Asking the Spirits to Play

“A Goddess Dancing at Ghost Ranch”

“I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us.”   ~  Herman Hesse

Twenty-three degrees at 5 AM, it feels kinda good, stimulating and surprising, it feels right. I missed posting yesterday. I just couldn’t pull myself together enough to do it. I didn’t want to do it. So I took a break instead of pushing it. Truth be told I could do it again today but the difference today is that I want to write. I feel a lot of sadness these past few days, the kind of woolen and intrusive sadness that makes the eyelids comply with its weight. The weird part is that I can’t even get excited by the possibility of magic in an increasingly disturbing world, yet should the magic show up I’d be right there with it. I have priorities, after all.

I’ve made a pot of coffee between paragraphs. It’s strong and bitter, and just right. Add psych meds, a little water, placate the mildly crazed cat. The cat’s the hard part. She’s just recently emerged from her winter hibernation, from that sluggish place of waiting for the season to pass. What I’m trying to say here is that she is being a pain in the ass. I’ve had pushy cats before, most of them are, and stubborn as well, but this one takes persistance to the next level. She’s a pioneer. I do value her example, especially when I am in a thick depressive phase. I always know it will pass, and that I can’t, or shouldn’t, rely on anyone else to snap me out of it. The sweetness of such a phase is that a memory of sweetness provides a stark contrast which keeps the deep greens and blues alive, maybe longer than they should be. It could be either honey or molasses, it matters not, for either is dissociative sweetness, neither here nor there, a phantom formed of memory. I think Salvador Dali said it well in his painting, “Persistence of Memory”. Look.

“Persistence of Memory” ~ Salvador Dali

My mother was a painter. She didn’t like to call herself an artist, because, she said, it was up to the viewer to see art or not. Her father was a painter as well. They were artists, both of them. Says me, k? I’ve painted as well. Those paintings sit. There is one on the wall, acrylic on canvas, “Asking the Spirits to Play”. It basically shows a guitarist (man or woman, the figure is ambiguous), celebrating the fierce power of rock music by plugging into the Earth, filtered through the Moon, then playing to hurl Light against the storm. Pretty dramatic, eh? I have no good photo of the painting. My bad. A librarian down in Islamorada, FL, where I spent 23 years, once told me that I look like a young Emile Bernard. Maybe. I went on to look at some photos of his work. He became my favorite Impressionist as a result. The following picture really captures my version of persistent depression. All versions are different. Mine is not a dark place, strictly speaking. Many colorful entities are nearby, perhaps angels, but once again we have dissociation to blame for the distance, yet the colors remain, but it is the feelings that are dank and dark, unsteady, like this sentence, going nowhere yet saying much along the way. The phase will pass, it always does. I can carry much of value out with me if I simply remember that it ain’t where ya got it, it’s how you use it.

I just walked over the the north side of the house where I could see the sacred mountain. I found that if I let my optical focus soften just so I could see the mountains’ golden aura. Boy howdy there’s you magic right there. Let’s keep it that way. if only for a while.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

A Day for Enchantment

“I do believe in an everyday sort of magic — the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.”  ~  Charles de Lint

A light haze mutes the dawn. They say that a cold front is on the way from Utah and that there will be some precious snow on the high mountains. I can’t wait. It is laundry day for me, which is also my away from home reading time. It’s a good time, during which I read from my iPad. Yes, skeptics, there is something about the tactile sensation of holding a book, something about the smell, but I see that as the experience of reading, yet I still get the story from the iPad. I’m into stories, both literary and realtime empirical stories. Wednesday’s would usually be workdays for me, but due to the slow pre-kitten season I get a second, welcomed day off. It won’t last, this extra day, a fact which eases my wallet’s concerns. The kitten population has begun to expand. My boss was talking about it yesterday. Where are we going to put them all? Probably on display. There will be an abundance of kittens to behold, if it all plays out this way. You will be able to experience a palpable eminence of cuteness. Hold on to your hats, cats, stats, whatever.

