out.

The part of ourselves called the unconscious can only come out in non-verbal ways: music, art, dance staring at clouds, dreams, illness, relationships.

That’s why I thoroughly agree with the idea that the surroundings of your life reveal who you really are.

I own everything I am, good and bad. I blame no one and take full responsibility. OK and I see no reason to turn away ashamed and try to alter them to fit somebody else’s ideal.

Oh, what’s the value in that? If I have a’74 Dodge and somebody else has an ’88 Mercedes or whatever?

I am Walt Whitman. Or, Whitman and I share the same Self. (We all do.) and are aware of that Self. No other self could be so magnificent; so evident in all creation.

And like Buddha and Jesus we point the way inward.

Contemplation-I think that means being a temple and living around the Spirit

Although I know the purpose of all writing, art or whatever is to glorify the Self or glorify God.

Being well for me is being whole; in having the time to pay attention to my insides; to give them an equal say in what goes on. Illness is just a protest; all those little voices needing to be heard; saying “We count even more than the outside world, so listen up or we’ll go on strike.”

Right now I am lying in bed and it’s cold outside. I don’t feel like doing anything so I write. For the past couple of days I have been suffering from, of all things, a pain in the neck.

For the past couple of days I have been thinking about this dream I’ve had in the past of a huge old house that is dark and horribly terrifying. There are whole floors and wings I cannot bring myself to approach, yet I am renovating the rooms I am comfortable in. With each dream, more areas become accessible. I hope the whole house can be restored, as it would be a lovely, useful place.

January 20. 1986

Feeling incredibly cranky today. I am allowing everyone else’s demands to overwhelm me.

Too damn crazy.

I don’t feel happy about anything today. It will pass, I’m sure.

Feeling kinda off about my relationship with Whitney. Can’t put my finger on it, really. Had a dream he was having an affair with another woman. Must be a symptom of some fear.

My parents are hard for me to handle. I always feel in the wrong as far as they are concerned. Maybe it’s the bad feelings from their relationship seeping out at the edges? Who knows? But I feel alone.

Probably PMS. Usually is, when I feel like this. But it’s good. I realize I have to take charge of my own life; maybe to confront my father with his attitude toward me. I get the idea around him that he thinks I’m some kind of obnoxious person.

Oh well.

Poor Whitney. I really took it out on him today. I hope he can stay open to me and know I know it’s not him. He knows I get crazy when I’ve got no money and no car. I want to be financially independent of him so money doesn’t become an issue between us. He really is amazingly reasonable.

I want to live in a world where it is possible for everyone to live and be healthy; physically, mentally and spiritually healthy and growing.

How?

Let me out

Before my wings harden small and crumpled.

Let me stretch forth and fly.

Quite simply, a belief in the good without a belief in the evil may seem highly unrealistic to you. This belief, however, is the best kind of insurance that you can have, both during this physical life and afterward.

A belief in good without evil is actually highly realistic since in physical life it will keep your body healthier, keep you psychologically free of many fears and mental difficulties and bring you a feeling of ease and spontaneity in which the development of your abilities can be better fulfilled.

Believing in evils, you will of course perceive them. Your world has not tried the experiment which would release you. The experiment would operate on the basic idea that you create your own reality according to the nature of your beliefs and that all existence is blessed and that evil does not exist in it.

DREAM:

I went to Peekskill with Neal. On the road downhill into town there were clothes hanging on trees. We got into town and down into a back street which was partially blocked with hay. I got out of the truck. A girl I knew from before came up and embraced me, then her sister did too.

She excitedly told me there had been five deer in the center of town. Soon the whole alley was filled with people all happy and excited.

I started to go back to Neal in the truck but a little girl and I started dancing freely and spontaneously together.

I noticed a box near the alley wall. In it was a large pupae. It started to twitch. I shouted to Neal to come see. The coecrepsis…cecropsis…I couldn’t say the name of the moth and as I was trying to get him to see, the pupa twitched more and more and there!
The creature emerged still not fully unfurled, yet still beautiful. My eyes were filled with tears of wonder and joy.

Dear Maxine,

It was wonderful to hear your voice. I miss you.

