Existential Stuff and Such

“A home without a cat — and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat — may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?”   ~  Mark Twain

Looks like Sunday morning I will resume my regular blogging schedule, such as it is. Still feeling queasy from a powerful bout of stomach flu two days ago. Existential suff like that is irrevocably grounding. It has done me some good, however icky it was. No biggie. I think that’s it for now, except to say that I am way excited about the Trump-Russian stuff going down. 

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

On A Foggy morning

“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”   ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Just dropping’ in to say hey. Hey! Dense fog this morning just before sunrise, and quite a bit after as well. I’ve stopped by to feed and medicate the cat, and feed the chickens and turkey. Off into town as soon as that task is complete. Thanks for your patience with me. I actually tried to write from the iPad at the housesitting gig, but WordPress changed something and I can’t figure out how to pull up there composition screen. No biggie. The greatly lessened computer time is doing me some good. Having MSNBC to watch has been great. That president fella sho do play it crazy! The guy appalls me. And on that note  .  .  .  nuff said. See ya next time, k?

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

The House Sitter

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”  ~  Paulo Coelho

I’m housesitting for a few days. Posts here may be sporadic. I appreciate you faithful readers a lot, and you newcomers, and occasional readers as well. And I very much love providing blog posts.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

 

Always Tomorrow

“Arthur was not one of those interesting characters whose subtle motives can be dissected. He was only a simple and affectionate man, because Merlyn had believed that love and simplicity were worth having.”  ~  T. H. White, The Once and Future King

“I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns out today is.”  ~  Steve Martin

Sunday morning. On and off rainy all night. Very fresh and moist. It’s about a half hour before sunrise and I can hear the chickens stirring, especially the one that thinks she’s a rooster. She does a pretty good impression too! I think it will be a mundane, restful day, during which I will watch as much current news as I can. The national news is so fascinating these days. The story value alone is tremendous. But my underlying theme of the day is rest. Good rest. Day one of my housesitting gig. It just needs to be peaceful, inside and out. Look, I know this is a short post. This is intentional. The words just seem to be too hard to find, but they are not going anywhere. There is always tomorrow.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

 

 

Looking For the Wizard

“He caught a glimpse of that extraordinary faculty in man, that strange, altruistic, rare, and obstinate decency which will make writers or scientists maintain their truths at the risk of death. Eppur si muove, Galileo was to say; it moves all the same. They were to be in a position to burn him if he would go on with it, with his preposterous nonsense about the earth moving round the sun, but he was to continue with the sublime assertion because there was something which he valued more than himself. The Truth. To recognize and to acknowledge What Is. That was the thing which man could do, which his English could do, his beloved, his sleeping, his now defenceless English. They might be stupid, ferocious, unpolitical, almost hopeless. But here and there, oh so seldome, oh so rare, oh so glorious, there were those all the same who would face the rack, the executioner, and even utter extinction, in the cause of something greater than themselves. Truth, that strange thing, the jest of Pilate’s. Many stupid young men had thought they were dying for it, and many would continue to die for it, perhaps for a thousand years. They did not have to be right about their truth, as Galileo was to be. It was enough that they, the few and martyred, should establish a greatness, a thing above the sum of all they ignorantly had.”  ~  T. H. White, The Book of Merlyn

Long quote, right? Yeh, it’s the longest opening quote I have ever used. But, Merlyn? The guy was a wizard. That’s what I am looking for today; that, and his sense of transcendent optimism. I could use some of that, and use it I will. It’s not that anything is particularly wrong. It’s more that more things need to be right. Maybe this all stems from the fact that I woke up nearly anxiety-free. Nearly? My right foot keeps wagging a good part of the time, so there is that. It would be flippantly easy to attribute this dearth of anxiety to the cat’s method of rousing me from sleep. Poke, poke. First on the head, then the forearm, then finally my left shoulder. No amount of debate dissuaded her of her ambition, so I friggin got out of bed. If I were a New Age optimist I would cheerfully say that the Universe had woken me up, and the cat was just the means for doing so, and that within the action lay a purpose, in fact a reason. Yeh, right. The purpose was kibble. Don’t even try it, I know better. But I am not a pessimist either. Big sigh here. Let’s put it this way: in a world where everyone creates their own reality it is the skeptic who is the busiest man, woman, whatever, around. Don’t think about that too hard. I suspect the Trickster made me say it.

