Following, Euclid and Writing

The weirdest thing.  I'm as egotistical as the next guy.  I want to be liked.  I want to be interesting. I want to be read.  I want someone, anyone to follow my blogs.  But I'll be the first to admit my sphere of writing is small, my ideas smaller, my voice, tinny.  No grand vision here although I do venture out on the metaphysical branch now and again until I hit the wall that words and my tiny little brain can't breach (as well as mix my metaphors).  So imagine my surprise when I found I had a follower.  No, not here.  Not where I do take occasional flights of fancy but on the Balthazar blog.  Even I don't find the Balthazar blog interesting.  It's a record of where we are in our training.  Balthazar, dear redheaded boy that he is, is a horse! 

Have gone to this chap's blog.  He lives in Manchester.  He's a bit of a philosopher, well read, writes a hell of a lot better than I.  Can't see what possible interest he's got in my horse.  Did he make a mistake?  Did he mean to follow this blog and push the wrong button?  Or, as I see he's listed The Dice Man as one of his favourite books, did he just roll it, and go with the outcome because that's what you do no matter how little sense it  makes at the time?  I don't know.  It's a puzzle.  Almost feel like writing him to tell him of his mistake but really in hopes that he'll explain what his interest is in an off the track thoroughbred of no particular distinction.

Here's another puzzle.  Was half watching an Alan Davies documentary on mathematics.  I know.  Mathematics, about as interesting as watching dog poo turn white (of which there's a word for that, dog poo turning white, but I can't remember what it is).  The only reason I had it on was I was working on the latest drawing (that's a whole 'nother post) and I like Alan Davies.  Anyway, this professor was enthusing about prime numbers and how Euclid discovered something really amazing about them.  Euclid devised this system to show that prime numbers are infinite.  The professor had Alan multiply 2 x 3 x 5 x 7 x 11 which comes to 2310.  Euclid adds 1 which makes it 2311 and a new prime.  Isn't that amazing?  Isn't that wonderful?  By adding 1 to multiplications of prime you get a new prime.  I think that's what he said, what he meant (otherwise what was the point?).  So I multiplied 11 x 13.  !43 + 1 = 144.  Wait a minute.  That's divisible by 2.  What have I done wrong.  Does it need to be more than two primes then?  No, that doesn't work either.  I think what was meant but not explained is that this equation always starts at the beginning, with 2 and goes on ad infinitum.  

Which just goes to prove my equation, me plus math equals mind numbing boredom.  Finer minds would say that what cannot be understood is bound to bore.   I agree.

Was a bit rough in my criticism yesterday of poor Gyles Brandreth and his Oscar Wilde book.  I haven't changed my mind but recall that old adage, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.  I wasn't in a foul mood or anything.  Wouldn't normally waste time reliving something, if not unpleasant, at least not memorable.  What's the use of that - rather like taking a fingernail to that blister on your heel just to check that it's still there.  Anyway, in a salve to my troubled conscience I vow never to critique, as in criticize, another book. 

Sometimes think about writing another book.  I'm not driven to write as I am to draw.  I wasn't one of those children who made up stories to entertain her friends.  I drew.  I wanted to learn to read and write so I could make the illegible marks my older sister made legible.  I loved the varied shape and size of them.   I used to pretend I knew how to write and would make lots of marks on a sheet of paper.  Found that if I lay my head on the table and looked at the scribblings from that angle they looked like real letters.  Once I did learn to read and write, the world of books opened and I soon forgot the magic of the making of letters.  Even so, every once in a while there's this itch, an idea, a vision.  The problem is that's as far as it goes.  Starting a book, having an idea, is easy.  Finishing, that's another story.

Not the Oscar Wilde

How can one body create so much fluid?  As a somewhat grosser reflection of the rain we're (finally!) getting, I am filling tissue after tissue with ... stuff.  But I wear this head cold proudly.  It's the first since I quit smoking 7 months ago.  I'm whizzing through the stages like greased lightning (or like a phlegm slick greasy pole); sore throat, done, sinus and dripping nose, in progress, congestion and coughing, got it.  If I was still smoking I'd be in real trouble.  As it is I'll have this sucker licked in a few more days.

Was pleasantly surprised to find yoga helps alleviate symptoms.  Maybe it's all the inversions that stir things up.  Haven't practiced today as I tackled the weekly verandah clean so feel a bit grungier and gummed up than usual. 

Must be easily bored in my old age.  Just finished reading a mystery with Oscar Wilde as the detective and found it wanting.  Stumbled on it in the library and thought, hey ho!  This should be a ripper but it was as dull as the daily bed making.  Managed to drag myself to within two pages of the end and then gave up.  Expired of boredom. 

So why?  Why did I find this book so awful?  The book is called Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile and the author is Gyles Brandreth.  I think it was awful because I didn't believe it.  They were like pawns being moved around the stage (and much of the action took place within the theatre) to advance the story but I didn't care.   They didn't elicit empathy or sympathy.  There were just there, moving here, moving there, saying this, doing that.  Even references to incest, opium, laudanum, hashish, Sarah Bernhardt and self flagellation couldn't whip this dead horse to life. 

Just looked up Mr. Brandreth and see he's very well known in the UK as an entertainer, politician, writer, broadcaster and one man show.  Well, gee.  I'm obviously out of step.  The reviews of his Oscar Wilde books are Wildely complimentary.   So pay no attention to me and my opinion.  I'm in the minority.

As a contrast, I finished Stephen Fry's The Fry Chronicles and loved it.  Funny, erudite, painfully honest (who admits publicly to picking their nose?) yet tinged with  melancholia that his humour can't quite hide.  I am prejudiced of course.  I've had a crush on Stephen Fry since his Blackadder days, notwithstanding his homosexuality (he did say in the book he was only 90% gay so there's always hope).  Last year the ABC ran Jeeves and Wooster, which predates Blackadder, and Fry as Jeeves was understated perfection. I was fated to love Jeeves and Wooster even without Fry as I discovered Wodehouse years ago. It's a love Fry and I share.  Isn't that touching?  Of course I'm happily married and he's (90%) gay so it won't happen but I still adored his book. 

Signs and Portents

Unless you've been living in a cave, you know the world is supposed to end tomorrow.  I'm not sure how that works with the time zones.  Does the end start as a wave and work its way around the world?  Australia is a day ahead of America.  Does the world end tomorrow for us and the 22nd (Oz time) for the US?  I'm glad I'm not in charge for it's a conundrum.

Saw the psyhic John Edwards on Dr. Phil.  He was asked whether he thought the end of the world was nigh.  He thought not.  What he did think was that a major shift in our perceptions would occur.  I would like to believe that we are waking up to what we sow, we reap.  The Newtown massacre of children has become a wake up call for Americans in a way that the other massacres did not.  It was the slaughter of innocence.   Shooting college kids or teenagers at the cinema while a tragedy, well, they've been around a bit, they've seen a little, they had some life behind them.  But these babies had it all snatched away.  And the ones spared will never be the same.  How do you explain that kind of evil to a 5 year old?  To explain is to destroy whatever wide-eyed trust is left.  I suspect some of those kids don't understand much more than a 'bad man' took away their friends and classmates. 

Now in India a 23 year old med student was gang raped on a bus by 6 men, beaten with iron rods, stripped and thrown on the side of the road.  She is on life support because of the severity of her injuries, many of them internal.  The mind cannot comprehend.  India is the worst place in the world to be a woman, worse than Pakistan (which is pretty bad) and Afghanistan.   Twenty thousand women were raped in Mombai?  New Delhi? last year.  The judicial system is so grindingly slow that it can take 10 to 15 years for the case to go to court.  Many cases of rape go unreported because of the supposed slur or because of the length of time required to go to court.  I'm not sure I could maintain the rage for 15 years.  It's been an ongoing problem  because of the way Indians view women.  Now, spontaneously, the populace has risen up and demonstrated, even protesting in such numbers outside some high official's home (the article didn't say who) that water cannon were used to disperse the crowd. 

We have the Arab spring (which has slid into winter in some places), we have America talking gun control (finally!) and India examining its opinion of women.  Germany is going all out to meet their energy needs with renewables, animal welfare is in the headlines almost on a daily basis, climate change, while stalled as far as world governments are concerned, is riding a groundswell of public opinion (because the public cops the fallout) which will result in real change.    Although sometimes I despair that we will ever rise above the heavy dross of our gross corporeality and be and behave as the Shining Beings we are, I do see, with the signs and portents of great good in reaction to great evil across the world, that we will Arrive. 

I keep thinking of the opening monologue of the movie Love Actually.   When the passengers on the planes of 9/11 knew they were doomed, they didn't ring their enemies to have the last word, they rang their loved ones to speak of  love.   In times of great crisis we strip away the superfluous and become our essence, which is love.  But we forget, we get distracted, we believe ourselves to be our ego rather than our spirit.  It is not hopeless but it is hard.  I hope the End of the World is the end of blindness, that the scales fall from our eyes and we see, really See.

The Meaning of Life...yeah right

Dice living today and blogging (number two in my list of six) came up.  Previous to that I've yoga'ed, cleaned the bathroom and laundry sinks, and worked on the current drawing.   What hasn't come up yet is vaccumming, cleaning the kitchen window and painting the second coat on the ceiling in this office. 

