Cutting Through

Ha-Cha!

Perhaps you have grown up with the expressions, "splitting the bindu", or cutting through red tape.
Maybe your idea of challenging the world is to arm yourself with the sword of truth.

When I was a young student of eastern studies, I had already grown up with the European concepts of the sword of truth, the double edged sword, the "Sword of Damocles", as if the sword of truth dangled above a young, innocent students' head, anyway!

We are innocent people who use concepts that are rhetorically romantic to most of us. Few of us arm ourselves with swords in order to conquer the world.

During my early years studying Buddhism, one of the meditation techniques that I learned was "splitting the bindu". We were supposed to imagine the subject that we sought as a bubble or gem-like bead in front of us. Bindu means "bubble", or "gem".

This technique, we were told, was an ability to "intellectually" cut through problems that we found hard to face, like bad feelings, psychic chit chat, even illness in ourselves and others. As well, when we did not understand a situation we were told of this technique for "lightning-swift samadhi" (the sword of change).

All of us tried this and some of us adhered to the concept, as if surgeons, construction people, etc.

As I grew a little more mature I started to notice that "splitting the bindu" was starting to be troublesome - this idea was becoming ferocious as young people dreamed up antique swords and giant blades, smashing them with brutal awareness at peoples' intellects. Thoughts are believed to be soft and quiet, but these were dynamic and also vicious.

The hostility and agression within the troubled peoples' thoughts had been so worrisome and noisy as they thrashed away like bizarre antique celtic warriors, that I became more and more turned off at their attitudes and also at the technique.

I was pregnant once or twice. Most people are absolutely sure that their babies will, indeed, move their tiny selves via conduction and pressure, through the vast canal and into the new realm of babyhood. When I went into labour, the pains were monumental, and I screamed very, very loudly. Although I was relieved that labour has started, it was quite a few hours before the babys' head went beyond crowning, which is when the tiny soft top (or, fontanel) of the babys' head can be felt as it begins to exit the vagina.

My tools on hand were very little beside the stirrups separating my legs and a can of icy cold ginger ale, which, when I was a poor young person, was, in those days, somewhat of a treat. The ginger ale was such a luxury that it calmed me down- I got my strokes, took my pleasure in getting away with something I couldn't afford.

It took patience to get that little one out, each time. Because of the size of babys' head, Doctors had to cut a small slit in the wall between anus and vagina, saying that it would rip if they did not ease the birth procedure. Though it worked, I was in a great deal of pain after the birth, on both occasions.

Surgery is cutting through with finite awareness. The baby is not damaged; sometimes the parent must suffer, but it all goes away and the happy Mother can get on with life.

I must compare the attitude of these frustrated worshippers with that of a person hacking the whole procedure out, rather than using established technique for ease of exit. Since Doctors had to use forceps on one of my children, I am well aware that intellectually (or otherwise) slashing through the whole ball game does not work in every way, and that flesh and the psyche (your body mind and spirit)are always going to be a consideration. Things are not always perfectly set up so that everything works smoothly, and perhaps this is why the "short path" to investigating in ones' mind is an intellectual sword and not a treat like the can of ginger ale.

Still, to a woman, cutting through what could be a person with a sword just did not measure up to softer ways. Why not massage the bindu, I murmured sweetly to myself.

Let the bindu feel itself in other bindus! Yay! Blow on the bindu ( a really good technique) or pick it up.

It was not within my nature to think of sqeezing it because it is supposed to be a tender bubble.
Have you ever slashed through an iridescent bubble to see what was truly within it? You're not going to see much besides a lot of wet, sticky stuff...and there goes the entity that is a bindu- pop!

I wondered about all this, becasue I had travelled around and I probably got pretty radioactive climbing around on ravines and camping across Canada and the US. I discovered that this was probably the case when actual thoughts both ways, were becoming almost like weaponry. For one thing, some of we students could feel how our ancestors or theirs (in meditation) had cut through peoples heads, hands and babies, with great anger and hatred.

I have always been a tolerant person, but I can equate the feeling within my heart with the chagrine some people feel about the word "fuck". Since these people irritate me enormously, since they are always complaining about words that are just in peoples' thoughts, I have thought about getting on any bandwagon about thoughts and radioactivity, or thoughts and ancestral violence in the family.And I voted not to bother people like the speech whiners. Maybe others were not radioactive and they ahd to convert their rouge past.

