Happy New Year!!

May those who love us, love us.

And those who don't love us,

May God turn their hearts;

And if He doesn't turn their hearts,

May He turn their ankles,

So we will know them by their limping.

~~~

Haste ye back, we loue you dearly,
Call again you're welcome here.
May your days be free from sorrow,
And your friends be ever near.
May the paths o'er which you wander,
Be to you a joy each day.
Haste ye back we loue you dearly,
Haste ye back on friendship's way.

~ Scottish blessing

~~~

As we start the New Year,

Let's get down on our knees to thank God we're on our feet.

-Irish wisdom

May the Lord keep you in his hand and never close his fist too tight on you. And may the face of every good news and the back of every bad news be toward us in the New Year. -Irish toast

Quarks and Bees and Cosmic Dances

I don't pretend to understand this fully, but how wonderful! The well-known honey dance of the honeybee is found to interact with quantum fields. What if the common little brown honeybee held the earth together?
From neuroquantology.com

QUOTE Shipman is not, however, content to play Kepler. "You can look at this idea and say, `That's a nice geometric description of the dance, very pretty,' and leave it like that," she says. "But there is more to it. When you have a physical phenomenon like the honeybee dance, and it follows a mathematical structure, you have to ask what are the physical laws that are causing it to happen."At this point Shipman departs from safely grounded scholarship and enters instead the airy realm of speculation. The flag manifold, she notes, in addition to providing mathematicians with pure joy, also happens to be useful to physicists in solving some of the mathematical problems that arise in dealing with quarks, tiny particles that are the building blocks of protons and neutrons. And she does not believe the manifold's presence both in the mathematics of quarks and in the dance of honeybees is a coincidence. Rather she suspects that the bees are somehow sensitive to what's going on in the quantum world of quarks, that quantum mechanics is as important to their perception of the world as sight, sound, and smell. UNQUOTE

Yuletide!

"WINTER GIFT" by Julia Helen Jeffrey
*********
I am the Christmas Spirit
That comes with the end of December:
A winter solstice spell, perhaps,
When people forget to remember –
The drab realities of fact,
The cherished hurt of ancient wrongs,
The lonely comfort of being deaf
To human sighs and angel’s songs.
Suddenly, they lose their minds
To heart’s demands and beauty’s grace;
And deeds extravagant with love
Give glory to the common place.

--Anthony F. Perrino

A Light Will Shine

So here's the story of the day ~ at bottom, the true meaning of the holiday season and of the rebirth of light in a darkened world. Merry Christmas to all, and may God bless us, every single one.

From Boston.com
17 year old boy drives to a stranger's house every night to carry their son with cerebral palsy up the stairs to his bedroom because the parents can't.

Cute Overload Day

It's cute overload day at TRT! Hat tip to Rachael Garver for this one.

Debby Cantlon, who plans to release Finnegan, the young squirrel, back into the wild, bottle-fed the infant squirrel after it was brought to her house
When Cantlon took in the tiny creature and began caring for him, she found herself with an unlikely nurse's aide: her pregnant Papillion, Mademoiselle Giselle.

Finnegan was resting in a nest in a cage just days before Giselle was due to deliver her puppies. Cantlon and her husband watched as the dog dragged the squirrel's cage twice to herOwn bedside before she gave birth.

Cantlon was concerned, yet ultimately decided to allow the squirrel out and the inter-species bonding began.

Finnegan rides a puppy mosh pit of sorts, burrowing in for warmth after feeding,Eventually working his way beneath his new litter mates.

Two days after giving birth, mama dog Giselle allowed Finnegan to nurse; family photos and a videotape show her encouraging him to suckle alongside her litter of five pups.
Now, Finnegan mostly uses a bottle, but still snuggles with his 'siblings' in a moshpit of puppies,Rolling atop their bodies, and sinking in deeply for a nap.

