Deliberately my feet plodded down the old wooden staircase, down to the musty basement under my house.   A single bare light made cold shadows form on the gray concrete floor and fly along the smooth stark walls.   Bending over I lifted up the large flat cardboard boxes, causing dust and tiny spiders to scatter like a tsunami across the hard smooth floor.   Leaning the cardboard against the wall, I bent down and pulled back the tight iron bolts that held the small wooden cellar door in place.   Grabbing the old iron handles I lifted it up one more time, and set the door aside quietly.

 

Descending into the darkness feet first, the floor swallowed me up as each smooth stone step took me deeper into the dark moist earth.   Grandfather had plastered over most of the earthen top layers, years ago.   But below that the visible rock layers of gray limestone were coated with the crystal glitter of exposed fossils that twinkled and spread the light around much further than it would normally go. 

 

Once the floor of a vast primordial ocean, it was now dry, quiet, and forever at rest.

 

As I went down further, the passage widened and curved a little, being a natural fault.  It gets much darker near the bottom.  At the end of the crack is an oblong chamber, like a  fan-shaped bubble in the rock.   The top and bottom are gleaming white calcite, like a giant clamshell, that can only be seen through the blanket of quartz crystals that cover the surface.   Everywhere there are clear, fat, sharp, pointy, sparkling crystals, pointed mostly toward the center.

 

I followed our short path to the center, and rested my knees on the small pillow there.   My hand no longer shook like it did when I was much younger, and had first reached forth to touch the –

 

In a flash, a warm faint glow raced up my arm, my body, and swallowed my head. 

 

Connected, and gone. 

 

Abrupt, but, surprisingly, without a sound.  One drop slid into the ocean.

 

Coming into focus, the colors took shapes and then details.  I began to realize where I was, and what I was seeing…

 

Happy Halloween!

Well, I need to post something.   Brilliant lead sentence.  Full of excitement and guaranteed to capture the reader.  All of my Journalism professors are no doubt turning over in their graves. I need to make a new paragraph here, but I'm in a rebellious mood because I need to do somthing and I don't really feel like it, so I have to find some pathetic way of  doing it in a weird way to express my rebellion so I'll just babble like James Joyce for a change and let you figure out the punctuation and stuff.  Yeah, stuff.  Stuff is a cool word and I like it.  Stuff is a word that is appropriate for my mood.  It's a nice meaningless word guaranteed to make any editor wince. But it has a soft fluffy feel to it, unless of  course you just tripped over a pile of stuff your daughter left in the hallway and then stuff has a whole new meaning because you are just using it as a substitute for a swear word, you know?   Sure you know, but I wanted to type a sucky rhetorical ending and I'm wondering where all the damn punctiation came from since I just decided NOT to use any and damn if I'm not doing it anyway in spite of myself and my stuffy attitude.  There I go again.  periods, everywhere periods.  I'm a subconscious period-maker.  I went to school for that. Bravo.  I probably dream with periods too.   But at least this has not been blessed by the comma fairy.   I'm going comma-less.  I think that is a geek version of going commando.  Maybe I'll do both.  wait a minute. . .   okay done.

posting to save... more to come.

well, maybe not. I'm in a contrary mood and it seems like I;'ve done enough already.  No, I'm not going to correct that. This is my grammatical fit and I'm not fixing it.  Anyway, I was going to mention that I finally got smiley's for this blog thingy so you can make graphically enhanced comments now.  Hopefully that will be a good thing.  And I was going to waste your time telling about all the hurt critters my daughtrer and I have nursed back to health - like the dove we kept all winter two years ago that had a broken wing (no small chore when you own cats) and turtles and rabbits, etc.  leading up the  bat we had flying around our livng room a few weeks ago.  Yes, a full sized bat cutting doughnuts around my lving room while my daughter cowered in the center of the room. LOL.  Ever wonder what you might do if one day you should discover a bat flying around your living room?  Me either.    I tried catching it in mid air with a big plastic storage container.  Nope.  Bat was flying predictable circles at eye level, but wasn't stupid enough to fly into the plastic tote.  I did wear it out though.  It flew into the back room finally and hung on the back wall.  I expectd the ceiling, you know?  Hah, I did it again.  But no- the bat is hanging (somehow) on the wood paneling and breathing really really hard. Ever seen a bat pant?  I have. They pant like a dog. It was so tired out it was no problem covering it with the tote against the wall and sort of scraping the bat off the wall and into the tote.   really exhausted bat.   The tote is clear plastic, so my daughter is looking at the fearsome bat she was cowering from a few minutes ago and now is exclaiming how cute the poor little bat is.. (Big big wing span, small small body)   I put the tote outside on top of my car and opened the top and  eventually the bat flew away.  Now my daughter who was horrified by our surprise bat is sad to see it go... 

