Hibernation

I'm beginning to understand the bears, and not just their fondness for berries and honey. I mean the drive to find a warm, soft bed and just sleep it off, the whole summer thing. We had them haul away a ten yard dumpster this week, filled with broken windows, stained rugs and boxes filled with packing peanuts. We kept hauling things out of the garage, the basement and yard until I was sure there was nothing left. Then I'd spot an old window with a cracked pane leaning against the "potting shed". We left behind the larger pieces of iron and aluminum for the kid across the street. He has an old truck he uses to haul scrap away to sell to the guy in town. He'll end up rich someday with a fleet of old trucks, all running on LP gas or something.

I wonder if a hangnail can be fatal? I'm stuck typing with three fingers since my left pointer got that steel pin awhile back and now one of the three has a wicked hangnail, forcing me into a two finger mode. That takes longer and makes me work more. This is supposed to be more fun and have less pain, but then at least I'm not bleeding. I've been trying to take pics in the early morning to catch some nice lighting, what with all the poplars having a few boughs left of those golden leaves I like so much. The oaks are playing around with some subtle shades of bronze. The camera doesn't seem to catch the more subtle tones but sometimes it works. I also got some shots around the altar, showing off the new ent-tree.

Two to three hours after taking my morning meds I find that the combination of several cups of coffee and several pills makes me very drowsy, but I will try to upload one picture before I take a wee nap.

Gloomy Tuesday

Tuesday is originally the day sacred to Tyr, the god of the sky and today is dominated by the sky, with its big grey presence and its never ending dreary rain! Everything is soggy and I find myself checking the thermostat to see if it's too cold to do some clay work. I don't need to check it, if I have a question about the air then it's not a good time to try artwork. Back awhile I would have had my camera out, trying to capture the subtle shades of grey in a cloud or the textures of a rain dampened lawn. I don't do that very much now but I tend to think that what I've done stands on its own, needing no sequel or follow-up. Besides I'm not sure that the screen captures the details an eye can take in. Maybe that's ego, maybe it's being lazy but I'd rather try to stay warm and find some distraction. Food is good.

I started simmering a bit of game hen about 4 PM and it's pretty much ready to work over now. With a bit of celery and tater and maybe something in the allium family... ya never know how far this could go. A lot depends on my spinal issues, if there's a lot of details and staying in one spot I might just pass, so the fibromyalgia doesn't get pissy. Amazing that perception of reality could shift so. I started out thinking I was fine and even after the various accidents I felt pretty good, occasionally twinges of pain but nothing too bad, until that winter and then the cold taught me that my body was not my slave and that I could be very unhappy inside my skin. Nonsense.

That I would have to stop pounding hot iron, or oak stakes, or axing some tree or carrying a bucket of clay from the local stream just never occurred to me. I figured I'd skate along fairly unchanged. Boy, that was just what it was: naive. Your consciousness is framed by your body, by what's in your gut and what's in your groin and what's going on inside your head. So when your spine is making all kinds of body parts hurt you had better believe that YOU are going to change and in a deep way. I always thought I existed and more or less created my universe through perception, but consider that with chronic pain you have to ask, "Who would wish this on themselves?".

It's not that it defines you, but, for instance tonight, when the therapies and nerve blocks and cutting and so on don't do crap because it's cold and rainy and you hurt, what are you to make of your hold on reality? Why would any consciousness want to roil in this kind of surface? It staggers the imagination. On the other hand, if the Universe were relatively young, maybe this slapping around is thought to be "fun" by the slapper. Nah, I think it's just the way things work out. My parts move better in warm weather but my brain works fine regardless, so here I live and look forward to my snowshoes.

I'll drag this old hulk around like Captain Ahab, who killed Moby Dick and dragged his stinking carcass across the ocean to the nearest harbor to brag about the hunt and the end of the great white whale. Nobody will know the final part of my story either, because like Ahab the final words are written after the means to transmit them are cut off. You could type all day on an excellent blog, only to have it wiped out with a bit of lightning on a nearby tree. That's why we save when we can and send when we must.

Approaching All-Saints Day and Night

Well, as I was saying a moment ago to my pal: there's a season for everything, and if the roots are not severed the garden will prosper in the spring. I hold on to hope like that, that the next idiot in the White House is more like Chance than Crazy-Ass Mc-Cain. Doesn't anybody read the Bible for its rich library of knowledge of human nature? The guys on TV local late at night cable station 2.3 may be nuts, but they got a thing going on "It's a little bit strange lately.." Every since they brought back moon dust people have started getting just all messed up and plain stupid.