I was going to write at length about magic today, but apparently I’m not. Go figure. I’m prone to a magical outlook on life. Maybe it’s because of the New Age stuff I have indulged in over the years, and/or maybe it’s because existence is equally magical and scientific. I can’t say for sure. But I have experienced enough magical events so as to convince me to hold tight to magical explanations. I might turn to my Spirit guide, an ancient Celtic Goddess know as Brighid, or I might turn to the iPad to read of magical or scientific things. Both stories, science and magic, are true for me. I see no reason to separate the two. And I work with cats, which are well-known to be magical beings. I don’t know, maybe I am just in the mood for enchantment today. Boy howdy I think that is just the thing. Yes.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

addendum: The opening photo is of my cat Rosie at about nine months old. That apartment had a ten foot ceiling, and a small gap ran along the top of the wall and beneath the ceiling. Mice would skulk up there. Rosie would watch. I never actually saw her get up there. I saw her hang and I saw her fall back to the floor. As my cat is a familiar to me I take her lesson here seriously. Darkness can hide much. It is not necessarily lowdown. That which lurks within may be a known thing just hiding, or it may be something less tangible and more sinister. But you don’t know. Climb up the wall, then over if you can. Here’s an aphorism that I disdain passionately, but it applies here – hang in there. The mice ain’t a goin’ nowhere. And they might have company.  ~  Peace out, y’all.

“What men call the shadow of the body is not the shadow of the body, but is the body of the soul.”   ~  Oscar Wilde

That Day on the Beach

“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”   ~  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

It’s one of those rare mornings when my perusal of news stuff on the internet led me to an article about elves and dragons in Iceland. Yes, you read me right, elves and dragons. Lately I’ve been wondering why things magical and/or supernatural are any less believable than science and materialism, so finding this article gave me one of those synchronistic feelings. Some say that belief creates reality, and I’m not even so sure about that. I can see it that way, but before I go out on multiple tangents I’d better get a grip. And then some guy pipes up like dude quantum physics and I’m like all dude WTF it’s not like I’m making this stuff up.

“Whereas reason dominates feeling, mystical knowing does not “conquer” reason—it envelops it, embraces it, transcends it. Thus, mystical or spiritual intuition is integrative: It includes, while transcending, both reason and somatic feeling.”  ~  Christian de Quincey

That explains it, right? I had the pleasure of meeting Christian de Quincey at an International Conference on Science and Spirituality a few years back, at Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino. Here was a retail cashier shaking hands with a philosopher. Go figure. At a casino no less. You just can’t make this stuff up. Christian’s book, Radical Nature: the Soul of Matter, is one of the numerous books that changed my life, opening me up and cleaning out the cobwebs, and my mind seemed a lot more free than it should be as a result. After all, I was a retail cashier. Certain rules applied. I later got fired from the retail gig because my focus became unreliable due to attrition. Now, in retrospect, I can see that the focus glitch was likely driven by the same mental health bugaboos that I must deal with today. The point of my mentioning the loss of the job is to suggest that years long exposure to the narrow parameters of one job can rattle . . .  oh, never mind. I was talking about consciousness, not retail. There’s a difference, at least for me.

When I read Christian’s lovely book I found that he was suggesting that all of matter shimmers with consciousness, or in consciousness, whatever. That was nothing new to me. I’d learned that on the beach on Lower Matecumbe Key, Florida, when I was 18 years old. We lived right next to the beach so it was easy access, with no ticket booth or concession stand. I was out there one day, in the brutal September heat, looking out over the tiny waves, over the barely covered mudflats, binoculars pressed against my eyes, when I slipped out of mundane consciousness. The feeling was richly weird, holding two contradictory impressions at the same time, one being the usual stuff I called ‘me’ and the other being something so vast that finding moorings or identity in the face of the phenomenon was silly at best. I was at ease. Yeppers.

