This has been a hard year for all with unavoidable obstacles. We have wondered together if there would be Light beckoning to grant some reprieve during these holy days and holiday season. There was and is but we do not let up on our vigil until given word it is so.
The journey has taken us through some dark places but we have found Light as we are bent to do. We have come thus far and now keep our guard up until our commitments walk with us.
We miss the little rewards we needed to break from the work of dailyness that bowed us down even in normal times. During the health crises and political turmoil without them, our dispositions have been tested. But we are a dependable people and wish to prove we are equal to the task. Our progeny will one day question us and ask what did we do? . . .
Our answer will be. . . our very best.. . .
The Learning Place. . . .
Do you not think
that where you go
at night is the place
where you are healed?
And awaken
to a morning full
of exuberance, to face
another day to fight clean?
For those things you see
at night, every time
you close your eyes and trust
you will find your way. . .
to the place you know best
that heals the wounds
tearing you apart . . .the who you are,
in still this best of all learning places. . .
to find you do not run away. . . .
and with courage stay the course.
(Suzanne sent me this photo of another quilt. Another memory. . .)
I looked for the journal entry until I had to stop last night because of a heart willing itself to stop if I did not. My eldest son as well as a beloved friend once called my persevering tendency unnerving. Both vowed they could not live my way. I learned much later to call it the jenny genes. I make myself sick with them.
This morning in picking up clutter I looked askance at a first hand written journal to open on July 23, ’73. With Hello!! I read the following in firm 42 year old handwriting in ink. . . .Our pianist sons were playing a new LP of the Canon when I first heard it. Later in Munich, at a travel conference we stood at Christmastime alight with old decorations in a nightime fairyland. I realized it was not a first time for me.
I wrote. . . .
I hear Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major and I yearn for a time I can see in my head. I am there in my hooped dress with cinched waist and I can see a swarthy looking, paunchy violinist (forgive me) bending close to the dancers. There is an ensemble but the violinist I can see expressly. Where is this taking place that it can move me to tears?
It’s not so much memory but participation, complete with all the emotion. Why does this move me so and why does it have power as if I am in it now? Who was I and where was I and where am I traveling now when I hear it? No past or future, just eternal now?. . . .
The rest of the entry deals with various elements of time and intensity and psychic talents. Rich stuffs in explanation but having been clueless to this aspect with no one in my immediate circle versed in these subjects . If family has no knowledge or the subject taboo, where does the child go who only knows to be called weird or different? Ahhh you wondered why I obsess on this subject?
I still look for the date on which the following poem was written. The Europe business trips were in the ‘70’s. I posted this once in 2015 and a reader was overwhelmed with did it happen this way? Exactly.
I hope when one does not fit the outlines for normality, one will be given space for being unique with a welcome to this world. We all might learn something. Parents and siblings especially.
December Confirms The June Woman
It is June and I stand poised on the landing of the half circular staircase.
I am hearing the strains of the Canon not heard in this, my lifetime. Shocked still, caught in the shadows of half remembering and yet reluctant to confront the shaded memories, I wait.
She is visible, the young woman gliding with joy to the music which carried her down the long hall. She curtsies to the throngs lining the great walls.
I stand, not moving. Her joy is mine, translating to an emptiness in my heart. The tears scald my cheeks and the rest solidify in a mass in my throat. I cannot swallow. I am in danger from within and without.
II
It is now December. I am before an ancient building in a city bearing her years gracefully. The snow is circling my feet and the wind is freezing my eyes. I am rooted to this spot. The air is ringing with the sounds of holiday; lights flicker their ritualistic colors in harmony. Yet I stand immobile.
On the second floor of the ancient building, caught in the winter of my memories, I see the long hall stretching before me. The strain and refrains of the Canon carry the young one still, waltzing yet. The violins smooth the way for her memories to be built The red vests of the rotund violinists complement in contrast their black , slicked hair. They bend and bow in homage. Their music locks her destiny forever.