Have always found dice living fascinating.  It must tie in with Tarot, I Ching and various other things which make a connection between the energy sheet and the energy strings (my poor and for the moment unexplained version of the Universe) for what is chosen (or read in the case of Tarot and I Ching) is too appropriate to be explained by Chance.  Jung had it in synchronicity but I suspect it goes far beyond that.  If everything is connected and time, as the linear illusion we perceive, does not exist then everything is happening all the time and all at once.  Why not pick and choose appropriate (for this particular conscious collection of energy ganglia) bits that help to fill or flesh out the purpose of the current Consciousness?

So much I don't understand (a bit of an understatement) but I have always been confused by the seemingly discrete forms of consciousness we take when we become human.  I suspect I have lived and am living elsewhere so why am I only perceiving this particular consciousness?  For a reason.  When we die do we remember other existences, do we experience them?  Does our Oversoul live them all at once?

Just looked up oversoul with Wikipedia.  Emerson wrote about the oversoul and said  (1) the human soul is immortal, and immensely vast and beautiful; (2) our conscious ego is slight and limited in comparison to the soul, despite the fact that we habitually mistake our ego for our true self; (3) at some level, the souls of all people are connected, though the precise manner and degree of this connection is not spelled out; and (4) the essay does not seem to explicitly contradict the traditional Western idea that the soul is created by and has an existence (?) that is similar to God, or rather God exists within us.

1.  The human soul is immortal, vast and beautiful.  When I live and think with less than normal dross, I feel lighter, wider and yes more beautiful.  Even though....
2.  Our conscious ego is slight and limited in comparison despite the fact we mistake it for our true self.  Yes, but what is contained within the larger is still 'of' the essence'.  Still, I had the minuteness of the ego demonstrated years ago.  I'd gone to a movie with my then husband and fainted.  No one knew I'd fainted so when I came to I had no one fussing over me which meant no distraction from where I'd been to where I then found myself.  I woke up with a terrible sense of loss.  Where I'd been had been vast and beautiful and true.  To returnn to my'self' I had had to shoehorn this great being into a tiny ego.  I was grief stricken.  What a disappointment it was to be me when I had had the faint taste of Freedom.  I am coward where pain is concerned but since that moment I have not been afraid of death.
3.  All souls are connected.  All energy is connected.  Quantum mechanics, etc.  What one is we all are.  The difference is in the choices we make.  Energy can be directed.  Energy is just as much thought as 3 dimensional objects.  What we think we make.  It's a heavy responsibility which few of us take seriously, me included.
4.  The soul is created and has an existence, is similar to God who exists within us.  The riddle of this is not whether there is a god and how s/he exists but what makes up the barriers between small ego-constricted us and God?  Was it Aldous Huxley who postulated that the mind functioned as a filter so that we would not be overwhelmed by the reality of What Is?

So, what does it ALL MEAN?  Greater minds than I have not been able to decisively answer this.  What hope have I?  Sometimes I am sure it is only so that we may look and love the beauty we have created.  At other times I suspect it is a game, a trick we play on ourselves, a quest and puzzle that we must solve to arrive laughing and breathless back at the Source saying 'didn't think I was going to get it this time!'

Natalia sitting on the desk atop a spiral notebook (cats have to sit on something, even if it's a postage stamp, for their bottom requires something between it and just plain floor or just plain desk top or just plain carpet.  It's a bit ceremonial, like a comic hobo who ostentatiously dusts off his park bench with a dirty handkerchief).  Now she's moved to watch the Wild Bird show through the window.  Life is one delight after another.  There is the captive 24 hour a day entertainment of the Verandah Birds Floor Show which she can watch from either the top of the television cabinet or from the bedroom, or the ever changing unscripted ad lib show of the Wild Birds from every window in the house.  Because we have so many trees and a bird feeder and native birds in aviaries we are at the center of a whirling maelstrom of feathers. 

In this photo Natalia has opted for the soft grandstand seat from which she can watch the computer screen and the windows.  

When we sit outside in the morning and have our coffee we are entertained as much as the cats, although I suspect our motives for watching differ.  I've discovered that galahs and Little Honeyeaters play tag with the galah always being 'It'.  I've watched galahs shooting past Little Honeyeaters until they give chase.  Acting like a galah, an Australian phrase of derision, actually means one hasn't lost he capacity of play.  A grown galah, strutting with comic dignity beneath the torrelianas, will suddenly throw itself on its back screaming with delight and kicking its legs in the air.  If one does it, it doesn't take long before every galah in the vicinity is also upside down.  

     Every time I kill time by playing computer games I could be writing drivel here instead.  Often think of things I'd like to write but they pass off into the ether without taking hold - which might be a good thing!  Suppose what's prompted this entry after more than a month of silence is a dream last night in which my father informed me that he was reading my journals.  My old journals.  I told him that perhaps it wasn't a good idea.  Those old journals are full of sex, drugs and rock and roll, well, not rock and roll I preferred classical music even then but there was definitely sex and drugs.  It didn't seem to bother him.  He was driving, fast as usual, down some night cloaked rain slicked city street taking people to a party.  I was in the back seat and climbed into the front after we'd dropped them off.  (Did I want to stay at the party?  Went and had a look but it was all 30-somethings.  Did like the ancient white aga with decoupage butterflies however - and the room full of everyone's shoes).  I and my Invisible Companion managed to find ours and rejoined Dad at which point the I.C. disappeared.
     The random thoughts are things like a) I bought a packet of eye makeup applicators, little double ended sticks with sponges on the end, and thought, 'these will see me out' meaning I'd be dead before I ever wore out five of the buggers and b) Death is more or less a constant companion now.  Not in a morbid or fearful way, it's just a part of my mind map.  I'm no longer immortal like I was as a youth.  There is a definite end in sight made more real by the death of my uncle on my birthday and the death of a neighbour at the young age of 51 of cancer and c) the world and all its dramas sometimes seems more like a stage set where we can act out every and anything we can think of.  Prem Rawat asked why people needed to go to the movies.  Around us was suspense, adventure, drama, pathos, humour and tragedy (my adjectives, his idea).   He's right of course.  Syria is on self-destruct, as is Egypt.  The climate change summit at Doha is again doomed because money is more important than survival and our politicians are no better than we are or we wouldn't allow this farce to continue.  There's a part of me that takes this all very seriously and another part that says, wow, how interesting!   

There has been a slow insidious sense of time wasting creeping slug like into my everyday every day.  Not in a depressing way.  Suppose it's something every person of a certain age feels.  When I was young I was immortal.  I would live forever and aging was as remote and alien as Centauri II.  Now it looms like the full Harvest moon on a summer night.  So as time dwindles it is imperative that I make the most of what is left.  Of course I waste enormous amounts of time in the usual technology based way.  But I am creating still.  The above is the current picture A Little Bird Told Me.  Needs more work, a lot more work but the gist is there. 

We're all going to die but we all want to be remembered.  There is more Death in anonymity than in death itself.  After my mother died and I was going through her things I found a dozen or so studio portraits of unknown people which were taken in Evanston Indiana.  I have no idea who they were.  They must have been relatives.  Why else have them?  Just Googled Evanston.  It has a population of 715, surely not enough to support a photographic studio.  Still those photos would have been over a 100 years old and perhaps much has changed.  At any rate, there were these unsmiling people in stiff clothing and even stiffer poses.  I threw them away.  The Death in Anonymity. 

People are remembered for a generation or two and then pffft! they disappear.  Is that why there is this unprecedented hunger for fame and fortune?  I say the creativity, the doing, is the thing and I believe it to be so but I also want some small part of me to live on.  I've painted many paintings, given them away, bartered some, sold very few.  Do they still exist?  Do these coloured bits waft tiny molecules of Self in other people's lives?  I don't remember the names of most of the people I gave paintings too - although I can see the paintings quite clearly in my mind's eye.  I think paintings must be like children.  Once born, never forgotten.  One was offered as a prize in a raffle.  I wish I could see it once more. There are favourites, like favourite children.  It was one of them.  It was a very still, very quiet painting of a boat floating in clear water.  That's all but I loved it.  Someone once said my paintings were very quiet.  I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.  Now it doesn't matter. 

I killed a cockroach in the shower the other night and felt terrible.  I get more and more that we are all interconnected and taking the life of another is killing a small part of myself.  In order to destroy life, I must destroy a small part of me that recognises Self in the Other.  Old habits.  The cockroach, not one of the big brown ones but a smaller brown and yellow type, was on the tiles at eye level.  I smashed at it with my fist.  I missed but it dropped to the floor and there, over the 10 minute period of my shower, drowned.  Its small body lay in the corner,  a silent accusatory exclamation point against the white.  I felt really awful.  I don't like cockroaches in the house - or ticks on the horses or fleas on the dogs or mosquitoes biting me.  Despite the regret of the cockroach I crush seed ticks I find on the horses.  One tick caused a large haematoma on Dakota.  I killed it without a second thought.   The Jains of India take the principle of not causing harm to any living being as a principle tenet of their religion.  Every living thing has a soul.  I remember in one of Loren Eiseley's books he tripped on a curb and bloodied himself.  While he was sitting dazed and in pain he spared a thought for the red blood cells which were dying on the concrete.  I can relate to this.  I understand this even as I swat mozzies and crush ticks.  I also carefully release beetles and baby mantis outside.  I'm not evolved enough to be consistent - although I still feel rather sad about that cockroach. 