I have come to peace with the concepts of "splitting the bindu", arming myself with that arcane sword of truth, or using "psychic binoculars', in the understanding of how my body and mind work together. I do not sport swords, binoculars, periscopes etc. within my body. I do not wish to arm myself with what manifests when I make an analogy; that is, radioactivity from a polluted world is hardening the dust that I breathe in from its esponged state, as it rots back through my body toward nature.

If I think I have an object in my grasp, or pressed to my ear perhaps, the radioactivity and even the empowerment that my own DNAs' nucleopeptides can give the substance, will actually take some recognizable shape within my own system.
(the answer: babies in the uterus do not need cell phones)

Neither do I allow myself, ever , to agress what I do not understand with a sword idea. I don't want to cut and strip, peel, mutilate, viciously split things away. I need to soften things with my mind, just as a deep cloud of steam softens away with sunshine and fine breezes. The ship is revealed, sparkling, and its flags waving in the sun.

I figured this out a long time ago, after the last idiotic oaf imagined his bubble of mystery in front of him/me splitting and making satisfying blood.

I had had enough. Of blood, of course, women need very little more in their line of vision than they see once per month, or after their tiny one is creatively born from them. No, we have that pre-established slit and blood look down pat, thankx yah!

I quit.

I never went back toward the arcane in meditative concepts. From then on, I ignored Zen staffs that beat one over the head and concentrated upon the finesse and quietude of Zen conceptualization.

I also studied Qabbalah, which is Jewish mysticism, and Tarot, which is involved with Qabbalah in a borderline way.

My first card in Tarot was "The Fool". It's associated letter from the Hebrew alphabet is aleph, meaning (originally oxen) and also A and the numerical letter zero.
Aleph also means or has the connotation of original breath. If a great One exists (as I believe) then original breath is in association, sometime before the butterflies mated with the strawberries and made heart beats, or original hearts.

So, I tried being the fool on the hill, day after day.

"Day after day, alone on the hill, the man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still.." (Beatles song)

I associated with that type of spontaneity, being an initiate with little sense. I had my little life and my books and my cards, and my lovers. But when I was alone, I had yoga breath- a type of yoga called "Pranayama". This yoga of pure and focused breathing did, actually change my life. And it was that breath of life concept; that need to soften clouds away from the iridescent surface of that bindu, so that the sky would shine through it and the soap on it would stop spinning. I just blew, in my minds' eye, or with my own breath, upon what I did not know about. These were the stars, the sun, the greatness of God.

And what I found was truly amazing. Awesome.

My breath was also connected to the original breath of the Creator, so that I saw afar what was part of the great soul that is ours within Gods' greatness.

So, I learned not to grasp, touch, cut through or to desire and to envy, but to be still and womanly about what was too big and bad.

I didn't want to create an alter me with weaponry aimed, potentially, at already disastrous circumstance.

I could go on, but to give birth is sometimes a parting with someone as well to be parted. To create is like giving birth- part with the initial components to further the construct. Give it life and part with some of your own air- breathe life into it.

In my world, (and I feel like Bluebell) there will not be war. Drop those swords and blades. Share water and air and earth and fire, and become the great gifts that are inspiring. To learn something, try quiet methods first, not bullyish and uneducated slashing.

War makes war. Giving life bears no unkindness.

Custom, Belief, Faith or Fanaticism?

At times I worry considerably about peoples' perception. Whatever they have learned from their parents,peers and their social or religious leadership, some people excel and love, while a very few seem to be incapable of relating to society without feeling and expressing hatred.
I live in civilized North America, or at least my value system perceives North American life to be civilized. in India, Hindu worshippers do not conceive of the carnage of our eating habits as less than nauseating, or just plain awful, because they are far more often strictly vegetarian.
I am vegetarian myself, and I must admit that my perception dwelt upon the edge of terror when I was young, even when it was at dinner with my parents.
My family has always believed in the regular square meal, but I remember (through the nausea) having panic attacks as I watched the tearing of drumsticks, or the bloody medium rare steak dripping from their imagined fangs.

Mumbai

Recent distress in Mumbai, India tore me apart. In fact, at one point I went to sleep with a tranquilizer to get away from it, although I was seized with the notion that if I just stayed tuned, I could, somehow help.

What I could see when I first heard the news on CNN is that somehow, one of the enormous crafts of yesteryear had dislodged one of the propellor blade functions, and that this had caused tremendous pain toward some people in an ashram. Nuns?
I imagined the many terrorists abreacting in the fear that machines of mass destruction had been turned upon them.
In the meantime I learned that the ancient paths of earth to which some of these early craft have been attached and aggrandized had temporarily trapped a couple of local scientists, who were injured very seriously. In my minds eye, I seemed to hear that, in India the "Culprits" hands had been retrieved.