“Grown-ups have developed an unpleasant habit of comforting themselves for their degradation by pretending that children are childish.”  ~  T. H. White, The Book of Merlyn

I just took a break from writing to go outside for a few minutes. The stars are looking good. There is quite a bit of snow left over from yesterday morning’s blizzard. Yeh, a real blizzard. I’d looked outside at 4 AM and there was a cloud of dense, swirling snow. From the accumulated snow on the deck I reckoned it to be about two inches. When I went to to go to work there was eight inches of the stuff, and the trees in the yard were heavily burdened with snow as well. Who knew.The drive to work was a bit nervous, but only because there was an infernal tailgater – even in that weather! But – I remain hopeful in that there is something in my life that deserves dedication of purpose. The hope may just be a prop, but I think not.What I do think is that I need to wrap up this post and let the loose ends dangle for now. Call it trust. The Fates will weave away while I am not looking. And yes, I do know what I am talking about, I just don’t know how to say it.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Running From Safety

“Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.”  ~  David Byrne

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.”  ~  Blaise Pascal

Snow. About 2-3 inches by the looks of it. The stuff is clinging to the trees in the back yard. The scene out there is beautiful and evocative of peace. Or maybe it’s just me. I do feel a fair amount, level, whatever, of peace this morning. The outrage and anger stemming from the truly appalling stuff going on with Trump and his truly stupid minions has not abated. That is surface stuff, albeit surface stuff that might well damage or simply hurt a good many people. What I am talking about is a deeper current, where the human heart beats to a more spiritual song. Yeah, I am essentially a Druid, if you really must hang a label on it. The music of the spheres is part and parcel of my world view. And I believe, from experience, that we are Dreaming this world into existence. No silly, not the physical world, the world of human interaction. That said, the reason I feel secure in calling Trump and his minions stupid is not just that they are stupid, it’s that they are applying their power in a way that will blatantly hurt a lot of people if they get away with their treacherous caper. The damage has already begun, though thankfully they have mostly hurt themselves at this early stage of the game. Back about ten years ago my sister-in-law, Debra Weyermann, a fine writer in her own right, had a letter to the editor published in Vanity Fair. In the letter she was challenging the labeling of Karl Rove as a genius. Bottom line: she said that he is not a genius because his efforts were hurting people instead of helping them. Read that again, for effect. How friggin Liberal, right? Right. As for me, and the aforementioned inner peace I feel this morning, it is that inner song that is stirring the various aspects of my personality. I have somehow, in a truly blessed way, temporarily escaped the petty tyranny of my super ego, leaving my ego at the mercy of this deeper current, and that deeper current is, in truly blessed way, inspiring the ‘captain of my ship’, a term I learned in reading Richard Bach’s powerful book, Running From Safety to firmly say “slow the fuck down dude, chill”. My now year long efforts at changing my life, as I enter the borderlands of my elder years, have begun to produce results. The first signs of truly efficacious change are emerging in one perfectly new thing in my life. Yeh, I feel myself getting eager as to what will come on down the path, road, whatever. That is why the captain told me to slow the fuck down. Savor it, don’t gulp it down like a nitwit.

“You find what you love and you learn everything about it. You bet your life on what you know and run from safety, off your mountain into the air, trusting the Principle of Flight to bring you soaring up on lift you cannot see with your eyes.”  ~  Richard Bach, Running From Safety

Geez, that paragraph is pretty good. Alas, I must start prepping for work a tad early due to the snow and stuff. Roads might get icy. What is really cool with me this morning is that the crawly itchy swarming in my chest and gut, that anxiety bloom that seems to be perpetual, and maybe it is, is way less froggy than usual. Nice. Onward, moving forward, tally ho, whatever. And so it goes.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Feeling Spring and Other News

“But I need solitude–which is to say, recovery, return to myself, the breath of a free, light, playful air.”  ~  Friedrich Nietzsche