I miss the Island too, but I am very glad I’m here. Life is going to go up and down no matter where one is.

Here, I am exploring myself in greater depth. Because of the quasi-crisis around here I can see the deep convictions about life which motivate my parents and which, in turn cannot help but have an effect on my own life view.

It’s easy to see them clearly because I no longer feel like the child. I feel adult at last and can see the parents as people wounded by life, but good people nevertheless.

My mother, for instance, was, as I have mentioned, brought up in an orphanage. From the stories she tells about herself, one can see that she is a strong person with a sense of her own worth, but with an overlay of feeling that she would be a bad person if she demanded what she deserved in life.

Phyllis Gilbert

Beautiful, totally unafraid, totally alive

Anyone’s equal for best or worst

A true human being unashamed.

Small minds snicker and despise

You needn’t see life through their eyes.

The eldest from parents good and kind

You had clear eyes and an open mind.

I hope your parents never wondered where they went wrong.

They raised you to be healthy, unafraid and strong.

Yet you didn’t live out your span of years.

You died a victim of another’s fears.

The #%#$% captain wrinkled his lip endearingly.

“So sorry, dear friends”, he said. “We’ve studied your situation, heard your cries for help and have a plan. We’ve ascertained that a primary cause of mankind’s difficulty is their insistence in meddling in one another’s affairs. Therefore we must render inaccessible to humans that mind-wave which allows him to try to be “boss”.

“This automatically grants each of you equal status, equal say in how things work, equal responsibility while retaining the uniqueness of each individual.”

OK. Time to hit the old subconscious again. It really has to be attended to or it closes in like an untended well or like weeds in a garden. I mean, the so-called ‘real world’ closes in on the creative world. The cares and woes stifle the joyous child.

Fearlessness is really the key.

To descend into the depths of one’s inner self is to face the last frontier.

To face certain annihilation by dropping off the edge of the world into the great abyss.

But I know now that on the journey inward, rather than perish, one eventually reaches the wellspring of life-the New World of altered perception…even the fountain of youth, for youth is an attitude toward life; every day new and full of wonder, every day worth living.

Freedom: no intrusions into the perfect sphere of Self;

In the nature of personal reality

Flowing out, the inner consciousness , unused to expression,

Appears as Madness.

Madness in this age should be welcomed, as true madness is now “reality”.

I want my words and pictures to reach you, the only person in the world capable of understanding them.

I can’t write or create images for the public. The “public”does not exist. There is only you and I and if you don’t understand me, no one will.

Before anything, I must understand myself. Each day I must be open to myself. I don’t know why I can’t say “I am a poet and a mystic” the way others say “I am a potter”, or “teacher, farmer, accountant.”

Ah, yes. Art in anything must begin as an investigation into one’s Self; tracking one’s spoor across the blank white sheets like a hunter in the snow.

I like this space; silence, nothing to do but hunt myself and no purpose for the hunt other than the pleasure of observation. I like to watch my mind work. It’s as wonderful as a leaf or the clouds or a whale sounding.

Maybe that’s why I find nature so fascinating. It’s so like my own inner nature. Perhaps everyone sees outer nature according to their inner nature. If one is afraid of one’s Self, then one sees “Nature red in tooth and claw”. Or if one feels one must control one’s inner nature then one get’s the stifling and killing effect of modern agriculture and forestry, virtually turning our world into an arid wasteland.

Loving one’s inner nature, one is happy to see it’s many faces and is afraid of none and accords each it’s place.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Look at me e-mail, take two.

dear jean the maya represented zero with the picture of a snail shell. presumably an empty shell. from a chat line.... it`s not video games fault that it`s fun to kill people.

help. max is asleep and i am having alot alot alot alot alot alot alot of trouble getting this done. so, good

zero

dear jean,

l, the mayans represented Zero with a picture of a snail shell. (pResumably an Empty shell.}

2. from a chat-line :

"IT'S NOT VIDEO GAMES' FAULT THAT IT'S FUN TO KILL PEOPLE.'

I DONT MEAN TO BE ',YELLING;'THIS BUT I'M STUCK IN CAPITALS AND I CANT GET OUT. MAX IS ASLEEP. SO....GOOD BYE.

bye.