Have run out of puff after dong the weekly BIG CLEAN  of the bird verandah.  Good excuse to come in here and sit.  Didn't realise I hadn't blogged for so long.  I've been writing about Balthazar on the Parelli Connect so that has itched my writing bump.  Creative juices have been flowing despite lack of writing.  Have a pencil sketch almost finished.  Unfortunately there is wax bloom especially on the central crow so that from certain angles, as the photo has shown, it appears pale although it is as dark as the other two birds.  Will spray with fixative to see if that makes a difference. 

My creative juices have been flowing.  I've joined pinterest and have spent hours pouring over their art pages.  So much so that when I close my eyes at night colours and shapes play complicated fandangoes behind my eyes.   Have yet to do anything about it but saw this fantastic vision of apple green and candy apple red on a black background I am looking forward to trying. 

And then there's cooking.  Now I understand why people like to cook.  It's a creative act.  I am living proof that people do change. 

Tossed the die to see what I would do after yoga.  Choices were Balthazar (ride), vacuum, paint the office, paint the painting, blog or write to my aunt.  It's amazing how tossing the die (or dice if you use two) always seems to make the best possible choice.  I read The Dice Man when I was in my early twenties and have used the dice ever since.  It ties in with Jung's synchronicity, with metaphysics, quantum mechanics and the Powers That Be (for want of a better description of the indescribable).  Writing something, anything, pulls me into myself, in a way that is somehow related to meditation and the creative act.  I've discovered something else about myself too.  When I load my brain with 'stuff', it acts as insulation so that I can't get close to or hear or sense the intrinsic truth of my being.  That sounds like a high falutin' esoteric fuzzy wuzzy sentence but it's true.  Feeding my brain junk gives out junk in return.  For instance, the Olympics finished last weekend.  We watched every day, caught up on the highlights in the morning and saw some of the live action before going to bed at night.  Naturally advertisers regarded the Olympics as a golden opportunity.  The same commercials were repeated ad  nauseum, along with the same jingles, phrases and visuals.  My brain was saturated with it.  How is it possible to think an original thought when the thoughts have been put there for me?  It isn't.

Being 56 I am on the tail end of the digitial revolution.  I tried to Facebook again and could not (thankfully.  I listened to my inner agitation and got off).  I don't use a mobile phone, I don't Twitter, I'm not sure what a MP3 is and have no idea what FLAC means.  Even so, in so many ways I have given my thoughts, given my brain away to those who will gladly fill it up with their thoughts, opinions and ideas (none of which are original).  There is much good which comes from our digitial interconnectedness but I think we also need to be aware of the dangers.  Heard on the news that our swimmers would have done better at the Olympics if they hadn't been using their social media so much.  Where the Chinese were spending X amount of hours in the pool we were spending only Y because we were too busy chatting or tweeting. 

I've written before that I have become more sensitive rather than less with age.  I donated money to Animals Australia and yesterday, to my surprise, I got my member pack.  I couldn't read the documentation inside because I knew once I had those images in my head I would never be rid of them.  Watched Cops a few weeks ago and lay awake feeling dreadfully sorry for these people on crystal meth and heroin.  Entire families caught up in tragedies of alcohol, drugs and violence.   Last night watched Explore where Simon Reeve explores the Philippines, especially Manila where 60% of the population live below the poverty line.  So much so that people have lived for years in cemetary mausoleums.  20 million people in Manila and more coming in every day.  Breeding like rabbits because it's a poor third world CATHOLIC country.  So I lay awake, again.  I understand why people go and live on mountaintops.  The life of a recluse, sans all electronic media becomes more and more attractive. 

I understand now why when I start doing yoga there is this feeling of relief.  It's become a refuge.  While I do yoga I can only do yoga.  My mind is still busy but  if I really concentrate on my breath, I am so much more there.  And being there means I am closer to the Truth of the Eternal Now and less burdened with Stuff. 

Dreams:  Driving through a central Michigan countryside.  Pass a two story white farmhouse with teenage boys milling around outside.  See the head of a blue cattle dog lying on the dirt.  Just the head.  Its eyes watch me as I pass.  There is also a green and yellow budgie the size of a pigeon rolling drunkenly in a ditch and an equally inebriated rabbit.  A small boy picks up the rabbit and flings it in the grass.  I don't like the look of the boys but I like less the look of everything else.  I stop the car and engage a black haired boy about fifteen in conversation.  Tell him I am worried about the appearance of the bird and the rabbit but say nothing about the dog.  In the meantime the others have built a small mound out of dirt and placed the dog's head on that.  It still watches the proceedings with a calm and interested air.  Does the farmer use pesticides, I ask.   If he does and it has had such a serious effect on these animals it may be affecting you too.  I urge him to call his local vet.  The dog bothers me.  Why is it still alive.  Why has it been beheaded.  The boy is polite and articulate but beneath the surface something unsavoury watches.

I am at a bbq or outdoor party.  Again it is central Michigan.  Birds fly squawking overhead.  I lean back and watch.  The mixed flock of birds circle and wheel overhead.  I don't know why they don't fly elsewhere.  Then I see a large white bird like a gannet catch a small sparrow in its beak.  The sparrow's head pokes out of the beak.  I can see the moist blackness of its eye.  I am sick with sorrow.  Always death.

Walking along a dirt road with Nicki.  Yesterday (in real life) I heard a male neighbour screaming, using an obscenity.  Don't know whether he screamed at his wife, children or the animals.  It bothered me as it was a sentence, unintelligible as most of it was, of pure rage.  His children and his wife and the animals were all a witness.  Nicki walks and lays her hand on my shoulder as she talks.  It lays there very heavy.  I wish she would remove it.  The screaming man's wife comes to me.  She is upset with her husband.  She is emotionally fragile after giving birth.  The husband is contrite.  We are all in the back seat of a car.  A very pale, almost ghostly young woman gets in with us.  The wife has hysterics.  She is frightened of the woman's whiter than white skin.  There is something uncanny about it but the woman is very much alive, very much flesh and blood.  The wife insists on leaving.  She is inconsolable.  I do my best to calm her down.  She leaves the phone off the hook.  I hear a tinny voice later and realise it's her husband.  It's all too messy.  Something about diving underwater too, unfortunately in the time it has taken me to type the above the memory of it has gone. 

Parkinson's Disease.  There.  I've hardly dared think the words, much less write them.  Writing them makes it real somehow and I don't want it to be real. 

I suspect Richard has PD.  Haven't spoken to anyone about it, not even him.  But I have to talk to someone and the journal has always been my confidante of choice.  Worried about putting such a private matter in the public domain but as no one reads my blog it is as private as the many written journals lying about the house. 

Talking to Richard about it is, at this point, not happening.  The closest I've come is to say we'll buy more fish oil and eat more legumes as that is good for the dopamine in his brain and that is good to help allay the tremors.  Interestingly Richard didn't question.  He changed the subject.  He knows something is wrong and is as reluctant as I to bring it out in the open.  But we must I'm afraid.  The symptoms which seem to have come on suddenly are classic PD.  There is no clear cut test for PD, perhaps the closest being if the symptoms are alleviated by medication, but the symptoms do tell a clear story.  I noticed the tremors last year.  At rest his head, hand and leg shake.  Once they are put into use, once the muscle is actively engaged, the tremor disappears.  When he is completely relaxed, as in asleep, I don't notice them either.  Richard often dozes off on the couch.  His head drops to his chest and perhaps the heaviness of the weight negates the possibility of a tremor.  There are other signs however.  Shuffling.  He shuffles his feet.  This is a fairly new occurrence, becoming apparent in the past 6 to 8 months.  One thing he hasn't done for a very long time is swing his arms when he walks.  I remember chiding him about it a couple of years ago.  Has he always walked like that or is it too another symptom?   I have also noticed his increasing difficulty with small things; buttoning a shirt, doing up a zipper, putting the collar on Jamaica.  He is also getting forgetful, leaving the water on in the trough, leaving gates open, forgetting peoples names or the names of objects.  Of course we all forget things but it is more common with Richard than it used to be.  He also has more difficulyt getting out of a chair.  That could just be attributed to age but it is, unfortunately, yet another symptom of PD. 

I'm not sure what to do.  He is my best friend as well as my husband.  Anything he finds uncomfortable he avoids, as we all do I suppose.  Subjects that are difficult are not spoken of.  Or if I insist that we talk, he gets angry.  If I push he'll cave and it can be discussed and usually solved.  But this is different.  This is his health. And it can't be solved.  He has been proud of reaching 65 without being on medication for high blood pressure or cholesterol or any of the other things people of his age normally take.  He's put on 20 pounds since we quit smoking three months ago.  I know he has pain in his hip joints but after I said something about the almost nightly huge bowls of ice cream, the handfuls of salted peanuts and the weight gain he is starting to walk more again.  He was averaging two times a week (the 6km walk) which was just enough to keep him sore without making him fit.  Now he is going (at least this past week) every other day which is brilliant.  Continuous exercise is another arrow in our sling of things to do to keep PD under control. 

If that is what he has.  The thing to do is sit him down I guess, put forward everything I've noticed and ask him what he wants to do.  Does he want to see a neurologist or motor specialist to have my suspicions confirmed or just go on as we are?  If there comes a point where his life is being impacted by the symptoms we can act then.  Perhaps that's the best option.  For today and next week and next month he can still do all that he has done before, just a bit slower.