Of course, those who were relating, who thought they had called in the terror event through being enormously distressed, also heard that people here had suffered misfortune from the same: whatever passive and careful engineering could have been made in the deep past, it is now, after thousands of years, too large and unwieldy to work with all at once, and possibly too rich in fossil gas to be anything but impossibly lethal to the worlds' stasis.

I admit that I have worked with trapped people for years, and that in the past few years I have had distress calls from areas in space. Land masses sometimes jet into space, and we also see large masses dropping back down to earth at times.

It was a bit easier when our astronauts were mining and ecologizing meteorites, which threatened earths' surface, but I am very sure that populated areas or areas that might be in the process of being mined, underground have, actually taken off.
The result can be that a lot of people die, starve, or are grievously injured, but the universe does tend to fit everything back the way that it should be , for the most part.

What I may have perceived of one of the terrorists' thoughts, if I was correct in my understanding that this person participated, is that a man believed himself to have been held prisoner for several years, with little food, water, or proper anything.He said he had just been a photographer.

Since this also happens in a cave system close by, sometimes, it is not surprising that some people go right stark mad, in the feeling that they have been unjustly persecuted. We are not all the intellectual equivalent of St. Paul or PM. Nelson Mandela, after all.

Personally, my feeling about how people perceive when starved, partially amputated, and to add insult to injury, brain injured by normal industry without mercy (no med care available) is that I must appeal to organized religion, the press, especially, and to the more charitably persuaded realtors in the world, to better inform the public as to what can go wrong with land. No, no-one is particularly organized, and yet there have been ecologists claiming that the world has twenty years to live.

Of course, I am like everyone else. I don't believe it. I don't want our house to devalue, so that we are stranded, financially, if we want to move. I realy, really do not think that the world will die in twenty years.

My belief system does include the idea, though, that there are people who are haplessly victimized by land accidents. Fundamentaly, there has been no respect for these souls- they might emerge wrinkled, horned, winged, filthy, cockless, limbless or blind. To the superstitious and downright ugly thinkers of this world they are the condemned and those "who must have fallen through the cracks". No-one knows what this expression means any more, because there are so many people who wish their station in life to seem superior to the "fallen", of whatever nature.

There is still some simple fool who, thirty years ago, believed under the duress of being incarcerated by some gopher or rabbit that he had been "promised a woman". When I was young he used to frighten me to death. What happens to peoples' minds?

The Scriptures prove that early Judaism (in actual Hebrew) offered education and a purse to lost earth victims, whereas those who have translated what is called The New Testament offer the more "modern" words: that these victims are to be given "welfare".
The difference in connotation between these ideas is, in North America incitement to riot. Not only does having 'welfare' attract right warriors of varying states of decrepitude,but it shames people who are used to wealth into starched anality, let alone abject violence.

I say, why not start with some education for people in case anything happens. Survival education, peace work in advance, plans for lost and extant weaponry, in case insanity happens.

I also believe in offering living joys and lovin' care to the victims of land disruption, although not when their diseases have taken over to the extent that they have organized violent procedures.

Personally, I have seen peoples' ego selves knocked out of body totally by sound warfare, as well as by insect or rodent infestation. I feel that, as often as conservative thinking claims that these disorders are too easy to replicate (in order to lighten sentencing after violent crime)therefore, the public should not be made aware of these alter-states, there are twice the situations where it has occurred naturally to unsuspecting and innocent human souls, not to paid murderers.

So, please, if you ever read this- recount something of survival lore and of safety technique to the next of your friends, and pass on some sense, in case it is land disruption that caused warfare (recently) in both Israel and in Mumbai, India.

May the good light shine upon you.

Fellowship

Hi,

I am trying to post a little message, although I doubt that too many people ever read it. Anyway, hi- happy times to all for Decembers' festivities!

I have posted a URL in the field link dropdown, Go to the blog on Jewfaq.org to let you know what sort of recreation I have allowed myself for the day (the 12th of Dec 07). Usually, I have no time for any of the things that I mean to do, because the work time is interrupted by the needs to housekeep, shop, answer the phone, make lunch and coffee for my husband (who works at night) and so on.