Zero

dear jean,

The Week in Pictures on MSNBC.com

check out the first photo in the african section. this is how i feel inside. and there's anubis/toto/upuauat, doggy guide and protector.do you remember dudley? i got him in cape cod, and he had one bent ear which never stood up. my friend myron maklovich called him a cape cod clam hound:one ear down, listening for the clams, one ear up, listening for the voice of his mistress. our inner dog has a paw in both worlds. and two paws left over.

love, dorothy

The Inner Private You

Dear Jeannie.,

Here's the first page. It's all in point form, rather than paragraphs, because I need

a simple structure until all the tangles are combed out. I'll mail pages as they are

completed. Thanks, Dorothy

The Inner Private You

1. You are the only one in your category:

with insides that you can directly feel.

2. You are at the mid-point of two worlds:

The outer shared world, which is measurable.

Your inner private world, which is immeasurable.

3. The way things seem to you is your first fact.

4. Nobody else knows what you are sensing, feeling,

or thinking. Your experience doesn't belong to

anybody else. It belongs to you.

5. Your response to the measurable is immeasurable.

6. Your point of view is unique

The Good Guys

1. Each one of us knows that we are one of the good guys.

2. The sense of our own goodness is what feels organically logical

and natural.

3. Organic logic runs the steering mechanism of our bodies.

We are naturally and intelligently self-directed.

4. Messages that suggest that we are wrong will not add up to

the body because it initiates action based on its unique point

of view, which is never wrong or right, but especially......

Never Wrong. Our bodies do not and cannot compute

messages that insinuate inherant wrongness.

5. Because you are one of the good guys, you are not organically

able to accept any arguments for your guilt. You will not

organically reject any arguments for your innocence, because

this is what feels true, and is true

3. The Bad Guys

1. Since it is self-evident to each of us that we are one of

the good guys, any disharmony in conversation must

the fault of the Other.

2. There is Badness. ( You can Feel it.)

And you're not causing it. ( You can Feel that you aren't. )

So it must be Them.

The Others.

The Bad Guys.

3, When you try to explain to them that they are wrong,

they object and disagree with you even more. This is

frustrating, unpleasant, and feels unfair.

4. We are all experiencing this dilemna in our daily

convercations.

We are all Receiving verbal signals that distress us

physically.

None of us is sending such signals.

5. Something is scrambling our messages and compromising

our ability to negotiate and get along with each other

hardly lazy

Dear Jean,

Great, great. Glad you signalled. Glad to hear from you. I've been using the

three weeks of Mercury Retrograde,(until April 27), to carry out the mightiest of

truly mighty spring clean sweeps. Also giving my mental gears a chance to cut

loose from the bitch of a grind of organizing information. I'm all done prep. All focus

now is on the actual speaking of my actual inner sensations, as if they were facts.

As if they were little geniuses on their way to a convention. On their way to meet

you and yours. This is nice. Orienting myself feels as pleasant as I thought it

would. More Later. Dorothy

Being Careful

Dear Jean,

I think I may have.

I think I may have swept.

I think I may have swept out.

I think I may have swept out Some

Actual bits of true knowledge.

If things move in spirals, won't the stuff show up again?

How would I recognize it?

You seem to be concerned that I am going to lose something of

value. I feel some anxiety about the loss. And there's nothing I can

do about it. I don't know what is involved in being 'careful'.

Frankly, I don't think you know either.

You have something to tell me.

But I can't ask you for further clarification until I can ask Clearly.

Soon. ( not the biblical 'soon')

Dorothy (Determined in Duncan)

O. K.

I see what you mean. If your reply is here already, does this mean that

you are at your terminal right now? I want to say to Sam:

Thank you for liking whatever you liked in the pages. Thank you,

because for so long now I have not been able to make this idea

clear to anybody. Or perhaps the folks who have read them are all

in fact homosexuals. They all say "Wha?". It really was a pleasant

sensation, to feel understood. Which is what getting to the point is

for. To make it easy to feel good. Dot.