Finnegan and his new litter mates, five Papillion puppies, get along together as if they were meant to.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Keep loving everyone, even the squirrelly ones.

~~~

What About Bradley Manning?

What with all the attention on Julian Assange the past few weeks, people generally just forget that young Bradley Manning (traitor or hero depending on how you look at the world) is cooling his heels in a federal jail cell. Which is fine unless the hero faction is correct, as I contend, then it becomes problematic.

If Tom Paine was alive today he'd be a Julian Assange. If John Adams was alive today, he'd be a Bradley Manning.

Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com writes:

Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a "Maximum Custody Detainee," the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.
From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every
day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including
even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on
suicide watch).

This is especially distressing since the consensus in the psychological world is that long-term solitary confinement is indeed a potent form of torture.

It's one thing to impose such punitive, barbaric measures on convicts who have proven to be violent when around other prisoners; at the Supermax in Florence, inmates convicted of the most heinous crimes and who pose a threat to prison order and the safety of others are subjected to worse treatment than what Manning experiences. But it's another thing entirely to impose such
conditions on individuals, like Manning, who have been convicted of nothing and have never demonstrated an iota of physical threat or disorder.

ibid.

Daniel Ellsberg, in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now last week, said:

The fact is that what Lamo reports Manning is saying has a very familiar and persuasive ring to me. He reports Manning as having said that what he had read and what he was passing on were horrible -- evidence of horrible machinations by the US backdoor dealings throughout the Middle East and, in many cases, as he put it, almost crimes. And let me guess that -- he’s not a lawyer, but I'll guess that what looked to him like crimes are crimes, that he was
putting out. We know that he put out, or at least it's very plausible that he put out, the videos that he claimed to Lamo. And that's enough to go on to get them interested in pursuing both him and the other.And so, what it comes
down, to me, is -- and I say throwing caution to the winds here -- is that what I've heard so far of Assange and Manning -- and I haven't met either of them --
is that they are two new heroes of mine.

-Daniel Ellsberg

Bradley Manning Defense Fund

Stand With Brad.org

Seth Martin of Iraq Veterans Against the War, writes:

In the film "District 9," a scandal erupts over South Africa's mistreatment of a community of oppressed extraterrestrials. The man who first discovers the truth is made the target of a nationwide manhunt, accused of having sex with aliens and said to be contagious. Later, a young contractor who exposes said truths to the public is arrested and thrown into prison. While that film is known for its sci-fi backdrop, the portrayal of justice and power it provides is eerily contemporary. Julian Assange is accused of sex without a condom, and at least one of his accusers suspected to have CIA ties.

Bradley Manning, on the other hand, is awaiting court-martial and faces up to 52 years in prison. As an enlisted soldier, he will be tried not by a jury of his peers, but by a jury of officers, thereby giving him a far slimmer chance of receiving a fair trial.

It is chilling to consider that, if we in America had reacted to pro-accountability leaks in the past the way we do today, Daniel Ellsberg would likely be in prison. So might those who reported the scandal at Abu Ghraib. Do we want to be the country that promises free-speech, except for those who speak uncomfortable truths? Do we truly want to be the Land of the Free (with Caveats)? Do we want to send the message that those who reveal high-level malfeasance are not heroes to be lauded, but criminals to be hunted down and punished?

For my country's sake, and the sake of all who would speak truth to power, I hope not.

US and China Conspired to Abort Copenhagen Climate Summit

Thank you WikiLeaks. From Speigel Online:

QUOTE Although the US signed the protocol, it never ratified it. As such, the Chinese and the Americans can continue polluting at will. Meanwhile European nations will have to cut their energy consumption. They, therefore, fought for a new agreement in Copenhagen, one that would tie the United States, China and newly-industrialized nations India and Brazil to specific emission-reduction targets. UNQUOTE

Ticktock, ticktock, Karma's a bitch. She's riding Binky into town and carrying a satchel full of toxic emissions with little American and Chinese flags stuck to them.
Jaysus.

There Oughta Be A Law

Oh wait. There is, it just is being selectively enforced. From The Huffington Post comes a tale of robosigners, wrongful foreclosures and how very hard they are to get resolved properly. Big banks run amok. Yes there is legal recourse but at huge cost and for those who have done NOTHING wrong, a huge unjust burden that is neither democratic nor American in the classic sense of the word.

It is oppressive, autocratic abuse of the citizenry. It is subversive of true law and order. Be sure and click on over to read it all, comments too.

Must-read comment by Reader Mrbadexample:

QUOTE Everyone needs to keep this meme in mind when reading these stories--These are the stories we're hearing about. These are the stories where a wronged homeowner was able to scrape together a retainer for an attorney and fight the bank. In most cases, the bank is able to bully the homeowner into some sort of settlement­. This is regardless of whether the bank is at fault in the first place. Friends involved in litigation with the bank that issued their mortgage found the bank had forged documents in their applicatio­n file. Their attorney acknowledg­ed that this should be a slam-dunk of a case for a court, but the bank would try to run them out of money--it would take upwards of $20,000 up front to pursue it and it would be two or three years out of their lives. They settled. This sort of behavior is Exhibit A of why Elizabeth Warren's Banking Consumer group was set up. And it's Exhibit A of why the new Congress will do everything they can to defund her. UNQUOTE

Happy "World Press FreedomDay"

From our sister blog, Wonkette (I am a proud 'wonkette' myself)comes this story of Orwellian nuance and impact: QUOTE The United States, which is currently engaged in a complete war against some weird guy with a website, is going to host “World Press Freedom Day,” the Department of State announced today. They’re all especially excited about protecting the flow of digital news, which is why Washington is “concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.” LOL. This is the same Department of State (and Justice Department and Pentagon and CIA and NATO and PayPal) trying everything to cut off WikiLeaks’ access to the Internet and its own money. UNQUOTE

Hey, how odd is that, 'National Corporatocracy Festival' and 'I Love Big Brother Long Time' Week are coming up too!

I HAZ TRAFFIC CAMS!

A WTF?- Inducing Glimpse of the Recent Past

Great Goddess Almighty, this is from when I was two years old. My mom was an avid magazine reader ~ it's highly likely she read this and tried to comply.