It's so bad I'm tempted to throw the stalks and read the hexagrams in the long form just to try to find some order in the chaos. Like to like, they say, and you can read into things how you like, but I like the way the Book of Changes says it.

I have to wonder what it is that we are approaching, dark in the night, when we approach adulthood. I have to wonder why I went through all those years of just hanging on if I'm the only one who remembers it all? I suppose my adventures on the road, homeless, penniless and without any obvious worthwhile skills, don't merit much attention, being as how little I did that changed the world. But still, hearing these dire predictions and wondering what will happen to those poor people who invested in the stock market puts one at odds with ones own emotions . I don't own stock, not even indirectly as far as I know. So the DOW means little to me. I'm sorry it's failing, but unlike a fawn, a DOW is a construct and they can be de-constructed easily enough.

The thing is that even the sympathy you feel for the millionaires is tempered by the lack of zeros in our own little nest egg. Certainly, as my retirement rests with the Nation, if it fails, so do I. That would be awkward but at that point your pensions is the least of your worries especially if your potatoes didn't do so hot that summer, or your beans or onions. Doesn't take much to screw around with your balances internally and externally. There you are: suddenly "different", like maybe poorly dressed begging for quarters for hot coffee. It has happened to Kings and none of us are kings, but we sometimes act like we think we are. Imagine a whole layer of society which never had to beg for food in its collective consciousness. Never had to beg for pity, empathy or water. Those people could never "get it" about being that hungry, that pared down to a fine point.

Whether it's the people who dropped the napalm or the people who remember the night the napalm was dropped, there is a lack of understanding. No sane person puts itself in risk, yet begging for food admits a weakness so profound that there is no doubt that one is helpless before any display of force or indifference. One of the strangest ironies in this current War is that the technologies which went into producing these Smart Bombs could be used in such a way as to profoundly enhance the lives of the people who suffer under their usage. I expect that the many thousands or millions who were only partly affected by our shock and awe tactics, would make every attempt to acquire those support technologies and use them to make the rest of us suffer. They might even figure out a way to make it pay. They might even become our sub-contractors in future wars and wait for a good time to do something nasty to us. I don't know, but I hear people do get off on "an eye for an eye". It sounds like voodoo to me though.

Falling into winter

Today I start walking in water. Yup, it's an exercise. The water is in a pool and a treadmill is in the water and the idea is that since I need to lose weight and my spine is compressing as a result if I walk in water I weigh about 1/4 normal. This allows me to burn some calories, tighten my gut and butt and feel more positive about things. It's pretty cool: the new medical center is only about 3 miles away and they do acupuncture and various other kinds of things, most of which the insurance covers. My fibromyalgia must feel threatened by all this because my hands and arms have been aching rather a lot and combined with my back pain I'm not a happy camper. I am getting used to hurting all the time, now I have to get so used to it that I just ignore it. At the moment it still pisses me off that I feel like an old man at 58.

The arm pain is fairly new. It's like somebody has hold of my forearm and is squeezing it down really tight. The hands feel like I've been blacksmithing all day, which is ridiculous. Hell, there's moss growing on my anvil and a tiny poplar tree in the Hardee hole. NO, there's no excuse for it. Could be bursitis or something, too, but I hate to think I'm developing yet another "itis" that represents by pain. It does help a bit to breathe, prana breathing is good for that. It is hard to walk around and do things like wash dishes while doing that deep, careful breathing, especially when listening to CNN makes me yell obscene remarks every few minutes. I should learn more self control.

On the political side the empire continues its tumble down into fascism. If President Palin decides to require school prayer and asserts that we, as a nation, must prepare for the End Times I suppose that will be the final death knell of this country. I wish I could believe that the elections will be fair and honest this time, but the last two certainly formed a pattern and it is a well known truth that once absolute power is given to a deranged individual they are loathe to give it up. I wonder how Cheney will insert his ugly head into the new administration. Maybe Secretary of Finance, he'd like that.

Finally, I'd like to introduce you all to Brewster. He's an odd bird with many cute mannerisms, like fluffing up like a fighting cock and jumping the hens. So far no crowing, so he may live, but if he bothers the hens or makes them set on their eggs all day we may have to have a talk. I already have two offers to take him. He does have pretty green feathers in his tail. I don't know, you decide if he's worth the feed. I have to go out into the never-ending rain and open the hen houses. I really need to clean the floor of the little house, it's got a strong ammonia odor, but the damn rain won't stop! I hate raking and shoveling wet chicken poop. Well maybe tomorrow we'll see the sun. Meanwhile, enjoy Brewster's first official portrait.