Jean..I like the connection that emerged..linking true knowledge with

fashion. Because fashion is fun. And the true knowledge could

be (more) fun, if it would just fix itself up a bit. Dot.

Turning the Door Handle.

Dear Jean,

We are also fond of Mr. Black. Haven't seen 'School". Someday, over the DVD

rainbow. I'm still working on Pages. Here's my first attempt to say what I have to say

in my own words, to my father. I will write a letter each to Mum and Max also. Then,

soon, I'll know enough to drive on the actual highway of full-speed conversation.

What do you think? It's getting more clear, yes?

Feel free to encourage me with vague encouraging noises.

Unless there is something that is unclear, in which case, tell me if you can.

Right now, I'm looking for the bright side of hearing a vague message. It is a

partial truth, which is already part of a whole truth. Half way there. But I want to

feel wild delight about all incoming messages, whole or half. The more I learn,

the easier it gets. I can pull the thorn out of my own paw.

I touch my forehead to the hem of your robe.

I wipe my sweating brow.

Thanks!

Love, Dot.

page 2.

Dear Dad,

I want you to know that this model will always find and state clearly

how you are right. It does this in an easy way, by being completely

accurate about your nature. I, Dorothy, may imply that you are

wrong with my words or looks, but the model never will. I prefer to

learn to imply that you are right. It is what I feel and sense, and could

never put into words. The model is teaching me what works.

The main thing is not to interrupt your perfect forward action

with partial truths, because they force you to guess. Guessing is very

stressful for the nervous system, and you will feel that Something is

Unfair. I want you to have the advantage of knowing the difference

between the two kinds of messages so that you can tell when you

are getting one or the other. Once you can point to this as the source

of your sense of unfairness, you will have a Bad Guy who can become

a Good Guy.

We all feel that we are loving.

We all think that we are being clear.

We are right about the first thing.

Only my listener can tell me whether or not I was clear.

It doesn't hurt Me to be vague. It HURTS YOU.

This is unacceptable to me. I am interrupting that which is

interrupting our natural enlightened state. Slowly, at first,

and then, spontaneously. It's different, but it's not rocket science.

It's human common sense, and we've all got lots of that, being that

we're all humans. (at the moment)

Love, Dorothy.

More.

Dear Jean,

Here is another page from the previous group.

And then more, direct to you.

Dorothy

23. Not Taken Seriously

Your unknown complaint is that others do not take your

protests seriously. They cannot, because our language pattern

has been preventing you from getting to the point about what

you want. You cannot describe your conversational dilemma

to others until you are aware of it. The problem exists because

you are not aware of it.

What you would like to be able to express to others and have

taken seriously are the bare, actual facts of your reactions to

conditions and your strategies for moving forward.

The present pattern allows us to describe our external world

precisely, but without including in a usable way our rather

interesting responses to it.

This invisible obstacle to the speaking of our inner facts

has cut us off from our living experience.

It is self-evident to me that your nervous system is working

perfectly 24 hours a day. It is recognizing incoming patterns on

all channels, 36 billion bits of info a second. It sorts them all. It

rearranges them all. And I get the feeling that it loves every

minute of it. As long as it is not confused by incoming messages

that don't make sense.

Since I see something in our language that doesn't make sense,

I want you to notice it too.

I want you to notice that in the privacy of your own mind you

can follow your own logic so easily. Because you have a right-now

awareness of 2 things:

An inner urge.

An outer target.

You know them both. You know them together.

You know them in relation to each other.

Your Artist (the urge which shows up) is Aiming at Beauty and Truth.

(My body calls these Comfort and Convenience, or Learning and Using.)

Your Scientist: is out there in the field at all times, scanning for targets.

The artist and the scientist get together and unite their strengths to

reach a happy ending.

When you get spoken messages from others, you don't get this

information.

You need it from others just to make enough sense to answer 'yes'

or 'no'. I think you need it. I think that you are entitled to it. But

that is not the point. The point is, for me, now, do you grasp this

as a straightforward problem?

What I know is that a solvable, logical problem absolutely

must have a starting point.

No Starting Point = No Strategy = No Fun.

It strikes me that there is never a real starting point in

disorienting messages.