We have soooo much deprogramming to do.


see more Historic LOL

Greenwald's Analysis

From Salon's Glenn Greenwald comes the most light yet on this sturm und drang Wikileaks drama. It is a given that corruption, vice and abuses flourish in dark, musty corners; at least, that is the rationale given for putting a high wattage street light every 25 feet on our city streets - so when a light is shined on the backstage of the power brokers, no one should be surprised to see a few rats scuttle off. What is truly startling is the vehemence being poured on the man holding the flashlight. To me this further illustrates the need for the (male dominant) authoritarian paradigm to be replaced with a much more humane and feminine one.


QUOTE Simply put, there are few countries in the world with citizenries and especially media outlets more devoted to serving, protecting and venerating government authorities than the U.S. Indeed, I don't quite recall any entity producing as much bipartisan contempt across the American political spectrum as WikiLeaks has: as usual, for authoritarian minds, those who expose secrets are far more hated than those in power who commit heinous acts using secrecy as their principal weapon. UNQUOTE

Libertarian

It just makes sense.

In The Netherlands, Books For the Traveler

Of course, a library in an airport. How wonderful! The creative Dutch have done it again, and their practical approach to comforting travel-weary passengers stuck at the Amsterdam airport for hours and hours is alight in an otherwise dreary news day.

Most refreshing is the following: QUOTE Mr. van Tol shrugged that such hiccups were inevitable for a library that employs no permanent staff and whose only effort to discourage theft is a sticker on the cover of each book identifying it as part of the Airport Library collection.
“Trust is the basis of this project,” he said. “We are willing to take the risk of vandalism or that some books will disappear. But we think having security is much more expensive.” Since the airport opened in mid-July, he said, only about a dozen books have been lost. Many more have vanished temporarily, reappearing when travelers passed through the airport on their return journeys. UNQUOTE From The New York Times.

Be sure to click on over and read it all.

Tough Diagnosis

What happens to a society that cannot distinguish between reality and illusion? This is the question asked by author Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, is the author of several books including the best sellers War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

QUOTE And yet, even in the face of catastrophe, mass culture continues to assure us that if we close our eyes, if we visualize what we want, if we have faith in ourselves, if we tell God that we believe in miracles, if we tap into our inner strength, if we grasp that we are truly exceptional, if we focus on happiness, our lives will be harmonious and complete. This cultural retreat into illusion, whether peddled by positive psychologists, by Hollywood or by Christian preachers, is magical thinking. It turns worthless mortgages and debt into wealth. It turns the destruction of our manufacturing base into an opportunity for growth. It turns alienation and anxiety into a cheerful conformity. It turns a nation that wages illegal wars and administers offshore penal colonies where it openly practices torture into the greatest democracy on earth. And it keeps us from fighting back. UNQUOTE

Here's an interview from 2007 that can serve as a good introduction to the man and his work.

Happy Thanksgiving to All

I am so grateful for the love of family and friends, and as we sit down to a home-cooked love feast of all the classics (turkey with cornbread stuff enhanced with sage grown in our own garden, gravy and mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with pecans and brown sugar, green Bean mushroom casserole, 5 kinds of olives, 3 kinds of pies with wines and coffee and a sip of whiskey at the end) we send our warm wishes and love over the earth and pray it finds people whose day is a bit less cheerful. Peace, love and light to all the world.

Adam Sandler doing his tune :D "Fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong"

Sit back and listen to an American classic - Arlo Guthrie doing Alice's Restaurant.

"Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog."

My Reading List Gets Yet Another Title!

It sounds like perhaps in his new book, The God Theory, Bernard Haisch is picking up where De Chardin left off, all those years ago. They're talking about this over at Hubbert's Arms. My poor groaning bedside table. Sooo many books!

From the web site:

Somewhere between the hardcore reductionists who explain all things as merely the sum of their parts and greet every suggestion of spirituality with a sneer, and the unquestioning faithful who receive their beliefs full-blown from prophets and preachers, lie the skeptical but open-minded free thinkers curious to investigate their own nature and purpose in life. Are you one of them?

Readable and engaging… ways of reconciling science and religion. — Patricia Monaghan, American Library Association

A delightful romp through the labyrinths of philosophy, theology, and science.… very smart, very literary, very thrilling — a fine read. — Dr. Larry Dossey, author of Space, Time and Medicine

Whether one will agree or disagree, powerful arguments are presented for one to consider.— Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut Lunar Module Pilot

Bernard Haisch, an astrophysicist whose work has been reported in this magazine… also trained to be a priest, and this... is his attempt to reconcile his scientific knowledge with the idea of a purposeful universe.…Whether or not you agree, it's a compelling read.— Marcus Chown, New Scientist magazine

Don't Touch My Junk!

My 21-year old daughter is flying to see her sister's family this coming Thanksgiving weekend, and Mama ain't happy one little bit about the new TSA practices. An overdose of radiation with unknown health risks, OR behind the second door, a thorough groping. This video makes the point in a pretty funny way ~ please help it go viral!

Get yer dancin' shoes on. Don't Touch My Junk

Why Not Cure The Diseases?

As a 57-year old person who has arthritis, along with "borderline" elevated lupus and rheumatoid factors, I have some days every month with considerable pain in my joints, bones and tendons. Extensive testing (paid for out-of-pocket BTW, since DH (dear hubby) and I only carry major medical due to neither of us working for a large company)by a rheumatalogist showed no definite diagnosis other than osteoarthritis, and I walked out of the doctor's office with a prescription which "might damage your kidneys or liver" - this assuring that I would need to return to the rheumatologist every 3 months, and also visit the labs to make sure I wasn''t sailing headlong into kidney failure. Thus does the medical establishment "cure" its patients. (Hey, and I have barely even mentioned health insurance.)

From The Village Voice comes a timely read: The 5 Most Profitable Drugs: They Never Cure You

QUOTE Martin Kuehne, a chemist at the University of Vermont, is quoted in the story, saying, "Pharmaceutical companies don't like cures. Really, they don't -- that's the sad thing. They like treatment. Something for cholesterol or high blood pressure that you take for years and years, every day. That's where the profit is." UNQUOTE

Michael Moore's Sicko addressed this with real clarity. If you haven't seen it, click on over and check it out.