My meta-spacious sojourn was soon rattled. I felt a presence, which mystified me because I’d thought I was alone out there. Looking to my right I saw a young woman approaching; deeply tanned, slathered with oil, leopard-print slant bikini, she was someone you might expect to see with a surfer dude in Malibu. She walked up to within ten feet of me, smiling brightly behind her Wayfarers. I was eighteen and unaccountably shy, recently graduated from high school, and also recently released from the prospect of going to fight in Vietnam. “Are you searching for buried treasure?”, she asked. I’d just snapped out of a moment of Cosmic consciousness. I don’t remember what I said. Whatever it was she simply turned and walked away as I watched her go. My telling of this story may make no sense in context, but bear in mind that this blog post is not highly structured to begin with. Suffice it to say that I was surrounded with beauty that day.

I’m tired and I haven’t been eating enough. That’s me today. Lack of appetite is one symptom of depression. So I may appear a might slim if you were to see me now. As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I am in the thick of an existential crisis. Whatever that is. It’s like time curling back on itself and you are snared within the swirling feeling yet nothing changes. It’s like you can, on this day in mid-April, hear the clarion call of the Boys of Summer charging in the distance, and there you are without a horse. But I do have the cats. They are my posse, my cadre. We take care of each other. That should be enough, right? Yeppers.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

The Existentialism of Feral Cats

“What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.”   ~  Alfred Hitchcock

The coffee is brewing and the sky is cloudy gray. There is a delicacy to the clouds, perhaps because of my own perception, painting darkness with softness that can barely be seen. If my dreams could have lingered on into waking consciousness they would look just like this, as if the very clouds are slightly bent over and breathing a sigh of relief at the prospect of a day without direct sunlight. I’m pretty sure that I was born on a cloudy day. If not, that will remain my story because I like it that way. After 23 years in the Florida Keys I am so over sunny days. Don’t get me wrong, I love a beautiful sun-filled day. I just need a break. I see incessant vocal sun worshiping as a form of high drama. It’s widespread these days to hear people decry drama. But no one, when hearing a worker say, “It’s such a beautiful day”, admonishes, “Get back to work”. I’m not being humorous here, am I. My bad.

This may be one of those rare days when the perpetual ringing in my ears actually disturbs me. It’s that loud. What can I do? I mean, really really do? It would be like getting angry at my hand. It’s always there, that hand. Why bother? Unless I choose drama (just thought I’d slip that in there). They can do nothing about ringing in the ears. So said a former General Practitioner of mine, the young and beautiful (!!) Marti, who also gave me the hands down most confounding hernia check I have ever experienced. Let’s just say that a part of me has been waiting ever since. Subtle, eh? I always prefer nuanced drama to blunt force drama.

“Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency.”  ~  Foghorn Leghorn

The rooster has been strangely quiet this morning. He’s crowed maybe twice, and even then softly. I’m feeling kinda the same way. My enthusiasm is ghostly at best. Let’s leave it that way, k? It better highlights the existential crisis I am smack in the middle of. What to do, what to do? Go hang out with the cats, serve them well, then come back home and fret some more. There is nothing better than a soiled litter pan to give one a good perspective change. I’ll be working with a few fully feral cats today, but I have taken to talking to them as if they were sweet kitty socialized cats rather than the hissy demons that they portend to be. That’s a good way to go through life, don’tcha think? But is that a dramatic approach or an enlightened approach? I mean, if I want them to become socialized I am wanting things to be other than they are, right? Don’t tell me it is what it is. I don’t have time for that. Besides, socializing cats is part of my job. That and getting them good homes. Dang it all to heck I guess I just don’t know what drama is. Whatever. Oh, by the way, there was no hernia. Lucky me.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

 

The Ongoing Parade of Actuality

“If someone tells you what a story is about, they are probably right. If they tell you that that is all a story is about, they are very definitely wrong.”  ~  Neil Gaiman

