After Irene

Here’s a personal photo posted on FaceBook from a friend in our former New Jersey neighborhood, of her back yard.

Janet Reid posted pictures of The Catskills, where we went for our honeymoon, 31 years ago.

Earlier this year, the news in Oregon was full of flooding in the Northwest from the heavy rains. As I’ve followed various weather reports this year, one fact continues to come to my attention about the anomalies, “on record since 1895, as far back as the data goes.” This means the current weather patterns may be normal and part of a natural cycle unknown to city planners and farmers across the country.

In eastern Oregon the smoke from surrounding fires is thick enough to burn eyes and close roads. Lightning strikes started 36 fires in one night and some are still burning out of control. Mother Nature will do her thing.

Yet, the big news in our family is – our grandsons got a new cat, a niece left for college in New Orleans, and one of our busy daughters is surprised there’s a three day weekend in honor of Labor Day. Apparently it’s an annual event.

This Labor Day weekend send compassionate thoughts to all those who labor around the world in the aftermath of natural events.

the make believe challenge

The make believe agenda surrounds us. The news of the recent earthquake on the east coast of the USA was reported as horrific as the one in Japan on 3/11/2011. Many will consider Hurricane Irene following so closely behind the quake as an apocalyptic event where humans are victims.  Others will promote it as part of a paradigm shift for humans to evolve into creators.

A different type of news story concerns how the Texas DOT believed the slogan for their anti-litter campaign was good enough to trademark. Now the T-DOT is suing for using that slogan as a title of a romance novel as it will confuse readers looking for maps. Here’s the link to Barnes & Noble for Christie Craig’s book, “Don’t Mess with Texas”.  Be warned, it’s a fun and sexy read which aroused the ire of the DOT and prompted the suit.

On Tuesday I watched the video of Michael Hyatt interviewing Rachelle Gardner and I liked their answers to authors who believe their books are direct messages from God. These two Christian publishing professionals are very respectful of spiritual channels and believe God’s message is in all the books they publish. Choices are made for which God channeled message will appeal to readers.

One challenge of Mercury retrogrades is we’re encouraged to consider what to believe and how to make others get our point. According to ASTROMARK we are also wandering in a Neptune retrograde that is prompting a life review back to 1998 and this will flavor our thoughts through spring of 2012.

Attending the Madras Air Show is our plan this weekend. The event last year was nostalgic and significant to Ed and I on so many levels I could write a book about it. I did feel I should write books about my life events since 1997. I made myself believe that all the dramas and challenges were research for the benefit of readers and once I got to the happy ending I’d get the point.

I believe numbers give me messages and the recent 333′s made me contemplate what decisions to make. I realized I was ambivalent about many things. Each required clarifying the choice, considering the potentials, and being open to messages. The first was – no more memoirs. One’s enough. It feels good to decide all that research since 1997 applies to my life journey, not a chronological book. Few readers would be able to swim through all the characters and layers even if I could make it beneficial for them to try.

Other choices related to my novel, my business, my energy, my future, and my personal relationships. The benefit of reviewing even the most mundane choice is to know why it is the right choice for me. Once I understood to believe in the choices I make – I saw 444 “You have just completed an important phase.” 

Have a great weekend!

too much summer

When I set up my writing goals schedule earlier this year (you all do that, right?), I included buffer time for unplanned events. What I forgot to consider was the rarity of awesome weather to kayak. This is an activity I could do daily and am often tempted to consider whole days and weeks dedicated to exploring river after river, across states, and even hauling my gear past waterfalls or rapids.

But, alas, I prefer my creature comforts of a bed, kitchen, and hot water. I am currently content to paddle around an inland lake that only lifts the 5 mph/no wake restrictions between July 4th and Labor Day. This means I can only have waves crashing over my bow, and surf the wakes of speed boats, for a few weeks a year.

These are the same weeks when community events, county fairs, neighborhood potlucks, family vacations, and annual airshows are also scheduled. I’m also intrigued by friends who’ve decided to renew their skills canning fresh fruit and others who explain how to hand crank the most amazing ice cream. (A bottle of wine helps this cranking process.)

Crafts and careers, reading and resting, have taken a back seat in my schedule for these weeks. Yes, I am on track with my edits and rewrites because I can see a writers life does resemble a farmer in that there are tasks to be done daily regardless of the calendar. All the single-purpose machines on acres of land are dedicated to the harvest. I’m a bit amazed at the details, and time and variances, to produce a bale of hay that will be consumed within hours and become cow-patties.