~~~

35th Anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald Sinking

29 crew and the Captain were lost in the raging swells of Lake Superior 35 years ago. Resquiat in Pacem.

From CNN: QUOTE"So you've got a grave marker there now," Farnquist said. "And the original bell, which is the soul of the ship and the voice of the men, was brought up and it gets tolled every year in the museum gallery for those that want to come and families that want to be close."
See all the men's names, jobs and hometowns
The bell is rung once for each man lost. As many as 10 family members are expected this year to step forward and sound the bell, Farnquist said.
"We helped bring closure, or as much closure as you can, to people who couldn't recover their loved ones -- sons, fathers, husbands, grandfathers and so on, who are still lying on that ship for eternity."UNQUOTE

November Comfort Foods

Here in Nebraska we get to enjoy all the sweaty humid bone-melting heat of a deep South summer, and winters not unlike those of our Canuck neighbors to the north, and if we're very very lucky, some nice weather come springs and autumns. It rarely is moderate, either blowing a gale or still; basements flooding, or a drought; AC on to bring it down to 80 in the house, or furnaces blazing away.

It is now beginning to get chilly and that means comfort food, Nebraska style. When our kids were in the local parochial school system, they'd come home several times a year saying they'd had "chili and cinnamon rolls", not a combination I would have ever thought of for sure. To me a cinnamon roll is Sunday brunch or maybe Saturday special breakfast treat, but in my PNW-raised world, it was confined rather rigidly to the breakfast menu. Just about everyone I know who went to school (public or parocial) in Nebraska says the same thing. The meal of chili and cinnamon rolls isn't just something we all have because we like it. It's also a reminder of childhood and simpler times. It is comfort food!

Swoof's Chili

1 eye of round roast (any cut will do, longer cooking negates the need for a tender piece of meat from the start) -

cut into small cubes

1 large onion - chopped

2 yellow chili peppers - diced

2 fresno peppers - diced

1 large bell pepper - diced

2 tbsp cumin

4 cloves garlic - minced

2 tbsp paprika

1 tbsp salt

1 can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce - chopped

1/2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

2 large cans of diced tomatoes

1/2 bottle of good beer, preferably brown ale or a decent lager like Sam Adams

Saute all peppers and onions over medium heat in a little oil while browning the beef in a separate pan. Add beef, chipotle peppers and sauce, beer and tomatoes to pepper and onions and add seasonings. Bring to boil and then simmer for awhile. Put it all in a crockpot and cook it as long as you'd like. The beef gets more tender the longer you cook it. You may add a can of pinto or kidney beans if you wish. (Beans optional.)

~~~

Apparently the Miller & Paines cinnamon roll recipe is still a secret, so here's a little touch of why finding it would be a good thing.

And, from Moms Who Think, 2 great cinnamon roll recipes, ready to go!

~~~

New Reality Global Meditation

On 11/11/11, please join in at 11:11 PM (or whenever you can) in visualizing world peace, ecological healing and perfect union of souls. A huge group meditation/contemplation/creative visualization that you are sure to love!

New Reality Transmission is an international team of mathmeticians and physicists who have been busy discovering underlying quantum unity along with their other work. Their discoveries have led to the project above, calling for a global transfiguration of consciousness to transfigure and heal reality.

Both Sides the Tweed

Dublin-born singer Mary Black

Being an American hybrid mutt, with genes from the north of England, Scotland, Eire, Germany, Yakama, Nez Perce and various Old Viking-days anonymous Scandinavians, I can resonate with any of them. This day my heart cries out for healing, both of our land and of our world ~ and also for various people and families I love who are in need of healing.

"Both sides the Tweed" is a re-working by singer Dick Gaughan of a traditional song from 1707 attributed to James Hogg about the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England. It is in contention for a new Scottish National anthem.

Both Sides the Tweed

What's the spring-breathing jasmine and rose ?
What's the summer with all its gay train
Or the splendour of autumn to those
Who've bartered their freedom for gain?

Let the love of our land's sacred rights
To the love of our people succeed
Let friendship and honour unite
And flourish on both sides the Tweed.

No sweetness the senses can cheer
Which corruption and bribery bind
No brightness that gloom can e'er clear
For honour's the sum of the mind

Let virtue distinguish the brave
Place riches in lowest degree
Think them poorest who can be a slave
Them richest who dare to be free

~~~~

Happy All Saints Day!

Today the western church celebrates the festive "church triumphant" ~ all the Saints in heaven, canonized and famous, or totally unheard of and unknown.

Those who have lived a life that grows in love, holiness and purity to the point that it is an icon of Christ and His Mother are the saints.

Celebrate them with much joy!

Sting sings Soul Cake "One for Peter, two for Paul, three for Him who made us all" (although it was originally a song for All Saints Day, not Yuletide!) http://www.youtube.com/watchv=OGe7LodVNBM

New Theory of Everything

If you have ever sat up reading books like God and the New Cosmology, The Tao of Physics or The Dancing Wu Li Masters, listen up. If you follow the attempts of certain physicists, in the off duty hours, to discover a theory beyond quantum physics, this might just be for you. It does bend my brain pretty far, but, hey, that's good for you!

The Theory - A soliloquy on the ultimate theory

The author, who writes the above blog anonymously, is presently a tenure-track Assistant Professor in a basic science department at a major medical school in the United States of America. He performed predoctoral studies in human molecular virology and cancer etiology, received his doctorate in yeast genetics, biochemistry and cell biology, and completed postdoctoral studies in fly biochemistry, molecular, cellular, and developmental biology in the late 20th century.
He has extensive experience in journal publishing, having authored or co-authored 16 peer-reviewed articles over the course of 15 years. He has also authored ~15 research grants over 12 years, 3 of which were awarded by the National Institutes of Health.

The Crone of Autumn

"Season of the Crone"Poem by Gerina Dunwitch

Crone of Samhain's spellbound cold,
in Her cauldron of black are told
secrets ancient, truths and tales:
mystery Her light unveils.
She is wisdom, She is changes:
time and space
She rearranges.
In Her hands, the card of Death,
for transformation is Her breath.
Crone of Samhain, Grandmother wise,
look into Her gargoyle eyes.
Let Her lessons teach you well:
life is but a magick spell.







"Samhain Goddess: The Crone" by
Arwens Grace (Angela Jayne Barnett)











Our modern-day Halloween celebration comes from the ancient Celtic holiday called Samhain (SOW-en). October 31 was the Celtic New Year's Eve, the end of the year. This is the time of the season which the Crone rules.The Crone is one aspect of the triple Goddess, made up of Maiden, and Mother and Crone. Essayist Christina Aubin says it is the Crone who "opens the Western gate for those who have departed to travel into Summerland. She rules areas of death and regeneration, occult sciences, healing, and the wisdom of the ages . . . . We use the Crone to assist us in transition from one life to the next, leaving one level of our existence and entering the next. This brings us into the Womb of the Mother to assist us in being reborn once again. For it is through Her Wisdom and guidance we learn lessons from experience past and begin life anew from the wisdom gained."



The Crone is known by many names. To the ancient Greeks, she was Hecate. With her black cloak whipping about her and her black dogs beside her, Hecate's territory was the wild night and the crossroads. She can manifest with three heads - lioness, mare and dog.
Cerridwen, "the bent white one", is a Welsh Crone Goddess. Cerridwen's name shows she's a moon-goddess. This Crone keeps the cauldron of inspiration and transformation. Into the cauldron the Crone throws many things, to mix and stew and come out changed.


The modern incomplete version of The Crone is the mean, ugly old witch flying on a broom stick across the moon. With her cackling laugh, her stringy gray hair, hairy chin and warts, she frightens children away. After all, isn't she the Hag with the poison apple?

Writer Scott Cunningham suggests we look at the "ugly" Witch figures as symbols of the Crone: "See the blackness of the clothing as the blackness of the sky during the waning moon. See the hat as a symbol of her life: as the Maiden at its brim, as the Mother at its midpoint, and finally as the Crone at its top. See the broom, if any, as a symbol of the Crone's ability to travel backward in time to retrieve of experience. Her white hair represents the moon. The cat is her companion, a minion of the night."Most importantly, see within that face—however disfigured it may seem to be—her determination and fire, her caring for her children, and the wisdom and strength that she's acquired. If it's green, see it as the green of the Earth, the coming fertility of the Maiden and the Mother that she'll bear anew at the first quarter of the moon."

I'm Back!

< Galway Bay

After a much-needed half year hiatus from blogging, I am back with the blogging-as-spiritual-practice-meme and I'm ready to go. One thing that I wish for and hope for is more readers and more input from the readers I have, so don't be shy ~ express yourself. I do need to moderate comments before I publish, however, a few jerks and spammers made that necessary. So if you don't see it up, just wait a half day or so and return, it should be there by then.

Themes for this season are Celtic and Native American art and spirituality, towards unity through peace and peace through unity.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Namaste ~

Deborah (also known in some circles as annieokra)

below: Cross at Saint Kevin's in Glendalough, County Wicklow

Solar Power Indeed

NASA warns solar flares from 'huge space storm' will cause devastation.
The Telegraph (UK)




Space weather 24/7



We've all now seen what happens when a single oil rig goes badly wrong, has anyone thought about the potential consequences of a solar flare wiping out the electronics of every single oil rig in the world, and most other electronics as well?





"The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley" - Robert Burns.





Here is an audio file of the flare from June 12, 2010. The "whoosh" is the solar flare.
~~~