I just thought that you might find the site owners' blog quite an interesting and controvertial document. I enjoyed it quite a bit. The posting for the 11th of Decembr '07 is an article about the true spelling of Channuckah. Americans spell it Hanukah, I think. I'm confused!

I have successfully published a work about interfaith experience recently. On top of two years writing time, my edit, formatting and graphics took a hefty 10 months out of the year, believe it or not. Researching the spelling for the word Channukah took a minute or so, and I was a bit embarrassed to find out how much the English spelling had been modified. I have grade school spelling of some universal things and, like many older people , I watch the world go bye and come again, wearing noma lights and pumpkin comments on it.

I don't know - we elders are die hards about some changes- why isn't our education good enough (we inwardly feel)?
As youth, we all quoted the saying "ya can't teach an old dog new tricks". I believed that as a young person. Now, I am happy to say that I can write an online blog, do xhtml for my sites, use a digital camera and an online photos post, email friends anywhere- all because a friend believed that people of any age could learn and improve.

My friend busted his ass getting a computer purchased for us. He was terribly poor, like me. At first, he took me to the library to learn how to use Windows on the computers donated to libraries by Industry Canada. I am still grateful to them for the chance at learning. But, more to the point, I am grateful to my beloved friend and companion.

He believed in us. He pounded away with great frustration upon the new computer, while I secretly worried that a computer would explode, if I just touched it the wrong way. My friend had grown up with A.D.D. Attention Deficit Disorder.

A.D.D. is actually mostly from mercury poisoning, and it is one of three types of autism. In the aged of days (our school years) educators had not come to grips with the needs of children who suffered from ADD.

The schools' systems segregated these special children, treating them as if they were retarded.

My friend told me about his journey within his own set of statistics, and about how the teachers yelled at him, and how they insulted him, so often. I noticed the angry fanaticism with which he tried (though valiantly) to teach me about computer use. I realized that he was acting out the cruelty of his teachers in grade school.

Now that we have taken Community College courses (mine, web- his, computer repair and DOS) we were both able to see that he had way greater capabilities than educators had allowed for,or believed in, in the past. He, for instance, committed DOS and the necessities for computer setup to memory, and passed with the highest percentage of anyone who had taken that program.

He is terribly humble, and he often has to repeat and repeat efforts to untangle the meaning and use of some of these systems. But now, seven years later, he is a web site host. He hosts our various websites himself! These skills, web design included, make him a web developer ( pretty close to a computer scientist).

My Hanukah day of creativity and relaxation centre upon him, today. He has to go to work (he works as an industrial cleaner for bucks). Today I express gratefulness for the hope in his heart, and in the hearts of those educators who have cherished each of our true abilities, until they glow with purpose, and transcend into our own spiritual identity, within the great body of faith that runs and supports planet earth.

Let the candles be lit for love, for faith, for the power in each of us to believe in higher purpose. May they shine for the love of humanity, for the hope within each of us that there will always be a better road ahead.

We both (I grew up with epilepsy) are two little humble ducks. We have moderate means, and we work too hard for what little we earn. But we can still make our mark, now - as worldwide contributors to and through internet processes.

If we cannot afford to buy books, or have too little time to go to the library, we are able to reach a wealth of information offered for free on W3. I have even published my book through an Internet process (Lulu.com) Actually, I have just finished my second work- a photo arts book called Deep Purple.

I am going to light candles, trees, lanterns, and hearts (with little gifts) this year, like every year. But there is nothing deeper than the true light of determined faith in people like my beloved husband. And he claims to be an atheist?

To you, the people who feel shunned and refuted as full human beings- African Americans, Jews, des religieux, people with disabilities, Islam - to you I wish peace, joy, merriment, acceptance, and especially, the determination to succeed that comes from within your own sense of love and faith.

To all, Happy Holidays, and as Ann Landers used to say "Kwitchabitchen!" !!!

ps:           If you want to read "herstory" of a journey into interfaith, here is my book site address:

Sues' Publication storefront

The First Crocus -You are the Sunshine of My Life!

It isn't much, but I am breathless with anticipation, every spring. Our first and only crocus has bloomed. The crocuses that had stayed in this garden from former days were terribly spavined, when I first moved here..they were shrunken blooms, too soft and wilting, and very small. Our new, hybrid set of bulbs has been demolished by squirrels.