Not that I am seeing all my efforts to create good books as potential cow shit but…  Was that a good use of ellipses?  I’ll have to ask my grammar maven critique partner.

I’m just sayin’ that my dedication to introspective blog posts is a bit thin right now. The next two week include the anniversary of my daddy’s death (6 years) and our wedding anniversary ( 31 years).  For both events I will be celebrating the what has been and the history of who I am today. Then I will stride forth with new goals. September has always been my new year, even though I’m not associated with the school schedule any more. Annual habits and routines are hard to break.

This year I’ve been creating new patterns and though they do operate on the calendar, and include schedules and goals, I’m excited for the future. All the doom and gloom I’ve listened to regarding retirement finances and global politics is interesting. My sister Rose just enjoyed a family vacation where nine adults and four babies were in one house for a week. They called it fun, even though Rose had a broken foot.

And the primary point of this ramble is – I’m going to live my life with joy even if all I produce in the end is cow patties.

seaside and sunset

 I love Newport so we took our grandson there for a few days. This is him taking a picture of the bridge from the deck of our room on Yaquina Bay. We climbed both lighthouses, toured the NOAA science center and the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

We ate clam chowder and amazing seafood at Mo’s and watched the sea lions sunbathe on the docks beside the seafood processing plants.

It was Devon’s first trip to Newport and Ed and I enjoyed a lot of activities we would not have experienced without an 8-yr-old grandson. He had a boredom scale with 10 being really bored and 1 being not bored at all.

Most activities outside of the truck rated 2 to -5 on that scale. However, it may take a week for us grandparents to recover from so much fun.

Fortunately we were able to sit quietly while Devon happily played in the dunes at the beach.

Taking a pause from our routines and schedules is always good for gaining a new perspective on how we spend our time and energy, especially when introducing a child to the wonders of the world. I’ve been inspired by many things in recent weeks and have fun stories to tell in future blogs.

But for now I’ll just share one of my favorite sights because it is rare for the marine layer to be so thin…

double digits

On 8-8-11. We returned from a week of summer fun and I did the number-letter exercise. My name resonates to the number 8.

The Number 8 vibrates to the planet Saturn. It represents wisdom, learning through experience, stability, patience, and responsibility. 8 is also the number of financial security, caution, restriction, self-discipline and self-control. (Linda Goodman’s Star Signs p.190)

That doesn’t sound too fun but being practical and organized is one flavor of me that I enjoy. I took chapters of my memoir to edit and polish while on vacation. Some may applaud this discipline but I do it  because I love the books I am creating and I always have a quiet hour or two before others wake in the morn.

The 8th House in an astrological chart represents -

Death and Inheritances, the Occult: Transformation of all kinds, regeneration, sexuality, taxes, death, psychic ability. (The Everything Astrology Book – Trish MacGregor c. 1999)

Some consider 8 as a hard number, and Saturn is referred to as the greater Malefic. Jokes about death and taxes have a helpless flavor. The lesson for those who vibrate to the energy of 8 (and Saturn) is to learn that the pursuit of happiness is not a sin.

8 is also the symbol of eternity, the snake eating its tail. Like the number 3, 8 has the mirror message of as-above-so-below. 3 has an open space for the flow of communication, creativity and compassion. The shape of 8 is continuous and contained.

Our cat Pele, named for the volcano goddess, symbolized my entry into the animal dimension. An outdoor cat, Pele perches on fence posts as a feral hunter. The rare times she is content to curl in a lap, her purring is like diesel engine.

Pele instantly bonded with our golden retriever, Amber, who made the move with us to Oregon. Pele teased and taunted our lab, Rainier. Pele herded the three ducks around our yard and pitied the rabbit kept in a hutch. Pele had conversations with the Arabian, Wildfire, because Pele had the job of clearing moles from the pasture and mice from the grain bin.

I expect Pele will be gone one day, with no fanfare. She’s already granted us 14 years of duty to our home and family.  But she has no jobs anymore or other animals to harass or protect. She will never be a pampered indoor cat because the essence of Pele is not as a quilt. She is a cat with a mission and sharpens her claws to complete it, she meows to come in to eat, then meows to return to her nature space.

Totally black without a spot of anything but dirt to mar her fur, Pele is the picture of an occult familiar and never ventures away from her home. If cats have 9 lives it means they do the regenerate exercise 8 times before they get it right.

When Pele didn’t appear when we returned from our vacation, and I noticed the date, I wondered if I’d associate the double 8 with her death, but no, shortly before midnight she returned, proclaiming loudly that she wanted to eat.