My eyes are again in danger, this time of freezing in their sockets with the salted tears that cannot stop. The memory does not move, not to one side nor the other. My will forces my eyes to play again what can only be seen in my throbbing head. Courted through centuries with great care to remain hidden. I unwittingly jarred the box housing those memories.
In retrospect, I was ready. It was my time. I turned away shaken and knowing,
She was a friend of the boys and came to share her grief with life; an aspiring legal mind that looked to reason the why of it all. She asked in despair, why did you settle for so little?
Words escaped me because life had given me so much. Yet her question haunted me all these years as I struggled with it. The question, unsatisfied with my answers, kept returning.
Have I lived a substitute life the erstwhile minds labeled, by allowing others to shine? That deserves its own essay with arguments.
How to evaluate others’ perspectives fairly without the ability to see behind their eyes? How to gauge the value of what I would have missed, taken other than the path destined? Big questions that deserve consideration.
I listened and watched for full impact of President Obama’s speech in Pennsylvania. His words impaled my skull. No, he said, we weren’t completely successful, but we made conditions better. I paraphrase because this is what I needed to hear.
And this, in my endtimes is what I struggle with. One would think that after a lifetime of hard trying one would have something, a tangible something to hold in one’s hands. But the prior President’s words were meaningful as he gave hope to the community workers needing guidance.
My teachers say it may not be in our lifetimes that we see the success of what we do completed. What has given me motivation and hope to keep on keeping on have been lives of great dedication to those values of mind. They have been a testimony to the commitment and devotion not only to intangible values but to humanity.
We are a country of immigrants granting second chances. We don’t junk humans. Even in our common singular lives we have many of those chances to better all lives we touch. It is not the road most traveled and it is not easy, but to make better is what should be our intent.
Perhaps teaching our young to persevere with good intent is to benefit the All, which is Life. Success is perhaps like this. . .my inlaw mother calling to me as she drew last breaths and took my hand. She lifted my fingers with a kiss to them. . . . and I knew she was grateful I was in her life.
For over a half century I tried. Easy, of course not with almost a century of rock driven issues for her to peace. The mills of the gods grind slowly. But her next borning in whatever world will be with an eager leap.
When we help to make better. . .Conscious Evolution with thanks to Dr. Jonas Salk. . . with love.
Much crowds my head and I would wish to put it out like a grand buffet. But it would bring dyspepsia for the majority and who would turn away. But life is a balanced judgment. We seem to be fed what we need and purposely not what we want. And that is where good judgment is balanced.
This poem came from June ’93 journal and written in November 2013. It was meaningful to me then and meaningful now. It is something we as God Participants can do. As mothers and fathers we can love the children and feed them those things that will provide nourishment for growth in a world we cannot imagine.
The poet, Kahlil Gibran called people Earth Gods. I scribed from the Teachers that we are God Participants. Mother God, Father God, love your children and prepare them for the world when you send them out the front door without your shepherding.
It is the only gift that matters, for you will have given the best of who you both are.
A Cosmic Prayer for Mankind
We would wish for much. We would wish for the sublime love that was preached from every mountaintop.
We would wish for a mother’s love to be there for the infant and the father’s hand to caress the brow of every child.
We would wish for peace within the human psyche and learning to be brought to the dinner table and the breakfast table everytime. And love to be served as the main course.
It is much that we wish for; much that we yearn for. But peace is designed for the human in mind from birth to the grave.
Since I know that no steps are skipped in Evolution, lest we have gaps in behavior even more difficult than what we see, I admit to fatigue as the years encroach. Coming to mind from a time past is our eldest as he waited for his father to drive him to the train back to Chicago. His words still echo in me. ‘You must get very tired waiting for all of us to catch up to you,’ he said. Taken by surprise I murmured something but what? Was I so easy for him to read? To this day my one regret is not being able to convince those I love most.
At the time this poem was written (journal entry, December, 2015) I had finished Michael Talbot’s Holographic Universe. Affirmation, verification, understanding all plied their substance as I approached my 85 years. How much of everything is illusion, how much gravity filled draining away, siphoning of matter because of our Earth Hostess? And I, with a foot in another world, lived it every minute with a paper trail.