The wild croci have gradually improved, and now bloom almost as nicely as commercial hybrids. I found that their humble presence, as Canadian wildflowers, became my focus for so much interesting meditation, due to having photos of my garden to look at, rather than the whole picture. My crocus and lavender made me think of a romantic spring song that I have always loved. I realized that they had been there for thousands of years, recording the history of the land. I have wept with realization, and gratitude, seeing the netted bundle of lavender on an ancients' hair, seeing that these plants had probably been here for all time.

I worry that I am in the blue poodle stage ,though, - you know, the time of life when old dames have to have a row of $200.00 blue poodlles on their sill? Next month, they absolutely must buy the latest in the collection of blue poodles. Ever since I was in my twenties, I have pondered middle age with fear and loathing- would I turn into an idle blue poodle collector? Worse-would I be fat?

Never. Yoga, meditation and good diet would prevent all that. I was determined to be in ultra health, and also I would aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllways be slim. Ugh. Who needed middle age. What bags they were, the ooooooold ladies on the beaches, with bulging tummies and cracked- egg too-long-in-the-saucepan varicose veins marbling their thighs. We young women sneered, hooted, chided, pleaded, dieted, and proseletyzed about slimness and vegetarian diet.

To little effect, our naiive estimate that these were all fat because they were frigid witches did not alter the ill behaviour of our elders. No, they seemed content to live in wallowing sin, it seemed.

I guess they laughed at us, if they were people like myself, and went on.

When menopause hit, I could not believe the difference in size and shape. Initially, I laughed at my bulging stomach , since my culture (yours, too , I guess) had filled me with a youth quest that was supposed to never end.

It took me about 10 years to stop giggling at how I looked. Along with the added (padded ) was my sense of humour- luckily , some insulating warmth along with the water and poundage that my tendons had called in for comfort.

I never thought I would be hit with arthritis - tendonitis, and worked hard at getting rid of it. Like it or not, even yoga, 10BX, meditation and damn good sex do not stop your body from plumping out like a pumpkin, when it needs to.

I guessed that I was very wrong, and mentally apologized to the long- dead grannies whose bags bulged with blue poodle coupons and bags of chocolates.

I have, literally prayed that I would never hit the bluepoodle stage.

I make jokes about blue poodles to my son, who has grown up with my camping about the yuckola stage of life when nothing grows but waistlines and collections of things. I swore that I would never dye my hair blue. It is still a nice auburn, I should not worry.

No, my collections of photos, post-cards, greeting cards and nice, shiny kitchen apples will have to do.

I chose to collect kitchen apples (apple-shaped kitchen things) because my little boy was always, to me, the apple of my eye. I was in danger of becoming the kinder-kitchen-kirke poplin cherry-pie whiz of the beige elite of yesteryear, I imagined. But, something about pyrex apple bakers shaped like apples, and candle apples that I could always use for various festivals, just seemed to please me.




An older and seasoned woman now, I still imagine dancing around with my tiny son in my arms, singing "You are the apple of my eye, that's why I'll always stay with you"....

It is now that my collections of flowers and photos of them have become my darlings, my brief notes to eternity. Little things. Sometimes, I just need a little gem or a potshard.

Luckily I have the internet and my web work. There is a science to scripting which has to be addressed, pretty regulary. The newness of it keeps me from entrenching myself into sentimentality, or retreating into religious esoterica.

I don't want my collections of memories and geo-adventures in horticulture to become stale and dusty like blue poodle rows. I don't want my apples to become too important. My guy buys me apple stuff, and I sell it, so I do not have a monster on my hands.

I guess the old dame stage is a quality retained by ladies of earlier times, who were not expected to work or to do much besides keep Dads' home spotless for him, so he need never worry whn battling it out at the office. All that changed, and I found I was re-designated to the list of "super-moms", or super-women, at least while I was in Toronto. A seeming impossiblity, I worked, supported the apple of my eye, and I kept the house clean, cooked, studied, took dance, yoga and therapy courses, etc.

I see all these stages in life, now, as horticultural additions to the family tree. I may be little and striving, but I will survive and pop back, a renewed record of what has been holy, a sacred soul of the lumen.

Snowed Under in Kanata April '06 Update

Well, just when all enjoyed hope for the spring weather, it was inevitably, snowing this morning, and right on the crocuses.

I've decided to leave short notes, since I doubt very many people read into this blog. Though I am actually educated to the point where I may work professionally as a journalist (all it takes is second year Mass Communications) I only write a personal column once a month on my own website. I archive some of my columns, since they are still a little relevant to current debate.

The last one is "archived" in my companions articles section:

URL: http://www.northdaysimage.ca/companionarticles.html .