Orientation is always the opposite of disorientation.

Since disorientation has no starting point, orientation must

have one.

Let me follow the model.

My first goal right now is:

1. To take my own protests seriously.

Which means describing them accurately.

For starters, it describes my various 'bad guy' behaviours

as an intelligent response to non-choice messages.

It points out that the situation is nobody's fault.

It accurately notes that although I am powerless as a

listener, I get to be a speaker every other turn.

The speaker has the power, during their turn.

I see that I have been evoking, unwittingly, the very

responses I wanted not to evoke.

This means that I have power to evoke.

Just by speaking, or writing this.

I can evoke confusion or clarity.

The intellectual wound is caused by a lack of usable facts.

When the nervous system gets the fact it needs, from itself

and from others, healing is as fast as thought.

My sense of injustice is keen because it is sitting right on

top of the power source, which it protects like a maniac.

The power source is the urge, the source of all living

movement.

The nub of the problem is guessing. We have to do alot of

guessing. The solution is facts. The cold, hard kind linked

to the warm, soft kind. Two kinds of facts.

The model is friendly, and focuses first on the fact that you

are in a tough bind, that you need safety first, and that

means Easy, and that means Fact.

Concerns and Goals.

Here's the first 4 pages of the next part. Bare structure, but more

or less in order. Your enthusiastic response is more than welcome.

It tells me that you can make sense of what you are reading. That

is my only goal now. But I can't ask you for your assessment until

you have a more complete blueprint to assess. So I'm going to push

on tonight and tomorrow and type. Dot.

Orienting Concerns 1. Sat. May 15/04

1. I want you to be aware of the illogical form of our messages.

2. They do not have enough logic for the basis of rational

thought, as far as I can tell.

3. Before I ask you to do something, I am first asking you to think

something. What I am asking you to do may be reasonable, but

the way I am asking you to think about it is not.

4. If I do not mention the facts of my what and why, you must

guess. If I do not find out your facts, then I must guess. I don't

like guessing when practical matters are involved.

5. When it is hard for me to know what you need, it is hard for

me to respond adequately.

6. When I am guessing, I am not equipped with enough practical

information to proceed, just enough to make me think I can.

7. Trying to succeed at meeting the requests of another who

doesn't make clear what they want is very frustrating for

the nervous system.

8. Guessing causes anxiety and is painful.

The pain in conversation leads to unfriendliness.

Guessing causes unfriendliness.

9. Because I can not succeed at unspoken requests, I am

stuck in failing, and my self-esteem sinks.

Self-esteem is wounded by guessing.

10. I don't like guessing. I feel stupid.

I don't like unfriendliness. I feel shame.

I don't like making you guess. I still feel stupid.

I don't like being unfriendly. I still feel shame.

Orienting Concerns 2. Sat. May 15/04

1. The problem is not just that we are guessing, but that we are kept

from seeing how much guessing we have to do.

2. Drawbacks of Guessing:

* I feel a sense of weakness when I don't know how to get to

the point and ask.

* I feel awkward when I can't make myself understood.

* If I don't interrupt the illogical message, I will feel an

intellectual wound.

* When I am vague, I force my listener to defend themselves.

* When I am not clear when I talk to myself, I crush my own

spirit.

* I am not able to get the thorn out of my own paw.

* I am stuck orienting myself around my sense of being

bad, instead of my sense of feeling badly.

3. If the noises that come out of your mouth have an

unsettling effect upon my nervous system, then your real

message did not get through. The pattern did not deliver it,

or allow you to.

4. We love solving problems. That's why this situation is so

frustrating. It presents us with so many problems that

can't be solved. And keeps us from solving the ones

that can.

Orienting 1. Goals 1. Sat. May 15/04

1. The 'bad guy' wants to know WHY? Why all the blame?

The bad guy feels rightfully misunderstood.

And no matter how he Asks for feedback from others, the

the real answer is never clear.

The bad guy is intellectually angry, with good reason.

2. I want you to know that what you are looking for is the

intellectual freedom ( enough usable facts ) to make a

real plan.

3. I want you to notice that you're not getting it.

I want you to know what you, as a human, need to hear

for a bare minimum of sense.