Say, did I tell you about the time down north of Springfield, around Pomme de Terre lake I guess, on a two lane deserted MO state highway after a hard rain and there were big snapping land turtles all over the place?  Saw a lot of dead turtles at the side of the road.  I saw one sitting in the middle of my lane up ahead and stopped my car on the highway to get out and rescue the big stupid turtle.  It was a big black snapper.  over 1 ft around  and I picked it up by the sides of it's shell and it arched it's head back to try and bite me.  I could have lost a whole hand full of fingers to that jaw.  So anyway I'm saving it from certain death and the stupid thing is hissing at me and trying to reach back and bite me.  I had my daughter hold it in the passenger seat as we drove to a spot where there wasn't fence on both sides of the road and we could release it.  I'm not sure she will ever forgive me.  The turtle urinated in her lap while she was holding it aloft so it couldn't bite her.   We saved it anyway.   Yep, that's it.  You can figure out the moral of this story on your own.  

One good quote - deserves another, don't you think?        I am such a tease. . .

“In fact, the work that Rueda, I and another colleague, Hal Puthoff, have since done indicate that mass is, in effect, an illusion.  Matter resists acceleration not because it possesses some innate thing called mass, but because the zero-point field exerts a force whenever acceleration takes place.  To put it in somewhat metaphysical terms, there exists a background sea of quantum light filling the universe, and that light generates a force that opposes acceleration when you push on any material object.  That is why matter seems to be the solid, stable stuff that we and our world are made of.”

 

Bernhard Haisch, staff physicist at the Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, California, is a scientific editor of The Astrophysical Journal and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration.

 

I just love this quote:

"From my personal experience, giving birth requires being in the present moment and trusting everything happening within your body, and it seems that when one relinquishes control and releases her self to the Universe and forces that be, the process unfolds on its own and it is always amazing, to see what happens when one lets go and trusts."    janicelittle     

Link to post: http://www.xanga.com/janicelittle/535743906/item.html

Buddhist Math Primer

This is MY cookie recipe, that makes people stand dumbfounded and stare at me while they incoherently babble things like “YOU made THESE?”    (Since the results are gourmet and addictive, I lent the recipe several years ago to a very proper aristocratic lady at work who was collecting these for a cookbook to use as a fundraiser for United Way.  For some reason, she cancelled the whole project.  So, anyway, I dug it out recently and thought you might enjoy a good cookie recipe.)

 

Oatmeal & Currant Cookies

 

Servings: about 2 ½ dozen

 

 

Ingredients:

 

¾ cup of Smart Balance margarine

1 egg (no shell)

1 ½ teaspoon of baking powder

½ cup of granulated sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla and butter nut flavoring

1 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon powder

¾ cup of dried Zante Currants

1 1/3 cup of white all-purpose flour

2 cups of quick oats

 

Instructions

 

Zen.  You must have proper chi for this recipe, so get naked. (Warn the neighbors or invite them over as appropriate.  Taunt your husband, if you wish, and wear his BBQ apron.)   

 

Hum or chant loudly until you reach synchronicity with your oven.  Preheat it to 375 degrees F.

 

If you want chewy soft cookies, use Smart Balance, with no hydrogenated or trans fats (which are usually hard at room temperature). 

 

Mix together the first 7 ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  It should smell good.  If it doesn’t smell good, you need to re-evaluate your spiritual state, and all of the steps you have taken thus far. (Check also to see if preheating your oven is perhaps burning up something in there that you forgot to clean out.)

 

Next, get ¾ cup of Zante currants.  Dried currants by Sunmaid or somebody- but NOT a cup of juicy wet currant berries.   Dried currents look like little bitsy raisins, and they pretty much smell and taste the same too, only better.   Rinse your ¾ cup of currents twice with running water.  Once you have drained all of the rinse water off of them- fold them into the mix in the mixing bowl, and stir them until they are evenly distributed.  

 

Next you make cement, by adding the flour and oats to the mixture.  If you haven’t had a work out today, stirring this mix should count for one.   If you get tired of fruitlessly beating it with a spoon, and you have the right chi, you can just reach into the mixing bowl with both hands, and take out all of your frustrations  -mercilessly strangling the mix over and over until it eventually becomes dough.

 

As you cackle wildly at your success, in your new relaxed state of higher vibration, and are slowly scraping the sticky dough off your hands- remember to form this dough into a tiny ball and set it aside.  It is special. This ball of dough is for friendly foreign nationals who go door to door selling magazines or wind chimes to earn a trip to Las Vegas.   They always come by when you are baking.   When they do, you press this ball of dough into their hand, and tell them that this is an old American tradition -to share a portion of the bread dough with the first person who visits you while you are baking.  Then, send them on their way.  The other part of this tradition is that they must now share the ball of dough with the next person they meet, too.  They will love you for it, and happily skip off to annoy your neighbors, and you can get back to baking.  (Oh yes, and if you bake naked, wear clothes to the door  -or they just ignore the ball of dough completely.)

 

Now, you can refrigerate the mixture you just choked and beat into dough if you want to make it colder and easier to manipulate, OR  -you can just say “To hell with that!” and  try dropping cookies onto a ungreased double walled cookie sheet (like one by Airbake) by rounded tablespoon, right away.  I told you this recipe required proper chi, so just do what feels right here.

 

You can use a glass greased with margarine to flatten each cookie ball out, or just wet your fist and smack them down.  (Safety Tip- maniacal laughter during this procedure serves to keep children and pets out of the kitchen while you are tossing around hot cookie sheets.)