A strange level of serenity is upon me this morning. Whether it is possible to be slightly serene or maybe intensely serene is not for me to question at this time. I can’t be bothered, I feel serene, and the reason I chose the word “level” to qualify this feeling is simply because that’s where I am, on the level. I’ve seen worse. As it was last weekend so it is this weekend. I feel that I just can’t sleep enough. Last weekend I indulged this feeling. This weekend, not so much. I want to get out, down and into town. I’m just poking my head up through the low-lying fog left from ten days of exhaustive emotional non-stop hold onto your hat intensity. If I am smart I will never do that again. I’ll go see a friend, have some coffee, go see another friend or two, but no more coffee. Sometimes when something whispers “come hither” and you really really have had enough you just have to say no, especially when you are aware of just how sinister coffee can be. Too much coffee today will compromise my serenity. I will end up looking like the following photo. I looked that way last weekend and it had nothing to do with coffee. BTW, the photo is of my sweet Rosie at the tender age of six months.

Seein’s’ how I just tossed out an image of sinister coffee whispering “come hither” maybe I should go take a shower, ya think? That ten days changed me. Largely. It yanked a chunk of the young adult me up into the present and made the little fella stay. Issues like self-respect, honor, valor, or simply and spontaneously adopting a path and following through until the path says “okay, you can go now”. I am a changed man because I said no when the answer was really yes. Yes is not necessarily positive and no is not necessarily negative. Simmered down and rendered . . . I lost that thought, dang it all. You feel a presence, something watching you covertly from within shadows, something ambiguous by choice or chance, whatever, and maybe it is not there at all, maybe the world is just an ongoing parade of actuality. I saw it that way when I was young. But maybe I was just seeing things. I think I’ll go get some coffee.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Salem Harbor

“For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.”  ~  Marcus Aurelius

These pulsing waves of anxiety should be getting pretty tiresome quite soon. The interesting thing’s that the morning coffee, which I might note is delicious, slows them down and steals a bit of their fire. That’s what I hate about Red Bull, it tastes lousy and it feeds the fire. Nope. Not for me, thank you. Ya simply and surely gotta draw the friggin line somewhere! Even a hermit crab makes lines in the sand. We are all in this together, k?

Our opening photo in today’s post here at EyeYotee blog is of a portion the harbor at Salem, Massachusetts. If you . . . oh, never mind, you can think for yourself . . . I’m just sayin . . . it’s a very cool place. I visited Salem in the company of nine witches, members of the fifth largest, and the fastest growing religion in this country: Wicca. There were eight women and one man, a gay guy who was as funny as they come. Lots of laughter that day, let me tell you. Salem, of course, was the site of the famous 1692 Salem Witch Trials. Can ya believe it? Over 300 years and we still ain’t learned nothin’ yet. It’s one of the prices of liberty. Ironic, no? In one of the little shoppes there I got into a conversation with an employee who told me that the trials were essentially a land grab. I’ll not go into the details but it makes perfect sense to me. But the most powerful moment of the visit, for me, was  hangin’ . . . oh, shit, pardon me . . . that was very insensitive of me . . . sitting in the monument on the place where the hangings occurred. They have lavish giant slabs of granite, some inscribed with the names of the victims. Powerful stuff. I had a few tears there, let me tell you. The presence of bereaved spirits there is palpable. The second most powerful moment was biting into the best burger I have ever tasted, which was served at the brew pub in town. The craft brewed beer was also superb.

“To put it still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.”   ~  Alan Watts

I had my coyote song fix this morning so all is well. And I also had the pleasure of seeing a falling star, just as I was thinking about my ex-wife. A few months into our relationship she insisted that I read Alan Watts’ beautiful book, The Wisdom Of Insecurity. Good call, babe! Wait, I don’t think I ever once called her babe. My bad. No wonder she gave me the boot. But I digress. That book was one of those life-changers, but so was being “kidnapped by a band of gypsies”, as my mom called them. Shannon, the ex, traveled with her mother, who was a pre-hippie hippie, her husband, who was an obviously abused guy, her little daughter Arwen, and her mom’s husband Steve, a Canadian fella from Vancouver. What was I thinking? Anyway, Shannon cut me loose, saying that I was not who she thought I was, so she ran off to chase a different thought. I saw them together, a few months later, at the bowling alley, where I had hit my high game of 247. The sight of them body-slammed me, emotionally and conceptually. I lost my game. Future games, for me at this current point in my life, are highly likely to be solitary. I’ve had enough. But I may be saying that because I have recently been body-slammed again, though not romantically. Seems I ain’t learned nothin’ yet. But I have my fantasies, which are sweet as they are non-specific. Mayhaps that is the way to have them? Works for me.