Not a hair on my head was disturbed by sleep last night. I used an isochronic brainwave calming mp3 to attempt a deep and solid night’s sleep, if you can call a three hours a night’s sleep. It may have worked; my goal was accomplished. No worries, right? I had an unplanned afternoon nap on the couch at my petsitting job. I’d been absorbed in the drastic and historical news that was unfolding at a rapid and lush pace, when unbeknownst to me sleep crept in and pulled me down out of my unwise mental state. It’s not that events of really froggy proportions should be ignored. What tires is the analytical panel-driven commentary about what the heck is happening. Me? I was doing my best to look at the eyes of the commentators with the angle of who is inside these human shells, and why are they so concerned about what is happening. Well, golly gee Batman, it is starting to seriously look like members of the campaign team of the current president of the United States colluded with the Russians to trash Hillary so that the Don would get the Oval Office gig. No biggie, right? Wrong. Let’s not call it “huge”, k? That word has been so overused it is starting look like my grandfather’s old shirt that I just can’t stop using as an over-shirt even though it is getting seriously raggy; in fact, I will wear it today, for the exact purpose I just mentioned. That and my mom’s gold and garnet ring, which I wear on a chain with  silver pentagram, right over my heart. Thanks, grandpa. I don’t remember how I came to possess your old shirt. Thanks for all the years of comfort, and for the deep conversation we had that one day, on the deck overlooking the lake, while I was on a rest stop during my 1800 mile bicycle journey. Ancestors are way gnarly dude. Soooo, moving forward. Yeh, I’ve got three workdays in a row ahead of me. Then Sunday off. Sunday is when I begin my housesitting gig, for the same woman I do the weekly petsitting gig for. So, anyway, one day off, then one day more of work, the three consecutive days at the sitting gig with no gainful employment to hold me back. I hope to get some hiking done, along the trail that leads from that house out into the waist-deep sage forest outback. But I hope even more so to get a lot of sitting done as well, a purpose clearly stated in the agreement. Yeh, the Trump-Russian scandal is now in process of exploding. Break out the popcorn and ale dude I’m rooting for the good guys. I’ll watch a fair amount of cable news, on MSNBC. They will certainly have Katie Tur on, as she is one world class journalist, and as she traveled with Trump for a year and a half during the campaign, reporting and delivering skillfully. I have such as crush on Katie! So here I sit, blog stuff. I’ve got Celtic music playing on Pandora, online, streaming, whatever. I’ve got a big ol’ internal smile going on. Springtime is here. Rain and/or snow coming tonight. The trees are gonna pop, one right after the other, from all of the moisture and fresh nitrogen. Had a powerful massage yesterday. I’m feelin’ pretty good on just three hours sleep. It’s all subjective inner stuff. I aspired to bring change into my life, and that is what is happening. I’m liking what I see but I am liking what a feel even more.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Cheryl and the Baby Dolphins

“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.”  ~ William Butler Yeats

It is a kind of dreamy morning. I could put it off forever, this writing thing. But I’ve roused myself finally. The stars are pale. Neighborhood dogs barking occasionally in the distance. Peaceful. My mind is stirred, sometimes fiercely, by our national political uproar. It’s been hard for me to distance myself from the major problems in store. If this is what chaos looks like, well, at least I understand something. Confusion is nothing new. For some reason my old friend Cheryl is on my mind this morning. I haven’t heard from her in many years. We lost touch right around the time my mom died. Cheryl and I spoke numerous time during mom’s last months, she being a kind of counselor for me. That is one thing that appealed so strongly to me, her good soul and her sincere allegiance to a spiritual life. I could go on for quite a while about her. It was her physical beauty that first drew me to her. Wow. But I soon found much more in her that attracted me to her. But why this morning? I don’t know. As I was sitting on the deck a few minutes ago I had a vivid memory of sitting on the narrow landfill jetty of Plantation Yacht Harbor Resort, at the edge of Florida Bay. Sailboats and powerboats in the harbor. We’d been free riding our bicycles along the backroads of Plantation Key for two hours, and on our way back south we stopped by to sit on the jetty. I’d just returned from a trip to Massachusetts. This was right after Hurricane Andrew. The Keys had been spared from the wrath of the big storm, but nerves were raw. I’d been in a mystical state during my visit up north, to spend some time with my bestie, Sharon. Cheryl wanted to hear it all, she being a mystic as well. So, anyway. There, as we sat on the little jetty, came dolphins, with two babies in tow. It was one of the more impactful animal encounters I have known. Baby dolphins! Wow. Just wow. When Cheryl and I were together magic was never far away. I wanted to marry her. No, really. But she wanted big money and that ain’t happenin with this man; not then, not now. That is what allows the magic to endure. Don’t ask me to explain. We had some marvelous intimate adventures together. I miss her. Now, moving forward, today is massage day, the the petsitting gig this evening. I seriously need the massage, and chatting with the massage therapist is always a pleasure. The session is early, 9 AM. With hours between the massage and the petsitting there is much I could do, many practical measures, but I don’t want to waste the profound relaxation by tightening up at speed by going all responsible and stuff. It all can wait. Sometimes responsibility toward one’s personal well-being, especially spiritual stuff, takes precedence. That’s likely why Cheryl came to mind. The spiritual side of life. I’m all knotted up and it need to be attended to. Of course, I will somewhat test the peace I will find today by going the see the pets a couple of hours early, because there is satellite TV there and I can watch MSNBC. I love that channel. I can get some in depth analysis of the truly astonishing things that are fairly exploding in the US. In depth analysis that is not mine. My current phase of life is one in which I need to just flow, and not take myself so seriously by letting my inner drive do all the work. That quiet space within is more like it. Analysis and giving weight to thoughts can wait.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

A Peaceful Kind of Giddiness

“Human beings live in their myths. They only endure their realities.”  ~  Robert Anton Wilson

“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”  ~  Joseph Campbell

Quite a peaceful morning here, outside and in. Warm, at 39º, or so it seems. All things seem so relative lately; almost as if Albert Einstein spirit is looking over my shoulder. Actually, that would be nice. And there is the tinnitus thing going on as well. No treatment known, said the beautiful PA, Martha, I used to see back in the day. I know, it is common medical knowledge, but I like to remember her as having said it. If we create our own reality we simply must be selective in what we allow in. Things that make us smile and feel all warm and cozy should hold prime consideration, I say. But that’s just me. Why am I bringing up Beatles allusions. Martha, my dear, I hope you are well. Thank you for the caring treatment and all the drugs. And  –  we’re so sorry, Uncle Albert, but we who survived your passing have yet to learn  .  .  .  ummmm, what was I just starting to say. Beatles, White Album. Released in the Summer of Love, or thereabouts. 