Whistleblower in Jeapordy

Free Bradley Manning!
Wikileaks video leaker nabbed by creepy snitch
by Justin Raimondo, June 09, 2010 in AntiWar.com

We are coming to resemble the former Soviet Union, in which every whistlebower was seen as the enemy of the state, and to be silenced by any means necessary. America is hosting a nest of vipers, which needs to be routed out entirely, and many of them are in charge.

The Abominations of Greed and Hubris

From The Daily Beast comes a horrific compilation of photos of damage done to nature, sea and humanity by the BP oil catastrophe. You need to to see this. We must get off the junk, and we must do it now. We cannot poison our world.

Shame upon those who allowed such, beginning withourselves for not pushing harder to end the oil monopoly years ago. Shame on the government colluders and the corporate bean counters who ris e to great power on the broken backs of dead workers, wildlife and ways of life. Shame on BP, and shame on Tony Hayward, CEO of BP sold £1.4 million of his shares in his company shortly before the Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused its value to collapse. Shame.

~~~

The Green Fields of France (Willie McBride)

Memorial Day 2010

"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."



Do you know someone who needs to talk? Help is here:
Iraq Veterans Against the War

Daily Ben

Our Plan’s not to fix up the leak,
But to burnish BP’s green mystique,
Make sure you’re confused
While we keep you amused,
And hide that the prospects are bleak.
~~~
Ecology’s a useful tool,
Read up without going to school;
Only a fool
Thinks removing is cool
One leg from a three legged stool.
- Benjamin the Donkey
~~~

The Cult of Progress

What sort of world are we building for our great-grandchildren? What sort of life will they have and is the nature of our ecosystems being altered by our quest for "progress" to the point of no return, where it shall be unable to susatin life?
Why is the assumption that all technological invention is benign when it so very obviously is not? Why the blind eye turned to the suffering of organic life - plant, animal and human? Derrick Jensen's latest published in Orion magazine address these questions.

"Most people today have not awakened from the Cult of Progress. Even with the world being dismembered before their eyes, nearly all public figures continue to be members of this cult. The same is true for many nonpublic figures—for most of us—as we seem unquestioningly to presume that tomorrow’s progress will bring more good things to life, and will simultaneously solve the problems created by yesterday’s and today’s progress (without then creating yet more problems, as “progress” always seems to do)."
~ Dystopia, at LATOC
~~~
QUOTE In 1970 Lewis Mumford wrote, “The chief premise common to both technology and science is the notion that there are no desirable limits to the increase of knowledge, of material goods, of environmental control; that quantitative productivity is an end in itself, and that every means should be used to further expansion.” Mumford asked the same question that so many of us ask, which is, Why on earth would a culture do so many crazy, stupid, destructive things? His answer cuts through the typical cornucopian garbage: “The desired reward of this magic is not just abundance but absolute control.” Mumford knew—as we all do—that there was no hope in proceeding “on the terms imposed by technocratic society.” He didn’t think change would be easy, saying that it might take “an all-out fatal shock treatment, close to catastrophe, to break the hold of civilized man’s chronic psychosis.” He was not optimistic: “Even such a belated awakening would be a miracle.” UNQUOTE

The rest of the article here: High on Progress by Derrick Jensen from Orion magazine.
~~~

The Daily Ben 05/28/2010

I knew there was something amiss,

So I looked into the abyss;

Looked full in the maw,

Didn’t like what I saw

And returned to avoidance bliss.

---

You won’t need a tool for your Beemer,

Or even a Stanley Steamer;

If you should break a tool

In the age of no fuel

Just pick up the next handy femur.

~ Benjamin the Donkey

Our Daily Ben

We’re best psychologically suited

For tribal life which was uprooted;

But resources lack

When we devolve back.

Extinction is now undisputed.

It sure is a big f*cking ocean,

So stop making such a commotion;

Dispersant’s fine lotion,

Not poisonous potion....

(This bullsh*t might get me promotion!)

~ by Benjamin the Donkey

~~~

BP Oil Blowout

From AlterNet by Daniela Perdomo
10 Things You Need (But Don't Want) To Know About the BP Oil Spill
How the owner of the exploded oil rig has made $270 million off the disaster, and nine other shocking, depressing facts about the oil spill.