As I head into the coming day I will be thinking of witches and dreams. Witchcraft, The Craft, is quite real. That is why folks are so afraid of it. But me? I am more of a Druid, which is not really significant at this time. I’ve got a tight and painful heart to attend to, and this friggin anxiety, and this friggin depression, which is the most powerful depression I have faced in years. I think that soon I may go lean against a juniper tree out on the West Rim trail, where time and identity take pause. Upon leaning against said tree I will then reignite the significance of the Druidism in me. Good boy, says my spirit guide, giggling as the words form. The world is a cold place, turn inward. She always says the craziest things, but she never steers me wrong. Sweet.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Teilhard de Chardin and the Great God Pan

“What one does is what counts. Not what one had the intention of doing.”  ~  Pablo Picasso

The photo is a tad out of focus. So am I this morning. What better way than to portray truth and beauty, no? Truth and beauty are the innate qualities that my best friend, Sharon, sees most in me. We met back in late 1979. As the year was passing on into 1980 she had me drinking champagne out of her shoe. The next day, after the hangovers lifted, the relationship was set in stone. Unconditional love. Deep bonding. I highly recommend both.

I just stepped outside to watch a sheet of gray clouds sauntering in from the south. Matches my mood. As I reentered the room I thought with glee, “Oh! Coffee!”. I’d made the pot before going out. Good on me. So why’s my mood gray? That’s easy. It’s because, as I reported before, my hours were cut at work. It sucks. But I am in it for the cats, and for the companionship of most of my coworkers. Animal rescue workers are a special breed. Never forget that. My first reaction, the worst one, to the bad news was shock, then the anxiety attack started slapping me one way and the next, until I could barely see straight. I am well-practiced at self-maintenence when it comes to these mental health issues so I was present enough to keep it from going into full-blown panic. Interesting thing, the word panic derives from the Great God Pan, who in one of his guises encourages terror. Imagine strange spooky noises in the woods. Pan lives in the woods a good part of the time. I love Pan. I’ve asked Pan for help in my time of fretting. No one should have to bear fear alone. Dude like thanks, k? I should add a note here, for those of you who are not familiar with pagan lore, Pan is the god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music. He’s the kind of guy we Taoseños like to have around. Look him up for a good time.

“In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.”  ~  Teilhard de Chardin

Friggin Chardin, always attempting to make me look at the bright side. Dude I am looking at the bright side so chill. I am also attempting to describe the not so bright side so peeps who may need guidance in such matters might check back to refer to my rickety philosophical outlook.

“It doesn’t matter if the water is cold or warm if you’re going to have to wade through it anyway.”  ~  Teilhard de Chardin

Okay, okay, I hear ya! Woof. The guy is well worth listening but he can also be very annoying at times. That said I suppose it is time to wrap up this morning’s post here at EyeYotee blog. I’m meeting some folks for coffee in town. The chit chat promises to be interesting. I’m such a hermit. This will be two social outings in one week for me. Nice.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

The Trickster is Afoot in the Land

© Ken Ebert, 2015

 

“What should I do?’ Coyote yelled.
‘Cultivate philosophy and run like hell,’ said Bear…”   ~  Roger Zelazny

I heard a howl emerge from cold silent air, a rich and fat sound that instantly said to me wolf. But there are no wolves here. It was followed by some dogs barking profusely then a coyote added a howl of its own. Was it a wolf? Whatever. The coyote and dog show went on for about a minute then poof, gone. And then I said good morning to the night. The Trickster is a foot in the land.

