We are Family

[curt]

We don't need another / a new discussion to prove it.

It is as it is.

Let this "fred" (discussion thread) live under the theme .......

long live this family

brothers, sisters, brethern, dogs, cats and birds, ants and flees, water and air and gas and Clare and Jim and him and the window Simm (??) and you and me and he and she and we and them and us and puss (???) and fish and the dish (it's on) and paper and pen.

Yip.

[Cal]

Ja - hospitals are crazy places.  I also spent several days with my wrist band on answering a million questions.  Got treated pretty well while they thought I had kidney failure ... but that changed a bit when it turned out to be a psychiatric 'anxiety attack' ... one of the sisters muttered something about 'never know what people like you are going to get up to'.  It's not so nice feelling like a basket case especially when at that stage I was just a little anxious & upset about what had happened and needed some calming down meds.  Fortunately I could phone my brother in law (doctor) to send a script to  me and fortunately I had good enough friends who drove 600km to rescue me & take me home.  Now have a glorious month of leave.  Day 1 and I'm not sure how to spend it constructively but going of to the Kruger Park for a week tomorrow.  Hope the African bush will revive my spirits.  Have packed  small suitcase of clothes and 3 karge boxes if books ranging from insects through psychiatry to forestry statistics.  Overdoing it a bit but books are my 'security blanket'.

Having a bad time adjusting to no 'significant other'.  Reading a lot of encouraging books about rising like a pheonix from the ashes and 'growing through adversity',  The words go into my intellect but the emotional link is not there yet.  Pretty much a loner but being without my 'person' is desolate.  My brother in law said he would advise most people in my situation to go to church, but thought bowls might be more up my alley.  Even my doggy companions have been getting the short end of the stick ... for the first time in my life I find I am forgetting to feed them until the baleful stares get the message through to me.  Actually they've got that down to such a fine art now that I think I've fed them twice on ocassion thinking I've forgotten.  I do hope this is just a temporary endocrine malfunction & not early onset of dementia/alzheimers.

 

Glad you still with us Waldo.  Modern medicine is a miracle at keeping us going.

 

See you all when I get back from my holiday.

 

 

Glad you still with us Waldo.

[BO]

Cal, A lot of us have been through what you are going through now. I, myself had a doozy of a midlife crisis when I hit forty. Panic attacks, insomnia to the point I was experiencing hallucinations, and several years of major depression. Thought I had lost it forever. But the mind is resilient, and as they say...what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger. 

Enjoy your time off. Don't be like I did and worry about getting back to work. Take the time to let your soul cleanse itself. The recovery process is a slow-grinding roller coaster with lots of hills and valleys, but once you've rounded the top, the hills get progressively smaller. Your best times are still ahead.

And be sure to consult the stars during your trip. They hold all the answers.

[Cal]

Thanks for the reassurance Bo ... greatly appreciated.  Have mostly kept this to myself by hiding out at home but started venturing out again yesterday & managed to do some shopping without dropping in a dead faint.  Nice thing about the Kruger Park is that you can actually see the stars at night.  I will consult with them ... and with the insects ... nothing more therapeutic than watching the dung beetles busily doing their thing.

 

 

[pan]

I store up on sanity every summer by spending much time in a tent and hiking/biking the trails. There is nothing better than crawling out of the tent for a bathroom break when everyone else in the campground is asleep and seeing all of the stars that hide from the city lights. Or hearing the birdsong at first light and the stirring of creatures in non-concrete covered habitat.

It's below freezing now and Ms. Medusa is slowly recovering from her surgery so no snowshoeing, just short walks on a level asphalt path.  Been voraciously reading but it seems a poor substitute.

 

 

[waldopaper]

"Are you going to be with us for a little while longer?"

It's sorta like this... your fuel gauge and odometer are busted. You're whizzing down the freeway and have no idea how much petrol you got. The engine sputters and you think, "Shit. Outta gaz." You pull over to the side and eyeball the tank, see some gaz down there, putz around, tighten up a lootz wire, fire it up and it runs just fine... you merge into traffic again and it's getting dark... and starting to rain.

Well, I saw some gaz down there. How much is anybody's gaz. But you know your optimum range, so I'd say 30 or so, max. Years? Minutes? Who knows? Lots of solo motorcycle trips gave me a kinda groove about that.

[Cal]

Well I think I am going to survive a while longer after being on leave for day 2.  Whizzed down country roads dodging potholes and trucks then onto the freeway and into the big city to visit my sister for the weekend.  Seem to have had enough petrol to get here and get to the Kruger park on Monday.

 

The internet is a wondrous world.  I sat in Piet Retief in the middle of nowhere and downloaded two audio books which I started listening to on my journey today.  I think they are going to save my soul.  Barabara Kingsolver - Small Wonder and Joseph Campbell - Man and Myth.  Both of them have given me so much perspective on my life until now and some idea of where to next while there is still petrol in the tank.  Can't talk about them much to my sis & brother-in-law - they are xtians with a capital 'C'.  But you guys would really like them.

 

 

[Mouse]

Archetypes Forever!  

Have taken the Italian crib figures off the mantelpiece.  The celebration of the birth of that Palestinian baby blends into family life so, as we wrench ourselves through the turning of the year, felt acutely every time the cliff hanging over the saucerful of tears, the dreams dangling dangerously.