I’ve noticed a lot of 8′s recently and we have scheduled excursions with our 8-yr-old grandson the rest of this week. This grandparent-grandchild is the more important example of the dual image of 8 because it is a love relationship and the single point of connection is the parent in the middle.

the 3 thing

I’ve written 333 posts and decided that’s a significant number to note.   Except I noted it then went to bed and forgot about it.

On Tuesday, Mercury stationed to turn retrograde until the 26th, and the weather was gorgeous so I chose outdoor tasks of trimming and watering the flowers, washing my car and the lawn chairs. As I spruced up my yard I was thinking about one of the vignettes in my memoir that’s not working, and I was meal planning for upcoming events. Later I did errands; bought toner for my printer, returned library books, and purchased items for those meals.

On my way home, I stopped in the left turn lane (two lanes turn left) and there were two cars already waiting at the red light. I love to play the license plate game and have developed a personal shorthand for what the numbers mean and what the letters represent. The car in front of me had 733 on the license plate then I noticed the car in the next lane also had 733. I was stunned. I’ve never had identical numbers next to each other like that and I decided my shorthand interpretation of number messages may not be enough. There was nothing else, make, model or color, about the cars that was similar.

My favorite reference book about numbers is Linda Goodman’s Star Signs, Copyright 1987. This book also contains an alpha numeric key for what number is associated to a specific letter according to ancient Chaldean-Kabala system.

I plugged in the numbers for the letters that were also on those license plates and the three letters BND & CCX, both add to 11. So, the identical message was 733 11. This made it more fun to research and play with numbers and letters, and surreal as 33′s kept popping up. If anyone has insights or ideas about this double 733 11 – feel free to share.

Then I remembered the 333 blog posts and I checked a cheat sheet on the message behind triples.  333 = Decision number. Time to make a decision.

I have lots of decisions to make and every choice has layers which means a little decision I make could become a big deal. Or what seems like a big decision might really be a little step (or left turn) on the overall journey of my life.

For your own fun, here’s the letter-to-number association with the planetary vibration:

A I J Q Y – are # 1 – Sun

B K R – are # 2 – Moon

C G L S –  are # 3 – Jupiter

D M T – are # 4 – Uranus

E H N X – are # 5 – Mercury

U V W – are # 6 – Venus

O Z – are # 7 – Neptune

F P – are # 8 – Saturn

The number 9 is not used so the energy of Mars is not aligned to any letters. And, the ancients obviously knew that Pluto is not a planet.

Also note:  W W W  = 6 6 6  (World Wide Web = mark of the devil)

Passions Run Amuck

I thought I was showing my age or Midwest upbringing by choosing the AMUCK word for the title but it’s a variant of the word AMOK which means: a murderous frenzy that has traditionally been regarded as occurring especially in Malaysian culture.

Almost every thing I read or hear has this amok flavor right now, whether it is about politics or publishing. I’ve heard about personal confrontations, fights against bad business practices, and neighborhoods divided. I’ve even been accused of ignorance for not avidly following the latest frenzy on the news.

Family friends returned this week after living in Maidenhead (near London) for three years and three months. The two girls are now eight and five, with British accents and strong relationships with their fathers family who are scattered around England and Switzerland.

The parents wanted to broaden their girls cultural horizons and nurture long distance relationships. Now in Oregon, the parents priorities are to find jobs and prepare the girls for school. They will avoid the national news for a few weeks even though the USA is under another financial crisis.  Their home, left behind for this adventure, is fine though the weeds have run amuck in the yard as the renters left three months earlier.

My sister Rose sent me this New York Times link about how Israeli women are running amuck and smuggling Palestinian women through the country for a day at the beach, a great meal, and the opportunity to smoke in public.

Ms. Aharoni was asked her thoughts. She replied: “For 44 years, we have occupied another country. I am 53, which means most of my life I have been an occupier. I don’t want to be an occupier. I am engaged in an illegal act of disobedience. I am not Rosa Parks, but I admire her, because she had the courage to break a law that was not right.”

The influence of Rosa Parks is rippling through the women of Israel and Palestine, 56 years later. This is an example of the butterfly effect as it is not limited to time and space.

Change is often resisted because there is comfort in the status quo. Change is what gives us life experiences that become the seeds for wisdom and joy. A desire for change can unleash all kinds of wild passions and they will run amuck for a time.

I’m going to return to my writer cave and contemplate how high school musicals and the disco craze made an impact on my life in the ’70′s…