4. I want you to know that to move forward intellectually

you need incoming ideas that give your reasoning

powers actual traction. A solid, secure grip.

5. I want you to know that only 2-part information will fuel

your forward momentum, because it's the only form that

can be understood by the nervous system.

6. Nature always moves forward in one sequence:

The bud, THEN the flower, THEN the fruit, THEN the seed.

This makes obvious sense.

7. I want you to notice that in our imaginations we can think

things out of sequence. We can speak as wildly and freely

as we think, and we do. We have been speaking the report

of our inner and outer states...out of sequence. Which means

that as listeners, we're not getting nature's logic.

8. I want you to notice that this never hurts you when you

are the speaker, only when you are the listener.

Orienting Goals 2. Sat. May 15/04

What I Want You To Know

1. The out-of-sequence messages allow important pieces of

information to be overlooked and left out. Especially the

most important piece: the starting point. If you have a

logical starting point, nature will take care of the rest.

2. It is exasperating to be misunderstood. It is annoying when

others don't take us seriously. Now we can take our own

concerns seriously by putting them into a 2-step form,

which can be understood by both ourselves and others.

3. Your sense of unfairness can be linked to a shortage of

usable information from others.

4. I want you to be aware of your pattern-recognizing,

pattern-sorting, and pattern-making nature. So that

you can ride it, instead of being ridden by it.

5. Communicating is the bedrock of our reality.

It's effects upon us shape our thinking, our feeling,

our identies. A gap in usable information is a disaster

for the nervous system.

6. A felt injustice is never trivial.

7. The point is:

WHAT HUMANS NEED TO HEAR.

The bare minimum for sense.

That we don't get it is our unknown complaint.

8. I want you to know these facts, because to know what is

causing your discomfort is part of the RELIEF.

9. We have never had any way of dealing with our painful

sensations of resistance.Now we can link them to what is

physically causing it: Guessing, and not being aware of it.

Not being offered a choice, a chance to prefer, and not

knowing that you are not being offered an actual choi

Loved your poems! The Silver Surfer rides his board towards me when

I'm on the couch...from his big poster on the wall. Swimming, eh? O.K.

I'm going into seclusion for two or three weeks. I will swim. Will signal

you when I'm out.

Love, Dorothy

Blog Visitor

Dear Jean,

Thanks for letting me in on your bloggenfest, I've been enjoying it

immensely. Is it true bloggens have more fun? Sounds like it. Was it

complicated to set up? Cost much?

I wanted to print out some of it, but the script is too far over to the

right, or in some cases is mixed with colour images which are costly

to print. If it's possible for you to slightly alter your set-up without any

inconvenience to you, then I make this request. Perhaps there are no

other readers out there who like to compulsively Print Everything, but

computer land is a land of carefree compulsions indulged, so I'm

probably not alone in my yearning to translate your screen-mind into

a tangible, portable form.

I looked at some of the other D-land entries and give you kudos

for your clear and attractive presentation. Your images are very

agreeable also. Dot.

Drafts

I just wrote you half a letter and went away to check some

facts. The screen helper said it would keep my semi-done

page in "Drafts". Now I return and find there is no word

"Drafts" anywhere, no box "Drafts", no anything "Drafts".

Why do they use the word "Drafts" as a hook to guide

and then not use it again? Max is asleep so I can't ask him.

I'm going to Payless for milk and cigs. Maybe they have some

Drafts. If not, I'll have to write a whole new letter when I get

back...and I'd written A Whole Ten Sentences! These babies

don't come cheap. It's like not anywhere go can words the. D.

The Revision

hanks, whatever you did worked. It sounds like you don't

feel the "beaten down" quality I mentioned in the Lady, so I

want to be clear that whatever I see in your images will always

and forever be me. Can't help it. Not a problem, as long as

we're clear about it. It might or might not be you. It's definitely

me. Rumi is accurate: the one I love, me, is everyone. I breathe

you out, I breathe you in. Part of you becomes part of me.