Another reason, and a very good one, for not discussing my suspicions with Richard is his propensity to become overly anxious and depressed about things he cannot control.  This, I've read, can be a side effect of the disease, but it can also arise when being diagnosed.  Richard fixates on things and goes into an emotional tailspin with little provocation.   Being told you could have Parkinson's Disease would be an enormous blow.  Do I really want to take that risk?  No, now that I've written all this out (thanks again, Journal, for being such a good sounding board) I think the best plan at this time is to get him on the good food and supplements, most of which he is already on as we eat extremely well already, to keep him exercising if I can without alienating him, get him to yoga (he says he'll go but he hasn't made a move yet), to keep out of his way while he struggles with the buttoning and zippering and other vexing tasks and be there in any other way.

If and when we reach a point where he is unable to do the things he normally does or he complains about the symptoms then we'll talk about it and decide what to do.  

I was looking forward to taking a yoga retreat (as a reward of quitting the smokes) in September.  I still might go but if I do I think it will be the last time I will leave him to cope on his own.  Perhaps that's why I should take that little break away. 

The Wisdom of the Gut

You wouldn't think a meditation cd could have the opposite effect to which it was intended but that's exactly what happened with a cd which was given to me by a friend.  I tried listening to it a week or so ago and found, despite good instructions and good intentions, that I could not sit still.  Why was I so agitated?  Put it down to just one of those things, one of those days and thought no more about it.  Except that every time I thought about the cd there was this tinge of agitation, this reluctance.   Not the usual response to meditation cds.  I've got a couple and have listened to them without anything other than a calm receptivity to what they have to say.  But I was being silly, wasn't I?  This friend was so impressed with this cd that she made sure I had a copy.  She glowed with enthusiasm.  It had to be good.  I respect this friend and her intelligence.  So yesterday I put it on and clicked through to where I'd left off.  And there it was again.  Agitation.   A visceral antipathy.

Why did this man's voice affect me so?  If you must know, it's Barry Long.  He's long dead so anything I write won't hurt his feelings.  And I am in the minority.  Googled him and found he had/has quite a following, that he'd studied in India, was influenced by Krishanmurti and Gurdjieff but maintained that his teachings were his own.  The rest of his life, he died in 2003 from prostrate cancer, was devoted to disemination of his teachings. 

But I have known men like him.  Autocratic.  A magnet for women (and he had 5 long term monogamous relationships during his life).  How can I say I know him when I've listened to one cd and never met the man?  I don't know except that the sound of his voice and the things he said set up a roiling in my gut and, in my book, the gut knows. 

I was hauling myself over the coals for being such a ninny until I looked up his life story.  Five women.  Uh huh.  Prostate cancer (this may be unfair but I do suspect that illnesses manifest in the body where we are conflicted or where negative feelings and memories are stored).  Plus a large part of his teachings, according to Wikipedia, had to do with sex and love in relationships.  Clanging bells and sirens!  So going out on a limb here and judging where I have no right to, I suspect this guy had a magnetic personality, that women were drawn to him, that he was wise yet he couldn't help but use his wisdom for self-aggrandizement, not in money or even, in an overt way, power, but in his need for women, their admiration and sex.

Or maybe I'm just not evolved enough. 

Artistic Temperament Temperamental

I'm starting to feel like an artist.  Isn't that odd?   And wonderful?  I've been making art in some form for most of my life yet it is only recently that colours and forms and visions are starting to permeate my imagination and my dreams.  And my meditations.  Colours like sky blue and tan which doesn't sound exciting now but made such a rich tapestry in my imagination.  Another time it was a storm coloured sea of black greens and livid sulphurous yellow streaked with aqua that filled that infinite space between my ears.  Paintings are everywhere.  Driving home from yoga and there was another one; the pale ghostly fingers of gum trees diminishing in the gathering darkness of an infinite road dotted with amber reflectors.  It was such a lonely sight.  Could I paint it?  No.  I have never matched the work to the imagination. 

In my last post I wrote about the clarity and artistic vision of children, something I would like to emulate and now I only want to become a better techinician.  What I see and what I reproduce are two entirely different critters.  Have fixative sprayed the last work, the Suspended Man.  I'll do some re-highlighting, a little touching up but for the most part it is finished.  And how far from what I saw in my mind's eye it is.  That is because I still don't have the technical skills.   However I don't think that necessarily prevents me from being an artist. 

Saw a painting of a man by Van Gogh done early in his career.  The man had none of that magic evident in Van Gogh's later work.  But he was learning.  He had to be awkward and stiff and clumsy.  It was part of the journey.  He allowed himself to do things badly knowing that with practice and diligence he would improve.  And boy, did he ever!

Was searching for Toowoomba Art Gallery's next show and saw that it was entitled Imagine You Know.  Imagine You Know is to showcase up and coming local and regional artists.  (I've got butterflies just contemplating writing the next sentence).  So I thought I'd download their registration form and see if perhaps I might possibly enter one or two paintings.  (Egad!  Just writing that is making me feel slightly ill.)

Well, that's okay.  I've just read the entry guide and it is far far too complicated for me.  Works having to meet certain size standards, with particular ways of hanging required (no string, thank you), photos put on CD Roms, written explanations of why the works should be accepted within the curatorial guidelines set out by TRAG (Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery) as well as a curriculum vitae.  I'm much too lazy for all that. 

There are hundreds of thousands of artists who can do all that without blinking an eye.  Makes me want to cry just thinking of it.  Makes it all too serious.  I'm much too fragile (oh, can't believe it but I still feel like crying) to subject myself to all that 'stuff'.  Deep breath.  Okay, I'll do art for the reasons I've always done art; because I like making something that wasn't there before.  Because I have an idea and think it would be fun interesting necessary (like breathing) to try and bring it out into the 'real' world. 

That part of me that wanted to cry just then.  I've never looked too closely at that.  It is the same part that howled with frustration when I couldn't learn how to balance a chequebook.  Must be tied in with my idea of myself conflicting wih the reality.  And something to do with work.  I'll work very hard at things I enjoy but just thinking of the frustration to be experienced with organizing everything, especially the computer stuff and paying someone to frame things at the same time of not knowing whether my work is good enough.  I just want someone to walk in one day and say, Wow, your work is fabulous!  Where have you been hiding?  But it doesn't happen like that.  People put a lot of time and effort to get their work out there.  Hell, I'm barely able to put a photo on the blog.  Just tried with The Suspended Man and failed.  Why I find it so hard to download things then find them then do something with them is beyond me.  Anyway, enough for today.  I'm done.  It's killing the happy.

Picasso said it took him a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child.  The daughter of a friend of ours gave me a painting of a toucan.  I adore it.  He's got a huge green and pink beak which strides majestically across the top of the paper, a black body and an orange breast ingeniously shaded on the lower third to indicate three dimensionality.  His eye ring is grey and the background is orange.  He's out of proportion.  Feathers are not indicated.  The body is crammed into 1/4 of the paper while the beak takes up a third and the orange background has streaks and smudges going every which way.  Yet it works.  I would have been so proud to have painted it.  As it is I am proud it was given to me.  The artist is Isabel.  She's seven years old. 

Her work makes my work look contrived and laboured.   The spontaneity and truth of that toucan cannot be equalled by anything of mine.  A few years ago we attended a school exhibition of budding artists at the local shire hall.  I bought a painting for $30.  It's of three different parrots sitting on a brown branch with daisy like flowers floating in the air.  There is a green and gold macaw and a male and female eclectus (I think).  It is 'naive' and crudely done but it colourful and spontaneous and oh so right.  Again, I would have been proud to have painted it.  The artist, when I complimented her on her work, was shy and not inclined to talk.  I think she was about 10 or 11. 

Admiring these two paintings and their truth I begin to understand what Picasso meant.  Which doesn't mean I'll give up painting.  I won't but it will inspire me to keep searching for that inner truth which children access so well and which adults hide under a lifetime of learning and intellectualizing and bruised and/or well guarded ego. 

Dreamed of a willie wagtail which sat on my hand.  It was thirsty and put its bill in the corner of my mouth to drink my saliva.  I tried to make a self-waterer for it so that it could have clean water and not be dependent upon my spit for moisture.  That's all I remember of the dream but the image has stayed with me.  I tried to sketch it last night but it didn't work.  Think it needs a closeup of the lower half of the face and the bird positioned slightly different on the hand.  Very important that the hand is in view.  That's the only part of the sketch I'm happy with, the sweep and curve of the wrist and forearm.  What small things yet the grace and beauty of the wrist where it joins the hand is majestic. 

Have almost finished the man suspended over the vat of water.  No idea what it means, where it came from or even if it works.  It's very simple and pared down yet I like it.  There's something intrinsically attractive about mirrors, doorways, windows, rooms viewed from without, bubbles, reflections, water and 'dimensions' although trying to replicate three dimensions on a two dimensional surface is hard enough without adding a fourth or fifth. 

Mattise, The Flying Cat and the Fat Buddha

Our little world at sixes and sevens this morning.  The bed has been dismantled and reassembled in the living room which is also crammed with the other bedroom furniture.  The chap was supposed to come sand and polish the wood floor today but is suffering, along with his wife, from vertigo (isn't that interesting?  So it was something 'going around' and not the scary disease I suspected.  How readily am I willing to scare myself nigh to death with very little evidence?).