How much of everything, life itself, is lived in the head? All of it or much and neatly done but tiring if one is not a ‘walk through.’ The only way to make it count is to take it seriously and play it for real. Else the quagmire deepens and stagnation results and we are still on watch.
The Sound Loaf
Evolution or God
(perhaps one and the same)
finely grinds the meal ever so slowly,
while I cannot breathe with the dust in the air. But there will one day be understanding with the digestion of the bread. . . . The wholeness of the grain so nicely baked till the hollow sound is heard when tapped gives credence to the sound loaf.
I can no longer wait for it all to cool. It has taken far too long for this bread to be made and yet still to be digested.
The bellies are still immature for whole grain. Pablum is the mushed cereal of sort for feeding infants too long in the pram. I suffered the parents to grow up
(Of late my head has too many ideas wanting a voice, even when I sit and want to write a simple catch up note. The Muses, or my Spirit Within or God About seize the moment and wish it learned. . .so Jane, here is the letter I meant to send. . . )
Jane, how can I at 89 be running late for anything? But I have just finished dinner for son John and I or is it John and me?
First off I made a good meal. We had a hot bird in the fridge so I pieced small cubes of the chicken and sautéed them in butter. Cooked some rice and made a tossed salad. Simple? It is when you put the rice in a bowl and your salad over the rice and spoon the chicken pieces over all. Then put your dressing of choice over all. We like Italian dressing since it only needs a simple dressing.
I learned late how to use and when to use leftovers. The dinner today is simple but all the ingredients were fresh. And when you cook simple you need fresh. Old leftovers require acrockpot or pressure cooker to make yesterday taste like new thought.
You would see the sense in that. Son John found unbelievable cherry tomatoes . They are about 1 inch size, like an iron alle. Growing up with brothers, I knew iron allies. You bite into the tomatoes and get a surprise. Crisp and juicy and tomatoee. I almost ate the whole package.
I also wash and dry Romaine lettuce and put into towel lined plastic container in fridge. Crisping clean it tears into pieces and our Newfie breathes heavy hoping for his pieces.
You guess I make even lettuce a spiritual exercise? My eldest says I make vacuuming one. But it is the difference between just eating with no memory of either the meal or the people or making it a nurturing event for the cook and all.
You know my thoughts on putting heart into your work. I have seen where it makes a difference to the ones sitting to a meal prepared with love and respect for food and the farmers who have dedicated lives producing it. All deserve those thoughts in mind. It shows even in the way we serve food.
We can fill plates with indifference; no thought and it makes me sad to say this, disdain or carelessness, because such feelings would make the sensitive ill. There would be some who say I read too much into this and make drama. . . but I would have to excuse myself because to be sick at the table is too much evidence.
I will talk one day of our best gourmet dinner of beans and frankfurters and why it was and give the necessary evidential. Simple? You bet. Good? Extraordinary. I will take it to the next address in my memory bank. But I will leave you the shortbread recipe. . . .
Conclusions are reached by methodical circumcision. We cut apart our hearts and yield what we can.
*****
There will always be those things which cost dearly and have no remunerative value. They may be outside our frame of reference but are recognized when the time is right. Then you know you have paid dearly and given the full litre of blood.
*****
In the place where we rest, bless the multitudes for they know not what they do, let alone what they say.
*****
The amount of teaching that has gone on in this vestibule of the church of Man has been enormous. Pray that the learning takes.
*****
Too many people act with instinct without considering the source of that instinct. What was once appropriate and serviceable, is no longer.
*****
Instinct is a precarious word and human balance should not rest on the word ‘precarious’
*****
Nature’s balance is such that never is a dream dreamed without the ability to put it into motion.
*****
Life in a crucible is life in human form.
*****
The look of innocence is the state of shock; that level where the soul has rested, the mind has stopped pursuing and spirit dares not delve further.
*****
Timing is of the essence. You cannot pull a tulip out of the ground nor can you force the petals of the rose to unfold with your own hands. Of their own accord and in their own timing, they will.