That’s how my morning started. My heart, which has been run through the metaphorical wringer of late, was soothed, if only for a while. Let me get this straight: mental illness sucks. It’s just that simple. It sucks. At any given time one in four of Americans alone are dealing with mental illness in some form, to some degree. Mine is causing me trouble these days and it could potentially turn into big trouble. Poor me. To have outer trouble pile on to inner trouble sounds like some sort of exponential thingy to me. It sho do feel that way. WTF, I have Wednesday and Thursday off, and only an early half day today. Sounds like some binge-watching of Star Trek Voyager to me. You may say that I should use the time to render some repairs in my life? The Voyager should do just fine, thank you. Get out of my own head. Cultivate contentment and maybe even peace of mind, if I am lucky. Sit still and cultivate profound rest. But the aforementioned TV show also provides stories where the forces of Light prevail. AKA the good guy, or gal, wins. I’m up for that. My father instilled that in me. The good guy wins. “A Few Good Men” was his favorite film in regards to that. My father was an industrial engineer, which at that time, in the mid 60s, was basically an efficiency expert. I like to think that the good guy winning is likely the most efficient way to go. Let’s hope so.

The cat is on my lap, which means that I have to mildly contort to tap away articulately on the Apple wireless keyboard. I’m dancing with trepidation as I await going to work. I have to work with someone who is temporarily, we hope, unhappy with me. I’ll play peacemaker, maybe even break out the Jedi Mind Trick app. I’m the middle child of three brothers. Friggin middle child always gets the peacemaker role. But I digress. Or do I? I’ll also have to work with several purely feral cats. The Jedi Mind Trick sometimes works with them as well. The one feral cat, a beauty named Vortex (?! WTF), is calmed by my singing the second verse and then the chorus of Sweet Baby James, by James Taylor. “The first of December was covered in snow, and so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston. The Berkshires were dreamlike on account of that frosting. Ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go”. Chokes me right yup dude. Been there done that, k? Have you ever seen the Berkshires covered in snow? Wow. Beauty soothes the soul.

I like to occasionally remind myself that we are all animals. Upper primates. Whatever. I doubt that many people even let this fact into their daily doings. Why should they? Animal behavior works below board whether we observe it or not. Sure, we have a cerebral cortex and a frontal lobe as well, so aren’t we special? Some part of my brain is damaged. So says the neurologist. We don’t know where but we know when and how. Truth is I would file for disability tomorrow if I could figure out a way to support myself for the six months, probably a year or more, it would take to be accepted and then have the disability payments initiated. But I also wish that there were real unicorns, and that Rocky the Flying Squirrel lived right next door. Sigh. Instead I will spend some time helping Captain Janeway explore the other end of the galaxy. I’m flirting with bitterness. Let’s work on that. It never helps. Well, almost never. Almost never? Try to wrap your head around that!  Go on, just try.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

 

 

A Cherub’s Arrow

“In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down or cut him
‘Til he cried out in his anger and his shame
I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains”  ~  Paul Simon

It’s one of those mornings. At least there’s good coffee, Seattle’s Best, extreme French Roast, or some such hype. Marketing, sheesh. It’s a down cycle has me all tight and restless. It’ll be a fight to keep up my focus today at work. I will win the fight, I will get it done. The cats in the cattery will make me smile and laugh. It’s nothing new. It will be a good day and I will come home from work exhausted, then sit down with a bowl of canned soup and watch a couple of episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. I subscribed to Hulu. Voyager is one show that I never did watch until now. Just like in daily realtime life drama and special effects can make all the difference. I ran up against some drama yesterday and it pulled me in. I seriously dislike confrontation, and I avoid, not at all costs but most, the adolescent approach of taking up the fight and laying down the issue. This is the stuff illusions are made of. So it is now sweet capitulation I must follow, and then go forth with efforts to foment healthy communications and results. Lucky me. Who doesn’t enjoy a nice spiritual lesson in growth once in a while. I mean I am friggin sixty years old. At least let me put my teeth back in before we fight, k? That’s a metaphor folks, I still have all of my teeth but one. That one was taken by a beautiful local lady dentist, who had to crawl up on top of me, literally, to get the leverage to extract the thing. I must say that I had mixed feelings at that point. The process hurt like hell. Her body perched up top of me was rather pleasant. It was at 5:30 PM on a Friday as well. She had stayed late to provide me with emergency relief. The rich mythos of the whole scene haunts me to this day. I imagine it as in a painting by Botticelli, the back of my hand hard-pressed against my brow, and she garbed in flowing robes, with maybe a cherub or two. I’d quite like that actually.