The cats are distressed.  No one slept wth us last night even though we didn't have the fire going and the house was cold and bleak.  Either we were being punished by their absence or they felt they had to keep watch in case something else changed in the house.  Matisse is kneeling near the keyboard.  He keeps climbing on and off my lap and although I love him it is quite distracting so I have pushed the chair well under the desk so he can't climb on anymore.  Reminds me of Garrison Keilor's song about the cat that wants in, no, he wants out, no, he MUST come back in, no wait!  I HAVE to go out RIGHT NOW!  That's Matisse.  On my lap, off my lap, on, off, on, off and then really off.  I think it hurts his feeling though.  He is the most uncertain cat I've ever met.  Natalia's boldness and self assurance is refreshing.  She looks me straight in the eye and holds my stare.  She is not trying to intimidate nor is she intimidated.  She is comfortable with us and with herself.  Matisse, in comparison, is Woody Allen in fur.   Perhaps that's not quite a fair comparison but his lack of self confidence is staggering.  He is, after nine years with us, still unsure of our committment.  If  I've fed him breakfast but go into the living room to put a log in the woodheater or retrieve a pair of shoes, he follows.  I can't go to the loo on my own.  I used to think it was that Siamese characteristic, which supposedly makes them the dogs of the cat world - as if that was a compliment!, to want to be where you are and do what you're doing.  With my previous two Siamese that was true.  But not Matisse.  I think he suspects that if he doesn't keep us under surveillance we'll disappear.

It is sad because, and I suspect I've written of this before, he rarely looks me in the eye.  What cat doesn't naturally outstare any human unless the cat is feral, sick or frightened?  It's almost as if he's afraid to reveal his true self, his true nature.  What dire secrets fester away behind those clear blue eyes?

When he is paid special attention he blooms, as if he didn't think he was deserving.  When all my focus is upon him, when I am petting him firmly and rhythmically and I croon to him how special, beautiful and loved he is, he still doesn't look me in the eye but his tail is up and 'happy' and he rubs himself against me with considerable force (and he is a big solid cat).   Matisse has a habit of greeting me in passing with his tail.  Often I'm in some one legged standing yoga pose and Matisse will pass by on his way to the window seat.  He'll push his tail against my leg as he walks past and it's all I can do not to fall over. 

Finished that pastel drawing I wrote about.  Of course it's not nearly as good as I'd like it to be, nor is it photographed as well as it could be, very grainy and dull.  My signature shows how bad it is. 

Here's a photo of Fat Buddha with Cat that I did a few months ago.  Guess I'll have to learn how to take better pictures.

Found this website through wordpress called American Gallery,   http://americangallery.wordpress.com.  Suzay Lamb, the creator of AG, is passionate about finding and posting for all the world to enjoy, the works of artists from the 1700's up to the present day.  There is such a wide sampling that there is something for everyone.  I've been working my way through the artists alphabetically, starting with the letter H - just to be different. 

Perhaps it's not entirely ethical but when I find a painting I like I use it as a desktop for a day or two so that I may study it.  Don't save them for it is the unauthorized use of someone else's work but I don't think any artist would mind someone adimiring their creation for a few hours or a few days.  The problem is I always find something more beautiful than the last which I must have as a desktop.  

Since writing I've completed a pencil sketch of a galah and have amost finished a pastel drawing of a tiger cat leaping.  It's drawn in such a way that it is as though one was lying on the grass looking at the sky when this cat jumped through your field of vision.  There is nothing but cat, blue sky and a few clouds.  I'm okay with the drawing but am disappointed with my use of colour.  When I look at the Navajo Indian chief I drew back in the 70's I am amazed that I so obviously seemed to know what I was doing.  The nap of his heavy winter coat looks real.  His skin looks like skin.  Granted I was copying from a photo (Natinal Geographic?) but I still had to have some skill in order to pull it off.  This cat I'm drawing from memory and the help of Natalia who can't understand why I keep turning her over to have a look at her abdomen, although she graciously purrs and allows me a quick peek, it being too cold to remain stretched out for more than a minute.  The problem is I've overloaded the paper with pastel.  The real problem is, as usual, I changed my mind partway through.  I painted a brilliant sky using the entire paper.  Perfect gradation of shading from the darkest blue at the top to the paler blue at the bottom.  Then I started to draw the cat on top of the blue thinking the blue would come in handy as shadows on the dark side of the cat.  And it does but the tooth is already so full that any thought of drawing lifelike fur is out of the question.  Even with sharp pastel pencils.

 And that's another thing.  I'm quite disappointed with the Faber Castel pastel pencils.  Compared to the cheap Montmarte they are difficult to apply and the colours are insipid.  Perhaps the Montmarte pastels show up their inferior quality by not staying fresh, by losing their colour over time.  I don't know but I know when I want vivid true pigment that goes on even over pastel sticks, hard and soft, I reach for a Montmarte.  I should send this blurb to their advertising department.  I paid big bucks for the Faber Castel and don't like them.  Paid $24 for 36 Montmarte colours and enjoy using them.   Maybe I'm just a victim of artist snobbery. 

Took the cat outside yesterday afternoon and 'fixed' hell out of it.  I like the way fixative makes the colours darker.  Haven't done anything to it today except look as I go past.  If I'm very careful I may be able to salvage it.  If not I've even thought of having another go.  I never do a picture more than once.  Succeed or fail, once I've had a go it's lost its allure.  But the cat?  I like the whimsy of it (isn't whimsy just a wonderful word?).  To pull it off really well would be lovely. 

In other news - haven't had a trace of dizziness or vertigo for over a week now.  I breathed  through it.  Breath has become of vital importance since I quit smoking.  I'm frequently filling my lungs as full as they can get and giving thanks for that breath.  Sounds funky but there you go.  Without breath, we're dead.  Probably one of the most substantial gifts one can give thanks for.  Naturally after 44 years of smoking my lungs are not instantly restored but I do notice a micromillimeter of improvemet week by week.  And breathing through things, breathing to heal, breathing to calm, breathing to love.  It's all one and the same.  Breathing to remember who I am.  I had reason to write to someone this week who is going through emotional hell.  I asked that he remember who he was, who he really was.  We teach best that which we most need to learn - or relearn.  I need to remember who I am too.  I get caught up in the trivia of day to day living and forget that I'm here because of a divine spark animating this collection of proteins - and that divine spark is renewed every time I breathe. 

When I take that huge breath, especially during a section of my yoga practice which is devoted to breath, I sometimes feel that connection, that divinity.  So what happens when we die?  I think we take that final breath, which is both physical and metaphysical, and it feels that we keep taking it, that we become so imbued with breath that there is finally no separation between the inhale and exhale but the breath is All.  Physically we take that final breath and the breath leaves the body taking the divine spark with it.   Well, that's my guess for today.  Tomorrow I may have another theory.

Sunday morning of the Queen's birthday long weekend. I swear the local wallabies know when it's the weekend. They are more numerous on the road during the day. We've had five killed on our short 6km dead end street already this season. Have a suspicion who is the culprit but of course it can't be proven. Desire to erect a large billboard saying Humans 5, Wallabies 0. But that would only inflame those who didn't give a damn before into upping the score. In favour of humans.

We have a new bird hanging around. A scarlet robin. The first year we moved here we saw a rose robin. Once. Like the Regent's bowerbird. Don't know what changed in the environment to make them disappear but disappear they did. So it's a real buzz to see a brand new (for us) bird in the center round garden. And he's very beautiful. Scarlet and black. Bold too, not very shy of me and I was only 4 or 5 feet away from him.

Another snippet in our wildlife scene. It's winter here yet we have a very determined frog calling Tok Tok Tok through the night and sometimes through the day. He lives in the fernery. When it is very cold his call is slow. I counted 23 to 36 seconds between Toks. When it is warmer, it's anything from 2 to 6 seconds. His Tok sounds like a mallet gently tapped against a hollow log. Have no idea what kind of frog (or toad for that matter) he is but admire his tenacity - and am a little alarmed that he's working so hard at a time when he should be taking it easy.

My dizziness has not disappeared yet. Because I think that dis-ease can reflect what's going on subconsciously, I wondered what the spinning out represented. The description 'spinning out' describes it; a mind out of control. My attempts at meditation, while regular are sporadic. Might start and find that Richard has returned or is banging about inside. Was going to close the wooden external door as a message that I was meditating but just can't be that cruel to confine him to the cold while I'm in the (relative) warmth. And that's another problem. It's too cold in this house, even with the heater going, to sit still for any length of time without getting chilled. So at any rate, while I do try and meditate it's not as regular or as long a session as I'd like. But there is an unlooked for side effect of meditation, even if the meditation is unsuccessful: awareness of thought. What's come to my attention are the layers which operate at the same time. I've never noticed before that there is the topmost layer which is the layer I'm writing this blog with. Beneath that might be a snatch of a song on an endless repeating loop and beneath that is a word or phrase. The other day it was Sam Stosur the tennis player, her name repeating like a mantra beneath the few notes of some old song (which always comes to the fore during the white noise of vacuuming). I had no idea so much mindless activity was going on with my mind's desperate bid to be kept busy. Why? Why must the mind always be kept busy? What's so scary about silence?