That article was a long and fairly serious page, based upon concern over image in mass media, and the enormous repercussions that the visual insult toward a groups' faith incurs, although only at times. It's the Feb 06 April Column link. If you ever need it, it is there, along with the delightfully fresh magic lantern image of Lord Balfour, from his youthful days as Secretary to Scotland. In purchasing magic lantern slides (which are 160 year old original photographs, developed as slides on glass) I discovered a whole new world, as I researched the early photographer, George Washington Wilson. Interesting, the photographer was a Scot, but his parents chose a name famous to Americans. Wilson had also taken a photo of Queen Victoria in her mid life, or a bit later, a find whch was quite rare. Apparently Queen Victoria was vain, and did not like photos taken of herself after she had aged. Geo Wilson must have been a most acceptable and almost familial persona to British Royalty.

I sold all of these slides to a person in Great Britain who gives actual magic lantern shows, so someone might be interested in that.

Here is a bloggers essay about the magic lantern shows of the UK . Link below:

http://misusesofliteracy.blogspot.com/2006/04/what-is-this-phantasmagoria-this.html

If you run across my image of The Rt. Hon. Balfour (his title at the time of shooting) , it is not for replication, since the rights to the use of these images should now be with the excellent British historians. I hope that most people will be decent about that. The British Historical Society only lets people use their photo images after they have filled out a form, and it looks like money is involved. This is probably why British Realty seems so expensive when shown via TV realty sales shows - the British still back up property rights and copyright ownership.

Since I have a chance to grouse on my own Blog at least, copyright values are on my mind. Probably, no-one reading this will be dishonourable about copyright, since you are the literati, and not the commercial oafs that stick around to plunder, snoop and market, but I have a big beef.

I can't prove it, but I was sure I had pirates upon both my fine art (in the early days of poor locks) and then, upon my copyright work, which is a religion testimonial about a leader of the Buddhist faith. I called my paid copyright work "Meeting Ananda Bodhi- Heavenly Enlightenment". I worked on writing , and then re-writing and editing my work for almost exactly two years, nine to five, five days a week. .....I found out how hard it was to sell a first work, even though there is an avid market for exactly this type of support for mystical teachings..... I also found out that hundreds of people were into my work, without my permission. ...........If you have ever heard politicians making jokes or earnest effort about one of my statements, let me know, please. They are probably the first of a privileged class who helped themselves (or I believe) to my paid copyright.................. This statement was a wry idea of mine. I said, in my work, that the Ministers of Canada (its ' MPs) relied so heavily and dreamily (as if a given ) on the free work of "little women" volunteers, that no wonder they chose to call themselves (and spuriously) a 'ministry'.

Then I wrote, 'so why do they not call themselves a Rabbinate or an Imamate, by the same token?'

I know that more than one person took me up on this, because I am part of the Ottawa Valley , or world think tank- a volunteer group of concerned mystics, and avid researchers, whose loose but brilliant application gives some propriety to the otherwise grungily commercial application that our government has been doling out, along with other platitudes toward the reactionary backlash that has so dishonoured our Canadian Civil Rights.

If you are not into our pooled knowledge bank, about which we are always encouraged to only think, because of the esoteric nature of some interests, and , like my sister, tend to think of spiritual union as schizophrenia (and she is adamantly distrusting of clairvoyancy or telepathy) I really don't care. Just please, think about your grotesque and constant interference into higher conversations with the babified battle cry of "I don't say fuck, etc". Most of us are not usually talking to you, especially when speaking out loud in our homes. Most of us do not have time for people who insist on challenging freedom of the press and of speech, let alone freedom of thought, all written into our constitution.

That leads me to an interesting point. I saw a commercial for Country Style Donuts last night. I forget the channel. In Toronto (Ontario) a day before, there had been a huge explosion in a coffee shop. I think it was in a Tim Hortons, but that might not have been on the news.
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What, I wonder, would the scripting for country style donuts mean, when a narrator explained that Country Style Donuts only offers medium and large coffee takeouts, so that, if you use the (and I quote) "wrong foreign language" to ask for a size of coffee, there are only two to choose from?
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I have been dismayed to find that the language phobics as well as stealth pirates have been hawking their rude commercial way into both my own private space, and my private desktop. Although there is not much I can do about these mini-minds, there have been absolute idiots listening into our basement. My example is the flake who insisted upon presenting her proof of schizophrenia- my verbalized prayer in Hebrew, on the first day of Hanukah. (When did we start spelling it Hanuka, by the way? In school, I learned this as Channukah). We are so Americanized,we might as well go ahead and only call it New Year, or Rotsa Ruach day.