 

Heartwise and health wise generally I recommend magnesium oil.  I use Ancient Minerals ultra pure magnesium oil, when I remember.  Must do it more often.   Rub it on the skin, the absorbence into the blood stream is very good.  So good for the muscle and bone and all.  Excellent stuff if you fancy a bit of general regeneration I think.  And vitamin D3 of course.  

 

Also have been experimenting with height of keyboard and screen, so now can comfortably stand when using computer.  However still visit cyberocity less and less. Necessary to be present and intent upon immediate surroundings and small deeds for longer time to maintain sanity.

 

Returning to quietness.   Week off looking after anyone, hurrah!

Thinking of planting some ash saplings to coppice for the fire.  

 

[hannah j]

so, i disappear and no one sends me an email wondering where the hell i am? just kidding. kind of.

we have done much travel and i killed my computer, but now am back.

what a very weird place this world is.
my grandson is remarkable.
it has been below zero for a few nights, but now is better.

hannah

[hannah j]

it says edit, but i think this is just a reply. played catchup after posting my first note, wow, hospitals, babies, freezing, oh my.

this is the year of the paintbrush for me. no more excuses, do what i like to do.

hope you are all having a fairly decent new year. (not one to be over hopeful)

i am on facebook, not afraid of them taking my content from there. i don't use apps, don't post anything i am not willing to have come back and hit me in the face, don't put my art on there.

hannah johns
a.handmade.life (my facebook 'name' and there are amazingly other hannah johns')

[Cal]

I did wonder where you were ... was just too busy collapsing and crying and learning what anxiety attacks are about (what a misnomer) and how psychiatric cases are handled in hospital.

 

I am sitting in a rest camp in the Kruger Park writing this .... here for 2 weeks ... 10 days left to go.  What a privilege. Could happily spend the rest of my life here. The poaching of rhinos and elephants for their horns and tusks is disturbing me beyond belief.  When I was at school (the early 70's) there were an estimated 70 000+ rhinos in Africa.  They have dwindled (been massacred) down to a handful of about 6 000.  In my last camp I was walking the boundary fence and saw two of them in their mediaevil armour munching grass right next to me - so close I could here the grass being cut by their teeth.  I have thought that I would give my life if it would put an end to the insane savagery and cruelty of my species.

 

I have discovered Joseph Campbells work.  I have no idea how I missed it before - either it went over my head or I mistook him for another chap that wrote The Golden Bough ... which I didn't really take to.  I don't do much game driving here.  Done enough of that in my life.  But while I am driving between camps I am listening to Campbell and Barbara Kingsolver (Small Wonder book) on audio books.  I am finding his description of the primitive and oriental gods fascinating ... divinities that hold food bowl out in one of many hands and a sword for decapitating people in another.  I think that is the point I have come to in my life ... coming to terms with the 'awfulness' or 'awefullness' of life.  Something that 'should never have been' and exists by feeding on itself.  On my way to becoming some kind of mystic by the feel of things.  As Campbell puts it the only difference between a lunatic & a mystic is that they have both jumped into the same waters but the lunatic can't swim.  I'm doing glug-glug doggy paddle ......

 

Where's everyone else?

 

[BO]

Right here, enjoying reading your posts.

Last time I saw a rhino, a couple of zebras, and several giraffes was at the Honolulu zoo on thanksgiving day. Never liked zoos much, but the one in Hawaii is nice. The animals there have it much better than we do.

Damn, I sure could use a dose of sun 'bout now.

Enjoy the Campbell. I'm sure he's exactly what you need 'bout now. But note that the misanthropy is bound to ratchet up a few notches when you come to realize how clueless most people are. Seems I always encounter the dumbest dumbshits the more raw and open I feel. They tend to shut me right down.

Waldo, time to for you to check in. How'z the ticker?

[pan]

I also enjoyed Mircea Eliade - a bit more "academic" to his approach to history of religions than Campbell but brilliant insights.

Back to teaching.  There have been all sorts of threats of impending budget cuts - the college was told to prepare 5-10% cut scenarios - there is no fat to cut, it is all lean.  This would mean laying off faculty and ending programs.  But I got my contract for the full 7 credits allowed to part-timers (1 more credit would require them to pay benefits so I'm stuck at 7).

 

Working on a dance inspired by Ballet Mecanique  Part 1 and Part 2.   Had finished the choreography and ready to refine and polish the work with the new term.  About an hour before the first rehearsal one of my dancers emails that she is dropping out to take a job.  There is something particularly annoying when a student who wasn't alive when I started my professional career disrespect me with absolutely no regard.  She had begged me to be in the work and, against my better judgment, I decided to give her a chance.  She swore that she was fully committed.....   Oh well......that's what happens when other people are your medium.

 

Ms. Medusa and I have decided that it is time to travel overseas so we booked three weeks at an artists residency in Assisi, Italy in May.  Aside from traveling, the intent is to create a work to be performed there.  I am leaning towards the legend of St. Francis during this time of austerity.  He also was known for having good relationships with Muslims during the heated rhetoric of the plague and then there was that intimate connection with the animals and nature.  Much there that is relevant to today. Very much looking forward to that. My language acquisition skills are rather meager so I had better get started on that.