 

Now, if you are obsessive compulsive, you’re  probably not still reading this anyway, but, just incase;      -when you fill up a cookie sheet and place it on the top rack of your oven (remember to turn the oven from Preheat to Bake, please!) and bake them for 10-11 minutes.  LOOK at the cookies.  (Yes. They like it. It makes them feel more secure.)  Adjust the time to fit YOUR oven.  Bake them only until the edges are slightly golden.

 

 

HAUNTED

 

From lines of J. Allan Elliott

 

                         “The Child is father of the Man;”

                                Virgil, Fourth Eclogue

 

 

To be is now diminished

The past; it has returned.

Again, again, my future seems finished!

Can the old scroll be thrice burned?

 

I dreamt I failed my destiny,

Now lost beyond recovery,

As failures of another place,

Rose us this morn and slapped me.

 

But I will go on, I must go on,

Through this maze of mire and strife,

Looking long, for the glad new dawn,

When I can bury the painful knife.

 

But I fear that it may reappear,

And cut that future me.

Oh my failures with this knife I fear

Will haunt eternally!

 

Well, this isn’t seasonal quite yet, but maybe it will give you a chill anyway. . .

 

 

THE SOUND OF A QUIET MORNING

 

The soft haze of the winter blows

My hair with tufts of wind,

A drop or two of rain jumps down

And dries upon my skin.

 

Silence fills the air so damp

That roundly shakes the trees,

The gentle smell of thawing earth

And brown half-buried leaves.

 

Smoke carpet on the ground

Blue powder fills the sky,

Rushes in around my glasses

And burns upon my eyes.

 

The air hangs silent, undisturbed

Sound curtain slowly rising,

Nothing moves, no sound is heard

But pencil, slowly writing.

 

WALK ON

 

The wind blows hard

The wind blows cold

The wind blows hardships

Yet untold.

 

The wind blows right

The wind blows left

The wind blows till

There’s nothing left.

 

Who will walk this road to wisdom?

Stand against the rain?

Feel the world against them,

And experience the pain?

 

And when they fall

And fall and fall

And fall and fall

Get up again?

 

Walk on.  Walk on!

You’re nearer to the end.

And as you go remember,

You won’t feel this wind again.

 

Each steps a higher monument

If your walk is up

So put your hand now to the plow

Look back, but never stop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

      SAINT

 

It’s name is blasted from the bow

Wood’s torn from off the hull

The mast is nearly eaten through

It’s sails shot through with holes.

 

It struggles on through time and life

In seas of calm and storm

It’s galleys creak from endless strife

And still it ventures on.

 

Status Report:    (I didn’t steal this quiz from anybody, lol, but if you want it, take it.)

 

I am struggling with:  Growing and expanding into the next chapter of my life.  I suppose it is soon time to unleash me a little bit more.   That probably means leaving my cozy little cave in the wilderness, and becoming more public and social.  *ugh*   That is sure to be rocky.  It already has been, actually.   I got a new group of female subscribers recently and in trying to reciprocate comments I think I aggravated every one of them.   It makes me wonder  -if I’m just a crude unsocial lout, (which I think I can make a good case for) or if I subconsciously tried to drive them all away.  I may not be adapting too well so far.

 

I ‘m also having an argument with myself about embracing the term “artist,” because I’ve never wanted to be one.  Every twisted nutjob I have ever met has called themselves an “artist.”  It’s not a fraternity I really want to intentionally join.  I never took an art class in school, and, I was raised to believe that traveling salesmen and artists were the lowest form of human life that there is.   It might sound silly to you, but it would be a serious sea change for me.  Not that I’ve arrived anywhere near legitimacy -to have to really face that question yet.  Just little things keeping popping up here and there to make me think.   My friends say I am a gifted teacher (NOT an artist) and they keep urging me to teach, which I have also rejected for years. . .   Ahhhh- the slings and arrows of the perceptions of people who are not me. . .      : )

    

I am hopeful about:  I just got Music Maker 10 software.   Yeah me!  Now every time I act strangely,  I can just lay it off as me practicing to make my own music videos.   Maybe soon I can let up on the torrent of my stale old poems and bore everyone with a few of my tuneful creations.   

 

I am meditating on:  The broken duality.  (For those of you who don’t  know what dualities are- they are the opposites that exist everywhere-  hot/cold, up/down, dark/light, good/evil, love/hate, open/closed, etc. etc. etc.)

 

It has always been a wonderment for me, that when I was evil, I did evil, and people hated me for it, and I expected them to.  But, the duality  -does not work, at least for me.  I have found that if I do good,  -people still hate me for it, whether I expect them to or not,  and I have seen it in the lives of others, and it is mentioned so in scripture.  You would expect, that if you do good, people will love you for it.  That would be the duality I think you would rationally expect.  But for some reason, while every other duality I can dream up works – this one does not.    Why is that?  (I think maybe this broken duality has serious implications for consideration of Free Will,  and Original Sin.)   (I might also want to see if I should add this into “The Case for The Dark Side” that I wrote earlier.)

 

There, NOW you know the REST of the story…..  muhahahah !