Anyway, there have been nerds of nerd hill in our community who have insisted upon calling the use of "foreign" languages a case of schizophrenia,( fer Gawds' sake- what sort of little minds exist in the human world?).

I have a feeling that the coffee shop was not immune to the anti-language freaks, who have probably been pre-trimmed of their ears' capabilities from before birth by poor sound experiments in silicon valley and/or the hyper- paranoid security black marketeering. Maybe it's just the hot water they got into as children over Mommies' fear of vilis pilis, the Joose.

I find that, even though I write to Interpol about the freaks who hack into my desktop, they are still there, along with attendant health difficulties from insect toxin, disorder, and antique fibre.

The bottom line is that these people do not give a fig about others' lives. In fact, they are terrorists toward not only pc users, but our lands' stasis. Don't quote me, but it is a principle in the wind from scientists who do not want to see a whole community turn to ash from gas fire.

My case, and gripe, today, is the following:

Yesterday I made a mild spring gif, animated for a little interest, with some silk veils of purple mist. I know that kids copy our scribbled artwork, but I could loudly hear the beans who keep following me around, watching everything I did from their vantage point on the cable lineswork, or near to it. Knowing that, whatever I try, I can't get away from these ugly and violent people, I persevered, and placed my work on the net. What of it? It is just a gentle note.

What of this type of trespass, you say?

Living here in Glencairn, I witness many space events. For instance, aircraft fly overhead very regularly, and rocks project coloured light shapes from both meteorites and ground.

Last night someone was flying very low, and I anxiously poked my head out the window to have a look at the jet, rushing north in a dark sky. Yesterday, there was a crash of a cargo plane somewhere in the states. I am used to relating to those on high, and why should I havedreamed up this theme, that I am about to mention, although in part, albeit to myself?

Someone had made their own version of my artwork, but they used something known to pilots as a pattern in aircraft engineering, and interfered with a regular passenger jet. (The rest has been perceived, I do hope, and is now --sorry to say---censored by myself---

And, whomsoever you turkeys are, deliberately trying to ground aircraft, or worse, someone will catch up with youse.

Sunday in the Garden

Hi there, everyone!

I hope that all enjoyed our almost-perfect Canada Day. What a wild storm in the middle of the afternoon, though.
I was pretty pleased with the result upon the growth of my gardens' flowers- finally, enough rain.

Just about now, raspberries and blackberries are beginning to ripen- of course, right under our cedar hedges, where the raccons re-plant them, every year. Of course, I am supposed to let them flourish in a small-space garden, so racoons can live.... (well I love the tiny bears) - I have petted several and fed them miniature marshmallows, like everyone else. In fact, I feel they have genetically imprinted as miniature marshmallows, since they are so fond of softie human food from our garbage hand. How can I tell from the tell-tale hand prints who the culprits are?

Zero Scaping

We were sort of winging it having a broken hose and a lost sprinkler. Now that I have cut the hose in two pieces, we have to get a new joining thing to re-attach the sprinkler. I have been getting by on about a minute sprinkle per day, per plant- or, a peripheral swish at maintaining developing seed. It didn't work- I planted nine packages of seed, with only three shows- the sunflowers, gypsophila and alyssum.

I am so disappointed- I planted Mexican Poppies and Carpathian Harebell seed last year. No Poppies emerged, and the three plants that I thought would be the Harebells have raised up flowering as Veronica- but in the bed-border, where short plants are supposed to grow.

I don't know what plant dealers are doing, these days. I bought a package of plant seed that some people are desperate to get rid of- Catnip (for the kitties) and this cost over three dollars, just because herbs are all the rage- designer, now, I suppose. Of course- instead of the hardy weeds that grew constantly in my fomer garden, NO catnip has shown. Etc, x several other packages of various types.

I did buy indigenous herbs plants from the Native Herb co.- my garden shall, one day have a flowering Labrador Tea. I grew up with enormous Rhododendrons in England, and I resent all the pathetic excuses for Rhododendrons and Azaleas that our Northern climate does not destroy. Every Azalea I have ever had had dies from anything it could think of!!

Our native Labrador Tea can survive Newfoundlands' harsh climate, so it should be OK in its coddled environ, here....