The Jenny Genes are rightly sometimes a curse as well as blessing. It drives this writer to despair when the right word evades and the curse begins its perseverance work on me. And search I do for the precise word. For there is of course we think a precise word for everything. We search through the day and half the night compelling the word appear. Eventually we give up and lo! The imprecise simple one is used and the heavens moan in relief. And so the reader leaves the dictionary lay where it is. We all take victories where we can.
The Right Words. . .
She said the right words to the beloved.
Suck the fear out of it; it is the only way to go.
Because every morning throughout the world,
man does his ablutions in the privacy of the bush,
in the privacy of his very expensive room,
or in a modest place wherever he lives.
And hopes he releases his fear before
he appears to face beloveds and the day
overtakes him, leaving him soiled.
He whispered,. . . that is the way it is. . .
suck the fear out of it.
I don’t want a dead bird hanging
around my neck for the rest of eternity.
There is no final place but a place of becoming.
Nine years ago, when I was 80, a grandson said I should do a blog. Not knowing what a blog was, he proceeded to teach me. This perennial student did not want to disappoint the good teacher. Edited here is one of the early posts where I try to explain my views. For those who missed the first years I hope this helps to understand from where I come.
On Connections
‘This is an idea spoken of since man first began to think about the purpose of life. Or perhaps his purpose on this planet. It deals with the idea that every thing is connected throughout the Ethers. That nothing happens in and of itself but is the result of an action happening because of a previous action elsewhere. However long ago. Our purpose, however wrought with meaning as we think or not, is the result of perhaps a stone let loose on some distant hill, rolling and crashing onto a field. The storm in the night is the result perhaps of an argument lamenting the arduous activity of sea lions in some obscure waters. The idea remains cleverly innate in heads looking for reasons to believe that of itself nothing exists. We are connected, one to another and one event tied us tightly to all of life. It is with this idea in mind that this poem came to be.’
Because I Know. . . .
I see worlds in motion taking a portion of each one’s talent for their own survival.
This is what I do with my hands.
This motion of knitting yarns to form a piece of world to fit the mind of an elusive soul.
See here, I, content in what I do. I free a soul to do the Great God’s bidding in keeping a world in motion.
See again. . . I give of my Self in this time, to free an Other to build what may be the perfect Universe or many.
So content that this time is mine to see a great plan, a strategy, yet unheard. It may not be for centuries that
that my knitting fingers will alert the senses of a soul to keep in motion a Life, a Being, an Idea.
Sit here with me. . .and show my hands what to do and they will do. The task so simple will gather other talents and make for itself the grand design, futures down the line.
A bidding, the nature of what has never been seen before. I know it and because I know
Only with deeper understanding is there any basis for understanding.
*****
To love oneself presumes a selfishness man cannot abide in himself.
*****
Yet to be selfish presents an attitude of self acceptance, of tolerance that can only begin to be outward in the employment of attitude toward one’s neighbor, the Other.
*****
Unless emotional excesses, like ancient affronts are released, they will continue to be genetically transmissible.
*****
The split in man is so dichotomous, that his life is one mass of contradictions.
*****
When advancing age stiffens the limbs and makes the mind less elastic, we will find the inner ear listening to what the heart stirs.
*****
To say it is mine to do and do it is to take the bull by the horns. And to say I will take responsibility for it is to tame the bull.
*****
Where will the young generation turn if not to those who pride themselves that their advancing years have brought a degree of wisdom?
*****
Who is going to teach when all about are denying that they are getting older, never mind wiser?
*****
Why is it considered cool to say you ‘know nothing’ when your body shouts your age to say you should have learned something?
*****
When our years pile upon us, why do we feel embarrassed when our experience has taught and we learned from it, to say ‘this I know.’
****
The persuasive voice is well trained to manipulate. Today we call it selling.
This has been a hard year for all with unavoidable obstacles. We have wondered together if there would be Light beckoning to grant some reprieve during these holy days and holiday season. There was and is but we do not let up on our vigil until given word it is so. 