As you can tell, I am in a weird mood. I’m just back in from gazing at the dusky russet eclipsed moon, a total eclipse, with only an afterthought of light along one tiny edge. Magic is afoot in the land. As if it was ordained a couple of coyote howls in the distance came forth, and I smiled. I’m a big fan of magic, as my regular and faithful readers already know. I try to find the magic in social situations as well. After all we humans are indeed natural things. There’s really no reason to not believe in magic, except if it is an inconvenience to you. Then maybe I can see it. I’ll try to find the magic in the situation I opened the post with. I don’t expect the happily ever after thing but it helps to find the Light in those grungy shadowed places. Like a smart guy I will do my best to turn down the volume of the PTSD that I carry weigh me throughout most every given day. Anger, one of PTSD’s tools, doesn’t do much good except when it does. Sometimes it is merited. But not in this case. In this case I am aiming for the sweet spot, and I shall address that spot with no more than a cherub’s arrow.

Boy howdy how’d I get all lyrical and stuff?!

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

View From the Top

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”  ~  David Foster Wallace

A strange thing happened this morning as I sat on the deck outside the door. I heard a dog barking far in the distance and I found myself wishing the dog was closer by so that I could hear what it was saying.  But that’s just me being nosey, right? Today’s opening photo here at EyeYotee blog is one that makes me smile. Lucas is the cat up top. We allow him to roam outside of his cage for a while each day. Lucas sometimes climbs up to peruse the upper deck, above the communal cages. I’d seen Lucas pass by Kaleb’s cage once before, and Kaleb rose up on hind legs to see who the heck that was up there. Lucky me, Lucas made another round atop the cages, so I had my camera in hand, waiting for the sweet shot. As you can see I was not disappointed. I know, I know, I coulda woulda shoulda been working but the joy of Nature got the better of me. Sorry boss. I can’t say it won’t happen again because it will.

This full moon is a doozy! Full in Libra, which puts it in alignment with my Sun. Total eclipse, Blood Moon, all very much fun. Life is good. In the past week I have read a couple of somewhat literate articles that told me for certain that astrology is bunk and that full moons do not affect human behavior. I’m glad we got that settled. But the problem is that these two articles were flat out wrong. My reference to the literacy of the articles comes from a pet peeve of mine – why don’t writers of internet articles include good grammar, and good writing in general, as part of their quest for smug truths? Good sense starts at home, right?

My cousin Robin, second cousin that is, yonder in the Ozarks, posted on Facebook that mine is the best job. Yup, working with cats is way cool indeed. But it’s not all joy and entertainment. There is shit to deal with and timeframes to meet. Along the way, throughout the day, I often find myself in awe of these furry critters. My childlike sense of wonder sometimes peeks over my shoulder and sometimes slaps me a good one upside the head. This is a reminder to me when things like the rumor I have been writing about come into my life. Dude it’s all like good dude and peeps just sometimes say things that ain’t true dude. They don’t mean nothin’ by it. No harm no foul, right. Uh huh. That’s my point exactly. No harm, no foul. But don’t forget ‘no praise, no blame’. There are probably other aphorisms I could whip out right here right now but I am, sadly, out of time. I am really looking forward to going to work today. My day will start with me wrestling with the time clock, a new device that reads fingerprints to clock you in for the workday. Trouble is that I don’t have fingerprints, per se. They’ve plum near worn off. But the clock works for most everybody else. Weird huh? If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Oops, I just used another aphorism after I clearly stated that I wouldn’t. My bad.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.