From AlterNet
Fishermen Hired by BP for Oil Clean Up Weren’t Provided Protective Equipment, Have Now Fallen Ill

Obama "Nobody's more upset than me" - Wanna bet, bro?
http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/politics/2010/05/25/obama.fundraiser.bp.oil.spill.cnn.html

Our Daily Ben

Since they don’t like to show what they do,

The video might not come through;

To see the top kill

They’re bargaining still,

And hoping to charge pay-per-view.

~ Benjamin the Donkey

Benjamin's poetic posts are found at LATOC.

May 26, 2010 BP Oil Blowout News Links

The inscription above the main entrance to Nebraska's beautiful State Capitol reads: "The Salvation of the State is Watchfulness in the Citizen." That's the whole idea behind neighborhood watch: residents will recognize and report criminal activity more readily if they know one another, and will deter crime by their watchfulness. We need a "cyber neighborhood watch" of the now five week old BP oil blowout disaster on the internet, and I am posting some links daily from here on out to help my fellow citizens do just that. The Gulf of Mexico is everyone's neighbor, so please help out with this "neighborhood watch".

From CBS: Gulf of Mexico "Poisoned"



Wall Street Journal "It’s become apparent that errors in judgment of workers on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform probably caused the explosion that destroyed the rig and triggered a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
But whose errors were they? Was BP, Transocean or Haliburton to blame?"

The Seminal: A series of explosions appears to have collapsed the seafloor and blown up the BOP at the well head.

Yet another BP oil leak? Zero Hedge

BP Ready to try top kill. Good luck and godspeed.
~~~

Cousteau: This is A Nightmare

From ABC News, a video of diving in a hazmat suit beneath the oil spill.

What I want to know is exactly who in the name of all that is holy do those people at BP think they are? They've been lying and misleading the government, the media and the public at large, they've basically told the EPA to go sit down and shut up and they've been conducting themselves like despots, balking at giving the citizens the slightest bit of information about the danger and catastrophe that is befalling them.
~~~

Benjamin's Limericks

My favorite place on the net for news and savvy commentary is LATOC, the discussion forum for Peak Oil: Life After the Oil Crash which is owned and managed by Matt Savinar. One of the regular forum members is a certain Benjamin the Donkey, real name unknown, who has given permission for some of his wonderful comment-in-the-form of-limerick to be posted here.

If you are not familiar with LATOC please do yourself a favor and check it out.

Enjoy!

All poems by "Benjamin The Donkey".

The rich give the poor short shrift,

But the race is not to the swift;

When doom’s widely sniffed

And culture’s adrift

There will be an observable shift.

For teaching and having minds turn,

The time left should be of concern;

It is hard to bestow

Understanding PO

When it took us much longer to learn.

Humor might help make us wiser

In dealing with things like this geyser,

Or it may turn out lame

Like trying to blunt blame

With a tiny tube in a riser.

Relax, nothing’s wrong with our spray,

Our stock’s nearly gone anyway;

But should it convey

Too much death and decay

We wont use it next time. OK?

So finally BP invites

You to look at some spewing oil sights;

You might be impressed

But you won’t see the best

Till they’ve peddled the movie rights.

If you totally kill the oceans

By using your poisonous potions,

Please do let us know

In a year or so

(Or at least, go through the motions).

Some say Socrates knew quite a lot,

But he said that he didn’t know squat;

People jeer and they smirk

At Darwin, that jerk,

And who understands Einstein’s rot?

Old Homer wrote his crap in Greek,

And Shakespeare, his words are oblique,

There is no Lolita

In Bhagavad Gita,

And Faust’s deal can wait till next week.

Distortions from Vincent van Gogh

Don’t look just like life, so they blow;

And the women, you know,

They come and they go,

Talking of Michelangelo.

Bach wrote junk for something divine,

Brahms ripped off symphonic design;

And you know, for my bucks,

Shrieking opera sucks,

And Beethoven only wrote nine.

In my view, the arch and the dome

Don’t compare to the woods where I roam;

Heard da Vinci imply

That people might fly,

But who cares for London or Rome?

I don’t like how people behave,

There is nothing here that I crave;