So that was a revelation, that my mind could and did work on many levels. At the same time I realized I was having these flashes of silence, when all the layers were quiet and still. Perhaps that was always happening but I hadn't noticed it. Those brief respites from chatter stand out by their sheer peacefulness, so much so that I start thinking about what's happening and lose it!

What has that to do with dizziness? I'm not sure. It has improved. I've managed to do backbends during yoga again although I must do it in stages. I've also managed to look up towards my outstretched hand during half moon and triangle poses. I notice the dizziness is worse when I look up over my left shoulder. I cannot quite look at my hand, only toward it but figure I am retraining myself so that is only a matter of time. I do a lot of deep breathing, hoping to breathe through this little health hiccup. Having always had low blood pressure I don't believe it is high blood pressure nor do I think I have an inner ear infection or a tumour or some such thing. The vertigo is an anomaly which is a helpful guidepost to illustrate something I need to bring into awareness. At least that's what I tell myself and mostly believe. The alternative is not a pleasant prospect.

Inexplicable Joy with Vertigo

Yes, it's true. During the most mundane of tasks I suddenly am overwhelmed with this wave of happiness. Walking the dogs and I notice the shape of a tree - joy, feeding the cats and seeing Natalia's wide green eyes and happy upright tail and I smile, making the bed and I recall with what relief I sank into it the night before - bliss. This contentment is not the matter of a moment or a day, it bursts forth frequently and has done for the past month. I think much of it has to do with quitting cigarettes, that I have aligned myself more with my Self so do not feel so alienated and discombobulated.

Then when I think life can't get any better than this I am reminded of its fragility. A couple of nights ago when I lay my head on the pillow the room swam. Isn't that the term? It spun and sang and quivered and I shot bolt upright until it stopped. Lay down again, much more slowly and went to sleep. Woke up in the night to go to the loo, sat up and clung to handfuls of sheets until the world stopped spinning. The next morning, not good. Spinning out if I did anything other than hold my head straight with eyes front. Wrote an email and had to type it without looking at the monitor. When you see a computer monitor on television it flickers, something we don't notice when we're sitting in front of it. That part of me that was experimenting with barrel rolls and loop de loops noticed however. I didn't do yoga for two days for other reasons so didn't have to test the theory that I would be unable to swan dive into a sun salutation or heft myself into a headstand. I was scared enough as it was.

In case you didn't know, I am a coward. The idea of doctors, needles, oh my god drawing blood, fills me with Fear in bold underlined italics. The image of being punctured...makes me dizzy thinking of it. That and small spaces and things around my neck which leads me to believe that in a previous life I was hung in a closet while being stabbed with a stiletto. Anyway, so here I am scared witless because I am having dizzy spells. Don't even tell Richard because I know what he'll do - nag me to go see a doctor. Don't tell anyone but then I have a little 'turn' at a friend's house so I tell them. With what relief do I hear these wise people say, among other things, that perhaps it's a virus. Of course! A virus! I can live with that. I'm not going to die a horrible death after all (amazing how the mind works and what morbid scenarios one creates for oneself). I"m just sick.

So here it is a few days later. I still spin out if I look up at my hand during Half Moon pose or try a backbend but other than that I'm good. I lay down with caution and get up with same but not with excruciating slowness like a few days ago. But as a token to my moment of fear I am wearing my mother's deep blue sapphire ring. I've never worn it before because it was the 'good' ring, it's fragile and what if it was damaged? Well, if it was, who cares but me and what am I waiting for anyway. If there was something terribly wrong with me and I died without wearing Mom's ring or using the good perfume or any of a number of other things that are put off waiting for that perfect day when one deserves that special treat it would be a waste. And a bit of an insult too. Here we are gifted with this miracle called Being Alive and we hold back, weigh up our options, assess, scrutinize and, perhaps worst of all, Bargain. Instead Life is to be embraced and regarded with Inexplicable Joy mixed with the Vertiginous Miracle of Being.

The Love of Noise

We love noise and hate silence. That's what Prem Rawat said during one of his talks, along with loving war and hating peace. And it's so obviously true. We have what we love. We love upheaval not serenity, we love living on the edge, dicing with death, frenetic activity, and above all else, the false security of money. We do anything for money. We shit in our nest for money. We wallow in it, we eat it and smell it and clothe ourselves in it, all for money. If we can't have the money we'll support and admire others who do. How else would we allow the obscenities of Big Business to continue other than that they have the MoneyGiven, not GodGiven, right to do so.

Sometimes I get caught up in the blame game, the fear and anger and resentment. I have to turn it off. Which brings me back to the first sentence; loving noise and hating silence. In silence there is peace. The noise is reading Care2Causes and all the wrongs done in the world. The noise is signing petitions and wringing my hands. The noise is the radio, the television as well as the computer. The noise is all distraction and playing the Maya game. I can make my pulse race by thinking of the evils of the world. Isn't this why we choose this game of life? To pretend we are mortal and vulnerable and less than perfect so that we can scare ourselves silly? Why are horror movies and thrillers perennially popular? We love being frightened. Why do we ride rollercoasters and jump from planes? If that's all it is, just an illusion we create to make scaring ourselves real there's no reason to get upset. Is there?

Perhaps not but why trash the most exquisite set, the most perfect, complicated and wondrous life *movie* location to test the theory? Couldn't we find other ways to get an adrenaline rush other than pursuing war, pestilence and environmental destruction?

It's a mystery. I don't know the answer. I have to live as though it's real. Try and leave a small carbon footprint, sign those petitions, do the things I can but also, for the sake of my sanity, I have to turn it all off and sit in silence. My silence isn't very silent. My tiny little mind is brimming with slogans, commercials, snippets of songs, images, internal conversations, memories, remorse, plans, have to lists, details and physical sensations. It isn't very quiet in my mind. But I go there anyway. Sometimes the consciousness streams dwindle to one or two or three strands instead of a dozen. Even that is a relief. Because, finally, all that Noise is a Distraction from what Is. The noise is all about what Is Not.

Dreamed a dream straight from prime time television. Vince, no better name, held fifty people including myself, hostage at gun point. I knew Vince. We were driving in the parking lot of a shopping centre. Previous events contributed to the hotage taking but I don't remember them now. What I do remember is driving a car in which we were picking up people who were trying to get away from him only we didn't know it was Vince at the time. So, he was rescued as well. Richard was in another car behind ours. We ended up in a department store. Vince was distraught. We were frightened. Then I asked him why he hadn't sought help for his problems? Didn't he have anyone to talk to? Wasn't there someone somewhere in a position to help him? He pointed the gun straight at me but I kept talking (so cliched a screenplay I am almost embarrassed to record it. Couldn't my dreaming self come up with something more original?). Eventually he dashed down a long hallway. I tried to slam and lock the door behind him but it kept bouncing open. So we all dashed out the door on the opposite side of the building, ran down the mall screaming, Man! Gun! Hostages! Police! That's all I remember.

A naked woman with no legs riding a chestnut horse with no saddle or bridle. That was my dream. Or rather part of it. She was amazing to watch. They both were. She and the horse were so linked that thought seemed to unite them. How she even stayed on was a miracle. She was like a thalidomide victim as her legs were missing from the pelvis down so she was balancing on her groin. She did lean forward to ride, supporting some of her weight with her hands on the horse's neck but even so it was quite a feat.

I was riding too, in another part of the dream. Getting on Balthazar was a non-event. Obviously I decided to dismiss the 'invitation to ride' scenario. But we managed. The dream or series of dreams was, as always, long and complicated and I don't remember most of it. I do remember a huge black roiling storm that was coming from the wrong way. Lightning and thunder assailed the eyes and eardrums without surcease. It meant big trouble especially as it was heading east, out to sea and then changed it's mind (and it did seem to have a mind) to come back.

Jamaica hurt his toe on Monday. It might be broken. We weighed up the options and decided to do nothing. Jamaica is the wimpiest dog I've ever met and getting a foot splinted and bandaged and then having to wear an elizabethan collar as well would just about do him in. Because he is such a wuss he is very careful with the foot and is keeping it immobilized himself. He is tied up most of the time and only let off to do his business. Richard does walk him to the gate and back in the morning but it's all on three legs. The swelling is starting to go down a little so hopefully we're doing the right thing. As long as he appeared bright in himself and kept eating I was willing to give this a go. This is the same toe that was broken when he was a puppy (Richard stepped on it). Whippets have such fist-like upright clenched-toe sort of paws they are more susceptible to breakage than a more flat-pawed breed.

Almost two weeks since a cigarette and can definitely feel a difference. Have calmed down a little which is good although nervous energy does get chores done. No smokers cough in the morning and only cough when doing certain lung opening postures during yoga and even then very seldom. The right lung, which has had something going on with it for a long time, a *catch* and *itch*, feels more normal. I am still seeking that elusive fully satisfying inhale that I remember but it will come. I give thanks every day for my Breath and I am so happy that I have given this gift to myself. I can beat myself up in other ways if I wish but I don't have to commit slow suicide anymore.