Since I, the observer am always in the center, everyone/thing else

is my circumference. I can bend to you because you are my skin,

my circumference, and vice versa. You have nothing to show me

that I don't need to see for my enjoyment, and it all knits together

logically, but only from the inside out. What I'm saying to you is

my own inside-out, but for you it's the opposite. It's coming at you

from the outside in, and will not be "the truth" until your side is

part of it. Shitty-poopoo-caca, I'm explaining/educating again. If

I can't stop I'll go back to my cave and investigate some more.

The lads look very charming. I put their Trollishness and the Arch on

the cover of my daily binder. Their faces remind me of one of my

favorite new decks, the uncanny and compelling Fairy Ring. If you

want to see some images from it, type in Fairy Ring Tarot and go

to the Aeclectic Tarot site.

I'm gathering a party group of tarot decks and I spend hours meandering

though them (no readings) and checking out the reviews of the decks and

other folks' passionate comments on-line. That's what I love the most...

everyone is so on fire and passionately for or against this or that in the

decks and the images, and they're usually very specific about why, which

is the meat of the nut. Whether I feel the same way or not, I'm enraptured

by their fervour, their love for something that I love..the living symbols,

which continue from the cards, onto my clothes, onto the floor, onto the

table, onto the computer screen...all living, all one big living tarot card.

The personal responses are especially interesting and authentic;

the interpretations are always gruesome advice, scolding reminders,

nagging and moralizing. I should know......it's Me!

Something odd is happening with the screen at this end, so I'll send

now. Dot.

Found Drafts

Found them.

And, already editing what I just wrote, I'd like

to change that to:

"I breathe me out, I breathe you in."

That makes more sense to me.

I've been trying to breathe in and out at the same time,

as it were.

Trying to mash my sense together with the sense of others

instead of taking one, then the other, and building from

small to big. Dot.

doghouse

Yes, it works...if by 'works' you mean goes to the

"Worth 1000" page, and there's your picture, and

it's another I really get a buzz from. The first time I

saw it, at lalaland, Mum had just reported a new dog

outside...a white poodle.

Two days ago she and Dad decided to separate, peacefully,

and she moved down here with Max and I. For the past two

days we've had lunch at 'The Doghouse", a Duncan eatery.

Did you pick the pic with the dog and the house because it

is The Dog House contest? Does that mean you had to make

A Doghouse your subject matter?

So..my poor beleaguered parents. What will evolve?

If this separation is permanent, we'll all be moving into Duncan.

Perhaps into adjoining apts.. one for Max and me and one for her,

and I guess one for Dad, too. He'd be way too lonely on his own.

Or perhaps a rented house with 3 or 4 suites.

Mercury is retrograde until Monday the 20th, and that often means

an upset in conditions, so I'm waiting to see what develops. We've

had a ton of things needing repair during the past 3 weeks of this

MercRet period. Did you notice anything glitchy going on? It's

supposed to be an excellant time for REdoing, and REvising, and

REarranging, and pretty well anything that starts with "Re".

Whatever it was, do it again.

Oh yes, yesterday, after Mum was gone for one night, Dad had

another mild stroke. So she's returned to their house, but is

sleeping in her own room.

And I just got "Aegypt", by John Crowley, from the library, and am

about to settle down to a long, dreamy, other-worldly, metaphysical,

magical read. He also wrote "Little, Big", which is a cult classic

supposedly, although I'd never heard of it. It was all about fairies and

magic tarot cards and a strange family with a "tale", a destiny. Odd

book .I had fun in its world.

O.K. Next time I'll send you a photo of a dead mouse on a leaf, with

his feet in the air. He obviously posed himself before he died. The

little ones can be so dramatic.

REgards and REspect, Dot.

greetings

It's Christmas Eve here. Max and I are going out to

see if anybody put any lights on their houses, and

get take-out. Then we have a dvd double feature:

Big Trouble in Little China and

Big Trouble

Plus we just got the Snickett book from the library,

A Very Bad Beginning, so with all these wild signs

I expect a calm and peaceful Christmas. Mum and

Dad resettled themselves somewhat, so we're not

moving. Here's wishing you a jolly yule, with lots of

the festive everything your big heart could desire.

Love, Dot

P.S. I've lost your diaryland address...can you send