But I’m sure I would glow

In a time long ago—

I wish I were back in a cave.

~~~

Pentecost 2010

The weather here in Lincoln, Nebraska USA this morning is absolutely a perfect summer morning. The peonies and poppies are in full bloom, and the roses are just beginning. Petunias purchased for my window boxes a month ago are blooming riotously and the veggies are off to a good start although I have to figure out who and what is eating my pepper plants and some of my herbs, and put a stop to is tuit suite.

Happy Whitsunday, happy Pentecost, happy happy Holy Spirit day to all!

Blessed art Thou, O Christ our God, who hast revealed the fishermen as most wise by sending down upon them the Holy Spirit: through them Thou didst draw the world into Thy net. 0 Lover of Man, Glory to Thee (Troparion).

When the Most High came down and confused the tongues, he divided the nations. But when he distributed the tongues of fire, he called all to unity. Therefore, with one voice, we glorify the All-Holy Spirit! (Kontakion)

The Eastern Churches, Part One

A Month Down the Road and Worse Every Day

From Esquire. by Mark Warren

QUOTE Goodbye, oysters. Goodbye, shrimp. Goodbye, crawdads. Goodbye, pelicans. Goodbye, bayou. Goodbye, way of life.

Lord, my people must've done something bad somewhere along the way. A couple hundred years ago, my ne'er-do-well family began washing up in the marshy bottom of Louisiana, with some loose idea of making a go of it in the inhospitable swamps. And they managed to create one of the most interesting civilizations the world has ever known, built on mudbugs and zydeco and the wonderful mixing of peoples.

And now, not five years after the storm rolled in to get them, the oil rolls in, too.
One could be forgiven for thinking that God is angry at these people. (But that would be an awfully moronic thing to say, Rick Perry.) Of course, this was not an act of God. Harry Reid was right when he said it a few days ago: This was an act of greed. UNQUOTE

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/oil-spill-live-feed-not-enough-05210#ixzz0ogw4h3tz

More Than An Oil Spill

Dear reader, I am back from a brief vacation from blogging. I have been following the BP Gulf oil disaster over the past month with great interest and no small amount of fear and trembling. I mean, massive amounts of raw oil, natural gas and methane gas have been pumped into the ocean 24/7 and there isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it at over a mile down, don't let them fool you.

I have been startled to see such a disinterested response on the part of my fellow citizens, and dismayed to have sometimes encountered a spirited defense of the indefensible by people of goodwill who really should know better. But alas they have chose not to know better, and to take the "easy" route. Last laugh goes to Mother Nature, however, just who did they think they were messing with?

Yesterday's NYT has an excellent op-ed by Bob Herbert on the vapidity of America's response to this corporate-sponsored global nightmare:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/opinion/22herbert.html

“You can’t sleep no more; that’s how bad it is,” said John Blanchard, an oyster fisherman whose life has been upended by the monstrous oil spill fouling an enormous swath of the Gulf of Mexico. He shook his head. “My wife and I have got two kids, 2 and 7. We could lose everything we’ve been working all of our lives for.”

Good Friday

The basic message of this day, holy to all branches of Christianity, is that the good God loved us all enough to take a bullet for us, and that he forgives even deep evils. That love rules and that torture and death does not make victory. That people are not commidities but are living icons etched in flesh who are accountable to a higher power which breathes and is LOVE.

Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the Cross. He who is King of the angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns. He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery. He who in Jordan set Adam free receives blows upon His face. The Bridegroom of the Church is transfixed with nails. The Son of the Virgin is pierced with a spear. We venerate Thy Passion, O Christ. Show us also Thy glorious Resurrection. ~ Greek Orthodox Matins for Good Friday

Palm Sunday 2010

Palm Sunday, 2010
John 12:1-18

Six days before Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazaros was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; Martha served, and Lazaros was one of those at table with him. Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to betray him), said "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it. Jesus said, "Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me."

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came, not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazaros, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazaros also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

The next day a great crowd who had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!" And Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it; as it is written, "Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt!"

His disciples did not understand this at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that this had been written of him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazaros out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.

Additional Readings for Today:
Matthew 21:1-11; 15-17
St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians 4:4-9

A Clear Assessment of Our Current Condition

This article found at AlterNet provides a clear and concise assessment of our current political, economic and moral condition. NO false hopes or Pollyanna saccharine here. If you only read one political article this year this should be the one.
We Stand on the Cusp of one of Humanity's Most Dangerous Moments by Chris Hedges

QUOTE Democracy, a system ideally designed to challenge the status quo, has been corrupted and tamed to slavishly serve the status quo. We have undergone, as John Ralston Saul writes, a coup d’état in slow motion. And the coup is over. They won. We lost. The abject failure of activists to push corporate, industrialized states toward serious environmental reform, to thwart imperial adventurism or to build a humane policy toward the masses of the world’s poor stems from an inability to recognize the new realities of power. The paradigm of power has irrevocably altered and so must the paradigm of resistance alter. UNQUOTE

~~~

Host Rant

I have just returned to the restaurant business after a 34+ year absence, I am now semi-retired and part time hosting suits the ticket. WHAT an education I am getting, folks. I work for perfectly nice, normal Midwestern restaurant owners who seem to think that one is a slacker if one doesn't work manually, with psychotic waiters and customers, all day on one's feet while maintaining a perfect equilibrium and the Wa of a Buddhist monk. We'll see how I acclimate myself to the lay of the land...hopefully things will level out soon.

Great host rant here.

QUOTE Since I am working to this new exciting restaurant currently ... I am learning quite a few things and start to understand why the book "Waiter Rant" is written ....A host/hostess is a person who welcomes the customers at the door and show their tables based on a rotating order divided by the number of waiters in each section. This job is pretty much simple once getting used to the table numbers and know how to divide the sections. However, it needs high strength of self control, fairness and assertiveness. UNQUOTE

All Sweeteners Are Not Created Equal

From the health and welfare department here at The Rosemary Tree - A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain
QUOTE In results published online March 18 by the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, the researchers from the Department of Psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute reported on two experiments investigating the link between the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup and obesity. UNQUOTE
The corn industry has had its PR machine in overdrive on this one for years, but now with heavy hitter Princeton University weighing in, it is only a matter of time before this becomes common knowledge. Actually it has been known intuitively for yeats, to wit, the common phrase for someone who is huge being "corn-fed". Avoid high fructose corn syrup, read those labels.