I notice that Richard is not taking afternoon naps anymore either. I think he's had two in two weeks. He went to the doctor about his hip. The doctor suspects arthritis. Richard now admits that it was sore before he fell on it. He fell a month ago and has had problems with it since. Doctor says he can resume walking. Richard has a bit of a palsy now. It is especially noticeable in the morning. It's only slight but it's something that wasn't there before. It breaks my heart. I try not to be scared of old age. I'm not scared of mine, in some odd way I seem to be getting younger, perhaps only an illusion but an illusion that serves me well. But seeing Richard age is hard. Not the brown hair turning grey turning white. But the palsy and the shuffling his feet rather than picking them up and walking (I bite my tongue. I want to shout at him, WALK! DON'T SHUFFLE!), the sitting slouched over with rounded shoulders gazing at the floor looking like a little old man in an aged care home. Stand tall, I think to myself. Look up and Live to paraphrase an energy company safety commercial. When we walk he looks at the bitumen, I look at the world around me. Of course walking is great for mulling things over. I will look at the road when I am thinking but I am always brought back to the present by the presence of Nature. Not so, Richard. He will walk 6km staring at the three feet in front of him. I bite my tongue again. Usually. If I do say something he tells me not to pick on him. And what right do I have to tell him how to live his life? Except that I love him and I KNOW that it is better for him to stand tall rather than slouch, not only physically but mentally/emotionally/spiritually. There is a dulling of the mind that comes with a perspective that is so foreshortened.

So now I've had my complaint and voiced my fears. Richard will never use the yoga lessons I bought him. At least since his doctor's appointment he is starting to lengthen his walking distance. He's meeting me on the other side of the Pedersens now. I trust that gradually he will build back up to the entire distance. The other day a friend came down who is enduring the heartwrenching reality of a breakup. Because of that he brought champagne. So I drank it with him. When he left I was feeling distinctly buzzy. It was 3:30 in the afternoon. Took Radar for his walk and under the alcoholic influence I ran up every hill and along every flat bit of land. Felt great and I was entirely sober and alcohol free by the time I returned home an hour later. That night I could hardly sit. Not muscle or joint soreness but sciatic in the groin. Bummer. Felt great to jog again and if I could get away with it I'd start running again. But I can't so there.

In the meantime I'll work on my asana, Bird of Paradise, or, as I wrote to Jen my yoga teacher, the Fractured Turkey. That's why I feel younger. Rather than giving up things because I'm getting older, I'm learning something new. Not French or calculus or Cordon Bleu cooking but yoga postures. When Jen first introduced us to Bird of Paradise at the workshop I couldn't even attempt it. At home it would take me 5 or 6 steps to get my feet parallel. As for standing upright on one leg, forget it. I could barely get my other foot off the ground. But perseverance pays off. I can stand up now. Slowly, with great effort, but stand I do. And I love it. There are many many postures that I cannot do nor will I ever be able to do. I can graciously admit to the impossibility of some things but there are many that I cannot do now that I could do in the future with practice. I like that. I want to add on to my life, not subtract.

Why I am beginning to remember dreams, I don't know. Didn't remember anything when I woke up but a neighbour stopped by to deliver eggs from his overly productive chickens (we have three dozen plus now and I know we aren't the only egg recipients. Told John if we die of cholesterol related heart failure the blame would be laid directly in front of his coop). He described how he had to hotwire his yard to prevent his dogs from going bush. The bitch, he said, never tried to jump the fence but one of the others did. Then I remembered the dream. In the SW corner of the front paddock was a tall red and white horse truck. It was almost as tall as a double decker. On top of the truck was tied a bay mare. She'd been sold or given to me by another neighbour. I was talking to him when I heard a commotion from the truck and turned around in time to see her leap over the side to the ground. It shattered her feet. The injury couldn't be seen but was there nevertheless. Overheard the neighbour tell someone else it didn't matter as she was already stuffed from racing and he was just getting her off his hands. I was angry and ashamed. Angry that he had such a callous attitude to a living creature and ashamed of myself for not tying her in more securely. I don't remember anything more.

Part of the dream might stem from one of those country tragedies experienced a few times a year. Two days ago noticed another sick galah. They are so easy to pick out now; they fly slowly, heavily, are slightly fluffed and eat the grain with careful consideration. Had a good look at him with binoculars although he would let us fairly close before flying off. His beak was longer and straighter than normal. Beak and feather. The warty pink skin around his black eyes was sunken. The heartbreaking thing is that birds look you right in the eye, even tiny Tony the tiny budgie. This small sick galah looked me right in the eye as I looked at him, knowing he would have to be put down as he was dying and while he was dying he was spreading disease. Richard saw him yesterday morning in the yards, too weak to fly away. He flew to ground instead. Richard came back and got the gun to shoot him. It depresses everyone even though it is the right thing to do. Richard said he was 'skinny as a rake handle'. Birds can fake their health for a long time. When the galah finally showed signs of illness it was too late to help him.

All the birds, wild and domestic, knew something horrible had happened. Even Dimitri squawked repeatedly from the verandah. The gun, rifle? isn't a loud one. Richard uses rat shot. The gun makes a small pop not a loud boom. Nevertheless every animal on the place knew that pop meant death. The wild birds stayed away from an hour or more. Death casts a pall over everything, even on the clearest brightest winter day when the colours are so vivid they almost make me squint.

Finished reading Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd last night. How different a book it was than what I expected. It was just a love story. Somehow I had the idea it was some sociopolitical treatise. How wrong I was! When I say just a love story, it was a love story written with a deep understanding and love of the principal characters. But what I loved about his writing was the descriptions of the weather, the countryside, the feel, smell, look and Life of Nature. It was the chief and most memorable character in the book. His description of the coming storm when he is trying to cover the ricks - I am there. I can see it. I can smell it. I feel the hairs rise on my arms at the raw power which comes, which makes the problems of Bathsheba and Gabriel and Boldwood trivial in comparison.

I don't think Hardy and his ilk are popular now. In the local library I find very few classics. I find them in op shops and garage sales. A pity. Just as a university education today is an education in science, technology, or business. What use is it to learn Latin or Greek or read the classics or understand history (because history unknown is history repeated?). I think we lose much by concentrating on the 'hard' subjects, educating ourselves to look for, understand and create more 'hard' facts. What about educating the creative spirit. Who reads poetry anymore? I keep a book of poems in the car. To read in small doses. I didn't know Walt Whitman except as a name. The only poet I was truly familiar with was John Donne. But Whitman! What a muscular take on life! He throbs and throttles and sighs and caresses. I don't understand most of what I read. I only get the sense of it. Yet what an introduction. Poetry is a muscular medium even in the hands of someone like E. Browning. She might be writing of the drone of a housebound fly while someone dies with the lightest most economical touch but she's punching me solidly in the solar plexus at the same time.

Finished and 'framed' the pastel painting yesterday. Keep forgetting to take a photo before sticking a finished work in a frame. But what's the point. I set up a MySpace account to promote my work and have done nothing with it. Promotion, self-promotion, it sounds faintly bilious, feels faintly bilious. I'd rather paint. I didn't start the new painting because I spent yesterday finishing off (finally) the pastel. We are going to Toowoomba on Wednesday to pick up interior paint (zinc blue). While there we are going to look at sofas, have a coffee (or lunch), find out where I go for the yoga workshop so I'm not wasting time looking for it on Saturday and, most fun of all, we're going to Murray's Art Supplies. I've drawn up a list of supplies. This is the kind of shopping I adore, unlike clothes shopping which I abhor! On the list is paper for drawing, sanded for pastel work and pads, pencils lots of *B-types', pastel pencils (new toy, they are great! found some cheap Montmartes to play with but want MORE!) and masking liquid (necessary for this next drawing). Interestingly, the yoga workshop venue and Murrays are probably right across the street from one another. Murrays is open until 1pm on Saturdays so even if I don't go on Wednesday, I can go on Saturday which might be better for browsing as Richard won't be with me. Hmmmm.

Rode the bike to Peterson Road yesterday. There is a hill (Peterson's Hill) that is so steep I cannot ride up it but must get off and walk. It is worth the extra effort and time for it is the fastest and scariest return trip! I am truly frightened flying down that hill. I don't know how fast I am going but it feels like 100mph. Then I must brake hard so that I don't come screaming out onto the highway and into the path of oncoming traffic. It is amazing that I find the bike riding so easy. Before I had to build up endurance to ride the 14km (round trip) from here to the Ma Ma Creek Shop. The only problem now is that my hands get sore and my back aches from the unnatural position one takes to ride these modern bikes. Must look for some kind of compromise set of handlebars so that I can sit up straight and take the weight off my hands.

Pyewackett returned from the Other Side to visit in a dream last night. A strange (aren't all dreams strange), convulated, and so so Busy dream. Seemed to go on and on with no progress. So here goes. I was in the American West somewhere. I was with a couple. They were newly married, on their honeymoon in fact but I had a history with the man, a David Schwimmer type (looks, not personality ie Friends personality). Richard was somewhere else. I missed him and wanted to be with him but was stuck *finishing* things with this man. She was blonde and had little to do with the dream story. We were at a motel in the middle of nowhere. This motel had a parking lot as large as a small country. Finding a parking spot within sight of the motel was a distinct advantage. It always seemed to be nighttime in the parking lot. I had a room to myself (hard to write, Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun on which distracts with it's perennial beauty). To eat one had to talk into one of those drive through intercoms. The food on offer was all junk; meaty, fried and horrid. There was nothing that I could eat. Thought perhaps I'd take my car-cum-motorcycle into the distant town and find something. A man accosted me while I was astride my bike, said it, a GB, was a very bad brand. He was officious, insulting and nosy. What I drove was none of his business. Told him I didn't eat meat or dairy either. Did he have something to say about that? (Know what character that dream person was based upon. Riding my bike a few days ago down the middle of DGR. Didn't hear approaching traffic because of the wind through the webbing of the bike helmet. This male person lay on his horn and stayed there. A polite bip bip would've been appropriate. I was so startled I pulled over to the right. No vehicle. I pulled onto the verge, not a great idea when on racing tyres. Still no vehicle. Finally a man pulled up beside me, said I should be on the left. True, of course but then logical thinking disappears when a loud noise erupts right behind one. Anyway, he pulled off. I stayed on the right just so if he looked in the rear view he'd see me. Petty, I know. Yesterday, while walking the dogs with Richard, he drove past and beeped the horn, long lazy beeps, not friendly taps. So that's why there was a short grey-haired man insulting my choice of vehicle in a dream parking lot).