After the previous paragraph I stepped outside to check out the world. Very nice star show going on. I had fun contemplating the chirp that tipped me off that the skunk was in the yard. I decided, as I sat very very still, that it was better that I could not see the beast passing through on his way to the chicken coup. Then the little dog, who’s yard is right next door, began to bark, and I’m like all don’t go there little dude.  He’s a good boy. I don’t know if he is telepathic, but he did stop barking when I mentally suggested that he do so. So now I sit at the desk feeling a little stunned. The FBI Director’s announcement yesterday of the FBI investigation into the Trump-Russia scandal had me all giddy at first. I do so enjoy a little schadenfreude on occasion. What I quickly realized is that this scandal alludes back to the Watergate days. I kinda missed all the fun back then because I was in a state of shock from having come much too close to being drafted for Viet Nam. Thankfully the draft ended just in the nick of time. For some reason I keep glancing at my smartphone sitting here on my desk. We didn’t have those back then. That’s not really a minor little historical tidbit. It fairly boggles the mind how much things have changed since then. And yet we now have this big scandal afoot that in many ways harkens back to Watergate. One of the main guys to be investigated for his Russian ties, Roger Stone, was admittedly one of Nixon’s political Dirty Tricksters. Friggin Stone didn’t learn a things. Same games games 40 years later. And now we have smartphones, and Tweets, and a President who ain’t so big on self-control and/or honesty; who appears to not be adequately briefed as to the efficacy of reality as it relates to cause and effect, and stuff like that. I don’t think that Trump actually feels that he is ineffable. I don’t think he is capable of thinking on that level at all. I think he is simply a solipsist. Poor little fella. That’s gotta hurt. Especially right now. Anyway, moving forward, I can’t rightly splain why this all has me feeling so peaceful, or maybe it is something else making it so. I have a big day coming up tomorrow. I’m kinda sorta excited about it but the level of peace I find in anticipation predominates. That’s life, right? Yeh, right. Whatever. Soooo  .  .  .  my joy today will arise from the feeling of the vastness of history, and time, and Justice, with a capital T, ummmm, I mean capital J. And in the contemplation of how in the name of the goddess I came to discover peaceful giddiness. Who knew, right? Hey, today would have been my dad’s 86th birthday. And I also really oughtta bid you bright blessings upon Ostara. I shared a nice hug with one of my favorite witches yesterday. She’s a good one too. Yeh, life is pretty good these days.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

 

All in Good Time

“I never, even for a moment, doubted what they’d told me. This is why it is that adults and even parents can, unwittingly, be cruel: they cannot imagine doubt’s complete absence. They have forgotten.”  ~  David Foster Wallace

One important thing I need to point out this morning is that EyeYotee blog now has crossed the 1000 posts milepost, benchmark, geez, whatever; that’s 1003 posts, k? Just sayin’. I don’t mean to go all postmodern on y’all, but I also want to note that my readership stats have been looking pretty good the past few weeks, which is to say that I can’t say it any clearer than that without eschewing irony; and I love irony. As tiny as my blog audience is, I still look at the stats in hopes of gleaning some kind of meaning out of the whole endeavor. Or maybe I just write online because in need the practice, and practicing in public seems so  .  .  .  ummmm, what the heck am I talking about? Maybe I think too much, right? Likely so, but I am still grateful for all y’all that read my blog. Now, moving forward, I think I may have baked my brain a bit yesterday. I took a nice long hike out on the West Rim trail, along the Rio Grande Gorge; five miles or so. I feel it today. Been sittin way too much over the Winter. And as I really don’t like wearing hats I didn’t wear one. Overall I think I did a good thing. My massage therapist recommends the high mountain trails. I plan on getting up there later this Spring, but I need to get in shape first. The West Rim is a low-impact trail. But I love that trail because it facilitates the deep need I have for maintaining consciousness of the incredibly long time we humans have been walking the Earth as humans. It’s hard to explain what I mean here, except that I am appealing to the smallness of myself. Does that make sense? I’m talking primal consciousness here. I have not written about consciousness much at all for much too long. Look for more. I have some ideas floating around in my mind. But not today. I’m gonna keep it short today. Clarity shall return, all in good time. Good time is my favorite kind.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.