And Killex- the wonder weed killer!! What is going on? I bought a bottle of this last year, and sprayed every dandelion and plantain in the garden. Though the lawn lost a few of its dandelions, I have ten times the plantain populus. I had to weed out over four hundred dandelions, and have to manage a second crop plus the plantians (all hand-weeded out) this year. Besides using mean Killex on plants, I managed to hurt my hands and feet for over a week using this stuff. I have a feeling that it is not a very good product, and I am going back to organic controls. While I agree with my guy that the only way to get weeds in between cobbling is to spray them away, I don't like weed killing stuff. It kills Cosmos and other wildflowers.

I go for hardy plants, and like to feel that I am offering a mini-ecology that helps the land quite well. I grow medicinal herbs, as some of you (my friends) know. I got so specific about various medicinal gifts ,in my last garden, that I allowed Plantain as an herb in my herb garden bed. Of course, these grow enormously in clear earth, where they are unmowed.

Here , there is less garden space and squirrels. Damn the little sods! I can't plant bulbs without the tiny beings digging up and chewing every one! They also eat off every zucchini blossom as they emerge- so sunny and gorgeous. I should be enjoying the squash by now. I placed an old fish tank over the zucchini to see if it would help. What a year. I could grumble on and on....

Ian, I wonder whether you are enjoying a fine veggie garden,a s you did when you and Lynda shared a house together. Also Jan and Patti, do you have a big organic garden? I got an American Herb gardening magazine as a present, and I was so jealous over the fabulous overgrown colour possible in a California garden. So much growing time!! If only I had a large space, with at least a greenhouse!

NEWS!

My daughter-in law, Gayla Trail, is into her second printing for her new gardening book ,"You Grow Girl". She is a 31 year old web designer-researcher. I feel so proud of her. I recommend her book- I just found out why I ahd a boggy end to some of my tomatoes last year.No, I am not going to tell you -read her book!!! She offers tons of craft ideas and makes her relationship with the reader very fun!!! I have linked, here, to her website....

http://www.yougrowgirl.com

When I started this blog article, I had something to say as well as about the garden, but it is Sunday and I just plain forget, so have a happy and gentle day, yourselves....

Love from Sue

News! New Photolog -updated June 27/05

Hi to everyone!

Here is my new log: http://www.flickr.com/photos/risks_log2/

In my new photolog (the regular was at : http://www.northdaysimage.ca/photos.html ) I can post hundreds of shots- most of them just our tours and musings, nothing spectacular.

Still, we get to see the world from through each others' sensibilities.

The Flickr log is free, just like the Blogger Spots upon which I can publish anything I want, here.

This is its' home page: http://www.flickr.com/

To get a Blog spot, go to Google.com or .ca, and look for the word "more" above search. click that, and register, through clicking Bloggers' logo, and filling in your profile, etc.

You can also link from Flickr to your Blog, and post images from your Flickr photos directly to your Blog, if you have a lot to say.

As journalists, you should be used to these sites by now. I wonder who affords the space. It is like a miracle!!

At the moment, my digital camera will not post to the monitor, and so I am frustrated.The camera is in repair, now.

My garden is lovely, though a little dull compared to last year. I lost quite a few plants.

Brent added a front deck, and I bought a glass umbrella table for it. I painted the deck, and have been laying a path next to it, plus landscaping a sort of beach and driftwood effect into the front garden. Except for painting the last layer on the deck trim, we are done the front. What an improvement.


I will post shots of our yard when it is all in glorious bloom.... I took shots of the deck path in progress, and will post these on Flickr.

I hope that you run into my darling daughter-in-laws' fave-rave new book- "You Grow Girl" (see the photo section of this BLOG) about urban gardening and all kinds of handy tips. It is really well-made and is into its second run after only three months in publication.

here is her site link: http://www.yougrowgirl.com
her name is Gayla Trail. My sons' name is Davin Risk.
Their business site is http://www.fluffco.com

My photosite connects to both Gaylas' and my sons' exciting photo shoots. They are both really accomplished designers - photographers.

They had a gallery show of their photo work recently.

At the moment, I have renewed an interest in marketing my book, about following a radical Buddhist leader around, when I was a young woman. It's called "Meeting Ananda Bodhi- Heavenly Enlightenment".
I'm also cleaning and upgrading three of my websites, and took a week and a half off recently. It was so hot, I got a quarter of the work done that I wanted to. Oh well....


Hope to hear from you and about you via some photos or a Blog of your own,

Love from Sue