A Blessed Saint Patrick's Day to Ye

May the good Padraigh and all the Irish saints pray extra hard for ye this day, God knows ye mought be needing it. Mind ye don't drink more than ye can hold, now. HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY! Sláinte mhaith!
Irish graffitti...
"I blew hundreds of thousands of pounds on women and drinking - and the rest I just squandered." -George Best (footballer)

"It has been scientifically proven that people who don't drink and don't smoke live longer - and it serves them right!" - Moss Keane, Irish Rugby

"Apostles of freedom are ever iolized when dead, but crucified when alive." -
James Connolly, Patriot

"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." - Oscar Wilde

"Making peace, I have found, is much harder than making war." - Gerry Adams, Northern Ireland Politician

Countdown to Saint Patrick's Day

2010 Saint Patrick's Day celebrations worldwide!!

Chasing the Wind in a Phone Booth

A bout of ear infections, a new job hosting at Stauffer's, and burgeoning geekly responsibilities (blogs, FB pages, groups to administer, comments to moderate yadda yadda yadda)and another week has flown by. Feel like I am trying to sprint in a phone booth, and so I hope all my friends out there on The Internets are well, happy, have someone to love you and are doing good work.

Peace out, yo.

Here's my prayer for the day, from Ortha nan Gaidheal :

COME I THIS DAY
Come I this day to the Father
Come I this day to the Son,
Come I to the Holy Spirit powerful;
Come I this day with God,
Come I this day with Christ,
Come I with the Spirit of kindly bairn.
God, and Spirit, and Jesus,
From the crown of my head
To the soles of my feet;
Come I with my reputation,
Come I with my testimony,
Come I to Thee, Jesu -
Jesu, shelter me.

Fighting the Lenten Battles

Everyone who enters the Lenten desert consciously and who wills to more fully conform his or her self to the image of the Christos will have confronted by this third Tuesday in Lent, some of their worst inner enemies. We have repentence, penitence and remorse over our sins. The dark shadows of addictions, old wounds and scars, sins and omissions with their karmic aftermath, thought and behavior patterns which are less than exemplary - I have managed to wrestle with at least one of each of them by now this Lent. Some of them several times. But allowing a metamorphosis to take place by the grace of God and by surrendering to a higher power and one's own higher self (soul)is what is required of us. This is not self-help, but rather surrender to the Divine Wow. Metanoia and transformation into a new creature. This is the Lenten Spring.
DJY
Readings for today.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates said that at his trial for heresy.

We cannot procrastinate until tomorrow. For we know not what the next day will bring. Nor should we say, let us conquer a certain habit “little by little”, since this “little by little” will never come to an end
- St. John Chrysostom
photo credit: Loriannloo
~~~

Heart of Gold Jewelers March Gallery Opening and Reception

Be there or be square. ;)
and be sure and visit all the other galleries in the area every First Friday. Lovely nosh, wine and beauty. North Lincoln is really coming alive with art: now we need more music north of Vine Street. Local musicians, do you hear us?
We love live local music.

God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot

I heard this wonderful song - written by Leonard Cohen and sung by Buffy Sainte-Marie - on KZUM community-powered radio while making my Lenten "big breakfast" this morning(scrambled tofu with hot sauce, garlic pepper and turmeric, fried potatoes & piece of toast). I was awestruck at the humble power of Ms. Sainte-Marie's rendition, and I really liked the depiction of the Holy Trinity and the end of the video. For your lenten journey ~

Great News For Pie Lovers

Stauffer’s Cake & Pie Shoppe is opening a second location on March 1st, at N.48th and St. Paul in University Place, giving the beloved locally owned and owner-operated home-cookin’ eatery locations on both ends of 48th Street (the other is just south of S. 48th and Highway 2). It'll be open for breakfast and lunch Monday through Saturdays, with dinner hours likely coming at a later date, once the new locale gets well established.

If you are not already a customer/fan, please do pop in for some good plain Midwestern cooking featuring menu items such as Hot Beef Sandwich, Michigan Salad (spinach, walnuts, dried cherries and local cheese)or a cheeseburger with onion rings. Not to mention made-from-scratch pies with such exotica as gooseberry, chocolate peanut butter and raisin sour cream along with the usual blueberry apple cherry pumpkin. In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, Oh me, oh my, love that country pie.

And when you come in please say hello, I'll be working as a part-time host there six days a week, over the lunch rush! We expect a real warm welcome from north Lincoln. (That street corner has really needed a good mom'n pop diner, hasn't it?)

Icons and Orthodoxy Sunday

The idea that the Son of God was incarnate, born of a woman as all other humans are, that He lived, and breathed, and laughed and then even suffered and died, as do all humans ~ this idea was anathema to many people. Actually it still is today. Many Protestants and Roman Catholics and others view the Orthodox person bowing and venerating the icons, and think we are engaged in some form of idol-worship. But we worship only God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, but we use the medium of the icons to do so. And in the case of all the saints, angels and the Holy Theotokos, we do honor and respect, ask for prayers and blessing from them, but we do not idolize nor worship nor provide the relationship which is due to God alone. The best way I can explain it it to point out that you might have a picture of your deceased grandfather, or another deceased relative, in your home, and when you think of that departed beloved done, you might even give the picture a little kiss and have warm feelings welling up in your heart for that person, now gone to their reward. But you certainly are not worshipping them, or the glass and wood the picture is made of. Or even when you kiss a friend's cheek, or a child's forehead or even your spouse, you are loving and connecting with a living "icon" of the living God, who is not due worship but only respect and love, as the east Indians say, "Namaste" ~ basically meaning "I see the God in you, the divine in me sees the divine in you and gives it greetings".

The Sunday of Orthodoxy is the first Sunday of Great Lent. The rancorous iconoclastic controversy, which had raged on and off since 726AD, and in 843AD was finally laid to rest, and icons and their veneration were restored on the first Sunday in Lent by the Empress Theodora. Ever since, this Sunday has been commemorated as the "Triumph of Orthodoxy." Today it is known as the Sunday of Orthodoxy, or simply Orthodoxy Sunday.