Then there is Pyewackett in the snow. Sitting there, refusing to move, even though I have flattened a track for her. I think she's been lost and I'm very glad to find her again. Bring her into my room. I have a large shopping bag, with handles. Put towels inside and place Pyewackett on them. Ah, she thinks a toilet and proceeds to urinate. I'm not quick enough and some of it leaks onto the floor covering. So have to wash it before the landlady finds out. There is a small machine in the room. Wash them but find they still smell of urine so decide to do them in the machine on my bike (where the petrol tank would be).

Meanwhile I so want to finish the business with this dark-haired man. I kiss him. He pulls back. Is it the cigarettes, I ask. Yes. I've been smoking again and will quit when I return to Richard. Open my mouth (or his mouth) and see yellow-orange mucous clogging up the back of the throat.

And that's it. The dream remains vivid. Why I don't know. Sometimes I wake up knowing I've had a significant dream and can recall nothing. I'm only recording this dream, dull as it is, because it insisted on being remembered.

Got the heater going in here. Love old Queenslanders but they are not built for cold weather. Too many gaps, no insulation and, in this house, no curtains. Three degrees this morning. Bitter. Fingers just starting to thaw.

Couldn't sleep last night. Fell into bed exhausted at 8:30. Nights of insominia outnumber good nights especially since quitting smokes. Woke up at 1am. Too cold to get up and read a book so tossed and turned until 4, the last time I looked at the clock before 6. Then, when the most delicious sleep is possible, it is time to get up and feed everyone. I can hear Mallory playing with his bell in the next room. Tachimedes begins to do his vocal warm up exercises. Dimitri shuffles from one end of the verandah to the other and the outside galahs have quiet conversations with the wild ones. So I can't lay there and pretend I don't know everyone is hungry and waiting for breakfast, that the lorikeets will appreciate the warm nectar mix on a cold morning. That the wild galahs, perched on the overhead wires, don't really begin their day until they've had their morning wake up muffin at Glen Ellen.

One excellent result of the insomnia was the flash of a drawing I could try. Spent much of yesterday in abortive attempts to come up with an idea for the next work. Sketches on typing paper which came to nothing and met their fate in the compost bin. Funny how the idea came. I was in that hypnagogic state between sleeping and waking (have you ever tried to follow your thought processes back when in that realm? For me, impossible, as though an invisible curtain is drawn between the logical mind of sun and the fog-wreathed world of imagination, where I suspect the mind roams truly free, unfettered by physical rules and laws and regulations). Anyway, this image came to mind fully formed with such a jolt it snapped me out of that dreamy state. A good thing too for I didn't want to doze off and forget it or to remember later that I thought of *something* and not be able to remember what it was I conjured up.

Almost a week without a cigarette. No more morning coughing fits. No stink of cigarettes on me or in me, not in the house, in the furnishings, clothes or cats (yes, they stunk too - not to mention the years of second hand smoke - poor things, animal cruelty really). Trying very hard not to overeat. Not a problem during the day, have even reduced portion size, but at night, much more difficult. Eating fruit and munching pistachios, almonds and peanuts in shell.

Beating myself up for doing this, not doing that, mind like a hamster wheel spinning off dirty streamers of negativity. Walking the dogs yesterday I said to myself just Stop It! Stop It! Big sigh of relief. God, we're hard on ourselves. I'm hard on myself. I know I'm not perfect, far from it. I don't use my time well. I'm lazy and selfish and vain and all thos other labels I slap so freely onto my wrinkled forehead but I'm also quite okay. The animals are looked after and loved, my husband is looked after and loved, the house ditto, I turn out quite alot of art work, I still have an open mind and want to learn how to be with Balthazar in a way which is easy and comfortable for both of us. I give thanks daily for the good things in my life. I'm not sure I deserve them but I do appreciate them. I try and not think bad thoughts about people or things. I try and be mindful. I try and watch my tongue so that I don't score cheap shots by being 'right'. I generally try and be a better person than I was the day before.

I wouldn't let anyone else speak to me as I speak to myself. That book I never read, 'How to be Your Own Best Friend' is aptly titled. We aren't very good at it.

Haven't written about Dimitry in a very long time. Something has changed in that little feathered head. He (or I suspect She) is still timid and wary and easily frightened but she is also bolder, calmer and braver than before. I've put a cocky cage on the floor and feed her seed inside it. It was there for a month or so than I took it out to keep Marvin in while Terry lived in Marvin's aviary. When I put it back Dimitri was less cautious about me being nearby. Previously she'd leave the cage when I was 4 or 5 feet away. Now I am close enough to close the door if I wish. I leave when she goes inside to eat. If I move and she comes out I tell her to go back in and then leave when she does so. Want to gradually accustom her to having the door closed and then opened again while she's inside but if need be I can just close the door and move her - which is the whole idea. I want to get her off the verandah and into an aviary.

So she was a bit more confident when the cocky cage was returned to the verandah. The confidence also shows in the way she takes food from my fingers. She used to snatch and run even if the running was only two or three feet away. Now she takes the treat gently and slowly. I sit on the floor and feed her millet. After the first couple of times she hardly moves away at all but stands just in front while she eats. Get the feeling that one day she'll lower her head for a scratch. That would be an achievement, a break out the champagne moment.

I reread this post and think it's not written well enough for anyone else to read. I mean look at that first sentence or two. How boring. Why would anyone continue reading. Maybe I should delete them and go straight to what meat there is but then I realize, no this post is for me. When I wrote in journals I didn't write for an audience, I wrote for me. I wrote because I had to and it didn't matter whether it was worthy of some invisible reader. The reader was me. Writing a journal on a blog changes things, like a physicist changes the results of his experiments by observing them. Or, perhaps, reality tv shows have nothing to do with reality because the participants are always aware at some level they are being filmed. So, in an endeavour to be true to myself I'll leave the boring bits.

Today the first cigarette free day. It was harder yesterday stretching out those last few smokes so they lasted until bedtime. Even resorted to having a few puffs then putting the cigarette out until the next time I had a craving. Today is far easier in comparison. Hardest time around lunch. Lunch can take anything from an hour to two hours depending upon if there is a good midday movie on. Today it took 15 minutes. Usually if there's a movie on I work on a drawing. The movie is 'company' if it's not engrossing enough to warrant full attention. Too energetic today to do anything but get up, do the dishes and head out the door to reinflate bicycle tyres.

Took the bike for a half hour spin. Easier than I expected. I suspect yoga has just made me generally fitter than I used to be. The hardest part is a) sore 'nether regions' and b) pain in lower back from those horrible lowset handlebars. Might invest in upright handlebars. As for the groin, will just have to get 'calloused' up somehow. Don't think Richard plans to ride his bike so might nick his sheepskin seat cover. He went for a grand total of two rides and whinged all the way. Not his cup of tea.

We have been a tiny bit snappy with one another but realizing that we are in the throes, as it were, it doesn't escalate. Hardly worth mentioning really. Don't know why I did.

Had a, for me, really small lunch. Small helping of salad, two crackers instead of three. That's the only way I'll keep from gaining weight, smaller helpings and more exercise. I do have the leeway of portion size for I do Live Large as far as food goes but because of no dairy and the active lifestyle I've lost weight despite myself. Now I don't have the luxury of smoking as an appetite suppressant and metabolism accelerator so have to find other ways to remain steady. I know it's vain but it is so depressing to be chunky.

Countdown to Quitting

Day Three: Haven't stopped smoking yet but it is three days after making the decision to do so. Have one pack and a bit left so it's not too long before having to face those first three crucial days of doing without. But there is much to gain too (hopefully not weight!). Having my breath back, feeling true to myself, gain in energy and sense of smell, perhaps even whiter teeth.

So why have I chosen to quit after giving up attempting to give up for so many years? Of course there are the physical side effects; a smokers cough when I've never had a smoker's cough. Noticeable tingling in my hands and arms in bed from lack of circulation, not enjoying a smoke as much as I used to but the most important reason is how smoking is like having a huge hairy wart on the end of my nose. It doesn't fit with who I am, who I want to be. I blame yoga for this. Yoga and pranayama. It's not only that my lung capacity sucks, it is a Big Lie to continue smoking when yoga brings me closer, however, slowly, to the truth of my being.

And my Being doesn't smoke, does not treat herself with disrespect, does not intentionally and consistently harm herself. She does not pollute the air which is already so polluted with the effects of humanity. I gave up meat because I don't believe in the killing of animals to feed me something I don't need. I gave up dairy because of the pain it causes to cows and calves. So I can be compassionate to others. Why not myself?